The ghost system

3

As Rhys looked at the down-turned lever, he was honestly surprised with himself. Rhys didn't think he was a malicious person and he didn't think that he was capable of wishing death upon other people. However as he looked down at the lever, he realised that he didn't know what he was capable of.

Rhys shakily walked back to the opening to see if anything would happen.

Barrow's troops were all past halfway, while Barrow had managed to get in front of everyone and was just a few meters away from the drawbridge. The waters were silent, only the sounds of the men hopping from one stepping stone to another echoed across the quiet landscape.

For a moment Rhys faltered, he wondered if he had read the symbol wrong. Perhaps it wasn't a representation of a worm-like monster, perhaps it was some kind of pillar or second bridge?

Thinking about it logically now, Rhys realised that monsters probably would not spawn from the water. This place looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time, and surely if worm-like monsters were being kept by the castle, they would have died by now with no one to feed them...

Now that Rhys had calmed down, he could see that it was actually better that monsters did not appear. Now that he was thinking logically about his situation, he realised that he would not be able to get back across the water to the shore if monsters were infesting the water.

Although Rhys wanted to reduce the group's numbers so that he would have a better chance of surviving if the group decided to gang up on him again, he realised that this probably wasn't how it would be done. He would have to think of another way. Rhys began to come up with a plan as he watched Barrow stepping on the last few stepping stones.

Suddenly a large ripple ran over the still lake, and immediately Rhys's heart skipped a beat. He knew right away that something was coming.

Underneath the castle, the old rusted mechanisms that had been untouched for years started to move again. The gate of an underwater cage slammed open leaving a large gap in the black water for the trapped starving creatures to finally be released.

The eel-like monsters burst out from the metal cages and darted towards the surface of the water where they smelt their prey.

Rhys froze in terror as a black slimy eel the size of a fully grown man with dozens of long shark-like teeth dove out of the water and latched itself onto Barrow's shoulder. It made a horrible screech as its slimy body wriggled violently.

Barrow yelled in pain and was initially stunned by the disgusting creature taking a chunk out of his arm. However, he quickly regained his senses and grabbed his sword. The leech-like creature was latched onto Barrow's arm, firmly holding itself there by sinking its gnarly teeth into the flesh. The panicked Barrow desperately stabbed at the creature's thick body in an attempt to get it off of him. After what looked like a hundred stabs to Rhys, the creature finally lost its strength and fell back into the water.

Barrow immediately ran the distance to the castle while clutching his arm, and jumped inside to safety. Although he had sustained a significant injury, he could still be considered lucky compared to the rest of his men.
The vicious eel creatures darted out of the water in their hundreds and viciously attacked the rest of the group. The silent night was completely disturbed by the sounds of carnage and mutilation as the men screamed while they were being attacked. Although the men activated their powers, they seemed mostly futile against the huge carnivorous eels.

The worm monsters looked like a mixture of a giant eel and a leech. Their bodies were thick and slimy and they didn't have eyes. They were incredibly strong and were able to dive out of the water and attack at incredible speeds. The men were already barely balancing on the stepping stones, so when one of the leech eels attacked them, the men were knocked off the stones and thrown into the water where the flesh eating eels would swarm and eat them.