The plan they’d come up with was a terrible one. After the announcement they were hunting the thing, Abigail had left the rest of them to plan how to find it.

  “When a shifting spirit is formed, it’ll form with some innate knowledge of the area it’s from. If I’m right, this one came in with knowledge of the kingdom’s rune knights. So long as I’m around, it won’t reveal itself.”

  It made a twisted sense to Ratface. The more Abigail had taught them about the spirit, the more she realised it wasn’t a stupid thing. It had the cunning of a scavenger. It wouldn’t attack a group of them together because it lacked the strength to do so.

  Thus, their terrible plan, they’d split up.

  It made sense, which is why Ratface had agreed to it despite the risk. The first reason had been that while the thing was cunning, it wasn’t clever. It didn’t actually have a mind of its own. Shifting spirits were formed when magical cores were improperly disposed of in a high mana density area. In a land with such a powerful circuit, that was all but a certainty. Apparently, they had specific laws about disposal for this very reason.

  Ratface had compared them to an invasive fungus until Tiffany had objected to that.

  “Fungi have a huge mind, they’re constantly talking to each other,” she’d said in a huff. The perspective of a druid, Ratface supposed.

  She smiled at the thought as she walked around. She’d manager to surround herself with quite the group of odd talents.

  The ‘woods’ close to the quarantined town wasn’t like the forests she was used to. It felt too curated, too easy to walk through. She hadn’t found herself having to do the meandering walk most bush caused. The result of being in such a tame land.

  It did make when the spirit started to target her obvious, however. She found that more forest began to pop up in front of her. Little bushes and blocked trees forcing her to take a path that no doubt pulled her ever further from her friends. The spirit was feeding off of Ratface’s subconscious expectations of what a forest should look like to create illusions around her. Using the ripple that she left in the aether around her according to Abagail. It wasn’t a proven theory, but adventures all agreed that was how the spirit worked. Isabelle had studied them extensively to get better at illusions.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The result was that Ratface found herself walking through trees native to Lurian. She smiled as she walked and watched as the spirit struggled to erase the presence of grass around them. Goblins and Elves both worked hard to keep the invasive species out of their country. One of the few things they were united in.

  She rounded a corner that had been artificially designed by the illusion of ponga, a type of fern from Lurian. In Lurian they were often used to line paths, the silver on the bottom of the fern shining in the moonlight. If she didn’t know she was being pulled away by a shifting spirit, she might’ve followed them unconsciously.

  The spirit was sitting in the middle of the clearing and Ratface found the first problem with their plan. They had known that it would look like something familiar to them, but it’d be too uncanny for them not to notice, this one for instance was sitting with its legs crossed too tightly. They’d assumed by being aware of that knowledge they’d be able to spot it.

  Ratface hadn’t considered the form it’d take. The strange little goblin uncrossed its legs when it saw her and waved. It stood up and began walking to her.

  Ratface knew that it wasn’t a goblin, logically, but she was struck with a sudden dread as she realised that she would have to kill this. It got closer and Ratface backed away in fear. Her whole body rebelled at the idea of attacking the thing. It was all she could do to keep herself backing away. Why was she worried, a part of her whispered, a goblin wouldn’t hurt her.

  She focused her eyes but that didn’t help. It showed her that the creature was made of mana but all that meant was that it was a goblin of magic. They didn’t have these monsters in Lurian and only now did it occur to Ratface how much a problem they’d be for goblins to deal with specifically. She could feel the last spell of goblins curling around her. She had her knife out but the very thought of attacking the creature made her want to hurl. She backed up until she felt the unyielding wall of a tree. The spirit had cornered her.

  This thing walked towards her at a leisurely pace. It occurred to Ratface it probably couldn’t walk faster if it wanted to maintain the form. She shook in place. It was going to kill her. It was going to kill her, or she was going to stab it and lose some crucial part of herself.

  A hand shot through the spirits chest. It gurgled and looked down at the green hand holding it in place by its core. The hand squeezed until there was a mighty crack. The spirit made a popping noise and disappeared.

  Ratface looked at her saviour. Holding the core was a tall goblin.

  He had dainty features, like an elf.