The blinding flash of Nugget’s white light vanished as quickly as it had come, plunging the clearing back into the dim, misty firelight.

  But the world it revealed was a nightmare.

  We were surrounded.

  A silent, encircling army of skeletal, translucent shapes glided towards us from between the grey, petrified trees. They didn't walk; they drifted, their feet trailing inches above the moss. Their hollow, glowing eyes were all fixed on the warmth of our fire, on the life in our veins.

  “What are they?” Willow’s voice was a terrified whisper, her hands clutching her staff so hard her knuckles were white.

  “They don’t look friendly,” Faelar growled. He hefted Bessie, the heavy axe shifting on his shoulder.

  “A brilliant deduction, Faelar,” Liam hissed, daggers appearing in his hands as if by magic. He stepped back, putting his back to mine. “Your powers of observation are truly without equal. Did you notice they’re also floating? And appear to be made of spite and bad memories?”

  “Right!” Faelar ignored him, his eyes wild with the adrenaline of a fight he could see. “Time for a proper dwarven greeting! CLEAR THE ROOM!”

  He let out a furious roar and charged the nearest wraith.

  It was a beautiful, powerful attack. Faelar put his hips into it, a swing that would have felled an ogre or breached a castle gate.

  It was also completely useless.

  Bessie’s massive axe-head swung in a glittering arc. It passed through the ghostly form with a faint, cold hiss, like plunging hot steel into a snowbank. There was no impact. No resistance.

  The momentum carried Faelar forward. He stumbled, nearly falling on his face, his expression of pure shock and disbelief almost comical.

  “What in the bloody hells?” he bellowed, spinning around to stare at the unhurt ghost. “Did you see that? It went right through him! It’s like trying to chop smoke! My axe is insulted!”

  “Congratulations, Faelar,” Liam called out, his voice tight with tension. “You’ve successfully declared war on a fog bank.”

  Liam proved his own point a second later. He flung a dagger with perfect precision at a wraith drifting toward Elmsworth. The blade sailed harmlessly through the creature’s chest and clattered against a tree on the far side of the clearing.

  I tried my spear. I lunged at a wraith closing in on my left. The leaf-shaped blade passed through the creature as if it were air.

  But it wasn't just air.

  A deep, unnatural coldness—a cold that felt ancient and full of grief—leached up the ash-wood shaft and into my arms. It numbed my fingers instantly, making me almost drop the weapon.

  We were in serious trouble.

  The wraiths didn’t wait for us to solve the problem. They surged forward.

  They didn’t claw or strike. They didn't bite. They simply glided through us.

  One of them passed its smoky, insubstantial hand through my wounded bicep.

  The pain wasn't physical. It was a psychic spike, a needle driven straight into the amygdala.

  With it came a flash of memory so vivid it made me stagger.

  I was ten years old again. I was alone in the grey, cavernous hall of the orphanage. The smell of lye and boiled cabbage was sharp in my nose. The droning voice of Matron Elspeth echoed from her office. I was filled with the crushing, absolute certainty that I was invisible, that if I vanished into the shadows, no one would ever notice. I was nothing. I was a tool waiting to be used.

  I shook my head violently, gritting my teeth against the sudden, crippling wave of despair.

  “Back!” I shouted, swinging my spear uselessly to create space.

  Beside me, Faelar let out a grunt of pain as a wraith touched his shoulder. He flinched, not from a blow, but from a whisper in his mind.

  “Get out of my head!” the dwarf snarled, his face suddenly pale. “I didn't lose the shipment! It was the goblins!”

  Liam hissed, clutching his head with his free hand. “Shut up… shut up…”

  “Willow! Elmsworth!” I roared, my voice ragged. “Physical weapons are useless! Anything magical! NOW!”

  “On it!” Willow cried.

  She thrust her hands out.

  “Sanctum!”

  A shimmering wall of thorny, glowing vines erupted from the ground in a circle around us. The vines weren't just wood; they pulsed with life energy. The wraiths recoiled from the raw, living light, hissing in frustration.

  We huddled inside the circle, back-to-back around the dying fire. A tiny, desperate island in a sea of ghosts.

  “Arcane bolt!” Elmsworth announced, raising his staff as if giving a lecture to a classroom of particularly slow students. “A simple, yet effective solution for most corporeal and semi-corporeal threats! Let’s see how it fares against a purely psychic manifestation!”

  He hurled a crackling bolt of purple energy from his staff. It struck a wraith square in its chest.

  The creature did not explode. It dissolved with a silent, psychic scream that echoed in all our minds—a sound of pure agony and release.

  “One down,” Liam grunted, rubbing his temples.

  “One,” I corrected, looking at the woods. “Out of fifty.”

  Two dozen more wraiths pressed against Willow’s glowing barrier. Their ghostly claws made a sound like tearing silk as they raked against her magic. The vines began to wither and grey at the touch.

  Faelar was bellowing in frustration, his axe held ready but useless.

  “I can’t hit ‘em!” he roared, his voice a mixture of anger and fear. “It’s not a fair fight if you can’t hit ‘em! What kind of coward fights like a bad dream? Come in here and bleed like a man!”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “They’re not solid, you oaf!” Liam snapped, scanning the circling horde for a weak point. “We need magic! Elmsworth, got any more of those purple fireworks? Because now would be an excellent time to unleash a barrage!”

  “A simple arcane bolt is inefficient against a foe of this number!” the wizard retorted, his face flushed with the thrill of the problem. He was actually measuring the spectral density of the nearest ghost with his thermometer. “It’s like trying to empty an ocean with a thimble! The mana cost is prohibitive! We need a more… elegant solution!”

  Willow cried out, stumbling back a step. Sweat poured down her face.

  “The wall is failing!” she gasped. “Their sadness… it’s too strong! It’s eating the life from the vines!”

  A wraith’s hand punched through the barrier, turning a section of the glowing thorns into grey dust.

  “Of course!” Elmsworth’s voice suddenly cut through the din. He sounded delighted. “I am an idiot! A fool! Why didn’t I see it before?”

  “See what?” I demanded, slamming my shield into the breach to hold the ghost back. The cold burned through the metal.

  “You can’t kill a memory with a hammer, Faelar!” Elmsworth shouted, his eyes wide and wild behind his spectacles. “These creatures are not truly here! They are psychically resonant, incorporeal entities! Manifestations of the forest’s lingering sorrow, given malevolent form by the demonic corruption! We cannot fight their forms, for their forms are an illusion! We must attack their very essence!”

  “That’s wonderful, old man!” Faelar bellowed, swinging Bessie at a wraith that got too close. “Any chance you could translate that into something we can actually kill?”

  “Precisely!” Elmsworth beamed. “These are creatures of pure, concentrated despair! Therefore, the only thing that can destroy them on a grand scale is an overwhelming, wide-area burst of positive emotional energy! Joy! Courage! Unshakeable hope! We must weaponize our own morale and create a Thaumaturgical Empathy Bomb!”

  We all just stared at him. The battle seemed to pause for a second as the sheer absurdity of the statement landed.

  “You want us,” Liam said slowly, enunciating each word with perfect, sarcastic clarity, “to fight the soul-eating ghosts… with happy thoughts.”

  “It’s the only logical solution!” the wizard insisted, pulling a crystal from his robe. “Now, I will construct the thaumaturgical matrix! The rest of you, focus! Project your most potent, joyful, and courageous memories! Fill the air with your positivity! I shall harvest it and unleash it in a single, cleansing wave!”

  “This is the single most insane plan I have ever heard,” Liam said. “And I threw a pickaxe at a wizard yesterday.”

  “Just do it!” I snapped, desperation overriding all tactical sense as Willow’s wall flickered violently. “Think happy! Now!”

  The attempt at group therapy in the middle of a spectral siege was a predictable disaster.

  “Alright, focus!” Elmsworth instructed, beginning to weave a complex web of glowing energy in the air above the fire. “Faelar! A great victory! A moment of pure dwarven pride!”

  “Right!” Faelar grunted, screwing his eyes shut. He lowered his axe. “I’m thinkin’… I’m thinkin’ of the time I won the drinking contest at the Iron Mug Festival! I drank a whole keg of Old Ironjaw Ale! The cheering of the crowd! The glory of the win!”

  A small spark of golden light appeared in Elmsworth’s matrix.

  “Wait,” Faelar muttered. “Oh, but the hangover the next day… gods, my head felt like a troll was using it for an anvil for two whole days… I threw up on the Mayor… is that bad?”

  The spark fizzled and turned grey.

  “Terrible! That’s tainted with regret!” Elmsworth shrieked. “Liam! Your turn! A moment of pure, unadulterated joy! Hurry!”

  Liam rolled his eyes. He sheathed one dagger. “Fine.”

  He closed his eyes. A faint smile touched his lips.

  “I’m thinking about the time I lifted the purse of the Duke of Westhaven,” he murmured. “It was stuffed with gold. The look on his fat, pompous face when he realized it was gone… pure joy.”

  “Pathetic!” Soul-Drinker hissed from his belt, loud enough for me to hear over the wailing ghosts. “That’s your most joyful memory? A stolen purse? You have no ambition! A truly joyful memory should involve begging, a significant amount of viscera, and preferably, a collapsing dynasty. I remember a Serpent Mage in Stygia… the sounds he made were exquisite.”

  Liam grimaced. “I’m trying to concentrate, and you’re not helping!”

  The spark in the matrix turned a sickly green and vanished.

  “Kaelen! You’re a disciplined man! Give me a memory of courage!” Elmsworth pleaded, his spell-matrix wavering dangerously.

  I tried. I really tried.

  I focused on the moment I was handed my spear at the Citadel. The pride. The sense of purpose. The Warden’s hand on my shoulder.

  But the memory twisted. I felt the weight of the spear. I felt the crushing burden of command. I saw the faces of the cadets who didn't make it. I saw the Game Master’s pitying eyes.

  You are not ready.

  My contribution to the spell was a heavy, leaden lump of anxiety.

  Only Willow succeeded.

  She closed her eyes, ignoring the wraiths clawing at her vines. A warm, gentle pink light began to emanate from her.

  “I’m thinking of the day I helped a mother bear find her lost cub,” she whispered. “The way she licked its head… it was so full of love.”

  A beautiful orb of pink light floated into Elmsworth’s matrix. It was pure. It was lovely.

  It was tiny.

  “It will have to do!” Elmsworth declared. With a final, grand gesture, he thrust his hands forward.

  “BEGONE, FOUL SPIRITS! BE CLEANSED BY OUR UNWAVERING OPTIMISM!”

  The spell flared out.

  It wasn't a bomb. It was a weak, patchy, lukewarm puff of emotional energy, like a disappointing hug from a distant relative.

  It washed over the wraiths. A few of the smaller ones dissipated in a puff of sad, grey smoke.

  But the larger, more powerful ones simply hissed. The pink light seemed to offend them. Their ghostly forms solidified even further, their hollow eyes burning with a renewed, personal rage.

  They surged forward.

  The vine wall shattered under the assault.

  Wraiths poured into our circle. Their chilling touch sapped our strength, our hope, our very will to fight.

  I fell to one knee, my spear heavy as lead. Liam stumbled, dropping a dagger.

  We were about to be overwhelmed.

  Nugget, who had been watching the proceedings from Elmsworth’s shoulder, turned a bright, solid gold.

  The chicken seemed to decide that the happy thoughts plan was, in fact, moronic.

  She hopped from Elmsworth’s shoulder, fluttered through the air, and landed squarely on Faelar’s helmet.

  Faelar didn't notice. He was on his knees, roaring in frustration, swinging his useless axe at the ghosts pouring in.

  Then he saw it.

  A wraith—tall, skeletal, and terrifying—glided towards Willow.

  Willow was on the ground, exhausted from holding the shield. She looked up, her eyes wide with terror, too weak to move. The wraith reached for her with a clawed, smoky hand.

  Something inside the dwarf snapped.

  It wasn't the complex, messy emotion of a drinking contest. It wasn't the cynical joy of a thief.

  All the frustration, all the fear, all the drunken belligerence boiled over into a single, pure, white-hot emotion.

  It wasn't hope. It wasn't joy.

  It was pure, unadulterated, dwarven RAGE.

  “GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU FILTHY GHOSTS!” Faelar bellowed.

  It was a roar that came from the very core of his being. A sound of pure, primal, protective fury.

  At the exact, deafening peak of his roar, Nugget, perched on his head, unleashed another flash.

  This time, the light was not white.

  Fueled and colored by Faelar’s raw, powerful emotion, it was a golden, explosive, deafeningly silent wave of pure, furious power.

  It wasn't an empathy bomb. It was a Rage Bomb.

  The golden light scoured the clearing.

  The wraiths didn’t fade. They were incinerated. They were unmade. The light tore through their ectoplasm, burning away the despair with the heat of a thousand blast furnaces.

  They turned to glittering, golden dust in the incandescent glare. A final, unified, silent scream of agony echoed in the deepest parts of our minds.

  Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.

  The light vanished.

  We stood in the suddenly silent, empty clearing. The fire was nearly out. The vine wall was a pile of withered thorns. We were exhausted, shaken, and cold to the bone.

  Faelar was panting, his chest heaving. The rage left his face, leaving him looking pale and confused.

  “What… what just happened?” the dwarf wheezed.

  Nugget, now a normal, speckled brown again, hopped off his helmet. She landed with a soft poof on the ground and immediately began pecking at a beetle as if she hadn’t just nuked an army of the undead.

  Liam stared at the chicken. His face was a mask of utter awe.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “the chicken got angry.”

  Elmsworth was already scribbling furiously in his notebook, ignoring the fact that we had almost died.

  “Incredible!” the wizard shouted. “It seems a raw, primal emotional state is a far more potent catalyst for thaumaturgical dispersal than a complex, nuanced one! The chicken acts as a capacitor for extreme emotional spikes! The applications are limitless! I must write a paper on this immediately!”

  I just stood there, using my spear to hold myself up.

  We had survived. Not through a clever plan. Not through superior tactics. Not through happy thoughts.

  We had survived through a fit of rage and the inscrutable, reality-bending power of our chicken.

  The lesson was sinking in, cold and clear. In this team, chaos wasn’t the problem.

  It was the only solution.