Nights in the great city of Pragnosis could get very cold Banks observed as he breathed into his hands, regretting that his new kit didn't come with gloves of any kind. His new clothes weren't quite full plate like the Commander, but they were well-made and relatively protective with a partial breastplate and some armor protecting the legs and arms. And protecting the crotch as well, while he barely used that nowadays he still didn't want it to come to harm. Ahead of him, his shorter friend walked, along with a couple of other guards. It was the forth hour of the night and the lamps burnt strong illuminating streets long swept clear of any of law abiding citizens of the city.

  "You're aware of what we're doing," the person in front of him, the guy named Jakk said.

  "We're going to kill a goat," the Nevadie stated, playing around with the flail, that he had gotten back in time for tonight. "I mean a ghost, sorry. Just slipped out."

  "Could be a goat ghost," Banks helped him. "Not the weirdest thing I've ever seen."

  "We're heading to Sacksville Springs School," Jakk said. "It's an orphanage school combination, that we've lost track of this morning. Some nearby civilians claimed they saw strange sights around the school. With all the ghost sightings over this part of town we were worried that it might have been another one."

  "I believe it," Banks spoke up. "Schools always seem to attract ghosts. Like flies to shit," he clarified towards his new friend.

  "Got anything specific for a ghost," Eislock said seriously. "I've got this," he said gesturing towards his flail. "But it would help if we had something a little more...specialized."

  "Got a dozen bottles of Holy Water," Jakk said gesturing towards the rather large case that he was carrying.

  "I don't touch the stuff," Banks said dryly. "I'll just stick with this thanks." He gestured towards the spear that he was carrying, acquired through a brief trip to the armory. It felt good to have at least some weapon again, even if it wasn't his preferred type.

  "How are you going to hurt the ghost without Holy Water," Jakk asked.

  "Mana applicability," he gave the textbook answer, before he stopped talking as they rounded the corner and the school came into view. "That's a Ghost Domain," he said flatly regarding the flickering grey version of the school, that seemed to darken the world around it, casting a misty miasma of despair and horror in the universe.

  "Are you certain?" Jakk asked.

  "Yeah 100%," Banks said as he twirled his spear around before placing it on his shoulder. "Well let's go then."

  "Shouldn't we scope out the area," the other guard said, whose name he did not know.

  "You seem to be the expert," Jakk said deferring to him.

  "There's no point," he admitted easily. "A Ghost Domain is basically a whole other world. You could spend a week observing it and get no closer to understanding. Everything in there is completely isolated from everything outside."

  "So if we go in there..." the other guard said.

  "We could vanish without a trace and nobody would ever know what happened to us." Banks chuckled. "I will be fine and the Nevadie over there is chomping at the bit to dive straight into hell, but the two of you could easily find yourself up the creek."

  "One person should go for backup," Eislock said.

  "Rolf, report back to the Commander that we have encountered an active Ghost Domain," Jakk stated before pointing at Banks. "You can lead since you seem to be the expert,"

  "Sure follow me," Banks said strolling up to the gates of the school, which hung unnervingly open. There was an empty playground in front of the school, totally empty of light and life and he rolled his eyes as he saw a solitary swing set, the swings moving slowly back and forth as a result of wind that didn't exist. He walked casually through the gate, an ominous and oppressive silence coming over the area as soon as he crossed the threshold. All outside noises seemed to die, leaving only the clip-clip-clip of his new boots to break through the icy quiet. It was a threatening sort of silence, they type that threatened that every loud footstep, ever inconsiderate word, every intrusive rustle of fabric would summon the reaper to drag you off to an unknown yet terrible fate.

  "You would think they could spruce up this place a bit," Eislock piped up, breaking the silence anticlimactically. Once again the Nevadie proved unreasonably fearless.

  "They don't have a lot of money this side of the river," Jakk replied surprisingly boldly. He couldn't quite control the shivers of his body, but a lesser man, or more accurately a less courageous man would not have entered this Ghost Domain.

  "I mean yeah, I know that," Eislock said. "But you could do wonders with a bit of paint," he pointed towards the chipped and peeling paint. "Maybe get a sponsor and then get the little sprogs to paint it. Who knows, one of them might end up being the next Ruselberein."

  "Ruselberein, is an overrated artist," he threw his two coins in before placing a hand upon the wooden doors of the school and feeling the unusually cold surface. With an easy push, the doors swung open silently, revealing a dark entrance hall with a broken down reception table and a handful of wooden cupboards that may once have served as makeshift lockers, but now lay broken and empty. He stepped in, noting that the wooden floor creaked with every step he took, no matter how he distributed his weight and scanned the room for anything.

  "Is it okay to light a lantern," Jakk spoke up from behind him, causing him to turn and face the courageous guard. "It's not going to cause anything to attack."

  "I don't think so," Banks admitted, musing. "No it shouldn't. Please light it up." He once more turned towards examining the foyer as behind him the room got a bit brighter. "Let's go," he said after a while moving through the foyer and stepping out the room, thankfully without being mauled by some being from the darkness.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  He now found himself in a corridor with plenty of doors on the side he was facing and ending with a corner on both sides. A brief glance put him in the middle of the corridor, equidistant from both corners and he looked up and down for a moment, examining the doors that were clearly labelled with the Imperial Numbering System. The closest room was room 2, if his night vision wasn't failing him. In front of him, pinned in a place of honor in the middle of the corridor was a noticeboard, the kind that one might peruse to find out the local dealings, but the local dealings were scant as there was only one notice that hadn't been torn off or defaced beyond recovery.

  Bringing his face closer to the noticeboard, he started reading and soon found out that the noticeboard was in regards to a play, to celebrate the end of Intercalary and the year. It told that archetypal creation story that had been told a million times and adapted to hundreds of gods, but as he read the summary more and more turned strange. It told the story of God who grew lonely so it tore out his heart and created the first human, and then at the bequest of that human, tore out it's eyes to make the stars, tore out it's bones to make the land, it's blood to make the water, finally as a sign of deep love it tore out all it's organs which turned into every species and appointed the human as lord over all the species. The final words spoke of the human now king of all life standing over the mutilated corpse of God.

  "That's a different spin," he mused to himself, folding up the notice and placing it in his pocket. "Found anything?" he asked the room.

  "The door to this room is open," Eislock said poking his head out of said room. Classroom two. "Found anything swine brother?" the Nevadie asked Jakk.

  "Hmm, what," the guard said, dreamily. "Sorry, I thought I saw something at the corner. Just around the corner. I'm... just going to go check it out."

  "Nope," Banks and Eislock said simultaneously.

  "Didn't your mother tell you not to go chasing ghosts," Eislock said.

  "While we're actually long past that point," Banks admitted, their dangerous predicament had long exceeded anything constituting safe. "If you go chasing something you saw out of the corner of your eye you are going to disappear forever. Or even worse something is going to come back that is going to be impersonating you. And then I'm going to have to kill you."

  "You're going to need to toughen up brother," Eislock agreed.

  "Alright, alright," Jakk said, seemingly shaking off the stupor. "Maybe I'm not cut out for ghost hunting."

  "It's cool. We all start somewhere," Banks said, stepping through the door and into classroom two where Eislock had opened. The whole room looked like what he imagined a classroom would look like, having never attended school himself. Rows of desks, set up in a soul-crushingly uniform array, all facing towards a large rectangular slate board at the far side of the room, that initially displayed mathematical calculations and then lower down devolved into repeated uses of the word 'Die' like the teacher had just had enough of the students at that moment. On the far side of the room a few shelves, a few rotted books, and a closet sat. On the side closest to the slate board was a large sturdy looking desk, with an unnaturally pristine apple seated upon the desk despite all the dust.

  He walked across the room to the desk, which he presumed belong to the teacher, and brushed away a thin layer of dust to see the surface was full of papers. Most were in a language that he couldn't read, but one was written in large scrawling letters and he frowned as he read.

  On the first day GOD reclaims his heart

  "I'm beginning to see a theme here," Banks mused to himself as he folded the paper and also slipped it inside his pocket. He circled the desk, dusting off the chair and sitting down, before he frowned and stood up as the lack of comfortability of the chair surpassed his imagination. Spotting a drawer beneath the desk, he reached down grabbed the handle and pulled, immediately finding out that it was very locked. Scanning the room for a key, an initial scan proved unlucky and so he pulled again, his increased exertions only causing the drawer to rattle as he pulled.

  The sound of rattling grew greater and he raised his head to see that the cupboard on the far side of the room was also rattling. He stood up from the desk picking up his spear again before he stopped as Eislock walked over with the typical caution of a Nevadie, that is too say very little. Jakk immediately moved after him, whether to stop him or back him up, but inwardly Banks cursed as none of them displayed the necessary caution and so he simply leaned on the desk as he watched the procession.

  "This furniture is a bit livel___" Eislock started before he was immediately cut off as a female zombie in a cheap dress burst through the closet door and grabbed him by the shoulders before biting down and tearing through his neck. Jakk had barely managed to draw his sword before he was pounced on, knocked off his feet, and in seconds was torn apart by the zombie.

  "Huh, I forgot zombies and ghosts are symbiotic," Banks mused to himself as the female zombie turned towards him, blood dripping from her mouth and he casually noted that a key was attached to a lanyard that hung from her neck. "May I borrow it." The zombie didn't take kindly to the request as it sprung forward, crossing the distance in an instant and____

  -10 seconds

  ...he folded the paper and also slipped it inside his pocket, before turning around and heading to the locker. He did a brief height calculation, before he stabbed his spear through the closet door and straight into the skull of the zombie. It let out a horrifying scream, not out of pain or distress, but for some other reason, maybe as a poor copy of a human or maybe some other emotion the living couldn't quite comprehend. In one smooth movement, he pulled back his spear slamming the writhing corpse onto the floor and pinning it down with most of his weight. He then turned towards the other two who were now sporting a look somewhat between shock and disbelief.

  "Zombies," Jakk said. "What they hell are zombies doing here?" There was a look of distress on his face and Bank almost considered asking him to leave, if it wasn't for the fact that he would never make it to the front gate. It was easy to enter a Ghost Domain, but it was a hell of a lot harder to leave.

  "This is an area full of Death-type mana that coincidentally probably contains a few corpses," Banks said calmly. "Honestly I'd be more surprised if zombies didn't show up."

  "You don't really picture zombie and ghosts working together," Eislock said. "Is this a common thing?"

  "Very much so," Banks admitted. "Zombies are corpses animated by Death-Type mana, ghosts are lost souls from the beyond that generate Death-type mana. Sometimes a single corpse can give rise to a zombie and a ghost at the same time."

  "Then what happens if a ghost possesses a zombie," Eislock said with disconcerting eagerness.

  "You get a ghombie," Banks said seriously.

  "You're messing with me," the Nevadie stated.

  "A little," Banks replied, before he reached down and grabbed the lanyard, tearing off the key and moving back to the desk. The key slid smoothly into the lock and with a click the drawer came undone. He reached into the drawer, after checking that it didn't contain a snake or something before he pulled out two objects.

  "Is that., a map," Jakk asked as the parchment was spread out on the table.

  "X marks the spot," Eislock said looking at a giant red 'X' that was drawn on the map. It stood out compared to the greyish tones of...well everything.

  "The principals office," Banks remarked, reading the notation. "Huh, I kind of guessed it was either going to be the principals office or a specific dorm." He peered down at the second object which appeared to be a portion of a key. "Wonder where the other parts of the key are?"

  "Think it's necessary?" Jakk asked.

  "To ghosts, keys are very important, and in Ghost Zones keys are absolutely necessary," Banks said.as he rolled up the map before slipping it into his pocket. "Shall we go see if Mr. Principal has the other key."