Chapter Seven: Traits

He watched as the woman and child entered the house, then closed the door behind them. In his hat, the little ghost stared hungrily at the corpse.

“Go ahead,” Ved said, his finger brushing the little one's forehead.

The little ghost drifted out, extracting the pirate’s soul. Including the two by the cabin, this was the eighth pirate Ved had killed. He tossed aside his sword, now dulled from use, and picked up another from the snow. This one was of better quality: a cold gleam ran along its edge, it showed little wear, and it had been coated with oil for preservation.

A sword in such fine condition meant either its owner cherished it, or it was rarely used. Given that its previous owner had tossed it carelessly into the snow, Ved leaned toward the latter. He tested the balance—it felt just right in his grip. A fine blade, simply wielded by the wrong hands.

Ved took the double-edged sword and searched the pirate’s body. Another pouch of oil. He noticed that each pirate seemed to carry one at his waist. Did they need so much oil just for torches? The question lingered without answer, so he simply made a note of it and pressed on to the corner ahead.

He quietly observed the lit area. Upon drawing closer, he saw five pirates guarding the entrance to a cellar, while three more had descended the steps, hacking at a door with axes and a sledgehammer. It was easy to see why so many pirates had gathered here: the family was wealthy, with four houses fenced in, and a sheep pen and warehouse beside them.

Next to the sheep pen was the cellar entrance, hidden beneath floorboards in one of the warehouses. The warehouse door had been smashed open, revealing hay prepared for the sheep’s winter. A pirate sat atop the hay, crossbow at the ready, yawning with boredom.

Ved considered his options. Attacking head-on would mean facing eight pirates alone, clearly unwise. If he made too much noise, the remaining pirates would swiftly come to their aid. A typical Viking raiding party numbered forty to fifty men; Ved had only killed eight at the fringes. Conservatively, thirty to forty pirates remained, plus their leader—the tall warrior with the longsword. A frontal assault would be folly. Ved preferred to use the natural advantages of his skeletal form: to assassinate them, one by one.

“If only these pirates, upon hearing the clink of coins, would wander off alone into some dark, deserted thicket,” he mused, recalling a certain bald man with a number tattooed on the back of his head. That man possessed an uncanny ability: toss an ordinary coin anywhere, and whether it was an underworld kingpin or a ruthless warlord, they’d be drawn by the anomalous sound, order their men to ‘go check it out,’ and, alone, pick up the coin from some blind spot.

Ved, though bald himself, had none of those powers. Life was deeply unfair. Still, an idea struck him for luring the pirates out.

He glanced at his shoulder blade, where the little ghost, curled up, poked out her head. Their time together had been brief—less than a night—but they already felt the instinctive bond of comrades. After feeding her eight pirate souls, Ved had formed a deeper connection with her; feeding always breeds fondness.

He tried to communicate his thoughts. They were not fully in sync, but information passed between them, and she responded. He realized something: the little ghost bore a grudge against these Viking pirates. She chose whose soul to devour. Along the way, they’d encountered dead villagers, but she had ignored their souls, targeting only pirates.

It seemed the old book was largely correct: specters do not retain the will or memories of the living. The little ghost’s consciousness was vague, shaped by her final moments—pirates invading her village, destroying her home, shooting arrows at her. So even in death, she hated them. That hatred lingered in her soul, shaping her into what she was now; killing pirates was her deepest wish.

Ved decided it was time to give her a name. He didn’t know her real one—he couldn’t keep calling her “the little ghost” forever.

“You’ll be Mia,” he thought.

When he called her name in his mind, the dim awareness lifted her head and looked into his eyes.

“Mia, next, we’re going to deal with those pirates,” Ved conveyed. “And I need your help.”

Mia seemed not to understand what a “name” was—perhaps she retained some memory of her old one—but that hardly mattered. What did matter was that as soon as Ved sent the thought of “killing pirates,” she became eager, drifting toward them. No longer timid and trembling as at the start, after eight pirates, she had grown lively. Children, once they get used to a game, become more and more exuberant.

If Ved hadn’t called her back, she would already have flown off. As a semi-transparent spirit, Mia was hard to spot in the night—easy to overlook unless closely observed. But with eight pairs of eyes nearby, if she startled the pirates and roused their vigilance, things would get complicated.

Fortunately, Ved pulled her back in time. This confirmed what he suspected: he could, to some extent, command Mia. Their deep bond allowed him to reliably direct her actions.

He knew little about the true limits of specters, but from experience, a few things were evident.

First, Mia could extract souls.

Normally, only those with strong spirits would become ghosts after death, but Mia could forcibly gather and extract the souls of those unqualified. It seemed she could only take souls from the dead—though legends spoke of powerful spirits that could drain the living. Perhaps one day Mia would grow that strong, but for now, she could not kill the living, nor was it clear if she could even harm them.

To separate and eliminate the eight pirates, Ved would need Mia’s second ability—or rather, her unique nature.

He’d discovered something: in many ghost tales, spirits are untouchable, immune to steel, harmed only by magic, holy rites, or special “battle skills.” But firsthand, Ved found this wasn’t exactly so.

When Mia entered or exited his hat, he could feel the movement. As a skeleton, he was acutely aware of vibrations—he had no ears, so hearing was not a sense he possessed. Instead, he detected the faintest tremors. If someone tried to sneak up from behind, he’d sense them as soon as they raised a foot. He used these vibrations as a kind of substitute hearing, since sound is merely vibration in a medium.

This heightened sense revealed that Mia was corporeal, at least to some degree.

And, most importantly, Mia hovered mid-air, gliding effortlessly like a fish through water—forward, back, up, down. She could fly, and did so in utter silence, leaving no footprints, unlike a bird needing to flap its wings.

Ved pulled a cloth pouch from his hoodie pocket—the one he’d filled with silver coins looted from pirate corpses. He released the bag, and, as if an invisible string were tied to it, it halted in midair. Mia had caught it, and handed it back to Ved.

He stroked her forehead, holding the pouch, and gazed at the sheep pen. He might not possess the supernatural skill of that other bald man, but with a little ghost who could come and go without trace, he had something quite rare indeed.

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