"There," she says, pointing at a specific point in the darkness. "It's not moving. But it's powerful." Which is obvious, given the givens, but she felt it worth reiterating.

He squints. "I can't see it."

"Me neither." She looks at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Are you... feeling alright?"

"No. But there's nothing to it, we have a job."

"Mm." She'll teleport them away if necessary.

Taharqi swallows dryly and nods. "Alright. Lead the way." And he's gone again.

Annika hasn't managed the trick of maintaining five spirit spheres up, but she can do two, and that'll have to do. She closes her eyes, breathes in, and finds her center. This isn't difficult, as she's been maintaining close focus on it in order to resist the influence of the demon or spirit, but now she needs to look directly at it and it takes some concentration. 

Then she splits two pieces off her soul and externalises them. It's about as unpleasant as it sounds. They'll regenerate, eventually, and they're being propped up by mana, but she can definitely feel the lack. They take the shape of small blue spheres floating lazily around her, available for her to eventually use when needed and useful.

And she resumes walking, slowly, paying attention to her surroundings and trigger happy about her defences.

The dead and undead become rarer and rarer until they stop appearing altogether, and the unease grows heavy enough that Annika herself will start feeling unsettled. The jingles don't become particularly more frequent, but their spatial source starts to become more obvious as they get closer.

Taharqi appears again and lifts a hand, breathing heavily. "I need," he says, taking in a shivering gasp, "a moment." His skin is glistening with sweat and he's no longer managing to keep his face cool—probably some of the water on his face is tears rather than sweat.

...he's wide open. Anyone could sneak up on him. 

She guesses the thing she's feeling but multiplied a hundredfold might explain it? But it seems like a very maladaptive reaction, to become worse at surviving when he needs it most.

Still, she can wait for him to get over whatever it is he's going through, and watch his back for him.

If he were on his own he wouldn't have let his guard drop this far. It's only because she's here that he's allowing himself to show this much vulnerability.

Being visible... helps. Annika having visible reactions to his presence helps. He had been starting to feel intense amounts of unreality, like he didn't exist and the world was just moving on without him, like he died at some point and didn't notice and his soul just kept walking. This, here, feels more like he's part of the world, even if there's still constant external pressure to convince him otherwise. There's another person right here and it. Helps. A lot.

He takes another deep, shuddering breath, tries to focus on the feeling of the air in his lungs and the dirt under his feet and the clothes and sweat on his skin, then nods. "Okay. I'm... ready."

She peers at him. "Are you sure?"

That makes him smile. "Yes, but I appreciate your concern."

"...you are my party member. If you die I will need to teleport away."

Whatever you need to tell yourself, buddy. 

"Lead the way," he says again, and vanishes into thin air, trying to hold onto the feeling of being alive as he does.

A few more steps forward, still slowly, still making sure to be ready to fight at a moment's notice—

"Wait."

"Again?" she asks, impatiently.

"No. Can you see her?"

Her? She looks in the direction they've been walking towards and... yeah, actually. She can vaguely see a silhouette she could believe is a woman. ...girl? It's small. "That's the source of the disturbance. A ghost?" A really powerful one, if so.

"I think so." He doesn't vanish again, though, and starts walking towards it. His discomfort seems mostly forgotten, or ignored, in favour of getting to the ghost quickly.

"—what are you doing," she says, catching up with him after a dumbfounded moment.

"I think she needs help."