"Sounds like a plan! But let's worry about it if it actually follows us out, no need to borrow trouble unnecessarily. ...is that too much optimism? It might be."

"Everyone loves an optimist, except the gods."

The spirit continues to follow them, though the only noises it makes are when it crashes into things; even its footsteps are eerily quiet, and it doesn't have a mouth to make any other sounds. But they can outrun it, and the crashes become more distant, while the feeling of its hypnotic light gets weaker. By the time they're by the cave entrance, it seems like they've lost it.

Taharqi opens his mouth, then closes it. "I am not going to say what I was going to say because it would just be tempting fate."

Annika peers at the narrow entrance. "...how did it leave. Before. It cannot fit through this space."

"To get the corpses? It could have sent those other little spirits, maybe."

"No, not that. Our bounty was to investigate something harassing travellers outside, and Annika followed a spiritual trail here. What's this about corpses?"

"The villagers nearby were losing bodies from their graveyard. I followed a literal trail of grave dirt."

"Alright. So either that spirit was not the cause of the travellers' troubles—"

"It was."

"—or it must have some other way of leaving the ruins."

"Does it seem to anyone else," Arik wonders slowly, "like this is suspicious. That lantern that it sucks you in with, like a fishing rod... the corpses, dragged in as bait for heroes... this trickster-trapper spirit, which has to navigate these ruins all the time, crashing into every wall it can, so you can hear that it's right behind you. And so you think you know when it isn't."

It's so... cold...

"MOVE!" he cries, jumping to one side—

—at the same time as Annika Snaps herself and Arik away in a different direction—

—at the same time as a veritable crater appears right where they had been standing, followed by the creature itself becoming visible as it's touched by the revealing effect of Annika's and Arik's flames. 

It's also half again as tall as it'd been and has four arms now, and its eyes glow with the same terrible

(beautiful) 

light that had been in the lantern it'd been carrying before.

Ah.

Fuck.

Arik flings himself forward and drives his blessed blade into its featureless crotch to get its attention, while calling up his shield on his other arm. He's on defense, but he still needs to piss it off enough that it focuses on him.

The other two hang back to facilitate this process. While Arik angers the creature, Annika closes her eyes and starts to... meditate?

The spirit may be smart enough to try to lure them into traps but it's not smart enough to notice that it'd probably better ignore Arik and focus on the other opponents. To be fair to it, it hasn't actually seen what they can do. 

To be even fairer to it, new floating flames start appearing around it one by one to harass them anyway, and looking directly at any of them has the same effect as looking at the lantern did.

Alright Taharqi supposes his job will be keeping those off the backs of the other two, then?

Sounds good! Arik will be busy fighting this thing with his eyes locked on its torso like his life depends on it. Which it largely does!

He is getting significantly less mauled, this time around. The shield helps a lot, and so does not needing to capitalize on every opening. He can wait it out.

(That doesn't mean he isn't getting mauled.)

One. Two.

Small spheres of spiritual energy emerge from her body one by one and begin to circle her, even more slowly than her Ruwach.

Three. Four.

It's not a slow process, but from within the heightened awareness of a battle in progress it feels like an eternity. 

Five. 

Once the fifth sphere appears, she opens her eyes and there's a boom of air expanding outwards from her, and at the same time a layer of red energy envelops her whole body. She looks at the spirit and then—

snap

—she starts pummelling it. Punches and open palm hits, enchanted with Holy magic, placed with superhuman precision and backed with preternatural force.

The creature is noticeably surprised by the sudden onslaught, and though Annika's hits don't cut the same way Arik's sword does they still seem to be doing a fair amount of damage. It's starting to notice that maybe Arik isn't actually the biggest threat here so maybe it should focus on her instead—well, it has four arms, so it could divide its attention—

How about it gets stabbed about it? What about that proposal.

Yeah it's having trouble actually going after her even though it's trying. It's very much not even that Arik's hits hurt that much as that they're physically getting in the way and messing with its momentum and causing pain, and trying to make him not be in the way means it can't get to her.