I was tired from this boss fight. Being strong and gathering power should not require a gauntlet of bosses every in-game week. We were in the situation we were in. "You think this will be enough to seal me forever?" he mocked me. Clearly, the effects of the stun had worn off. That did not matter. He was bound in place by a divine ritual. It was powerful magic, even if I was not all that powerful. This curse spirit would not be able to break it by himself. If a curse spirit escaping justice or a human undid the bindings, that would release him. "It doesn't have to. It just has to hold you until we get a cleric powerful enough to banish you to the Spirit Realm so you can never come back to bother us here." I said. He smiled even wider. "You really think you can trust an exorcist!? They will banish you too!" he said. I did not trust the exorcist. I would use one of my incarnations to talk to them. The main reason that we called for them was to come up with ways to keep more from showing up in the valley. This binding took 5 chains and 10 stakes. I was going to need dozens more of them.
That aside, I still needed to hunt down the cursed spirits hiding in the mountains. One was Exu the Noxious and the other was Joz the Mean. For now, it was time for us 5 to return home and rest up. The people wanted to know what happened with the cursed spirit. All of them saw us run off and now we returned. I prepared my servants on what to say. I was in a leadership position in the town. Being a protector of the valley gave me a ton of sway. The mercenaries might not fully trust us, but they knew they needed us. Them backing me up with my narrative would go far. I was going to say it first though. "We handled the problem for now. Everyone needs to stay inside the town for the next couple of days as we hunt down the others that escaped into the mountains. It's not safe in the valley right now." I let them know. News like this did not put them at ease. They were not supposed to be put at ease right now though. This was a long term major crisis. A crisis where I could not afford for them to make worse by wandering around. I went to the Carpenter's Guild the very next day.
60 blessed stakes later and I was ready to hunt Exu and Joz down. Since Battleville was the focus of the cursed spirits, it was better to search the big eastern mountain range for Joz first. Exu could wait. However, it could not be too long of a wait. If he healed up to full strength, there was no doubt in my mind he would attack. I also had a time limit. No one had any clue who was going to come over next from the Spirit Realm. My servants and I spent days in the mountains, looking for a place that the hurt cursed spirit was hiding in. On the fourth night, we saw a flame. Anyone could use a fire at a campsite. No one but a cursed spirit could use black flames. We surrounded him and bound him in his cave. Then we immediately crossed the valley to the western mountains. It was a lucky spot to see the black flames of his camp 2 nights later. I was happy. Exu was also bound in the mountain cave. It gave us one final day of rest before a destruction spirit came over. It was similar to the ones Ace and Deuce took on. He got exterminated. Explosions were cool, but not curse level cool.
