For the first two days everything was going fine as I started to gain a small amount of essence from spreading nightmares around that city. Plus even if that boy hasn't done my quest yet, he was still being useful by eating the dreams of others. I was also able to do a bit of testing to find out why that man broke down but not the kid. It seems that the mortals can't take seeing my form even when I suppress it. The way around the problem I found was grabbing someone else's dream and using it as a filter but even that doesn't work too well.
But just as my essence started to roll in, it started to drop and for a day, I couldn't find out why. It got to the point that I got the human to help me find out why. That alone almost made me have a heart attack as the paranoia almost got out of hand. But my desire to find out why my essence was slowing down helped overcome it. After searching though the dreams of the elf (which wasn't easy) I could tell they believe that some other dark god is causing my nightmares and that must somehow be taking my essence. Also, this dark god is doing something that is blocking one of the many elven gods, but I don't know what they are blocking.
I had no way to do anything about the loss of essence unless I wanted to spend more essence, which I didn't. So I did more testing. I did more testing and left the human to spread nightmares while I found out why my essence income was lowered.
The first thing I tested was one of my abilities, Shapeless.
Shapeless
Your true form is what you make of it as no shell will contain you and only imagination is your limit.
----------------------------------------
You can spend mana to change your form. Any chances are permanent until you change again. Any nature weapons, armour or other alterations will work to your understanding.
Any injuries will not be removed by changing form, but the damage can be moved around.
I first tested how large I could become while the human was using Gate of Dreams Eye and at first the increased size didn't cause any problems. But it got to a point where my body started to collapse on itself. Only a thought and I returned to my normal size, or what I thought was my normal size. Then I tried give myself claws. Long, black claws like obsidian knifes and like obsidian, they broke just as easily. It was painful when they broke but only for a moment, almost like a slap to the face. I tried to make the claws stronger but nothing I did worked.
Before I could try and turn myself into an animal, the human came outside of the little shack as I given to her.
"What do you want?" I asked, raiseing one of my eyebrows, even if she couldn't see it.
"My lord, I believe I have found a way to motivate your new servant." She said as she lowered her head to me.
"You have found a way to motivate the boy then why do you need to tell me this?"
"My lord of course I would have but I will need some essence to achieve the outcome." She added, still keeping her eyes down to the ground.
"Ah and do you think this plan of yours is worth the essence?"
"My lord I believe it will be truly beneficial for you and the essence will be well used." As she spoke, I noted her emotions slowly leaving her words.
I look at her for a long moment, feeling the paranoia grow but not much as the appeal of the idea of not needing to do all the work by myself. "You many use my essence for your plan but if it fails, there will be consequences." I don't know why I said that last bit, but I felt the feeling guided my works.
"My lord I thank you, you will not regret it." As her emotions flew back into her voice, she straightened up before bowing again then moving back to Gate of Dreams Eye.
----------------------------------------
~~???~~
'Lord Hemler has been very kind to Mr. Willow-Heart even after you hesitate to do his quest but even if you aren't the one he wanted, you can still be polished into a diamond.' I think to myself.
I walk into the throne room feeling slightly sorrowful at squalor of the place. The only thing that redeems the room was the Gate of Dreams Eye and that was a shame as the throne should be the center of the place. But one day it will be. As I stand in front of the Gate of Dreams Eye, I could feel the pull of the magical artifact on my mind, trying to steal me away from my lord. But it was a simple thing to turn off my emotions to no longer feel that urge.
Looking into the dream realm, seeing all the dreams of the mortal's it never gets old. As well as seeing the small trickle of essence flowing into my lord. But seeing the essence does irritate me as I could also see that at least half of the essence was being taken away by that dark god. That is doing almost nothing with it!
"Now where are you... Ah found you." I said in an almost too sweet voice even if my emotions where turned off. I couldn't help myself, I enjoyed the anger of the mortals then they fight each other.
As I found the mortal I was looking for. I would have like to enter the dreams of Mr. Willow-Heart and inform him that he needed to fulfil my lord's quest, but I don't want to interfere too much in my lord's plans. So, I find myself in the dreams of Miss SilverCreek, or should I say nightmare. The nightmare being some creature hunting her down with the face of her mother. Mortals are so easy to scare.
As I enter, I grab the nightmare and freeze it in place then, so the mortal didn't run away, I summoned walls around us with some chairs and a table.
"Miss SilverCreek please take a seat." I say with a sweet voice.
"You! Why are you back, I told you to leave me alone." The woman said with a bit of fear in her brown eyes.
"Come now Miss SilverCreek, you are smart and what I promise you is good. The task not too hard." I added staring at her, knowing that the woman will give in as I have been priming her for long enough.
"What you ask is for me to kill a child and one that is part of the temple, all for the nightmares to end. That is not worth it." But I could hear in her voice the lack of conviction.
"Ah but I can do more Miss SilverCreek, as my lord is willing to give you a gift if you do this task." As I say this, I see the glint in her eyes, only for a moment, but it was there.
"What gift and what lord?" She asked as she finally moves to a chair.
"Well to answer your first question, this gift would fix the problem you have been having." I look at her womb pointedly, giving a knowing smile. "And you will not need to know who my lord is."
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
The woman quickly moves her hand over where I was looking, as her face filled with grief. "Your lord could do that?" She whispered, looking at me.
And with those words, I knew I had her as I gave her a smile. 'So easilyy.' I assured her and gave the mortal the quest.
----------------------------------------
~~Lenn~~
My eyes shoot open as the dream, or should I say nightmare, ended and the deal remained fresh in my mind. I stare at the wooden ceiling as light patches filter though the curtain, hitting the wall. I close my eyes as I take a breath, tasting the morning and the old room.
"Please Oreal, forgive me." I whisper.
I force my body to move. Getting dressed was hard, so was most of the morning. The creature gave me the time when best to kill the target.
"I must think of it as a target or anything else or I might not be able to. to... to do it."
I try and stop the shaking as I grab the sharpest knife I have. It had a chip in it and wasn't as sharp as its once was, but it will still do.
As I leave my house and make my way towards the place for the ambush, I note the dark expression on the faces of the people around me. Giving the atmosphere of the place an unpleasant feeling, which makes it so much worse knowing what I was going to do.
"Keep it together Lenn, I just have to do this one thing then I can leave."
As I entered the alley the nightmare told me about, I didn't have to wait long for my target to walk appear. 'What am I thinking, it's a child, but I will kill it.'
As I move out of my hiding spot and I grip my knife I could feel the sweat covering the hilt. I lunge towards the child and struck her throat with the knife. The feeling of the knife cutting the flesh of a living creature was revolting. The resistance of the body and the still-hot spraying of blood cover my hand. As I pull back again to finish the job, I hear a whisper from the darkest part of my mind.
"There is no need to finish this task. Leave." The voice was cold and uncaring causing a shiver run down my spine.
Quest Complete - Birth of a Legend (Nightmare)
You have completed the hind quest Birth of a Legend where you played an important part in shaping a legend of the era.
Due to Helm's intervention, you are able to see this quest.
Reward: 16,000 xp, Title: Made a Legend (Hidden), You no long suffer nightmares, your next child will have the blessing of the Lord of nightmares, you can now have children.
As I feel the level up wash though me, I look down and see what I did, and any joy form the leveling up left. 'Did I really make a legend out of this child?' I wonder as I see the blood pooling from the neck. Barely breathing I look away and quickly leave. But I turn around as I feel a gaze of someone on me. I look and don't see anyone. But best to make sure.
----------------------------------------
~~Feno~~
As I see the lady run from the alley, I dash to Skylar's body, trying to stop the bleeding. Then I hear the lady's voice and it made my blood run cold.
"Help, help, there's been an attack!" And even as it made my blood run cold, I wanted nothing more than to attack her for what she did. But before I could do anything, more people ran down the alley and they saw me.
"Hay, you, freeze!" SuddenlyI feel a compulsion fall over me.
As I look, the lightly armored guards move toward me, spears in hand. One was a slim and gangly with long brown hair while the other was also tall but with darker hair. Both had an unnatural dark energy moving around their eyes then I hear both of them say:
"You don't have much time Feno, I can only control them for so long." Their voice where in sync but I couldn't using someone else's voice, I could never forget the voice behind the words.
"What do you, you w-want?" I ask as I try to keep pressure on Skylar's wound but I see the light leaving her eyes.
"You know what I want Feno, and I am handing you a way to complete it." The voices almost had a hint of humor as the brown-haired guard pulls out a dagger and toss it to me.
"I will not kill my friend even if I suffer your eternal nightmare," I say with more confidence than I had. But it did give the thing pause before it smiled.
"That is fine."Tthe brown-haired guard drops to his knees. "You can kill this one and if you do a good job, I might save your 'friend' haha." They both looked at me with cruel smiles, no longer hiding the humor.
I don't know why but with no hesitation, I grab the knife and stab the man in the eye. I believe I heard his eye pop.
You have killed level 6 guard for 1,500 xp.
You have level up you are now level 3 congratulations!
You have 4 unspent stats points. You gain 1 point to Dexterity and 1 to Intelligence.
You also get 1 point to your Charisma as a gift for Helmer Lord of Nightmares.
Quest Complete - One Life for Happiness
You have completed your quest even with the help of you patron.
Reward: You gain 1,000 xp, you keep Shadow Embraces
Bounce Reward: The Lord of Nightmares can see great fear being spread and will save the life of Skylar.
Shadows Embraces: In darkness creatures will want to look away from you and find the need to leave the area that you are in if you so wish.
As I realize what I just did, I hear its voice behind me. I turn around, seeing the other guard standing over Skylar as crimson red magic bleeds into him. If me killing the guard nearly made me throw up, seeing the flesh knit itself back together almost like worms was just as bad. Then I feel a cold spread through me, making me feel numb to the events.
"You really should get over that disgust with what you will be doing and if I were you, I would be running." And with almost no control over my body I ran. But I was able to turn my head with all my will to see the cruel smile that crossed the face of the guard and the outline in the shadow of something truly monsterous.
----------------------------------------
~~Helmer~~
It is really hard to keep the bodies from falling apart. After I found out I could process the body of broken willed people, I thought I found a way out of my realm, but it was like trying to fit into clothing way too small and even being shapeless didn't help. But the worse thing was if I didn't restrain myself, the body would look like it suffered and the face had a cruel smile on it.
As I was testing out two bodies, I saw that elven woman my homunculus was interested in and then she started shouting about an attack. So I thought I could help her out a bit and spread some fear as these bodies were as good as dead by now. As I got both of the bodies running into the alley, I activated command skill of one of the guards but when I saw Feno over the body of some boy or girl (I couldn't tell the difference) a thought came into my mind.
After a bit of talking and getting him to kill the puppet that was starting to break down, the only thing I had to do was heal his friend. But my control slipped a bit, and the word came out a bit weird. What was hard was healing the kid as using my blood magic to do a fix-up put a lot more strain on the body I was using and it was already about to fail. I could also feel the press of more people making their way towards us, so using a bit more of my power, I made the boy run and I felt the smallest bit sorry for the kid. So with some word of encouragement, I send him off.
As the other people start entering the alley I put on my acting face and slumped against a wall, using a bit of my Nightmare Aure.
"He ran away, I don't know what he did bu-" I say in a raspy whisper as I force the body to cough up blood.
"Hay don't push yourself Greg." A man that looked like this body's brother spoke with concern.
"No, I need to tell you that it wa-" But before I could do anything the body died on me!
I lean back on my throne, slightly annoyed as I had a bit more to say. But, oh well, at least I know what nightmare I will be giving the people.
'Sorry Feno but I want to be free and if that means making you the living nightmare of the world, so be it.' I think as I start to make nightmares so people will recognize Feno as the problem.
'I do hope he lives as he can be quick and useful. Now why is my essence leaving me?'