The dream that I had woken up in was similar, yet notably different, to any that I’d had before.

  Once again I found myself locked away in mother’s prison. But the body that I came to in was actually my own for once. Complete with my bruises and injuries. And more than just being in my own skin, I’d found rather quickly that I was able to move myself around freely. Granted that each motion was sluggish and filled with deeply aching pains that at least felt somewhat muted thanks to my physical body being asleep.

  I looked around the small cell and saw that it was empty and none of the bricks had been pulled from the walls. Having never had a dream like this I didn’t know what I was meant to do. For a time I simply sat, slumped against the back wall, and contemplated the events that had happened while I was still conscious.

  At first it had been hard to dredge up any details beyond being involved in another deadly fight. But before long the image of a massive elder shrieking deer, with his face slashed to ribbons and blood pouring from multiple piercings in his throat, had taken shape inside my head.

  There was a faint, metallic creak not far ahead of me. I looked up to see that the door of my cell had opened. Yet another new occurrence within my dark dreams. Nothing looked unusual on the other side of the bars. Slowly, cautiously, I then rose back up to my feet. Shuffling steps dragged me closer and closer to a freedom that the mother I only knew in my dreams had craved for so long.

  I stood at the threshold between the cell and prison corridor. The air felt damp on my skin and I noticed that I had started sweating.

  I took one step forward, into the unknown, and then the only unconscious world I’d ever known was dissolving all around me into a blank nothingness. Then there was only light. It grew dimmer and dimmer with the rapid beating of my heart.

  All around me, and inside of total darkness, came the sound of thundering hooves. As if I were caught up in the centre of a raging stampede. And then the cackling and shrieking had started. The sound growing so mind shatteringly loud that I fell to my knees.

  There was no ground. There was only the shrieking of the deer and the howling of wind as I plummeted farther inside myself than I’d ever known was possible.

  Way down bellow me my eyes picked up a pinprick of blue light. The speck grew rapidly while my body descended toward it at full speed. Inside the light I could see a shape forming. It was the skull of an elder shrieking deer. This one a doe. Her bones had been painstakingly wired back together and an intensely hateful blue flame engulfed all of her visage.

  The further I fell the more I came to realize just how impossibly large the skull was in comparison to me. It was the size of a wagon and then the next thing I knew it had grown larger than a modest house. The skull tilted itself so that the jaws were pointed straight at me.

  As those colossal structures of bone parted I was entirely helpless but to drop through the wall of blue flames and into the doe’s waiting mouth. The jaws snapped shut and again all that I knew was a world of dark silence.

  Through the void came a single, drawn out, gruff snort from an unseen deer.

“Stand now before me, my slayer,” came a deep and ragged voice, “The herd calls for me to follow. They do not understand the respect that you have earned. But I must not leave them waiting for long.”

Like a mist over the empty night sky, the faint outlines of a shape were taking form. Delicate wisps of a faintly yellow, yet mostly green, mana filled in the details like the lines on a drawing.

  Stood before me was the ethereal visage of a massive elder shrieking deer buck. His skull now fully freed from its torn flesh and entirely exposed. From between his eyes, a shaft of flickering violet mana began to take shape. His antlers were splintered and hung crooked where they’d been blasted off his head during the mana explosion.

  I stood there, silent and transfixed, while threads of mana slowly drifted off from the elder buck and dissipated into the dark ether which surrounded us.

“H-how?” I sputtered uselessly, “How is a dead deer talking to me?”

“A dead deer, you say?” the buck said while almost sounding amused, “I suppose it is the right of the victor to diminish the very existence of those that they have slain. For this I will not fault you, my slayer. I thought of myself as a proud warrior. Father of a mighty herd. Survivor of many bitter winters and battles. But yes you are correct, now all that I am is as you say. Nothing more than a dead deer.”

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He paused and my eyes met with one of the large empty sockets at the sides of his translucent skull.

“I apologize,” I said, “I meant you no disrespect. As an adversary you truly had the raw power to bring me to my knees. Had I not ended things in the way that I did then surely the victory would have been yours in the end. It’s only that this entire situation is quite foreign to me and so you’ve caught me very much off guard. And I don’t exactly know how I’m supposed to respond or react to this dream.”

“That is alright, my slayer, for it was only after my death that my mind was opened in this way. I too am at odds with our conversing. With life I knew only the lust for violence and the want to feed and to mate. After you destroyed me I learned just how big this world truly must be. What now remains of my soul yearns to join my herd, for a final journey to the Life Tree. The calling of its roots are undeniably strong.”

“So then, why are you here talking with me?” I asked, “Shouldn’t you get back to your family? I’m sure they’re waiting for you.”

“Indeed they are, my slayer,” he said with what almost sounded like a sigh, “But you have bested me and earned my deepest respect. And it is thanks to this weapon of yours, which you lodged deeply within my mind, that I was able to reach you now, as your body slumbers. After all, you did imbue this weapon with a vast amount of your mana. Perhaps this is why I am able to converse with you in your own words. And because of this circumstance I felt it was my duty to offer you a warning about those hideous things you wear on your waking hands.”

I hadn’t realized it when the dream had started, nor at any point up until that moment, but looking at my hands in the green glow that radiated from the buck I saw that my new gloves were off. I looked back up to the buck and he nodded. The violet ghost spear flickering in and out of existence as he moved.

“So those gloves really are cursed then?” I asked.

“Cursed? Bah! Do you even know what a curse truly is?” the buck spat, “You’ve fed them so much blood without even knowing what it is they are. Much as you’ve earned my respect I cannot help calling you a fool for this, my slayer.”

“Well, I mean, I’ve accidentally used cursed equipment a few times. And once you get to somebody who can get it off then things are usually fine so I-”

“Fool of a slayer, I told you,” he growled, “Those things are not cursed. They are curses themselves. They are a curse that must feast on blood and in return, they grant their host’s heart’s true longing by manipulating minor strings of fate. Thus creating a path for the host to follow in their pursuit of happiness.”

“Longing?” I stammered, “So if, for example, I were particularly lonely and had a secret desire to have people by my side then...Giving the gloves blood would start making people take a strong interest in me wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed, that is how the Blood Curse of Want works. Only, their interest will have been inspired by a fateful chance created by the curse. Something that would just as equally find you your desired attention through pity as it would admiration.”

“Ah,” I said during a sudden epiphany, “So if I were able to change my heart’s desire to something like wealth then I could turn blood into Gold? If it’s used right is a curse like this truly something worth worrying over?”

“Then you do not yet understand. Those things you wear, the more you feed them, the stronger their effect will become. Once you are unable to offer them enough blood then they will simply help themselves to some of your own. And once that happens those greedy little curses will drink you dry, for they are born from the curse that eats. The curse that knows only hunger and endless torment. The Curse of Marinclay,” the elder buck spoke his words with a grave sincerity, “What you thought was leather is in reality the purest and deepest kind of shadow. Cut from the lowest floors of that so called Fool Lord’s Tomb. This material that they were made from has taught them to know only two things. Hunger, and the desire to bring joy to elves. Once they decide that they can give you all that you desire unto your death they will not hesitate to make it so. Mark my words, my slayer, you must remove them from yourself. Even if it comes at the cost of cutting your hands off at the wrist. Time will not be on your side. Not after how much they’ve already been given to drink, and now their hunger will yearn for meals of a similar size. Anything less will not satisfy them for long.”

“That’s-that’s a lot to take in,” I said, feeling suddenly very shaken, “You have my thanks for telling me. I’ll have to figure something out. In the meantime I can probably keep them satiated through hunting, since I’d rather not lose both of my hands if I can help it. I can tell you from experience that when you’re used to having them it makes life pretty difficult once they’re gone. So long as I can keep them fed through to Shimmer then surely one of the practitioners there will be able to help remove them.”

“You do not sound very convinced, my slayer.”

“Yeah, well you know, I didn’t really need you to tell me that.”

The elder shrieking deer cackled at me and then bid me farewell. I bid him a peaceful journey on his way toward reincarnation with his cherished herd. He accepted my thanks for his warning. And then he was no more, taking the ghost of my spear with him.

  For a time, I was left entirely alone with nothing but my thoughts. And then I could hear vague murmurs from somewhere around my body. Slowly, sliver by sliver, the void of my peculiar dream had begun to slip away. The agony of my waking body was ready to bring me back around and I blinked my eyes open.