Chapter 17
Blood Fallacy
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James paused, cocking his head to the side. “What is it?” asked Kail.
“I sense something strange,” he said just before the dirt beneath him flew up, spiraling around him in a miniature tornado. Kail stepped back reflexively.
“It’s coming,” gasped Lunis.
“What is?” he turned to see her staring off into the forest’s depths.
“The house,” she whispered.
Kail turned back to James who was obscured within the spiraling dirt. “What should I do?” he called over the sound of whipping wind.
The back of a cold hand tapped his back repeatedly and he turned, finding Lunis beside him, a terrified look on her face as she stared out at the house which lay before them. Erie lights emanated from several windows on the higher floors, illuminating the horrific visage of what could only be The House of Haunted Memories.
An inexplicable sense of dread overcame him and he sank to the ground, no, into the ground, his vision growing hazy as he fell.
***
He was sitting on the chest press chair in The Showfield Gym. David paced across from him, staring at his phone. David, his friend who had kept him sane during the insane ordeal Franchesca had put him through. David, who he’d always worked out with and who had gotten him invited to the wildest functions.
“Yeah, it was a good one,” David was saying in his deep voice. He had naturally curly hair and was half Middle Eastern and half Canadian, girls loved him and guys always wanted to hang with him.
Kail got a flashback to a summer night on the beach when David had hooked up with three different girls in the course of only a few hours. Kail could never pull something like that off, not only because his game wasn’t close to David’s, but because that sort of shit would destroy him mentally. He’d never been capable of loving more than one girl at a time, not that David actually cared about any of the random girls he hooked up with. That was the difference between him and David, he cared way more than he should and that always fucked him over, but then David would be there to talk him through it. Like he had with Franchesca.
His other friends had been there for him too, each in their own way. Jason had reminisced with him as he and Jocelyn had recently broken up and he knew some of what he was going through. Connor had told him that thinking about her wasn’t worth his time and that there were so many other girls out there. Later in the year when she’d posted some short dude on her Instagram, Ashton had told him how dumb she was and that he’d look way drippier in those pics. His friends had been there for him, but now…
His surroundings changed, and he was walking down the boardwalk, hand in hand with Abby and Elise. It was a bright summer day, a day from that summer, the best and worst summer. He shut his eyes tightly, wanting it all to stop, but as he opened them he was hugging Emily, his friend who had put him back together after Franchesca had broken him apart.
“I’m so sorry,” she was saying.
He needed this all to stop. It hurt too much, he missed these memories too much, these awful sad tragic memories. He looked down at Emily. “I miss you so much.”
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She smiled up at him. “You're here now, let’s get something to eat.”
Chipotle, he remembered instantly, that’s what they’d gotten that day at the mall in New York. No. He couldn’t relive anymore of this. All his friends were gone, and he had no way of returning to them.
His surroundings fell away and Emily disappeared as he found himself standing in a carpeted room before a small dais and silver throne. A pale man sat upon the throne, his mouth hung open as he stared at Kail in evident shock. “How did you enter my throne room?” he asked, his tone hostile yet curious.
Two men stood before him and below the dais, both wore blue garments reminiscent of hoodies and long gray cotton pants. Anger and sorrow radiated from Kail as he glared up at the man. “I didn’t ask to come here or go through any of that! Now return me to where I was.”
“To make a demand of a Dream Lord is to court death,” said the man, waiving an idle hand toward Kail. “Break his mind and show me its contents.”
As the man had been speaking, Kail had latched onto the blood of his underlings, he now stepped forward, ripping it from them in twin crimson spurts. A look of horror crossed the seated man’s face just before the blood condensed into a jagged spear which Kail sent hurtling into the Dream Lord.
DAMAGE DEALT TO DREAMCRAFTER = 64
DAMAGE DEALT TO DREAMCRAFTER = 69
DAMAGE DEALT TO DREAMLORD = 111
MP 80/160
Kail ran up the dais, conjuring his blood scythe and sending the miniature blade sweeping into the bleeding man’s neck.
DAMAGE DEALT TO DREAMLORD = 53
The world around him grew blurry, and he found concentrating on the bloody man difficult as the air grew humid.
“I love you,” whispered Franchesca.
“That bitch wasn’t worth your time,” said Audrey.
“Can you loan me ten bucks?” asked David.
“I’m so sorry Kail,” said Emily
He screamed in anguish, pain consuming him as his vision turned red.
HP 62/150
He wiped the blood from his eyes, taking control of his blood and preventing it from seeping forth from his many wounds. He surveyed his surroundings, the Dreamlord lay slumped on his now red throne, his body a bloody mess. The two dreamcrafters were also dead, blood pooling beneath their soaked corpses.
EXPERIENCE GAINED = 900/Dreamlord Defeated, Dream Crafter Defeated x2.
LEVEL UP! YOUR HP and MP HAVE BEEN RESTORED! +1 CONSTITUTION, +1 WISDOM. YOU HAVE 1 FREE STAT POINT TO ALLOCATE!
FREE FLOW HAS INCREASED TO THE UNCOMMON RANK! Free Flow - Uncommon: You have control over your blood and may will it to flow as you wish.
BLOOD SCYTHE HAS INCREASED TO THE RARE RANK! Blood Scythe - Rare: You may expend mana to conjure a blood scythe the scale of which is proportionate to the mana expended. Cost = Variable MP. Damage = variable +dexterity = variable +13. Effect: Armor Piercing - Blood Scythe attacks will negate common and uncommon grade protections.
NOTICE: DREAM LORD Lars HAS FALLEN! HIS FINAL WORDS RING OUT ACROSS THE HOUSE OF HAUNTED MEMORIES: “I love you Vilaya!”
More than a little baffled at the events which had just unfolded, Kail held his scythe at the ready as the air in front of him and below the dais shimmered. To his relief a familiar woman in a black dress appeared standing before the dais, tears running down her wide hazel eyes. He dismissed his scythe, running to hug her as she fell into his embrace.
“Do you know how we got here?” he asked after a moment.
She stepped back, wiping her face as she spoke. “He sent us here, the conductor, he hopes we’ll kill Dreamlords but I don’t know why he wants that.”
“What about James?”
Lunis inhaled deeply. ‘I glimpsed the conductor’s waking dreams. He didn’t consider James a threat which means…”
“There’s always hope,” said Kail.
Lunis shook her head. “Not when this house is involved. It crushes dreams and twists them into nightmares.”
Kail surveyed the room they stood within. Three closed doors led from it, one ahead and another to the left and right. Remembering the feeling of Iquisham’s blessing, he allocated his free stat point into intelligence before looking at Lunis. “How do we escape?”
Lunis shuddered. “I don’t know.”