Level 4; poisonous poppies.
I was sitting at a garden table with the pieces of crystal mirror spread out in front of me, there were a few pieces that I had managed to fit together, and a lot of pieces that I hadn’t, I picked up one of these and tried to fit it into the mirror. This was the 4th level; a garden table surrounded by red poppies; that stretched away in all directions. The sky over head was black, no stars, no sun. the only light came from the petals of the poppies; a vivid red light. And where the poppies stopped there was just blackness, I wasn’t sure if the ground fell away, or if there where creatures out there in the darkness, and I didn’t want to find out. The table had the instructions, engraved on its top;
‘Find the pieces that were lost’
‘Repair what was shattered and broken’
‘Complete your task before the frost’
‘Or your end will be spoken’
And so, after some deliberation I had started to collect the pieces of mirror to try and reassemble it. It was frustrating, like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without any picture on it, and worse, without all the pieces. I added the shard I was holding to the growing pile; it didn’t fit. My stomach rumbled. I still had some stale bread in my inventory but I was holding on to that, reluctant to eat the last meal that was from outside the dungeon. I looked around at the garden of poppies, I had come to hate this red light, but more than the light, I hated the smell. These flowers gave off a stench that I cannot describe, but under it, under the awful odour, was a smell that made your mouth water. It hadn’t taken us very long to realise you could eat the flowers… but there were… side effects. I let out a sigh, and looked at Tom, where the side effects where on full display, he was lying on the ground with half closed eyes in the grip of the flowers spell. Next to him lay Scar doing a dead ferret impersonation with all four legs in the air. The flowers produced a sort of waking dream; you saw things, colours that weren’t really there, and sometimes people. They gave an escape from the world around you. Tom, who was still coming to terms with Boo Ra’s sudden departure, had taken to them fast and hard. I had not, maybe it was because I was an illusionist, or maybe there was another reason; but for whatever reason I could not shake the feeling that the colours weren’t real, that they were just some sort of hallucination, and what I wanted was real colours, I did not understand the mechanics of how they worked either, so I tried to avoid it as much as possible. The problem was that besides letting you escape from the moment, they also provided some sort of nourishment, and with our dwindling supplies, there wasn’t much of an alternative. I stood up from the table, stretched and picked a flower, I stood looking at its glowing petals, and then, feeling resigned ate it. For a moment nothing happened, and then the garden exploded with colour!
The dream, for want of a better word, was never the same twice over. Sometimes you could just see colours playing across your vision. Sometimes you saw the garden, but not how the garden actually was. And sometimes you saw people; today I saw my father, he was a tall man with a short grey beard and when he looked at me his eyes, which might be called soulful, took on the look of disappointment. “I always told you that nothing good comes from adventuring. You should have given it up when your class came through; but no, you always had to talk about ‘rising above what you were given’ and ‘seeing things in a different way!’ and look at where it has got you!” he gestured at the field of red flowers stretching away around us, “why don’t you stop this nonsense and come back home, your brothers are all happily settled and-” “I am never going back to that crummy village!” I said, cutting my father off “I hate it! Everyone doing the same thing! No one thinking an original thought, what sort of life is that!” My father looked at me, and then turned his gaze to Toms’ sleeping figure, “and what sort of life is this?” I looked at Tom, who, at that moment looked like thought of any kind, was a long way off. I looked back at my father, “you are right.” I said [it hurt to admit it] “you are right, this,” I gestured around me “this might well be hell! But at least I don’t have to listen to you tell me what to do!” we locked eyes and a stillness settled around us, at last my father shrugged “well, if that is how you feel…” he turned and slowly, started to walk away through the red field of poppies. I watched his retreating back; he looked smaller than he should, older somehow, I felt a pang of guilt, and that made me even angrier, and stood up and screamed at the now distant figure “this may be hell, but at least I got here on my own! Not like my brothers!” I rolled over and rubbed my face, the conversation with my father had left me feeling, like most conversations with my father; small and a bit of a failure. I pulled up my stats menu to try and feel better about myself. I was level 9 after all, which was better than any non-adventurer could hope for. My stats read as follows;
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Health 70 Manna 120 Stamina 30
Strength 5 Agility 8 Vitality 4
Spells; Imitate level 2 Distort level 1
Fear level 2 Fury level 2
[I was very pleased with ‘Fury’ it was the only spell in my roster that actually had some offensive ability, and unlike ‘Fear’ Fury could work on creatures of any level. ‘Fear level 2’ would fail on any creature over level 10, on the other hand ‘Fury level 2’ would not fail because of a creature’s level; it could fail for other reasons, or just be very weak. Fear and Fury were both emotional illusions- they made the target mistake some orderly emotion for the cast one- this made them unpredictable. But I still thought they were better than Imitate and Distort which were sensory illusions.]
Feeling a little better about myself I got up and walked, unsteadily to the table. How long would it take to complete the mirror? I had no idea. But when you came down to it the very concept of time down here was vague at best. My perception of time was hopelessly inaccurate, I just kept working until I couldn’t take it anymore; until I couldn’t stand looking at one more shard! I stood up; I didn’t want to risk seeing my father again. So, instead of eating another flower I went for a walk round the garden. All the while keeping an eye out for the stray glint that betrayed the presence of mirror shards. I walked, at one point I found a piece of mirror no bigger than my little finger nail, I picked it up and then walked on. I walked until I was fed up with it, then, at last I gave in and picked another flower, and ate it!