“Today I learned what ‘The Farce’ is. Apparently some time ago in a gala-whatnot (Glade?) a rather long distance away, there was this most advanced civilization of knights with impressive weaponry (Life-Savers or some such nonsense.) As legend would have it, these knights were also wizards! Imagine! knights like I, running around, galavanting all over and dabbling in wizardry! What’s more, their enemies (an empire of some sort) used the same exact weapon 3 times and failed every single time. Insanity I tell you.”

-Excerpt from Lancelot’s Diary

Everyone rose early the next morning, nursing their bruised ribs thanks to a rude awakening from Gryphon. As they packed up camp Gryphon informed them that Lancelot, despite his clumsiness, would be teaching them sword fighting, essentially volun-telling him. Lance, ever the intelligent one, fumbled over his words before deciding that he must not have remembered a conversation he had with Gryphon and accepted the task, unaware that Gryphon had thrown him under the bus (or carriage?) and he hadn’t actually agreed to anything.

To Lance’s credit, He did a fine job of training them, he was an expert swordsman with years of training from a mythical race. They trained every day before packing up and walking and after settling down for camp, covered in bruises. The first few days of training they didn’t see much improvement and were rather close to giving up but somehow, despite his blundering, Lancelot was… strangely charismatic, making them want to go on despite their apparent failures.

On the second day of their travel, Jason lay down exhausted. The training was rather intensive and by the time the end of the day rolled around Jason had no difficulty slipping into the dark embrace of sleep.

…

Jason woke, finding himself kneeling in a clearing in a part of the woods he didn’t recognize. It was still night but the sky was absolutely filled with constellations and stars. But they didn’t look like anything he had ever seen, on earth or here. He suddenly became acutely aware of his inability to move and a low chanting that came from behind him. It wasn’t any language he could recognize but the words filled him with a deep feeling of dread and revulsion.

Jason struggled to move from his position, succeeding momentarily before suddenly finding himself in the same spot he was prior. The owner of the mysterious voice stepped into view. He wore a dark, blacker than black cloak that seemed to have a mind of its own, writhing and shifting as if it too was repulsed by the unnatural language the man spoke. Jason could feel a sharp pain in his head as the man continued. His mouth felt dry, almost as if filled with sand and his body felt heavy like it was filled with lead.

“Who. Are. You.” Jason managed to croak out.

The man paused his pacing for a second cocking his head, but still, he continued his chanting. A voice, deep and grating came suddenly from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“Types like you don’t belong here. You are the plague upon this land.” The words were coming from the cloaked man but yet the only movements his mouth made were the words of his chanting. “You would ruin everything.”

“Wh-” Jason said, unable to get his words out.

The voice chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. “You ruin everything you touch. Removing its best qualities.”

Although Jason could not see the man’s face, he could hear the sneer in his words and the boundless hatred rolling off him.

He thrust his face close to Jasons and in the light of the stars, Jason saw his captor’s face… or rather, his lack of one. His face was one of a ghoulish skull with heavy scarring and fiery red eyes.

“And I’m going to enjoy every moment of snuffing your existence out.”

Suddenly Jason felt as though he was looking through a tunnel and being dragged out. The mysterious man snarled, realizing he was losing his prey and lunged, to no avail.

...

Jason lurched up adrenaline pumping. It was morning. The whole group was surrounding him and Lance gave out a surprised squawk at seeing Jason suddenly sit up. Olivia and Melody looked concerned, Lance looked mostly confused, Gryphon looked impassive and Cetiri Just looked bored.

“Are you ok Jason? You were writhing on the ground. It looked like you were in extreme pain.” Olivia asked, worried.

“I- I’m not entirely sure…” Jason started. “I was… in a clearing with constellations I didn’t recognize…”

Jason proceeded to explain his experience, once he was finished he looked up and noticed that even Gryphon seemed concerned.

“Not even 3 days into this world and you’ve already attracted a dream stalker?” Gryphon said, shaking his head. “You seem to be a trouble magnet. Hopefully, not a trait you continue to exhibit or else our journeys are going to be much harder.”

“A dream stalker?” Jason, Olivia, and Melody said in unison.

“A vicious cult of anti travelers. People who are jealous of the abilities we as travelers demonstrate.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Jason shuddered, “I would rather not like to meet one again.”

Gryphon grunted, “Good luck with that” he chuckled. “In order to get rid of one after they’ve locked on to you, you’re gonna have to let an experienced dreamwalker into your dreams to expel them.”

The color drained from Jason’s face.

Gryphon chuckled again. “Lucky for you, I am an experienced dreamwalker.”

Jason sighed with relief. “At least I know I won’t be facing one of them alone again.”

…

The day was relatively uneventful aside from the bruising and training that Olivia and Jason received. Afterward, they ate a dinner of venison that Gryphon caught and Melody cooked. Then Jason and Gryphon prepared for the night.

The group got ready to sleep, setting Gryphon as the first watch. Gryphon watched as Jason prepared, noting that he was rather nervous about the prospect of intentionally putting himself back into the control of the mysterious man.

“You’ll be fine,” Gryphon assured Jason.

Jason shook the nervous, jittery feeling out of his body and lay down trying to sleep. Finally, after a long period of restlessness, he slipped into a deep sleep.

…

Jason woke again, back to his position from the previous night, still unable to move. The Dream Stalker was there, waiting for him with folded arms.

“Welcome back” The man chuckled darkly.

Jason, trying to seem brave, shot back with “Pleasure.”

The dream stalker hissed. “You got lucky last night boy. But you’re a fool to think that you can escape the Dark One.”

Jason began to feel the effect of the chanting as his mouth once again grew very dry and his limbs felt filled with lead.

Where is Gryphon? Jason thought desperately.

The chanting had reached a crescendo, power thrumming through the air. Jason began to feel as though he were being torn apart, atom by atom. Suddenly a massive shockwave of magenta-colored energy permeated the area and Gryphon’s voice, tinged with anger boomed out from everywhere.

“I thought I told you not to interfere!”

Jason couldn’t see under the mask but the terror in the man’s voice was apparent. “Wait, no, I didn’t know!”

The only response was a massive boom as the cracks in his mask glowed with magenta energy, growing more intense by the minute.

“Nooooooooo” The man wailed before the mask exploded, the now-empty cloak falling down to the ground.

The resulting shockwave caused Jason to black out and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

…

Jason woke the next morning feeling refreshed, but something was bothering him. As they sat down for a quick warmed breakfast of venison from the night prior, he went over the events of the night in his mind. There was something off about the dream stalker’s last comments and Gryphon’s intrusion. Was it the immediate fear that the man seemed to feel? No, but he was sure that was part of it.

The others seemed to notice the metaphorical wheels turning in Jason’s head but said nothing about it, choosing to let him think in silence.

Finally, it clicked. Jason sat up and looked at Gryphon, suspicion evident on his face.

“You knew the dream stalker!” He said accusingly.

“I did,” said Gryphon impassively. “Let’s just say I’ve had a few run-ins with them in the past. Needless to say, I scared them off and told them not to interfere with me or any other travelers associated with me.”

Jason considered this for a moment “Well at least we shouldn’t have any more problems with them.”

“Most likely not,” Gryphon agreed.

With that settled and Jason’s mind put at ease, he finished the rest of his breakfast.

…

The next two days went without much incident and Olivia and Jason started showing progress and often came off from their training with fewer bruises than the day before. One evening, the evening of the sixth day traveling, they all had fallen asleep and Jason, who was the first watch, was trying his best, unsuccessfully, to stay awake.

Suddenly he found himself lying on the ground with a strange, flexible, one and a half foot long creature which appeared to be covered in bone standing on top of him, a weapon, similarly made out of bone, pointed at Jason’s throat. The creature chittered, a very cute sound for a creature that threatened his existence. Jason froze, not daring to utter a word.

As he looked, careful not to turn his head, he noticed that a small army of the creatures was descending on the other party members, waking them in the same manner. The other all woke in much the same way as Jason, staying quiet to avoid losing their ability to breathe. All except Olivia that is.

Upon awakening, Olivia screamed and moved as if to push the creature off of her. Unexpectedly, instead of getting killed or merely pushing the creature off, the creature flew off of her as if propelled by a rocket, twisting in midair to avoid hitting a nearby tree.

This took the other creatures by surprise and in their moment of hesitation, the camp became active as the members began throwing the creatures off and arming themselves. Before any battles could be waged, however, Gryphon shook and twisted into the form of a griffin.

The creatures instantly froze before turning and hightailing it back to the forest. Lance, a little slow on the uptake, thought they were running away from him and shouted out after them “Yea that’s right, you run!” His speech slightly slurred from just waking up. He then turned around, saw Gryphon, and screeched, taken by surprise.

Gryphon turned back, his bones shifting to his humanoid form. “Bone weasels,” he said with an expression of disgust. “Nasty creatures.” He then noticed that the others were staring at him and he straightened up and clapped his hands. “Well, good news, the presence of magical animals shows that we’re coming out of the edge of this world and towards the center of it. Try to get some sleep and we should reach our destination tomorrow.”

…

After regaining some much-needed sleep the crew packed up, once again following Gryphon as he winded, seemingly aimlessly through the forest. Near the end of the day, they suddenly found themselves outside of the massive forest and into what they assumed was the main part of the world, right next to a small town.

“Well, here we are,” Gryphon said sounding relieved. “And there’s the tavern!” He said with the enthusiasm of someone who’d been forced to drag around a bunch of inexperienced travelers for a week and was suddenly seeing the prospects of being able to sleep in a bed again.

“Best tavern in this world. Or so I’m told anyway,” Gryphon winked.

...