Same drill as last time. I'm going to add onto it, so don't crucify me for how short it is. Also, I love the comments. Whoever gave the 4.5 star rating, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Alistair stood up shakily and walked towards the tree that held the strange mask. He reached out his hand, and touched it. Actually touched it. He could feel its smooth texture, like glass, underneath his fingers. It was real. His thoughts raced. Did it actually talk to him? Was that this Stories Ruling Entity (RE). Each of the stories were said to have their own RE, their own AI governing above all the kingdoms in that story like a deity. Alistair’s head was spinning considering the implications of the conversation. It seemed the RE had agreed to give him all the things if he completed the story. Also… it said that he would become the Mad Hatter. However, the mask talking could all be a part of the illusions brought on by the hallucinogenic Starberries.

Alistair picked up the simple mask and an information window appeared in front of him.

]

Odd White MaskQuality:Story/UniqueDurability:IndestructibleAn odd white mask.

Alistair examined the back of it and fingered the inside, trying to find any evidence of that strange talking mouth. He closed his eyes and put the odd white mask on. He opened his left eye to be met with blackness. He opened his right eye and he could see the world.

‘There is only one eye hole… that is unfortunate. That will interfere with by depth perception a small bit.’

He reached up to take the mask off, but his hands slipped. Alistair furrowed his brow and reached up to take the mask off, but his hands found no purchase on the smooth surface. When he tried to find the edges of the mask, there weren’t any.  

‘W-what… It won’t come off! Did it meld to my face?!’ Alistair cool mind was agitated. The emotions that Alistair was feeling exceeded the suppression limits of the skill Sigh of Acceptance. This means Alistair was pretty shaken.

Due to taking the mask, the Mimsy is now unhappy. Prepare yourself.

Alistair looked around quickly. Mimsy was also a word that appeared in Lewis Carrol’s poem “Jabberwocky.” However, in the poem, Mimsy was not a noun, but an adjective. Alistair backed away from the tree. He heard the rustle of grass. He whipped his head around and jumped back, readying himself. However, there was nothing.

Alistair was sweating under the mask. One did not receive a warning window if a normal monster was nearby. Only for special monsters or NPC did this happen. Special monsters came in all shapes and sizes. The thing that was deadly about them was they possessed a wide range of skills. All monsters have a basic attack. Some of them have a special skill that inflicts an abnormal effect. However, the thing about Special monsters was even their regular attacks inflict abnormal statuses. They also possess a wide arsenal of special skills that include buffs and attacks.

It was something if it was a named monster like Cuddles the Killer Bunny (some background info, that named boss had wiped out a raid party consisting of 30 members and was still on the loose), however, if there was no name at all, and just a “the” in front of the name, that means it was a Unique. This was bad.

Alistair ran and ran, using his massive agility to distance himself from his original position. He was in no position to encounter a Unique. His health was still regenerating. There had only been 4 recorded instances of a Unique. Each had taken a raid force of in which at least 3 guilds participated in.

‘How lucky am I?! A new extra-dimensional story and now a Unique?! What is this…’ Alistair though as he ran… and ran. He had run for about thirty minutes and then he had to rest. 100% Sprinting for 30 minutes straight was quite taxing upon his body. He leaned against one of those strange twisty trees and breathed heavily for a few minutes. He slid down the tree and sat, with his eyes closed.

‘Gah… this mask is annoying… I can breathe fine even though there is no mouth hole. That is definitely weird. And the quality being Story/Unique…. I wonder what this mask will evolve into…’ He thought while stroking his face. Well, mask now. He gazed and then reeled back in shock. There was an arm reaching out towards him through the loop in the tree he was sitting under. He scrambled away from the tree and stood up. There was no person standing behind the tree.

It was just a severed arm in the tree. It was clad in a ragged black sleeve. Alistair walked towards the tree, intrigued by the sight. The arm was threaded through the loop in such a way that it appeared the arm was reaching down towards the ground. The end, which appeared to be severed at the shoulder, dripped blood. The blood flow had created a long, red stain, on the blue, softly glowing trunk, creating a purplish light, kind of like when on puts a blue screen in front of a red tinted light. It seemed the blood had been smeared, and not long ago judging by how far the blood had trickled and the wetness. Alistair looked over his shoulder at the portion of the forest that was tinted by the otherworldly purple light gained from the blood on the borogrove’s trunk. There, as if the purple light was a spotlight, there was a severed leg in the loop of a borogrove tree.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

‘Right out of a horror movie… is this the work of the Mimsy?’

Alistair considered the possibilities. It was an idiotic thing to continue to follow the body parts, however, his curiosity wouldn’t let him stop. It was like a chain that dragged him on towards his potential doom. As he walked, the pieces got smaller and smaller. The blood splatters and the consequent light always guided him onto the next grisly spectacle. By the time he had passed the 4th tree, he had already gotten used to the grisly sights. Some might say that his adaptation to the situation was abnormal, but the whole situation was abnormal.

As he followed, the pieces of the body began to get more and more mangled. 5th was another leg, but it didn’t look like one. The flesh was plastered on the inside of the loop. The knee joint was bent in a way that it wasn’t supposed to and dangled, which indicated that the joint had been destroyed, or at least hurt bad enough that it could move like that. The next 5 trees were of different fingers. The blood was so little, that it was hard to find the next finger.

After finding all the fingers, the next sight was the one that surprised. There was an arm hanging from the tree, this one also clad in a ragged black sleeve. However, in its hand, it clutched a sword. Alistair recognized the sword. It was the one that the black swordsman had been using when he fought the satyr demon. Alistair reached out to touch the sword, but as soon as he did, the sword turned to dust. Alistair furrowed his brow and kept walking, looking for the next grisly piece of the puzzle. Except, there was no other body part visible. There were blood splatters that were obvious due to the light reflecting off of them. Thus, like a slave, Alistair was dragged by his curiosity to go ever deeper. As he walked, he counted all the body parts he had seen thus far. The only thing that was missing was the head.

The blood splatters started to take shape as time went on. First, they looked like human footprints. Then, they took the shape of a footprint that had wicked claws. At some points between changes, the blood splatters were smeared over long lengths. This troubled Alistair immensely. This meant one of three things:

1: There were multiple enemies that ripped apart the black swordsman and were now working to distribute his body across the forest.

2: The enemy that had ripped apart the black swordsman was a shape shifter.

3: The worst possibility: The swordsman was ripped apart by a group of shapeshifters\

Shapeshifters were notoriously hard to exterminate, and thus, there was usually a culture of doppelgangers that inhabited every kingdom. They were naturally peaceful. They also occasionally took non-violent infiltration missions, however, one needed to find them before enlisting them. Most were peaceful, but judging from the carnage, these were shapeshifters, these were the violent kind.

Alistair was extremely worried and continued walking, his boot blade making sounds as it cut the grass below his feet. As he walked, absorbed in his thought, he did not notice the trees’ lights were getting darker the more he progressed. The blood splatters seemed to becoming more and more wet as time went on. When Alistair finally found the end of the blood trail, the forest was quite dark, and the trees only gave off a faint, otherworldly glow. What met his eyes was a horrific sight.

There was a single borogrove tree that was completely blood red. The light it gave off was unnatural, even in this odd world. The light it cast on the other trees created an ambiance of dread. In the loop of this unnaturally colored tree, there wasn’t the head, as Alistair was expecting, but something else. However, before the description of what was in the loop, first comes the description of what was around the loop.

Around the blood red tree, in various pieces, lay the body of the satyr demon. Arms, legs, pieces of the torso, its pale blue skin was covered in the light of the red tree. The tail that had caused the demise of the black swordsman lay curled around the tree. IN the loop of the tree, sat a stuffed bunny that looked like this, drenched in blood.

The scariest part was, it had its little black bead eyes trained right on Alistair. It seemed to stare right into his soul.

‘It’s just a stuffed rabbit… the Mimsy is probably messing with me…’ Alistair regained his composure… that was until the he heard the voice.

The rabbit tilted its head

“Aww… busted huh? By the way, I’m not the Mimsy. My name is Twyr.”