Before leaving to go back down to Gunsee, Alice had one last encounter with the [Witches]. All four of them (well, three: Lili had gone back to being a simple [Apprentice Witch]) met her at the start of the path that led downwards.
Witch Aria greeted her with a smile and nod of her head, tipping her again-crooked hat; Witch Beria gave her a grudging nod and did the same with her own hat, little stars sewn on it seeming to shine of a light of their own as they glared at her; Witch Commodora grinned wolfishly at her and, as the other two, tipped their hats, although she seemed ready to go for a tackle hug… because why not. Alice would’ve liked that.
Finally, little Lili looked up at her and tried her best to look intimidating and serious, only managing to look cute for her efforts.
Alice, on her part, bowed slightly in greeting, unwilling to imitate the motion of tipping her hat. She wasn’t a Witch after all. Just an Occultist. Someone lesser than the women in front of her, and at the same time at their level, for she brought all that was left of the ancient knowledge of her world: a final arc to preserve the old traditions from all the places her family had been to in the generations that were. Now she understood why her grandma had always been so adamant she learn everything she could from her.
“It was a pleasure being here for the Festival. The tales you told were great.”
She turned to look up at Witch Aria and squinted: “Although you still have to tell me about that Dawn Lantern.”
The old woman laughed, a sound like a tree falling to the ground, rough and crackling with age: “So you didn’t forget.”
She waved her hand dismissively: “The idea to build it came to me in a dream, or rather, a nightmare. A single fragment of the dawn, trapped in a cage of dreamstuff, forced to forever sleep and bring light to us. I hear that’s how the Traveler created the star in the Land of Dreams.”
Alice’s frown froze in place as curiosity was momentarily substituted by fear, then a strange hope.
Still, she had to be careful: “Are you telling me dreams are a place?”
“Sure they are, and people can visit them. [Dreamers], they’re called. I met a few back in the day but I never managed to walk the Land of Dreams with them, no matter how much effort I put into it. Apparently I don’t have the right mind for it: too grounded to the ways of the world, I am,” she chuckled, although Alice didn’t understand the joke.
Still she smiled: she liked Aria the most of all the [Witches], probably because she reminded her of her grandma.
They spent the next few minutes saying their goodbyes, shaking hands and making promises to come see each other, which caused Averick to grimace slightly at the thought he’d have to climb these mountains again.
“Let us hope our next meeting doesn’t follow traditions then,” said Alice in the end as she bowed to leave.
“What do you mean?” asked Witch Beria, suspicion painted on all her features.
“It’s simple. The first time we met I spoke to three [Witches]. The second time I spoke to four,” she looked at Lili, who for some reason blushed and hid underneath her hat, “So I hope that the third time there will remain three. Don’t grow up too fast Lili, alright?”
And with that ominous sentence she turned around and began walking down, waving goodbye to the three confused witches and one even more confused apprentice.
After they were far enough away Av looked at her and asked: “What did you mean back there?”
She smiled bitterly and shook her head: “Traditions always have the weirdest ways of enforcing themselves Av, but sometimes even they choose the easy way. There are three [Witches] in that village, and when next we’ll meet, for the third time, there will be three [Witches] still. The only question is who the three will be.”
The answer said everything and nothing, leaving Averick with more questions than the ones it had answered, but from the look on his girlfriend’s face he knew that this matter was closed, so instead he told her he’d managed to convince a village woman to give him the recipe for her grilled cheese.
That brought a smile of delight to her face.
----------------------------------------
A few nights later Alice laid in bed and activated what was probably her favorite Skill ever: [Fall Asleep].
The moment the words left her mouth with the intent of using the Skill she felt her eyes close and blessed sleep overtake her. Since she’d obtained this ability she’d started finally losing the bags that had been under her eyes for the last six years. Oh sure, she’d had some medicines to help her sleep… at all, but she’d still had those bags and had felt constantly sleepy without the ability to actually sleep. She’d hated that. She’d actually hated most of her life back on earth.
Sometimes, as she laid in bed, before sleep, she wondered what her life could’ve become if she’d stayed back on earth. Most likely she would’ve ended up drinking a poisoned tea to end her life the way she wanted to, probably a foxglove one because she’d always wanted to see what the hallucinations would look like. Other times she liked to think she would’ve gone completely bonkers and started murdering random people, becoming a famous serial killer on the level of Jack the Ripper. She’d even been close enough to London to make the part!
Of course they’d been only fantasies, but in her worst days they’d helped her keep going. Yes, she knew that imagining herself strangling people to death, or slitting their throat to drink their blood, or poisoning their drinks and watching them slowly die in front of her, wasn’t exactly the best of coping mechanisms, but hey, you’re (probably) not psychologists, so you can’t judge!
She opened her eyes and felt the mask now covering her face, the fox mask Albert had given her, the mask that called her Garda, in honor of the lake where her granny had once lived near. She’d always liked the milder climate there, said her soul remembered the colds of the Soviet Union (although sometimes she called it the Russian Empire in reference to the time when the tzars were still alive) and the unkindness of the Americas.
She took her time getting up, basking in the sensation of the cool grass underneath her, which was slowly becoming softer and comfier, welcoming her back, telling her to take her time, for Time didn’t work quite right here.
So she did, feeling the gentle rays of the ever-setting sun caressing her skin,hearing the sounds of the distant wilderness that was there but also was never quite there, for animals dreamed but their dreams were much simpler than hers or other humans (she’d long since decided to call the whole of humans and other races just humanity because nobody had thought of a good way to name it).
“Are you feeling lazy today?” suddenly asked someone by her side.
The ears of her mask perked up and turned towards the direction the voice had come from as she opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of Albert standing nearby, smoking a pipe that instead of smoke released little fishies that were swimming through the air around him, making little cheerful sounds.
She nodded: “Nah, I just like the sensations. Whatcha smokin’?”
“Fish dreams. The small ones. They always manage to make me cheerful.”
“Why? You weren’t cheerful already?”
He laughed: “Oh Garda, one can never be too cheerful.”
“I beg to differ, I met a lot of people who were too cheerful for their own good.”
He waved her off: “Pah, it was probably early in the morning. Everyone’s grumpier in the morning. I am grumpier early in the morning.”
Alice laughed and shook her head: “I somehow find that hard to believe.”
He shrugged: “You do you. Wanna smoke?” he asked, offering her the pipe.
“Sure.”
She took the wooden pipe in hand and, after a moment of hesitation (since she’d never smoked in the past), she put the lip to her lips and took a small drag.
Immediately her taste buds were overwhelmed by the taste of happiness and thoughtlessness, a complete lack of worries flowing through her. She opened her eyes and, instead of the woods she’d been sitting in, she was now at the bottom of a lake, light shining over her head, refracted again and again by the calm waters above. Colorful coral that shouldn’t have been there swayed in invisible and unfeelable currents, the colors bright and happy. Little fishies swam around her, nipping at her hair and mask, booping her nose and doing little barrel rolls and other acrobatics in their weightlessness.
She smiled and basked in the sensation before the pipe was taken from her hands.
The vision started to slowly fade, easing her back in the Dream proper, the little fishies making small sounds of goodbye and waving small fins at her as they disappeared into the corals, until those, too, became bushes in the forest.
“So, how was it?” asked Albert, a pleased smile on his foxy face.
She shook her head: “You always know the right thing to do, eh?”
The old fox chuckled. She hadn’t noticed up until now, but a lot of the fur sported white tufts of hair here and there, a reminder of his age.
“Eh, I’d like to say you’re right, but I’d be lying. I’m only good when it comes to the Land. Outside of it? I’m not as good.”
“Well, I never met you outside the Dream, so my judgement is a bit skewed, but I think you’re a great man.”
Albert didn’t say anything immediately, but in the hand he nodded his head: “Thank you, Garda.”
“Any time.”
“Very well. Now, let me teach you how to harvest a Dream for memories to empower your Concepts.”
[Dream Poisoner Level 12!]
[Skill - Harvest Memory (Minor) Obtained!]
----------------------------------------
Two days later
Alice stood in the Land of Dreams and looked towards the setting sun, a hand in her pocket touching gently a small bone button. She wanted to visit Isse, the arachne she’d become friends with (sort of), but not today. Today she had something important to do.
“So, are you ready to hunt your first Nightmare?” asked Albert as he sat with his legs crossed by her side, a cup of… probably tea in his hands.
“I already did that in one of my first visits, Albert.”
“Yeah, and you weren’t supposed to. That Nightmare should’ve been something else.”
He shook his head, downing his cup of tea in one go and then letting his long tongue loll out of it as he panted. Clearly the tea had still been hot.
“Recently things have begun changing in the Land. Nightmares aren’t following the usual rules. And they keep wearing fucking hats of all things. Why hats?”
“What’s so important about the hats?”
“It’s not, but it’s consistent between most of the Nightmares I’ve fought in the last few months. Always they wear some kind of fedora. I don’t understand why, and it scares me. Things haven’t really changed in the Dream since the Sixth Bingo Night of Doom, and even then it was only mild changes to the landscape, not the essence of the Dream itself.”
Alice nodded and looked at the man, who meanwhile had sat up.
“So… be careful, Garda, alright?”
“I will, don’t worry. And, worst comes to worst, I’ll wake myself up,” she took out of another pocket a small needle painted red by a drop of her blood. If she wanted to wake up she’d just have to prick herself with it. She’d done this after the last time she’d visited Isse and had been forced to ask Siidi to kill her to get her out of the Dream.
“Good hunting, Garda.”
She nodded in thanks and walked out of the clearing and into the forest.
When she stepped inside she immediately stopped and sat back down on the ground, beginning to rummage in a small bag of seeds at her side inside which she’d stored several packets of seeds. Seeds she’d been gathering by hand for the past month every time she wandered the Dream. It had taken a lot of time and some convincing on Albert’s side to have their lessons in some specific locations, but in the end she had a massive collection of them. Seeds for plants she could use in ways other than their strict medicinal uses.
After a while she finally found what she’d been looking for: horsetail seeds.
She smiled down at them, taking one out of the pouch, and kissed it lovingly, whispering: “O’ seed of vagabonds and vagrants, of lovers and sisters, show me the way to a Nightmare worthy of me.”
Then, using a trowel she’d carved herself out of a tree (with Wax’s help. The little girl had been very happy to help!) she dug a small hole in the ground and placed the seed there.
Then she sat down, closing her eyes and thinking about a clock’s hands moving speedily onwards. She injected the image with memories of her grandma slowly getting older, with stories from her youth and memories of Alice’s own youth as she steadily grew up. It hurt, but the hurting was good because it gave the act meaning, and that meaning was that Time was important right here, right now. Or, if not Time, at least her meaning.
After a while she started to feel strange, as if she was being stretched at the seams, her body being forcefully moved forward, which she allowed as much as she could, but when she just couldn’t move forward anymore she felt like her skin was being pinched and torn away. Immediately she slapped her face and whispered: “The emotional pain will be enough for you. Take that as payment.”
Immediately the pull lessened to a mere child’s attempt at dragging her the way it wanted and she sat, waiting.
Finally, an unknowable amount of time later, the pull ended and she opened her eyes.
And right there, where she had, once upon a time, planted the horsetail seed, lay a bush of the little plants, a bush connected to a trail of them. You see, traditionally, horsetail was planted by young adults, especially couples and the newly married, in a place of significance to them; after a month of waiting they would come back, looking for the trail left by the plant, and travel alongside it to the place where they had planted it first. Supposedly the journey had a meaning of some kind. Alice, like her grandma, had always thought it was very stupid.
On the other hand there was a lesser known tradition from Scotland that had much more use to her right now: it was that, with the right words, after planting a horsetail, the trail could lead you anywhere you asked it to, not unlike a Wanderer’s Rose, although the horseshoe naturally took a lot longer to grow and, usually, by the time it reached what you desired it was gone. But here in the Dream, where she could just let time pass in the blink of an eye? Here it became extremely more useful.
“Thank you,” she said, patting the plant she knew had been the first to grow. The stalk bent slightly, seemingly trying to curl around her fingers.
“You did well. Now grow. Keep growing forever and then more, let none bind you and cut you off.”
With these parting words she turned around and started following the trail, her fingers caressing the stalks as she passed by them, and they seemed to bend down as she went, acknowledging her as… something, she couldn’t tell what.
On the other hand, the System absolutely could tell what she was being acknowledged as by those simple plants: a queen. A queen of remembrance who brought with her the knowledge of a world that had forgotten everything about its past, or rather, the part of its past shrouded in shadows and murmurs. She was the last one, the last Knower, the last Shaman, the last Witch, the last Healer. She was so many things, but of all of them, the Last one. Someone who could thrive in such a world, for the Gods had long ago made a deal with another, older, deity: that this world may be a refuge, a place for the shunned and the forgotten to find rest and peace, to share their knowledge once more with people who would be willing to learn.
They had been so progressive at the time.
So the horsetails bowed, for in its very simple thoughts they saw Alice, Garda, as the last True Gardener, someone whom’s orders and requests they’d follow to the best of their abilities if only it meant that what they had once been would never again be forgotten.
Alice walked down the trail and, after hours that were seconds and eternities, she reached what she’d been looking for: a Doorway. The entrance to a person’s dreams. And, from the ominous feeling it emanated, it seemed to her that it housed one nasty little Nightmare.
With her right hand she touched, one by one, the five vials containing the poison from the Nightmare Hemlock she’d gathered a while back, hemlock which she’d empowered over time with the memories of the nightmares she’d had as a child (they had been bad and had been what had started her insomnia problems), together with nights and nights of concentrated belief that these vials contained the most powerful ‘feed’ for a Nightmare. So powerful in fact that it would destroy them.
She took a deep breath.
Let it out.
Then put her hand on the Doorway.
“In Christ’s name, let this wound open anew,” she said.
It wasn’t necessary, but it felt right. Ritualistic. She believed it necessary, and her belief empowered the action.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The way opened.
And she stepped in blood.
----------------------------------------
The Nightmare on the other side of the doorway was a battlefield filled with corpses.
She was covered in blood too for that matter, for she had just passed through a wound to enter this Nightmare, but that was alright: it was a price she was willing to pay.
Carefully, as she looked at the battlefield around them, she rummaged inside her seed bag and, after a moment, took out a single, bright red, seed. A consecrated seed, bathed in her blood and sins under the remembered image of Saint Agnes, patron saintess of purity and chastity. Now, Alice was far from both, and she had committed few sins she was truly regretful about, which hadn’t helped in the slightest in this process, but now? Now it would come in handy.
With a small knife she cut her left arm, allowing herself to feel the pain, for it was necessary: nothing could be gained without sacrifice, or so her grandma had taught her. Then, with a gentle gesture, she placed the seed inside the open wound, pushing it deep enough that her flesh nearly covered it.
For a moment, as she glanced up while gritting her teeth not to scream, she thought she could see a speck of movement. A small, black, figure, walking in the distance.
Then the seed began to sprout and she only saw white hot pain as it flared through her.
But it was alright: this was a sacrifice worth making. She needed to feel the pain, for only through suffering could her sins be forgiven, and only through suffering could the Rose of Saint Agnes truly be born and protect her, help her.
But why would she need that kind of protection?
Because she had recognized this Nightmare.
It was the same one she and Albert had entered a long time ago, the night when she’d first met Isse. The one he had run away from while shouting ‘Blood Nightmare!’ in fear. The Nightmare of that battlefield with the red sun glaring down at them, at the intruders. She remembered it, and because of it she’d chosen to go all out.
The seed flowered, emerging from her skin and planting roots in her muscles and bones. At some point the pain just disappeared entirely, in its place a kind of lack of sensation.
So there actually is a point in which humans just stop feeling pain. Huh, handy.
She hadn’t realized it but she’d been screaming in agony while all this happened, while the vines grew from that one seed and slowly covered her body, thorns slowly making their way inside her and forming an additional protective layer over her. And then, finally, a single rose bloomed right over one of her eyes, opening up to let her see the world through the eyes of a saint who had once been beheaded. Had she still been on Earth and not in a dream she would’ve seen so much, but here, in a place where the God she’d once worshiped with her mother and father didn’t exist, she could only see the bloodied battlefield, the headless armor stepping towards her and the corpses on the battlefield around her as they began rising, flesh knitting over bones, guts going back where they were meant to stay.
She faced the approaching knight and, in one hand, took the first vial of her poison, knowing full well that what lay ahead wasn’t going to be an easy task.
Then, with her rose-enhanced eye, she saw something else of interest: a boy’s body, standing stock still in the middle of the battlefield, his eyes empty as he stared ahead. She thought she recognized him from that one glimpse of this place a long time ago, but she wasn’t certain, for that time the place had been an actual battlefield filled with people massacring each other. The one difference she was certain of was that the boy, at the time, had been running for his life.
What happened to him?
Then the headless-armor-thing was upon her.
Just like that: one moment it was still far away, the next she blinked and it was raising its sword to cut her head off while standing right in front of her.
She immediately tried to dodge… and failed miserably, because the Headless Knight had a longsword, and she’d still been in range.
The sword struck at her arm and she imagined seeing it fly off somewhere nearby. Instead the sword struck the vines that covered her entire arm and she watched in amazement as many thorns were sheared off while a few others managed to downright stop the blade, allowing it to cut only a few millimeters deep into the vines wreathing her.
The Headless Knight looked down at this and… remembered.
Suddenly Alice saw it: there had been others like her; madmen and madwomen who fought with pain on their side, sacrificing themselves in the name of power to attempt to beat it. Their armors were covered in knives that cut both ways, their eyes were carved out to see beyond the first layers of the Dream’s skin, to see the weaknesses in the weave that they may exploit to attack; others reforged their bodies in the heat of the stars’ remembered radiance, burning off everything and instead rebuilding their bodies in steel.
They had tried everything to stop it, and sometimes had even succeeded, for even it wasn’t all powerful, but… it remembered: ripping off their armors together with their skins, cutting off their heads, fighting hand in hand with those metal bastards. Even they could be killed.
And she? She wasn’t even a tenth as good as they had been.
Alice batted her eyes, the memories grim and horrible.
Then she threw the first vial of poison at the now-moving Knight. The vial flew between them and smacked against the armor right where normally the helmet should connect to the rest, breaking apart and releasing its supposedly lethal dose right inside.
The Headless Knight didn’t even flinch.
They had tried to poison It back in the Court, more than once, but they had always failed, for how could you poison iron? The answer: with rust. But it would never rust, not even if it was ever killed for good.
Still, it felt a twinge of the powers and concepts behind this single vial. It would’ve killed anything lesser than it. With enough time she could become a great dreaming one, like one of the oldest masks in the Court. That would be… good. Maybe it could use her. The whole Court of Masks could. Maybe she could free them.
Another vial, same place, same twinge.
Something like a shudder traveled down the armor’s back. Pleasure. Pure, unadulterated, pleasure, at the simple thought that the Court could be brought back to its ancient glory days. It had existed for that reason alone. To protect the Court and make it more powerful. This would be the greatest fulfillment of its mission: to bring it back!
A third vial.
Ok, now it was getting annoying.
It raised its sword and, lightning fast, brought it down.
This time It angled Its weapon so as to hit someplace without thorns to block and, this time, It cut right through the protective layer, although the plants managed to stop It from doing more than nicking her skin.
“What the fuck? This much killed that motherfucking hatted millipede!” cried out Alice as she jumped back, putting as much distance between herself and the Headless Knight.
The Knight, for its part, looked at her, and felt nothing more than confusion emanating from her. Not even the slightest bit of fear. Oh, yes, she would be perfect.
It stepped closer to her, attempting to use its favorite ability and step over the Dream and its senseless seams, but found it couldn’t move its legs.
Looking down it saw why: they were bound by… something. It was green, that much it could tell, and for a moment it marveled at the color. It had been a long time since it had seen anything other than red.
Meanwhile Alice began running… towards the boy.
No way in Airm I’m leaving this dude behind with that monster.
She had, luckily, managed to throw a handful of ivy seeds at the ground underneath the Knight, where they had rapidly sprouted, drinking in the blood from the ground and managing to clean it of the infesting red of this place. For the first time in… centuries, really, there was something other than red in the [Dream Painted Red], and it was wonderful.
The Knight tried to step forward again, but found the Ivy’s grasp too strong, so It brought its blade down, cutting right through it, and watched in mild fascination as it immediately regrew to bind It anew.
Alice had broken the rules in a way: she hadn’t used a tradition on the Ivy, no, she’d just empowered the concept of the cute little plant clinging to anything it could a hundredfold, imbuing the seeds with memories from her church days, in particular with the memory of the multiplication of bread and fish, and rabbits. Lots and lots of rabbits fucking non-stop. Apparently that was enough for now.
She reached the boy and, for a single moment, was struck by a strange sense of recognition, a certainty that they had already met.
Then she shook his shoulder: “Hey, wake up dude! There’s no time for this!”
There was no reaction from him.
The Knight cut through the ivy, but it drank the blood of the battlefield and clung to It still.
“Hey!” shouted Alice in the boy’s face.
Still no reaction.
Then she felt something impact with her plant armor and being stopped, not even managing to cut through a few thorns.
She turned around, eyes narrowed, the rose in her eye closing slightly to imitate the motion and make the sentiment very clear that she didn’t wish to be disturbed by small fry. And small fry it was indeed: a single soldier who had cobbled itself together… somewhat, still blood drenched, still covered in gaping wounds that would’ve killed anyone else. It screamed at her and she put one of her remaining vials inside its mouth, watching as the glass butt hit the back of its throat, causing a memory of gag reflex activate, making the man-thing cough and close its mouth violently, yellowed teeth breaking through the thin glass and liberating the poison inside its head.
Then she watched with mild satisfaction as the man did a ‘Witch of the West’ and melted into a puddle of fleshy innards that soon became just red goo.
The Knight felt that. It felt a part of the Dream die permanently. Sure, a very small part, infinitesimal even, but it had been centuries since last someone had managed to do even that.
It violently tore at the ivy and jumped over the weave of the Dream, managing to free itself from its loving grasp. The plant immediately began spreading, trying to reach it: there was so much blood in the ground that the plant could’ve probably fed for centuries and probably not managed to drink even a thousandth of it. There was so much more!
Meanwhile Alice swore as she rummaged as fast as she could inside her pouch: it was bigger on the inside, naturally, but the problem was that it seemingly lacked a bag of holding’s ability to just give you what you were looking for. She swore even more because she was certain that the thing she was looking for had been right there, right where she was rummaging, and she didn’t have time to play games with a capricious pouch because the Knight was free and slowly moving towards them.
Then, finally, she found it: a small amulet, nothing more than a piece of string tied into seven knots and holding, at the very front, a flower of garden angelica. The small, greenish, plant, seemed to shine of a light of its own as she put it around the boy’s neck and prayed to every god willing to listen that it would work. Because, you see, in ancient traditions it was said that this little plant was very effective at breaking hexes and curses, and if this place wasn’t either a hex or a curse she didn’t know what could be.
She watched, waiting for something to happen, she didn’t know what. Maybe a bright flash of light? Maybe for some screaming black thing to emerge from the boy’s mouth and leave while cursing her?
No, the only thing that happened was the boy fluttered his eyes and, suddenly, the glassy look in his eyes was gone.
He looked around in confusion, then panic rapidly began taking over that, but before he could start running or screaming or what have you Alice reached out with a vine covered finger and pricked him with a thorn right in the nose.
“Ow!” he screamed, clutching at his face, the panic disappearing in the face of the rapid pain.
“Hello and welcome back to the land of the thinking I’m Garda pleasure to meet you we must fucking run because the Headless Knight is coming for us. Run!”
She unthinkingly took him by the hand, pricking him in many places, but now the pain was laced with adrenaline and panic (for the boy) and a strange sense of elation (for Alice). It had worked! It was still working! Everything she’d studied under grandma was working! She nearly felt like crying, but that would probably be a bad idea, especially with a rose sticking to her left eye that would probably find the salty water tasty.
As for the Knight, It marveled at the girl even more for every second that passed: she had woken up the boy, something It hadn’t managed to do in months of attempts. Granted, most of Its attempts had involved trying to kill him or inflict pain, which had all failed on account of It being unable to actually touch him.
It stepped closer, but they were running and, for some reason, he couldn’t quite reach them, as if the Dream itself were bending away from It. Then It saw why: the flower around the boy’s neck. It was trying to keep It at bay! How wonderful!
The Knight stepped, imposing Its will over the flower’s, and suddenly the plant’s will and spell broke. It was too young and unreal to even think about fighting something as ancient as It.
But the little verdant thing had done its job: the boy and the intruder had reached the Doorway that had led her into this Nightmare.
So they were trying to run away.
It shook… its shoulders, because It didn’t have a head. No no no no no no no no, that wouldn’t do at all.
The Knight stepped, appearing right behind their back, but there came the last vial of poison right into the neck of its armor. The fifth vial. It could clearly feel that, for some reason, this vial was much more powerful than the other ones. It felt the poison flying everywhere around it as the vial broke, but mostly flowing inside its neck hole.
And then the payload hit It.
It staggered, a sense of sickness filling it, the same sensation It had gotten a few times in the Court when It had done nothing but feast and feast and feast for days on end. It was full. Too full.
So much so that -
It vomited.
Red innards, melted and chewed, bones and grist and flesh, all leaving the hole in its armor, plastering the red ground and the two in front of It.
Then they were through.
Out of the Nightmare.
The Knight stumbled for a moment.
Then It saw the doorway, still open, still bleeding because of the girl’s rite.
It decided to step through.
But It was stopped, as if It had just hit a wall.
There was another flower right there, on the ground in front of it.
That had been, naturally, Alice. The moment the two of them had stepped through the Doorway she turned around, managing somehow to immediately find what she’d been looking for. A single sprig of hawthorn. Little white flowers jiggled with the rapid motions of her hand together with beautiful red little berries.
She traced a symbol in the air, an approximation of a key, and chanted: “In Janus’ name, the two-faced, three-faced, many-faced, but never single-faced God, I request this doorway be locked, the way barred and closed, for some wounds teach lessons better not learned! Show me the face of Ending!”
Then she threw the little sprig and turned towards the boy.
“Alright, we should be safe.”
“Who are you? How are you here? Where are we? Why are we in a forest? What the fuck’s happening? That plant won’t hold the Knight at bay!”
She was immediately bombarded by half a dozen questions, although the last one was an affirmation.
“Ok, calm down. Calm down I said! Breathe in, breathe out. Now, we’re in the Land of Dreams, you were locked inside a very, very, very bad Nightmare, and I got you out. Sadly couldn’t defeat it, but at least I got you out. And don’t worry, I’m sure my little trick will keep It at bay for a while.”
That was when the Knight reached the Doorway and basically face… ‘front planted’ into an invisible barrier that kept the Doorway inaccessible.
“See?”
The Knight, for its part, saw the Dream outside its Nightmare, but It didn’t care for that. It cared only for the girl who was somehow managing to give It trouble. Oh how It wished It could just take her and bring her to the oldest Masks of the Court, that they may reshape her, give her a mask of her own and make her see the world as it truly was: a festival unending where the only form of entertainment that didn’t taste like dust was violence, like a spice that could then enhance any other vice they could desire to partake of.
The Knight pressed an armored hand against the barrier… and pushed.
Immediately the distant image of a being with many faces that kept on changing, holding a key and with a cock by his side, the animals staring at It. And, while the thing, no, the god, was many faced, all the facets it was showing to It were ones of denial, of ending.
It pressed more against the barrier. This paltry image of a god was nothing, nothing! It had fought against actual gods and won! It had planted Its sword in their eyes and dug Its way to their brains, then down to their hearts, where It had eaten them to empower Itself. This was just a memory! It held no power over It!
“Oh, shut the fuck up you cheap Headless Horseman knockoff!”
It remembered the Court, how it had feasted for centuries on the corpse of that god, bathing in its blood and dancing at the beat of what remained of its dying heart until that, too, went still. The Court held more power here than this little memory from another world, even in its weakened state!
“And shut the fuck up about your little group of even cheaper mamuthones knockoffs,” continued Alice, although she was guarded.
The barrier broke to pieces.
And Alice swore.
“Fuck!”
“We can’t run, It will catch us. It always does!” shouted the boy, even though he’d already started stumbling backwards.
Then Alice remembered.
With a vine covered hand she rummaged inside her pocket, the vines on her leg parting to let her reach in. And she felt it: the small button.
“Take my hand!” she shouted to the boy, who did as ordered, uncaring for the thorns piercing his flesh. Anything to stay away from the Knight.
Then Alice pulled on the red little thread of the button.
The Dream went dark.
And they were gone.
The Knight stared, completely speechless, or rather, thoughtless, at where a moment ago the young woman and the man had been standing.
Then It felt the bindings of Its Nightmare straining and calling him back.
Reluctantly, It did. There would be other nights, other occasions to meet them. And anyways, It had seen the girl’s face. It was sure that one of the oldest masks could find her.
----------------------------------------
[Conditions Met: Dream Poisoner -> Occultist of Otherworldly Traditions]
[Occult Herbalist Class Consolidated!]
[Occultist of Otherworldly Traditions Level 30!]
[Skill - I Called Upon my Old Gods, and They Answered Obtained!]
“Oh, I just Leveled Up! And that’s one fucking amazing Skill!”
She stared at the starlit void over her head as she lay on her back, panting, as the armor of thorns slowly receded from her flesh, concentrating only around her eye, where the roots of the rose started to eat away at it.
Someone shuffled beside her and she briefly glanced their way. The boy was there, breathless and surprised, probably because of the journey to come here. She knew that, for some reason, it was very strange, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on the why.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It was my pleasure.”
Silence.
Then: “Are you from Earth?”
Immediately Alice froze in place, her eyes widening to the dimensions of dinner plates, before she turned towards the boy and asked, very intelligently: “What?”
“Janus, mamuthones, they’re things from Earth. From Greece and Italy, if I’m not wrong. So, are you from Earth?”
Alice’s mouth hung open, her fox mask letting her tongue lol out in sheer surprise.
Then: “Yes. Are you?”
“I’m from England,” said the boy, numbly.
A moment later Alice, without even realizing it, flung herself at the boy and hugged him. For some reason she began to cry, but the tears were drunk greedily by the rose that had decidedly taken her eye’s place.
They hugged and mumbled, then blubbered and tried to say things but they were both too emotional and they couldn’t say anything that the other could understand, and all the while they hugged and hugged and -
And then Isse appeared together with Siidi, a confused frown on her face.
“Garda, who’s this guy and why are you crying and hugging him?”
It took her a while to clear out the snot from her nose and get her voice under control, blocking the manic giggling in her throat, as she answered: “He’s from home. My home. The one I was born in.”
“England,” mumbled the boy.
Mumbled Liam, although the two girls didn’t know that yet.
But at the mention of England Isse’s mouth unhinged open as her eyes widened.
And then there were three teens (or young adults) bawling their eyes out and hugging in a blubbering mess.