Armando was a man of many talents.
First and foremost, he could bake some damn good bread. A very long time ago, he had been a Level 25 [Confectionery Architect], a very strange Class he'd obtained the day he'd made a small house out of bread and other edible fixtures. Why he had done that? Because he could. Because he wanted to. Because he wanted to prove to himself that something so stupid could actually be done. And the System had rewarded him with a Class to match.
Second, he was great at drawing. Before the fateful Level Up that had given him his most interesting Class, he had been a Level 10 [Drawer]. Sure, compared to his main Class it had been greatly underlevelled, but considering the fact that drawing was a hobby, it was a lot. Mainly, he had drawn people and landscapes, together with some small projects for his cakes and confectioneries. Point was, he was good. Not an [Artist], sure, but it fit him, and that was all that mattered.
Third, he was great at shaping things. Especially Memories. He was, after all, a [Memory Shaper] now. Yes, because after the... 'incident' of the bread house, some scouts from the College of Memoirs had noticed him and made a proposal that, at the time, he would've been an idiot to refuse: a chance to be trained by the College, to evolve his Class, which fit him like a glove, into something powerful that would allow him to help people. How could he have ever refused?
Which led to the fourth, and final, thing he was good at: starting plots.
After years of training in the House of Memories (never call it the College of Memoirs. That was the organization. The House had been there long before the College) he had come to understand the truth of the place: the College was abusing the House's ability to hold memories. It, no, She, because the House felt like a woman, at least to him, was suffocating, like a lake fish being flung into the sea. It was still water, but there was salt. In this case, the salt were all the memories that weren't of the people staying in the House. Tens of thousands of years of Memories.
And to that, add the fact that they were forcing Her into forms that weren't her own, that weren't what She desired to look like. She wanted to be homely, to make the people who walked her halls feel welcome and desired, even after centuries of this constant torture. Even now, now that She wished for it all to end, in a much more permanent way: with Her death.
He had cried, Armando, when this simple truth had been revealed to him by the eternal guardian of the House, the Elemental of Memories, the old doctor-carpenter who walked around with a leather bag full of a builder's utensils and could always be found somewhere repairing a crack in a wall or soothing the wooden floors back into shapes that wouldn't cause one's mind to bleed out of their ears (and no, not the brain, the actual mind, thoughts and memories and all).
But we're straying from the main point here: Armando was good at starting plots. He'd even gotten a Class for it: [Schemer]. It was only Level 8, and it was the more basic version of the [Plotter] Class.
Point is: he was good at starting plots. Not at ending them.
"Armando, you must come with us. The Grandmaster wants to see you," told him one of two men who'd walked inside his room in the living quarters of the House.
He looked up and back from his desk sprouting from the wall like some strange tumurous wallflower, and noticed who was speaking to him: Radias and Milagro, respectively the left and right hand of the Grandmaster now that the last one, Cariano Abascus, had died nearly a decade ago. They were wearing thier full armor, and not even the ceremonial kind.
That was when he knew.
"Ah, sure, give me a sec," he gave a gentle pat to the table, which retreated back into the wall, and crawled out of his chair. Then, with a soft, self-satisfied, and very fake, smile on his face, stepped towards the wall to his left.
"Get him!" shouted Milagro.
And all hell broke lose. The wall he was walking towards opened, revealing a door to another room in the House, a room that wasn't the one that neighbored his own: he was better at shaping than that, and he was one of the best [Memory Shapers] in the College. He didn't even have to bother opening it as the door opened and he walked through. For a moment, he heard the clanging of the two's armor, then the door closed and disappeared back into the wall.
He looked around and waved at the few people sitting in the House's library, smiling as he always did, and began walking away.
As he did he rummaged around his Bag of Holding, taking out a small scroll: a [Message] Scroll. It was a rather simple artifact in concept, just a piece of paper with a sigil drawn in some special transparent ink that cast on the scroll a permanent [Message] Spell, connecting it to another one. This one though was a bit more complex than that: first and foremost, it was connected to six other scrolls owned by his allies, people who believed in the same things he did. Seven little rebels in a House of sheep. Heh, sounded like the title of a song.
Anyways, second, the Scrolls were enchanted to make the ink of the messages written on them disappear after a while, making it possible to reuse them and, as a collateral effect, deleting any proof of the incriminating conversations within.
He took out a pen enchanted to always have ink at the tip (it was connected to a big inkwell somewhere in the House) and began writing.
Armando: They found me out. I'm going to leave as fast as I can. I suggest you do the same, and fast.
He kept on walking, waiting for anyone to answer, and just as began putting the scroll away, it began vibrating lightly in his hand. Opening it anew, he began reading the messages slowly appearing on the paper.
Kiria: I'm taking the books. It's still not over.
Poisoned Apple: I'm keeping the poisons. Can't leave these beauties to those idiots.
Armando chuckled a little at that, relief beginning to fill him up as he opened a doorway towards another part of the House, more messages on those lines appearing on the scroll.
Until an unexpected message appeared, from someone who wasn't supposed to know anything about this.
Assistant: Why hello my dear traitors, it is me, the Assistant. I am here to kindly tell each and every one of you traitors that you have been discovered and that most probably guards are already at your location, ready to apprehend you and bring an end to this most sad farce. We'll be seeing each other soon.
Then the scroll began to warm up, catching on fire a moment later as the enchantment was overcharged.
Armando breathed in deeply, then out just as deeply.
Then, shaking his head, he began walking again. They had expected things to go this way. He hoped the others would manage to escape.
----------------------------------------
Poisoned Apple's actual name was Rania, and she was packing away her equipment and, most importantly, her poisons and their ingredients. Why had she decided to call herself 'Poisoned Apple' in the communication scroll? It was a sort of inside joke that only she could understand: before being recruited by the College, she had been a Player in the Game, a simple [Poisone Maker]. Not even a [Poison Crafter], no, she was just one of the 'goons' who mixed things around and made only the things that were tried and true. It was during this period that she decided she'd had enough of being a Pawn and attempted to ascend the Board, to become something more. She didn't want to be a Queen or a King, no, she was more interested in being a Knight, a Messenger, or even a Spy. Basically, something more. But, like many Pawns, she had failed, she'd been captured before she could get there. Oh, she'd come close, closer than most, but still, she had failed. It was during that attempt that she'd gained her nickname of 'Poison Apple' after she'd succesfully murdered a Rook, a Protector, with, you guessed it, a poisoned apple.
The College had found her not long after, bleeding out in an alley, and they'd taken her in, freeing her.
Or rather, putting her in a gilded cage. One where she had been convinced to create more interesting poisons, ones that the College used to put an end to individuals deemed to be too troublesome.
At one point, Armando had come to her and made a proposal: her help for her freedom. And she'd accepted, because she was tired.
Now, today, it would all be over: she'd either manage to escape, and then wish Armando good luck with his plan, or die here. One way or another, it was over.
She took a half eaten apple on her desk and looked at it, smiling bitterly. The same apple that had killed the Rook, still poisoned, still ready to cause someone's death.
She began humming an old tune while she walked towards her door, a song so old it may as well be considered a Relic in its own right, one of the Traitors' Songs, forbidden and forgotten in all the world.
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
She opened the door, apple still in hand, and found four [Guards] staring right at her.
Welp, no way out it would seem.
She took a bite from the apple and smiled at the men and women.
"Hello! Anyone fancy a bite?"
----------------------------------------
Diego was a [Dream Archeologist of Lost Memories] and, currently, he was running, five [Guards] behind him following. The only reason they hadn't gotten him was his [Aura of the Sleeper], which was causing them to slowly fall asleep, slowing them down as they kept having to wake each other up.
He had been lucky to wake up in time to see the messages appear on the scroll before it caught on fire: something had caused a ruckus in his room, waking him up. When he'd looked after reading the final words of the Assistant he'd found out it was a hammer that looked suspiciously a lot like the Elemental's.
When he'd opened the door to his room to find the [Guards] ready to enter, he'd thrown the hammer right in one of their faces and started running.
And now, here he was, trying to reach the entrance to the House while also avoiding any of the men who attempted to intercept him on the way out. Smiling all the while. Because, really, there was no reason to be sad. He was just the [Dreamer], the smallest piece in the plan, the sacrificial pawn for the moment when push came to shove, even if they kept telling him that no, he was not, but they were lying, just sugarcoating the bitter pill.
He didn't care. He liked them. He liked them more than he liked anyone in this world. More than the College, which had allegedly saved him from that prison in the Dream, from the kidnappers who'd trapped his mind to take over his body. He was certain it was all a setup, just a way to try and gain his trust, to make him work for them.
He trusted his six friends like he trusted the old Elemental, because he'd seen his dreams, and in them he's found the truth the others had discovered not long after. The truth about how much they were hurting the House, how much she wanted this to end. She felt trapped in her own flesh, like he had been trapped in a labyrinth built upon his own mind. He understood that feeling, even though he knew he would never understand the depth of it, because he had been trapped in the Land for only a few decades, while She had been in this state for thousands of years.
More [Guards] appeared seemingly out nowhere, most probably because of the other [Memory Shapers], and he used another Skill:
"[Dreamer's Rule: Paths, Paths and more Paths, but Never a Way Out]"
A corridor opened to his right and he ran down it, followed by an ever growing horde of [Guards]. The House wasn't the Dream, no, but the House also wasn't in the Waking World. That was what they never understood, how She was alive: because the House wasn't just of this place. Such a simple concept, and yet they never understood, not even the [Shapers]. Too bound to the real world to ever see what wasn't there. He, on the other hand? He knew. Because he had never really left the Land. His other Class said as much: [Oneiric Prisoner].
He had never really left. Even this body, it wasn't his own. They'd let him borrow it. The only thing that was his was his mind, and he would damn well let it go to help his friends.
So he ran, and as he did he began singing in a voice that was both a child's and an adult's:
Keep smiling through
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Just like you always do
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away
----------------------------------------
Kiria looked as Diego ran on, and, ever so slowly, walked out of her hiding place.
The boy would sacrifice himself to give them the time to leave. Sadly, there was no running for her.
The old woman, the [Head Librarian of Forbidden Tomes], wouldn't be leaving this place. She wanted to, but there was nowhere to go for her. She'd found Alex a few minutes ago, during a lull in her hiding, and given him the books she'd manage to take.
She was going to take a page out of Diego's book and do some self-sacrificing to give some extra time to the others.
So she walked, slowly, because her joints were really starting to make themselves heard now, and no one gave her a second glance, not even the [Guards] looking for her, because [They Only Noticed Her When they Needed To]. And right now there was no need for anyone noticing the old librarian with a most murderous plan.
You see, the House had changed in the millenia since the College had found Her and turned her in their base of operation. Once upon a time She had been, as Her name suggested, a house. A quite simple, unassuming, house in the middle of the woods, looking old but well kept. If one had entered her, they would've been greeted by the Elemental who guarded Her, and they would've been offered a cup of tea while the House changed around them to fit with their memories of a place they called home.
Still, there were places that weren't as kind inside Her. One was the attic, where a great mirror hung on the back wall, ready to show one the truth about their own self, if they had already started on the road to finding it out.
The other place, the worst place, was the basement, where the worst parts of one's self were kept trapped, ready to be fought off, ready to be understood and beaten, bettering oneself.
Needless to say, no one in the College had ever attempted to go down there, and the attic had been inaccessible since the time a Grandmaster of the order had ended their life after gazing in that mirror.
But here's the thing: the beasts in the basement, they didn't disappear just because one didn't look at them. And there were as many of them as there were dark sides for each and every person int he House.
Beasts that were angry and hungry.
Hangry? Was that how it was called? Bah, younglings and their slangs.
The more she walked towards the deeper parts of the House, the less people she saw. Truth be told, the place was nearly deserted. So silent...
She began singing to herself, her tone of voice low, because it nearly felt like a sin to break the silence, but still she sang.
An old song taught to them by the Elemental himself in a flight of fancy. A song that been made forbidden a long time ago, for it had been sang by a man who'd tried to fight against the gods.
So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know?
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song
She was nearly at the door to the basement when, sadly, her Skill wasn't enough to protect her.
"There she is! Get her!"
She stopped for a moment in her singing, chuckling. They hadn't noticed.
But they would.
She stepped onwards, and her hand reached a door, no, the door's handle. It was a door like any other in the House. The only thing different about it was the sign someone had nailed on it. It read 'Basement'.
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
"Fuck! Stop her! Don't let her -"
But it was too late. She twisted the handle and, with a squeak of rusty old hinges, the door opened.
There was a low, animalistic, rumbling coming from the other side, before the door was shoved open and a tide of darkness came over her.
The last thing she thought before something bit into her chest and tore out her heart was that she hadn't felt a connection with any of the things from that place. She had been without inner demons and regrets.
She died with a smile.
----------------------------------------
Armando ran faster when he hard the bestial roars and the screams of people being torn apart.
But it was no use: all the windows of the House were closed and, no matter what he tried, he just couldn't open them. The House was in [Lockdown], one of the Grandmaster's Skills.
As he ran looking for another possible (and inexistent) way out, he heard a rhytmic sound that he'd started to hear much too often around the House: toc, toc, toc, toc. A hammer hitting a nail into a plank of wood.
He turned a corner and, right there, nailing a board over a crack in a wall, was the Elemental of Memories, the guardian of the House.
He was, currently, grumbling, his hands seemingly not managing to find a good position on the hammer's grip.
As he walked closer, the Elemental spoke: "You know what's the worst thing about being made out of memories Armando? It's that you become a routine kind of person, and that if anything changes in that routine you feel like everything is wrong. For example, it took me over a century to get used to all those Grandmasters and Assistants and Holders running around the House and doing their godawful bidding. And today, I accidentally lost my favourite hammer, and I don't have the time to go looking for it, because there's too much work to do."
Armando hesitated for a moment, then decided that he could incur the Elemental's wrath for a moment if it meant he could find a way out of the House.
"Elemental, do you know of a way to get out? We've been found out, and if they get to us there's no way to complete the task you gave us."
The Elemental looked up from the board he was nailing to the wall and turned towards him, raising an eyebrow.
"Do I look like someone who can help you with that? I'm made of memories, not holes. You gotta find your own way kiddo."
That said, he went back to nailing the board, grumbling about lost hammers and no time for naps.
Hope slowly began to abandon Armando as he understood that there was no way out of this situation.
He fell to the ground, his back to the wall, and put his head in his hands, the constant toc-toc-tocking of the hammer trying and failing to soothe him. This was it. Theyd failed. There was no esca -
Something rolled beside him and touched his flank. He looked down and saw a simple, old, frayed scroll.
"Fell out of your Bag of Holding lad. Be more careful, I already have little to no free time, I can't go around losing more of it cleaning up where you litter."
Armando took the scroll in his hands and, after a moment, opened it. There was a complex sigil written into the paper, a big circle with a representation of an eye walking towards a distant horizon with thousands of words written all over in an ink that was of the blackest black he'd ever seen. Everything should've overlapped, turning the scroll's page into an unreadable mess, but it was all visible, as if the words were written on different levels and, if he shifted his perspective just a bit, he could observe each and every one of them clearly.
"What's this?" he asked, breath catching in his troath.
The Elemental turned away from the now-nailed board and looked at him with a raised eyebrow: "What do you mean? It's your Wanderer's Scroll, right?"
That said, he turned around, put his hammer in the old doctor's bag he always carried around, closing it, and began walking away, patting the walls of the house, all the while grumbling.
"Used to be I'd have to do these repairs only once upon every Old Man's return."
But Armando didn't hear him. He only had eyes for the scroll he was holding. A Wanderer's Scroll. Which was just an old name for a Scroll of Greater Teleportation. An item infused with a true [Wanderer]'s spirit and enchanted to bring one person wherever they wished.
"Thanks Elemental..." he whispered more to himself than the now gone grumpy carpenter.
Then he heard the [Guards] finally reach him and, hiding the scroll in a hidden pocket of his clothes, he let himself be captured. As the men apprehended him, he began singing anew.
----------------------------------------
"Well, and they say I'm not a man of my word," gloated the Assistant in front of them. He was walking down their line of five survivors of their attempted escape like a sergeant in front of a unit of soldiers, his steps long and precise, following a slow rhytm only he could hear.
"I don't know what made you all think you could succeed in this crazy endeavor of yours. Like, come on! You really thought you were the first ones to attempt to rebel? The first idiots who were convinced by the Elemental that the House wants to die? It's nearly hilarious how stupid it is. It's a fucking building, you dumbasses. Oh, sure, buildings can come to life, but not to that point. Not without high Level Ski -"
Someone coughed behind him and the Assistant stopped, turning around.
"Now now, Assistant, there is no need to lose your temper in such a way. Calm down," said the Grandmaster.
The old, balding, man with a few surviving gray hair around his ears, the head of the College of Memoirs, sat comfortably on a chair behind his desk, his old bones supported and his joints comforted by the quite majestic furniture. His knobby hands were crossed over his stomach and, for the first time since he'd seen the man, Armando thought he didn't look like someone with hundreds of things to do and not even close to enough time.
"As for you, I expected more from you all. Especially you, Armando. You showed so much promise! Another decade and you could've become a [Memoirs Holder], one of the youngest in the history of the College. And the lot of you," his eyes roamed on the four other people in the room with him, before settling back on Armando, "No, the rest of you didn't have anything special going on. Well, except for you Diego. You're already quite special."
The [Dreamer], held up and in place by a [Guard], didn't look up from the floor. He hadn't moved in a while. Was he even breathing?
"Now, I'm sure each and every one of you knows the punishment for traitors in the College?"
Armando had to chuckle at that, because he knew they would all be surviving this.
"Sure do. Death. But, since we're about to die, may I ask: how exactly did you find us out?"
The Grandmaster looked at the Assistant, who, in turn, looked thoughtful for a moment, before he shrugged and answered: "Well, it won't matter anymore at the end, so I may as well tell you: you were betrayed, and by none other than your dear friend Alex there," he said, pointing towards the man.
With scraggly carrot-colored hair and a face that looked like it had been through a stampede, Alex's eyes opened wide: "You promised you wouldn't -"
"Yes yes, I promised, but it doesn't matter. You betrayed them, that's it! They're going to be dead, you're going to stay alive. You need not fear our wrath anymore. You did the right thing."
Suddenly everyone in the room was looking at Alex. Even Diego had seemingly decided to stop staring at that very interesting spot on the floor, his eyes now filled with murder.
"I will haunt your nightmares," he whispered, and yet his voice was heard by everyone, altered, as if someone else was speaking over the voice that should've come out of the body's mouth.
"Now now, Diego, we won't have any of that here. You'll be kept around as well, you're too much of an asset, but we'll have to... discipline you, yes. Maybe a moth trapped in the House's nightmares will help you remember who you owe the fact that you're around with a body," admonished the Assistant with a kind smile, as if he were telling a child that he wouldn't be getting candies for a week because of a tantrum they threw.
Diego slowly turned towards him and, to everyone's surprise and mild fear, smiled. He smiled, and that was his smile, the smile of the boy who had been locked up in the Dream, not the smile of the body he wore like some second hand clothes. He walked out, like a specter in one of those never-scary stories.
"You speak as if you own me, as if you could trap me again."
He stepped forwards, and Armando wondered how was doing that. He didn't know of the House's true nature, nor did he know how flexible Diego's aura was.
"You cage me, Mr Fake and Mr Fearful, for I never left my prison to begin with. You just opened a doorway to the courtyard. How could you ever put someone in a cage when he's already in one?"
His eyes became vacuous as he took another step forwards, before turning around.
"Sorry guys. I'll be leaving for a while. But I'll wait for the day when you manage to suceed. I'll be there to do my part."
And then he disappeared, and the body he'd been inhabiting all this time flopped lifelessly to the ground, an empty husk again.
Silence fell on the room as the Assistant looked at the body as it could come back to life at any moment.
"Well, that was unexpected. Didn't think the boy had it in him. Oh, well, no matter. We have other [Dreamers] who can do his job."
The Grandmaster nodded: "He was a valuable asset, but it is not a Nest of Arache."
They both chuckled, and Armando, not for the first time, wished he could've punched them right in the face.
"Well, regarding the remaining few, I think I have a pretty good idea on how to end your lives in a rather poetic way," continued the Assistant as he took a bag from the Grandmaster's desk. It didn't have anything special, any feature that could make one understand who it belonged to. And yet, the moment he pulled out the contents of the bag, they all knew who had owned it: Rania. Poisoned Apple. The jolly woman with a scarred belly and a passion for apple puns.
Three vials were taken out, all containing a transparent liquid that looked a lot like water.
"What did she call her creation? Ah, yes, the Nobleman's Poison. Truly a wondrous little thing she crafted from some random rocks. You, my dear traitors, will be drinking this. It won't be a pleasant end, or so I'm told from those who observed the effects on the test subjects."
Armando raised an eyebrow: "And you expect we'll just drink that? I'm sorry, but you have a thing coming your way if you do."
The Assistant laughed out loud, handing the vials to the Grandmaster, who took them with the same care one would take with some trash. He observed the vials for a moment, then shrugged: "There won't be any need for you to imbibe this... whatever this is. [It's Part of You], after all."
Armando watched the contents of the vial disappear while dread mounted inside him as he realized that the poison had, somehow, been transfered inside him with that Skill.
The [Guards] holding them released them and he fell to the floor, his hands instantly moving towards his throat, before they moved towards his stomach, which had began to cramp.
"Huh, quite the fast effect. I never understood if Rania had a Skill to make it more effecitve or if it was just that good. Wonderful poison. I'm sure it'll come quite in handy," mused the Assistant as he observed the vials, completely ignoring the people agonizing on the ground nearby.
Armando looked up at them, before attempting to move towards his two remaining allies, and failing miserably.
He looked at them and, slowly, extracted the scroll from the pocket he'd hidden it in. Lumia and Robert noticed him, but shook their heads no. If he had a way to escape, he shouldn't risk everything to save them. He would have to escape alone.
He hesitated only a moment, then nodded. He opened the Scroll -
"What is that? Get him!" shouted the Assistant, noticing his movements and lunging behind the desk at the same time, fearing that he was about to be attacked.
But he wasn't. Instead, Armando just thought this: Bring me away from here, somewhere far where someone can help me.
The Scroll shimmered for a moment, then disintegrated, and with it so did Armando, disappearing from the spot on the floor he had been lying on.
A moment later, the Assistant peeked out from behind the desk, and realized what had happened: "Oh, a Scroll of Greater Teleportation? Well, that's just a wasted artifact. The College is still in Lockdown, there's no way for him to get out, even with such a Spell."
And in that moment, a Communication Stone in his pocket buzzed. Taking it out, he answered: "Assistant here? What's your status?"
"Sir, we've managed to contain the creatures that had escaped the Basement."
"Great. How many casualties were there?"
"Fifteen [Guards] and around a dozen [Acolytes], sir. But the numbers could've been worse. The Elemental appeared out of nowhere and closed the door, blocking the rest of the creatures inside," the man chuckled, "He even opened a window, said the air smelled foul because of the beasts. We're supposed to be in Lockdown, the windows shouldn't be opened, but that's the Elemental. We have [Guards] stationed by it to make sure nothing comes in or out."
Of course, nobody noticed the pulse of magic that travelled out that window, bringing Armando with it, outside and away from the House.
Only the Assistant and the Granmaster suspected, and his allies hoped.
----------------------------------------
Armando didn't open his eyes. The light was too bright, and the pain in his stomach was getting worse and worse.
Then he heard a voice: "Well well, lookie lookie where the rose tookie me."
Silence, then a chuckle: "Ok, that was awful Alice, never do it again."
The voice was feminine and jovial and didn't seem at all preoccupied about the man lying on the ground and trembling in pain.
"Hello? Who are you? I'm Alice. Pronounced with a C, not an S. And actually, I don't think you're in any state to answer me. Hmmm... how about I get you home and help you out? You're gonna owe me one."
He grunted.
"I'll take that as a yes. Now... oh, I didn't bring anything with me. This is going to take some time. But don't worry, all's gonna be well."
That was more or less when Armando lost consciousness.