Dreamer's Throne -
Chapter 35
“Lock the gate!”
Rushing through the entrance into the gang’s storage room, Gorn and Obe hurried to shut the metal gate that blocked the passage, throwing the bolt closed. Having just sprinted as fast as they could all the way from the crack leading to the ghoul’s nest, they were both out of breath. With a thump, Obe leaned against the wall, sliding down it until he was sitting. Gorn opted to lean over, his hands on his knees as he stared into the darkness.
“What was that?” Obe finally asked, his voice hoarse.
Shaking his head slowly, Gorn straightened up, his gaze still searching the darkness beyond the gate for any sign of movement.
“Do you mean the betrayal, or Viper?”
“Either,” Obe said wryly. “We should have seen the betrayal coming. The signs were there, but I didn’t think they would be so blatant about it.”
“Someone saw it coming,” Gorn’s lips twitched into a smile. “Seriously, sometimes I wonder if that kid can predict the future.”
“I know. It’s almost creepy how accurate his predictions are. But who on earth is that Viper? I haven’t heard about any free Awakened who are that strong.”
“That’s a great question. We’ll have to ask Garrett when we go back up. Speaking of which, are we going up now, or do you want to wait?”
“We have to wait,” Obe said, pushing himself to his feet.
Walking over to the wall, he opened a cupboard that was set against the wall and pulled out a crossbow, tossing it to Gorn. Taking out another crossbow for himself, he passed over a small quiver of bolts and then began loading his weapon. Gorn put the torch he had been carrying into one of the sconces on the wall and then joined Obe in loading his crossbow.
“Regardless who survives, they’ll likely come back this way, and when they do, we can have a chat.”
“Good idea.”
With loaded crossbows, the two men waited in the dim light of the single torch that burned on the wall. The room was so quiet that the crackling sound of the flames on the torch could be heard clearly, but it wasn’t long before the sound of footsteps alerted them that someone was coming. Only able to hear a single set of feet, they exchanged glances that were half-excited, half-horrified. Both of them preferred for Viper to have won the fight against the two adventuring teams, but the thought sent spikes of fear shooting down their spines. It wasn’t long before they heard a raspy voice calling out from the darkness and a crimson mask appeared in their vision, seeming to float through the air like some sort of malevolent spirit.
“Hold fire. It’s just me.”
Walking closer, Viper looked exactly the same as he had when they’d first entered the tunnel system, with his face-covering mask and his long black cloak. Somehow, that managed to be scarier than if he had arrived covered in blood. Sharing a glance, neither Gorn nor Obe wanted to open the gate, but they couldn’t very well leave their savior locked outside it either. With a grimace, Obe finally stepped forward and threw the bolt back, opening the gate for Viper.
“What happened?”
Stopping before he stepped through the gate, Viper held out a small sack that clinked lightly, his other hand revealing a couple of metal badges.
“Here are all but two of their adventurers’ badges. Turn them in at the guild to let them know that the others are dead. It’s up to you whether you reveal their betrayal. If you do, tell the guild they were ambushed by the ghouls that had been hiding. You managed to kill the rest of the ghouls, but not before the two teams fell.”
Taking the bag, Obe paled as he reached in and pulled out a blood-covered badge showing a stylized green dragon. From the weight of it, the bag was filled with badges, meaning that, when combined with the badges Viper held, it was likely that not even one of the adventurers had made it out alive.
“What about you? And the nest stone?” Gorn asked, earning himself an incredulous glare from Obe, who couldn’t believe he had brought up such a sensitive subject.
Realizing after the words left his lips that his question could easily be misinterpreted, Gorn lowered his crossbow and waved his hand frantically.
“No, I mean, what should we tell the guild about you? And the nest stone is yours. We don’t want it.”
“The nest stone is gone,” Viper said, his voice lowering with something akin to fear lacing through it. “I wasn’t joking about the ghouls. They seized the nest stone and retreated, probably taking it somewhere else. The others are dead and the nest stone is gone. A team should be sent down to double-check it and seal up that crack, but that location should be safe from here on out since the nest was destroyed.”
Swearing under his breath, Obe looked at Viper, his expression full of fear.
“Hold on, you saw the ghouls?”
“Mm. I won’t be coming with you, so when you return, you can say I got lost in the darkness. I kept two badges that I’ll return later. Pretend that everyone got separated.”
Without another word, the masked adventurer turned and walked back down the tunnel, his black robe quickly blending into the darkness. Left staring at each other, Gorn and Obe could only shake their heads in disbelief. This whole expedition had been terrifying, but at least they were alive. Shutting the gate, Obe locked it again and the two of them climbed up into the inn’s basement. As if they’d already agreed to do it, they both grabbed the large millstone that covered the hole leading to the underground tunnels and lifted it into place. Though, whether it was to keep the ghouls or Viper out, they weren’t saying.
Not that far away, Garrett was still sitting at his table, appearing fast asleep. His mind was elsewhere, in a haze-filled world, sitting on a gleaming throne as he watched different scenes play out in front of his eyes. With Gorn and Obe back in the inn, a relieved sigh slipped from his lips and he was finally able to relax. The whole situation had been fraught with danger, but somehow it had worked out much better than Garrett could have hoped.
His ability to ride along with Viper had been a huge boon, but what had turned out to be the most advantageous was the discovery of what had happened to the two three-bloom Dream Flowers that had been left with the ghouls. When the expedition team had first walked into the empty ghoul’s nest, Garrett had sensed an intense mental presence coming from within the ground, under the nest stone’s location. Smaller presences were also buried in the ceiling, alerting him that something was there.
Though the presence was alien, Garrett could feel threads of familiarity in it, so as the others talked he had reached out, trying to connect with it. The result completely blew him away. The first was the Dream Flower Gorn had carried. Crawling out of the earth under the drained ghoul’s nest, it had quickly reattached itself to Gorn, returning him to his state from before the first encounter he had with the ghouls. Reunited, the tension Gorn had been carrying evaporated, causing the aggression that had been building up in him to melt away.
Gorn’s Dream Flower had not been the only one to tangle with the ghouls, however, so Garrett had Viper look for Reeve’s flower as well, hoping that it too had survived the fight. Instead, he found something completely different. Invisible to the adventurers, a large, mutated flower had crawled out of the earth, wiggling happily when it saw the six-petaled flower Viper carried.
Dipping and waving as if it was trying to communicate its subservience to Viper’s Dream Flower, it crept closer to him until it rested at his feet. The flower was large, much larger than a typical Dream Flower, and its stem and roots were blood-red. Sharp fang-like teeth protruded from the edges of its petals, reminding Garrett of a Venus flytrap. The flower’s desire to submit to the beautiful six-petaled flower Viper was hosting was clear, and after a moment of thought, Garrett nodded.
Feelings of happiness and belonging rippled through the mental connection Garrett shared with the Dream Flowers as a new light lit up in his mind, followed by half a dozen smaller lights. Unlike the normal connections Garrett possessed, these new connections were crimson, and when he focused on them they gave off a slightly bloody feeling. Along with the feelings came a flood of knowledge as the details about what happened while Garrett had lost connection with the flowers trickled into his mind.
Unable to beat the ghouls directly, the Dream Flowers had opted for a different strategy, instead focusing on targeted destruction by combining together to absorb the ghouls’ life force one at a time. Trapping the monsters into a messy tangle, the flowers had sacrificed themselves, sending their own life force along with the life force of the ghouls to the two larger Dream Flowers. However, just when their strategy was working, a variable had appeared. Driven by their instincts for self-preservation, the ghouls had crawled back to the nest stone, trying to summon more monsters.
Completely fascinated, Garrett watched the replay through the senses of the two remaining three-bloom Dream Flowers as the ghouls pulled themselves into the nest, reaching out to touch the smooth stone hiding in its center. The two Dream Flowers sensed their opportunity and Reeve’s flower, as the slightly smaller of the two, was chosen to act. Reaching out a tendril, it too touched the nest stone, sending its energy into it, even as the ghouls pushed the last of their mental energy into the nest stone.
With a flash, the nest stone accepted the mental energy, reflecting it back into the world in the form of a new monster. The effort drained both the ghoul that reached out and Reeve’s flower, causing both of them to crumble away, transforming into dust. In their place was a new creature, a mutated version of the ghoul and flower that melded them together into a creepy-looking abomination. As if it was triggered by the successful formation of the creature, the nest stone began to drain the energy from the pile of dead bodies that surrounded it, sucking up the lingering life force and flashing again. With each flash, the pile shrank slightly as the bones and flesh were drained of any energy.
Realizing that he might be the only person in the world who had witnessed a nest stone working, Garrett watched in a mix of horror and awe as more of the mutated flower ghouls appeared, these ones slightly smaller than the first. Thanks to the energy of the Dream Flower, the flower ghouls each carried a mutated flower of their own that trembled with a repressed desire for energy.
Sensing their attention, Gorn’s Dream Flower shook and drew back slightly, even as the ghouls it had trapped were drained of any life force that still remained by the nest stone. As a construct of pure mental energy, the Dream Flower was immune to the energy-sucking force the nest stone was giving off, and thankfully the flower ghouls didn’t seem interested in eating one of their relatives. It was into this new situation that Obe, Gorn, and the adventurers had walked, allowing Garrett to reconnect with the Dream Flowers.
The nest stone had produced a sort of interference while it was creating the flower ghouls that had then lingered in the room, fading slightly with time. Guessing that he’d have regained his connection sooner or later, Garrett knew the situation couldn’t have gone much better for him. There were still some hurdles to overcome, specifically regarding the adventurers’ guild, but Garrett would deal with those as they came.
Through his connection with the main flower ghoul, Garrett commanded it to take the bodies of the eight adventurers and the nest stone, creating a new nest somewhere else. He was assuming that another expedition would be mounted, this one much stronger than the first, in order to make sure the nest was truly destroyed, and he didn’t want the flower ghouls to be discovered. To help with their transition, Garrett had Viper go along with them, escorting them into the winding crypts that spread under the northeastern side of the city.
According to maps he’d seen in the palace, the crypts ran from the adventurers’ guild down to the edge of the city wall that butted up against the swamp, passing under the inn he was sitting in and continuing out under the northeastern wall. It was a massive complex with so many passages and rooms that it was impossible to map accurately. It was also filled with undead of various types, and the flower ghouls would fit right in.
Gorn’s recovery was another boon for Garrett, and he could feel the restored connection as the Dream Flower settled back into its host. Though he’d lost his connection to Reeve, he had gained a tremendous advantage in the flower ghouls in exchange. Gorn, however, was a different story. The Ghoul’s Tooth lieutenant was integral to Garrett’s connection and control of the Ghoul’s Tooth gang, and he’d been feeling the strain of losing his influence over the gang’s lieutenant over the last few days.
Once he was sure everything was on track, Garrett sighed and leaned back on the Dreamer’s Throne, blinking his eyes as his vision returned to his room. Feeling drained, he shook his head and opened up his status window, checking where he was. With the inclusion of the flower ghouls, he could sense both possibility and threat. If he’d learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that growing in power and ability would invariably put him on a crash course with others who wielded power. His plans would have to change, and fairly quickly at that, to accommodate the new challenges he would undoubtedly come up against.
Thankfully, between Viper, his Guardian flower, and the new flower ghouls he found at his command, Garrett felt like he’d finally developed some strength that could be used in the real world. His personal safety had been bothering him for a while, and with these new developments he was no longer a sitting duck for any half-bit adventurer with a smidge of muscle. On top of that, he could feel the energy building up inside of him as he inched closer to completing his soul spark. Overall, life was looking really good.
Beautiful Bewitchment [1]
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