Chapter 2:
Once all the wizards were destroyed, Dream had gone on a trip of enlightenment isolating himself.
Many of their children had come by to visit wondering what had happened to their parents.
"They're dead."
Dream told them all about the plot of Carlyle and his creation. If it wasn't for him or his stupid brother everyone would have been happier.
"So my father wants you to get stronger so you can absorb your brother's darkness?" Aldwyn's son asked.
"Yeah."
"That seems like an awfully big task," one of Sigourney's older daughter said. "There has to be another way."
Dream however had already accepted his fate.
"No, there's no other way this is the only way."
Still none of the children gave up. All had invested time in finding another way to absolve Dream of his sad fate.
Many generations of children passed before they had created the Dreamcatcher.
Carlyle's children were often cursed with high mortality rates despite holding the ultimately powerful red soul which had the affinity to alter reality.
The wife of one of Carlyle's great great grandchildren had lost a daughter to this and had pleaded with Sigourney's great great grandson to attempt to cure her.
Previous experiments with creating the dreamcatcher had resulted in failure upon discovering that reversing the affinity of a soul caused the soulbearer to have a prolonged lifespan while being granted magic opposite to their genetic abilities for a short time before dying within days.
Orange souls which had an affinity to magic that boosted stats, decreased stats. Yellow souls which had an affinity to seeing through barriers and using paralysis, could use magic that create barriers, Green souls that had an affinity for healing magic now caused instant death, blue souls which had an affinity for void magic had cleansing magic, cyan magic which had an affinity for boosting magic stat drained it, purple souls which had affinity to premonition magic would have abilities to look back in time.
After experimenting on the red soul, reversing it's affinity. Sigourney's great great great grandson had discovered that it could also absorb the affinities of other magic.
Like previous experiments however Carlyle's great great great great granddaughter hadn't survived for very long.
With time, generations had figured out how to prolong the lifespan of a soul who's affinity had been reversed by allowing the soul's affinity to be reversed before the conception of the wizard with the colored soul.
The first of the dreamcatchers, another name for the red soul's reverse affinity was tasked with cleansing the world of dark magic with the attempts of utilizing it in a constructive way.
This had at first proven to be an impossible task. Generations has eventually succumbed to the darkness or died after some thirty or so years.
With each generation though, knowledge was spread until 1000 years had passed. That was when Dream finally returned.
During that time, one of Carlyle's descendants had become king of the the Kingdom of Pandora with his wife and they had adopted a young girl by the name of Frisk Burnes who had eventually joined the numerous amount of powerful soldiers in the royal guard.
Not much exciting could be said about it as Frisk's time was spent sleeping on some haystacks in the castle barracks.
Zack, one of the favorite's of the captain picked up a bucket of water by her bed and climbed up pouring water on her.
"I'm up, I'm up," Frisk sputtered.
"About time, we was worried about ya."
"Really?"
"Yeah, me and the guys."
Frisk got up.
"I guess I should change huh? Don't wanna be late."
She headed off her haystack to gather some clothes.
Zack had regrouped with two other guys.
"So did you wake her up?" Tony asked.
"Yeah, you should have seen her," Zack said. "She was fluttering like a baby."
The two boys chuckled.
"So what'd you do with her armor?" he asked.
"I put it in the barn with the cows and covered it with manure."
"Ugh, disgusting. I don't envy her."
"How long do you think that'll take her to clean?" Tony asked.
"She doesn't look like she's cleaned a day in her life."
Sam smiled.
"I guess she'll be running late again today. We better tell the captain."
Meanwhile Frisk was looking for her clothes when she finally stepped out of the barn coming across one of the farmers.
"Have you seen a suit of silver armor anywhere?"
"Yeah, I think I seen it in the stables. It looked like a real mess."
"Dammit."
Frisk ran to the barn and into the stables full of cows and horses finally spotting her suit of armor covered in manure.
'Ugh.'
Frisk carefully picked it up and dragged it outside by the small lake nearby aiming to clean it up.
Some time had passed before she was able to clean it and changing into it she headed out for training.
"I hope the captain's not mad at me for running late."
She walked to the meeting area only to discover that everyone was gone.
'Great, they ditched me. I guess it's to be expected they can't wait on me forever.'
Frisk headed back to the castle straight to her room changing into one of the dresses that the queen had given her.
Her mother had dropped by later.
"Sam came by to tell me you weren't with the royal guard."
"Yeah I was running a little late."
"It's on times like this that I wonder if you are really serious about this."
"I know. I'm very sorry I'll try to pick up the slack.
"See that you do alright. The last thing the guard needs is to pick up the slack of some lazy warrior."
"Alright," Frisk said with a sigh leaning back on her bed.
At around dinner time, one of the servants called Frisk downstairs to eat with her family.
Frisk headed downstairs to be greeted by her father sitting on the table on the far corner of the room with her mother sitting on his right side and a robed skeleton sitting on his right.
Servants came in with everyone's food and she immediately chowed down. The skeleton glanced at her with disgust.
"So your mother told me what happened earlier," her father said. "I heard you were making trouble for the guards again."
"I'm sorry," Frisk said.
"If this continues to happen, I'll have to kick you out of the guard. You are a bad example for everyone."
Frisk sighed.
"Alright, I understand."
The skeleton scoffed.
After Frisk finished she was about to head to her room when her father's voice stopped her.
"Frisk, don't leave just yet. We need to talk to you about something."
"What is it?"
"There has been a story passed down to our family for many generations about an evil force that will show it's face after 1000 years have passed. This skeleton believes that this time is soon."
"That's just a story though there's no way of telling that it's a myth," Frisk said.
"In a world made of magic, you still have the nerve to doubt," the skeleton popped up.
"Well you can't just assume it's true. Even if this evil force was sealed for 1000 years there is no guarantee it's as evil as you say. Maybe it's changed."
The skeleton snorted.
"After being sealed away? Hah, anything being sealed for that long is likely to have gone insane."
"I guess you do have a point."
"Of course I do. I have been around for far longer than you have."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I've sent the royal guard on other missions so they won't be around to perform personal tasks for me. Dream has suggested we neutralize this threat as soon as possible."
Frisk glanced at the skeleton.
"Dream, huh?"
Dream glared at her.
"Yeah, it's Dream. Got a problem with that?"
"No, but father wouldn't it be dangerous to send one person to neutralise the threat."
Dream grinned smugly.
"It this were a typical scenario it would be. For someone like you it's better if it's one person."
"Are you trying to imply something?"
"You can use magic right?" Dream asked conjuring a staff in his hand before tossing it to Frisk who dropped it. "How clumsy."
Frisk picked up the staff off the ground.
"What do I do with this?"
"Easy, I just conjured a destruction staff. All you need to do is kill that entity before it destroys the world. That should be simple for someone like you. Just concentrate on channeling your magic through the staff."
"Alright."
"Knowing you, you'll probably find some way to jack it up. I guess I can accompany you."
"Are you sure it won't be too much trouble?" The king asked.
"Not at all. It's sufficient insurance nothing goes wrong." Dream said.
He ushered to Frisk.
"Come along."
"Wait I gotta change."
"Then I'll wait outside the castle."
After Frisk had changed into some armor she met him outside the castle.
"I'm ready."
"About time."
The two headed to town to prepare their supplies. Among the supplies were a sleeping bag, a tent, and some food rations with a couple of large water sacks.
Dream lead the way out of town.
Once outside Dream looked at the sky looking mesmerised at the sight of the moon.
"Looks like he's gone hiding in the forest," he muttered under his breath.
"Who?"
"No one important."
Frisk followed Dream in the forest.
They had been walking around some time, Frisk was certain they were lost.
"Dream, do you know where we are going?"
"Of course I do."
"Really? Are you sure we're not lost?"
"Why you don't trust me?"
"I do trust you."
"Of course you do."
"I'm kinda tired though. Can't we rest?"
"Sure, I was hopin' to take a nap anyway."
He sat down on a log nearby.
"I'm trusting you to keep guard."
"What? You're just going to go to sleep while I keep watch? Isn't a man supposed to guard the woman?"
"That wouldn't be fair when you're the guard."
With that Dream laid back on the log and fell sound asleep.
Frisk groaned. Trying to stay awake was a chore as her eyes were attempting to close, heavy with exhaustion.
It was when she was about to fall asleep however when she heard a rustling in some bushes nearby.
'What was that?'
Frisk got up and bravely walked towards the sound.
As she walked closer she heard familiar voices. Peering from where she was hiding behind a tree she spotted Tony, Sam and Zack sitting by a campfire.
"Isn't it funny how we always find ourselves sitting together like this?"
"It's kinda lonely without Frisk around," Sam said.
"Really? I thought you disliked her," Tony said. "You always let us tease her."
"Well it kept her from getting hurt didn't it? She's so innocent she'd drop her sword before killing anyone. I bet anyone could convince her to drop the sword before she could even slash them."
Zack chuckled.
"Yeah someone like that doesn't even belong in the royal guard. I bet she had to convince her father to even join. A princess doesn't even belong on the battlefield."
Frisk felt tears form in the corner of her eyes.
How could they? Is this what they really thought of her? She had thought they were being kind. Were they toying with her emotions? How could she be so naive.
"Frisk?!"
Frisk's thoughts were cut out by Sam's voice.
"So that's what you think of me huh?"
"So you did hear us."
"When were you going to tell me this? Do you really think I'm that naive, that gullible."
"Frisk, you're my best friend. I really care about you."
"Are you going to say that protecting me was for my own good? What were you hoping to accomplish? Maybe you were hoping I'd stick around so when you finally settle down we might get married and put the entire kingdom behind us," Frisk said. "I've heard you talking with my father, Sam."
She recalled how she had come home one particular day after guard duty only to discover him talking about marriage plans with her own father. Both had agreed to it without any of consent from her. It had made her bitter but it was nothing compared to this revelation.
"Listen."
"No," she shoved him away.
The other boys surrounded her grabbing her arms.
With a war cry, Frisk pushed at them and lunged at Sam punching him, knocking him to the ground taking out all her anger on him.
"Hey!"
"Hey knock it off."
"Get away from him."
"Hey."
Rough hands pulled her away.
She turned about to punch the person who grabbed her when she saw Dream kneeling behind her.
Everyone faded away only leaving Dream in their stead.
"What? What happened?"
She looked around.
"There were people. I just seen..."
"Tsk, tsk, I see you were fooled by his illusion."
"Illusion? What illusion?"
"There's nobody here. There was never anyone here. While you were distracted, Nightmare managed to get away."
"Nightmare huh? Is that the entity we're hunting?"
"Yeah. I had hoped you were strong enough not to be swayed by his illusions but I was clearly wrong."
"How could I have possibly..."
Dream kicked her causing her to land roughly on her back.
"I won't accept your failure so you better pick up the slack or you will suffer the consequences. No one is going to care if you are a rotting corpse so I suggest you try harder."
Frisk cried.
"Do you think you'll get away with this? I'll tell my father everything."
"Who would he believe? His daughter who is so gullible to allow someone so evil to accompany her or an entity that has been alive for 1000 years and knows the descendants of the very people around you? Who's to say that you wouldn't be made out as a liar."
"That's true."
"So are you going to apologise or am I going to have to tell your father that you've been a naughty girl?"
Frisk sighed and got to her feet.
"I'm sorry."
"Huh, I didn't hear you."
"I said I'm sorry."
"I don't think you mean it. On your knees right now."
Frisk was sweating from anxiety as she immediately got to her knees.
"I want you to bow."
Frisk knelt even further with her forehead touching the ground. Dream smirked.
"Do you just do anything I ask without question?"
"I thought you said..."
"I did, but I didn't think you'd stoop so low. Do you not have any pride?"
Frisk frowned before collecting herself.