"The demons... They're dead."
"Liana," Amell sighs her name while he smooths his thick robes, disheveled from this last battle, with one slender hand making quick work of the fabric's wrinkles. After shaking his head at some internal thought, he walks towards the blood mage's crumpled form on this newest illusion's semi-transparent floor. He kneels beside her, and I feel myself drawn towards them as my concern for the poor woman spikes in an all time high. My feet have carried me beside them while that concern only buds into full blown worry as Liana's continuous and utterly miserable cries fill the unnatural air. She's been nothing but sweet since the moment I've met her, and here, in this damned place filled to the brim with ill spirits, she was terrorized by her darkest nightmares and is now left completely immobile because of it. She was unfortunate enough to have spirits embodying darker feelings than desire trapping her in her illusion, and so she wasn't surrounded by lighter prospects, like me and Sloane were. She was tormented. Is tormented. The poor thing.
"Concentrate," Amell suggests softly with a frown etched deeply on his scruffy features. "We're in the Fade, Liana. Think of your thrice blasted Harrowing, and what you learned there."
"My... Harrowing?" The kindly blood mage gasps out in a voice much too strained. She then lifts her head enough to blink up at Amell, with her long hair askew and a sudden look of concentration lining her face. A moment passes before she sighs wearily. "Oh, kittens and cream... I cannot believe I forgot my lessons." She sniffles, loudly, and struggles into a sitting position before swiping a weary hand across her eyes. "This... this is a forced dream. That must be it," she finishes softly and in a tone meant mostly for herself.
She blinks again after a long, long moment of uncomfortable silence and flits her eyes about at the rest of our party, now mostly visible in the dark of this place with Amell's mage-light increasing in intensity and chasing the lingering shadows away. Her steely-colored eyes do a double-take when she notices me. "Best friend!" She shouts and scrambles to her feet before wrapping her arms around me in a smothering hug. I tense beneath her arms though. I was not expecting that."You yet live," she mumbles into the top of my head seemingly oblivious to my discomfort. "The Fade is dangerous for mundanes. I do remember that."
I feel myself smiling at her, despite the gravity of the situation we're in and my lingering disquiet, before I curl my hands over the sharp jut of her shoulders in an effort to calm her and return a bit of her unrestrained joy. I try to relax in her grasp, and I try my best to be the voice of reason too. If her dream was any clue, the others could be experiencing illusions just as terrible, or maybe even more so. "We're trying to get outta here," I tell her, "Everyone else is trapped here too."
"Then we will!" She says in a tone much brighter than the shadow of a troubled expression lingering on her face. I'm not quite sure what exactly happened to her here, I could take a pretty good guess based on the creatures that had attacked us and the way she was acting, but it certainly looks like she's far from unscathed by it all. She was stuck in a nightmare, one bad enough to turn her into a sobbing mess.
She turns about then, the movement drawing my attention to her and the present again, after releasing me with a quick squeeze. She then gives Sloane and Amell equally smothering hugs each with light words of encouragement and thanks. When she turns towards Aereweld, she stops short of the ancient elf with her hands outstretched in hesitation before too embracing her.
"Oh," she tilts her head curiously, "I am afraid I do not know you."
"I am Aereweld," shorter woman sighs in clear annoyance. It seems like she's getting tired of all the introductions.
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!" Liana declares cheerily, without further question, and embraces the woman she'd just met just as heartily as she had the rest of us.
Liana releases Aereweld before adjusting her stance to better face us all. She takes her staff in hand, lighting the top in a soft yellow glow with a click of her booted heel against the wooden haft, before speaking up again. "This dream... It is caused by that demon from before, called to form with much blood magic." She raises her bare free hand, her pale skin colored in her mage-light, and wiggles her fingers about. "I can feel it now that I know I should... This is much like the Harrowing," she nods to herself before she tilts her head in Amell's direction. "Do you know how to escape, Renzo?"
He shakes his head in the negative with his lips pursed thin, "The somniari-ghost is why we're walking about as we are," he sniffs. "If this demon is half as powerful as I think it is, it'll know we're moving about outside of our Fade dreams. But we haven't seen head nor hair of it since we've been wondering about. It must've sequestered itself, likely in an attempt to save its own damned hide. We'll have to kill it, you know, if we want any kind of escape. And I wouldn't put it past it to know we're after its blood, though. These lesser demons it's pulling out of its arse are clearly a shitty attempt at stopping us."
"Waking dreams with mundanes filled with very real demons..." Liana muses out loud. "I agree, these weaker demons are trying for power by manipulating us and feeding off of our emotions and life-essence, which must be why they are doing the others bidding so willingly," she adds with a nod of her head.
"And I take it the demon behind all of this won't be easily disposed of?" Sloane asks with a hard look and a flash of concern in his eyes.
"We must release your remaining companions," Aereweld interjects. "We will need all the strength and power we can gather to end this spirit. And I believe that by releasing the others trapped here of their illusions, and killing the spirit of sloth's thralls, we will weaken it. Perhaps even weaken it enough that putting steel to it won't be overly trying."
"Then let us go!" Liana declares before clicking her heel against her staff again and brightening her mage-light further. The amount of light produced by the two Circle mages illuminates the area enough that I can spy dark pools of viscous liquid scattered about the odd dungeon's stone floor. Liana shifts a bit, she brings the arm of her previously injured shoulder closer to her body, and the movement briefly shows a dark stain under her bicep that's the same dark color as the pools littered about the floor... Is it... Blood? Was Liana injured by the spirits in her dream?
I go to her and grasp her elbow gently while Aereweld sets to creating another portal for our use. "Liana?" I ask quietly and crane my head up to look the taller woman in the eyes, "Are you hurt?"
"My shoulder still pains me from earlier," she confesses with a small frown. "But I will not hide it from you, best friend," she lifts her arm and I see four long tears in her thin orange robes, right in the middle of a large dark stain, mostly hidden by her arm while it's lowered. "I was scratched," she explains simply.
I lever my bag off of my shoulders and slide out a thin vial of elfroot potion from inside, the blown glass being no thicker than my thumb. I know from Aereweld's decaying memories that the mind makes reality in this place. So once you see an illusion for what it is, it stops being true, but if you believe in it, believe in the life or the lack of one, then it feels true. Here in the Beyond the mind knows little to no difference between reality and dream. In light of that knowledge, I hope that by Liana taking a health potion here her mind will be tricked into thinking a wound her dream-self has suffered is healed. Since, well, your dream-self can be hurt here so it would only follow that it could be healed too.
"Take this," I hold it out before her, "and be careful. I don't know what'll happen to us if we die in this place." If we die, what will happen? Will we be Tranquil? Even us non-mages?
"Our bodies would be without a soul," she explains simply while taking the vial from me. "You have my most sincere thanks."
She brushes past me with a spring in her step when Amell calls her towards Aereweld's growing portal, and as I'm watching her go, Sloane comes to stand beside me and takes my hand into his. I look up towards him after a moment, and whatever he sees on my expression makes his eyes soften while he holds my gaze. "We'll look after her," he comforts while brushing his thumb against the back of my hand. "You hold a great deal of concern for mages," he notes.
"Yeah," I agree and try to smile at him, though I don't quite feel it making its way to my face. "Not just mages though, but, yeah."
My arms are wrapped around my middle while I try to steady myself after crossing through to another plane in this bit of the Beyond. The sickly sensations are weaker with each pass through Aereweld's portals, but I still feel them through every little bit of my body, or this projection of my body at least. Trying to clear my head, I look around and take in our new surroundings with unease still trickling down my spine. This illusion we've just arrived to is nothing but rolling hills and grassy fields, and there's not a single soul in sight. No demons, no thralls or other nastiness, and there's not any one of our companions anywhere nearby. It's eerily empty in this plane.
"You're still nauseous, little lady?" I hear Amell's distinctive voice ask from just behind me, and I start a little, clenching my arms around myself tighter unconsciously.
I blink at the mage over my shoulder before nodding once while Sloane speaks up and voices what I'm sure is on all our minds. "Where are we?"
"There is a beast here," Aereweld says with one hand resting cautiously on the pommel of her enchanted sword, and starts walking through the grasses that are swaying in every direction without any kind of breeze blowing by. "We must find it. Come, falonen," she beckons with a short movement of her hand, and then we're off walking in seemingly no particular direction and with no idea of what we're to expect here. It's too quiet. Too empty. There's only grass and sky and an overwhelming feeling of being far too exposed. It makes me nervous, and it makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
"Are you not feeling well because of your condition?" Amell continues his earlier questioning while we follow after the Dalish mage and her quick strides off into the endless distance. "This lovely Fade-scape is doing a number on you, huh?"
"It's the portals," I correct with a small frown. "They don't... feel right."
"Mundanes take poorly to traveling in the Fade," he explains patiently, though, with a slight eye roll. "Mundane dreams are rather bland as compared to a mage's dream. But... you do seem to be struggling exceptionally. And I honestly don't know how your condition would factor in to it, but I'd wager it'd probably be in your best interest to get out of here." He snorts. "We all could do with not being here."
"That's an understatement," I grumble quietly.
"Once we're all free of here," Sloane starts so casually as if it's never crossed his mind once that we couldn't find our way out of the Beyond or kill the spirit of Sloth.
His confidence makes him a bit blind to danger sometimes, and sometimes enough that it borders on ignorance... Or, maybe, I correct myself and feel a frown pulling at my lips with the thought, he's just trying to be reassuring. If a leader, especially leading a group of people he doesn't know all too well - Aereweld, Amell, and Liana - shows any kind of weakness, or shows a lack of certainty in his chosen actions, well, that could lead to all sorts of problems. I know it's possible to get out of here. I know we can, but the others, bar Aereweld and our shared memories, does not. I can't believe I misjudged him, no matter how insignificant of a slight on his character it was. Again. I'd thought I was over that second-guessing every little thing. I'm... I'm reading too much in my every stray thought. I need to sort myself out, and I can't do that here. Not in the Beyond where everything's sideways and there's spirits every two feet. It's not the time for this kind of crap.
Sloane slows his steps to better match ours before continuing after a breath, which in that time I'd managed to run myself in circles in my head, "How nearer will we be to defeating that Uldred fellow?"
I take his hand once he's close enough though, in an apology of sorts for the thoughts I'd had that he doesn't know of. But the fact that I've initiated the small comfort shocks a pleased smile to his face while he looks towards me. "Not far," I answer. "I think you... you mentioned a mage you met earlier? Did he say he had a... litany on him?"
Sloane nods once with the shadow of that smile still playing at the corners of his mouth, "The Litany of Adralla, I believe he'd had."
"We'll need that," I say and feel my hand clench around his tighter at the brief reminder of what's to happen. On why, exactly, we'll need that litany. "Remember? I was talking to Jowan about it, it'll -"
"What's this?" Amell interrupts, "The Litany of Adralla's nearby?"
"Not here, but-"
I'm interrupted again when there's a high pitched yelp of some kind in front of us. We all skitter and slide on the too slick faux grass and stop to see a barely-there shimmering pale blue wall of magic spread before us and blocking our way. As I inch closer, I'm able to spy Liana beside Aereweld practically vibrating with some unsung emotion. I turn my head up to look at her, and I see that she's grinning.
"Look!" She practially squeaks, "There are bunny rabbits."
Beyond the translucent magic, there are indeed rabbits running through the long, unnatural grasses with something large chasing after them... a dog?
"Randall?" Sloane breathes. "Why would the demon trap my mabari here?"
"A life is still a life," Aereweld tells us with glowing hands alighting against the barrier's surface where the brown-furred mabari is bounding after the rabbits on the other side. "The spirit will take all it can."
"It's not a picky demon then," Amell sniffs while too steping up and poking the magic blocking us from reaching Randall, "Good to know."
"This is like the magic that had held Karie," Sloane comments with narrowed eyes and a movement of his free arm that tells me he's gripping one of his daggers. "We'll have to break it to free him."
"Wait," I say while putting my opposite hand on his shoulder in an attempt to stop him from taking another step forward when something occurs to me. "Are those rabbits... spirits? Demons?"
A/N: I cannot apologize enough for this chapter. I get the strangest boughts of writer's block. I've had this chapter about half-way done for roughly two weeks, but I couldn't, for the life of me, think of how to write the mabari's Fade Dream. XD So I'm sorry if this was rather bland here at the end, but I had to publish something. On a side note - I did write a few future action scenes that'll take place in the Deep Roads while I struggled with this. Oh! And I've put up a poll for Sloane's age on my profile. I think the options I put up about cover all the ranges of your suggestions readers. I'd like to get down an exact age for him though, because I do plan to have his name-day brought up at some point, and it would be helpful to have his age pinpointed for him by then. If it helps, Karie is 22 currently and will be 23 by the Blight's end. Alistair's about 19-ish too. I thank you all in advance for your votes! And thanks for your reads and patience too!
