When Jaune opened his eyes, he was surrounded by darkness. And for a moment, he thought that he had escaped his curse of The Dream. But as his eyes adjusted, he recognized the place he was in.
The depths of the mountain in this cursed hellscape. Jaune stood up, his head pounding with the alcohol. He instantly sat down, deciding that moving was a bad idea.
"God fucking damn it." He said once his head stopped throbbing enough. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to make the mountain go away. The effort was in vain.
At least the alcohol induced headache had dissipated at this point. But his eyes still felt dry and puffy. "God Fucking Damn It." He repeated, a little louder. A little more anguished. His fist slammed into the floor with a half hearted Thump.
"God Fucking Damn it." He cried out loud, even louder. His fist met the stone floor again. Harder this time
"GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!" Jaune shot up to his feet. He kicked the tombstone in anger. That terrible, consistent tombstone that marked the beginning and end of his journey here.
He felt something in his foot crack upon impact with the unyielding stone. Jaune's face contorted into one of indistinguishable pain or anger. "AAAAAUUURRRRGGH!" He screamed out, the shriek echoing in the darkness. His eyes refocused on the slab of grey granite, blinking away tears. "GOD, FUCK YOU!" He screamed, kicking it again, with reckless abandon. And again, and again and again he tried to topple the stone. He dove at it, grasping the grave marker with his bare hands. With a heave, he pulled at the rock, trying to uproot it from it's fortified position. But alas, the stone did not move. Not with all his might, all his fury and all his grief did the stone move.
Jaune stopped his furious tantrum, leaning over the stone. He was tired. How else could he describe himself right now? He was incredibly tired. He let his head fall onto the headstone, resting for a moment. "Why." He whispered, the tears he thought he had exhausted started to well up again.
"Tell me why." He moaned, his voice laden with grief. "TELL ME!" His head shot up, shouting to heavens he could not see. "COME ON, TELL ME! WHY! Why me?" He took in a shaky breath.
"What did I do to deserve this?" He said, still seeking an answer from a god he did not know. It was raining in the caves.
That is some salty rain. B noted as it fell on his lips. Jaune didn't care. Not really.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, his voice had turned raw from his harsh screaming. "If I did, I'm sorry." His head hung at those words.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry." he muttered, over and over again between sobs. His prayers were not answered. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry!" He finally yelled into the sky.
No answer came to deliver him unto salvation.
Jaune wasn't sure how long he sat there praying. It felt religious. He supposed suffering could feel religious. So maybe he was suffering instead.
Are we done here? A asked, at least a little bored with Jaune wallowing. Yes, it was good that Jaune took some time to grieve and cry, but one can't just sit there forever. You had to get up and move sometime. It's not like this place was safe anyway.
Jaune blearily looked up. He swallowed, mustering whatever strength he had. "I suppose I must." Jaune said, forcing himself to his feet. "You're right. Stopping does nothing for me."
And so Jaune conjured a small mote of light to light his march. The dim underdark fled at the summoned starlight. Jaune looked to his left and right, at the canyon that stretched for some indescribable infinity. In front of him a tunnel hewn from the rock, dimly lit by lifeless torch light. Jaune gave a final look around. "Well, light's a good sign." the dreamer said as he strode towards the tunnel. B raised an eyebrow in skepticism.
Is anything a good sign in this place? He asked with a sigh. Jaune thought about that for a moment.
Places with light tend to be less dangerous than those that are dark. Jaune concluded, thinking about the sewers, infested with massive slugs and corroded and festing ghouls. Places in the light were not safe by any means, but they were better than the darkness. Jaune had to stoop to fit in the surprisingly small tunnel, bowing his head so as to not hit it against the ceiling. Whoever made these caves must have been rather short, don't you think? A commented as Jaune ran a hand along the ancient groves, etched in eons ago by long forgotten quarriers and miners. Jaune wondered who they were. What they did.
The light he saw turned out to be a little glass orb, embedded into the wall. Inside it a flame flickered, stuck in an infinite loop of burning a small blot of oil soaked tweed. It was consumed, and the flame dimmed out as it ran out of fuel to consume, only for the timespace within the sphere to be reset to some several seconds earlier.
"What a fascinating piece of work." Jaune muttered, pondering the glass orb with curiosity.
B also gave the sphere his attention, trying to mentally pick it apart. I suppose it can't be that different from some of our own spells, like trace the path and sureshot. He figured, listing off probably their most powerful reality breaking spells. Which was ironic, considering the purpose of those spells. Trace the path was literally the layering of time, pushing the past above the present. It caused an interesting effect of something akin to watching a movie in 3d space, being able to move around and see where your prey went. That particular spell was incredibly draining, as it forced reality to bend in over itself, warping and shifting and breaking to the whims of man. A perfect replay of the past, from any point in time. It worked best when the time was tied to an action. The stomp of a hoof that left a print in the mud, the toppling of a bottle that led to the staining of a sheet of parchment. But one could, according to the scroll Jaune had unabashedly pilfered from some mages library, take a segment of time from any point in history.
Sureshot was the opposite of Trace the path. Instead of looking and layering the past into the present, Sureshot scoured the timelines of possible futures, seeking for a favorable future. It ran countless simulations, fractures in the timeline to create infinite variations. Warped reflections of the timeline leading into complete independent existence, each different, each looked at.
And then it would force one of those thousands of possibilities into existence, the others disappearing into nothingness, never even having a chance to exist. An infinite amount of universes, gone in the blink of an eye.
Jaune had wondered what that meant, in the grand scale of things. Did that mean that Jaune was responsible for the death of universes each time he cast this spell? That Jaune was the slayer of countless multitudes, the unborn and those alive, of all life, each time he used such a deceptively easy magic? When Jaune had discovered how the spell actually worked, he had considered that quite heavily.
Who knew what disasters would come from the constant shattering and destruction of countless timelines? What Doctor Who-like terrors might come crawling from the cracks?
Jaune smiled at that, remembering that Saphron and Joan in particular liked Doctor Who. Jaune had been dragged into many long night binges of the show. Not that Jaune could remember what it was even about, or what had happened during its run. He vaguely remembered that it liked messing around with time.
Jaune stopped worrying about it, deciding that he would burn that bridge when he got to it. He turned away from the flickering orb, seeing that they lined the walls every several meters. He walked forward, following the orb laden path.
As he walked, he noticed that the roughly hewn rock gave way to smoother, more sharply defined stonework.
Smooth, defined stonework with long scratches on it. As though something had crawled this place. Something that was quite unlike anything Jaune had seen yet. Jaune drew one of his knives, cautious of this new and strange threat. A took a long look at the streaks.
Whatever this thing was, it had to be pretty decently sized. He concluded, running his hands along the inch or so wide lines. At least the size of a cow, perhaps even larger.
B raised his non-existent eyebrows at that. Wow. you said this was only decently sized? He asked. A nodded.
About the size of a cow, yeah.
Jaune nodded, not wanting to meet whatever had created such marks. The tunnels continued onwards, eventually coming to a kind of junction. A large tunnel that led closer to the heart of the mountain, clearly more akin to a main passageway than the small tunne Jaune had just scuttled through. The scratches continued down this hall as well. Jaune scowled at that, concerned about what it could mean. Something was wrong here, clearly.
But then again, what isn't wrong with this god forsaken place? Jaune thought.
Jaune took a look around the circular junction, something feeling off about it. He gave the round room a scrutinizing gaze. He expanded his senses, searching the room.
He found it. A small streaking of blood tucked away in the corner. Jaune leaned down to it, running a hand over the dry dusty stone. The blood was dry, and had been for some time. Whatever had bled here had done so long before Jaune had come here. Jaune leaned closer to the stain, noticing that there was a converging collection of scrapes surrounding the old stain.
Do you think they were eaten? B asked
Jaune shrugged. Hopefully not. Jaune very much disliked the idea that someone would have to suffer being eaten during their death. Turned, scanning the room for any more signs of struggle. The scratches did seem to be more varied in this room.
Jaune marched on, stooping through the stone tunnels until he came to the mountain proper.
"Wow." Jaune said, awe in his voice as he looked up. The mountain had been hollowed out, great spires spiraling up into the unseen shadows of the heavens.
Jaune stepped forward, glad that he didn't have to crouch down to traverse this area of the mountain. Jaune strolled through the carved mountain, taking in the straight and angled geometry of the architecture. It made for a strong image that greatly reminded Jaune of the descriptions of Erebor and Moria. Jaune took some time to walk around the empty mountain city.
It was littered with bits of history, much like the eternal city. Patches of the past stored in books, wall tapestries, and abandoned homes. Jaune put down a small clay top. All the ceilings here were too low for him, but he supposed he must have just been tall. There was something special about this room.
A child's room, the pastel yellows and blues had long since faded into the stone. They were still there, but no longer as vibrant as they had been. Jaune thought that it was probably such a happy place, this room. Jaune wondered what it must have been like.
This room was oddly well preserved for the dream. Jaune pondered what made this room special. Perhaps just sheer, random luck.
Jaune's boots make a clinking sound against the hard stone of the walkways. The eternal glass globes, doomed to repeat their lifetime over and over again, shedding dying light for all eternity. Jaune shot warey glances at every direction, knowing that this was ideal territory for him to be attacked. He had been struck at enough in the Eternal City to be on guard. Particularly when someone like Arslan wasn't around. Jaune had forgotten how nice it was to fight with someone else. Jaune did a quick spin, checking behind him. He trusted his ears, but he trusted them in combination with his other senses more. He didn't think anything was there, but Jaune had what B called a "healthy amount of sheer overwhelming paranoia."
Jaune would have liked to disagree, but the statement wasn't wrong. Jaune was at least on edge most of the time. He wouldn't say paranoid, but he was by no means relaxed.
Jaune took another dozen steps before he saw a figure at the edge of his vision.
It was a smaller thing, kneeled over something that looked suspiciously like a corpse of something similar to it. Jaune had gotten used to the sight of the cannibalism of dead things. Even he had chewed one on in a fit of bored insanity. They tasted oddly like chicken and pork.
Jaune stopped, keeping a wary eye on what essentially looked like a rather short drunken ghoul. It didn't seem to notice the dreamer just yet.
Jaune drew out his bow, aiming with practiced ease at the thing. The arrow flew straight, a faint whistling coming from the shaft of the projectile as it flew through the air. It skewered the creature through the neck. It gave a loud gurgling death cry as it stumbled to the ground, writhing and gripping at its neck. Jaune looked away as he waited for the death rattle to stop, recalling rather unpleasant memories of his own deaths.
Jaune approached the creature, getting a good look at it. It was a short creature, just below four foot six or so. It had scraggiled remnants of a beard, wiry almost fur like hairs that had splotchy patches in it. Gray skin, a shade similar to stone, was pulled taught over the frame.
Jaune knelt down, pulling his arrow out of the things neck. "If it is supposed to be what was once a dwarf," Jaune mused. "I suppose I should call it a duragar now."
A looked down at their slaughtered prey. You're a nerd, you know that, right?
Jaune smiled and shook his head. He supposed he must have been, once upon a time. To come up with that? yeah, he had to have been a huge nerd
I think geeky is the word you want. Nerdy has a different connotation, geared more towards academia. B commented from the back of Jaune's brain.
A turned to look at B. You're a nerd.
Jaune heard something scampering. He flicked upwards, seeing another duragar sprinting at him with rapid speed. It was so fast that the unaware dreamer didn't even have quite enough time to draw a weapon.
He's a fast fuck, ain't he? A commented as Jaune threw up his hands in defense. The duragar collided with Jaune, knocking him into the ground. The duragar reached at Jaune, trying to wrap it's lithe and powerful hands around the dreamer's throat. Jaune struggled and rolled with the gray thing, fighting to keep the monster's shorter arms at bay. Jaune pushed the duragar, slapping it away with a frantic force. His palm slammed into the creature's face, turning it with the blow. The duragar did not like that at all, and decided to retaliate. By biting deep into the offending hand.
Jaune very quickly discovered that Duregar had sharp, sharp teeth.
"AAARRRGGG!" Jaune yelled out as he felt the duragar break through his chained gauntlet and into his hand. Jaune glared at the thing. "Son of a Bitch!" He yelled out, slamming his gnawed hand into the creature's head. The blow was clearly powerful, as the duragar was shaken by the fist. Jaune took the concussed moment to his advantage, slamming his arm, and the attached drunk duragar, into the stone ground. Jaune rolled over, straddling the short monster. His free fist slammed into the left side of his foes face. It's head snapped to the side as it pushed away at Jaune with its small dwindly arms. Jaunes right fist repeated the action, delivering a devastating punch to the creature's jaw.
Left, Right, Left, Right, Jaune slammed into the duragar with reckless intent. Those gray spindled arms pushed away, stretching at the dented and broken chestplate. It hoped that it could push the intruder off of it.
It's head snapped to the side particularly harshly as the bloodied metal hand slammed into its temple again. It's vision blurred as its arms numbed.
The intruder's other punch was even more bloodied. The thing's arms fell to its sides, finally limp.
Jaune felt that it had stopped under his fists. He knew that it was dead.
Left. Right. Left. Right. He kept on swinging, letting the momentum of his blows die out. He eventually stopped, looking down at the pulped and broken mass of what was once flesh underneath him.
Jaune wretched at what he had done. This was not him. It couldn't have been him.
Was it he who did this? The same man who had once been a child, full of innocence and joy? Unhurt and unburned by the world? Surely he must have been a child, at one point.
Had he lost all semblance of such purity? Was he lost?
He threw up in the alleyway.
He spent the next ten minutes pulling shattered teeth and bones out of his ripped open and bloody hand.
Jaune found himself in what used to be a pub, his knife scraping away at the coaster sized wood disk in his hand. A familiar face was being pushed out of the wood. Kind eyes and a small button nose. Hair cascading down to her shoulders. There were some lines on her face from the trials of parenthood. Lines that weren't there some years ago. Jaune supposed that made sense. Saphron had gotten married almost six years ago, and had moved away to Argus.
She was still his favorite. Or Jaune thought she was his favorite. She was the one he remembered best. How she had this awful laugh when they watched terrible horror movies together, which Jaune still managed to be scared of. He added the last little curve to her lips, the last small swirls to her hair, and those final imperfect details in her skin.
Jaune blew the dust and shaved debris off the cameo. He smiled at his work. It wasn't perfect, but it was clear who it was. Jaune looked down at Saphrons smiling face, a poor substitution for the real thing.
Jaune closed his eyes, putting it next to the stack of six. Six separate faces, each carefully carved. There was some sort of desperate hope that the action would save them, save what he knew of them and lock away in his mind.
A futile attempt, for sure. But what were his actions, but futile? It seemed like it. What difference did his actions make? He couldn't escape this place. He woke up every day here, and died here every time. He couldn't save Reed, a man taken far too soon due to his own incompetence. He couldn't even save his own mind.
What could he save?
He looked at the small pile of coaster sized chips. Maybe, just maybe, he could save this.
"Please, just for once, let me save myself." he muttered in prayer.
Jaune was wandering the underground city again. He had found what was clearly a throne building, the royal castle, if one would. He stood at the entrance of a large bridge. It stretched easily forty feet, perhaps even more. And beyond it a collapsed gate, walls broken open as though some massive thing was dragged through it. Beyond it a massive carved entrance was cut into the stone. Towers flanked the majestic carved stone doorway that was equally as large. Perhaps a gateway was more appropriate than a door. Jaune strode over across the bridge. He looked up at the gate, which somehow was even more impressive and imposing up close. Jaune gave the doors an experimental push. They did not bear to budge, holding steadfast against the dreamer with their weight. Jaune gave them a more forceful push, pushing with his shoulder against the unyielding stone.
It again, as it had for some tens of thousands of years, remained stubbornly closed. Jaune eventually stopped, looking up with a disgruntled frown on his face. "Alright then, you leave me no choice." he said, reaching into his backpack. He pulled out a long piece of rope. He backed up some to get a better angle on the palisades above the gate. Tying the rope to one of his heavier looking arrows, he knocked the arrow on his bow.
The arrow flew over the fortified balcony, drawing the rope with it. Eventually the line went slack, hanging down the side of the gate.
The Rope was admittedly a little short, forcing Jaune to jump up to grab the rope.
"Now, please don't break on me." Jaune muttered as he began scaling the building. He was fortunate, as the rope held strong. Jaune vaulted the palisade walls, landing on the stone with solid feet. Jaune walked over to the edge of the balcony. Several corridors that led to what appeared to be a kind of general use armory is what led into the actual castle itself. From there two staircases led into the castle proper.
The castle proper was impressive. A massive hall, lined by doors and side halls that made up the several levels of the castle. At the very end, what was clearly once a throne, cloven in two, resided. Jaune took a step forward.
The aged stair under him, a small flaw in the stone, a miniscule crack inside the block, made unreliable and OSHA violating with the ages, finally broke at the sudden and overwhelming pressure of a human step.
The hard edge snapped, sending a large portion of the stair tumbling down. And taking Jaune with it. Jaune flailed, grasping at the stonework to save his fall. He fell on his butt down a couple stairs, but not much further than that. The stone was a different story.
It fell down the entirety of the stairs, the impact sound bouncing off the walls, echoing and compounding until the sound resembled a constant thunderous roar rather than the tumbling of rock. It was deafening as it went on, eventually fading away into the darkness that this place suffered from.
Jaune made a clenched kind of face, one that someone made when they accidently knocked over a cheap vase. A kind of Awe, shucks. That was unfortunate.
"I hope no one heard that." he said after a moment of silence. And as if the dream had heard his arrogance, some great terrible roaring sound came from deep beyond the throne. Jaune's eyes widened as his face fell into a slack facade. God damn it. A said as the sound fully passed them. It was as forceful as a strong wind, like a wall of sound.
"That's not good." Jaune decided.
Another chapter done! and we return to the Dream! finally! It's been like six chapters since we saw the dream last! And I know that I said I would tone down the angst, and don't worry. I will. Soon. ish.
and if you need a strong visual representation of this area, any generic dwarf city fantasy art will do.
Fun things are afoot! bonus points to anyone who can guess the next "boss fight"
I unfortunately don't have a lot of chapter notes for this chapter, as there doesn't seem to be a lot of things that need explaining.
Although, i thought it would be interesting to share some songs that I listen to when writing this story:
Hurt, Johnny Cash. Dos Oruguitas, Encanto. Learning To Drown, Vincent Niel Emmerson. . Vincent, Don Mclean. Gethsemane, Andrey Loyd Webber. Starless, King Crimson. Timebreath reprise, Greensky Bluegrass. most anything Pink Floyd and Blue Oyster cult.
man, kind of a lot really sad songs. But you should really listen to the Time/Breath cover, particularly if you like bluegrass. it's a fantastic take on pink Floyd. Worst thing that this does is exposes you to my music tastes
that's everything, I think for this chapter. I apologize for my long ass tangent. As always, please leave your review containing your review, character arc or development ideas, interesting scenes, cool powers and theories you have.
Also, this story will (hopefully) be cross posted to AO3 sometime in the foreseeablefuture. I will still update here, and most likely update first. But I like the ability to respond to comments so that everyone can see. lets me avoid FAQ kind of things there, or publicly to people. So, fingers crossed.