6th of Vhalar 721, continued from here
To say that the visions posed in those shared dreamscapes had taxed and challenged him would've been an understatement. Point of fact, he was ready to leave. Yet, barring finding the one at the center of this circle of sleepers, the final one before returning to his own dreamscape. No exit or door led away from this place, save that which existed at the core of the sleeper's soul. There was no other escape.
The seventh sleeper now embodied Sintra's Trap, the very core of his mother's realm in Emea.
There were only six sleepers other than Woe and Augusta. He'd already passed through the gauntlet of their dreamscapes. Which meant... He had to face the young woman's troubled psyche now.
Yet he knew the vaunted dangers of this place, the doom that awaited. If he entertained whatever terrors and psychological booby traps that filled the mind of that sensitive young woman. Even in so knowing, there were few ways around it. He only had to maintain silence and stillness of mind in the face of it, all while maintaining mindfulness. He still wanted to help Augusta through what was troubling her. Find the source of her guilt, and purge it from her mind, and his.
Yet, where would the sin go when nobody living could remember it? Woe supposed it would go the same way of all the memories he stole from his subjects. Whether it was right or wrong, it was obvious no progress could be made on Augusta until she was released from the grip of that memory.
And so, it was apropos that Woe be compelled to enter the phantom of the Opera House of Quacia. The Wounded Stage, in the heart of the Lair.
He was surprised when Augusta joined him, twining her arm into his as they ascended the stairway leading to the Opera House. But then, as the face of Augusta appeared in every other 'person' inhabiting this dreamscape, he understood the game. The Augusta at his side was not truly her. As in her dreams that he'd experienced in the past, he was sure she'd be putting on the mask of another.
Like so many who visited that theater in reality. The entire point of the Lair could be encapsulated in the ritual of going to the Opera, and watching others make a mummer's show of what had come to pass in reality. Woe had seen the show that featured the feats of himself and Balthazar, during the war against the Creep. Parts were accurate, others were highly dramatized. Woe couldn't say what parts of Balthazar's (or Bombeiro's, as the Quacians knew him) exploits were true. He hadn't touched base with Balthazar since his departure, and now, given their antics at the Counciil meeting probably never would.
The Augusta at Woe's side whispered into his ear, "Senora Duke, they say you will be playing Tristen." Woe absorbed this statement, and wondered at it. He would be playing the part of 'Tristen' the name that the Quacians had known Woe by. Or had taken to calling him, for his long face.
Very well, but what was this business about calling him the Duke? The Duke of Lair? That had been Augusta's father, from what Woe understood of the rumors. Her mother had all but confirmed it once.
Whatever the case, he was led by his own accord to the back rooms. There, where he and Augusta had conspired to kill her mother. It felt like ages ago, a moment that belonged to someone that Woe no longer was. He'd lost so much in that time, and yet gained in other ways. His magic, his mother's blessing... In exchange for the surrogacy of Moseke, and the Forging.
However, lest he get distracted, he directed his eyes to the current situation, the present moment. The dreamscape he found himself in. He was in the back room of the Opera House. The Wounded Stage. Surprisingly, it opened up, and there was an audience. It was then he realized, this was no back room, but the stage itself. Set up to resemble the back room where he'd murdered Olga Dolizar.
There, she reclined, the vision of Olga. Woe stood stock still before her, knowing how this would play out. Just as it had in life. But he wouldn't do it now. He couldn't. Could he?
The false Augusta pushed him along toward Olga. The warmth of her hands tickling the back of his shoulder. Without words in this dream, she insisted he partake of the debauched seduction and then murder of the Dolizar matron. It hadn't been quite that way in life, or had it? Had Augusta known what occurred just before they murdered her?
Olga's arms spread wide, to receive Woe in an embrace. To stand still, he felt the spiders at the edge of darkness, creeping inward with every ounce of effort he contributed to resisting. Yet with every step he relented, they either stayed where they were or retreated. He could see their crawling legs upon the webs of darkness from beyond the stage's boundaries. It was then he realized the nature of the trap, as understood by this sleeper. To do nothing would be to deny reality, his guilt in the murder of Olga. It would be a move made, where the only way to survive Sintra's trap, was to move not at all. For however you moved against Sintra, surely she had planned for it. The only other way, was to succumb to what had already passed.
Woe approached Olga, knowing what he must do. "I'm sorry Augusta." He said, and the spiders crept closer. He formed the runic spells upon the air, then pushed them into the woman's abdomen, depriving her of physical resistance. The last look she gave Woe, as he wrapped his hands around her throat, was one of betrayal.
However, something had gone wrong in the dream, and it all began to fall apart with that final blow upon her. The spiders began clawing and crawling in from the darkness. They grappled with Olga, now turned into Augusta, the true form she was. The contact Woe had made with her turned her lucid for but a moment, and that was all the spiders needed to make their move.
They dragged her away, from dreaming, from his midst, even as he found the exit from the dreamscape. He reached, but he could not find her.
