15th of Ymiden 720, Late Breaks.
Woe hadn't dared to think that the Creep might be real. He'd dreamed of it, in his most surreal night-time imaginings of an arc ago. Of a highly advanced city, awash in arcane knowledge and technical advancements and culture. In hearing about the city of Quacia, he'd done minimal research. Mostly picking up rumors here or there, and listening to the sailors at port. He never knew or dared think that the sentient entity of plant-like monsters could be real.
Upon his final landing in Quacia, people had been reticent about the subject when hey asked them about it. Based on their strange looks, he presumed they thought him mad for even imagining something like that, let alone mentioning it. What sort of fool even spoke of their dreams to perfect strangers, afterall? And for the last few tentrials of Ashan, he dismissed it as the rambling imaginings of a fool's nightmare.
Yet, when the heat of summer returned to Quacia, word came that the Creep had made a comeback. Fleaface told him much about it, informing him of the plant-like creatures that swallowed whole baronies and populations. So it was he discovered his dreams didn't mislead him. Fleaface gathered what information he could about the subject, shored up by Woe's own efforts to pry into the nature of the Creep. Yet there was little enough he could find out about its weaknesses, its strengths, and general workings. It's weaknesses, as far as he'd gathered, were only known to be two-fold: fire, burning their flesh, and salting the earth where roots might take hold and grow. Yet, even the latter methods weren't guaranteed to work forever. The Creep was said to be quite persistent in its mission to consume Quacia.
So he took to his dreams that night in the crowded Gleam common area of the Hostel he'd taken up in. Troubled by thoughts of the Creep, and finally being in the middle of what had been the ancient history of his dreams, he fell into a strange, trance-like sleep.
54th of Ymiden 923 Midday Breaks
A young man stood in front of the elder Woe, fidgeting with his hands in his pockets. The man stared at the elder as if seeing past him. It looked as if he was holding something in his pocket, and Woe had no intention of letting him show what it might be.
Yet the elder wasn't amused, he pointed toward the open door the lad had come through to deliver his message.
"Are you catatonic? Get out!"
In the back of his mind, woe remembered this dream. It'd been among the first to haunt him and grant him knowledge of Quacia's very existence. Of course, he'd heard rumors of the place from when he'd lived in Rynmere, scattered mutterings from his 'betters'. He thought he heard that many exiled mages fled there to evade punishment by the Rynmerish authorities. Yet there was little else he knew about it at the time. The reality, he found on arrival, was quite different from the dream, or else it had been.
His dreams of Quacia told of an advanced land, a vast Kingdom, enriched by its environment and pursuit of magic. The latter was true, on his arrival, but the former couldn't be any further from it. Quacia was surrounded by monstrous plant-life, which possessed a hive mind that wished only to possess the city of Quacia. For what purpose? Nobody knew, and if they did, they were silent on the subject.
Now in the dream, where it had been a sunny day, it was overcast and bathed in a red glow of the blood lights outside. Woe the elder glowered at the young messenger. Then Woe the dreamer remembered what happened next in this dream.
The young man pulled a strange-looking contraption, some sort of pistol. A crossbow without a lathe, "Stop!" Woe shouted in the dream. At that moment, he reached lucidity and the dream obeyed his command as if he exerted his will upon it.
Everything froze as the dream acquiesced, and time stopped for all except the dreamer himself. As he came to lucidity, albeit slow, he shifted to his waking appearance from the frail old man he'd inhabited. The gray hairs turned black, his posture straightened, and he felt his legs, once lamed by age and arcane mutation, strong enough to walk on their own. Strong enough to remain upright without the help of a cane.
He stepped forward and examined the pistol that was beginning to discharge its projectile. It's luminescent green discharge illuminated the immediate area, bathing it in a green glow that contrasted the red. Woe took a few steps forward and examined the young man's face, staring close at those amber eyes.
Of course, he'd no idea who this was. But as he looked closer, into the pupils, he noticed something about them. Something that hinted at a being that was askew from humanity. Green veins lined the edges of his eyes, like that of a leaf. He felt something in the dream shift, and the leaflike formations on the iris began expanding. The rest of his face shifted into its full plant-like floriations. It was abrupt, but everything resumed from there, yet this time it was young woe versus the changeling assassin. His pistol discharged its payload in the back of Woe's chair, missing him where he stood.
Woe reached for the the gravegold, metal whip that the elder Woe wore around his waist. With a swift motion, he backpedaled, and cracked the mesh whip at the changeling. The force of it's attack split a gash in the changeling's torso. It threw aside its pistol, and drew a knife-like weapon that looked to be made of plant matter. With one desperate lunge, the changeling stabbed at Woe.
The dreaming torturer drew his adamantite seax from his belt, materializing it in that dream of the future. With a swift cut, intercepted the thorny knife in the changeling's hand. The adamantite sliced clean through its blade, cutting it halfway to the hilt. The changeling growled in a voice of multitudes, then barrelled forward, trying to give Woe the jailyard rush.
The torturer side stepped it, but still got caught by the changeling's knife-wielding arm. There, Woe fell backward, the changling suddenly assuming a superior position over him. He held the once broken knife, which now was growing a longer thorn as he lifted it. Woe's eyes flew wide open, yet as it was about to descend, he brought his blade up, and stabbed the creature in the belly. It shrieked agony in a dozen voices. Woe, given the momentary delay, took the handle of the knife with both hands, and drove it upward of what would have been the creature's solar plexus. He cut well through the cavity in his belly, and upwards of its sternum.
Syrupy blood dripped from the wound, soaking Woe's attire. It came out in rivulets, splashing against his mouth, his nose, his face. Blinding him. He almost hadn't the wherewithal to wake up, as the creature drove the dagger down on his shoulder, with malice.
Woe hissed in pain, but drove his own adamantite knife through the changling's heart, even as it's blade dug deep into his shoulder. He could feel it, it was almost real!
The warmth of his own blood gushing from the wound, the root-like skeleton of the changeling that obstructed the cut of his knife any further into its thorax . Woe was frozen momentarily, going into shock, when the creature leaned close, speaking with its dying 'breath'.
"You will come unto us. As one of us, son of the spider. Ever into darkness, underway! The Heart! We will be waiting!"
Woe awoke from the dream with a start, covered in sweat. His hand darted to his shoulder, which still felt the pain of the dagger there. To his surprise, there was a wound! Not as deep as it had been during the dream, yet there all the same. The torturer rose from his bed, still dressed in his sleeping robe. He went to the basin, and washed over his shoulder.
He would call for Fleaface soon, as night was beginning to fall. It would be time soon to find gainful employment. He had heard tell that the almoners were looking for enforcers. And so the thought crossed his mind that he'd worked (albeit for only a moment) as an almoner in Ne'haer. Certainly that wouldn't reflect poorly on him.
The next day he went to the Mercantile Guilds of the Gleam, where he would see this nightmare to its conclusion, or else make himself useful to the ruling order.
Continued here...
