18th of Saun, Arc 720
Soundtrack
The air stank like rancid meat. It wafted in through her nose and out through her mouth as Cierne struggled not to gag. The smell was overpowering. It elicited the little hairs in her lungs to shrivel up, making it hard to breathe. She didn’t want to breathe for fear the stench would be perpetually stuck during every future inhale.
She was tromping through a place in Emea she had never been before. There was hardly any light, nary a soft glow to guide her. But she didn’t struggle with this; she didn’t have a problem seeing in the dark because of what she was. Still, a little luminescence somewhere would have been nice. That way she wouldn’t feel so alone.
All she had with her was a bag of salt and a little camping knife (it wouldn’t do any harm unless she was attacking a loaf of bread). She didn’t know how she had come to obtain these items or when she had obtained them. But she didn’t really care either.
Through the darkness she could see a wisp of smog, perhaps swamp gas, lingering in the air at eye level. She had assumed she had been trekking through a swamp by the squishing and squashing her shoes were making with each step she took.
She passed the occasion tree, covered in loopy vines and strange flowers that seemed to have spikes coming out from its center instead of petals like normal flowers had. She had to dodge a few of them as they suddenly popped up as though manifesting out of nowhere. She tried to stay clear of the trees for this very reason, but they revealed themselves out of the smog at the last possible moment regardless of how well she could see in the dark. A few shallow lacerations to the arms proved that.
Her camping knife would do no good against those flowers or the vines they sprouted from.
Cierne kept her head low, just underneath the swamp gas. She wondered if the gas was like smoke, how it rose like smoke did in a room engulfed by flames.
As though just by thinking it, a small fiery ball of light appeared off in the distance. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until her hopes were already growing at the prospect of the warmth that fiery ball might offer.
She quickened her pace, coming up on the light all too quickly. She skidded to a stop as the fire grew ten fold in just the few short steps she had taken. But, man was it warm.
The gooseflesh that had erupted on her skin was quickly abated, the hairs on her flesh falling back until they were flush with her skin once again. Even her bones seemed to warm up a bit. The eerie chill she had experienced only moments ago had thankfully subsided. She stuck her hands closer to the fire, letting her camping knife and bag of salt drop beside her.
She hadn’t been to Emea in several nights. And she hadn’t had any lucid dreams for longer than that. It felt good to be somewhat in control of her dreams. It gave her the power she was always craving. But she had arrived in this particular part of Emea without warning.
She had been snuggled up in bed one minute and then she plopped down into a sewage-y mess with nothing more than a dull melee weapon and a bag of spice without any idea on what to do next.
What she did know, though, was that in this exact moment she wanted nothing more than to be back in her cozy bed, wrapped up in the warmth of her many blankets. Because just then a strong gust of chilly wind bit at her hands and face.
The fire in front of her suddenly vanished, sending her back into the darkness she had been unwillingly invited to from the beginning.
Cierne huffed, tenuously brushing a strand of wild hair away from her face. Her fingers shook as she did, giving away just how cold she really was.
She had to keep moving if she wanted to stay warm. So she continued onwards, picking up her knife and bag of salt as she did.
She had only made a few strides before the ground underneath her gave way, sending her plummeting into the darkness of the unknown. Fortunately for her, the fall only lasted a few moments, the darkness too, and she landed in a soft pile of leaves surrounded by bushes of miraculous colors.
There was a blue bush and a purple bush, even a vibrant orange that just didn’t make sense. What kind of bush would be such a vivid hue?
Cierne looked up to where she had just fallen from, but there was nothing but an abysmal grey. Strange, she pondered, but didn’t dwell too much on the abrupt transition into a new place. Her attention was elsewhere, more specifically, the colorful shrubbery.
As she admired the bushes, Cierne wondered if she could take something from Emea and wake up with it in the real world. She brandished her camping knife and began cutting at the bush’s many twigs. She extracted several small orange leaves and stashed them away in her bag of salt.
She didn’t know if it would be there when she woke, but it was something she was willing to try.
Cierne was just about to cut some leaves off of the purple bush when an inhuman wail came from beyond. Instinctively, she took cover under the many bushes, using them to conceal her as best they could in case the sound had come from something unfriendly .
She cursed herself for not first surveying her surroundings. She had been vigilant in the swamp, but after falling through that pit of darkness and winding up here (wherever here was, which, because of her inept ability to be lucid was really just the same place), she had let her guard down, making herself vulnerable to the elements.
The wail came again, only this time it was even louder, closer, and more inhuman than before. It was worse than nails being dragged against a chalky stone or a cat’s cry after having its tail stepped on. But Cierne didn’t dare move to cover her ears. She didn’t want to give away her position if it was an enemy she was hiding from.
Haunted stories told to her as a child began to flash through her mind. She recalled her mother describing to her an enormous beast with six appendages (she wasn’t sure which were arms or legs or if they were considered either). The beast was over ten feet tall with so many eyes it could rival a spider. What was worse was that it looked like it had had a bad run in with a bonfire: it’s skin was melted off and revealed muscles and sinew, clots of blood just barely holding together severed blood vessels.
Cierne also remembered her mother had described the beast's warning call, how it mimicked a human’s voice in order to draw in its prey. It would wail and scream and cry for mercy as though the human it was trying to mimic was being tortured. But the beast could never quite get the human voice down, making its shriek sound inhuman.
Cierne shivered at the thought and tried to make herself smaller underneath the shrubbery.
When she had asked her mother if it had any weaknesses (as a young Naer always inquired because of their extremely competitive nature and basis on survival), her mother smirked mischievously and told her they had none but that a ring of salt would deter them.
So that’s what the bag of salt was for.
Cierne made no hesitation in reaching into the bag and withdrawing handfuls upon handfuls of salt. She spread the mineral out and around her until she had crafted a makeshift circle with her sitting inside.
However, in doing all this she had made quite the ruckus. The wailing had grown almost twice as loud and was increasing with every beat of her thundering heart.
All at once, the screaming stopped. The only sound remaining was the deafening pounding in Cierne’s chest. She struggled for air, still trying her hardest to keep quiet. Her shaky breaths were ruthless and most probably gave her away.
After several minutes, Cierne began to wonder if the beast had gone. Had it grown tired of her? Or was it just playing with its food? There was only one way to find out.
The Naer sucked in a deep breath and slowly lifted herself out of her hiding spot. She raised her head gradually until she could just barely see over the hedge.
Big mistake.
Ten eyes the size of cannonballs, all the color of blood, stared unblinking back at her.
The breath she had been holding disappeared almost immediately leaving her with the feeling of having been punched in the stomach.
She fell backwards and began to scramble away, trying to put as much distance between her and this thing as she possibly could. Her head became dizzy, her vision blurry as she remembered to take a staggering breath.
It’s eyes continued to stare, watching as she struggled to flee. It began to grow in size, standing up right and showing its full size which dwarfed the description her mother had told her so many years before. It’s maw opened to reveal teeth as long as bats and as sharp as swords. And the smell, oh the stench that wafted from out its mouth…
Well, it resembled none other than the smell Cierne had experienced back in the swamp.
That thing had been following her this entire time!
Now, Cierne was no lightweight, but at that very moment, her body had decided it had had enough and shut down. Be in the smell or the fear or the mixture of both, everything went black.
She woke with a start, surrounded by her many blankets, on her bedroll, in her own tent, with a puzzled and slightly irritated looking Meinz sitting next to her.
The ghost eyed her precariously and growled, “what’s your problem?”
If only she knew!
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