1098 Dead In Here.

The other night I had a dream where I was dating Evana Lynch. She played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films if you’re unfamiliar with the name. I wasn’t me exactly. In fact I never saw myself because this was a very rare FPS dream. I almost never dream in first person. Not exclusively at any rate. Durring the course of this dream I happened to watch Evana have a car accident. For some reason when that happened it was like something had gone wrong in the fabric of space and time. Things started disappearing Back To The Future style. Eventually reverting backwards around me into a world where Harry Potter had never been written. My dream self seemed to wake up into this reality while remembering the previous one. The thing is my dream self had a word for word memory of the entire HP series, so he decided to fill the void in his new reality himself. It was pretty weird.

This morning I had a dream where I was basically fat spiderman again. Which was cool, but I felt like I’d been there before.

My animal Crossing town is coming along pretty well. I have a few nice pieces of furniture, so my house doesn’t look like a hobo shack anymore. If you have the means please visit sometime. As always, friend code is on my twitter profile.

And now more story.

Julius made to follow her but stopped when Niona and Regalius didn’t follow. His gaze fell on Alina as she too saw whatever it was they were seeing. The color drained from her face and tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. He followed her line of sight. As the greenish light spread further around he saw 3 people standing, lit from below, as the ooze reached them.

They now knew the fate of the first party.

The danger was too great to let grief take the rest of the party. Julius jumped forward, placing himself between them and their fallen friends.

“We can’t help them now!” He shouted. “Keep your wits about you or you’ll share their fate! Keep moving away from the light!”

Even as he finished speaking one of the rotting comrades lunged forward, swinging a huge sword overhand at Julius. He reacted in time, but the force of the blow was far more than he expected. Legs crumpling like paper he was forced down to one knee. This husk was no longer held back by the frailty of life. In death he was no more formidable than ever before. The icy chill of mortal fear washed over Julius. Rather than try to parry another blow he rolled away, causing the next strike to connect with the stone floor.

The attacker’s sword broke cleanly, nearly in half. He seemed taken aback by this and made the motions of cursing, which caused fetid blood to burp out of his mouth. This seemed to confuse him and Julius took the chance to make a break for it. By comparison the entire hoard of dry bones were less dangerous than these freshly dead.

Still obviously horrified at this turn of events the others followed, batting aside attacks in a bid to put distance between themselves and their massacred friends. They charged headlong into the retreating darkness. More skeletal soldiers slowly rising to undeath as they ran. Suddenly Julius understood, and the other seemed to catch on as well. Niona voiced what they were all realizing.

“It’s the light.” She gasped. “Where ever we move it wakes them up…”

“We need to stand our ground,” Alina said. “Finish off what we’ve woken up, then move on. It’s the only way to cross the room.”

“I- I think it might be too late.” Regalius observed. “We’ve activated too many. I don’t think I can keep fighting this hard.”

The sound of clattering armor was closing in all around them. Somewhere in the deeper darkness the gutteral moans of their unfortunate friends were also coming closer. For a moment Julius considered leaving them behind. He could probably get past the chamber door if he made a mad dash for it. Who were these people to him anyway? What did he owe them?

“Everyone get behind me.” Came Alina’s voice, clear and detirmined. “Niona, on my right. Julius to my left. Regalius, make a wall of that pillar. Cast whatever you think will aid us best.”

He owed that woman his life at least, and there was a good chance he owed that much to the other as well. He took a small stone from his pouch.

“Can you cast a light spell?” He said turning to Regalius.

“Of course I can.” He replied “But we have light. Why would-”

“I need real light, as bright as you can make it for as long as you can make it! Can you do it?” The urgency in his voice seemed to convince Regalius. He pointed a pinger at the ceiling.

“Everyone, cover your eyes!” He shouted. They all complied and a burst of brilliant, white, light exploded above them. Julius turned away, holding the little stone up to his mouth.

“Twig, if you’re listening I need help.” He spoke urgently to the little rock. “I’m seriously about to die here.” With that the little stone began to glow faintly blue in the darkness of his shadow. Julius let go of it and it hung in the air. A voice drifted out of it.

“Master, I obey your call.”

With that a small, female, figure rose from his shadow as if it was water. It’s hand closed around the glowing pebble. She looked as though made of shadow itself, but wasn’t dissipated by light. Regalius gaped.

“What have you summoned?” He asked shakily. The figure of shadow turned towards him and laughed in a very unsettling way.

“You’ll see soon enough, elf…” She replied, though her voice seemed to whisper from his own shadow and echo in the darkness all around them. Julius turned slightly.

“Whatever you do, do not let that light fade out!” He commanded. Regalius nodded in stunned silence as the little shadow woman strode casually into the darkness.

Niona and Alina were keeping back the tide of bones as best they could, but their numbers were over whelming. For every one they took out another was right behind it to take its place. Then Niona noticed something strange. At the very edge of the circle of light a skeleton suddenly fell over, and she heard a little outburst of maniacal laughter. Then one fell backwards out of sight. Moments later a skull exploded into a cloud of dust, the decapitated form flailing around wildly before being taken down by other soldiers. A noticeable gap was forming in the ranks of oncoming foes and continued to grow. Whatever was taking them down was doing so with total impunity. It was as though the darkness itself had turned upon them, and was laughing at them.

Soon Regalius could keep his illumination spell going while also playing his rousing tune on a small wooden flute. It wasn’t as effective as his violin had been but it was enough to keep the others going. The tide was slowly shifting in their favor again.

Of course they all knew it was only a matter of time before their lost teammates stepped out of the darkness and they would have to face them. In spite of this it was still a shock when it happened. The man with the broken sword crossed the distance between his rotting self and Alina in a few long strides. His attack vicious and resounding, but Alina stood as a stone stands against a wave. Strike upon strike rained down on her too quickly to answer, but she held her ground. Julius kept lesser beings from causing her trouble, but wondered how long she could keep up her defense.

The other slain friends soon stepped out of the darkness as well and rounded upon Niona. One was a slender man dressed and armed in a manner similar to Alina, but pierced many times, the other a woman, possibly an elf, whose long hair had been hacked wildly, had a badly injured arm. It hung lamely, but still held a shield.

Julius decided to take up arms against the man. His speed would be a better match against the slow swing of the mace. Though brutal the swings lacked finesse and he avoided them easily. Niona had reach over the shield maided. One armed she couldn’t properly defend against Niona’s skill. She was soon literally disarmed. After a clumsy swing that shattered a large section of floor Julius was able to do the same to his opponent. Regalius bitterly chanted the strongest fire spell he knew and the pair were released from their torture.

A few more of the skeletal soldiers meandered into the circle, but no longer in numbers to vast to deal with. The party turned its attention to Alina, still holding her foe at bay, unable to gain an advantage. As they made ready to help the little shadow woman casually walked back into the light. While the big man continued to wail on Alina’s mace she cut the legs from under him with no more effort than someone opening a letter. With no base the mountain crumbled. Alina stepped away, tears streaming down her face, as Regalius sent this poor soul to Valhalla as well.

The room was silent again apart from the weary panting of the party. Regalius slid down the pillar he was backed up against, exhausted. His light spell finally fading away. As it did the darkness seemed to melt away from the shadow girl leaving a beautiful, but very normal looking, dark skinned, human walking up to Julius. He hair was short, black, with a streak of blonde in the front. Her clothes looked like Julius’s might have if he wasn’t so shabby, and liked wearing them skin tight. They were also mostly an immaculate shade of midnight blue.

“Did I please master?” She said sweetly embracing Julius in a somehow catlike way.

“Very much so.” He replied wearily. “But please don’t do the master thing right now, okay?”

She rubbed face lovingly into his chest.

“Yes master…”