by J E Mueller
“Agmon are odd nightmare creatures,” Mare whispered carefully as she relaxed her position and leaned against the wall. “They are rather tall creatures that normally don’t move very quickly. They feed off of magical energies, basically sucking the life force right out of you, of course after tearing you to shreds.”
“That doesn’t tell me much.” I repressed a shiver. I did not want to meet these things.
Mare gave an amused grin. “It’ll be easier to show you, and sadly you’ll have to see one to get answers. If we don’t help, Sans and crew will likely be killed.”
“And somehow you two are enough to save them?” I very purposefully excluded myself here.
“Yes,” Clove said, butting in without hesitation. “I am strong enough to hold my own against one of these things, and with Mare’s help, we can destroy one. Though, it will take time. Having to go up against several at once isn’t fun, but as long as it’s just two it’s possible. We just need to get there before the rest of the agmon arrive.”
“Possible? Sure, I’ll pretend we’re badass enough for two.” Mare shook her head. “If we can just do one at a time we’ve certainly got this.” Mare pushed herself off the wall. “Shall we then?”
“Of course,” Clove said, as if this was just another day to day activity for her. Maybe it was.
“What should I do?” I asked hoping that staying behind was the full answer.
“Don’t get in the way.” Clove shrugged.
Mare nodded. “That’s basically it. Stay back, and honestly I’d stay as much around a corner as possible. While they aren’t normally quick, I wouldn’t want to dodge away from a strike and have it accidentally hit you.”
“Sounds fair to me.” And perfect really. Stay back, observe. I had this on lock down.
Clove motioned toward Mare, “Lead on almighty Tracker.”
“With glee.” Mare said, words dripping with so much sarcasm it was tangible.
Clove either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I couldn’t get a read on Clove at all, but it seemed like Mare did not want to be on this adventure at all. I could only guess they were continuing on with these plans since their own alliance was in trouble. Would they have tried and helped the other alliance if their own wasn’t at death's door or would they have been acceptable casualties? I didn’t know if I could truly align myself with a group that just left people to die. Or die again as it were.
Mare’s hands suddenly glowed a deep purple and two short swords appeared, one in either hand. Clove’s did as well as and a jagged two handed sword appeared in her hands. I just realized I didn’t know what Clove’s second gift was, and wasn’t sure if she meant to keep it hidden or not.
Ready, the two set off down the hall once more. I followed behind at a safe distance, letting them take the first turn around the corner, and then the next several moments before me so I could carefully peer around and scope for danger.
The creature was around the second corner, and I finally understood what Mare meant. I had no idea how to properly describe the thing that was slowly turning from a doorway at the end of the hall to face them. It was certainly tall and nightmare-ish as Mare described.
The creature’s bat like ears just barely missed touching the ceiling. Its body was hunched and thin. Part of it was almost human like in stature, except where there should have been arms, giant blades took their place, going all the way to the floor. It’s eyes were a glowing white, and I had no way of telling how it saw or what it was even looking at.
As I stared it shifted its body to fully stand facing the duo, bladed arms scraped along the ground as it moved. The Agmon tilted its head from side to side for a moment before it shifted sharply and seemed to be staring directly into my soul. I froze in place as the eyes turned an icy blue and then as black at the rest of its body.
The Agmon titled it’s head back and gave a fearsome screech, forcing me to cover my ears. I was surprised to see the same reaction from Mare and Clove but they recovered quickly and moved to attack, only it didn’t seem to care.
Instead, the Agmon moved it’s bladed arms back and started to run down the hall toward me.
I didn’t hesitate to move and ran back down the hall and around the corner where we came. I couldn’t remember the full route back and after two turns and a glance back I saw it was about to catch up to me. So, I did all I could think to do and tossed myself into a room and hoped there would be something to bar the door with.
There was a desk, and a few chairs I saw and instantly shoved in the way of the door. A moment later I heard the sound of scratching on the door. Those blades could easily make quick work of it and I wondered if the light scratching was to just toy with me. It knew I was trapped. I knew I was trapped. Inwardly I prayed to the gods and goddesses of old to give me a way out of this disaster.
Mirror.
Oh great. I was hearing voices again. Still, I looked around the room and saw a mirror hung on the wall on the other side of the room. Next to it was a little book shelf filled with books and knick knacks but aside from that nothing else was in this room, not even a window. I took a slow turn and wondered how the room had light when not even a candle was lit.
Freaking magic world is how.
Sighing, I walked up to the mirror. Okay voice of insanity, why is the mirror important?
Because it is a door.
I took a step back from the mirror, surprised by the direct answer. Why was I startled from the mirror? The voice was in my head and there was nothing I could do about slowly going insane. Unless this voice was from someone possibly telepathic. I suppose in a magic like realm that was equally as likely as slowly coming more and more off my rocker.
I took a step to the mirror and pulled on it, finding one side did come loose. Carefully, I swung it open and saw there was some space behind. It appeared to lead into an almost closet. A very small one at that. It was fairly dark and dusty and didn’t seem to have anything in it.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up surprised to see Benz glancing down over a ledge.
“Um, I don’t know. Trying not to die?” I offered. The scratching on the door behind me was starting to get louder.
“Agmon?” he guessed.
I nodded. “Um, so is that an escape route?” I hoped, otherwise we were both fairly screwed.
Benz nodded and offered a hand up. I glanced back at the door as wood started to split. Turning back I accepted the hand, and was quickly pulled up. The mirror door closed of its own accord and I found myself in a dim space that was only big enough to crawl in.
“What are you doing up here?” I had to ask.
“Same as you.” He shrugged. “I saw some light, decided to see what was going on, and now that that mystery is solved…” Benz started to crawl away.
I followed, figuring it was my best bet on getting out somewhat safely. “Why did you help me?” Again really. It seemed like he had purposely kept me hidden earlier from the other gravelly voice guy.
“It’s a complicated world and I’m not one to deny someone help when it’s that simple.” He didn’t even pause to look at me. “I can’t say I’ll promise the same in the future, but you’ll see there are a lot of moving parts here, and they all want us dead. I didn’t survive the last maybe four years here by rescuing every last soul.”
I nodded to myself. It seemed that he and Clove had a lot in common.
“Why the separate alliances if everything is equally out to kill everyone?” It seemed like a good question.
“I saw you with Clove earlier.” Benz stopped his crawling and sat so he could see me. “I suspect you were with her when that Agmon attacked. So tell me, why did it go after you instead of her if things are equally after us all?”
I tried to talk several times before I gave up trying to answer reasonably. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly. Nothing is fair here. Nothing is equal here, and none of it makes any sense.” Benz resumed his crawling as if that was answer
enough.
“Okay, that doesn’t make sense, and that doesn’t explain the separate groupings.” I called out dumbly.
Benz paused but didn’t look back as he gave a sad laugh. “Because some of us want only the strongest to survive and some of us want all of us to survive and even more, some of us don’t want to be bothered at all. So people spread out because they all want to handle it differently. Is that a good enough answer?”
It was, but I didn’t like it one bit.
“And which one are you?” I asked instead.
“I don’t know anymore.” Benz continued crawling for a moment before moving a tile. “Catch you later.” With that he let himself drop down and vanished from sight.
I crawled over to the hole and carefully stuck my head out but didn’t see Benz anywhere. Thankfully, I also didn’t see the Agmon anywhere either.
Carefully, I lowered myself down until I was dangling by my fingertips and let myself drop to the ground. While I was hoping for a graceful heroic landing, I instead stumbled and fell flat on my butt. At least no one was around to see that. Carefully I glanced around for something I might recognise, but really all these halls were wainscotted on every single floor. The only differences were the occasional artwork we passed but I didn’t pay enough attention to that earlier.
Cringing at my own idea, I tried to think loudly at the voice for help. Whoever they were seemed to know what was going on and where to go.
Turn around, go left.
It’s instructions were clear at least, but who were they? I turned to follow the directions.
We haven’t spoken in years. It would take too long to explain.
I couldn’t help but pause. What did that mean?
Exactly what it sounds like. You’ve been here before but you remember nearly nothing. Now press on, there’s too many creatures afoot, and you’ve yet to remember how to fight them.
Well, the voice was right there, but I hated the lack of information. Everything seemed to be one new bit of information and then two steps back. I suppose I should be grateful for at least this little bit right now. I had noted in my journal several people were disappointed I had forgotten them. This was clearly one of those people.
I followed the instructions until I hit an intersection. In the distance, I could hear Mare and Clove just off to the right side of the crossway. Carefully, mostly to make sure there were no more of those Agmon creatures nearby, I approached them.
“Well, the one that chased her is dead, but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. Where do you think she went?” Mare asked, her voice sounding tired.
“You’re the Tracker, where did she go?” Clove replied sharply. “It’s not impossible she woke up.”
“No, her trail just vanished. It didn’t dispel like it would if she woke up. She must have found one of those passage ways,” Mare declared.
“How long will it take for the trail to reappear then?” Clove asked.
“Probably a minute or so after she leaves whatever magic passage she got stuck in…” Mare’s voice trailed off. “Oh, she’s actually almost back here.”
Well, that sounded like it was safe enough to catch up to them. I picked up a more normal pace until I reached them.
When I turned the corner Clove had her arms crossed looking annoyed. Mare didn’t seem bothered at all though.
“Well, how did you escape?” Clove asked up front.
“I found this passageway behind the mirror after I tried shoving all the other furniture in front of the door.” I shrugged. Something in my gut made me withhold the hearing voices part. I didn’t think they’d believe I was crazy, but I also didn’t know what else to say about it to them.
“Awesome.” Mare gave a nodding approval. “Shall we continue on then?”
“What happened to that creature?” I asked, wanting to at least know it was gone.
“It’s incapacitated.” Clove shrugged and started to lead the way. “They’re very hard to kill, but at least it's immobilized enough so it won’t bother us anymore today.”
Mare gave a shrug as she followed behind Clove. “There seems to be just one more. Good thing you were in a passageway. You got to miss the screams.”
I slowed my pace. “The screams?” Because missing screams was so comforting. What caused them? Did I really want these answers?
“Oh, yeah, the other Agmon got someone. It’s terribly painful feeling to have your entire soul and magical essence ripped out and drained,” Mare summed up. “So this time, don’t look at the creature. It will be better if you avoid eye contact with them.”
“Is that why it came after me?” I asked curiously. “And why would it care about a Dreamer? Isn’t my soul not entirely here?” Maybe? It made sense to me that it wouldn’t be since I wasn’t exactly dead dead.
“They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul.” Mare shrugged. “The creature itself feeds off of both magical essence and souls so, maybe you just have some great untapped magic it was craving?”
“Is there any way to say that without it being creepy as heck?” I shuddered at the thought.
“Not really.” Mare chuckled and motioned for me to be quiet.
Up ahead, I could hear the sound of scratching along a door. This time, I had no issues with hanging back while the other two summoned their weapons and went off to fight. I was not ready to be creature chow. Possible dream or not.
Mare and Clove took off running and I could hear the sounds of blades meeting blades. As much as I wanted to look, I dared not. I had already done enough stupid things for one day, and I wasn’t sure fate would be kind enough to provide another escape route.
I didn’t like hearing the sounds of battle and not knowing what was going on. There were several cries of pain, and I was certain the Agmon had hit a wall more than a few times from the sounds of things. Finally after what felt like too long, I could hear Mare call to me that it was safe.
4
Very carefully - the butterflies in my stomach were too much - I peered around the corner. Both women had cuts along their arms. Some were bleeding worse than others. My eyes went from them and their injuries to the creature lying with a sword through its head on the floor.
Clove didn’t bother to wait for me to approach and walked over to the door that the Agmon had been tearing its way into. “Hey, who all survived?” she called into the door.
There were more than enough holes to see in, and I shouldn’t have been surprised when someone peaked through one to look out.
“Just Lo, and Sans here with me,” the voice replied tiredly.
“Well, coast is clear. Let’s see what’s going on,” Clove stated, rather annoyed.
“Sure, I’ll unlock the door but its not going to just open anymore with how broken it is,” the voice retorted.
Mare sighed and walked over with her blades and, with a combination of force and blade, got the door open enough to get in. I hesitantly followed behind the two.
It seemed weird Clove was so angry at them for not instantly opening the door and praising her, but then again, I was starting to see that as part of her personality. At least she did help save them, no matter the internal reason.
Once inside, I saw a very similar room to what I had stumbled into. There were chairs that were once pushed up against the door and a rather torn up desk, likely credit to the Agmon. There was also a mirror across the room and I wondered if there was a passage there as well or if that was only a here and there type of passage thing.
Clove stepped in and introduced us. The first person she pointed to was clearly healing someone on the floor. From the amount of blood everywhere, it looked like they were lucky to be alive. “Remi the Dreamer, met Lo. He’s our resident healer. Cane.” She motioned to the person closest to the door who had been talking to us. “Is our artifact finder and Sans, as you’ve heard, should be able to figure out your gift when she’s more whole.” Sans was the one being healed and I wondered why she jumped around so much in her introduction
. Did she want to highlight why we were actually here?
Cane had her short, crazy curly blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She still looked a bit on edge from their run in with the Agmon, but overall I couldn’t see any noteworthy injuries.
Cane gave a slow nod. “I'm guessing you’re not here to join the artifact hunt then.”
Clove shook her head. “Not today. Kaden couldn’t figure out what this Dreamer could do.”
Sans looked up from the floor, exhaustion lining her face, and still had blood matted in her blonde hair, she looked like she was starting to do well enough. “Kaden couldn’t or didn’t want to?” she asked for clarification.
“Couldn’t according to him.” Clove frowned at Sans. “And I’d like to get to the bottom of both problems at once.”
Sans motioned for Lo to move. “Let’s figure it out then.”
“You’re not done being healed!” Lo protested loudly.
“I’m fine enough to figure out something this simple,” she huffed and tried to get up.
With a sigh, Lo helped her up. Sans shook trying to stand. It didn’t appear she was well enough to be up and moving yet, but Sans seemed to refuse to acknowledge that fact.
“Well, come here.” Sans motioned for me to come to her.
I obliged but stopped a foot short of her. “Is this going to hurt again?” I cringed at the memory of the last jolt.
“Well, pretty much.” Sans managed a smile.
Sighing, I closed the distance and offered my hand. The second she grasped mine firmly, I felt a jolt that hurt as much as the last time. I shook my hand out, trying to make the feeling of pins and needles vanish as Sans considered the answer.
“Well?” Clove asked impatiently.
I raised an eyebrow at Clove, but turned to Sans to see what the verdict was.
“It’s not that it’s really unclear, but I see why Kaden wouldn’t get it. He hasn’t run into this before,” Sans stated thoughtfully.