"We live in a sick and morbid world, and it has long since engraved its twisted nature into all of us." L.L. paused. "After what you put everyone through during our last outing, you're not in any position to lecture me about morbidity."
"I'm surprised you didn't dream about being back in the Monad Fortress," Ellen said quickly, hoping to change subjects. "You were Brendon's..." She wanted to say assistant, but Brendon and L.L.'s relationship was still very nebulous. They were too intimate to be colleagues, but too formal to be in a relationship.
"I was Galvin's Special Force's second in command," L.L. said. "And the fifth highest ranking individual in the Monad Fortress, and the second most capable. I could see myself dreaming up a world where everyone ahead of me had died off, leaving me total control of the fortress, but what I want more than anything is for Coco's death to stop haunting me."
She glanced at the mysterious stone.
"That thing is the source of all of our current problems," L.L. said. "If you had destroyed it earlier, I doubt you would've had to invade our dreams."
"I thought about that before," Ellen said, "but there was no way I could've destroyed it myself. And by the time I had others with me-" She paused, not wanting to admit that the idea had completely slipped her mind.
"It's doesn't matter now," L.L. said. "Sycamore is best suited for that type of work." She glanced towards the battle in the back of the chamber, then reached for her swords. "I'm expecting you to have him back on his feet within the hour."
Chapter 21
Back inside Sycamore's dream, Ellen didn't even have time to blink before an overwhelming sense of disgust spread to every inch of her body. Sycamore was still laying in bed inside his home, except now he had only his underwear on. Two women lay beside him, both of whom had only their underwear on as well.
"Can't you give me a couple hours to myself?" Sycamore complained. "What's so damn important that you have to keep barging in here and interrupting me?"
At least he wasn't fantasizing about her and Alice again. She'd spare him her knife, for now.
"This isn't real," Ellen snapped. "All of our friends are back in the waking world fighting and-"
"I don't care what this is," Sycamore said dismissively. "I'm sick and tired of getting chased around the world by monsters. I need some time to... you know." He smirked. "I don't have to explain it to you, you have that girlfriend of yours sleeping with you every night."
Ellen's face warmed up. Her and Tear shared beds and sleeping bags all the time, but not even in her dreams had they done anything more. "It's not like that!"
Sycamore's smirk grew. "Really? I still remember that note she wrote in the dirt a couple days ago. That girl is a real pervert. Are you saying you two never-"
"No!"
"So you never-"
"No!"
"I find it hard to believe that-"
"We're just friends," Ellen snapped. "You're the one who's a pervert." She glared at Sycamore, who sat watching her with a proud smirk on his face. "I'm going to leave you in this dream if you don't stop."
Her face still felt uncomfortably warm. For a moment she considered giving up on Sycamore, but she quickly pushed those thoughts away. He'd helped her several times in the past and she owed him this.
"You two sound like you need a moment alone," said one of Sycamore's dream girls. The other nodded, then both stood up, still in their undergarments, and made their way outside.
"Now look what you did!" Sycamore complained. "You said this is a dream, right? So if I grabbed you and pulled you under the blankets with me, it wouldn't matter-"
Ellen tore her knife from its sheath. Maybe Sycamore's dream girls didn't mind sharing a bed with him, but he would be pulling her knife out of his back if he tried anything with her.
"I didn't mean it!" Sycamore said quickly. Then he sighed. "So all of this is fake? I'm honestly not surprised."
Ellen relaxed. "Do you remember the underground chamber? And the mysterious stone?"
"I remember everything," Sycamore said, sounding tired now. "We were looking for Alice's friend, we found a strange gray forest, L.L. slipped off her rocker, then we went underground. Everything after that is a bit hazy, but eventually I woke up here."
"But why?" Ellen asked. "If you knew all of this is fake, then-"
Sycamore looked away. "Haven't I told you before that I don't like wandering around the world fighting monsters? I'd much rather live in a fantasy world than one where I risk getting killed every time I go outside."
Ellen felt bad for him now. She'd known for a while that Sycamore didn't like traveling with her, yet he had come along anyway due to some unfulfilled sense of duty, and she'd made no effort to stop him.
"This place isn't safe," she said. "There are monsters flooding into the underground chamber, and I don't know how much longer the others can hold them off. Even if they stop coming, you'll probably starve to death if you don't wake up soon."
"That sure is a predicament," Sycamore said, sounding bored. "Why don't you just... leave for a bit, and give me some time to think about what I want to do."
"You can't stay in this dream forever," Ellen snapped. "We need you back in the real world."
Ellen turned and found Tear standing behind her. Her messy gray hair was even messier than usual, and her clothes had splotches of red all over them.
"The monsters stopped attacking us," Tear told Ellen. "I'm sure it won't last long, but we have a moment of peace."
That made Ellen uneasy. There was no such thing as peace. There was only slow periods that occurred after all the normal sized monsters had been dealt with but the truly awful ones had yet to wake up.
Brendon appeared beside Tear. He spent a moment holding his head, seemingly sickened by his journey through the white light, then glanced at Sycamore. "I'm sure you're having a good time here, but we have work to do and we can't have you sleeping through it."
"I don't remember inviting all of you here," Sycamore said, hurrying to cover his midsection with a blanket. "Who else is going to show up?"
L.L. appeared next. "You can either wake up on your own or we can drag you out of here," she warned.
Alice materialized beside her. "You don't have to keep traveling with us if you don't want to," she said, her voice surprisingly warm compared to L.L.'s harsh, threatening tone, "but you should at least return to the Village of Majula. The chamber isn't going to stay safe for long."
"I'm not ready to leave yet!" Sycamore said.
Amadeo appeared near the front door. There was so little space left he ended up pushing everyone forward. "Sorry," he told Alice and L.L., whose heels he was standing on. He looked to Sycamore. "We've never met, but trust me, living in a fantasy world like this isn't good for your health, and it isn't good for the health of your friends." He paused. "Your friends meaning everyone here except myself, although I'm sure if we end up working together -"
"Just stop," Sycamore sighed. "I just wanted to have a pleasant day, but none of you are going to let me have one, are you? Fine, let's go back! Back to that horrible monster filled world! Are you ready? Because I'm not!"
Ellen gasped when the white light took her. For a moment it seemed like Sycamore would never give up his dream, but somehow they'd finally reached him.
Back in the underground chamber, Sycamore had already gotten onto his feet and was moving away. The others lay spread out on the ground around her, slowly stirring back to life.
Ellen stood up and followed Sycamore, but she didn't dare to move too close, not while he was shooting her such a bitter look.
"You don't owe me anything," Ellen said cautiously, "and you don't have to help me find my friends if you don't want to."
Sycamore looked away. "Don't worry about it," he said, sounding calm again. "It was my choice to stick with you, and even though I complain a lot, I don't regret it. But you know... if you could've just waited ten or fifteen minutes, I would've been in a much better mood."
He snick
ered.
"Let me ask you this," Sycamore said. "You and Tear haven't done anything except share a bed, I'll buy that, but have you ever thought about doing something more?"
It was a perverse question, but she wanted to get back on Sycamore's good side, so Ellen answered: "Yes, but-"
Sycamore laughed so hard his voice echoed all around the chamber. He was loud enough to drown out the pulpy pounding sounds coming from the chasm in the back. "If you ever feel like ruining my dreams again," he warned, "don't be surprised if I tell the whole world your dark secrets!"
Ellen's face was heating up again. So was the rest of her body. She wanted to yell at him for misleading her, but all the words were caught in her throat.
She startled when Tear popped up beside her and gripped her arm. "What's so funny? You two weren't fighting, were you?"
"It's nothing like that," Sycamore said joyfully. He spun on his heel and faced Ellen and Tear. "So are we done here? Everyone's alive and awake and there aren't any monsters trying to butcher us. Can we leave this awful hole in the ground already?"
"We need to destroy the stone first," Ellen said, to which Sycamore responded with a sigh. "We'll probably need your explosives."
"I don't like using those," Sycamore said, "but since you did save me from dying again, I suppose I can whip up a few for you."
He marched off towards the mysterious stone. Ellen hurried after him, and Tear her.
"You're really red," Tear said along the way. "What did he say to you? Did it have something to do with your dream?"
"It was about his dream," Ellen lied. "He was... he wasn't wearing any clothes when I first got there."
Tear's face curled up in disgust. "That sounds more like a nightmare. I'm glad we're almost done here."
Ellen stopped a short ways from the mysterious stone. How a glowing yellow rock could cause her so much grief and turmoil was beyond her, but as Tear had said, they were just about done here. The stone would soon be destroyed, and not only would its dream inspiring power never claim another victim, the sickness plaguing this dimension should disappear as well. Everyone in the Village of Majula would probably praise her and her friends should they visit them again, and she couldn't imagine any of them complaining should she tell them she wanted to make their village her home.
But first, she had to find her friends; Ludendi, Barry and Trevor. Meeting them in her dream hadn't placated her at all. It was the opposite. Her desire to see them was stronger now than it had ever been before. She couldn't settle down anywhere until she found them. And her guardian as well, assuming he was still alive.
The others were all soon back on their feet. Despite the mysterious stone sitting just a short ways away, their conversation immediately went elsewhere.
"That sound is getting louder," Amadeo said. "That pounding sound. All of you hear it too, right?"
Ellen nodded. So did everyone else. The meaty, pulpy pounding sounds coming from the chasm near the back of the chamber did seem to have grown louder while she was entering everyone's dreams. Maybe the source was finally coming up to meet her.
"I had my doubts at first," Amadeo said plainly, "but I'm positive I know what the source is."
"You don't think it's the same monster from back then," Alice said, "do you?"
Amadeo nodded.
"So this monster followed you here?" Sycamore asked.
"Followed?" Amadeo pondered. "It might have. The last time we met, it did seem very eager to attack me specifically. It might've come here to finish the job."
"If this thing is following you," Sycamore said, sounding anxious now, "Why don't we take off already? This spooky chamber is the last place I want to fight whatever's causing all that commotion. In fact, I'd rather not fight it at all."
Amadeo gave him a warm smile. "You're the type that scares easily, aren't you? I probably shouldn't tell you this, but this monster is massive beyond your wildest dreams. It can wipe out every monster we spent the last hour killing with just one swipe from one of its... appendages. Your heart would probably burst if you ever saw it up close."
"I know my heart almost exploded when I saw it," Alice said teasingly.
Sycamore looked like his heart would burst regardless.
"Leave him alone," Ellen said. "He's... well-"
"I'm a coward," Sycamore said. "You don't have to be coy about it. Everyone here knows already."
That wasn't the word she'd wanted to use, but it was an apt description. He really wasn't cut out for fighting monsters. Once they returned to the surface, she planned to order him to stay in the Village of Majula.
Amadeo's smile faded. "Sorry."
He stayed silent for a moment. He seemed to have something on his mind, but he was not eager to share it.
"This monster is so massive," Amadeo eventually said, "that it exists in multiple dimensions at the same time."
A bolt of fear struck Ellen. She wanted to call Amadeo a liar, but the world was so full of mystery that she couldn't be certain of anything.
The others seemed to share her fears. Even Alice, who'd been so playful a moment ago, looked worried, and for good reason. What could anyone do against a monster massive enough to occupy several dimensions at the same time?
"That's, well... not really something I needed to hear," Brendon said. He cleared his throat. "This multidimensional horror of yours doesn't sound like something we can fight. I think it's about time we head out."
"We've wasted enough time in this dimension," L.L. agreed, her voice as direct as ever. "Let's destroy this stone and move on." She turned to the mysterious stone. "After everything it put me through, I believe I've earned the honor."
Sycamore smiled. "Hold on now, let's just stop for a minute and remember who the explosive master here is. Besides, who destroyed the last one of these things we came across? It sure wasn't you."
"I'd like to take a shot at it," Tear said happily. "I really don't like how it tricked me."
"I think it was that stone that gave me my new power," Alice said. "Maybe we should leave it alone, just in case it-"
Several bitter glares came her way. She shut up.
"No offense to anyone," Amadeo said, "but all of you are too elderly or feminine for this type of work."
That earned him even more bitter glares than Alice's remark. He shrugged.
For a moment Ellen considered tossing her buckler at his head, but when it came down to it, she ultimately didn't care how the stone was destroyed. There was only one thing that did matter to her.
"Let me have the first hit," she said.
The others turned to her. They looked surprised, as if they couldn't believe she would make such a request.
"I had to save everyone's from its power," Ellen said, "and the sickness it created almost caused me to get eaten by a monster." No one had any objections, so she stepped forward. "Just let me have a few stabs, then you can go back to arguing."
She stopped beside the towering yellow stone and pulled her knife from its sheath. There was no way she could hurt the stone, and even leaving a scratch would be a challenge, but after all the painful memories it had stirred awake inside her and all the struggles it'd forced her into, she couldn't leave before she shared with it some of her frustrations.
A small chunk of the stone was already missing, she noticed now that she was up close.
Alice ran over and stopped beside her. "Do you want to use my sword?" she asked, offering Ellen her golden sword. "I'm sure it'll cause a lot more damage than your knife."
That was the sword that had killed her. The sight of it caused Ellen to recoil away in fear. "N-no, you... you keep it," she stammered.
Alice looked perplexed by her response, but she didn't push the issue.
Ellen raised her knife up then thrust it downwards at the stone. She expected the blade to simply scrape across the smooth, yellow surface, leaving a scratch at most, but as soon as the tip made contact, the stone vanished. So did the whole world.
She sto
od once again atop the endless white plains she'd visited inside Alice's dream, except now there was a vortex of swirling white and yellow and gray lights in the sky above her. It lifted her off her feet and sucked her into its infinite depth, thrashing her body every which way and spinning her so fast she couldn't tell which way was up, down, left or right.
The vortex soon vanished, leaving Ellen in pure darkness. She thrashed around desperately in hopes of finding something, anything, to grab onto, either one of her friends or her knife or even the mysterious stone, but she found naught. Then she tried shouting for help, but this freakish dimension or whatever it was she'd fallen into had stolen her voice from her. All she could do was flail helplessly as she drifted through the darkness.
Something appeared off in the distance. From afar it looked to be a rock or a pebble, but as it came closer, Ellen discovered it was a sort of platform. The bottom had jagged, rocky outcroppings sticking out every which way, but the top was perfectly flat. It even looked to be habited. An expansive mansion, probably the largest she'd ever seen, sat near the center. It was surrounded by trees with bright green leaves, wide open fields full of evenly cut grass, and gardens overflowing with flowers. Despite being surrounded on all sides by darkness, the mysterious retreat was lit up as if it were daytime.
Ellen's heart sped up. She hoped the inhabitants of that mysterious retreat were friendly, because whatever strange force had brought her out here was pulling her towards it and there didn't seem to be any escape.
Chapter 22
The mysterious force brought Ellen to the very edge of the rocky platform, then set her down gently, on her feet even, on a walkway made of smooth gray stones.
As strange as it was, the area at least smelled pleasant. It wasn't surprising, there were rose bushes growing all over. They looked alive and healthy, which meant someone had to be maintaining them, but wherever they were she couldn't see them now.
Scouring Majula (Ellen's Friends Book 3) Page 20