Dreamer's Melody

by J E Mueller

  “For real guy, relax. It can’t see you!” I just about screamed at him as fear started to overtake me.

  The creature, hearing my voice, started sprinting for me. I took several steps to one side and held my breath. It ran right by me and I prayed inwardly to every god and goddess I knew. The thing couldn’t get a lock on me and the Dreamer finally seemed to stop making noise.

  Carefully, I took a few more steps and fired an arrow into the back of its head. The creature shrieked and looked around. It had no idea where the source of pain was coming from. Did this thing even bleed? What would it take to destroy this thing? I had never in my life hated being outdoors so much. This place was an endless nightmare.

  Chapter 9

  For a long time we all stayed still, no one daring to breathe too loud or speak. After what felt like an eternity, the creature gave up and walked slowly back into the woods, arrows still lodged in it. We waited some time, and once we were sure it was finally gone, Ze released his magic on us as he breathed heavily. The strain on him was a bit too much.

  “What the fucking hell was that?” he turned to ask Mare.

  Mare still looked a little pale, but managed to give out a shaky laugh. “I believe that is called a Sagloumn Dilus. It’s a rather unpleasant sight. It only feels a little bit of pain, as you can tell. I’m not sure how to actually kill it. I’ve heard you need to pierce its heart, but its heart isn’t in the spot a normal one is, so good luck guessing.”

  “It didn’t even bleed,” I managed to choke out, still astonished. The whole situation had me shaken.

  “Well, I won’t pretend I know creature anatomy.” Mare shrugged and gave a half-hearted laugh. “I just know I can’t freaking kill it.”

  “Okay, okay, well that sucked…” Ze said, taking a breath to steady himself. “But the thing is gone, so we’re good now right? Let’s try and get back on track so we can get the freaking hell back inside.”

  “Right,” Mare agreed, taking back control. “We can shortcut this next part fairly easy with your little talents Ze. Want to climb the garden wall all invisible-like and tell us if anything is moving in there? I can’t scan the next area until we go in.”

  Ze nodded. “Is the wall considered part of the maze? Because you can climb up with me and scan in case I miss something.”

  “Oh, even better plan.” Mare nodded. “We’ll find out.”

  The Dreamer guy looked over at us. “What is going on?”

  “Well, you’re stuck here in a dream that is pretty damn nightmare-ish. You should wake up, right?” I stated simply, not knowing what else to say.

  The guy looked surprised. “A dream?” It was like a spell breaking. As he muttered the words he faded away.

  “Does that work on everyone?” I asked, surprised.

  Mare laughed. “No. Usually, it doesn’t work at all. At least that solves that issue. As much as my heart goes out for those people, I just can’t babysit them when we need those plants so Leta doesn’t die.”

  Oh fair point. I just nodded tiredly and followed them over to the garden wall. As they climbed I kept an eye on things where I was. Nothing seemed to be moving, and I figured Mare had a pretty good hold on things. If we could continue to sneak around easily, and not run into any more Dreamers, we should be done with this soon. I didn’t trust luck to hold up that well. It already wasn’t holding up at all.

  My eyes kept darting back to the forest. That creature, likely lingering and wandering just on the forest’s edge, was so close to the house that it made me nervous. How did we go from first floor easy to a creature that could not be killed in a few hits? Opening a door should not have that much of an impact, and yet… I shuddered to think what it could do. Clearly, it had razors for teeth, but did it have claws? Did it have magic? What could that thing do aside from give me nightmares for the next two lifetimes.

  It was several minutes before the two climbed down from the wall. Both of them seemed tired just from the view and use of magic. Still, we had to press on.

  “I couldn’t see anything moving,” Ze admitted as he leaned back against the stone wall. “It seems to stretch on too far.”

  “I could sense something in the back, and of course that is exactly where we’re heading,” Mare admitted. “If we can figure out a good distraction we should be able to pick the plants needed and get in and out before anyone can be hurt.”

  I nodded and motioned for Mare to lead on. “Let’s get going then.” The less talking, the less things we would attract.

  Mare confidently led the way in and I remembered her saying she had come here before. It was only more recently she said things had gotten bad. Hopefully, that meant that the things lurking around the garden weren’t too bad then.

  “What things are normally out here?” I asked softly as we carefully made our way through the maze of plants, bushes, and trees.

  “In here? Depends. Some things are more humanoid creatures, but mostly it’s bugs. They can get fairly big if not kept in check,” Mare replied, slowing her pace. “And of course, it’s one of the bugs I sense.”

  “What kind?” I asked. A heads up would be perfect for being ready to take it down.

  “A bug. I can’t quite tell what kind. Or how big,” she said softly. “Bugs are really hard to tell. We need to get closer”

  I didn’t realize how limited a Tracker’s gift could be. It occurred to me that she may just have all the creatures and things placed in the house memorised. There had to be enough differences in how they felt for her to tell them apart, but what was it? I was about to ask when she stopped us.

  “Spider,” she whispered as she pointed out some bushes in the distance that were fairly thoroughly covered in spiderwebs.

  Oh geez. This was something that was easily straight out of a nightmare. I didn’t recall being tangled in a spiders web ever, and I shivered to think how easily possible it could be.

  “What now?” I whispered, hardly daring to make a sound.

  “I wish we had fire.” She tried to chuckle.

  Ze nodded. “Me too. Maybe a fire illusion will scare it away?”

  “Maybe? Or it would draw it closer. I don’t know.” Mare didn’t sound up to the job anymore.

  In a land of nightmare fuel, everyone had to have their limits.

  “Okay, how do we kill it?” I asked, trying to concentrate on the task at hand.

  “Stab it’s underbelly and hope not to die.” She swallowed hard.

  Well, at least it was an answer. “It may be small.” I tried to be reassuring.

  “Heh, no. There’s no way.” Mare shook her head.

  I took several steps forward to look around the next corner of bushes. There were a lot more webs covering a much larger scale of things. We were going to be right in its den. This was a huge hell no. I backed up several steps and took a breath.

  “These flowers aren’t elsewhere?” I asked as I came back over to her.

  “Not that I know of. Even Clove suggested the garden,” Mare admitted.

  Damn it. We were all thinking the same thing there.

  “Ze, make me invisible,” I demanded.

  “What? You can’t just go in there.” Ze shook his head.

  “Well are you? Or are we just going to let Leta die?” I hadn’t even met Leta and I didn’t want to risk their life. Er, their last life? Whatever it was, I wasn’t giving up just yet.

  “The flower is purple. There are thorns too that are a deep red. It should be in more of a bush. Think roses,” Mare explained.

  Ze sighed. “I’m coming with, at least. Two can get the job done faster. We’ll split the room and hopefully avoid the damn spider.”

  Mare nodded but didn’t say anything. She seemed fairly rooted in place. Well, it was what it was. Leaving her to stand there, I carefully approached the corner with Ze at my side. Once his magic was in place I slowly moved forward. I wasn’t feeling confident in getting this plant, but at least the spider wouldn’t see me.

  Everyt
hing was covered in webs, including a good majority of the ground. I took a careful step onto the web and made sure my foot wouldn’t be stuck in place. It came up just fine. A few hesitant steps later, I started walking normally while looking this and that way for the spider. Where the heck was it? Mare’s reaction led me to believe it would be right here.

  She was never wrong on location. Holding back a sigh, I knew exactly where it was and slowly looked up. Sure enough, the beast of nightmares was taking up most of a series of trees. Stupidly large was an understatement. Its purple and black body gleamed in the sunlight. Weren’t these things supposed to like shade? Whatever. As long as it stayed up there and left me alone down here I would be happy. I’d accept that it was way too big, and that it needed almost three trees for a home. Yep, totally wasn’t internally screaming. Totally wasn’t internally ready to cry.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  Ze followed my gaze up and looked like he was going to be sick. I nudged him, pointing for him to head back. Instead, he shook his head, pointed to the right and started to carefully look at the flowers. Trying not to make a sound, I started on the left. The webs made it so hard to see colors.

  Slowly, I made my way around until I found the right flower. Of course, it was near that damn tree the spider was in. That was the luck I had expected. Now how do we get it out? There were a lot of webs around it, and these were fairly sticky. I considered tugging it out but was afraid all the movement would alert our new spider friend to my location.

  Instead I motioned, well... flailed, my arms around until I got Ze’s attention. Pointing frantically at the flower’s location, Ze walked over. He motioned for me to pick it. I motioned up at the spider. Yeah, no. He shrugged. We needed a distraction.

  I motioned with my bow to the furthest corner away from us that was not the door. Ze nodded and I hoped he understood what I was trying to get across. He cast a fire illusion at the area with a confident smile and I could have cheered. He figured it out! The spider seemed to come to life. Curious as to what was going on it carefully moved just a little. I shot an arrow at the fire so the webs around it clearly moved.

  More curious now, the spider slowly descended from the trees and made its way over to the fire. Without hesitating I started picking as much of those damn flowers as I could grab while Ze did the same. The web wiggled upward but the spider was across the way. Not noticing us. With a good handful we both started to back away.

  What could go wrong now? A dozen things came to mind. Ze’s magic could drop. It was clearly tiring him. The spider could smell the flowers. Maybe. I had no idea if spiders had a sense of smell. The worst I could imagine was falling and getting stuck in the web. It was very sticky on my hands. I had zero worry about dropping the flowers. There was no way this stuff was just going to come off.

  Somehow we made it back to Mare, and Ze dropped the illusion. With a nod at Mare, he started leading the way back. Mare shuffled slowly behind him and I followed, unsure how to take in her reaction.

  We were halfway back when I finally decided to simply talk to Mare. “Are you doing okay?”

  “I can handle spiders. Sometimes. But not that big thing. No….” She shook her head. “Nope, nope, nope. That was not a thing that needed to happen.” She shuddered. “Okay, we’re good. Going home now. Where things don’t tend to have too many legs and a billion eyes, and oozing venomous fangs.”

  We looked over at her.

  “Okay, so there’s a lot of venomous things in the house. Forget that part,” Mare corrected herself. “Which is why we came out here in the first place. Leta got bit by something venomous.”

  “What did she get attacked by?” Ze asked and I realized I had never bothered to get the details either.

  I hadn’t actually thought to ask when she abruptly woke me up and wondered how many people just went on these adventures without many details. It didn’t seem like the best idea, and yet, here I was.

  “Polacoys.” Mare groaned loudly. “They’re cute, they’re stupid, and she got too close.”

  “So… they sort of attack? Or just easy to outsmart and she didn’t?” Ze asked, confused.

  “They’re very easy to outsmart, but they are quick. If you don’t know what they are you’ll likely run, and they will catch up to you. Then they’ll bite you because they want to drag you back to the water,” Mare explained, motioning vaguely. “Anyway, just avoid the room with the random pond in it and you’ll avoid them. Actually, avoid that hall in general. There’s a death spirit there too. She’ll drag you into the water and drown you.”

  Ze sighed. “Great, first I hear about an actually unique room and it’s instant death. Wonderful.”

  I didn’t chime in at all. A vision came to mind, a younger me talking with someone in a room just like that. I clearly wasn’t in danger and wondered what it was about.

  As we reached the end of the garden, Mare sighed. “How can we do this? I guess we can climb the wall again and hope for the best? I won’t be able to sense anything though since the wall is part of the garden area.”

  Ze shrugged. “I guess I’ll just climb it then. Making everyone invisible is a lot of extra work.” He quickly scaled the wall and jumped back down. “Yeah, no.”

  “Do I even want to know?” I sighed.

  Mare shook her head. “I don’t think I want to know, but I want to go home, so tell it like it is, Ze man.”

  “Whatever that thing was, the creature that now has plenty of death blow arrows in it, it brought friends and they’re wandering around the area, very close by. There’s three total. Or from what I saw. Forget getting back up there. Can they come in this area?” He looked more than just a little worried.

  I could feel the fear slowly gripping not only my feet, but my lungs. It was hard to breathe and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to move again. That thing, whatever it was, had an arrow in its freaking face. It had one in the back of its head! It even had one at the base of its throat and it was walking around like it was no big deal.

  It was now walking around with friends!

  If I could be done with this world, I would be. I covered my mouth and screamed into my hands, startling Mare and Ze.

  I was stuck here, there was no changing that, so I did my best to shake off the feeling of dread and looked over at Mare. The words struggled to leave my throat. “What do we do?”

  “My good lady and gentleman, I have no idea.” Mare shook her head, her face paling. “Clove is the leader. I’m just the loud, obnoxious follower. I like my role. I don’t have to come up with the game plan. We’re pretty fucked.”

  Ze shook his head frantically. “Please don’t say that.”

  “It’s true!” Mare argued.

  “Fine, I’m the temporary leader,” I declared, willing myself to pace and shake off as much dread as physically possible. “Mare, what do you know about these things? I need every last detail.”

  Mare jumped right in, more willing to take commands than to command. “They have a stupid high pain tolerance. It’s said they can’t feel pain, but we all heard it shriek. That thing can feel it. They say to kill it you have to find its heart. No one knows where it’s heart is. If I had to guess, it’s in the normal spot. These creatures have a super thick skin. I bet it just takes too much to get to a heart anyway. You’d need an extra sharp blade. I don’t think mine are meant for that. I’m more close combat, sneak attack deaths. Not carving eight layers of thick hide.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so our best bet is to sneak around these things. We can all climb this wall to get in and out, right? Or will magic force us to use the entrance?” I asked carefully.

  “Oh yeah, we can climb it,” Mare said. “I didn’t even think of that. I’ve slipped out that way once.”

  “Perfect!” I nodded. “Ze how are you holding up?”

  Ze sighed. “Am I the escape plan?”

  “Pretty much. I’d ask you if you minded, but to be frank, we need you,” I admitted. “Let’s get to
the wall that’s closest to the house and use that as the starting point.”

  “I’m a little tired,” Ze admitted. “I might be able to get us most of the way back to the house.”

  “Most of the way we’ll have to accept,” I agreed. “We’ll just have to run like the wind.”

  Mare nodded. “I am okay with running. I’m pretty good at it anymore.”

  I laughed dryly. “I think I can see why.” Every adventure seemed to involve running. “What do you say Ze, sound good?”

  “Well, it’s the best option we’ve got,” he said, going over to the side wall closest to the house.

  We followed behind him.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I asked him as he readied himself to climb the wall.

  “Yeah, just keep up as best as you can. The less I have to strain my magic the further we’ll get. Reaching out further takes more energy,” Ze explained.

  Mare nodded. “Oh no worries, I can keep up just fine.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” Ze laughed without humor.

  I took the hint that I was the slowest in the group. No surprise. I didn’t normally spend my time jogging for my life. Sprinting from death. Running for the hills. This was the worst pre-afterlife place to be stuck. Whatever. Here we were, so here we’d find a way.

  “Guess it’s about time to run, then?” I said as I attempted to pull myself up the wall.

  Being short didn’t help, but I got up quickly enough. Ze and Mare were quickly behind me.

  I could see the three creatures roaming about. They didn’t seem to have any real direction, and wandered aimlessly around. If I didn’t know better I’d say they were lost. Since I could easily see the one I struck with arrows—the other two had their hoods up—I knew they had to be looking for us. Vengeance was likely on their mind. Or this was their normal time to meander about. From Mare’s reaction my first guess was more likely correct.

  “Let’s go,” Ze whispered, dropping to the ground on the other side.

  We felt Ze’s magic on us, giving Mare the signal to drop gracefully to the ground while I tried to lower myself without falling. As soon as my feet hit the ground, Ze was ready to go. Without warning he started sprinting. Mare was instantly by his side, but I really wasn’t expecting an instant dash to the door so I ended up several steps behind.