Dreamer's Throne

DT4 - Chapter 6

By this time, they had reached the end of the hallway, and turning the corner, they saw another long hallway, stretching into the distance, before turning left. Blinking, Princess Eloise turned and looked behind her, only to realize that the two hallways were completely indistinguishable.

"I can see how it would be easy to get turned around in here," she said, her voice quiet.

"Exactly. This sort of space excels at confusing. What we really have to watch out for, though, is whoever inhabits it."

His words caused Princess Eloise to draw in a sharp breath, her grip tightening on the handles of the wheelchair.

"There are people here?"

"Not necessarily people," Garrett replied, his voice still completely calm. "Could be monsters, spirits, aberrations, any number of things."

No sooner had he finished speaking, than one of the lights up ahead flickered, as if it was going to go out, causing Princess Eloise to shriek. The sound carried down the long hallway, bouncing this way and that, until it reached the flickering light, which suddenly came back on, shining brightly.

Normally, the light being off would have been creepier than the light being on, but as Princess Eloise stared at it, she realized that it was actually brighter than any of the other lights in the hall, causing her to stop walking forward. Garrett, on the other hand, regarded it with interest, quite curious about what he was seeing.

The mental energy that Princess Eloise's shout contained had been infused into the light, causing it to stabilize and glow brighter than before. Turning his gaze towards one of the closer lights, Garrett sent out a spark of mental energy, and watched as it too brightened up. The change caused the princess to jump, and she quickly pulled Garrett back.

"You don't have to be so cautious," Garrett said. "I don't think there's anything around us right now."

"But what about those lights?" Princess Eloise asked.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, Garrett saw that her face was pale, her lips set tightly together. Even terrified, she was quite pretty. Not that that would help her in a space like this.

"It's your voice," Garrett said. "You layer energy from your soul spark into your words. The lights absorb that energy, causing them to grow brighter. It's nothing to be afraid of, though it does lead to some potentially disquieting truths about this space."

Swallowing audibly, Princess Eloise looked at the lights as Garrett explained.

"Typically, in a space like this, you would assume that the lights would stay on permanently. But the fact that they turn off means that they're actually burning power. That's all well and good, except that they're all currently on. This means that either they've been temporarily powered up by the person who activated this mysterious artifact, or there is something crawling around that keeps recharging them."

No sooner had he spoken than there was a thump that echoed down the hall toward them. It seemed to have come from one of the rooms and caused Princess Eloise to let out a shriek. Taking a deep breath to try and control his annoyance, Garrett seriously considered just knocking her out while he tried to figure out what was going on.

He had some experience with liminal spaces like this one, and he could only imagine that this wasn't the first time that the mysterious artifact had been used to trap other people. Unless they had been absorbed in their entirety, which was always a possibility, they would likely start running across whatever remained of the previous prisoners when they entered the rooms.

Garrett also assumed that the mysterious artifact was controlled by someone or something, much like Isabelle controlled the mirror. Ever since she had heard the thump, Eloise had begun backing up, and since she was still gripping the wheelchair tightly, Garrett was currently rolling backwards. Lifting his fist to his mouth, he coughed lightly.

"Why don't we just turn around?" he suggested, trying to keep his voice bright and pleasant. "Maybe we can find something besides these long hallways."

The princess loved that idea and swiftly turned the wheelchair around. She seemed to be clinging to it as if it was a shield. A few twisting turns later, she was hopelessly confused and had no idea where they had originally started. Finally, Garrett had had enough, and reaching down, forcefully engaged the brake on the wheelchair, causing it to skid to a stop. This made Princess Eloise run right into it, nearly flipping over his shoulder and into his lap.

"What are you doing?" she hissed, looking around wildly.

"You need to calm down," Garrett said, his voice drilling into her ears and shaking her from the ever-growing panic that had begun to consume her.

She hadn't realized it, but she had been pushing the wheelchair faster and faster, and her breath was now coming in gasps.

"A place like this is designed to confuse you, designed to drain your energy, whether through tension or through frantic activity. The best thing you can do is simply calm down," Garrett said. "The second best thing you can do is begin opening doors. After all, it's very likely that these hallways are, in fact, endless. They keep repeating, forever, eventually leading back around to the same hallways we've already been through. This is a circular maze, one that doesn't have a clear entrance or exit."

Garrett knew this to be true, as he had seen them return to the same hallway already. Every time they passed a door, he would send out a little bit of mental energy to mark it. Though the environment naturally degraded these mental marks, enough of them had survived that he had been able to identify hallways they had already traversed. And when they had returned to the first one for the third time, he had pulled the brake, stopping them in place.

"The reality is that this space isn't that big. It just rearranges itself when it's out of sight, so it feels like it goes on forever. Instead of recovering our tracks, we should go into one of the rooms.

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Why do you want to open the doors?" the princess asked, staring at one door as she remembered the heavy thump that they had heard.

"Because there might be something in there that's worth exploring, a clue as to how we can get out. These hallways clearly don't have anything new to show us, and so it's time to expand our horizons a little bit."

Since Garrett was in a wheelchair, the princess took a deep breath, firmed up her courage, and stepped around him to grab the handle of one of the nearby doors. As soon as she touched it, her body shivered as if struck by an electric shock, and she released the handle.

"Something the matter?" Garrett asked, his eyes narrowing.

He hadn't felt any fluctuation of power, but that didn't mean that the princess hadn't experienced something. Red began to dye Princess Eloise's cheeks as she mumbled something under her breath.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Garrett asked, not sure that he had caught what she said.

"I said the door handle was cold," the princess replied, perfectly aware that her behavior was quite foolish.

Garrett didn't know what to say, and after a long, awkward silence, Princess Eloise grabbed the handle, this time with more force, and twisted it, flinging the door open before she had the chance to imagine what horrors lay behind.

In this case, the horrors turned out to be a small bed, a washstand, and a dresser, all set in one corner of the room, and a bookshelf and reading chair set in the other. It looked like the room of a child, or at least a young teen, though Garrett had trouble figuring out why he felt that way. It wasn't until his eyes caught sight of the painting, hanging over the bed, that he realized what had given him that impression.

The picture showed a boy of about twelve, one foot raised on a stair in front of a large, palatial home. A dog lounged at his feet, and he held a bow in one hand, and an arrow in the other. His gaze was bright and direct, and the expression on his face pleasant.

Seeing that there was nothing to be afraid of, Princess Eloise led the way into the room, and Garrett followed after her. The first thing he examined was the bookshelf. None of the books were labeled, and when he opened one of the leather-bound tomes, the pages were filled with gibberish. Frowning, he closed the book and put it back, his eyes sweeping the room once again, pausing ever so slightly on the portrait of the frowning boy.

He hadn't noticed the storm clouds gathered on the horizon that cast a long shadow over the house, or the deep shadows extending from the boy and his dog. Princess Eloise had been looking at the chest of drawers, which were all empty. She found herself quite relieved that this was the case, and took a deep breath as she sat on the bed.

"I admit, this isn't what I believed we would find when we opened the door," she said. "I had geared myself up for a fight, but this seems completely normal. Well, not completely."

"Don't get too relaxed," Garrett said calmly. "We are in for a fight."

No sooner had he finished speaking than there was another bang, this time the sound of a door slamming, causing Eloise's eyes to grow as wide as saucers. She stood up, her hand going to a hidden slit in her skirt. Watching her pull a dagger out, Garrett found himself amused. According to what he knew, the princess had never fought once while in the palace, and in the six months that had passed since then, he sincerely doubted that she had learned how to use the dagger she was now holding.

Garrett, on the other hand, was always ready for a fight, and with a twitch of his finger, he cast Illusory Dream, adjusting what the princess could see. To her, it appeared that he looked nervously at the door, clenching his wheelchair tightly with his one hand. In reality, Garrett had tapped his finger on his armrest, and dozens of rainbow flowers sprouted underneath him, beginning their slow crawl out into the room to take up their positions.

Though Garrett much preferred to have other people do his fighting for him, he recognized that wasn't an option this time, and so he thought it best to act preemptively. Closing his eyes, he cast Observe the Dream, sending his perception out into the hallway to observe what was coming in their direction.

At first he didn't see anything, but then, a shift in the light caught his attention, and he realized what he was looking at. Practically invisible, there was an amorphous shadow seeping across the wall and floor like ink. Whether the shadow was the actual creature, or whether the creature was invisible, but still casting a shadow, Garrett had no idea.

All he knew is that as the thing got closer, it seemed to grow more and more defined. The shadow on the wall grew darker and darker, until it solidified, emerging as a taloned monstrosity, with dozens of appendages that flailed in the air as it crept silently toward the door. Hundreds of eyes that transformed into mouths and then back into eyes covered its body, teeth gnashing silently as it crept towards the room they were in.

At first, Garrett was a bit concerned, as the shadow swelled until it filled the entire hallway, completely drowning out the light as it passed by various lamps. But the closer it got, the weaker it seemed, and he quickly realized that it was simply ballooning itself up to make it appear bigger and scarier than it would otherwise be. The door they had entered through was still hanging open. As Princess Eloise moved to shut it, the monster suddenly surged around the corner and over the threshold, its limbs flailing wildly.

Princess Eloise let out a scream and stabbed with her dagger, managing to score a hit on one of the creature's arms. This caused it to open its eyes and mouths in a silent roar. Furious with the attack, the creature lunged forward. However, a bright glow suddenly surrounded Princess Eloise as a pendant she was wearing flashed. The glow burned away the monster's shadow body, tearing it to shreds and dispersing it into the air.

Immediately, the lights in the room grew brighter as they absorbed the ambient mental energy being released. The shadow shook violently and withdrew for a moment, causing the barrier around the princess to fade from sight. The monster was clearly lacking intelligence because as soon as the barrier disappeared, it launched itself forward once more, attempting to swallow Princess Eloise a second time. However, the barrier popped back up, burning it again. This repeated three or four times while Garrett watched the princess flailing about with her dagger with a bemused expression.

She was awakened, of that he was sure, as he had felt the power her words contained. But clearly, nobody had actually taught her how to use her powers, and so her dagger strikes were doing practically nothing to the shadow creature. This wasn't the first time Garrett had run across a creature of this nature, though the last had been significantly more powerful. This led Garrett to wonder if this monster was of a lower rank, or if it was just starved for mental energy.

One of the things he could clearly see was that the lights continually absorbed the monster's mental energy, but the opposite was not true. To Garrett, the lights that burned brightly in the room should have been a source of mental energy. In fact, he had already set a few of his dream flowers to begin siphoning mental energy from them. It only took him a moment, however, to realize what was going on. The light released by the lamps was antithetical to the very nature of the shadow monster, causing it to burn every time it encountered the very bright light.

As soon as that thought occurred, Garrett began to understand the place where they were trapped. In front of him, Princess Eloise was still trying to fight. After watching her for another minute, Garrett began to speak quietly, his words carried with a thread of mental energy directly into her ears.

"The power in your soul spark isn't just for using abilities, you can actually manipulate it directly. In the lighting stage, your goal is to gather as much energy as possible, lighting your spark and then packing it full as you start to shape it. By focusing it on the dagger in your hand, you should have more luck fighting against this shadow."