The Dream Left Behind

[Saxon]

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” – H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

[Saxon]

(Closed to Visla Eraclaire and River Wilhelm. Necessary information found here. All bunnying approved.)

Red embers crackled and died in the fireplace as the living room was cascaded in a soft, orange light. The room was eerily quiet with only the occasional gust of wind and crackling flames to keep it company if it weren't for the heart-wrenching sobs of Olivia Morris's grieving mother. The father sat with his arm around his wife, shushing her and trying to ease the agony both of them were still feeling for their missing daughter. The gaping chasm in their hearts that bled of pain and despair was palpable, making anyone else in the room infected and gray with gloom.

Sitting across the mourning parents of the Morris family in the only armchair whose fabric hadn't been ravaged by moths, Saxon sat chin over fist as he stared deeply into the alluring sea of flames that danced in the fireplace. The parents of Olivia could only watch the hunter as the gears that turned furiously in his methodical and analytical mind were almost audible. They were at his compassion's mercy.

About three weeks ago Olivia Morris had been ripped from her bed and taken away in the night. She hadn't been plucked, kidnapped, absconded or any of the other elegant words to describe such a terrible crime. Olivia had been abducted. There was no trace of her outside the town of Lode, but there were signs of an occurrence quickly becoming common in towns all over the countryside. Earlier, both of her parents had shown Saxon their daughter's room, the same one that had been picked over by the sheriff and marshals as to any clue to her whereabouts.

Her room was in shambles in what could only be described as being utterly destroyed. The frame of the window had been ripped out of the wall, glass and all, and thrown to the side as Nature was allowed to invade the sanctuary of the young girl's room. The dresser and bed had been hacked apart into kindling with the innards of each scattered about the room in a sea of splinters. Clothes of every sort that had once belonged to Olivia were torn to shreds and displayed in the same manner while the mattress had been propped up against the far wall and gutted, letting goose feathers sticky with blood spilling into the room. Upon first examination of the remains of that room, Saxon immediately thought it to be the work of a beast or an animal of some kind, but dismissed it just as quickly.

It was the symbols that had led him to a different conclusion. Smeared in blood and excrement across the once eggshell coloured walls were archaic symbols and inscriptions that looked daemonic in origin to those not well-read in their often complex meanings, but to someone like Saxon it looked like gibberish. It was another bad sign, but not the one that ultimately led to the identity of those who kidnapped Olivia.

In the middle of all the bedlam, more red and brown ichor dripped from the ceiling causing anyone who investigated this room to look up and see it. Almost as if the blood and excrement were an afterthought, a symbol had been carved into the ceiling. The symbol was the same as the others that had been painted in rooms of victims taken from their lives across the country. Smeared upon the wall with the prowess of a child with fingerpaint, the symbol blazened upon the ceiling was that of an eye beneath a heavy lid.

Looking back on it as he continued to stare into the fireplace, Saxon's mind drifted to what might have been Olivia's captors. Men and women with shaven heads and white robes, many in Lode had claimed. Only able to see them from a distance and at night, the descriptions were never that detailed from the questioning Saxon had done, but they always had those same details with the occasional subtle change made by a witness to make their account all the more shocking.

These lunatics traveled in packs, and they definitely didn't have any apprehension to violence. It was the making of a fantastic story that would have been skeptical and disregarded if Lode had been the only town raided. Reports of these kidnappings and sometimes even horrific murders inflicted by these mad men were coming in from all over the country, and it was becoming more and more common as the newspapers struggled to keep up. There was no pattern to the raids, and it seemed every town in the countryside was a potential victim as long as these maniacs ruled the country and the night with terror and aberrant violence.

"These freaks.." The farmer began, his voice heavy with a mixture of boiling anger and sadness permeating his every word. "They came into our town. To our home in the middle of the night and took our only daughter. Thayne knows what they're doing to her. If she's even a-al-aliv-.."

Mr. Morris, a strong, middle-aged man, broke down as he cried at the possibility. He was in his mid-forties and wore the apparel of a blue collar, his flannel shirt clumsily tucked into worn jeans. His thin, gaunt face and emaciation hinted at the sign of some kind of cancer gnawing at his guts, but his composure told that he was too proud to admit it. This proud man had snot dribbling down his chin as tears stained his face red while he tried to look away from the man who had questioned them. His wife took him and pulled her husband gently to her bosom to quiet him while she too was unable to keep her eyes dry.

Saxon sat in silence as he waited for them to recover, his mind already made up in what he could do for them. "I'll do it." He finally said, his dry voice cracking in a growing thirst. It almost would've gone unnoticed by the parents if he hadn't added more loudly with an air of confidence, "I'll find your daughter and bring her back to you."

The farmer stared at the man in disbelief and immediate apprehension. "The sheriff and marshal said they couldn't find anything to get a 'lead' on the bastards that took her. That the trail was cold. What makes you so sure you can find her when even the professionals said they couldn't but were already looking into it?"

"If you want to trust the police, that's fine," Saxon replied coldly as he leaned forward and stared at the farmer, "But I was asked to come here by friends of yours to come and look into your daughter's abduction. Your apprehension is understandable, but I don't think the police can help you with something.. like this. I've dealt with things like this before."

"Dealt with?" The farmer began in rising anger as his wife stopped him and replied with far more understanding of how delicate this situation was becoming.

"Olivia is all we've got. We're a poor family with a farm and a small spread of bad, barren farmland. Olivia is what keeps us going.." She said, resisting the urge to choke into another fit of tears. "If you say you can find her, then please do. If it's money you're after we've money we were saving up to buy new machines for the fields.."

"Debra.." The farmer interrupted, his face contorted and his voice wounded with betrayal.

"Ben. It's Olivia! There's no crown in this house that should go uncounted if it means finding her and bringing her back home!" The wife snapped as she turned back to Saxon with pleading eyes when she was sure her husband had gotten the message. "Please. Please will you help us find our daughter?"

"I don't want your money." Saxon began and then quickly saw the misstep in his words and corrected himself. "I don't want your money, but I'll find your daughter for you. I will bring her back to you, whatever it takes."

"What if she's already dead," The farmer said, "What if Olivia is already dead and those lunatics butchered her. What will you do then?"

For a long while the hunter was silent as the farmer sat with his arms crossed, his face set in a feeling of victory. Ben Morris didn't like Saxon nor what he was selling, that was immediately understood. Only the wife looked to have put all of her faith and hope into this lone man who had inquired about their daughter. Neither reaction to his presence was something Saxon found desirable.

"I'll find Olivia and bring her back," Saxon spoke up again. "I'll bring her back to you or news of her death and those who kidnapped her. I may not be able to gaurantee your daughter coming back safely to you, but I can at least give you both closure."

That sold it. Both the Morris' only wanted to find their daughter, and Saxon had offered them everything they wanted to hear and he intended to deliver on it. Even the promise to put those who had made their daughter suffer to justice with a well-deserved ending. They thanked him, even Mr. Morris went so far as to give him a curt nod in acceptance.

Standing up after draining the decanter of whiskey that was offered to him hours ago, Saxon put on his fedora and grabbed his jacket. They followed him to the door as he promised them word of his findings in a month. That part of his bargain would be the toughest to uphold, but what was typical of Saxon's staunch moral fiber and good character was that he intended to make good on all of it.

Olivia Morris's trail was growing colder by the second, and it would take weeks of research and investigation crammed into a couple days to figure out her whereabouts. Saxon wasn't sure where to begin, but he offered these two a glimmer of hope to their terrible plight, and he knew he was now obligated to track this little girl down and bring her home.

Turning the knob to the oak door and giving his good-byes, Saxon opened the door and went out into the cold night air.

[Visla Eraclaire]

"I agreed to leaving. Why do we have to go so soon, though? I'm tired," Visla complained with a lilting voice and pleading eyes.

"The sooner we leave the less chance you have to change your mind," Aelva replied, folding her papers neatly and placing them in the leather satchel by the door. "And you're always tired. You can sleep on the way."

"You don't really sleep, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one, but do you honestly think I can rest while the cold night winds whip around me at staggering speeds, while I dangle precipitously over a fall that would mean certain death with only the strength of our grasps together keeping me aloft?" Visla inquired, leaning forward on the edge of her bed.

"That's a very astute question, Vis. I guess you aren't that tired," Aelva smiled and tossed the warlock her pack. The succubus stepped out onto the stoop outside the apartment and began casting the ritual that would deliver them on black wings to the shores of Salvar.

Visla knew there was no way out of it now, but she wondered if she had misstepped earlier along the path that lead her to this point. She glanced over at the pile of wine bottles still covering the floor near the closet. The most immediate cause had been admitting to those. They likely could have stayed hidden for at least another month before the closet filled up. Before that, it was probably starting the habit of drinking most afternoons. And then, leaving Uiria at all was the prior step. Coming to Uiria in the first place came before. Visla traced the ambling path of her life all the way back to her decision to accompany Allistia to the Academy. She wondered what kind of life she might have had if she had simply stayed where she was. Would the bomb that claimed her father's life have had a companion beneath her own bed?

"We're ready," Aelva called in from the landing outside.

Visla could already hear a gust of wind whipping through the city streets. It brought in the scent of burning wood, still lingering from the fireplaces even in early spring. It reminded her of the scent that permeated Mittergrad. Would that city still stand if she had never left home? All the misfortune that followed her seemed preposterous once she stood back from it. If it were not her, it would have been someone else. She was always merely a tiny replaceable cog in a machine of grand design.

"Vis!" Aelva shouted at her.

She walked to the door. She felt Aelva's arms wrap around her waist. She saw the city's twinkling lights fall further and further beneath her. Her ears popped. Her mind emptied.

It was impossible to think in the swirling cold of the night sky. Melancholy thoughts were especially difficult as the world and all its troubles scrolled by beneath. Among the clouds, above it all, Visla had all she ever wanted right next to her. Things were simple. As much as travel wearied her, she wished for a world that was like it. A world of deadened thoughts and minor spectacle would unfold before the two of them like a great never-ending play, and there would be no more searching or striving.

Nietzsche would have been ashamed.

A flash came up from the ground below, a pillar of light invading the flight's dark serenity. Aelva's wings melted away and curled around her even as she clutched Visla to her chest ever tighter. They fell but they did not plummet, steadied by the dying tendrils of shadow still clinging to the succubus' back. Neither screamed, though both came close. Instead they scanned the ground below. They could not choose the place of their landing but they could know it.

A scattering of small thatch-roofed dwellings made up a nameless hamlet in Corone's countryside. There were a dozen others just like it every few miles, giving little indication to a traveler above except for the occasional flicker of candlelight from the midst of field and forest. Whatever made the light that seared their wings, it was gone now. There had been shouting, faintly audible over the rush of air as they fell, but now it was merely a murmur drowned out by the rustling of leaves as the pair came to an unceremonious rest in the boughs of a tree.

Aelva jumped down lithely and took on an unassuming appearance, hiding her vestigial demonic wings. She extended her arms and nodded to Visla who fell clumsily into them. She set the warlock back on her feet and the two walked toward the center of the small cluster of buildings. The tree that had been their landing zone was nestled in a fenced area behind one of the larger houses. Rows of tilled earth, still barren from the winter, lined a pathway to a small hinged gate. The pair swung it open with a rusty creak and walked on.

They could hear the sound now, a faint whimpering from a man still invisible in the darkness, but nearby. The air had the lingering scent of sulfur and path of earth was scarred black in the middle of a dirt path. It was only a few steps away that they found the source of both, a man cut across the chest huddled beside a low stone wall. His blood pooled beneath him, he looked up at the pair of women and spat out a few words before his consciousness slipped away.

"They're demons. Run…"

Alva pulled his arm from his chest and revealed he was wearing a dressing gown, awakened straight from bed by whatever had inflicted the grievous gouge across his midsection. Over the linen garb, a leather belt lined with hand-sized black balls. Aleva pulled one from the makeshift bandoleer and the pair covered their eyes as she tossed it a few yards away. A clap and then a flash of light shone so bright that it shone through their flinched eyelids.

"I imagine this gentleman won't be pulling us out of the sky again," Aelva said, already preparing the ritual to get them on course again. They were the first words either woman had said since they left Radasanth, a callous remark beside a still dying man.

"I'm going to see if there's anyone who can help him," Visla replied, taking her cane firmly in hand and striding back toward the other buildings.

Aelva wanted to chastise her, expose her dubious intentions, but she was already in the midst of muttering the infernal phrases that would restore her wings. It would only be a minute or so and she could swoop up Visla and spend the next few hours questioning her willingness to wander into the darkness of a strange little hamlet to get aid for a stranger.

As Visla peered around a corner toward an open door, a faint light still spreading out from inside, she thought the same. Danger and the dying man be damned, she sought any means to delay the travel, to force a return to Radasanth, even to recover for a few days from some wound inflicted by—

A knife blade dug into her back and a strange sensation spread through her body, commingled with the pain. When her attacker drew back the knife there was no wound on the young woman's skin but the chemicals were already flowing through her veins. Her cries did not reach her lips before she fell into a heap at the feet of a man in a long purple robe.

As Aelva's black wings spread, she felt a cold trickle of blood along her back. At first there was no pain, but as Visla fell unconscious, the full brunt of the wound fell onto Aelva. She had not felt pain since she was summoned back and the deep puncture was excruciating. She gritted her teeth and managed not to wail, but her fortitude did her little good as a pack of knife-wielding men fell upon her from the shadows. The blades each dug deep and deposited their poisonous payload into the woman's body. Within moments she was a bloody mess, dragged along the ground by the gang of robed men that had felled her.

[River Wilhelm]

Since he started traveling, River had come to notice the things he had taken for granted: The smell of pine cones, the cool breeze that put life back into his tired feet, the brilliant sunset always giving him something to look at before darkness set in. Rummaging through his knapsack, he pulled out a crude map of the region and determined that the cluster of of small homesteads, shacks, and a barn or two down the hill was the nearest village he could get to before nightfall. It was called Sheldon. He didn't enjoy camping out, what with the bugs and sounds and things that wanted to eat him. Looking at his timewatch, there didn't appear to be any temporal anomalies nearby, so this was a good time to rest. With a sleepy look in his eyes, he limped over to the village before getting accosted by a farmhand-looking man.

"Whoa now stranger, where d'ya think yer goin'?" he said, his suspicious eyes looking over River's fancy city outfit.

River wasn't used to being stopped in front of tiny villages like this. Did they have some sort of secret gold mine around here? He wasn't planning on doing anything weird, so telling the truth was in order.

"I'm just passing through and was hoping for lodgings for the night," River said, trying to force a smile. If there's one thing the Corone countryside had going for it, it was hospitality in the little towns that didn't have inns. River could usually provide some service granted to him by his college education, which made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He could probably start a successful religion around here based on algebra.

"Sorry, but due to some troubles we be havin' around here, I'ma have to ask you to leave."

River's mouth was slightly agape. Did he just get rejected by some little farming village? He didn't know whether to be offended or depressed.

However, his luck hadn't run out just yet as another farmer noticed River's clothing and tried to convince his friend, "Look at his clothes, Phil! Maybe he's a doctor? We could use one-nuh those!"

Phil looked back at River, "Is it true? You a doc?"

Well, River did take some microbiology. Although, he didn't really have much medicinal experience. Some gauze pads in his traveling bag and his multi-vitamin pills were all his medical accessories. Although, he could probably reverse engineer some pharmaceuticals with his knowledge of chemistry. Yet, he didn't have the means to do so. How he missed the simple pleasures of computers, sanitation, or even plastic. Oh how he had taken plastic for granted! He would have to invent some sort of lab environment with just glass and insulated material. Even though, having to conjure up formulas and elemental properties from memory would leave him stuck in unsafe solutions. How would he even deal with gaseous solutions? It would take ages to get the proper equipment and--

"Fella? You a doc or ain't ya?"

River shook his head. Apparently he got lost in his own thoughts. Since he had a doctorate, technically he was a doctor, but not a medical one. Still, he could probably do some basic clinical duties.

"I can take a look at anybody sick," River replied, avoiding the question in case he gets called on it later.

"Alright, you kin stay in the barn for the night, feller. Don't wander though, there's been trouble around here."

"Phil!" scolded the other farmer. "He doesn't need to know about that. He's just passin' through, no need ta give him nightmares."

Phil looked at the other farmer and shrugged, turning back to River, "Awright. Come on doc, there's a couple people that be needin' some help."

As River entered the small town, he noticed the stares he got from the villagers. In only half a day's trek, he went from warm smiles to cold glares. What was going on with these people? Although, the scent of cooking in the nearby windows did put his mind at ease. The flat, well-trodden roads between houses and the light chatter of the commonfolk made him feel like he reached at least a bit of civilization.

River was lead to a small homestead with an even smaller bedroom. On the bed was a man with a couple women in aprons and head coverings replacing wet washcloths on his forehead. He looked like he was in pain. River tried to think of the most common illnesses, but there were too many. He fished around for symptoms.

"Fever?"

"Yes," replied one of the maids. "He broke his leg a few days ago and we did our best fixing him back up. He was resting in bed just fine until today when he started burning up." She was quite well-spoken.

River asked, "Are you the town doctor? What's your name?"

She blushed but said, "Nay. I'm Isabella, sir. I simply learned a thing or two from a traveling medicine man. Just molding casts from clay and cloth and stitching up cuts."

So, the surgery was amateur. The likely causes had boiled down to just a few. He asked to take a look at the leg in question and Isabella lifted up the bedsheets to reveal a crudely-made cast.

River didn't get any information out of this, "I need to look at the wound in question. Can you remove the cast?"

Isabella hesitated for a moment, but then obliged as she unwrapped the cloth. There it was, a big dark purple bruise on the side of his leg. Not only that, but it had red marks right inside of it.

"Internal bleeding," River announced. He probably caught an infection from something that got stuck inside. "We need to open him back up. You got any anesthetic?"

"Pardon?" Isabella tilted her head.

River almost groaned. What a barbaric planet he was on. They had to have had some alternatives, however.

"Alcohol? ...Mandragora?"

Isabella lit up and went to fetch some alcohol. After rubbing it on the afflicted area, River felt disgust as he performed the procedure. Removing a few small accessories that an amateur surgeon apparently left in and letting the blood drain out, he asked if there were any antibiotics but was once again left in a room full of confusion. Although, he thought back and remembered that radishes, garlic, and onions had antibiotic properties. Seeds, juice, any combination would prove effective. He didn't know which infection it was, but with those antibiotics and some rest Daniel should be fine.

Phil was beaming, "That was amazing, doc! Thank you so much!"

River didn't feel like he did anything. He just cut the guy's leg open to let the blood out. Anyone would've done that. Yet, they did not think to look under the cast for the problem. He guessed that perhaps he deserved some credit.

"Forget the barn, you can sleep in our guest room tonight, doc!"

River corrected the man, "My name is Wilhelm."

"Whatever you say, doc!"

That night, as River was getting ready for bed, he exited the wash room and noticed something odd as he was heading back to his room. Someone with some sort of purple robe had dashed around the corner with something familiar. Taking a peek into his room, he noticed his bag was missing. Startled, he chased after the thief and before he knew it, he was outside and just barely able to keep up. He ran around to the back of the house and found the hooded, purple-robed figure's back, holding his bag.

"Hey!" River yelled. "What do you think you're doing? This is how you repay someone who--"

SMACK! He felt a blow to the back of his head. His vision blurred and the ground rushed up to meet him.