It was his memory, and yet, something had crept into it. He could see it in the air, fissures hanging like luminous, airy rivulets of spider webbing, torn and cast asunder. Something had crept into his memory, most likely from his meddling in the alteration of his Dreamscape, in a core part near the Mindscape layer. And now this was the consequence. Planar disruption, emean incursion. War the likes of which Woe shouldn't be able to reckon with.
And he at several times divided his size. He couldn't have been more than ten inches tall, where he landed. Nevertheless, he still commanded what mass remained to his dream avatar. He could sense the rest nearby, but not quite within reach. He'd have to make his way there, by crook or bloody hook. He conjured a shadowy, two-handed morning star.
Not his usual choice of weapon, mind, but it was an intimidating sight to any constructs or lingering memories.
He walked to the banks of the river, that separated the caverns of Garaia from Augiery proper. There he saw the large edifice which contained the city, safely against all comers. He'd heard it, after a while, that the city had been destroyed, beleaguered by the very dragon that gave him effigy. He should like the chance to thank the dragon, but for now...
He unfurled his shadow wings again, and leapt, flew over the wide river separating him from that torchlit entrance to Augiery. Once landing on the other side, it appeared the strange strands of reality hanging from spots in the air were even more prevalent here. Woe scowled as they caressed his face. They gave him an uneasy feeling, as if a clawed hand might dart out of them at any point and drag him bleeeding into the expanse of the Veil, to the craeture's lair in the Untold.
Yet he dismissed this, if only to maintain his tenuous grip over stability.
He held his flail off to the side as he approached that great gate, at the top of the stair. Once there,he was greeted by familiar faces, on stilted, insectoid bodies. Resembling a mix of ant and mantis, they were horrific creatures. They wore the faces of Naer that had abused him in his time in Augiery. His grip over his morning star's handle tightened, as they came to either side of him.
"Papers please, for this slave."
The memory was obviously warped beyond repair, and Woe was afraid of what he must do, once he managed to crawl his way back tot he part of his dreamscape that was salvageable.
In the meantime?
Phwish, crackle, drip. He took both of their mishapen heads from their shoulders, breaking their chitinous, blade-like appendages in a swift motion.
Then he proceeded to command the door to open, as he remembered it doing for him once upon a time.
He stood before the brightly glaring doors, which were obscured with light. He couldn’t see beyond them, it was too bright. He knew his ethereal body, the rest of its concentrated ‘mass’ was located beyond that passage. He was in his memory layer of his own Dreamscape, a breath away from the collective mindscapes of mortals. If he descended again, he didn’t know what that would mean. Oblivion? Disintegration into the collective thoughts of mortals? Or simply torn apart and digested by the chaotic thoughts, whims, and feelings of mortalkind. In any event, he had not the strength to rise back up toward the Hall of Penitence. He needed the rest of his avatar’s power to conjure enough lift. As it was, he had the flight strength of a gnat, with none of the agility.
He gripped his morning star all the tighter, for if anything was an assurance of safety against the unknown, the threat against his existence, it wasn’t cleverness of tongue, it wasn’t a well-delivered lie, or guile. It was a sturdy, good weapon at his side, that could be used to sweep the chamber with one’s enemies.
So he stalked forward, knowing that every moment he hesitated another thread fell off his upper Dreamscapes, descending into the collectivist, impersonal mindscape layer.
Instantly as he traveled through the doorway of light, he found himself in a familiar circle. The Ring of Lashes, in Augiery, a fight pit where his mettle had been tested against others in combat. He looked around, and looked down at himself. He was still very much Woe, in his clothes and with a large (relatively speaking for his size) weapon.
But instead of meeting mortal opponents, into his midst crawled more of those mantis-like ants. Crawling like the Emeyan pests they were. He wasn’t afraid, they’d shown their weakness at the door. Now he’d drive it down their throats personally, one by one. He didn’t fear them, even if they wore the faces of those who’d taunted him in life.
And here they came, those he’d met in Augiery, the judgmental naerrik that tested and appraised his worth to their city. The cutthroat society of the slaves, who were pit against each other to engender a sense of competition, so they wouldn’t band together.
Finally Lacrima’s face appeared in the tab-like head of the lead mantis emeyan. She stuck out a bladed appendage, and accused him, “Crawling in the footsteps of Kielik. Crawling. Crawling.” He heard her words, and they sounded vaguely familiar. Had she made such an accusation before?
He shook his head. This was merely an illusion conjured of his confusion. He wouldn’t be swayed by it.
So he came forward, only to be intercepted by two other beings with bladed arms. One of them knicked his shoulder lightly, causing the poison blood to dribble out in a slow trickle.
The second blade he ducked under, while swinging his morningstar all around, doing a constant dance and keeping the heavy spiked head of it in motion.
He took out the legs of the first, and then drove it down vertically over the tablet-head of the second.
More seemed to pour in with every one he slayed. And then he realized, these things had been what siphoned off his avatar, causing him to shrink.
He reclaimed the mass harvested from the dead ones, when he made that realization, using them to plug fissures in the memory, and thereby assume control over his landscape, little by little.
Which was just what he needed, because these emeyans seemed to adapt to his tactics, defly avoiding his same movement as he used before, and coming down with their bladed arms to try and cage him. He withdrew when he saw they were adapting, and took up ground behind the fallen mantises where they’d sunken into the landscape.
With a well placed trap, he had the ground drive stoney spikes up through the thorax of these bug creatures, even as their naerrik faces screamed from the tablet head pieces. “Crawling, Crawling.”
He cut his way through them, one after the other, straining his tactical abilities by devising different directions to attack from. It wasn’t hard with a morning star to be flexible in the attack, but defense was another matter. The bladed appendage of Lacrima’s mantis emeyan came down to slice him in two, which he stopped just short with the shadowy haft of the morningstar’s handle.
This done, the ball came around from the cease of momentum, and wrapped its way across the arm. With a tug, and a twist of his arms he brought the arm-blades out of its sockets, and then beheaded the thing.
It was done, they were all slain, but he had one more thing to do. He had to reclaim what had been taken from him. With an ironclad expression of pure will, he drew their stolen essence back to whence it came, into his core, and he grew again, out of the confines of the memory of the Ring of Lashes, and into the upper memory chambers. There, he sprouted his wings, and flew back, flew back toward the Hall of the Penintent. He could see the light-filled fissure that had torn through his dreamscape, threatening to unravel the entire world.
Once through the fissure, he took the structural weakness of the memories that remained with him.
He could feel his Dreamscape continue to writhe and twist in the wake of the broken memories. Egil landed on his shoulder, and pecked his ear. “Forget, Forget, Forget.” He repeated. And Woe knew what he had to do.
So he knelt, and concentrated on all memories of that vile place. All the degradation, the insults, the betrayals and hardships. Even his escape he purged from his memory.
All thoughts of Augiery were gone within moments, until he forgot what had threatened his Dreamscape in the first place.
The broken memories were no longer a threat. The fracture in the Hall of the Penitence had all but sealed, and his discarded memories, cast down to the Mindscapes layer, to reinforce the collective memories of mortalkind. Those that knew or had known of Augiery, anyway.
So he stood, and regarded his surroundings. Having forgotten one of the hardest times of his life, he felt slightly empty, but at the same time lighter. Almost joyful? A weight had been lifted, but at the same time, some of the grain had gone out of his edge.
Even so, he awoke soon, having spent many breaks battling against those forgotten shadows.
He awoke with a midnyte well under his tongue.
