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Chapter Forty — A Visitor
Chapter Forty — A Visitor Dreamer was just minding her business one day-she was practising drawing with Pam, who was infuriatingly better than her-when she felt someone coming close.Not in the cafe. There was just the usual slow trickle of clients in and out. Locals that knew that Abigail made the very best coffee and cakes with her fancy machines that made those things for her.No, the person approaching was far, far outside of the planet, in the empty void of the space between spaces.She split her attention between drawing within the lines with her wax crayons and inspecting the thing ripping its way through several dimensions on its way closer.“Oh,” she said as she made out the form of the thing.It was quite small, all things considered. A lot of not much, packed in tight. It cut through the void like the point of a knife being stabbed into jello (which reminded her, she hadn’t eaten in entire minutes) and raced ever closer.It wasn’t just a thing though. Things tended to flip and flop about on the other side all the time. Lost items, bits of mortal civilisations that had tried interesting ideas to interesting effect, the long rotted corpses of great beings. Sure, there were usually millenia between the things, but there were lots of them there to bump into.This thing was more than just a chunk of matter hurtling through nothing. It had purpose. That alone set it apart from a lot of other things.Dreamer had met a few things like herself. Some had even been stronger than her. What they lacked was a purpose, a thing which they did above all else, and that made them weak, even if they were stronger.The thing coming closer was still galaxies away, but that wouldn’t last. It would be here soon, dragged ever closer by the purpose that powered it.She reached out to it.Before, all of a few months ago, her initial reaction would be to bat the thing aside, or maybe bring it in close for a nibble. Now... now Dreamer was a changed girl.She hadn’t even been a girl a while ago, so it was a pretty big deal.“I’ll be back,” Dreamer said as she stood up. She walked over to the counter, squeezed past a client, then grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled her head up so she could see Abigail on the other side.“Hey Dreamer,” Abigail said. “Did you want a snack?”Dreamer considered it.Did she want a snack?“Yes,” Dreamer said. She did want a snack. “Also, someone’s coming.”“Okay,” Abigail said. “I’ll take care of these clients and then bring you your snack, okay? Will this person want a snack too?”Dreamer thought for a moment, then nodded. Probably. Crossing worlds was hungry business.Now that she’d told Abigail that someone was coming, she returned to her desk and resumed her colouring work. The little two-dimensional Abigail she was drawing didn’t look right. Abigail’s skin wasn’t the right shade, she didn’t have a dress of the same green as the crayons Dreamer had. And all of Abigail’s self was within the lines of her body.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.But Dreamer was clever, and little bits sticking out could easily be turned into combat tentacles.Speaking of tentacles, she had a few billion of those (Daphne had taught her bigger numbers, which was proving useful when she had to describe how many of something she was doing to someone) spear out across the universe to intercept the thing moving in close.They didn’t grab it, but shifted their trajectory so that they surrounded it on all sides and kept a close eye on it.“Hello!” Dreamer said to the thing.It slowed down.The thing hesitated, then finally it came to a stop somewhere between Abigail’s world and nowhere in particular. “Hello,” it sent back to her.Not quite. It wasn’t the word, but more the idea of a greeting. In either case, Dreamer understood what it was trying to say.“So, what are you doing around here?” Dreamer asked.“Who are you?” was its reply.A little bit rude. Abigail had taught her everything she needed to know, and a bunch more, about how to greet people and say hi and be polite. Saying your name was part of that, but usually you said it-or an appropriate nickname-before you asked someone for their name.Dreamer screeched her name at the thing, which wobbled a bit at the onslaught of information. “But you can call me Dreamer,” she said.“I am-” and the thing sliced at Dreamer. For a moment she though it was an attack, but no, it just had a weird name. “But you can call me Death.”“Hi Death.” Dreamer waved some tentacles at it. “What are you doing around here?”“I’m here to reap the souls of those who have passed,” it said. “Specifically, those from this place.” It sliced a bunch of information at her, which she realized pointed right towards her new home.“No, I have people I like there. Go do that kind of stuff somewhere else.”“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Death said.“I could just eat you,” Dreamer said.Death considered this. “I still need to visit. Maybe we can come to some sort of compromise.”“Do you like tea?”“What?Dreamer thought for a moment. “Oh, you like coffee better?”“Are you trying to bribe me with tea and coffee?”“No, I’m being a good host,” Dreamer said. Was it really so complicated? “If you behave like a good guest, then we can talk over tea and pastries. Pastries are good. They’re like bread, but better.”“Very well, what is the dress-code for this event?”Dreamer grinned as she started adding the finishing touches to her drawing. It was looking pretty nice, all things considered. She’d be done just before her guest arrived.She never had a guest before. She hoped it would be a lot of fun.And if it wasn’t, more snacks for her!
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Chapter Forty-One — Death
Chapter Forty-One — Death Abigail hummed to herself as she prepared a little plate for Dreamer. The afternoon rush was coming to an end (at last) and she had promised Dreamer some snacks. It wouldn’t do for her favourite little monster to throw a fit.Actually, now that Abigail thought about it, Dreamer had never really been overly upset about anything. At most she might violate some natural laws to get rid of an irritant, but for the most part Dreamer was a well-behaved young girl.That was probably for the best, seeing how powerful Dreamer was.Maybe all the beings like Dreamer were actually fairly nice. It was probably a little optimistic to imagine that every powerful being was kind and helpful and a bit silly, but it was a nice thought to have all the same.“Abigail!” Dreamer called from the cafe’s main floor. “My guest is here.”“Alright,” Abigail said absently. Then the words really registered.Dreamer had a guest.Dreamer had a guest.It was probably not a problem, but it was definitely something she would need to look into. There were all sorts of scary creatures that might want to visit Dreamer, and there were plenty of strange and vile people that might want to harm someone that appeared the way Dreamer did. It wouldn’t do not to supervise.Abigail placed a few more cupcakes onto the platter, then she walked around the counter and into the cafe with a bit of haste. She shivered on the way into the main room. Had someone left the door open? It was mid-winter; people should know better.Dreamer was in the room, as was Pam. Abigail didn’t pay them much mind. Her attention focused on the other being standing by the door.It was a tall creature, cold and ancient. Its power was swift and unrelenting, a presence that she realized she had always known but never felt before.She blinked and tried to see the person there. There had to be something.It was like chasing a fly in a darkened room. The moment she thought she saw something, the dark swallowed it. “Uh,” she said.“Abigail, this is...” Dreamer began. She frowned, then looked into the space where her guest was. “Hey, you got a name?”“I am He Who-”Abigail shuddered as the person’s, the thing’s, voice clawed at her ears and gripped her mind, chilling and cold and ebbing with painful certainty. Like when she drank something cold too quickly, but all over.“No no,” Dreamer said. “That’s too long. You need a short name that the mortals can say. They talk with meat flapping, it’s slow.”“I see,” the space said. “In that case, call me... Death.”“Death,” Abigail repeated.“Yes. The end of all things.”Abigail swallowed, then glanced down at the platter she was holding. “Would you like a cupcake?”“... Yes please,” Death said.“Come on, sit down and stuff,” Dreamer said. She pulled a seat out at one of the round tables, then she took a seat for herself next to Death. “Wanna sit with us too?” Dreamer asked.This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.“Uh,” Abigail said.“You don’t need to be afraid of him, he can’t hurt you.”“I can,” Death replied.Dreamer rolled her eyes, and Abigail made a tiny mental note (with the part of her mind not screaming) that she had to find out who taught her how to do that. “Yes,” Dreamer said. “You could hurt Abigail. But then I’d eat you and wipe out your very concept from everything so that you could never come back.”“You cannot kill the concept of death, for in killing the concept you must have realized it,” Death said.Dreamer crossed her arms. “What if I try really hard?”“I don’t think effort is part of this particular equation.”“That’s just cause no one’s tried hard enough before,” Dreamer said. “Hurt Abigail and nothing in this universe or the next would stop me. I’d search the umbral plains for the one that hurt her and consume the fabric of reality itself until the ones I hunt rest eternally in a nightmare of my making,” Dreamer said. “Can I have a cupcake too?”“Sure,” Abigail said. She placed a cupcake in front of Dreamer, then another in front of the embodiment (insofar as it might have a body) of Death. “Do you want some tea? Uh, coffee?”“Coffee please.”“How do you like it?” Abigail asked. This was familiar, well-threaded, ground.“Six sugars, a dash of cream.”Abigail nodded. “Good, good.”“Can I get a coffee?” Dreamer asked.“No,” Abigail said without giving it a second thought.Dreamer pouted but it had no effect on Abigail. She nodded in the general direction of Death, then scurried off back to the counter where she could prepare Death’s coffee and hyperventilate in peace.When she returned it was to find that Death had either left and someone else had taken his place, or the concept of mortality had taken on the shape of a middle aged man with a touch of grey at the temples and a nice well-manicured moustache. “Ah, my coffee,” he said.“Here you go,” Abigail said as she set his mug down. “And here’s an eclair, uh, on the house, since you’re a friend of Dreamer’s.”“Oh, we’re not exactly friends. Dreamer is just being polite.”“I was gonna eat him, but then I remembered some of the stuff Daphne said at me,” Dreamer said. “So I invited him here instead.”“Oh, that’s nice,” Abigail said. “Um, were you coming here on business?”“Yes, yes, to reap the souls of every living thing in this solar system,” Death said.Dreamer shook her head. “Silly, you can’t do that. I said so.”“Yes, I’m beginning to see that. Perhaps we can compromise on some of the finer details?”“Yeah, okay,” Dreamer said.Abigail was quite certain that the fate of her entire world now rested on Dreamer’s ability to negotiate. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was supposed to be more afraid of anymore.
* * *
Chapter Forty-Two — The Inspector
Chapter Forty-Two — The Inspector Cornelius had been with the administrative wing of the Adventurer’s guild for... about seven years? An administrator ought to know how long he’d been administrating, but the years sometimes blurred by.It was simple, honest work. He was responsible for tabulating results, ensuring that the quality of returned materials was consistent, and occasionally he oversaw training and some guild chapterhouses.The guild was large enough that it needed regular inspections in order to keep things nice and neat. Otherwise, some members might try to abuse the system, or clients could start making demands that didn’t conform to guild regulations.The guild was, in the end, an interesting place to work, with strange people doing their best to help the citizenry against monsters and alchemical creations and even humble bandits. There were heroes in the guild, members that rose up and became legends in their own right through great deeds and accomplishments, and when Cornelius could help some of those heroes, he felt like a little bit of a hero himself.Recently, a little team out in the boonies past Five Peaks had been making a name for themselves. Three adventurer’s guild members and one extra non-member assistant. Nothing too unusual there, except that the team were doing really well.Too well.They’d taken out entire bandit forts, wiped a colony of rabid sword-swans, captured a bandit lord and protected a little town from an entire force of goblin savages.If they were older, more experienced, then maybe it wouldn’t have risen as many suspicions. But the team was made up for a pair of rejects from Five Peak’s academy, and an older adventurer who had never made a name for himself and only took odd low-risk jobs.Something didn’t add up.So he met the team in Treescore as they were preparing for another mission. This one might well have been their most dangerous. A clutch of wyverns had settled into the mountains to the north-west of the town and were beginning to threaten the cattle and citizens of the little town.Wyverns weren’t a joke.Cornelius wasn’t unfamiliar with a difficult mission or two. Before joining the administration team, he had five good years of adventuring guild work under his belt. He made a point of staying in shape, and had had a few adventures with teams on inspection runs to keep sharp.Which is to say, he knew what went into preparing for the kind of work they did.The team he met was anything but prepared.Two of the members, both young women from Five Peaks, had the kind of gear he expected to see on adventurers that never tackled anything rougher than a goblin. The third member, the older more experienced adventurer, had good armour and a good sword by his hip, but it was all the kind of gear that either the exceptionally talented and rich, or foolish and rich carried.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.Swords didn’t need filigree on their blades to work well.The fourth and final member of the little group bothered him the most.She was a child, maybe in her early teens. Cornelius made a point of avoiding children. They were loud and annoying and irrational. This one seened no different.“So, how many of them are there?” the girl-the others called her Girl, which he imagined was a nickname of some sort-asked.“There’re supposed to be a clutch of them,” Feli Simmers said. She grinned down at Girl as she hoisted her pack back on. The team was carrying a lot of food. More than they needed by far, but perhaps they had a trick in store.If Cornilius had to kill over a dozen young wyvern, he would certainly try poisoning some meat to kill them without getting close.Perhaps the team wasn’t as unprepared as he thought. Their success had to come from somewhere. There was no faking the multitude of reports they’d been receiving from the team’s activities.For the moment, Cornilius decided to assume that the team was under equipped because they decided not to fight the enemy head-on, which was wise in this case, and being light on their feet would serve them better than having too much gear. The child was likely something like a team pet. That had happened often enough. Precocious orphans joining teams on adventures for a little while.They reached the edge of the mountains to the north of Treescore and found a trail leading up the edge of the rocky terrain.By mid-day, Cornelius was beginning to suspect that something was wrong with the child.Did all children eat that much? For that matter, why did she not have boots on?Also, why were the members of the team praising her for every little thing and occasionally pausing to... pat her head? It was bizarre.“Alright,” Jean guy, the team’s nominal leader, said as they reached a sort of plateau on the side of the mountain. He cupped his hands over his eyes and searched the surroundings for a moment. “The villagers said the wyverns were around here.”“Is it those birds?” the girl asked while pointing.Cornelius followed her pointing finger to a flock above. “No, those are pigeons,” he said.“Oh. Is it those birds?”This time, she was pointing to what was very clearly an entire roost of wyverns resting next to a cavern on the mountainside. They were hard to make out against the rocks around them, their grey scales blending in with the stones around them.“That’s them,” Feli said. “Think we should get closer, or do you want to... you know, do your thing from here?”What thing, Cornelius wondered.“Yeah, I can grab them from here. I can’t eat all of them, right?”“Leave the heads,” Guy said.“Pardon, but what exactly is the plan here?” Cornelius asked.And then the sky above them ripped apart and from the screaming void came an uncountable number of fleshy tendrils.The wyverns screamed.Cornelius screamed too.
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