Summer's Dream

[size=-2]
Vomica clapped her hands gleefully "Only faeries or partial faeries can navigate the forest. Everyone else... it simply doesn't open! Queen Mythria was so brilliant in her tree shaping, the magic binding these trees is so enormously powerful!" Vomica tilted her head with a smile still in place. "Nebrudian is always such a wet blanket, denying Faber and poor little Vomica their wishes... his offer sounds so much better than ours... maybe we should be less blunt, Faber. Maybe is we make it sound better, Nebrudian won't get to eat all the travelers we find".

Nebrudian paused in his grazing, seeming to be thinking. Silently, he stepped aside, revealing four enormous gemstones, all hollow seeming, as though the ought to be filled. There was one of sparkling prisms that somehow seemed to be every color at once and stunned the eye and mind. The second gem was nearly pitch black with a red sheen to it. Another gem seemed to emit fog, colorless itself but swirling with white mist. The final gem was purest silver and sparkled vaguely in the pale lighting. "You must guess which of these gems is the crystallized heart of a leviathan. It will light your path through the forest to the palace". Nebrudian stepped towards Nightie. "It is your answer, confer with the others if you must. Tell me if you accept my game".

Nightie had a plan, however. As the others broke out into discussion, she crept to Faber's side. "Do you know which of the gems is the crystallized heart of a leviathan?" Faber nodded, his black eyes glittered evilly reflecting the gems. "How would you like Nebrudian under your command to entertain you?"

The group, who had been conferring loudly and heatedly, cried out as Nightie stood boldly. "We accept, Nebrudian".
​
​
[/size]
 
Liz grew confuse with all the french that was spoken back and fourth between both Elsa and Nightie, a sigh grew upon her breath, she only ever knew German. As Elsa quickly wandered to Nightie she decided to stay beyond, she noticed the three creature's where she was. She honestly didn't want to get closer. Something about them irked her.

[SIZE=-2]"You must guess which of these gems is the crystallized heart of a leviathan. It will light your path through the forest to the palace". Nebrudian stepped towards Nightie. "It is your answer, confer with the others if you must. Tell me if you accept my game". [/SIZE]

And Liz looked at four gem's all were beautiful, and colorful. But somehow she had a gut feeling and she knew which one is probably was. But, She was usually the kind of girl that would get things wrong, even at the wrong time. She was horrible with question's even games. For a moment she piped down and wandered over, but still somewhat behind Nightie and the two other girl's.

[SIZE=-2]"We accept, Nebrudian".[/SIZE]

Liz's icy blue eyes narrowed quickly, and she grinned. "W-w-wait one moment", She stopped herself, grinning. But she just nodded her head in approval, hoping whatever decision Nightie had made or the group for the matter was right.
 
Elsa watched the rest of her schoolmates closely. She hadn't even noticed one of them had gone missing. "He'll be back soon I'm sure." She muttered under her breath. She then looked to Nightie, apparently the unofficial leader of the motley crew that had formed.

The creature that Nightie had picked presented his challenge and four crystals appeared in the forest, like they were on some crappy early morning, blue-hair oriented game show. The crystals were all exceptionally beautiful but one was the Leviathan's heart. She knew that if they picked the wrong one that the creature would kill them all but Elsa trusted in Nightie.

"I totally think it's that foggy cause like, isn't Leviathan that water summon in that Final Fantasy 9 game thingy? I totally only played those because that Garnet character had the CUTEST medieval looking outfit! I totally had these sketches of outfits inspired by that game..." She sighed wistfully, digging in her purse and pulling out a nail file, doing her nails. "It's up to you Nightingale, sorry if that's not your name but I think it sounds prettier, so I'm nicknaming you that cause you're super pretty and need a pretty name!"
 
Joseph listened to Nebrudian as he explained his game. While it would be easy for anyone here to know the answer, the fact that they were outsiders put them at a huge disadvantage. He was thinking about who to offer up to the other 2 options when he noticed Nightie go over to Faber and begin to quietly converse. Joseph crept closer to hear the conversation and heard Nightie ask if he knew which stone was the correct answer. The beast nodded his head, and Nightie then boldly proclaimed, "We accept Nebrudian."

Joseph went over to Nightie and asked her, his face with wrinkles of concern, "Are you sure we can trust him to provide us with the right answer? He might just as likely want to see us all slaughtered by the Nebrudian, and all you asked him was if he knew the right answer, not if he would give it to us. So, for all you know, he could only sabotage our efforts." Joseph examined the chimera, noticing how shiny his eyes were, seeing the gem's reflection from them. While the creature gave no indication of what he would do, the foreign feeling he got from it was enough for Joseph to distrust it.
 
[size=-2]
Nightie smiled, her eyes lidded as she was questioned but overall, people were taking it well. "I will offer him what he desires. Should he lie to us, well, I suppose we had no better option anyway, did we? " she was trying to be reassuring but she gave a curtsey to all the gathered students and spoke in her mild voice "I hope you all go to heaven, or get reincarnated as something good, whatever you believe in" before going up to face Nebrudian and his gems.

"Faber, which of these gems is the crystallized heart of a leviathan?" Nightie asked loudly, her intent eyes searching. Faber laughed and for a moment, he did not move. Nerudian howled. "Not allowed, you cannot ask for help!" but Nightie only smiled and shook her head. "You said that I could confer with others. I chose to confer with Faber" but her voice was hard to keep steady, Faber had not moved. For a few tense minutes Faber only grinned at her and she could feel herself being played with like a terrified rodent in the jaws of a killer. Slowly, Faber's sleek body shook and strode towards Nebrudian, who was throwing a bit of a tantrum in his own way - bellowing and stamping his feet.

The others watched as Faber bypassed all four of the glittering stones and rolled from beneath Nebrudian an average looking stone caked in mud and roughly the size of a grapefruit. Nebrudian tossed his head back angrily, but was checked by Faber. Placing a paw on the muddy, gray stone Faber laughed "This is the crystallized heart of the leviathan". He nudged it toward Nightie and she picked it up, her gaze skeptical.

"Nebrudian, as promised, I order you to serve the every whim of the chimera before us, Faber by name". As she grasped the heart, it began to glow through the mud. She brushed off the layers of filth as Faber jeered at Nebrudian, calling him a cheat. Beneath the final layer of grime, a beautiful blue began to emerge. The shade danced with the feeble light and seemed to swirl within the gem like waves. The light radiated off like a prism and a path through the trees became visible with its light.
​
[/size]
 
Elsa watched Nightie do her work. She was conferring with the freaky mish-mash animal thingy. She even asked it which one was the leviathan heart and much to Elsa's surprise and most likely the surprise of everyone else, Faber found it hidden underneath the creature that had presented the test.

"Ew, that's like a muddy clump..." Elsa said but as Nightie cleaned it off the blue glow underneath the cruddy exterior. "Oh wow, that's totally inspiring! Can we keep that because I might want that once we get home I'd love to use that for this line I'm trying to design. You know, medieval chic." She smiled, still filing her nails. As the blue light became more evident Elsa noticed a pathway through the woods.

"All right Nightingale! Allons-y!" Elsa shouted out placing the file back and charging forward, marching down the glowing path without much regard for the others behind her.
 
[size=-2]
Nightie couldn't help but smile at the girl's enthusiasm. Chasing after her, Nightie found herself at a fork in the road, bumping into Elsa gently as she came to a halt. The left side of the fork was darker, glittering with the pinpricks of light from earlier. The eerie glow of whatever the light was coming from gave Nightie chills. The way seemed to be old and untraveled of late, with the muddy earth beginning to grow back with plants where there were clearly defined grooves. Fallen leaves littered the path and further ahead, a moonbeam could be seen filtering through the trees. Something that way had disturbed the sleepy canopy of the forest.

To the right, the path was more worn in and there were more of the lights, sparkling ominously from trees. Rustling could be heard in that direction and without another word, Faber bounded down that path and out of sight. The grooves in the road to the right were slick with mud. Nightie bent to examine how dangerous it might be, but jerked up quickly as glowing eyes from the trees met her gaze, winked, and vanished.

"W-which way do you guys think?"
​
​
[/size]
 
Katherine found herself holding back a smile at Elsa as Nightie cleaned the Leviathan's Heart. The blue light that shimmered from it captivated Katherine for a second before her eyes turned to the path that now was revealed. Following after Elsa and Nightie, she stopped a few feet away from them as she looked at the forked paths. One was rather dark and seemed to be rather deserted. The other one, however, was more worn in and seemed safer, despite the rustling that could be heard in that direction.

Katherine continued to think. Well, whoever put the magic seal on this forest would want us to take the path that's lit up, right? I mean, wouldn't it seem like a trap? Katherine thought. Or maybe they think that I would think that and put a dead end or trap to the left, Katherine thought further. But then again, I'm rather interested in what's to the left, She concluded.

"W-which way do you guys think?" Nightie nervously asked.

"Well, I honestly think that if the creatures here have tried to play a trick on us, the path on the right may trick us into going into a dead end, or even worse, a trap," Katherine reasoned to Nightie.
 
Vincent rested for a while and went on running away. He thought he had ran straight path away from the clearing, but he found himself entering the same clearing. Ignoring this, he went on running, but still, no matter how hard he tried, he found himself coming back again, and again and again to the same clearing he desperately tried to escape from.

"So I guess escape is futile then eh?" Vincent sighed and pinched himself. "Yeah, as if that would work either"

Vincent looked at his other companions, now talking to some creature. A chimera, if he recalled his mythology correctly. With a wide grin on his face, he went near them. "I went on ahead and looked for a way out, but I couldn't find any. So, I guess it's needless to say that we have to have these creatures escort us out. But I think you already know that."

The others looked at Vincent kind of funny, for he had interrupted them. Vincent did notice it, but his realization came in too late.

"Oh, sowee for dat," Vincent grinned, "carry on then."
 
Liz was quick to follow the others, but she had to pick up the pace, she was one of the few of her college class mates behind. She turned around to the other who were behind, and smiled slightly. "Come on guys! We have a way out!",

She quickly ran towards Elsa, Nightie and the other two with no hurry. But she noticed the two path way's, one lit up, knowing that was probably the way they had to go into, the other not so. She sighed and looked at both path way's and looked over at Nightie.


[SIZE=-2]"W-which way do you guys think?"[/SIZE]

She knew ether way it can be a trap, ether way something would happened, and it probably was the end of it.

"We go left", She commented, hoping she was right. But in the right, their were the lights, the light's that was suppose to guide them. She didn't know, just everything had seemed fishy to her.
 
Elsa skidded to a stop right at the fork. Her instincts had told her to keep going but her brain asked the important question Which way? Of course that seemed to be the question on the rest of her classmate's lips as they filed in behind her. Even Nightie seemed unsure and she was thriving as the leader for this rag-tag group.

"Um, Nightingale, is this is a storyland world or whatever, shouldn't there be like, two twins here that we ask a question and one always, like, tells the truth and the other always lies and we ask them une question about which way to go? Ou nous sommes totalement perdu? Donc si nous sommes perdons il faut que nous allions... uh together?"
 
Joseph smiled as Faber revealed the true crystalized heart of a leviathan to be a muddy stone hidden beneath Nebrudian. It was clear that Nebrudian had not planned for them to notice that something as inconspicuous as a dirt ball would be the item they were trying to guess. Joseph looked at the 4 other large gems, wondering if they were something more than they seemed, but before he could examine them further, the party had moved on without him.

Cursing to himself, he chased afterwards until he caught up at the fork in the road, just in time to see Faber bound down the path on the right. The party seemed confused as to which direction to go down, however to Joseph it seemed quite obvious. "Why don't we just follow Faber? He promised to guide us through this forest and, even though the path on the right has more of those, light thingies, there's no guarantee that they're anything bad. Besides, I'd rather not get lost around here without Faber, since he's the only one so far helping us, and we don't have the luxury to be picky."
 
[size=-2]
Nightie fidgeted uncomfortably, her cheeks rouging a little to show her distress. There were so many valid options, so many ways that they could go wrong. Faber had never promised to lead them, he had merely agreed to aid in thwarting Nebrudian and by the by, where had the catoblepas gone? Nightie restrained the urge to backtrack and search for the potentially lethal creature. Instead she weighed her options carefully, her aversion to the lights waxing and waning as they seemed to danced playfully through the branches of the tree. Was Faber trying to betray them, lead them into the forest where they would perish and remain for him to devour at his leisure, or was he giving them a hint? Nightie's biggest question was, she simply couldn't remember if one was supposed to trust a chimera or not.

Turning to the others, she seemed oddly ethereal with her skirt fanning out at her thighs to float on the air for a moment as she twirled, black hair bleeding into the dark. "Well... we need to make a decision. It's a hard decision, but we'll vote. We'll make it fair. The light path, where Faber could either be leading us to our doom or trying to help in his own way; the dark path where we cannot see an ambush approaching but there is no suspicion or luring us into a false sense of security and no Faber down that path to eat us?" She flicked her intent brown eyes to each person present. "I just need to know guys, all you have to tell me is right or left and forever hold your peace". The ironic scent of jasmine wafted from the dark path, as well as a smell that Nightie could not think of an adjective for except vibrant. Could something have the fragrance of vibrant? That made no sense.

"My vote? Right".
[/size]​
 
Vincent stayed silent and observed what was happening around him.

He thought he had returned to where the others are in that clearing, but it dawned upon him that he's not. It was the forest that guided him towards the others were, at some fork. One path, much more worn out than the other, led to lights sparkling ominously. The darker, older path, Vincent edged into.

"It has been said that we should try to follow the path less-travelled, though I believe that pertains to real life. However, given our strange situation, might that adage more apt to be followed literally?" Vincent thought aloud.

"Or, since I have always been the strange one, I can volunteer to go ahead this old path first..." Vincent wondered, smiling at the others, "But there's always the problem of wether or not I can return safely to you guys."

He looked around, waiting for the others to answer.

No reply. It seemed that the others weren't even listening to him. "Uh, anyways, my vote is to take this path less travelled."

"But then again, I don't know anything..." he mumbled off.
 
"I second that vote," Joseph chimed in, glad to know that he wasn't the only one thinking that the right was the best way to go. While he has heard the old saying of take the path less traveled, it never did mention if the reason that path was less traveled was because it was more dangerous. Since the Chimera seemed to be ok with going down that path, and the path was pretty well lit, Joseph figured that going down that path would be as good as any.

Besides, the darkness of the left path bugged him. At least you could see over on the right path. But in the darkness, there can be anything lurking and that's what frightened him the most. So Joseph walked over and stood next to Nightie, his way of saying he sided with her. He heard another person mumble his vote for the left path, but so far the right path was the majority.
 
Katherine, in contrast to Joseph, was rather unafraid of the dark. In fact, she liked the scent that was coming from it. There was something about it that seemed to draw her forth. But wait, could that be a trap, too? Katherine thought twice about her argument. Now that I think about it, one can be lured by smell or sound as well as by sight, Katherine rationalized. Katherine turned to Nightie.

"Now that I think about it, there seems to be a rather interesting scent coming from the dark path. I was thinking that maybe that smell could possibly be a trap like the lit path on the right. I am going to have to agree with going on the path to the right," Katherine voted.
 
Elsa stopped filing her nails for a moment to take a look at the options for paths. Not really liking either option very much. She listened to the others argue and complain. Elsa was just happy to be alive after all considering the odds for their last test. The strong scent of jasmine was enticing to her but the well lit path had the creature that wanted to eat them or at least that's what she thought the deal was that he had offered earlier.

Nightie began to ask everyone in the group to decide which way everyone should go. And the votes seemed tied. Elsa took another look at each of the paths. "I vote we don't go either way and keep charging forward, but if I really had to pick I'd say we go right. I trust your, like, leadership skills and whatnot." Elsa added into the conversation with a small shrug, returning to her nail filing.
 
"Heeeeeeey!" A deep-voiced call from behind them could be heard, as the greasy man ran over to the group. Leaning over and panting, catching his breath, he glared at the lot with a half-smile on his face, "Way to leave me behind. I know I'm not really acquainted with you lot, but have some sympathy!" Finally done catching his breath, he pats off some of the dust that had settled on his rump and back from his time on the dirt with one hand - in the other he grasped a stick. Just a normal stick, he figured, but he felt better with some sort of defense at all.

"Whoa!" He states, finally catching a glimpse of the other... beasties. Raising the stick in alarm, he slowly settled it, after a firework in his brain went off, alerting him that no one else seemed that frightened of the beasties. With no real idea of 'mind control' to set off his suspicion-o-meter, he jammed a hand in his pocket, still panting to catch his breath, sweating a bit - clearly out of shape. "...No chance of having one of you explain what's going on, huh? No matter, I'll just..." He leans over again, "...Whew. Running sucks."
 
Liz smiled only slightly and nodded her head, she'll go whenever they go, and she didn't want to be left behind. Even though she thought left might have been a good idea, ether way she didn't care. She sighed, twirling her brunette hair, sapphire eye's closed. and she smiled.

"So we go", she paused for a moment, arm's crossed and she smiled. "right..then?", She paused for a moment looking over to the right then to left, both way's seemed intriguing.
 
[size=-2]
Hesitantly, Nightie began to lead the group down the path to the right. The mud clung to her shoes and she had to lift her legs higher to get them unstuck form the nasty mud. It seemed almost unnaturally thick, but the group paid it little mind, anxious to get moving on their path. The eyes occasionally appeared here and there, winking at them and vanishing and the soft whisper of something like voices could be heard. Gathering everyone close, Nightie trekked with the motley assembly down the road, her interest caught but not held for long by the unusual trees. Had she been less afraid, perhaps she might have studied the but for now it was important to get everyone moving.

The path make a sharp bend and just around the corner the cause of the thick mug seemed apparent, for hidden by walls of trees was a lake. It was not a massive lake, rather small in size for a lake, really, but it seemed to swirl with its currents. The water was pitch black, Nightie almost expected it to begin boiling. Feeling uneasy, every member of the group sped up their pace. Every member save two.

Struggling at the back, Alex and Amy were talking quietly and hardly seemed to notice the group drawing further and further away. Nightie shot a glance back at them but was speechless as she saw a dark shape approaching them. Awkwardly hopping at them, the creature appeared to take full advantage of the mire the mud created. Soon another shape was visible and Nightie managed to choke out a yelled warning but it was far too late.

The creatures appeared to be kappas, at first glance, but something had created a mutation. Their limbs remained where they ought to be, but tentacles sprouted from the sides of their arms and legs. Nightie fought to go back and rescue the pair, but the others restrained her and soon the ground began solid and flat. The silence was heavy as they all tried to erase from their thoughts the scene. The first to fall was Amy, with a tentacle covered arm shoved in her mouth. Pressed into the mud, the creature silencing her had begun to shred her clothing... Nightie shivered, certain that image would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Glancing to her left, she saw a sign stuck into the ground. "P-palace... it says we're headed to the palace..."
​
[/size]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back