First Battle

Kael forgets to breathe, his mind races, the only thing he can think of being intentionally disorienting himself to enter the murmuring void to get out of the situation.

But the monster, almost sensing this, at blinding speed stabs two of its fingers into his chest. This reminds Kael how to breathe, cus he really need the air now.

He looks down at his chest and sees his blood trickle down. Realizing he can't even leave anymore decides to try to fight back.

He holds the monster's arm with one hand, trying to pull it out, but it doesn't budge at all. Switching his play, he pulls out a dagger at speeds that surprise even himself and stabs the monster in his 'face'? Which disorients it enough for it to loosen its grip, enough for Kael to pull it out and jump back now holding onto both the spear and sword on either hand.

Breathing heavily he readies himself, but the monster stands there with its hand still outstretched pointing out its two fingers in his direction. The dagger in its face begins pulling itself out, the monster not using its arms at all, the dagger then falls on the floor.

It drops its arm and charges at Kael. Kael ready this time jumps and dodges to the left and thrusts his spear at the monster. It quickly changes directions, dodging the strike and swings its arms at the spear splitting it in two, then goes to grab Kael by the neck.

Kael ducks out of the way, rolling to the side and begins running to the east. The monster gives chase, Kael uses this chance to get a view of his surroundings.

Quickly observing and describing where he is. "Where the fuck is this?!" he yells in his thoughts, seeing absolutely nothing. No buildings, no hills or mountains, no grass, is this even sand? Referring to the black looking stuff on the ground.

Before he could go any further, the monster catches up to him, slashing him in the back. He fell to the ground, for the first time feeling as though he got hit in the waking world. It felt as though he had been split into two, but after confirming he's still in one piece, he got back up, trying to ignore the pain, reminding himself it's just a dream. But everything was feeling too real for him to ignore.

The monster attacked again aiming for his head, Kael cooly dodges to the side. Not moving away he pulls out his other dagger, stabbed it in its side and moved to its other side, while dodging another strike, holds his sword with both hands and strikes at the monster's neck.

It raised both hands and blocked his attack, used one hand to snatch the sword and punches him away with the other. Kael flies several feet away, but gets up on one knee pulls out his bow and one arrow and accurately shoots at the monster, with the arrow landing squarely in its, ahem 'face'.

But both the dagger and arrow seemed to have no effect on it. Kael shoots another arrow, but the monster speeds up, dodging the arrow by flash stepping to the right, Kael shoots another and the monster appears in front of him and stabs him again, this time in his stomach.

Kael begins bleeding from the mouth, pulls out the dagger from its side and begins repeatedly stabbing it in the head and neck. But it grabs him by the neck with its other arm, suffocating him.

Kael feeling weaker and weaker, drops the dagger feeling his consciousness fading. But suddenly, he is filled with newfound determination, and grabs onto the monster's arm in his stomach and begins pulling it out. His eyes are now white from the suffocation and after pulling out the monster's arm, he punches it in the face. This causes the monster to let go of him as it stumbles backwards.

Kael still with white eyes picks up the dagger, screaming, he jumps onto the monster not giving it time to recover and slashes at its back, tearing it open, pulling out all it's strange black and red 'organs' stabs it all over its body.

The monster falls but Kael climbs on top of it, determined to stab it till it dies. After a while, he stops, his eyes still white, he collapses, falling to the side.

After an unknown amount of time, he wakes up, seeing the faceless monster's body laid dead in front of him. Looking at his body, he was still bleeding. Unsure how he was still alive, he ignored the fact and got up, but his knees buckled and he fell back down.

He began trying to control his breathing, calming himself he got on one knee and tried to 'open the door'. He reached out in the air and repeatedly pulled back, but nothing happened.

He then remembered the monster stabbing him in the chest and observed his stab wounds. he then sensed a dark force in there, and began focusing trying to remove it. He can't tell how long this took, but he ultimately dispelled the force and once again reached out to nothing and pulled the air, this time opening an illusory doorway, he crawls to the monster's body and pulls himself and the corpse through the doorway.

Kael comes out of the nightmare and reappears in front of Dyrel, who is still in her trance like state. He looks to the floor and sees the corpse still there. After reconfirming its death, he leaves and goes to Dyrel's father and tears off his shirt to tie his wounds. Dyrel's father not even flinching.

He then sits on the couch next to Dyrel exhausted. He slumps his head covering his eyes with his hand and sits there for a while.

After resting for an unknown amount of time, feeling enough energy to get up he opens the doorway that leads to the gate, dragging the monster corpse with him. He flies them to the gate and then wait at the entrance.

The voice then speaks, "Hmm that was fast." Almost not expecting it to happen that fast. Almost.

Kael speaks to her, "Alright, now what?" The voice tells him, "When you wake up, offer this thing to me." Kael realizes, "You're a God- or well Goddess?!" The voice responds, "Yes, I am. I'm guessing you've never heard of me." Kael tells her, "Not really, there are any Gods in my- no, there's only a small cult that worships the God of death. So which one are you?" She answers, "Wisdom, as well as water." "Wisdom and water." Kael repeats, then he asks, "Can you help my village, they are plagued with constant nightmares that leads them to either go mad or kill themselves." The voice answers him, "I cannot. At least not as things are right now."

This discourages Kael, he doesn't know what to say anymore. The voice continues, "In fact, as it stands you have more power over this place than I do. This realm belonged to another God, but it is not occupied by anyone, God or mortal, since the 3rd age. It's doors cannot be opened by another God without the realm's ruler granting permission." Kael listened attentively, digesting all the information. "What happened to the God of this realm?" He asked. the voice answered, "He was slayed in battle by a voidborn." Kael subconsciously asked, "What the fuck is a voidborn." The voice answered, actually being able to hear his thoughts, "Beings born outside our world. they corrupt everything they come in contact with. But this is all I will tell you for now."

Kael kept listening learning new things with each sentence. He then speaks, "Alright then, when I wake I'll ... sacrifice this to you. Then, wait?" The voice replies, "Precisely." Kael thinks for a moment and says alright. The corpse then vanishes, Kael almost raises alarm but the voice says, "Don't worry, I just moved it." Kael nods and leaves the Dreamscape.

In the waking world, Layla, Rio and Sara sit around Kael's body. Unsure of what to say to each other, but Rio is first to break the ice, "Don't be too nervous. We do stuff like this all the time." Layla snarks, "You mean shake our friend awake, and sometimes pour water on him?" Rio and Sara chuckle. Layla continues, "I wish he'd let us do more, but he gets protective of everything close to him."

Then looking at Sara with excited eyes, "Maybe you could get him to get me some... *looks at Rio* things." Then looks back at Sara with a wide smile. Sara confused asks, "How do you want me to do that, we just met toda-" Stopping herself, remembering Kael already knows pretty much everything about her.

Before anyone could say anything else, Kael's body begins shaking violently. His chest sports two finger sized wounds but no blood comes out.

The trio panic. Sara asks, "Should we wake him up?" Rio starts trying to wake him immediately after her sentence. "Kael, Kael wake up!" But he doesn't respond, after a few seconds he then sports a fist sized hole in his stomach, still not bleeding from the abdomen but begins bleeding from his mouth.

They rip open his shirt unsure of what to do next. Yet again a deep and wide cut appeared on his back with still no blood coming out. Kael then suddenly opens his eyes, they look ghostly white as if he had seen his worst nightmare, and he collapses onto the floor unmoving.

They almost think he's dead if not for Rio confirming he's still breathing. The wounds on his body however don't disappear. After a while of anxiously waiting, suddenly a faceless monster's corpse appear next to Kael's body shocking them to their feet. a moment later Kael wakes up.

Kael wakes up to an aching body. He groans as his hand instinctively going to his chest and he tries to sit up. His eyes were no longer white, but the wounds on his body were still there, a stark reminder of the battle he had fought in the Dreamscape.

He looks around, his gaze landing on the faceless monster's corpse. For a moment, he just stared at it, his expression unreadable. He looks up and sees his friends staring at him. He gets worried and asks, "Was it dead when it got here?" Layla, Rio and Sara were so shocked they couldn't respond.

Kael took this as a no, so he tries to get up but his wounds finally started bleeding out. He fell back to the ground and only then did his friends begin moving and asking questions. While Rio and Layla treated his wounds and covered them they asked, "What happened in there, did you kill that thing?" He responded with a blank face, "Yeah, yeah I did." Layla asked, "How?!" Kael simply says, "With a dagger."

He was doing his best to give answers but in actuality he was too tired to even speak. He found the strength to at least tell them about the identity of the voice, including what she told him to do. The trio were absolutely stunned, not hiding their horror of the situation.

Layla speaks, "So, a goddess is helping you... is she trying to save our village, or does she just want a pawn that can navigate freely in the Dreamscape?" Rio adds, "Yeah, is this really a good thing?" Kael stops anyone from speaking further. "I don't care what her goals are, as long as they benefit us I'm willing to accept the repercussions." Layla opens her mouth to object his views but seeing the state he's currently in, decides to leave it for tomorrow.

Kael continues speaking, "You guys shouldn't come to my house for the next two days, or until I tell you it's okay, until I take care of... *gestures towards the monster* this." Layla responds, "alright." with Rio also agreeing.

Sara just stands there with a lost look. Kael looks at her and asks, "Could you help me tell the manager I'll be... unavailable for the next two days, please." Sara takes a moment to think then answers, "Okay."

Kael then says, "You guys should leave." He staggeringly gets up, Rio offers to help him but he rejects his help and makes his way to his room. The others follow him to make sure he actually goes to his room. After that they go to their homes.

The next day, Kael goes to his parents room, standing outside without opening the door he takes a deep breath and walks in. He sees his parents still laying on their bed, he drops their food on the table and begins to leave. His mother notices that he didn't try to get them out of bed and calls out to him, "Kael."

He turns around, "Oh, good morning mom." His mom looks at him and asks, "Are you doing alright?" Kael answers her, "I'm fine mom." She tries to continue the conversation, "Your father said you brought a girl home last night." Kael cuts her off, "Oh, that's, that's nothing."

She begins to get worried, even in her current state she could still notice when he is no longer his cheery self, "Are you sure you're alright?" He answers yet again, "I am. I just... *looks away* won't be leaving the house for the next few days."

She finally backs down, "Okay." he then leaves the room and goes back to his. He stays in his room doing nothing and eating nothing. His body still in pain, he fears exploring anywhere he hasn't already been in the Dreamscape, but he can't get the safety of the villagers out of his mind.

He goes to sleep and enters the Dreamscape. He 'awakes' in his room and feels a rush of pain all over his body, nearly collapsing. He powers through, first going to Dyrel's dream, entering it, the place no longer had what seemed to be eternal darkness. Now resembling his dream of the village.

He entered Dyrel's house to see her smiling, running around the house, almost ethereally teleporting from one side of the house to another. Kael seeing this has a bright wide smile on his face, then he leaves her dream.