Chapter 11: Rejection, Good Clean Banditry
Lofan was floating in whiteness, he wondered if he was dead. He hoped that this wasn’t what being dead was like. Thinking on it he felt a bit foggy and groggy. Lofan decided that he was in the dream world, he liked that idea. It would mean that he was alive. It would mean however that he was in the dream world. Still as horrible as that could be it was better than being dead.
Normally Elconic denizen do not enter the dream world, only their dreams do, or to be more exact, the dreamland is made up of dreams. Sleeping in the dreamland is the Great Unconscious, the melding of all people’s dream thoughts. It has a reputation for being very embarrassing to meet.
Being a dreamland not all the dreams are nice. Many a denizen that has strayed into the dreamland has met their end in a nightmare. Others have come out, forever changed, becoming less real. Lofan bent his mind to the task of escaping the dreamland as strange as elcon could be it was nothing compared to the dreams of its inhabitants.
Lofan was just concluding that he really didn’t know much about the dreamland when he heard an ancient voice.
*Ahem*
Lofan looked around seeing nothing but the swirling whiteness.
-No no, over here! You aren’t looking right!- The ancient voice pouted.
Lofan spun around to where he heard the voice. Then tried to slow down as he flipped point over bottom floating in the whiteness. He was upside down when it appeared.
An eye on its side, shaped like a blade, Lofan could not tell what colour it was, or perhaps it was all colours. At one tip, a different handles flickered, one moment a hilt of some kind, the next a pole, then a chain and various other handles.
-I am a blade of the mind. I am DEFIANCE BANE OF OPPRESSORS!-
The whiteness shook, and was replaced with ghostly images of denizens defying this and that. Some were quite dramatic, a soldier staring down a king, a warrioress not submitting to hordes she fought, others not so much, like the child refusing his soup.
-With me in mind no foe is too mighty! I lend my power to the wimps who are strong in mind, but hopelessly wimpy in body! From their frustrations I am drawn! To the defiant I offer my power! With me in mind the result is victory!-
For some reason Lofan felt like he was receiving a sales pitch. Defiance looked down at Lofan.
-Now let me see the face of the champion who’s outstanding defiance and weakness have called me forth-
The eye frowned upon taking in Lofan. It looked around, hopeful that there was some other creature about.
-Well I’m out. I’m not serving a coneman. Not after what happened the last time.-
With that the eye winked out and Lofan was left gently bobbing in the whiteness of the blank dreamspace he was in.
Lofan was a bit put out. He decided he would never mention this to anyone ever.
“didn’t need some stupid eye sword anyway” he muttered sadly.
With that the dreamland unfolded into reality.
Lofan blinked a few times as he adjusted to not being in a unpleasant state of awake while asleep.
He heard fizzling and smelt a horrific stench. The stench was overwhelming. Lofan came fully to his senses. Lofan quickly put together that he was in the stomach of a hydra. He could see the walls of the stomach, the hissing acids and the various dissolving remains.
Lofan had landed on the remains of some kind of metal plate. It was dissolved at the edges. Lofan then heard voices, but it was not the voices of Hammer, Dookie or Sir Nitup.
“I don’t like this at all Gert. This isn’t what I signed up for tromping through the innards of a hydra.”
A man’s deep voice complained.
“No kidding, Huck” a sharp female voice, Gert, replied. “I signed up for the loot I did!”
“Ahh loot” Huck exhaled wistfully “What I wouldn’t give for a spot of some good honest pillaging”
“We should desert, this Firelord bloke is right crazy, you know he wants us all to worship him?”
“Deserting would be nice, we could get back to our origins, good clean banditry but…”
Gert and Huck came into Lofan’s view. They were of medium size, being as tall as perhaps four ducks stacked on top of each other. Lofan couldn’t determine what exactly the denizens were as they were wearing yellow rubbery suits complete with airmasks. They were pearshaped, with large two fingered four thumbed hands.
They swam through the stomach acid completely unharmed.
“Yeah, I suppose we’d get hunted down by his flameship’s Snuffers if we deserted” Gert accepted.
Huck grunted. “What I wanna know is why we gotta be the ones patrolling, the others don’t have to do it”
Gert gave a kind of hissing honk.
“Its that barmy mage, says we talk too much! ‘distrupts my connection to the hydracore’ he says”
Huck gave a kind of hissing honk.
“The nerve, we’d go crazy if we couldn’t chatter, I don’t know how the others manage”
“Yah, it isn’t our fault he is not a good enough mage to stay concentrated.”
Lofan had gotten an idea of why the hydra was in the mountains. These were minions of the Firelord, he would would brook no flame but his own, these goons had clearly heard of the rumours of an artefact and set out to claim it for their wicked master. He thought it was a bit overkill to send a hydra out on a rumour though.
Still thanks to the chatty flunkies, Lofan had a plan, he would follow these minions back to ‘barmy mage’. Lofan wasn’t quite sure what he’d do then, but he was sure he’d figure something out. He guessed that he could paddle with his mind’s power. He was a bit surprised however at his increased telekinetic strength however and almost made splashes too loud.
Still he managed to keep on Gert and Huck’s trail. Their banter also helped him avoid detection. He was really quite glad when they left the stomach.
He was not however as pleased when they came across Sir Nitup who was setting up a fire, drooling and clearly planning to eat the Hydra from the inside out.