Chapter 38: 39: Night Terrors

The loud crash of thunder causes the single window of her room to rattle loudly at the same time as the unseen hand of the heavy winds outside press against it, as if the elements were testing its resilience. Fresh isn’t sure what exactly it is that is bothering her. She isn’t afraid of the dark, or at least she wasn’t in her old life. She had spent days at a time shut inside of a light-less bedroom. Weeks. Months. She's used to the darkness and she figures the darkness should be used to her by now as well.

But something is different tonight. Something is different because of the storm. She looks to the window, feeling a chill on her skin. It’s dark outside, not even the glow of the dungeon can pierce the veil of the thick downpour. Fresh ponders if she should go back outside to the pantry and get one of her glowing potions to keep as a night-light, but the thought of reopening the door, which her back is pressed against, disturbs her too much to let that be a plausible idea.

Is she afraid of the dark?

She doesn’t think so. But… this is a new body. Fresh wonders, looking down at herself. She never considered the logistics of it. But… where did this body come from? Did the spirit of the fountain just ‘make’ it? And what does that imply? What kind of entity is the spirit of the fountain, if it can just make an entire human body from nothing? The hairs on her arms stand on end as she wonders what to do. Maybe she’s just being stupid. Maybe this is just another childish perception, some recessed lizard-thought of her ‘goo-brain’, as Jubilee is prone to call it. Maybe it’s just the stress of the day coming together to unease her, now that she’s alone.

Fresh lets go of the door and bolts over to the curtains, grabbing them to pull them tightly shut. A flash of lightning shines out, illuminating the world outside for just a brief moment and as it does, she is sure that some dark gestalt will make itself appear before her. Some haunting apparition in the glass of her window, staring back at her with hungry eyes. But nothing comes, save for more empty darkness and water and she wrenches the curtains shut. The little bit of light that had managed to find sanctuary in here together with her from outside, is now cut off entirely and she is immersed in total darkness.

Fresh listens to the rain.

She should sleep. But she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t feel… safe?

She looks around. No. She doesn’t feel safe. Should she get Jubilee and ask them to come with her to the adventurer’s guild? No… they would never go for that. Fresh purses her lips and mutters to herself. “I’m not a creep…” She looks around the dark room and, seeing no other source of light, opts to open her menu. At least it's something. Anything.

STATUS: ???

CLASS: [WITCH]

- of the Black-Fountain

OBOLS: 2327

SUB-CLASS: [CRAFTSMAN]

[INVENTORY]

She stares at the thing, looking over her values, a small smile managing to form after all on her face, despite her insecurities. “It’s all working out,” she says, beaming to herself as she sees the progress that she’s made. The many steps that she’s taken towards this new life, which she had yearned for, are shown here, printed undeniably for all to see. Seeing the numbers fills her with a warmth and a pride that seems to banish the night, just a little. Her eyes wander towards the right side of the menu. Towards the giant, bright yellow text labeled [Inventory]. She tilts her head, wondering why she never paid it any mind before. It’s not that she hadn’t seen it, it's just…

She just never really thought about pressing it, is all. Fresh purses her lips, cursing herself, and lifts a finger to press against the glass of the menu. The glass-pane shifts into a single, wordless panel with a black, light-less hole in the center of it. The inside seems to swirl and churn and she stares at it curiously. The spinning movement is almost hypnotizing as the black current inside of the window spins like a meandering whirlpool.

Not really sure what it is exactly that she’s doing, Fresh lifts an arm and reaches towards the hole. It just seems like the right thing to do. As her fingers touch the glass of the menu, they don’t stop this time and they sink in through the hole. Her arm feels as if it's submerged in cold, icy water. She shudders. Something is thrust into her hand and the girl yelps, pulling back with a jump of her body and yanks her wet arm out of the hole.

Water splashes everywhere around her at her feet and on her dress as she looks at the thing held in her hand. A stick, soaked through and sopping wet. The far end of it once burnt and charred is now dead and soggy. Fresh looks at it curiously and then recognizes it as a torch from the dungeon. She turns it over, examining it.

The memory returns to her as she sees a small flake of orange-mushroom stuck on a jagged splinter. This is her torch, the one she had fought Mr. Mushroom with during her first attempt. Did it get put in this… ‘inventory’ of hers, when she died? She looks at the black hole, suspended in the glass of the menu and it almost seems to look back at her, like a single iris-less pupil. Shuddering, she swipes the inventory away to return to her normal menu and looks at the dead torch, dripping with water, as if it had been submerged this entire time. Drifting idly in the light-less ocean.

The thought makes her feel uneasy.

Even she can tell that this is something unusual. If there was a magical-inventory system in this world, then Jubilee would have mentioned it a long time ago. A rock sinks in her gut as she realizes all of the things she could have used this for. Dozens of mushrooms-cap, snail-shells, goblin-teeth, her money. All of it, she could keep in here. She hadn’t needed to carry any of it ever. Fresh sighs, cursing her inability to do anything right and rubs her aching back that had been hurting ever since she strained herself so hard down in the dungeon.

But maybe…

She sits down, putting her back against the wall to Jubilee’s room. Maybe this was for the best though. If nothing else, it helped cement her new work-ethic. She had hurt and sweated for every step she took, and that’s what made them worth taking to begin with.

“That makes sense…” says Fresh, placing a finger to her lip and thinking. She drops the wet, long since extinguished torch and lets it roll away. Besides, the thought of having to reach inside of that light-less hole every single time makes her uneasy.

What if one day, something reaches back out for her?

The girl shakes her head, slapping her cheeks to wake herself up, just as another crash of thunder echoes around the world.

This night was just feeling more and more frightening the longer it goes on. Her exhausted eyes look at the pile of blankets that make up her ‘bed’. She wants to sleep. She’s beyond exhausted. Her head droops.

The glass of her window shakes with a loud rattle. Fresh jolts together, waking up again as she turns her head to listen to the wind. To the witchy fingers touching her window, scratching it, trying to get in. Trying to get her. She wants to sleep. But she also doesn’t. She needs to be rested for tomorrow. But something is keeping her on edge. Something is making her feel unwell and that feeling is fortified with every splashing raindrop that strikes against the glass of the window. Knocking. Pleading. A cooing voice at midnight calling softly. ‘Let me in. Let me in.’

Fresh glares at the window and points towards it. “You’re not getting me, demons!”

Turning her head to the side with a determined ‘hmpf’, she grabs her grimoire from her bag and pulls a blanket up from her bedroll to cover herself with, to fight the chills and to keep the damp pages of the book off of her already cold and clammy skin. Fresh wraps the blanket tightly around herself, obscuring her entire figure as if she were wearing a hooded cloak. Mimicking her friend again, now that she's dressed like them, Fresh mutters to herself and yawns.

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“Goo-brain~”

Scowling, she opens the book to the first page and begins reading by the dull light of her menu, the heavy rain continuing to pour outside. “I’m not a goo-brain…”

[Grimoire of the Witch of the Black-Fountain]

In the depths of dark oceans, in the halls of bleak dreams, in the black of all mirrors and behind all eye’s sheen, in the void between heartbeats, beyond the breath after each whisper at night, in the minute past sunset and in the absence of light, I reside. Read not further, unless you carry my title or sanction.

I will know.

Fresh looks around, having recited the rather spooky poem. The rain rattles on, unimpressed.

She turns the damp page and looks at the obscure drawing looking back to her. The page is covered in handwritten notes and text, all in different handwritings and styles. But all are written in the same black ink, all annotate the depiction of a fountain in the center of the page. Vaguely ornate and occultish decorations cover the decent, but not great drawing, but nothing too shocking. It looks like any old fountain she would have seen in any ‘historic’ park in her old life. The hand-writing interests her most of all though.

Thunder roars outside.

They all look different. Some of the printing she would describe as clearly elegant and some of it written more plain and simple, like a printed modern alphabet from her old life. Some characters she recognizes, but many she doesn’t, as they belong to languages she is unfamiliar with. All of them, as far as she can decipher, say the same thing. As if a dozen hands had inscribed their message into this book. All of the people marking themselves into the page, as if to prove that they had existed, as if they all had a single, unified message to share with her from wherever they were now.

“Black-Fountain,” whispers Fresh, her voice drowned out beneath the rain.

She turns the page, the wet pages sticking together a little as she pries them apart. Here, the pattern continues, but the ink is smeared and blurred. As if a hand had wiped over the wet of every message, distorting and destroying them before they could set. Only the depictions in the center of the page remain. Coins. All manner of coins. One or two she recognizes from her old life again and one she even recognizes as an Obol. The rest are foreign to her, as indiscernible as the smeared constructs that were once words. The next page that was once a long, detailed explanation, apparently, is entirely illegible. The entire page simply smeared, as if someone’s fingers had wiped over a wet painting.

With an uneasy, shaking hand, Fresh turns the page.

*DHUNK* *DHUNK* *DHUNK*

The girl yelps, jumping up to her feet and tossing the book down just as she turns the page. Bending, down, grabbing the dagger from her bag, Fresh looks to the door that had rattled with violent force.

“H-Hello?” she asks nervously. Nothing comes in response and she slowly walks towards the door, holding the dagger out in front of herself. Her tired eyes now wide with an unsteady angst. “Jubilee? I- Is that you?” she asks with a shaking voice, looking at the vibrating door.

*DHUNK* *DHUNK* *DHUNK*

The rain continues to pour, thunder echoing out far in the distance, as if it had been carried off afar by the howling winds.

“Jubilee?” asks Fresh with a quaking voice, her heart beating fast, as her hand reaches up for the handle of the door, the dagger held tightly in a shaking fist.

*DHUNK* *DHUNK* *DHUNK*

Razmatazz

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