Why did we have this dream? I gripped my chest, not in pain but discomfort. I have to do something about this. I felt like I was running down that alley again. My phone was still ringing.
"Heo…" Stella cried, her eyes slowly opening. "HEO!"
"Yeah? YEAH?"
"Why are you just looking down on me like a predator in a bush?"
"Well, I had a nightmare." My phone stopped ringing and I pulled it up to see who called.
"I- oh. Why did we? The howls, the banshee, what does it even mean?"
"I don't know, it stings having all this information. If there was something to do, why hasn't anybody before us?"
"I don't know, Heo. I'm scared, Delusion is trapped all the way up in that castle, screaming and crying constantly."
"Paukena lives ignoring it."
"Right! What are we supposed to do?"
"We… We can try and get more information." I felt myself hit the wall in the alley.
"The guild will have so much there. Baydí could even help us.." Her voice perked up.
We stepped outside and started our walk towards the guild. I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket and sighed.
"Heo?"
"Sorry, I have to call someone."
"Ok…"
I clicked on the missed call from Herika. It didn't even ring before a voice resounded from the other side.
"HEO!"
"Yeah?"
"Don't yeah me. You called, I called back, and now you don't answer?"
"I was-"
"I don't care. What do you want bro?"
"We'll I thought you'd like to hear what we're up to"
"Sure. First when we meet up your not going to believe what happened."
"Can't wait to hear it."
I took a few minutes skipping on a foot or two recounting Fayha to Herika. Adding a few lies and truths to the queen of the night. I don't know if I fully trust Paukena yet, I haven't had a chance to see if the disappearances will stop.
"Ha, do I need to come back to Festival and meet y'all? It looks like it's getting fun there with all the pumpkins. I also would like to see the end of this Crude King nightmare."
"Well unless we die, we will still be in Fayha."
"Alright, I'll pack soon."
We said bye and ended the call.
"I don't remember you having any friends that close in high school."
"I did, it just wasn't senior year, it was junior year."
"OH! That weirdo criminal!"
"She's not a crimi… well technically she is, but getting in trouble for practicing magic before eighteen isn't that bad of a crime."
"In Mila for sure it is. That's what everyone called her. I heard after a certain amount of time in school she left. Technically could graduate with barely passing grades."
"Yeah, the second she couldn't possibly fail her last year she left."
As we walked you could tell the Festival was crawling up. It seems like its going to be huge. Each building we pasted had photos of fighters competing outside advertising themselves.
"Everyone here is so excited. It's making me restless, thinking about you and me competing, Heo."
"Yeah, but I need to solve this crude king thing first."
"Right-"
Screams came from our right as we walked out. Looking at Stella, and remembering the alley, we nodded still and ran down that way. A man's face was tidally locked in front of him as he pushed himself across the ground. Another person was close, closing her eyes and shaking her head. In front of them laid a person on his back.
The street held a sort of fog when we entered the scene. Once it touched us it was more like mist. Stella's eyes raised and looked at me.
Quickly medics had teleported close to him. One of them felt his neck and leaned in. It didn't take long before he ordered something from the other medics and started chess compressions on the man. A crowd formed around the scene as we watched them perform CPR. The medic had to push the crowd away, eventually erecting barriers of stone.
"A heart attack?" I asked. "It's so terrible he can just die like that."
"Yeah, he must have just collapsed. Heo, did you notice that?"
"Notice what?"
"The fog here, it doesn't feel real."
"What do you mean?"
"It stands out more, do you not notice that?"
I felt the fog and the world around me, letting the wind blow the mist into me. There was a difference, a strong one. The separation of tangible and magical. Once I felt it I couldn't not feel it. The horrific discovery radiated throughout my body. Two things that didn't belong together hitting each other. I felt the distinction from my horns and the rest of my body. The invisible magic points that amplified my body distinguish from my flesh and bones. The mist was magical, and magic was unlimited in the ways of horror like it was for everything. The hair on my body stood straight like a fatal edge point all over my body.
The guild had more Derstboil quests put up, probably because of the show put on by Paukena last night. Though most cities will get them. We headed to a counter.
"Hello, is this registration or quest related?" The man asked at the counter, like the last one also instantly grabbing at registration papers.
"Quest?"
"Kinda quest?" Stella said.
"What do you mean kinda quest?"
"Well, we are new to Fayha, but you live here so you should know about the banshee of the castle right?"
"I do…?"
"Me and my cousin have recently gotten really lucky and went up to the top floor of the castle."
"Ok… Isn't that where the screams come from?"
"Yes, we heard the banshee right next to us, and want to find more people who are curious about the banshee and the nightmare."
"Lucky you, I know one such obsessed person with the nightmare. Her name is Ezree Hyeol. She is an adventurer, technically, but mainly is a tour guide for various places."
"Where can we find her?"
"Well, take one of her tours. I don't know where she lives."
"Does she have a website?"
The man showed us her website and we sat down to look her up. The prices on the tours were way more than we had.
"Heo.. we're broke still."
"Yeeeeah." I stretched and put my hands in my pocket. Feeling a folded paper I pulled it out. "Oh!"
"What?"
"This is probably not illegal..."
We went and picked up the magic potion prescriptions I was given and sold them for a higher price. Magic potions the specific ways they are made don't require magical materials, just a bottle and a trained professional for the quality, so the price for them was cheap, like all things magical unless they are enhancements. These were nothing like the small ones we got from the goblins. Those filled rookie adventurers up. These filled up veterans. We definitely got more than enough to go on the tour, though Stella had ripped my ear off about how unhappy she was I didn't keep it for my pain.
The girl I had sold them to was way shorter than me. She had brown hair with her bangs cut really high up. Her eyes were a light yellow. She had jumped at me for the potions as if she knew I was going to sell them. Then she squirmed off.
"Tour of the Castle of Festival right here!" Screamed a young woman.
She was a little shorter than me, about five five. She had yellowy blonde hair with dark tips. Her two sets of eyes were dark red. She wore a red cap with small tails of her hair sticking out the hat on both sides of her head. She had on a one-piece of clothing looking like pajamas but blending in with everyone else in Fayah. It had a turtleneck-like part with striped lines. She also had three lines tattooed around both of her arms.
"Hey!" I yelled and waved toward the girl, she turned and hopped over to us.
"Hello, have you paid for the tour online?"
"Yeah, but we don't really want a tour." Stella said.
"We want you."
"Ugh…"
"Heo, stop it."
Stella hit me with her staff, this time with the new metal one, it wasn't hard though.
"We wanted to talk to you about the banshee of the castle if you're able to?"
"Oh yeah I will!" We had already paid her for the time of the tour so she'd be fine talking to us. "What would you like to talk about?"
"We should probably go somewhere else to talk about it because it will take a minute." I said.
"Well, I have to work today so give me a good reason for leaving to talk about it."
"We've been all the way to the top of the castle as well as had the dream."
"What part?"
"The top."
"No, I mean what part of the dream did you have? Which Loved?"
"Um.." I looked at Stella. "The first Limerence, the second Ludus, the third Unclear, the fourth Release, the fifth Eluding, the sixth Appealing, and technically the seventh Delusion."
The woman stood there, her mouth agape. "You haven't just seen the first or second but the entire nightmare?"
She quickly grabbed us and dragged us behind her, eventually starting to run till we got to an old but cute styled home.
"This is my home, now come in, let's talk."
She sat us down, grabbed tea then ran behind a wall where she yelled and ran back.
"Ok… Tell me the whole nightmare."
We did, recounting all the way to delusion and kenosee.
"Kenosee. People who've had the dream always heard it and saw that creepy face resembling Limerence. We even knew that there were supposedly six loved."
"Wait, not a single other person has had all of the story within a single nightmare?"
"No, not a single person. So that's why you mentioned you've gone to the highest floor in the castle. That's interesting."
"So do you have any idea on what kenosee means?"
"Well that's actually very easy. It's an abbreviation of all the loved, somehow tying them together. Kenna, Enna, Nia, Oceans, Summer, Elise then you could add another e to the end making Erika."
"I wouldn't have thought that, especially because of the extra e. An extra e at the end is weird." I said.
"Rude! My name is Ezree. I have two es." She stuck up her pointer finger on both hands.
"Sorry."
"What is the importance of it, especially enough to make Delusion repeatedly call it out?"
"That I have no idea of. You've said you have gone to the top, was that with the Queen?"
"Yes."
"Did you hear the banshee?"
"We did, but it was as if she couldn't hear it or decided to ignore it."
"Well, either way it can be seen as bad. Tell me what you know of the Queen?"
"Why are you asking questions? We came here to do that?"
"Just trying to collect as much information, the story could be solved this way." Her chin lifted and she smiled with shut eyes.
"Well… She's mischievous, but effective in what she does. She seems to love messing with people a lot but she's never done it maliciously to us. She is very passionate about her country and we know her ability, and how it specifically works."
"And how's that?"
I thought for a second before answering. "If she loves her country and her country loves her she can stop crimes before they happen."
"Thats interesting. It also seems she can create some form of life with those pumpkins…" Ezree trailed off. "Did you know that the festive kings have all had something special about them? Well they were all unique people obviously, but for the crude King, he was always in his castle or just out of the public eye so people never knew what his special thing was besides being lazy, and I guess now a dedicated or obsessed partner, depending on how you look at it."
"Kenosee could be his ability, if you assume all festive kings have abilities, and or that the kings all can create life which is why Delusion was born." A tall man said.
He had similar hair to Ezree and four eyes to match. He wore a large blanket around himself and was completely under it.
"EZRA! This is my hobby, back off and go back to being a nerd in your room!"
Me and Stella just sat there looking at the tall man. Ezree threw furniture and objects at Ezra, where he would lazily dodge or let the soft ones hit him.
"My name is Ezra Hyeol, nice to meet you two… Adventurers?"
We both stood up and shook his outstretched hand. It was dark red and the color curled up his arm. A common occurrence look for full dragons.
"My name is Heo Estellé and this is Stella, my cousin."
"Hello." Stella waved her light brown staff.
"I-Im sorry but I can't anymore." I said, visibly shaking. "Are you two full dragons!?" They looked awkwardly at each other and so did Stella before shaking their heads.
"We were actually born full dragons."
"WOW! Can I see your horns?"
Ezra flinched and turned his head away as Ezree grabbed near her hat and dark red horns sprouted backwards. Following the horns, her hair turned dark red and sharply wavy.
"That's so awesome!"
I grabbed mine and released them into flames, before fiddling with them.
"So can we get back to the crude King." Stella said, hitting me again.
"Yes." Ezree said, and sat all of us down.
"So what could his ability be?" Stella asked.
"Maybe they all fell in love with him?" Ezree said.
"I guess, but wouldn't it be cooler if it did something else? Remember the ending of it?" I said.
"Yeah that was strange and how delusion narrated it" Ezree said.
"She said 'he felt peace again, happy, but tears wouldn't stop nor would the emotions that now physically poured out of him in a pink hue.' So whatever came out of him might be his ability? His emotions in a way?"
"Remember when we were with Paukena, Heo? When she used her ability, an orange puff or spark of magic formed."
"That wouldn't be too nice of an ability. Having your emotions be a physical thing you carry." Ezra squinted his eyes.
"Again why would Delusion say kenosee?" Ezree said.
"We saw the emotions absorbed into Limerence. As if taking his burden away." Stella said.
"Could it be that he gives them a specific emotion if these people were all named?" I said.
"Delusion embodies delusional one-sided love. If Delusion is still alive, could that mean she still permanently feels that way towards him?" Ezree said.
A cloud passed over the house, drowning us in a darker room. The lightbulb flickered for a second. A sigh escaped my mouth. Our conversation went still and all we could hear was light voices from the tv in another room.
"In the middle of the day, the man just fell over choking. When they said that he drowned it was even scarier. The man was running from somewhere looking for something and trying to scream but he just wasn't…"
"If true, we infer…"
"The importance of the nightmare is because…"
"Āpala's ability is to…"
"Keep them feeling that way."
"Forever." We all said.
Our quick little meet up ended there as me and Stella headed out. I got Ezree's number and we agreed to do something later. It felt heavy dealing with the revelation especially since we experienced Āpala life that was filled with a prickly heart.