Esoka's dreams have been pleasant-- when she slept in the Hall of Heroes.

Tonight she falls asleep outside of the Hall of Heroes and those surreal, unpleasant dreams come creeping back in. The world is fuzzy and sharp all around her. The edges hazy and smudged; while the lights are too bright and the colors too bright.

Esoka finds herself in a familiar place. The edges bright and sharp. She finds herself...

Esoka stayed late at the Badger, burrowing through various dispatches and duty rosters she's allowed to accumulate over the past week. She's tried to keep up, but she's been off her game. She yawns heavily as she strides back to the place, taking a moment to rest on the steps. It's in that moment that the tiredness that's been threatening to claim her overtakes her. She rests her eyes, just for a moment...

And when she opens them, is faraway from Arx. Deep in the eastern Gray Forest, the sound of running water in the distance. She's not far from the twin rivers known as the Son and Daughter. In the woods just off the Twainfort. Home.

Expect the woods are dead. Not just the dead of dead plants... but the dead of flesh. Where bark should be mottled green, pink, and brown fleshy growths have sprouted on the twisted, withered trees. Hanging from the branches in coagulated clumps are sacks flesh, gooey blood, and viscera.

The branches shiver, and blood drips down from them... oozing out of what should be bark but appears more as flesh.

...the woods of home are a nightmare of death and rotting flesh.

There's a moment when Esoka expects to find familiarity and tranquility here. She inhales deep the smell of the place in her nose...and gags in her throat. It's only then the rotting decay of the place hits her. The mottled corpse her woods have become. "Is this the Silent Army's corruption...no, they were defeated, I remember...was it too late? By the gods what is this....?" She reaches out shaking fingers to touch one of those branches. And recoils when the decay of it oozes blood and rot onto her hands. "...is this all that's left...?"

It burns.

That blood that oozes across her fingers and her hands. Spreading like a disease across her own flesh. Eating away at her skin, causing her flesh to become mottled... to start to rot.

And in the distance? The sound of feet marching, but no sounds of life...

The silent army-- but worse --marching through the forest toward her. But the Shavs are more than just dead. They're rotting as they march.

A twisted golem of flesh and bone leading them.

All of them completely silent.

Esoka screams as the blood of the trees burns into her skin, clawing at her arms with her nails, as if physically //tearing// the flesh off would stop the corruption. She turns to run toward the rivers. Toward the water. Perhaps it'll come clean there, the fevered thought races in her brain. She almost reaches the water's edge, when she comes upon the army of shavs. Not just shavs. Their tattoos are like her own. The markings of the Greenwood tribes, written like sigils in what remains of their flesh. And some of the faces, she knows. Though she has not seen them in years. It's a woman marching at the twisted golem creature's right hand that she fixates on. A woman who looks not unlike herself. Or what can still be made of her rotting, melting features.

"Evona...sister...?" Esoka chokes out the words.

"ee.... eessss.... oooo. Eeesssoooka. Esoooka." A long 'oo' sound is given there. The woman stretches a hand with flesh dripping off of the bones toward Esoka. "Come. Coooome. Esooka."

Esoka's hands in the water... the corruption stops, and the blood washes away but... it floats out into the water and the river turns blood red.

"No." Esoka chokes out the word in a sob. She fumbles for her sword, even pained and rotting as her hands are. Trying to raise it against the awful creature at the head of that army. At the shavs with the markings of her tribesmen. At the thing with the face of her sister. It's the last that makes her falter. She drops her sword, and turns to run. Into the waters. The blood red waters.

Esoka checked mana + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 6 lower.

Is there a little shimmering? A darkening of the world? Briefly... when she turns and she runs. She splashes into the waters of the Twin Rivers... and she's running, and she's no longer at home... She's in Arx again. Running through flooded streets.

Street flooded with blood...

The Silent Army is tearing through the streets.

Is that Calaudrin up ahead? At the walls? Fighting off a Fomorian?

Esoka gasps like she's coming up for air. But then she isn't swimming. She's running. Wading, through the blood in the streets. There's a flush of relief, at first. That those trees, the creature, her sister's dead and twisted face, are gone. The Silent Army was defeated once. She can fight //that// battle again/ "Calaudrin!" It's hollered in a loud, firm warcry, and she runs to join him fighting on the walls. Hands graps for her sword, fingers unsure they can find it. Did she throw it away? Why would she...?

Esoka checked mana + investigation at difficulty 10, rolling 6 higher.

Calaudrin's form /shimmers/. For a brief moment Calaudrin's form stretches out taller than he should be, far more slender than he should be... He's formed of nothing by inky darkness. A monster where Calaudrin should be and then it shimmers back into place.

"Esoka!" He calls out, "Help me!"

It has Calaudrin's voice... it's it Calaudrin?

Esoka blinks rapidly as the man's form shimmers in front of her. Into something wrong. Into a monster. The blade she hurled to the ground by bleeding rivers is back in her hands, somehow. "No!" She shouts it defiantly, but still with a desperate sob in her throat. "You will not take him, too!" And then she //throws// herself at the monster with the Iron Guardsman's voice. Sword-first.

Ainsley GM Roll checked mana(5) + occult(3) at difficulty 15, rolling 43 higher.

Esoka checked willpower + medium wpn at difficulty 15, rolling 20 higher.

"Esoka?!" Calaudrin snarls at the woman. He staggers backward and snarls, "How could you?!" His own sword is drawn and he slashes it toward her. His blade knocking her own aside and slashing at her arm. The pain fever bright and burning in the dream. Intense and seeming ... real.

Esoka cries out as the blade of Calaudrin, or the monster wearing his voice, or some combined horror of them, slashes into her skin. She stumbles, dropping her own weapon, reaching over a hand to clutch the wound. The burning of it makes her scream, a piercing sound of pain.

Esoka checked mana + dodge at difficulty 15, rolling 9 higher.

Ainsley GM Roll checked mana(5) + occult(3) at difficulty 15, rolling 28 higher.

Calaudrin doesn't stop. Not after she drops the sword. Not after she clutches the wound and stumbles. Calaudrin's montrous grin is sharp, bright and stretch... to far over his face. The sword slashes down on Esoka once more ... a killing blow...

The dream shadows and when she wakes up?

Blood has welled up on her arms, and across her chest. Not deep wounds, but wounds nonetheless... like being gouged with a dull knife.

Dream Pain

Esoka takes moderate damage.

Esoka wakes up screaming, with blood on her chest and arms. Real blood. Even if the wounds aren't deep, not the fatal blows they were in the dream, they're terrifying enough. Even the worst nightmares don't leave //real// scars. Save this one.