Ok So Maybe It was Sort of My Fault

"How long has he been out?" Andre was with me, I had kind of hoped Trezlan would just snap out of it so I wouldn't have to admit to Andre what happened, not that he wasn't obligated to me or anything, but still sometimes you hope a situation fixes itself without your involvement.

"A day maybe?"

"A day maybe? You don't know?"

"Well I knocked him out yesterday, he hasn't recovered since then, so a day."  Trezlan had a bit of drool puddling near his mouth, but outside of that no indication he was with us.

"You knocked him out?"

"He said he was having problem sleeping."

"So your solution was to knock him out?"

"You say that like its a bad thing." Andre shook his head, it was his normal dissapproving shake, I've grown used to him not agreeing with just about anything I do. Andre checked Trezlan out including lifting his eye lids back and we could see his eyes had rolled back so that just the whites were visible.  Andre tried shouting at Trezlan and stabbing the palm of his hand with a small dagger, neither did anything.

"Well we have two scenarios here, either you have some unknown power to knock people out entirely, or Mr. Lorentino here is suffering through something completely unrelated to you."
"So it really isn't my fault."

"You still put him into the trance he can't get out of, you're still at fault."

"Well fix him."

"With what Nidget? I'm not a healer."

"You're a priest right? Bust out some of that Fire God mojo and fix him up."

"You're knowledge of my religion is insulting Nidget, I'd correct your ignorance but I know from previous attempts to do this to you you'll shrug it off." He was right I did.

"So what do we do?"

Andre sighed, "We contact Captain Therod, this is most likely a magical infection and Trezlan could just be the first one hit with it, she deserves to know."

"Oh great lets hope she doesn't throw us in jail."

"Oh you're so optimistic Nidget, I'd figure she'd execute us before tossing us in jail."

"I love your positive outlook on things Andre." But he was right we had no other plays, so we had to find Captain Therod and hope that she wasn't interested in executing her more extreme amounts of authority.  Fortunately she was not, unfortunately... Well I'll get to that.

Things that Are Not my Fault Even when They Are

It's weird writing an "official" entry for Trezlan's journal since I already included at least one story of my own against his knowledge, that I guess will become his knowledge now? Anyway, Trezlan has let me fill in this part of his personal history since he spent the week completely unconcious and claims not to remember anything (I say claims, because Trezlan is a damn liar). I mean sure I did knock him out, but I figured all he needed was a good day of sleep! I had no idea he'd be out for a week! I can't forsee these kind of struggles!  Its really not my fault Trezlan is such a monster that whatever caught up with him in the dream land trapped him for days.

All of that aside, I can say it was kind of my fault that it took at least a day for anyone to know Trezlan was in trouble because I kind of knocked him out, locked the door and hoped for the best.  Look mistakes were made and again if Trezlan wasn't so horrible this wouldn't have happened in the first place! So officially our efforts to help Trezlan didn't really start till after a day of him being in a nightmarish hellscape, honestly it was probably something he deserved more than he would admit too!

Tomorrow I'll go over our attempts to wake him from the issue.  Notice I said attempts, it wasn't exactly easy cracking into someone elses dreams when your friends aren't magic users at all!

Things That Do Not Help

Nightmares or any dream for that matter are a really bad place to get stuck.  I mean trapped in your own mental hellscape is a bad place anyway (as I've written of previously), but getting stuck in a dream is a lot worse.  Why you may ask? Because dreams by their nature are not really controlled by you, they are dictated by that crazy place of your head that thinks that spiders coming out of your genitals is a great time to be had by all.

So getting stuck in a dream that not only was I not in control of, but could not get out of was really the worst of all worlds.  And this time it totally was Nidget's fault (note from this time further any suggestion by him about curing ailments were never trusted).  I do have to say this, due to the nature of how utterly terrifying the dream I was stuck in was, I remember little of it! Yeah it was one of those situations, I do know I was out for a very long time, and my small circle of enemies who claim to be my friends got together to try and help me.  Tomorrow I'll include Nidget's tale on how they "cured" me of my issue that he totally did to me!

Times Dragging me Down

"Four days so far."

"You look it."

"Thank Nidget, I'd blame you for this but sadly this started before you bugging me, just barely, but still you're off the hook, for now." I was stocking shelves with odd trinkets I'd be putting up for sale (basically it was junk I'd collected long ago and was just now putting up for sale hoping to catch an idiot like myself).  The firearm part of my store was already fully stocked and had been when I got back from my Shamanar adventure, there was a small note from Toneron about bare shelves selling nothing next to the guns.

"So they are just bad dreams?" Nidget was standing on my counter, I'd have yelled at him for doing it, but I was so out of it from lack of sleep that I couldn't even muster enough to care, in fact I'd been stocking the same shelf for about ten minutes.

"No they are horrible nightmares that I don't know if I'm currently still in when I wake up, so I stopped going to sleep, I think, this could also be a nightmare as your presence shows." Andre wasn't around it was morning prayers for the Followers which always left Nidget to come bug me, prayers in this case meant beating the crap out of each other, morning was just when it started.

"You know Trezlan I could probably help you here?"

"Oh you have some ancient shorty secret for ridding yourself of a a powerful magic user influencing my dreams in an effort to drive me mad or kill me?"

"Yep."

"Well it can't hurt, go ahead." This is one of those statements you regreat immediately after saying them.  In this case I walked over to Nidget and he hit me on the head so hard it knocked me out (hilt of his sword if you wanted to know, I mean its not like his tiny fists could do the job).  The worst part, other than of course being attacked when you did not expect it, IT DIDN'T STOP THE DAMN NIGHTMARES!

Post Shamanar World

"So Shamanar?"

"Was just and old mind controlling magic user of some kind, probably at one point he had a cult and wanted to have another one, he used Nidget to get me and then once he dominated me he would probably then go about getting other followers."

"And Nidget's blue skin?"

"Probably something he ate while mentally influenced, though I don't know of anything that turns your skin blue, clearly it was temporary as he's back to normal now."

"What about the book that started all of this?"

"An old rotten journal from what I can tell, I don't even know if Nidget really went and got it, or if Shamanar had just wanted to test if he had mind controlled Nidget, either way I did not touch it per a friend's suggestion, who knows what was really in it."

"Another beer?"

"Naturally." I was in Valrym's tavern, which had moved from being on the outskirts of town to being pretty much in a large block (still it was its own building amongst a couple four story buildings).  Despite him not really being a huge fan of my previous works we had patched things up, and by patched things up I mean I got pretty drunk and just told him about what had gone on with my life. I think he was more trapped listening to me rather than wanting to, but such is the problem of being a businessman (I have the same issue when I'm tailoring suits for people, they yammer on and on like I care).

"What I don't get, well several things, but the most prominent is what about the dreams? Why did he dream that he was going to die?" At least Valrym was engaging me, he could hvae just listened and then wandered off like I do, look I'll admit I'm terrible at paying attention.

"Nidget's a bad guy, probably has bad dreams because he's a bad guy.  I can't tell you how many dreams I have where people threaten to kill me in really creepy detail." Yes these dreams were new, yes I was trying to write them off as bad dreams, no it wasn't working.

"Well you do have the stench of death on you Trezlan, though its stronger than it was before, new cologne?" There was the old Valrym I knew and disliked.

"I'm just glad you noticed." That was the end of our conversation.  I continued drinking, Valrym moved on to the no other customers in his tavern at six in the morning.  I tell you I don't think people are as dedicated as I am to drinking properly!

Shamajerk

"Oooffff." That was the sound of my back slamming into stone, well that was the sound I made when I hit the stone, the actual sound was more thudcrack, but you know semantics. Shamanar was pretty powerful as far as magic users go, or he felt powerful (as in I was being thrown around the room pretty easily).  His physical body was that of an incredibly muscled man, face was chiseled handsome... no I'm not making that up, guy looked like the kind of person you lose a girlfriend too.  He was shirtless with tight what appeared to be silk pants on.  Of all the magic users who have kicked my ass (and the list is in fact growing) he was the weirdest.

"Will you submit to Shamanar?" His voice was still deafening, and it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

"If I could reach my nuts I'd tell you to..." And then I was tossed through the door leading to the "well" room.  I was back in the suicide room, the ghosts that had chased me in there weren't there anymore. Shamanar slowly approached me, despite being really muscular he moved extremely slow.  This gave me an opportunity to draw my revolver and fire some shots at him, of course they did nothing and just caused him to laugh.

"This? This is the best you can do to the great Shamanar?" I tried to run but he was next to me an instant.

"SUBMIT!!!" He had hauled me off the ground and I was up in the air, but something curious was going on. I wasn't in pain? It was something I'd noticed earlier, despite being tossed around the well room I wasn't actually hurt, like I felt nothing broken, bruised, or bleeding. So despite beating me up I wasn't actually hurt.  Which is either a testament to how awesome I am (so awesome) or I wasn't actually where I thought I was doing what I thought I was doing.

I drew my sword out, "That will not harm me little one." I smiled at Shamanar and plunged it through myself, nothing. No pain, no blood, and no injury, for a brief moment in front of me the image flickered.  Suddenly I was on the ground, the handsome image of Shamanar was gone, and I was back in the same room I came into, though it was a lot more decrepit looking. The stair cases were broken down, the walls had more holes than one of my stories, and the floors were rotten.  The door that had trapped me was off its hinges and hand lazily in the wind. 

In front of me was the real Shamanar, an old frail looking man in dirty rags clutching a rotted old memoire.  None of it had been true.  Shamanar looked up at me with anger, he could see I had bested him at his own game (see being crazy in the past helps me avoid crazy in the future... yes it makes sense).  I didn't say anything to him, there was nothing more to be said, I made a deliberate motion to pull my revolver out, took aim, and blew his head off.  The frail body hit the floor with a thump, the rest of his head landed with a splat.

Mind magic is always dangerous, because you don't know what you might be doing while you are doing what you think you are doing (yes that makes sense).  For whatever I might have learned from that husk say by sucking his body dry with necromancy, I'd be risking my own sanity taking that weirdness within (and I do that enough thank you).  I burned his body, and left enough fire to destroy the rest of his house.  I figured there hadn't actually been any cultists in a long time, this was the last desperate act of a crazed old man (hence the desire for me to submit).

I found my horse pretty much where I'd left him, happily munching on some grass, from the grass he'd eaten I noticed I hadn't been gone long.  I was happy the situation was over, but kind of miffed Nidget had been so grossly incompetent (that was the first time, sadly its not been the last). At least this time I didn't end up too hurt, just my brain felt broken, but I had a ride back to fix that, well as much as I ever "fix" my head.  Anyway, I'd like to say I returned and things were aok, but no no they just got stupider.

Damned Undead of the Damned

The undead are always an ugly enemy to fight. They are by their very nature trapped people in a state of neither live nor dead (hence undead), so in a way you feel pitty for them.  Well you would feel pity for them IF THEY WEREN'T CONSANTLY TRYING TO EAT YOU!  Which is also weird, undead people are animated by magic, they do not need food, why do they try and eat people? This is madness.

Ok all of that out of the way, these undead were the normal type, gaunt, clothing all torn to shreds (why? I mean if they were a cult why didn't they die fully clothed? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!).  I wasn't that worried because you know fire, I long to burn things. I long to burn things that can't be burned (more on this later). So of course I turned to the rushing enemies and unleashed a cone of fire to absolutely no success.  Because they weren't regular undead, no no they were damn ghosts! GHOSTS! The worst of all spectral creatures BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BURN!  They are on the list of things I want to burn though.  The list as of right now.

Ghosts
Nidget
The sky (wait let me cross that one off, I did burn the sky)
Nidget
Water

That's all I can think of right now.  Anyway, my attempt to burn my spectral pursuers failed, I did what any man would do faced with a charging surge of ghosts. I ran! Which is not so smart when you are stuck in a cultists fortress and being chased by ghosts (who can go through walls). But beggars can not be choosers when running from the damned. I decided to go lower intead of upper (less of a chance of falling from up high due to bad floor boards, notice I said less, not nill). Thankfully for me ghosts spectral nature works to your advantage when pushing past them (because unless they are concentrating they can not harm you, well normally, there are other nevermind nevermind).

The room beyond the stair room was nothing but beds and corpses (probably of the ghost people who were chasing me).  Near each bed was a bowl of something, probably what they drank to die.  Look I wasn't thinking very much I was running, beyond the room with beds was a hallway that lead to what looked like a circular well room, I figured I could jump in there, leap down the well snag the rope and make it to cavern below hopefully an outlet to somewhere else and escape (this plan was predicated on failure in like three places). No sooner had I hit the "well" room than the door behind me slammed shut, and I saw that it wasn't a well at all, but a dias with that stupid book on it.  Materializing in front of me was Shamanar, naturally, the ghosts had directly chased me into the gods/man/annoyance's lair.

"WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM!" It pronounced with a booming voice.

"You said that already."

"Seriously this is how this going to go? Seriously?"

Seriously journal thats how this will go.