180. You Are What You Dream

I lurk in the shadows cast upon the veils by an all-scorching sun.

I rise from the light that flickers beneath the all-seeing moon.

I am a creature born of sin, but I'm no ordinary Breachspawn. For my keeper keeps his Oath by the very act of breaking it.

None can catch me. None can stop me. To cross the Day-Night divide at will is to be above the very laws that govern the Realm. For what authority does the Keeper have over a creature that lives beyond the Gloam?

The moon fades, and Dawn rises. I'm in a peaceful mood toDay, and as such, I prefer the lowland idylls to the bustle of the city streets. It takes me no time to find my newest subject.

A nimble-bodied doe, barely past her oathing age. Nervous eyes dart to and fro as she sneaks her way past the wheat fields. Silly thing. Did your elders not teach you that Dawn is the most dangerous time of the Day?

Excision. Darkness and trickling moonlight, deep within the untamed woods at the foot of Duskpool. I take but several bounding steps through the thicket, keeping the young doe's 'shadow' in my sights all the while. I stop, turn, and—

Incision. A world of light scorches beneath the sun. Wheat stalks sway in the gentle Morning breeze.

The girl looks up. She sees what she sees, but she doesn't understand, at least not right away. Who could blame her? One moment, she's alone. The next, she's face to face with a creature of fable and myth.

But when she does understand, for at least one Ksana, a look crosses her face. I recognize the look. It doesn't belong entirely to fear. I sometimes see the same expression on my Night-side fellows. I see it on those who've yet to give up. Those who believe they still have something to fight for.

I'm struck by sudden inspiration. I'd begun the Day fully intent on punishing this starry-eyed fool, but I've changed my mind. There's always more than one way to skin a cat.

I wait. Only a few beats. Long enough for the girl to do the work for me. Her shrill wail, now colored entirely by fear, lures in her dutiful lover. No less a fool than the girl he's rushing to save.

I give the boy no chance to react. No chance to see me at all. Dissection. Split him open from neck to navel. Arterial blood sprays me, the girl, and the wheat stalks alike. The boy's eyes roll back. He's dead before he hits the ground.

As for the girl, she too topples over, having lost her consciousness. I suppose syncope is as good as anesthesia for my purposes.

The girl falls to forbidden sleep, but not before I study her face one more time—catch the precise and precious moment where defiance fully gives way to meek, unadulterated fear. I envy her a little. For sweet dreams are made of heartbeats and a lover's warmth.

I'm in a peaceful mood toDay, so I'm content with just the one subject. Two if I count sleeping beauty. It won't be long before the townsfolk come out in wary droves, so I need to be quick about finishing up. Luckily, I already have the exact prize in mind.

Tease apart the peritoneum. Sever the veins and arteries. Debride the tissue, and voila!

A freshly harvested spleen sits in my paw, its surface unnaturally lurid next to my dirt-caked claws. It's a humble little organ, ovoid and almost fruit-like in appearance. For a moment, I'm overcome by a certain intrusive thought. My keeper's up to his usual tricks on the other side of the veils! I gulp down my temptation and tear my eyes away, the better to point them onto the road.

I've been a little naughty this Morning, despite my peaceful mood. Well. In for a penny, in for a pound. The Dawnwickers already despise me, but it's time they learned what it is to live in constant fear. Let's just see how well they hold to their precious oaths then!

I grip the spleen in my paw, careful not to pierce it with my claws. I crouch in wait. Right on cue, my keeper shows me the way.

Excision.

***

"Hrrrk!!"

Serac Edin woke to more dry heaves.

She was flat on her back, feeling in full the stony chill of the mausoleum floor. She then sat up in a real hurry, lest she drown in her own saliva.

That was how she caught sight of her left arm. The wafer-thin triangle of DREAMEATER had re-zipped itself. Drumlin aft'Rafferty's spleen was nowhere to be seen.

Serac didn't want to reckon with the implications of that, so she quickly switched off [Metabolic Shift]. The triangle—true stuff of nightmares—morphed back into bloody, jagged rocks. A massive improvement.

Not a moment too soon. For as soon as Serac regained her 'base form', she was hit by the sensation of severe, urgent [Hunger]. A quick scan of her status showed [Satiety] had plummeted to a dangerously low [10/137].

Bad news, but nothing Serac hadn't dealt with before. She still had a few [Rumpepilles] left if she needed to give herself a small [Satiety] boost. Ideally though, she shouldn't have to waste one in a non-combat scenario. To that end…

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"You got any food on you by any chance?" were her first words to Travertine after she came to.

The Mriga man had sat down by a corner of the hallway, keeping a deliberate distance from the organ-glurping Rakshasa. His demeanor had calmed considerably since Serac first pulled her stunt. But as the latter stirred again, one of his deer companions bristled and pawed the ground. The man waved a placatory hand at ORD, before answering Serac in a slightly grouchy baritone.

"You're still hungry." Statement rather than question. "Were the taste and heft of my brother's spleen not to your satisfaction?"

Serac had the grace to flush in embarrassment, but only briefly, before that same flush became one of defensive indignation.

"You're the one who wanted 'another pair of eyes' on the crime scene! Well, you got your wish, and I'd be happy to share my findings, but only after I know I'm safe from starving myself."

Travertine was well within his rights to interpret Serac's words as the height of lunacy. His expression didn't change, however, as if he'd already surmised the nature of DREAMEATER's magic. Not for nothing was he a KL-95 veteran, well aware that stranger things have happened.

"Can your [Hunger] wait?" he asked in a somewhat more neutral tone. "I do travel with some rations, but we could also head further uptown and patronize some of the refectories along the way. In either case, we'll first have to make our way back to the boat."

"Refectories?" Serac frowned as she parroted the unfamiliar word. "What are they, like restaurants? I sure hope so. I've been away from Petey for only a few days, and I'm already hankering for some professional cooking!"

"Then let us make haste." Travertine stood up, patting a still bristling ORD as he did. "Somehow, I expect our already eventful Day to only get busier."

"No argument there." Serac also stood, but a little more quickly than a [Hungry] Rakshasa ought to have. It took a few seconds for the lightheadedness to pass. She then unclipped the salt-and-pepper shakers from her belt and held them out toward Travertine. "Mind holding onto this for me? At least until I get in a solid meal. Still got some buffer, but you know, better safe than sorry and all that."

Handing over her Trinket—one of such deep sentimental value, no less—to another soul for safekeeping. Even accounting for the practical considerations, it was an act that required tremendous trust on Serac's part. And she'd done it without so much as a second thought. A testament to how much she'd come to respect Travertine aft'Nankervis, at least as a Wayfarer if not outright as a friend.

The weight of the gesture wasn't lost on a KL-95 veteran. The Mriga spent a moment to inspect the Trinket in silence. He then gave a slight, solemn bow of the head before taking the shakers and clipping them onto his own belt.

[Trinket unequipped: CHEF'S BEST FRIEND]

[Burden: 21/41 -> 15/41]

[SYNTHESIS disabled]

[Burden: 15/41 -> 15/38]

[Satiety: 9/137 -> null]

Serac breathed a sigh of relief. As it stood, she was now locked out from consumable effects or the ability to cast [Metabolic Shift]. But at least she was no longer in any danger of Starvation.

Across from her, Travertine's dark stag eyes gave off a faint gleam, no doubt as he scanned [Chef's Best Friend]'s Pathsighted effects on himself. At the same time, he placed an absent-minded hand on his tummy, perhaps as he wrestled with an utterly novel sensation. He relayed none of these discoveries to Serac, however.

"We shall walk and talk." He decided for the both of them. CROZIER clacked against the mausoleum floor. "I've waited long enough. It's time you told me all about what you 'saw' with your extra pair of eyes."

"Sure thing." Serac readjusted her hood and hastened to keep up with the Mriga's longer strides. "But sheesh, where do I even begin? I guess first a confirmation of what we already suspected. Flint the Butcher is most definitely a Night-sider. Or more accurately, it's a Night-sider's Breachspawn. And no, it definitely didn't have a spare key to the Catacombs."

"Is it a group of them working together then?" Travertine frowned rather than scowled. "Sacrificing themselves to send murderous Breachspawns into our Day-side midst, knowing full well only Frenzy awaits their heinous misdeeds. To what end?"

"Well, I'm still new to Tidereign, so I dunno which of these explanations is weirder. A) what you just said about multiple, self-sacrificial Oathkeepers working together as a serial-killing 'collective'. Or B) one Wayfarer with the ability to control his Breachspawn from across the Day-Night divide, all without risk of Frenzy to himself."

Travertine stopped abruptly, CROZIER's click-clack ceasing with him. He looked at Serac like she'd grown horns, antlers, whiskers, the whole lot.

"Surely, you jest."

"I'm just telling you what I saw, man!" Serac raised her hands, palms out. "You said yourself that stranger things have happened. Look, the Breachspawn said—thought?—something funny. I think the exact words were: my keeper keeps his [Oath] by the very act of breaking it. Maybe that's how their powers manage to break all the rules?"

Travertine's frown twisted into a gnarly knot. He resumed his walk, though at a noticeably slower pace.

"What else did you learn? Did you manage to see the accursed thing?"

"No. I didn't see the Butcher because I was it. Which still told me plenty. And Peridot pretty much had it bang on. Big, hulking… cat. Yeah, has to be. Although…"

Serac's own brow furrowed as she tried to give name to a fresh sense of dissonance. A mismatch between what she knew a cat to be and how she felt as the cat in question. But Travertine pressed on with his inquiries.

"What of the Catacombs—the breaking and entering without a trace? Wayfaring magic? Or trickery involving the Day-Night divide?"

"Both," Serac murmured, the thought forming even as she spoke it into being. "It was… surgery."

"What?"

"I don't know how to explain it. The Oathkeeper was helping his Breachspawn from the other side. Making cuts in the skyveils so the cat could cross from one side to the other at will. Another thing Peridot was bang on about! I only thought to say 'surgery' because… well, there were a lot of big words I didn't understand, and the cat sounded really smart while it was going about its business."

Travertine remained silent a while, no doubt mulling over his detective partner's outlandish report. In the end, he let out a deep, rattling sigh in a rare show of vulnerability.

"Very well. No doubt there's much left to analyze from your account. But I no longer feel qualified to do it alone. We'll eat first, then we'll head directly to the Temple to compare notes."

The Mriga once again decided the itinerary for the both of them. Just as well, for the Rakshasa was presently in no mood to argue.

Since Travertine had let her off the hook, Serac went right back to her own bit of contemplation. She was most eager to 'resolve' her deepening sense of dissonance. Between what she knew about her prime suspect and how she felt as the big, hulking cat in question.

Because one thing was now abundantly clear. If Flint the Butcher had in fact been SENT Day-side by Oriole ere'Quinlan, it certainly hadn't been a ginger tabbycat that had cast its SHADOW.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.