Dreamer's Throne

I really need to figure out a way to get more rest.

Staring up at the ceiling, Garrett couldn’t help but covet the quiet of sleep. Unfortunately, after the fiasco that was the adventure to the crypt to search for ghouls the night before, there was too much to do. Closing his eyes, he tried to sense Gorn and Reeve, but their connections were still blocked. It was a mercy they weren’t completely gone like many of the other connections he’d possessed. Eleven of the Dream Seeds he’d planted had turned to nothing, completely erased from his mind.

With a groan, he rolled over and pulled his chair close. Just as he was about to pull himself up, the door banged open and Ryn ran in. Seeing him stirring, she darted over and helped him sit up.

“Garrett! They found them! They found them!”

“Who found what?” Garrett asked, giving her an uncomprehending look.

“Gorn and Obe and the others! They found ghouls!” Ryn whispered the last word.

“Oh? Did they kill them?”

“Not even close. To hear Obe tell it, they barely got out of there with their lives. They ran into a whole ghoul nest.”

“Uh oh. How many died?” Garrett asked, trying to keep his expression calm as the terrifying events of the previous night flashed through his mind.

“Umm, I don’t think anyone died. They said they outran the ghouls. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, makes no sense. You can’t outrun ghouls. Hold on, let me go ask them.”

“Wait, take me along with you,” Garrett said, reaching out to stop Ryn before she could run out of the room.

Helping him into his wheelchair, she pushed him down the hallway to the great room where most of the gang was gathered. Gorn, Obe, Reeve, and a few of the gang members who had gone down into the tunnels were sitting around a table, while the rest of the team was around another. Henrick was leaning up against the bar and Francis, the new cook, was clearing empty plates, his face sour. When Garrett arrived, Reeve and Gorn’s faces both lit up, and even Obe seemed happy to see him.

“Garrett! You missed quite the party,” Gorn said, rubbing his face ruefully.

“That’s what I heard. I also heard it got cut short. What happened?”

“Well, we found what we were looking for,” Obe said, shuddering.

“You mean you found the ghoul who killed Cook?”

“No. Well, maybe. I mean, we found a whole nest of ghouls, not even ten minutes from the inn,” Gorn said. “We were just discussing what to do.”

Looking around the room with his eyes narrowed, Garrett made a show of counting the men who’d gone down into the crypts the previous night, his eyes opening wide when he saw they were all there. Shooting Henrick a glance, he saw that the gang’s boss had a grim expression on his face.

“I’m exceedingly glad you all got back safely. I would have assumed a number of you had fallen. Ghouls aren’t typically the friendly sort.”

“It was really impressive, actually,” Obe said. “Gorn found them and then was coming back to us, and for a while they were trying to kill him, but then he used his power and they just stopped, letting us run away.”

Glancing at Gorn, who had a confused expression on his face, Garrett kept his face carefully blank and his forehead properly furrowed to show his concern. He was still feeling the sting of losing so many Dream Flowers, and it took all his self-control to pretend he didn’t know anything about what had happened. Listening quietly while the others told the story of what they’d experienced, his thoughts raced as he tried to figure out the next move.

“Wow. That must have been a really intense situation. It makes me doubly glad to see everyone has returned safely. However, it also sounds like we’ll need to do something about the ghouls. Having a ghoul nest so close to us is incredibly dangerous. Especially given how fast they can multiply.”

“With six ghouls, I don’t think we have the strength to kill them,” Gorn said, his fingers drumming nervously on the table. “Even if we sent everyone, we only have three Awakened. We’d have a lot of losses.”

“We’ll hire adventurers,” Henrick said, joining the conversation for the first time since Garrett arrived.

“Adventurers? But they’ll suck us dry,” Obe replied, his voice full of displeasure.

“Then do you want to go down and clear the nest?” Henrick sneered. “If not, keep your mouth shut. Garrett is right. We have to deal with this problem quickly, otherwise they’ll just multiply. I’ll put up a recruitment notice at the adventurers’ guild and we’ll recruit a team to go down and kill the ghouls.”

Wanting to protest, both Obe and Gorn looked at Garrett, but he just shrugged and agreed with Henrick’s evaluation.

“Of all our options, hiring adventurers seems best. Not only will it be the quickest solution, but they’ll be able to exert a lot more force than we ever will. The other option we have is alerting the city, but that means letting the guards down into our tunnels.”

“Exactly,” Henrick growled, his expression growing grim. “At least with adventurers we can bribe them to keep their mouths shut. But the city guard has been cracking down on the movement of goods recently, and if they find that we’re sitting on these sorts of tunnels, they’ll be all over us.”

“And what’s to stop the adventurers we hire from turning us in?” Gorn asked.

A nasty grin slowly spread across Henrick’s face as he straightened up from the bar and walked over to the table where Gorn and Obe were sitting. Staring at Gorn for a second, his hand blurred and his cleaver thunked into the wooden table, quivering as it stood upright.

“If they blab, they’ll have to deal with us. But that’s not a threat that will work on the city guard, is it?”

Feeling the tension rising between the two men, Garrett’s eyes narrowed and he rolled forward, the creak of his wooden wheels drawing the room’s attention.

“Look, adventurers are a terrible option, but also our only option. Unless someone knows a bunch of Awakened sitting around with nothing to do, they’re the only ones who we can ask without then owing a favor. The other advantage to using adventurers is that we get to set the terms of the agreement, which means we can recoup our costs by selling the nest stone and materials that are recovered.”

Everyone’s expressions brightened at Garrett’s words as they realized that the situation could actually turn a profit. Nest stones were the powerful, energy filled gems that formed inside monster’s nests, and there was always a market for them.

“Good, then we’re decided,” Henrick said, his cold gaze sweeping the room as he pulled his cleaver from the table. “Garrett, draft a notice and take it to the adventurers’ guild. Gorn, Obe, come with me. We have to discuss what to do about the goods we’re supposed to move this week. Everyone else, make sure you’re getting rest.”

As the group broke up, Francis came back into the great room with a plate of food for Garrett. Placing it in front of him, the wiry man patted him on the shoulder and then went to pick up more plates, leaving Garrett at a bit of a loss.

“I think he feels bad for you,” Ryn whispered. “You know, because your legs.”

“I understand why he would feel bad for me,” Garrett said evenly, his eyes narrowing as he watched Francis leave. “I’m just surprised he would express it. He didn’t strike me as the type.”

“Maybe he hides a big heart under his rough exterior,” Ryn said with a giggle.

“Possibly. Are you able to help me get to the adventurers’ guild?”

“Sure, so long as we can stop and see how the soap is coming along.”

Nodding, Garrett dug into his food, happy to be filling his stomach. Not only was he starving from using so much energy the night before, but it also gave him time to think. Once he was done with breakfast, he spent some time drafting the notice for the recruitment and then he and Ryn left the inn, heading for the adventurers’ guild. It was a long walk, especially pushing a wheelchair, but thankfully there were some major thoroughfares that took them straight to the massive building that housed the guild.

Adventurers were a curious group, and Garrett’s only experience with them had not been positive. As a group composed entirely of Awakened who risked life and limb to bring monster materials into the city, they were a rough, lawless bunch who made everyone, including the city guard, nervous. The only one who could keep them in line was Aurther Tellson, the guild master of the adventurers’ guild and one of the only known Shapers in the city. He ruled the city’s adventurers with an iron fist but was also known for being quick to take their side in any conflicts, ensuring the loyalty of the mass majority of them.

Looking like a small palace, the adventurers’ guild sat along the northern wall, close to one of the gates that led out into the dark forests covering the northern side of the city, separating the city from the monster-filled mountains. The guild was always bustling, but the lines moved quickly and soon it was Garrett and Ryn’s turn. Barely able to see over the receptionist’s desk, Garrett handed over his paper, earning himself an extra glance as she scanned it.

“Ghoul’s nest? Why don’t you call the guard? It would be much cheaper.”

Smiling softly, Garrett understood the question the receptionist was really asking.

“This is as much a material collection request as it is a subjugation quest.”

All requests the guild took on were divided into three groups—material collection, subjugation, and protection. Each had their own requirements the issuer had to meet and a set of standards the adventurers had to follow. By making the quest a material-collection job, Garrett was ensuring the focus would be on retrieving the nest stone and materials rather than just killing the ghouls.

The receptionist nodded, shooting another glance at Garrett. It wasn’t entirely uncommon to see nobles commissioning requests, but this was the first time she’d seen such a handsome commoner. Sadly, the growing line didn’t allow her to chat with him more, so she sighed and stamped his paper. Gesturing to the large board against the wall, she told him to take his request over to the staff member, who would post his request there. The recruitment board was filled with missions, all neatly organized by type, and soon Garrett’s request was added to the large pile. With the request posted, Ryn and Garrett headed for the soap-making factory, which was only a few blocks away.

While Ryn chatted with Carraway about some of the details of the business, Garrett closed his eyes and tried to sense Gorn’s Dream Flower connection. He’d noticed a slight shift in Gorn’s attitude this morning when Gorn and Henrick were facing off and he was afraid it meant the Dream Flower’s influence was starting to fade. Garrett had been trying to influence the gang lieutenant into positive interactions with his boss to decrease the overall level of tension in the gang, but that was clearly slipping. Normally he would have chalked it up to the natural tension of the ghoul nest discovery, but the fact that he couldn’t access the Dream Flower or connect with Gorn made him believe something else was going on.

Thankfully, his words still carried some weight with Gorn, and he’d been able to defuse the situation before it got too explosive. He was afraid that when he got back to the inn all of that work would prove undone, but without being able to connect to the Dream Flower Gorn hosted, it was impossible to keep his finger on the pulse of the situation. Letting out a defeated sigh, Garrett stopped trying to connect with the two Dream Flowers and turned his attention to his soul spark, starting to meditate on the shape he was forming.

It may have been because of his intimate connection with the Dream Seeds and the flowers they produced, but Garrett was finding it much easier to awaken his soul spark than he thought it would be. Already the energy that swirled around his soul spark had begun to reform into a smooth, seed shape. Rounded on the bottom and pointed at the top, it was beginning to glimmer with the multi-colored sheen that marked the Dream Seeds Garrett had been planting.

The feeling that it could bloom into a flower at any time had been hovering in Garrett’s mind for the last few days, but he wasn’t satisfied with it quite yet. There were still a number of slight differences between the image he held and his new soul spark seed. Without any proof to speak of, he was assuming that the closer he got to that image, the stronger his soul spark would become in the shaping stage.

If he was honest, however, he wasn’t quite sure what sort of advantage entering the shaping stage would give him. For every other Awakened he’d heard of or met, the awakening stage meant getting progressively stronger as the energy around their soul spark permeated their bodies. Increased speed and strength were common, as was a natural defensive ability as their skin was infused with energy.

Garrett, on the other hand, was gaining nothing. It may have had something to do with the fact that, unlike other Awakeners, he wasn’t pulling the energy apart but was instead turning it inward, compressing it into the shape that he wanted. The mental energy in his soul spark was growing noticeably with every Dream Flower that appeared, but rather than seeping out into his flesh and bones, the energy was being packed into the smooth seed shape, causing a feeling of explosiveness to awaken in Garrett’s soul spark.

He was still tempering that explosiveness, operating on the hunch that he could still pack more mental energy into it. Soon it would be impossible to contain, and when that moment came Garrett wanted to be ready to shape the explosion, forcefully forming his soul spark into the shape he was envisioning.

But first I need to figure out what’s happening with these flowers. I might need to head down into the tunnels myself if I can’t find someone to go for me. I also need to see if I can replant the seeds that were destroyed and find more people to host.

Opening up his status window, Garrett checked to see how many experience points he needed to get before he hit level four.

I need sixty-three out of eighty. Hmm, that’s more than I thought I would need. I have the feeling things are going to get dangerous soon, so I better get busy.