Dreamer's Throne

The gentle light bathed Garrett in gold, driving back the terrible chill that had shrouded him. It also fell on Henrick, with an entirely different result. Horrific black smoke burst from the possessed man’s skin as it charred, causing him to fall back with a yell. The stench of burning flesh filled the room as Henrick was forced to retreat, only able to watch as Garrett laboriously pulled himself further into the sunlight. Suddenly two hands grabbed his arm, pulling him out into the inn’s yard and, rolling over, he saw Ryn’s pale face.

“What…?”

Sensing Garrett’s confusion, Ryn grimaced and lifted her bloodied arm.

“I’m small enough to fit out that window. We’ll need to get new glass though.”

From where he lay, Garrett could see the broken glass in the small window to the room he and Ryn shared. The young woman must have taken the opportunity to flee, breaking the window and climbing out, cutting her arm in the process.

“What was that?” Obe asked, reaching down to grab Garrett’s shoulder.

“That was Henrick. He’s been possessed by some sort of evil spirit and was trying to kill me,” Garrett said, pointing at his bent leg. “Gorn tried to stop him and was probably killed. If my guess is correct, he’ll retreat down into the passages under the building, but we need to call for reinforcements to make sure he isn’t still in the building.”

“And you need a doctor,” Ryn said.

“Indeed.”

Standing up, his face ugly, Obe looked between Garrett and the empty doorway he’d crawled out of. As much as he didn’t want to believe what Garrett was saying, he had caught a glimpse of Henrick before the possessed man had retreated. Even if the strange vertical eye and the transformed arm hadn’t been enough to give it away, the fact that sunlight caused his skin to smoke would have alerted him to something being wrong.

“Ryn, stay with Garrett. Tyren, Atis, get me a doctor and the city guard, as quickly as possible. Tell them we’ve had a monster attack.”

Their expressions grim, the two men ran off, each heading to find the people Obe had requested. Holding his axe at the ready, Obe stood in the bright morning light, guarding in case the monster possessing Henrick decided to make a return appearance. With the help of a few of the gang members, Ryn got Garrett over to the other side of the street, putting him on a chair that one of the gang members borrowed from a neighboring store. As he finally relaxed, Garrett’s body began to tremble, as if the terror that had been coursing through him was finally released. At the same time, the icy calm he felt retreated and the full weight of the situation fell on him. Gorn was dead, cut down by Henrick’s cleaver, and if Garrett had hesitated for even half a second, he would have joined him. A faint pain bloomed in his heart as he thought about Gorn, but there was nothing he could do at this point.

It wasn’t long before the doctor arrived, and after taking one look at Garrett’s ankle, he commanded the nearby gang members to pick Garrett up to take him back to the clinic. As they were leaving, the city guard arrived, along with a group of Awakened wearing yellow armbands that Garrett remembered from his time in the palace. Employed by the city, these Awakened were highly trained, specialized monster hunters who dealt with supernatural monsters like spirits. With the arrival of the exorcists, Garrett felt a trace of as the chief exorcist looked over at him.

“You’re the one who encountered the possessed?”

A middle-aged man, the exorcist had a sandy mustache and a thick shock of blond hair that rose from his head in an impressive wave. Nodding, Garrett tried to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“One of them. I managed to crawl to safety, but my friend, Gorn, was killed.”

Nodding, the chief exorcist chewed on the end of his mustache as he looked at the inn for a moment before shooting a glance at Garrett.

“Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“I don’t recall us having met before,” Garrett said.

He was technically telling the truth, despite having seen the chief exorcist before in the palace. At the time the chief exorcist had come to talk to the prince, and Garrett had never been introduced to him.

“Hmm. Strange. We can figure out why you look so familiar another time. For now, let’s focus on making sure this inn is clear.”

The doctor, who had been standing there impatiently, commanded that the gang members carrying Garrett follow him. Before he left, however, he stopped and stared at the chief exorcist angrily.

“Next time you want to cross-examine one of my patients, kindly come and see them at the clinic.”

Accompanied by the doctor, Garrett was taken to the clinic, piled into a bed, and his leg was set. The entire process was entirely painless, but according to the doctor that actually made it even more dangerous, since there was no way for Garrett to tell if things started to get worse. After promising that he would visit regularly for checkups, Garrett had the gang members carry him back to the inn. It was almost evening by the time they arrived, and the air around the inn was somber and frightened. For good reason too.

While the exorcists had dealt with both of the maid’s corpses, as well as Gorn’s corpse, along with sealing the basement entrance to prevent Henrick from returning to the inn, that wasn’t enough to prevent most people from leaving. Even a handful of the Ghoul’s Tooth gang members vanished, causing Obe to gnash his teeth. Gathering everyone together, Obe looked at the twenty people who remained and let out a loud sigh.

“Look, I’m not going to make any excuses or promise you anything, because pretty much anything I would say at this point would be a lie. Henrick went crazy and, according to the exorcists, summoned some sort of evil ghost that possessed him. He was the one who killed the old cook. He killed the maids, summoned the ghost, and then tried to kill Garrett. Gorn attacked him but got chopped in half for his efforts. If it hadn’t been morning, we all probably would have died. The only good news is that they’ve set seals on the entrance to the basement that they say will stop anyone who’s possessed, so he shouldn’t be able to get back up.

“But that’s not even half of it. The Swamp Sharks found out what was happening and they’ve moved in on us. Today we lost half our territory. We barely have enough manpower to cover the rest of our territory, but chances are good that they’ll finish the job tomorrow. It’s a bleak picture, even without adding that I got a notice today that we’ve been blacklisted by the adventurers’ guild. They won’t let us hire any adventurers. It’s completely false, but they’re saying the two teams who ambushed us last time didn’t actually do anything wrong and we abandoned them.”

Silence stretched across the room as everyone processed the torrent of bad news Obe was sharing. Garrett, who was sitting in a chair at the table supported by Ryn, who held his broken foot on her lap, couldn’t help but frown.

When it rains it pours. Someone must be behind all of this. Is the Swamp Shark gang seizing this chance to isolate us? Or is it someone else? Regardless, we need to get ourselves in order, or we’ll fall apart without any outside interference.

Closing his eyes, Garrett took stock of the situation. With the exception of Obe, most of the people here carried Dream Flowers. There were only two who had lost their Dream Flowers, and it didn’t take any special insight to see that they were much more worried than the rest of the gang members. Realizing that the ten gang members who had fled had been other ones who’d lost their Dream Flowers, Garrett felt like he was understanding the influence of the flowers a bit better.

Coughing lightly, he raised his hand to get Obe’s attention.

“Yes, Garrett?”

“Might I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“I think we should eat, and then we should continue our meeting. Most of us have barely eaten yet today, and a hot meal will help a lot. Once we’ve eaten, we can continue to discuss our options and hopefully come up with some good solutions.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Obe said. “Everyone, we’ll have dinner first. Francis, can you handle dinner?”

“It’s already cooked,” the cook replied. “Just need some help serving it.”

“Hah, looks like great minds think alike.”

As a few of the gang members went to help Francis get the food from the kitchen, Garrett shut his eyes. There were still a few minutes until the sun went down, and right now he was struggling internally. He felt as if everything he’d been building up was balancing on a knife’s edge. His worst fear had appeared as his enemy had discovered a way to reach him physically. If not for the sun being the bane of spirits, he would have died. As it was, one of his companions had died in his place.

Gorn had been driven as much by his selfish desire to replace Henrick as by his desire to save Garrett, potentially even more, but that didn’t change the fact that, had he not arrived, Garrett would have been dead without any chance of stopping it. Now he faced a choice. The gang was in a precarious place, and it wouldn’t be hard for him to forcefully seize power. It would only take a nudge to transform most of the gang members from their current dual Dream Flowers into three-flowers carriers like Carraway, which would give him tight control over the gang.

Even Obe, in his psychologically fragile state, would be easy to trick into taking a flower. Gorn’s flower hadn’t fallen with the death of its host, instead absorbing all of Gorn’s mental energy and spare life force as he died, feeding it into the fourth bud that grew on its stem and even causing a fifth bud to appear. It would be a relatively simple matter to plant the flower in Obe’s dream once night fell and then push it up to the five flowers he would need to dominate the Awakened, gaining Obe’s obedience.

With the gang entirely under his control, supported from the shadows by Viper and the flower ghouls and in the light by Carraway, establishing himself safely would be within Garrett’s reach. Even Ryn could fall under his sway, steered by the wind of his will. He couldn’t deny that the temptation was strong, but with a deep breath Garrett put the thoughts out of his head. No matter how dangerous this world was, it was not worth becoming a monster himself.

The only person he had completely dominated so far was Ruel, who had been in the process of trying to kill him, and Garrett wasn’t in the habit of showing mercy to those who aimed at his life. But for his companions, the idea of subsuming their identities turned his stomach. As if she could sense his unease, Ryn placed her hand on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he looked at her and spoke softly.

“What do you think?”

“About the situation? I think we’re all in a heap of trouble,” Ryn said, her face solemn. “I think the smartest thing would be for me and you to leave. This gang is dead if things don’t turn around, and fast.”

Looking at her calmly for a moment, Garrett glanced around the room at the various gang members speaking quietly and then brought his attention back to her.

“Do you want to?”

“Leave? Only if you don’t have a plan,” Ryn said, matter-of-factly. “If we restart the meeting and you don’t have a plan to work all this out, I’m gone. I have a bit of money saved from the soap deal, and we can restart somewhere else. I have a friend in the city center who would probably shelter us. And if not that, we could go to the slums. It wouldn’t be my first time, and you’d pass for a regular citizen.”

A small smile curled at the corners of Garrett’s lips as he listened to Ryn’s straightforward thoughts. One of the things he really appreciated about her was the way she spoke her mind. When she fell silent and stared expectantly at him, he raised his eyebrow.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? Do you have a plan?”

“You’ll have to wait and find out,” Garrett said calmly.

“Ugh. I guess I better start packing.”

“You have such little faith.”

“That a cripple, a castaway, and a pathetic little gang can survive an open war with a gang twice its size? Oh, and an insane, possessed Awakened who can chop through anything? Hmm, did I miss anything? Right, the political and social connections that will leave us without allies? I wouldn’t call that a lack of faith, Garret. I would call that realism.”

“Yet you aren’t getting up to pack,” he pointed out, earning himself an eye roll.

“Maybe I’m a sucker for the underdog. And there will be plenty of time if your plan is lame.”

With a clang, Francis dropped two plates on the table for them and they joined the rest of the gang in digging in. About halfway through the meal, Garrett felt his connection to the Dream reawakening and he put down his fork. Seeing Ryn watching him, he gave her a small smile and then looked over at Obe.

“I think I might have an idea. I need to think though. Would you mind helping me to my room?”

“Hmm? Oh, sure.”

By now, Garrett’s ability to plan was established and Obe was more than happy to carry him over. Just before he left the table, Ryn reached over and grabbed his sleeve.

“You better not be packing. I just got used to this place.”

“Don’t worry, there won’t be any packing,” Garrett reassured her.

When Obe had put him down in the chair next to his table, the gang lieutenant went to the door but hesitated before he left. As the only remaining officer in the gang, he should have been in charge, but Obe had never been cut out for leadership and really didn’t know what to do. Sensing that he wanted to say something, Garrett waved for him to speak.

“I’ve been part of this gang since I was little,” Obe said, his gaze dropping to the floor. “And this gang has been like a home to me. But today, I think Ghoul’s Tooth died its final death. It’s been in process for a long time, ever since Henrick and the old boss were ambushed. I think something in Henrick broke when that happened and it only came to the surface now. Your plans seem to have a way of working that I can’t get my head around, but if you’re going to come up with a plan, I think the Ghoul’s Tooth needs to stay dead. Save the people, not the gang.”

Having said his piece, Obe turned around and walked away, his shoulders heavy. Watching him go, Garrett murmured to himself in a voice no one else could hear.

“Save the people, not the gang. That’s a good sentiment.”