IABD 61: The Blizzard

The fires of combat faded long before the bonfire did. 

For a time, Matthias and Beggahasta sat by the flames, enjoying their wine and talking. Wine loosened the warrior woman’s lips, and she told her son of battlefields she’d fought on long ago.

She told tales of death, life, blood hunger, victory and loss; tales that stretched from the Frostsea down to the southlands. In her youth, Beggahasta had travelled far and wide, sailing through waters that Matthias could only imagine, visiting cities he’d only heard of and fighting monsters and foes only spoken of in whispers.

He listened, captivated; it was rare to see his mother so relaxed. So calm. And as her tales fascinated him, he conjured fantastical images in his mind; imagining such adventures for himself one day.

Eventually, the bonfire, enhanced by the Gift, began to burn low, prompting Beggahasta to suggest they should go home.

Leaving the fire to die out on its own—surrounded by too much soil, snow and stone to spread beyond the derelict hermit house—mother and son emerged from the ruin in full view of the ghouls.

The undead quavered, some fleeing upon seeing the two warriors, most retreating into Windstone Abbey, many scattering for the forest.

“Drink it in, son.” Beggahasta clapped Matthias on his forearm. “More opponents will react to you in the same way as you grow stronger; that’s something to be savoured. Those who would destroy you are now running from you like mice cowering before the cat. Enjoy it.”

They exchanged smiles and continued through the courtyard.

A small light was burning in the closest window of their hermit house, and Matthias laughed, spotting his brother and sister pressed against the glass. The curious pair hurried to the front door as mother and son approached, flinging it wide and rushing out into the night.

“How did it go?” Dagma demanded.

“Yes, brother, tell us! Did you slaughter them all? How did your grip on your soul go?” Bregindoure asked.

Matthias simply flashed them a smile. “I left most broken at my feet, and I never lost focus. I kept my soul pumping the entire time.”

Both siblings jumped for joy, nearly tackling their brother.

Bregindoure caught him in a bear hug, lifting him from his feet while Dagma had already grabbed him around the waist, she too was abruptly pulled into the air when their big brother lifted Matthias.

“Well done, brother!” Bregindoure crowed. “Such might! Such will! This is the sort of thing that poets speak of in their poems! I can feel the nudge of inspiration coming on. Yes, that’s it, I do believe I feel a song coming on—”

“Please, no!” Matthias gasped. “I beg of you, please!”

Bregindoure simply laughed, Dagma joining him.

He began singing, his voice sounding like cats yowling in the night as his brother screamed in horror.

At that moment, Matthias was very grateful he was able to control his dreams and no longer had nightmares.

###

Matthias found Mistress Polla and Ellian in the courtyard early the next morning, inspecting ghoul corpses spread around the derelict hermit house. She greeted him, then instructed Ellian to gather the mangled bodies for burning; she and Matthias went to debrief.

“And you never lost your focus?” she asked, arching a silver eyebrow. “Even taking the ley lines into account, you are making incredible progress. Well done.”

“Thank you!” Matthias bobbed his head enthusiastically. “So, what’s next? Are you going to teach me the next step to solidifying my foundation?”

She shook her head, breath misting in the air. “No, not yet. You haven’t quite mastered circulating while moving. Before we move on, I want circulation to be fully automatic for you: as automatic as the beating of your heart. It is also the correct technique to focus on while you’re still young. You will be fifteen soon; and as you age, we can change the techniques you utilize. What do you think of your foundation? Do you find that it’s growing strong?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s growing sturdy and firm and over time, I believe it will support my Towers well.”

“Excellent, then things are working as I had hoped they would,” she said. “Do not jump ahead in the process; wait until you have this technique completely mastered, then you can move on.”

He sighed, trying to contain the impulse to get ahead faster. “Got it. I will stay with the fundamentals. It’s just that…it’s tempting to move ahead so I can safely use the Way of Stone again.”

“Patience, Matthias. The progress you have made would normally take years, not months. You are not only running to your goal; you are flying there; don’t complain that you are not teleporting there.”

He held up his hands. “Oh, I’m not complaining, even though I’m eager to move ahead, I’ll go at the proper speed, I wouldn’t want to damage my foundation. Besides, I’m enjoying the process.”

“I see, and did you enjoy your fights last night?” she asked.

He nodded. “Very much so.”

“Good, because there’ll be more of that in store for you.” Polla looked up at the abbey. “I believe it’s time for you to enter Windstone Abbey, Matthias. As you continue to solidify your foundation, you will need to draw on more of the energies of death saturating this place. Those energies will be more concentrated beneath the earth, where most of the ghouls gather, which means fighting your way down there, exploring Windstone abbey and continuing to concentrate on circulating your life energy. Does that sound appealing to you?”

Excitement blazed in his chest.

At last, he would be going into the abbey to battle whatever horrors waited there while uncovering any secrets that might be concealed within it.

To say he was eager would be an understatement.

“That sounds legendary!” He grinned.

She gave him a long look. “Be careful now; you have conquered a good number of ghouls…but what lies within those walls might not be as entertaining as you anticipate. Now, go back to your training. I would suggest joining in with your brother and sister.”

Polla pointed to the sky. “There is a snowstorm coming, so it would not be sensible to enter the abbey today, while a blizzard is raging outside. We will wait for it to break, then go in. I hope you’re ready.”

“I hope I am too,” he said. “But, more importantly, I believe I am.”

###

The blizzard came later that evening, blowing in from the north, raging through the valley. It was a sudden, violent thing; one moment the Windwood was calm, low winds blowing through the trees. The sky was cloudy, with not a speck of snow falling.

Within a few minutes, the forest was obscured by a white apocalypse.

The wind howled, battering trees so brutally they were bending like ancient spines, bare branches snapping like whips. Snow pelted down, seemingly falling in layers. The whole world soon turned white.

Matthias and his siblings watched the storm through their window, unable to see very far. Snow piled in the courtyard, burying almost everything, dumping on their small garden, mounds rapidly growing taller and taller.

In a way he was glad they hadn’t gone into Windstone today, during such a storm; if things had gone wrong and they couldn’t escape through the courtyard, it could have been a disaster.

Matthias looked at Bregindoure and Dagma. “Well, it looks like we’ll be here for a while. I don’t think we’ll—”

“Wait, look at that,” Bregindoure pointed at the glass. “There! Near the abbey!”

Matthias’ words died in his mouth as he followed Bregindoure’s pointing finger.

For a moment, storm winds eased, and the whiteout parted, …revealing ghoul knights emerging from the abbey.

Dagma hissed. “There’s so many of them!”

“By the Ascended!” Matthias shouted. “Mother, come quick, you’ve got to see this!”

Beggahasta rushed to the window, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a whetstone in the other.

Through the white, at least half a dozen ghoul knights were visible, each clad in fine armour, weapons belted at their waists or clutched in clawed fingers.

They trudged through the snow—barely outlined in blowing waves of white—seemingly surveying the courtyard. Surrounding them were what appeared to be an honour guard of undead; ghoul trolls, ghoul ogres, and massive humanoid ghouls all bearing rough-looking weapons.

They made their way forward, the column of ghouls trudging through the blizzard, heading in the direction of the forest before disappearing as the howling wind picked up again.

Just before they vanished from view, Matthias noted the ghoul knights' weapons; bleeding that aura of prismatic smoke. Multi-coloured lights appeared in the steaming, ethereal substance: where it touched the snow, it bent then fractured, creating swirling kaleidoscopic patterns in the snow.

Where snowflakes touched those lights, the radiance shattered into hundreds of strands of various hues and shades. Before Matthias’ brain could truly make sense of what he was seeing, the ghouls faded, completely vanishing behind the thickening wall of white.

“Their weapons…they have a strange aura to them,” he whispered.”

“Those ghoul lords are on a walkabout in the storm, and you’re focused on their weapons?” Bregindoure scoffed. “I would like to know why they suddenly came out; we haven’t seen them outside the abbey in months.”

“The storm,” Beggahasta said. “They’re using it as cover to survey their domain.”

“Seems so.” Matthias said. “To me, they looked like they were surveying the courtyard, but I thought I might have been imagining things; they are ghouls, after all.”

“They are ghouls with minds: they bear the armaments and clothing they had in life and can speak,” Beggahasta said. “They are likely more human in motivation than you might think. Still, we should be careful in case they’ve set a trap.”

As she left, her children looked at each other, saying little.

Matthias found himself wondering what an encounter with those ghoul knights might be like.

###

The storm lasted for three days and three nights.

In that time, the Stonebreakers hunkered down in their hermit house, spending much of their days by the fire. There was little combat training that could be done in the tight confines of their home, so most of the day was spent in each other’s company.

The family completed household chores, prepared meals together, and played simple games while the snows and winds battered the stone building. Matthias took the opportunity to keep practising his mother’s harp and circulating his life energy while engaging in other activities.

He did pushups and other body weight exercises while circulating, effectively learning how to train while physically training. If he could master that activity, it would not only help him increase his mastery of circulation but also allow him to build his physical strength while increasing his spiritual fortitude.

Matthias continued practising in the same manner in his dreams as well, beginning a routine of weight training---lifting large rocks---in the Realm in Dream’s inception of Blood’s Drop, and Windstone’s courtyard.

Putting small boulders on his shoulders, he engaged in deep squats then pressed the stones above his head, balancing their uneven, unwieldy shapes. He trained his core, legs, circulation and balance all together; when he was finished with squats, he lay flat on his back and pressed the stones above his chest, then standing and circling them, tossing them back and forth, or rolling them up a mountain slope.

Over the nights, he grew more accustomed to thoroughly challenging his body, while his soul simultaneously pumped his life energy in time with his heart. When his body became tired from the heavy weight training, he would run, sprinting along the stony, uneven mountain paths, training both endurance and coordination.

After he finished, Matthias conjured dream replicas of his sword and hammer, going through his drills.

He imagined ghouls, demonic-beast tigers and trolls in front of his sword and hammer, he cut down hundreds of the imaginary foes. He soon grew dissatisfied with the exercise as nights passed.

“If only I had a real opponent to spar with in the dream realm,” he said, remembering his battle against Bregindoure in his brother’s nightmares. “I would learn so much more instead of simply repeating drills. If Breg were here…”

He trailed off.

An interesting idea began growing in his mind. 

“Wait…wait a minute!” he suddenly cried. “How did I not think of this before?”

He had been so focused on learning how to move while circulating life energy, that he hadn’t considered pushing the limits of what he could do in his dream realm.

It had been a long time since it had occurred to him to even enter someone else’s dreams.

…and why not? This just might be the time.

Sheathing his sword and hoisting his hammer over his shoulder, Matthias concentrated on changing the landscape around him; the world melted into shadow and mist, swirling until Windstone’s courtyard appeared. He could see the ruins of the hermit houses and the hulking grey structure of the abbey; but more importantly, he could hear fragments of his name being whispered from inside his family’s hermit house.

He opened the door, stepped inside, then paused.

In the common room where he and his siblings slept—a void swirled. From in it, drifted unintelligible whispers, though there was nothing visible within the depths. The void hovered above where Bregindoure slept in the real world.

Though, above Dagma’s bedroll, there was no void hanging there…only a simple wooden door. A door strikingly similar to the one leading to his sister’s bedchamber in Barrowgate.

Matthias’ eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”

He walked toward the door, listening intently; from behind it came the sound of battle. Ghouls screamed, blades split flesh and bone, and a young woman’s voice cried out in wrath and victory.

Matthias slowly gripped the door latch and pulled it open.

Beyond the threshold lay an entirely new world; a thick forest, similar to both the Windwood and Wolfwood had been merged, creating a single woodland. Within that blended forest stood a hill, and on that hill several warriors were making a stand.

Dagma was there—though she looked bigger than in real life—wielding Tallis in both hands. On either side of her—decidedly smaller than in real life—were her two brothers, standing with a group of people that Matthias recognised from Barrowgate.

Most were young Life Enforcement practitioners who had trained with Dagma under Sur Friya; Matthias even recognised Agustin's younger brother, Lilfsten.

 Together, the group was fighting an endless tide of ghouls, goblins and ghosts. The monsters stormed the hill in waves, their sharp claws wielding a variety of rough weapons. They also died in waves, finished off by Dagma’s group of dream warriors, who were laughing, joking and singing in victory.

It was a scene that would have been at home in some ancient legend from their ancestor's time, fighting the horrors of the Wolfwood on their way to salvation some thousands of years ago.

Matthias’ blood quickened at the sight, and his hands itched, eager to have his weapons in hand. “Dagma, you have damned good taste in dreams.”

With his own battle cry, he leapt through the doorway, drawing his weapons and conjuring his shadow-tendril, laughing as his blade bit ghoul flesh and his hammer crushed ghoul bone.

###

“Matthie, were you in my dreams last night?” Dagma yawned over her porridge.

Matthias paused, mid-spoonful. “What?”

She rubbed her eyes. “I had a dream that we were fighting hordes of ghouls and other monsters…all of us, I mean me, you, Breg and my friends. But I remember there were two of you.”

“You must be imagining things,” Matthias said lightly. “Clearly the miasma of this place has driven you mad.”

“Matthie, you can enter peoples’ dreams, she knows that. There’s no point in trying to hide it,” Bregindoure gave him a look.

“But it’s funnier if I make Dagma think she’s going mad,” he pointed out.

“That’s very true.” Bregindoure nodded, going back to his porridge.

“You’re right, that is tru-Hey, wait a minute!” Dagma cried.

###

On the fourth morning the storm finally broke, leaving blue skies and a cold sun in its wake. The courtyard had been largely buried in snow, and the Stonebreaker family prepared for a long day of shoveling.

They were surprised, however, when they heard the sound of snow crunching and shifting beyond the walls of the hermit house. Together, everyone rushed to the door, flinging it open, finding Polla floating in the skies, directing the snow to move itself from the Stonebreakers’ doors, windows, garden, and the walls of their home.

Beside her, a drowsy looking Ellian yawned, peering down with bleary eyes. “Good morning.” He gave them a weak little wave.

“You’re here early,” Beggahasta said. “The sun has barely risen.”

“And yet it already feels that the day has been long,” Mistress Polla said dryly. “Rise and disperse.”

Great heaps of snow lifted from the courtyard, rising through the air, floating to the forest, and scattering like a white mist.

“I was eager to begin our journey into Windstone Abbey,” Polla said. “The ghoul knights were out and surveying during the storm, likely because they knew we would not be about.”

She floated down to the doorway, her voice dropping low. “They might think themselves safe…so this will be a perfect time to make our first foray into the abbey.”

“When they are unprepared,” Beggahasta said, slapping a fist into her palm. “A fantastic idea.”

Matthias startled. “Wait, does that mean we’re going now? As in right now?”

“When the enemy thinks they are safe, that is often the best time to scout them out,” Beggahasta said. “Seek the enemy’s camp when they think you are not coming. Attack them when they expect you to defend. Defend when they expect you to attack. Explore when they expect you to rest. Come on, gather your weapons, armour and cloaks. It is time.”

The Stonebreaker siblings looked at each other, barely able to contain their excitement.

###

“Are your weapons secured?” Beggahasta asked her children.

Matthias checked the sword sheathed at his waist, gave his hammer a few test swings, secured the tiger-fang dagger on his belt and adjusted the tiger pelt cloak. Bregindoure checked his shield and examined the flanges on his mace. Dagma tested the sharpness of her sword.

“I’m ready,” Matthias said.

“As am I,” Bregindoure added.

“Me too,” Dagma said.

“Good.” Beggahasta drew Tallis. “You will direct yourselves in the abbey. Polla, Ellian and I will follow at a distance; we will be close enough to help you in a dire situation but treat this exploration as though you are on your own.”

“We will,” Matthias said, drawing his sword.

“Is your soul still circulating?” the silver haired mage asked.

“It is.”

“Good.”

“Best of luck,” Ellian said, lifting a satchel. “My bag contains a pack of Gift-enhanced bandages and poultices should you get into trouble.”

“Hopefully, we will not need them.” Matthias cracked his neck. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Together, the Stonebreaker siblings trudged through the snow, moving toward Windstone Abbey. The ancient ruin loomed above them, like a colossal beast ready to swallow them whole.

###

Author's Note

Training with his siblings in his dreams miiiight come up again for Matthias. :) Maybe.

Next chapter, we enter Windstone!

Cya Monday!