With a thunderous crash that echoed through the woods, the cultist belonging to the Cult of Annihilation was hurled a staggering ten meters through the air. As he soared, blood gushed from his mouth like a macabre fountain. His airborne journey ended abruptly when he smashed into the trunk of a towering, ancient oak tree. After the collision, he slid down the tree’s massive trunk, collapsing onto the ground as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes casually discarded.
His face was etched in an expression of profound disbelief and bewilderment. He had encountered formidable enemies and deadly traps throughout his life, but never in his wildest imaginings had he thought he would be propelled through the air by someone who wielded a dark hound as a blunt weapon.
Shirley, her hand tightly clutching the chain leash connected to her otherworldly friend named Dog, approached the incapacitated cultist with measured steps. She stopped a few yards away, ensuring she remained at a safe distance.
The cultist was still clinging to life. However, it should be clarified that this “dream world” had its own set of rules. Under normal circumstances, in the waking world, the injuries he sustained would have been fatal. Here, despite having a head that seemed to be sinking into his neck and joints contorted in gruesome, unnatural angles, he was still breathing. His eyes locked onto Shirley, filled with a cocktail of loathing and just a hint of fear.
Shirley disregarded his hostile gaze. Lifting the chain slightly, she signaled for Dog to step closer. The skeletal hound obediently moved forward until its face was inches away from the wounded cultist.
“Who… who are you?” rasped the cultist, his voice strained and filled with pain. As he saw Dog’s fearsome visage draw closer, uncontrollable terror finally erupted in his eyes. Not far from this unsettling scene, his mystical companion, the “Death Crow,” squirmed as if intending to intervene, but it seemed to lose its resolve due to its master’s debilitating weakness. This only made the cultist’s voice sound more frail. “What are you planning to do?”
Shirley smiled slowly, her eyes twinkling with a mysterious light. “You see, this place is a dream. In the real world, capturing you might prove challenging,” she explained. She lifted her arm—the one holding the chain leash—and softly rubbed the cold, dark metal links against her cheek. Her expression remained disarmingly calm. “So, I need to leave a lasting impression, a mark if you will.”
“A mark…?”
The cultist lay there, momentarily paralyzed by confusion. But before he could contemplate the meaning of her words, he saw Dog open its cavernous maw to reveal an array of skeletal fangs. With merciless precision, Dog bit down on the cultist’s arm, tearing through flesh and bone. The cultist had just enough time to emit a blood-curdling scream before the unbearable agony almost shattered his mind. His arm was instantly reduced to chunks of flesh, now held in Dog’s mouth.
Dog then lifted his head, its eyes glowing a malevolent red, and stared intently at the cultist, who was now wailing uncontrollably. “I have committed your scent to memory. We’ll find you in the waking world,” Dog spoke, its voice emanating from the skeletal framework that comprised its chest. The voice was low and growling, dripping with menace. “We’ll capture you alive; He will reward us handsomely for your capture.”
The cultist’s wails of agony abruptly halted, and his eyes expanded in sheer terror. He gazed at Dog with his mouth hanging wide open. It was difficult to discern whether his astonishment stemmed from the realization that this demonic canine was capable of human speech or from the unsettling implication of Dog’s words— that there was a “He” who would reward them for the cultist’s capture. Who could this mysterious girl and her equally mysterious demon dog be in league with? And who was this ominously-referenced “He”?
Almost as quickly as these questions surfaced in his mind, the cultist’s form started to blur and distort. In the space of a mere one or two breaths, he vanished entirely from Shirley and Dog’s sight.
“He got away, it seems,” Dog remarked, his head swiveling back and forth as it scanned the area, a hint of disappointment coloring its gravelly voice. “His associates in the physical world must have sensed something amiss and forcibly extracted him. We have no means to counteract such a spiritual transfer.”
“It’s not an issue; you’ve logged his scent, correct?” Shirley responded nonchalantly before fixing her gaze intently on Dog. “You can track him in the real world, can’t you?”
“As long as he’s within a reasonable distance— within the radius of my sensory abilities, I’ll be able to locate him,” Dog assured, his voice tinged with grim determination. “I’m a dark hound, a demon breed specialized in tracking prey. He won’t be able to remove the metaphysical mark I’ve placed on him.”
“Excellent,” Shirley exhaled a sigh of relief. “Capturing him alive would be the best outcome. Even a couple of magical scrolls as a reward would be quite helpful.”
Dog didn’t react to Shirley’s muttering about potential rewards. Instead, he lifted his head, sensing the turbulent winds and the cacophony of natural sounds emanating from the surrounding forest. He noted that the distant trees were becoming increasingly translucent, their forms fading into a kind of ethereal haze. The signs that the dream realm was dissolving became ever more conspicuous.
Something was having a powerful impact on this dream dimension— the end of this artificial reality was clearly approaching.
….
Deep within the shadows, there were auditory disturbances akin to chaotic winds that seemed to howl through the forest, snapping branches off towering trees as they surged past. However, upon closer inspection, these sounds felt more like illusions than actual phenomena.
Duncan had no bandwidth to focus on these vague auditory disturbances; he was wholly engrossed by the inexplicable vision before him.
This was the “Vanished” — an elusive ghost ship. As he projected his consciousness deeper into the tendrils of vines at the very heart of this enshrouded realm, he found himself staring at this eerily familiar apparition.
Why, though? Why would the “Vanished” manifest here?
As he drew closer, he noticed that the ship appeared to be floating on an inky, pitch-black body of water. The darkness beneath was so impenetrable it seemed to consume the lower half of the ship. The deck above was unsettlingly silent, devoid of even the faintest sound.
After a moment’s hesitation, Duncan projected himself onto the deck of the “Vanished.”
Within this shrouded domain, he functioned solely as a form of “conscious viewpoint,” granting him a certain ease in navigation but leaving him disconcerted by the ship’s unexplained presence.
The deck was utterly desolate, devoid of any sign of life or movement. As Duncan’s eyes roamed across its expanse, the sights that met him were both weather-beaten and eerily recognizable. He felt as though he were walking through a time-worn, yet hauntingly accurate, diorama of a place he once knew intimately.
Carefully navigating the ship’s deck, he took time to examine the fixtures and adjoining cabins that lined the area. Each detail was impeccably replicated, down to the finest minutiae. It was a surreal experience; everything was exactly as he remembered it from the real “Vanished.”
Yet, Duncan felt a discord. This wasn’t the actual “Vanished,” nor was it some ethereal projection. The usual affinity he felt with the ship, the feedback loop of energy that emanated from its spiritual flames, was conspicuously absent here. This facsimile of the “Vanished” had been manifested by some unknown external force.
Just then, the nebulous sounds he had previously noted—akin to wind and distant murmurs—echoed again, this time with a sharper, more pronounced clarity. For a brief moment, Duncan’s attention shifted towards the source of these disconcerting sounds.
Shaking off the distraction, he moved towards the rear of the deck until he reached the captain’s cabin. His eyes lifted to the lintel of the door, and his gaze abruptly froze. Inscribed into the wood were words that read, “May He Linger in the Dreams.”
Why not “Door of the Lost”?
This puzzled Duncan. He vividly remembered that the inscription over the captain’s cabin on the real “Vanished” read “Door of the Lost.” This room served as his private sanctuary aboard the ship. Why was this vessel, appearing deep in the foggy abyss, an almost perfect replica except for the words etched above this particular door?
He redirected his focus to the door itself, and at that instant, as if beckoning him to enter, it swung open without a sound.
The captain’s cabin materialized before him, bathed in a dim yellow light. All the furnishings were exactly as he remembered them, right down to the curious goat head positioned at the corner of the navigation table.
Wait, a goat head?
An epiphany flashed through Duncan’s consciousness. He recalled that when he had initially found himself in subspace, neither the “Ruined Vanished” nor the “Model Vanished” in his private space had featured a goat head. This seemed to be a subtle but crucial divergence, a distinct variable that separated the various iterations of the “Vanished.”
Engulfed by a surge of conjecture and memories, Duncan crossed the threshold into the captain’s cabin. With cautious steps, he approached the navigation table, casting his gaze upon the black, carved goat head at its corner.
The sculpture sat inanimate, as inert as a mere piece of wood, offering no response to the approach of its so-called “captain.” Duncan reasoned that this might be due to his non-material existence in this realm; he was merely a form of conscious perception here, not a corporeal entity.
Choosing not to disturb the mysterious goat head, Duncan remained vigilant, his eyes darting around the room as he continued his cautious exploration.
Soon, Duncan came across another detail that set him further on edge.
Normally, the nautical chart spread across the table would document the various paths that the “Vanished” had navigated. It should have depicted well-known city-states, significant landmarks, and sea routes that crisscrossed the expansive ocean. Yet, what Duncan found himself staring at was anything but familiar—a map unlike any he’d ever seen!
This perplexing projection displayed a topographical view of a sprawling forest interspersed with towering mountain ranges and vast expanses of flora. Strikingly, various anomalies peppered the terrain, looking like bizarre architectural formations or perhaps sacred sites. Hovering above this dense labyrinth of greenery was a semi-transparent icon representing the “Vanished,” which moved at a glacial pace through the simulated forest.
Duncan gaped at the alien chart before him, completely bewildered.
Though he could glean no actionable information from this enigmatic display, it did stir up memories of another peculiar nautical chart he’d observed on the “Ruined Vanished” in subspace. That version of the ship had also featured an inexplicable map of a disorienting, chaotic, unknown sea filled with odd navigation markers.
And now, here he was, confronted by another confounding map, this one on a “Vanished” that seemed to have manifested from the midst of an eerie, fog-shrouded gloom. A map that bizarrely suggested the ship was navigating—of all things—a forest!
A strange and almost ludicrous thought unbiddenly arose in his mind:
Just how many alternate “Vanisheds” could be sailing through divergent dimensions at this very moment, each documenting its own unique, bewildering journey?
While he was grappling with this uncanny notion, a faint squeaking and creaking sound abruptly broke into his train of thought.
His attention immediately darted toward the source of the sound.
To his astonishment, the black goat head, perched at the edge of the navigation table, was slowly rotating its neck, its eyes swiveling to meet his gaze.
And in those eyes, chiseled from jet-black obsidian, a glint of what seemed like emerging consciousness began to materialize.
In the following instant, a low, raspy voice vibrated through the room, reaching Duncan’s ears and chilling him to the bone.
“Who is there…” it inquired, turning an already perplexing situation into one that bordered on the surreal.
