Give Me a Sword and a Thousand Words: [Battle Duocast] - "We Demand an Audience"

6. As you travel back to the house of the Godspawn in the dark woods, eldritch forces play tricks on your mind. Write or draw about your character’s visions of dark gods and foreboding prophecies, drawing on the Cthulhu Mythos or inventing your own entities using it as an inspiration.

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Unsettling. Uncanny. Unknown. Uncomfortable. 

Not quite right. Those words all certainly described the atmosphere, the creepy feeling that drew chills up his spine and made him pause to listen, paranoid, in the stillness.

But they were all understatements for this part of the woods.

This must be how Paiko feels all the time, Scap thought, with a humorless irony to his mental voice. A rustling in the foliage made him stiffen, hand flying to his belt where his newly-acquired dagger was sheathed.

Had it been a bad idea to split up with Luis? Scap wasn’t interested in investigating the books and lore behind this haunted site. He wanted to poke around the woods, be in the field, test for space-time disturbances…

Right, that’s what I’m here for in the first place. 

One deep breath was not enough to calm his prickling nerves, but it was enough for him to turn his focus into the Deep Currents. Half-in, half-out of this reality, his body was (at least, he was 80% certain) invulnerable to physical attacks, making this almost the safest state he could be in.

Until he hit a snag. An anomaly in the fabric; something caused by a being from outside this plane. Something with a gaze so pervasive, so other, that it made him feel exposed in his little flap of hidden reality. Could it be-?

He withdrew from the currents and ducked behind a tree to recompose himself. The feeling of being watched did not go away.

“Wanna see a magic trick?”

“-AGH!” Without realizing, Scap slipped uncontrollably into the Deep Currents, rematerializing in the branches of the tree some three meters off the ground.

He looked down, seeing a banana-colored… thing (what was it, like an oversized weasel? Rubber horse?) sitting at the foot of the tree. It grinned up at him. 

That grin triggered a flood of irrational dread back into Scap’s being. From the shadows at the edge of his vision, he thought he could see eyes peering at him. Staring. Gawking. Scrutinizing. Judging.

“We asked, wanna see a magic trick?”

This being, though not the horror that stalked these woods, was a different kind of extradimensional enigma itself. Scap averted his gaze and focused on untangling his arm from the snare of branches. “No thanks.”

“Wrong answer. Look over here. Look at us.”

Scap shook his head with some exasperation. “I’m a bit busy, if you didn’t notice.”

“LOOK AT US.”

The voice sent a violent shiver up Scap’s spine, and the eyes were back and pressing in on him, inescapable, unable to be ignored. A flash of chaos tumbling through, leaving his thoughts scattered and his throat dry, panting with fear.

=Scapindex… we see you.=

“Stop that!” he shouted. “I don’t want to see your horrible magic tricks.”

“That was not us. You should have looked at us.”

=You thought your tiny knife did so much damage. How cute. How naive.=

A different taunt, as clear in his mind as if he’d heard it, but somehow he knew the words had not been spoken.

=You should have listened to the macaroni weasel. Because I am far worse.=

“Lies. You are unimpressive and weak.”

=Unimpressive? Weak? Only because you will not be able to handle so much power. We can unleash it right now.=

“That will only prove our point.” 

“E-excuse me,” Scap raised his voice, wondering why he even bothered. Even dared. “But if you two have some rivalry going on, could you leave me out of it?”

=“NO.”=

Scap flinched at the simultaneous objections. 

“You will stay and watch.”

=You will tell us who is superior.=

“... okay.” It would probably be unwise to disagree with two eldritch beings. What an unexpected turn of the night, to play referee to these creatures. He prayed his mind would survive such an ordeal.

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638 Words

Slinkee belongs to seepran! Thanks for letting me feature your macaroni weasel ;)