A Dream Within A Dream

Pierre's eyes opened slowly - but not slowly enough. As the eerie green light of the mushroom cave seeped past his lids, trickled through his pupils and splashed onto his retina, a long-dormant trigger was switched, and the migraine that ensued was nature's way of telling him that not only would was he in a dangerous situation, but he'd have to navigate it while suffering debilitating and disorienting pain.

This happened to him rather a lot.

He tried rolling onto his side, but the motion only served to make him dizzy and start to hallucinate - or he hoped he was hallucinating, for as he looked across the floor of the mushroom cave, he saw that the mushrooms that covered the floor of the cave were alive. Alive and staring at him in horror.

Pierre tried to get himself up into a sitting position, but as he moved, he hears tiny high-pitched screams coming from the mushrooms he'd inadvertently squashed. The mushrooms nearest him recoiled in terror, apparently clutching at one another in order to lean out of his way and save themselves from the blundering giant.

He managed to sit up at last, and looking around the cave he saw Elizabeth lying on her back a couple feet away from his feet, a sweet, blissful smile on her sleeping face. Her smile and his disorientation reminded him of the tea he'd taken just a few minutes (hours?) <DaY$> ago...

"This is unlike anything you've had before," Old Crow had told them. "Except you, I imagine." He gave Lamont a heavy-lidded look of resignation. "WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY I WILL TAKE A HARD PASS ON THE CUPPA, OLD BOY!' in that booming voice of his that told you he was deaf, insane or both. Old Crow turned to the others. "The mushroom is wary of letting white folk in on its secrets. But if you can handle it, the mushroom will show you much..."

It showed him Lady Eris next. She was leaning on the wall of the entrance, smoking a cigarette and staring at a spot on the floor about fifteen feet in front of her. She had that fifty-yard-stare that told Pierre that she too was feeling the effects of the tea.

Elizabeth suddenly stirred, smiling and giggling to herself, and as she did she began rolling from side to side. Pierre looked on in horror as row after row of mushroom folk met their demise under her rolling body. The tiny screams mounted and coalesced in his ears and mind, bringing him to the edge of madness. Eris didn't seem to notice however, and as she took a drag on her cigarette, the bright orange cherry at the tip became dislodged and fell slowly to the floor.

Her orange eyes and the orange glowing tip of the cig make a triangle that points down, down, down now its falling and the triangle gets longer and sharper and the screaming make it terrifying to watch and impossible to turn away down down down like a wedge driving into the floor onto the mushroom daddy protecting his sons

*Ploosssssssss*

The hot ash hit the mushroom and burned its way straight through the stem. The screams of the surrounding mushrooms wailed and ululated in Pierre's ears. The mushroom that was hit began to glow, brighter and brighter, as some molecular chain reaction was ignited by the heat from the falling ash. Pierre watched, frozen, as the 'shroom went white in a flash, and exploded.

The explosions sent sparks in all directions, at a radius of about two feet. Everywhere they landed, mushrooms screamed in pain and started to smoke. As the smoke turned to flames, the mushrooms heated up and headed towards critical. Eris looked down in disbelief. She'd ashed more cigarettes in shadier circumstances than anyone (who could forget that wild Samhain, with all the dried kindling and leaves and wine and wind?) but as she scanned the floor of the mushroom cave, a quick calculation told her this place was a ticking time bomb...

Elizabeth opened her eyes. Something had brought her out of the beautiful floating dream she was having. The sound of strings and horns and heavenly choral voices had been replaced by screams and swearing. She turned to see Pierre, ears covered and muttering French curses, sitting next to a smoldering fire on the mushroom floor. As quickly as she could manage it, she rolled towards the fire, intent on putting it out with her leather-covered body. She had correctly calculated that she, protected by her leather outfit, could easily quash the flames before they spread. The thing she *hadn't* counted on, however, was the manner in which mushrooms stick to rolling leather.

Lamont stirred. He hadn't entered the mushroom cave at the bottom of the barrow - he'd refused to take the mushroom tea after all, and once he saw that the cave's eerie green light was the same shade as the eerie green glow of the ones who had, he put two and two together and got the hell out. He was currently huddled a few feet away from the cave, watching with a mild ennui. He saw the cascading mushroom fire starting to get out of control. He saw Elizabeth rolling towards it while accreting a thick layer of flammable mushroom paste. He saw Pierre covering his ears, trapped in his own existential horror. And he saw Eris look down at her skeletal hand. Her lips were moving and the hand crackled with a faint amber energy. Lamont decided to wait this one out.

Her hand felt odd... now that it was completely skeletal, she could swear she felt the flesh on it tingling. It felt hot, too, like it was swollen with energy, hot and ready to use, yearning to release some of the magical energy it undoubtedly contained. She stared at it fixedly, flexing the bony digits, concentrating on the things it told her it could do. You want to fly, kid? it whispered. I can make you fly... She considered it for a moment. Then, noticing Elizabeth was rolling towards the growing circle of flames, she sprung into action.

Pierre noticed the movement first - a weird blur of greenlit blackness that was Eris started to move towards him. The flickering light of a dozen mushroom clouds lit her feet as they lifted off from the
ground and hovered tentatively in his direction. Before he knew it, she was over him, reaching down with her bony hand to grab him by the collar...

...and the screaming stopped. Silently, gently, Eris lifted him up off the floor, and as he was taken, floating over to where Elizabeth was about to roll into the fire. But just before she reached it, Eris dipped down deftly and scooper her up too by the back of her neck. Then, slowly but steadily, Eris levitated the two out of the cave and towards the surface.

Lamont was impressed. He vaguely wondered what it would take for her to let HIM have the Hand. Could come in handy, especially if the Ovine Brotherhood decided to come calling in the dark of the night. Wouldn't they be shocked to see him descend on them from above, wielding the Trident in one bony hand crackling with nectarine fire. His eyes teared up at the thought... then he realized it was just the smoke from the now-raging 5-alarm mushroom fire in the cave behind him. He shuffled up the slope after Eris. The Hand would have to wait.

Old Crow looked down at the twitching body of the soldier. In a way, he felt pity for the poor boy, probably miles from home, living of some horrible gruel for months at a time hundreds of miles from home. He'd no doubt enlisted in the ranks of the Pumpkin Prince with the promise of nonconsensual sex and financial appropriation. And here he was, dead eyes staring up at the darkening sky. a sucking chest wound slowly congealing in the twilit air. Old Crow dropped the heart on the ground and wiped his hand on his homespun robe. He'd picked subtle hues of brown and red for a reason.

He looked up at the scene of devastation. Keyard lay by the side of his lover - Flaya's lifeless arm draped over him in a last gesture of love. They'd had a short romance, but they died side by side doing what they loved. It had taken five men-at-arms to take them down. It was going to take a hacksaw to get them apart.

Dieter, on the other hand, was going to need to be gathered in a bucket. He'd fought valiantly enough, but there were still four soldiers left for him to face. He took out three. But the fourth, a grizzled sergeant with a flattened nose and a wicked left hook had pierced his lungs from behind before taking off his head. Then, in a fit of pique, he'd hacked off his arms and legs in retaliation for the death of his three men. But his singlemindedness proved to be his downfall when Old Crow slid silently up behind him and snapped his neck. Crow said a quiet prayer, though not one of the good ones. 

By the time Eris got to the cave mouth, the battle was over. Dead bodies littered the cave mouth and the area outside. She set the two down and surveyed the devastation. Pierre scrabbled around the floor for one of the hidden jugs of syrup. He found one and, unearthing it, discovered it was one of the ones marked Grade B. He popped the cork and, mixing it with some of his rum, poured some for Eris and then himself. They raised a toast and downed them. Elizabeth closed her eyes and tried to remember which variety was the one that exploded reality. She... couldn't quite remember. But by the time she gave up thinking about it, Pierre was retching in the corner of the cave. Eris looked mildly buzzed. Then suddenly, at the mouth of the cave, a crow landed and cawed loudly. As Elizabeth watched, it transmogrified into the shape of a man - of old Crow himself.

"Neat," she said to herself.