Waking back up I recounted the amount of marífts I've killed so far. I was nearly halfway there after a few days. This town is weird as shit too.
I got up and got dressed. Walking downstairs passed the sleeping inn owner while I wore the fur of his national animal. With most people in this town I've seen, their clothes sat weirdly on them, and in the same places. On their chests and waists the clothes just hung out wrong. Men wore big thick belts also. I simply didn't ask anyone about it, trying to just get this job done and leave this town avoid of light.
"I heard…" the old man yawned. "You went to the residential district."
"Oh, I did."
"No marífts up that way you know." His voice fell.
"Some stragglers got up there and I myself got lost trying to take them out the town."
"Better keep the marífts down below the residential area."
"I'll try for sure. I'm just not as fast as them." I laughed.
The man's eyes stared into me as I walked away. I can't keep them from teleporting. Shaking my head I went to explore the other side of the forest.
There wasn't much town past the intersection on the road into town. I only knew there was a forest that way. Marífts could live there, I assumed. Once I got passed the crumbling intersection the road curved around trees. As I walked the trees got thicker and closer together. Till the entire road ended abruptly and a small opening was left by the trees. Only wide enough to just barely slip in for my leaner body.
"Safe to say there aren't any that way." Giggling, I went to leave.
This town is not only advertised around dreams but looks like a dream. I feel like I'm trying to map out a dream. The forest howled at the thought. Distant grazing of leaves above me and my steps along the stone.
Shortly after I spoke and walked away the sounds in the forest were joined by another. The scratching of fur on tree bark I had been hearing throughout my time here. It came from on the other side of the trees and just barely.
Turning back around once more on the road, the only way to get in was that small space between the trees. Sighing I chased the sound into the cramped space.
The sounds got more hurried after I entered the dense trees. The trees got tighter, forcing me to scrape against the monster trees. The space was dark, lit barely by my eyes. It didn't get better as I pushed faster in, it only got darker and less spacious.
Somewhere ahead of me I heard movement of marífts so I kept pushing. My feet were gliding along the wall. My hands pulled me deeper. The trees got fused together feeling more like a wall.
My hands slided forward and hooked onto something. When I pulled I discovered a missing spot in the wall for two trees. Laying across it was a tree. The two sides went into more unknown.
The forest was turned from wall to maze with the scattering directions as I went farther. The forest made no noise except for my movements, whatever I heard was no longer close to me. The time in the forest one seemed to stretch longer as multiple paths confused the time between the dark trees.
"Damn!" I hit the wood.
The forest's different directions made it impossible to tell if you looped yourself somehow. The path had turned so slightly with each step that now I didn't know what direction I was going in.
My hand hit against the wood and discovered a carved out phrase. It's words etched into the hard wood over a long time. The bark showed just how long this phrase was part of the forest.
"The ashes of a nightmare can only fall when you burn." I shook my head. "Very fitting for a town around dreams."
Around twenty minutes later, the space between the trees widened just a bit. It might have been an hour or two in this maze. The wider space and the more light reaching me gave me hope for where I was.
At every intersection in the maze, if the trees got tighter I went back. It took at least an hour in a half within the maze to get out. My day was getting wasted, but if I found a massive horde of marífts it would all pay off for this cramped space. The forest got wider. More light reached me.
Stepping out into the first open normal looking forest I just took in the sight for a second. A light fog was spread around the purple tainted forest. Gratefully, the most amount of marífts I've ever seen rested in front of me.
Unfortunately. All pairs of four eyes turned and stared at the intruder. A soft smirk pierced my lips.
Water and gravity magic was getting the job down to rounding these guys up. If I had killed around a total of six hundred the previous few days this was at least three hundred to that. Which meant that I was close to getting the majority killed which I was asked of.
The forest truly looked like a massacre after that. Blood was spilling into the ground around me. I was looking for bigger marífts to skin for Stella, but I hadn't found any too much bigger. I had found smaller younger marífts that were born through normal ways other than an anomalied condition. The big ones just didn't exist as I was hoping for.
I was going to settle for a barely big one to skin for Stella, but something caught my eye. The forest got brighter farther ahead. Meaning there was more opening.
Walking up a small hill exposed a curve leading to a railroad. Completely abandoned indicated by the rust and the type of tracks. They weren't the fast trains around the world that were powered through magic. But they weren't ancient from before the awakening. The tracks looked like they were personally destroyed by people and it couldn't have been less than around twenty years ago.
The new fast trains were created in forty-one-o-six —twenty years ago— so they could be around the time the old trains were made. I dropped down to inspect them. It was dangerous just to walk close to the tracks. The rails were lifted and spiraled out almost intentionally to hurt people.
Why the hell would anyone do this to the tracks instead of simply removing them? Trains also weren't useless the second the fast ones were made. You could still get on trains for smaller rides to closer places.
That wasn't the only thing abandoned in the deep forest. While I walked a safe distance from the tracks I found more buildings. These still like the Noxstave houses but some of Milian architecture. It was a very awesome blend of cultures that put the other town to shame.
The forest itself took on another look. If It wasn't a tree or building the distance looked entirely bright red. The forest didn't have a warm hue to exhibit a red background. I saw many black birds fly in lines, making no noise. At random homes were manikins dressed in a bright red cloth from head to toe.
I pushed a door in and explored a home. I was empty as you'd expect of an abandoned home. It stretched a little too wide on the inside. Light revealed the abandoned dust-settled inside, yet there were no lights in the house. I walked out the back of the house and came out of a house by the tracks.
The trees opened wider. The sky was still bright red, but floating over the tracks was a train. It was shattered and broken. Frozen in mid air like time magic caught the moment it detonated.
"What the actual hell is this forest?!"
Looking down the tracks there was a tiny red opening indicating an exit. Laying on the tracks far in the distance was an absurd amount of trees. Both sides had them in fact.
I walked back through the house, arriving at where I came in. Written on the door in black that sat on the world instead of being drawn on read the same phrase in the wood.
"The ashes of a nightmare can only fall when you burn."
That was enough for me that I got up and started to leave. Walking out the true town of dreams I got back to the railroad I walked along. Walking on the other side only revealed more of a strange space before me. The trees opened wider into a small pond.
The pond was surrounded by a hill that elevation rose. The trees on the hill acted like a fortress wall to a red shrine that sat above the pond. It looked pentagonal from down here. Each side has three windows in the top half. The center window is bigger than the slimmer windows beside it. Below the windows was a checkered and striped pattern. On top of the shine were three rods. The two on the left and right side were thinner than the base middle one. On the side facing the cliff and water below was an arch that led into a dark room.
"There is no god whose shrine would look like that. But it's a shrine, no?"
I looked down at the pond. At my feet it looked if I stepped in I'd fall for years. I couldn't see the bottom, especially in the dim forest. A sudden tiredness hit me looking at it.
I edged back and left the shrine. It was made the same way as the Noxstave houses so I couldn't tell if it was kept that clean or if it was just the building. My body felt out of place, more than it normally did in here.
I was prone to expect it was a dungeon but there wasn't magic here at all. I walked back along the track away from the shrine and the town. The tracks got less barbwiry looking and so I stepped across to get back to the opening I came from. The hill I slid down I reclimbed.
I turned to give the strange place one last look. The tracks and the sky looked normal and non nightmary from here. The sky was dark from the leaves. The tracks darkened and were not floating.
My last look finally turned back just as something ran across the tracks far down from me. Its form black and human shaped. My hair stood on end, and my gut turned in a new way.
I couldn't describe it other than I didn't want to be in that town, or these tracks. I found my way back out. I didn't even bother to move the marífts. There was a lot and the maze would be too narrow to move them.