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When Grimme jumped to her feet, it was with the strands of a memory-dream.  She rocked to the side, unsteady on two feet after a day on hundreds.

No rest – never – not really.  Her mind alert in one body while the other rested.

She snarled, slamming her fist into the cave wall beside her.

“I will break this curse.” she whispered bitterly.  “I swear it.”

There was a faint rocking.  She crept through the tunnels.

“Of course I collapsed in the Room of Thorns.” she grumbled.

Stone spikes shot through the floor: pentacles twice as tall as her, needles to cut through her foot.

The chamber quivered with a deep but piercing shudder – They were coming.

So what?  They were always coming.

If they caught this body, they would be doing her a favor.

She thought.

Grimme flinched slightly as the shudder came closer.  The shadow of a monster flickered in the light of the Blue Moss.

She swore, snatched her battle ax, spun on her heel and ran.

~#~#~

Tayl closed the secret door behind him, flicking on the lightbulb.  The generator spluttered deep in the underground chamber, neon-blue dust puffing from the iron teeth.

After a moment, Tayl plopped at his desk, stroking his beard.  He pulled out the file from his cabinet, humming softly.

Classified – Foxglove Dell Murders.

“Alright Grandmir.”  Tayl hung a portrait miniature on a shelve hook.  “Why did you kill the Chosen?”

The blue dust in the generator shivered and blue onto the miniature: oil on yew wood, infused with magic. “You can always ask my anything at anytime mine bush boy.”

The woman shifted, straitening her stiff grey shirt.  “Hello brat.”

Tayl’s face remained serene, but his hand balled into a tight fist.  “Grandmir.  How’s jail treating you?”

She sneered.  “How’s the farm treating you?”

“Fair enough.”

“Ten years.”

“So far, one for each person you murdered.”

She scoffed.  “I was justified.”

Tayl leaned back into his seat, pulling his right earlobe.  The phantom sensation of an earring was never going to leave him, was it?

“You say that every time I ask.” He deliberately opened the file, allowing the title to be seen.  “But this says that they stole…” he cleared his throat. “One sword, two baskets of corn, and five loaves of bread.” He lowered the file.  “That’s very little to murder someone over.”

The woman rolled her eyes.

“You know, it took me a ridiculously long time to get this file.”  Tayl stroked it with an ash-smudged finger.  “And we know how things work around here.”

She snorted.

“So, here’s my question.”  Tayl steepled his fingers, taking a deep breathe.

“How do I make it look like an accident?”

~#~#~

Faeryn… That was a name she liked.  “Gift of the Fey” she mused.

She stretched her mentality through the walls, breathing with book-lungs. Thousands of thin layers of paper rippling as air filled her expanse.

She was growing.

The Warning and Message had stopped for the night – but…

Faeryn smiled slightly, easing off her blindfold.

Two glittering blue eyes stared back at her in the mirror.  Glittering, electric, blue, blue, blue…

Yes, electric.  Nothing electrical worked in her village now.

That was an accident.

She could possibly rectify it.  But The Warning and Message was required.

More specifically, the curse guarded by The Warning and Message.

And she would need ten chosen to fetch it.

Ten – one for one.

She trembled, stretching out to feel deep in her dungeons.

“How do I make it look like an accident?”

Ah.

That would be bad…

~#~#~

The old woman grinned.  She clapped her hands.  “Finally.” she smirked.  “You are starting to understand the world we live in mine bushboy.”

Tayl slumped in his seat, smiling faintly.  “As ya cannee see.”

~#~#~

Grimme burst through to her next chamber, sliding under the turning gear.  It was twice as big as her and essential to her – to The Warning and Message which was her but wasn’t.

The shadowy monsters were close at her heels, snapping and howling.  Their shuddering echoes quivered in the dark chambers.

The last of the Blue Moss was gone.  The lower she climbed, the less there was.

And the more monsters.

“I’m reaching that door!” she shrieked.

~#~#~

Isaac bundled into his truck – it was his now, he found it, and no one was using it.  He did not know how it arrived, and he didn’t care.

He did care about the roars in the distance.

~#~#~

Rowan flinched into a defensive position as the door flung open, her eyes dazzled by an enigmatic light.

How long had she been staring at it?!

~#~#~

Dominic snarled at the nasty, pointy-eared woman in front of him.  Ah, yes, he would kill her.  It would be a joy for all the torments inflicted on him since he arrived at the cursed place.

~#~#~

Grimme shrieked as she reached the door – FINALLY.

“After all these years.” she sobbed.  “I’m home.”

She slashed it open with her battle ax, screaming as the shadow-monster’s claws scrapped her arm.

But she went through that door.

Only when she crossed the threshold did she realize…

… that was not her door…

… her door was several hundred levels below her…

~#~#~

Dominic and Rowan whirled to face the newcomer – a wild woman who materialized out of the strange light.

She took one glance at them, roared, and charged with her battle ax swinging.

~#~#~

Faeryn collapsed backwards, her fingers splayed as the light faded.

“I think…” she whispered,

“I think dear Warning was too far away…”

Her eyes closed.

With a puff of smoke, Faeryn disappeared.

The Castle quivered – the body Faeryn was gone for the moment, bot not for long.

~#~#~

Isaac readied for the attack.

~#~#~

Tayl flinched as the miniature shattered into hundreds of splinters.  In a mad scramble he dashed the pieces into a pile hoping for what?  For WHAT?

~#~#~

The grandmir shrieked, hand stretched out to the door, the last of the vines wrapping around her delicate skin, pulling and tearing.  Her fingers tightened around the cell bars as she tried to pull herself to them.

With a final scream, she was still.

Thin vines continued spreading over her body.  Flowers bloomed.  Petals faded.  Seed pods swelled.  Leaves dropped.

In minutes, the vine was dead, and the old woman it had feasted on was mire polished, splintered bone.

~#~#~

Behind Grimme, the long, ash-flaking claw of a shadowy monster stretched it’s hand through the portal.

 

 

 

 

Oops.

My keyboard slipped.

😉