All of the short stories within this storyline had gone by quickly, but this one even more so because I wasn’t even in the main plot. Anna, Kimberly, and Camden had taken care of that. Dina and I had been in small snippets of screen ti.
That was about to change.
I could hear the sounds of travelers in the night—more than forty people by my guess—making their way through the woods toward us. They were screaming, praying, pleading…
And dying. Every few seconds, I would hear the echoes of a man screaming along with the sickening sound of him being stomped to death.
It made sense, then, that when I finally saw the fleeing survivors of the Lord’s Glory settlent, it was mostly won left. There were only five n among them. Camden wasn’t there.
There were nearly thirty won. There were dozens of children with them ranging from infants to teenagers. The babies and toddlers cried inconsolably.
Theodore Akers walked to the edge of the broken gate.
“Who goes there?” he called out. “Are you of the Lord’s Glory settlent?”
One of the won moved to the front of the group. It was Anna.
“Please,” she said. “Our hos are destroyed. Please help us. The Lord’s Glory settlent is gone.”
Theodore hesitated. The monsters looked like young won to his eyes, after all. He wouldn’t have known if these were more of the sa.
“Look to their feet,” I shouted. “The won that attacked us had cloven feet.”
This was news to most of the n in the camp, as well as so won. They had been completely fooled.
Theodore looked back at with a furrowed brow.
“Our attackers had the legs of deer or goats,” I said. Hoping to convince him. “Look at their feet. If they are human, you will be able to tell.”
Theodore wasn’t sure.
“He tells the truth, Theodore,” Esther, his sister, called out. “They are the Cloven Won of legend. They have the feet of a doe. They lure careless or violent n from campfires and kill them unseen.”
The other Akers family mber who had seen the beasts' true nature chid in in support.
Theodore relented.
“Well co in,” he said. “Hurry. And show us you are human.”
The refugees did. They began running in.
I spotted Douglas backed into a corner. He would make eye contact with every ti I looked at him. I suspected the script need us to clear the air before the Final Battle comnced. Douglas had a confession to make.
As NPCs began roughly rebuilding the gate, which amounted to stacking things back in front of the entrance, I approached Douglas.
“What did you an when you said this wasn’t what you wanted?” I asked.
Douglas was distraught. “I couldn’t have foreseen this, brother. I only wanted to do as our great-grandfather did. I was charged with protecting this land. He said Grandfather Theodore was too weak to do it.”
“What did you say?” Theodore yelled. He joined us as soon as I had initiated the confrontation. Many other Akers joined him.
“I… Grandfather,” Douglas whimpered. “I was doing as I was told! I only made my wishes to help us!”
Theodore looked at him with disgust.
“My father?” Theodore asked. “He showed you the well?”
Douglas nodded.
I wasn’t sure if my character knew about the properties of the well, so I didn’t say anything.
“We had it sealed,” Theodore said. “You opened it back up?”
Again, Douglas nodded. "I only wanted to push them away. It doesn’t listen,” he said. “I can’t figure out how to ask it to do what I want. I do not know what to offer it. I asked it to turn their milk sour and it did, but then they slaughtered their milking goats as diseased and you offered them so of ours. Everything I did to run them away, you ruined!”
“You fool. The powers of that well are not to be ddled with.” Theodore said. “My father spent his life and his fortune at that well and all it brought us was heartache and pain. It always takes just as much as it gives. No more, no less. You have dood us.”
Douglas, like his great-grandfather before him and Hesper after him, had taken to offering things to the waters underground—to the Unknowable Host. Like Hesper, he could never get what he wanted. In a sense, he would always break even.
Theodore approached his grandson and struck him upside the head.
“I’m sorry,” Douglas cried. “It was my job. He said you wouldn’t want to know.”
“His mind was gone!” Theodore asked. “His heart was devoted more to the well than to his family. Now he’s done the sa to you.”
Douglas fought back tears. He approached Theodore and said, “I can fix it. I can go wish this all away.”
“What was it that you wished for?” I interjected.
Douglas looked down at the ground. “I wished that the n across the vale would be driven away.”
The n.
The power in the cavern took him literally. They summoned creatures that would target the n. That's wish-making 101 in movies.
“I can undo it,” he said. “Just let go back to the well.”
Theodore looked at Douglas with a mix of fiery anger and sheer disappointnt.
I had an idea.
“Let take him,” I pleaded with Akers. “We can saddle horses and have this madness ended before sunrise.”
Truthfully, a horse was the only way I would make it to the well. I was Hobbled, after all.
Theodore wasn’t sure.
“We need n here to defend the keep,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, we don’t. The monsters only attack n. It is won that should defend us. If won are on the front lines, the monsters will not kill them.”
I finally had a prediction for Cinema Seer. It was sothing substantial too. My biggest problem with that trope was that my predictions could be so inconsequential that even if they ca true, my allies wouldn’t get a buff. This was different.
It was a risk though. Attacking n didn't an they couldn't attack won, but I was fairly certain. The one Dina and I killed had completely ignored her.
Esther limped her way into the conversation.
“Brother,” she said. “These creatures only have ire for n, don’t you see? They have no love for n, but in legend, they are protectors of won. I do believe your grandson is correct.”
Theodore was uncomfortable.
“How will I forgive myself if I send won into battle while the n hide?” he said. “What if he is wrong.”
“If he is wrong,” she said. “You will not be here to forgive yourself or otherwise.”
Theodore reluctantly nodded. He turned and began instructing NPCs to arm the won.
“One more thing,” I said. “We need cotton or wax. Anything that can clog a man’s ear.”
When the Cloven Won attempted to lure the n out, the air was thick with their whispers. They had the sa trope that the Grotesques had: Whispers in the Dark. The difference was that the Grotesques’ trope manifested differently. Theirs caused impulsive thoughts. The Cloven Won actually whispered.
If we couldn’t hear them, they couldn’t hypnotize us.
This sort of thing always worked in movies. In real life, blocking your ears only muffles things, but in the movies, it blocks sound completely, whether you are blocking a siren’s song or a hypnotic suggestion from your girlfriend’s racist parents.
“We have wax,” one of the NPCs suggested.
Of course, that was part of what Walter had brought back with him from the delta.
Theodore nodded his head. He rested his hand on my shoulder in a show of approval. I got the feeling that my character wasn’t one of his favorite grandchildren. He had over a dozen, after all. Maybe I could change his mind tonight.
“Do as he says,” Theodore yelled. “n, block your ears. Do not allow any sound through.”
One of the NPCs produced a slab of orange-yellow wax from inside one of the buildings. The n began breaking off portions and stopping their ears with the stuff.
In the movie Get Out, the main character used chair stuffing, but we were using wax just like they had in The Odyssey.
Off-Screen.
As the NPCs worked on repairing the gate, distributing wax to the n, weapons to the won, and saddling the horses, I found Anna and Kimberly. Dina soon joined us.
“Where’s Camden?” I asked.
Ann shook her head. “We had to leave him. His leg is broken. He thought hiding was his best chance of survival.”
“Dammit,” I said. “Did you hear about the well?”
Anna nodded. “We’ll go with you,” she said.
I nodded. “I think Carousel wants you to. The NPCs are saddling up five horses.”
“What happened with the cult?” Dina asked.
Anna shook her head. “The leader has been trying to get their deity to listen for years, but the results are only so-so. He thought the land was cursed. He figured that if he did so ritual to cleanse the land, his god would listen to him again. He was going to sacrifice us as virgins.”
We had a brief laugh at that.
“Camden freed us just as the monsters attacked. It was a bloodbath. They were disappearing left and right. There were originally two n for every woman. They scattered. I don’t know how many survived.”
“Just for the record,” Kimberly said, “I thought of plugging the n’s ears earlier but none of them would talk to .”
Guess they got what they deserved.
The battle was set. Douglas and I had mounted horses. For our protection, we brought with us three won randomly chosen from among volunteers. Kimberly, Dina, and Anna all volunteered. We were briefly On-Screen for this mont. We needed so explanation for why they were coming with us.
We reverted to Off-Screen as the NPCs moved into place and the monsters regrouped to attack.
Between us and the gate, a line of won held their weapons. The n stood behind them ready to step in if my prediction was wrong.
I could still hear through the wax sowhat, but the NPC n couldn’t. They were thod actors.
On-Screen.
The newly rebuilt gate crumbled in one hit. It wasn’t a barrier at all to the monsters.
There were whispers in the air, but as long as I pretended not to hear them, they had no effect on . As far as the audience was concerned, I couldn’t hear anything.
After none of the n were affected, the Cloven Won decided on a direct assault.
They moved in through the gate a few at a ti. They stared at our formation. With the won in front, they hesitated to do anything.
They began whispering again, but not to us. They were communicating with each other.
Soon, the wooden walls of the fortress were inundated with heavy blows as the Cloven Won tried to break them down. The walls consisted of heavy sharpened logs driven deep into the ground. They were much sturdier than the gate. They wouldn’t last forever, but they would buy us ti.
The monsters approached the front lines of NPCs. When they did, they were t with a flurry of swinging weapons warning them off.
I sensed an internal struggle in the eyes of the Cloven Won. Their lore said they were protectors of won, but then they had a trope that stated they would act outside of the rules of their lore. They demonstrated that by attacking the settlents. That was against their nature as Esther described it.
They were supposed to punish young n who chased after or otherwise hard won. They weren’t ant to kill all n. But they had thrown that part of themselves to the side under the influence of the Unknowable Host. After all, it was the Host's power that had brought them here, pulled straight from a fairytale.
Would they be willing to harm a woman under the deity’s influence or would their original nature prevail?
Despite a desperate rage building in their eyes, they resisted.
They refused to harm a woman.
Kimberly, Dina, and Anna all received a buff from my Cinema Seer ability. It was a three-point boost. Two in Grit, one in Savvy.
The won began driving back the monsters. The Cloven creatures had no choice but to move back as their sisters continued trying to break the walls of the fortress.
As soon as they were clear of the now open gate, it was ti for the rest of the plan to go into motion. I willed my horse forward. I didn’t actually know how to ride a horse. Luckily, as I had learned earlier when driving the wagon, these horses were NPCs. They didn’t need to tell them what to do. I just had to hold on.
That was quite difficult to do.
Douglas and I were out the gate right behind a few of the ard NPCs. They gave us just enough room to squeeze through and make our way out.
The horses were more than happy to get away from the Cloven Won, so they ran fast and free in the direction of the well.
I thought we were ho free until I learned sothing the hard way: the Cloven Won were fast too.
In fact, they were as fast as a deer.
The race in the moonlight was on.
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