Chronicles of Ethos

DreamLucidAwake

Witch's House

It was raining and I was being chased down the road by a dog. I saw a house nearby that felt familiar to me. I was a little far from town and I figured the house could shelter me from the rain and protect me from the dog. As I ran towards it, I thought, "What if it's locked?" Immediately after that I had what felt like a memory. I'm not sure if these were just false memories or if they were from a long forgotten dream. What I remembered was that there was a bone in the doghouse that acted as a key to the door.

I ran to the dog house and grabbed the bone inside. It looked like the remains of a human hand. When I turned around, the dog was right in front of me. It jumped onto me and knocked me to the muddy ground. It bit my arm as I tried to protect my face. I pushed him off and ran to the porch. There were odd holes on the surface of the door. I had another memory, a vision of me putting the fingers of the hand into those holes to unlock the door. So I did exactly what I saw in the memory. I heard a click and I opened the door and went inside. I slammed the door shut and the dog ran into it. He growled and scratched at the door for a minute before running off.

I walked into the foyer and had another memory. The memory was of me walking in and greeting a woman. She seemed strange. "Why am I having these memories?" I asked myself. "Are these memories from a dream? Is this a dream?" I did my reality check where I feel the dream and it was a success. I could feel that I was dreaming. I probably should have just left the house and done one of the things on my to-do list. I didn't leave though because I was curious about these weird memories.

The house was dark, but there was still enough light for me to look around. At the end of the foyer was a door and behind it I remembered that there was a storage room. There was also a staircase in the foyer, but something told me to avoid it. To the left was a living room and to the right was a dining room. The longer I was in the house, the more uneasy I felt. Everything around me felt sinister.

Out of nowhere I had a memory that simply told me where I was. I was in what was known as the witch's house. "Oh shit, where's the witch at?" I said quietly. I remembered that the witch was evil and she had done something horrible to me. I then heard someone opening the door behind me. I transformed my hand into a dragon hand and turned around to attack the person who walked in. I pushed her against the door and I was about to slit her throat with my claws, but I stopped. Due to the circumstances, I thought it was the witch who came in, but it was actually River, my dream guide.

"Sorry," I said as I let go of her, "I could have sworn you were someone else." She was soaking wet and trying to dry out her hair. "But I thought you could always sense who was nearby," She said. "Normally I can," I said, "but all I can sense in this place is evil." She walked into the living room and took a rest on the couch. Nothing seemed to be bothering her. "It does feel a little weird here, but I think you're over reacting," she said. "What are you doing here anyways?" I asked her. "I came in here to get out of the rain and because I saw you walk in here." She said. I think she was stalking me again, but that was the least of my worries. I decided it would better to get us somewhere safe instead of searching for my memories. "River, get up, we're going home," I said. "But we just got here," she said, "Let's take a look around." I tried to open the door, but it was stuck and I couldn't get out. So I figured I didn't really have a choice other than to look around.

I went into the living room and sat on the couch with River. I was hoping that I would remember something if I sat in the room. I wasn't able to come up with any memories though. "Are you okay? You're dripping with blood," she said. After she said that, I realized that my left arm had been bleeding since I was bitten by the dog. I then had a memory of me lying on the floor in the living room. I was bleeding and the witch was standing over me with a bloody dagger. She apparently needed my blood for something. This memory disturbed me.

River started to shake me because I wasn't paying attention. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine," I said. "Let me heal it," she said. She placed her hands over my wound and she tried to use her magic to heal me. There was only a spark of light however. "Aww, my magic isn't working here," She said. "The witch must have used an enchantment or something that prevents the use of magic," I said. River then wrapped bandages around my wound and it started to feel better.

After that, we walked back into the foyer. I was planning to search the dining room and River started to walk up the stairs. This brought back another memory. In the memory, I was being dragged up the stairs by the witch and thrown into a room. I didn't seem to have much fight left in me. The room had blood pooling on the floor and gore splattered on the walls. There was some kind of tree growing in the center. The roots and branches of the tree started moving. They were violent and began to grab me and attack me. I think the tree was carnivorous and trying to eat me.

The roots and branches grabbed my arms, legs, and head and lifted me into the air. They started pulling and were trying to tear my body apart. I didn't have enough strength to resist it. Then without thinking, I breathed fire at the tree and it started to burn. The tree dropped me back into the pool of blood. It then began to splash itself with blood in an attempt to put out the fire. I used this time to escape, though I'm not sure how.

When I came out of the memory, I realized that the tree is most likely still alive and that River might open its door. I ran up the stairs to River and she opened the door I was worried about. She looked into the room and said, "I think I'm going to be sick." A bloody root then grabbed her foot right at the moment I grabbed her. She was screaming as it tried to pull her in. I was strong enough to pull River away from it and I slammed the door shut on the root. She was safe now, but I think she passed out. I carried her down into the living room and laid her on the couch.

I figured the living room was safe enough for her to be alone, so I left to search the dining room. There wasn't really anything there worth noting except another memory it triggered. This memory was before all the violent stuff started happening. I was sitting at the table and she made me some tea. I didn't notice it at the time, but the memory showed me that she had put some sort of poison or drug in the tea. After taking a sip of the tea, I fell to the floor and nearly passed out. It explains why I didn't have much fight in me before.

I don't think there were really anymore rooms with memories tied to them left for me to explore. I decided I would go into the kitchen to see if I could find a way out. Something didn't feel right about the kitchen though. I stepped on the tile floor and immediately jumped back as a spike came out of the tile I stepped on. A spike rises out of the floor when you step on a tile. Apparently there was something worth guarding beyond the kitchen. I figured I could avoid the spikes if I ran around and jumped a lot, so I did just that.

There was a door on the other side of the kitchen and I assumed that the witch's secret was behind that door. I sensed that there was something dangerous about the door. I opened the door and I immediately rolled onto the counter to my right. The door was a trap that launched several rather large leeches at me, but I avoided them. I walked into the room and inside there was only a hole with a ladder to a basement or cellar. I didn't feel comfortable about wandering to far away from River or going down that hole alone.

I went back to the living room to check on River. She was awake now and looked a bit better. "How are you feeling?" I asked her. She looked at me and got mad and said, "You left me!" "I saved you!" I said. She was about to yell something back at me, but I heard someone outside and whispered to her to be quiet. The person came onto the porch and I started thinking of places to hide. The storage room came to mind and I quickly snuck over to it with River. We hid inside the storage room just before they came into the house.

I soon heard the voice of the witch say, "There's mud and blood on the floor. It seems we have visitors. Now where could they be hiding?" I thought River was about to panic, so I covered her mouth with my hand. The witch was inspecting the mud on the floor and muttering something about the mess we made. River was mad about me covering her mouth and she bit my hand. "Ouch, what was that for?" I asked. At that moment I thought we were pretty much caught because the witch surely would have heard that. Then River said, "I was trying to tell you that we can teleport away from here," she said. "Why did I never think of that?" I asked myself. "Hurry up and grab onto my necklace!" she said.

I grabbed onto the necklace that River was wearing and we started to glow. The witch opened the door to the storage room, but she was too late. There was a flash of light and we were teleported to the Dragonborn city on the floating islands. We were now sitting under a tree in the park, taking a moment to relax. Things finally felt peaceful. "I can't believe we made it out of that house alive," I said. "What should we do now?" she asked. "I'm going to call the police and let them take care of the problem. I'm done with that place," I said.

The dream then skipped ahead to me sitting in the back of a police van. Chris, Claire, and Kira were also sitting with me. A woman with pink hair was driving the van and a man with red hair was sitting in the passenger seat. I think the woman's name was Lola and the man's name was Rick. I assumed that they were Dragonborns. Behind the van were a few other police vehicles. We were heading back to the witch's house.

"Why do I have to come? I'm sick of that house," I said. Lola said, "You're here because you know more about the witch and the house than anyone else does. We need you for this." Rick then said, "It was also your idea to raid the house, so it makes sense for you to come along." I turned towards the others and asked, "Why are you guys here then?" "We're here to assist you obviously," Claire said. "When was the last time we went on an adventure anyways?" Chris asked. "I'm pretty sure we went on one earlier this week." I said "Well one isn't enough! We should be having more adventures!" he said. "Why isn't Krystal here?" Kira asked. "I wanted her to stay home and make sure Lucia didn't try to come with us," I said.

By the time we were done chatting, the van stopped and we were outside the house. We grabbed our weapons and exited the vehicle. We approached the house and the other police officers, who were likely also Dragonborns, followed behind us. The house appeared to be surrounding by sort of force field. The witch could be seen in the front window smiling at us. "Come out of the house with your hands up!" Rick shouted. "I don't think that's going to work," I said to him. "Well I have to say it," he said. The witch pulled out a wand and began shooting fireballs at us. We started shooting at her, but our bullets couldn't penetrate the force field. We then tried using our own elemental magic against the force field, but that was also ineffective.

The witch threw a fireball straight at me and I rolled to the left. The fireball missed and blew up the van behind me. "This isn't working, I think we should send in the SWAT team!" I yelled. Lola yelled back at me, "We are the SWAT team!" "That's just not fair," I said. Rick was over behind the doghouse calling us. He appeared to be leading the "SWAT" team. Me, Chris, Claire, Lola, and Kira gathered behind the doghouse with Rick and waited for his instructions. "You," he said pointing at me, "break down the door. I'll cover you."

I powered up and formed ball of elemental earth energy in my hands. I then charged towards the door and hit it with this ball of energy. As the door blasted apart, Rick breathed a large cloud of smoke over the area and the 6 of us rushed into the house. Me, Rick, and Lola activated our dragon sight ability so that we could see better through the smoke. I could see the witch's aura and a bunch of small gremlin-like creatures. The witch appeared to be gathering power for a spell, and the monsters were preparing to attack.

Chris, Claire, and Kira remained hidden in the smoke while me, Lola, and Rick fought the gremlins. I did a partial dragon transformation so that I would have claws, horns, wings, and a tail to fight with. The gremlins were no match for us because they couldn't see us, but we could see them. All of their attacks were completely off and our attacks were perfect. After the gremlins were dealt with, the three of us attacked the witch. Rick fired his assault rifle at her and she created a magic shield around herself to block attacks. As Rick was distracting her, I came at her from above and destroyed her shield with a blast of fury energy. Lola then rushed in from behind pinned the witch down. By the time the smoke cleared, she was arrested and the battle seemed to be over.

As Lola was handcuffing the witch, the witch seemed to have either died or fainted. Above her body appeared a sinister ethereal creature holding a scythe or sickle-like weapon. The only name that comes to mind when I think of it is reaper. We knew this reaper was going to put up a greater fight, so Rick ordered us to get into formation. I fully transformed into a dragon and Rick and Lola also performed partial transformations to grant them each claws, horns, wings, and a tail. Claire prepared bolts of lightning in her hands, Kira drew out her swords, and Chris readied his bow and arrow. Me, Rick, and Lola were in the front, Kira was in the middle, and Chris and Claire were in the back. The battle was ready to start back up again.

We all attacked the reaper at once with different weapons and magical attacks, but everything phased through it. For some reason the reaper ignored everyone in the front and went straight to Claire. It tried to attack Claire, but Chris defended her. Kira attacked the reaper with her swords right at this moment and wounded it. We learned that it needed to become tangible when attacking, which is when it would be best to attack it. After being wounded though, the reaper fled down the hole in the room beyond the kitchen.

Chris was wounded, so I told Rick, Lola, and Kira to chase after the reaper. I stayed behind to heal Chris and Claire stayed behind to yell at him. She was mad at him because he got hurt by trying to protect her. I looked at him closer and he had a large cut across his chest. I placed both hands over his wound healed him with my magic. I must be getting better at it because it only took me about a minute to heal him. I thought he would want to rest after that, but he actually wanted to keep going.

The three of us went into the room on the other side of the kitchen and jumped down the hole. The hole dropped down into a large arena where the others were fighting the reaper. They were even getting some hits in. When the reaper saw us drop in, it stopped fighting and flew to the other side of the room. On the other side of the room was a pedestal with a bowl on top. The reaper began pouring blood out of a bottle into the bowl. "Hey! That's my blood!" I shouted. It was apparently the blood the witch took from me.

The reaper lit the bowl on fire and escaped into a room beyond the arena. A great metal door then slammed shut behind it. Most likely due to the flaming blood ritual, a several dragons began rising out of the ground below us. "What did that thing just do?" Lola asked. "I think it used my blood to raise an army of undead dragons," I said. Considering that we were fighting undead dragons, the fight went pretty well.

We killed a few of them, but they were beginning to overwhelm us. As we defended ourselves from the dragons, Chris noticed a scroll on the ledge above the door. I flew up there and grabbed the scroll. I read the scroll aloud, hoping that it would make something good happen. I can't remember what the scroll said, but the spell caused the dragons to become dead again and the door opened.

There was then a sudden earthquake or explosion that knocked me off the ledge. Rick then said that me and him would be able to finish the rest of the mission. He told Lola to fly everyone out of there and to get some place safe. I wasn't sure how only the two of us would be able to handle the situation, but I trusted Rick's decision.

We ran into the next room which was some kind of magma chamber. We had to fly over the magma to get to a chamber on the other side. "Judging by the structure of this place, there's likely an entire dragon burial ground in the next chamber," Rick said. "We have to stop that thing from resurrecting all of those dragons," I said. When we reached the burial ground, the reaper was only trying to resurrect one dragon. Because of us, it didn't have time to resurrect all the dragons. The particular dragon it was trying to resurrect though appeared to be a king.

Using the same ritual as before, it brought the dragon to life. The reaper then possessed the dragon to gain full control of it. Rick fully transformed into a dragon and we prepared to fight. Rick charged towards it with flaming claws and got a few hits in, but the dragon knocked him back into the wall with its tail. The dragon then breathed fire at me. I countered it by throwing a blast of air at the flames. I summoned my crystal sword and ran through the scattered flames towards the dragon and tried to attack it. The dragon blocked my sword with its horns and knocked me back.

"Keep it busy for me, I have a plan," Rick said. He flew back into the magma chamber to do something and I got back up to face the dragon. I began building up fury energy. It breathed another wave of fire at me and I generated a energy shield around me for protection. I charged at it and continued trying to slash at it with my sword.

After a few minutes into the battle, there was huge explosion. Must have been Rick. Magma began flooding through the tunnels and into the room. When magma started flowing into the room, I unleashed a wave of fury energy at the dragon. The dragon was knocked back into the magma. It and the reaper were now gone. I knew that the whole place would be flooded soon, so I quickly started flying back out. I met up with Rick partway and he guided me towards the exit.

I don't remember anything beyond this except that we all got out alive and lived happily ever after. I hardly write in my DJ anymore, but for some reason I felt like this one needed to be written.