"Is that all they brought to face us? My omele could defeat them, and she is 85."" Qiyana, The Empress of the Elements
Did you expect the Fiddle reveal at the end?
With this chapter we have hit 200k words. Those are some crazy numbers.
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As soon as the name of the emotion was invoked, the surroundings darkened. Gregori felt a chill crawl down his spine.
The surroundings around his changed. A crimson hue overtook the forest. He could hear crows cawing.
Poppy and Quinn crumpled to the ground.
He turned around to his kids.
He flinched.
They weren't standing.
All on the ground.
He rushed to their side and spotted blood leaking out of their orifices.
"Daani?" He grabbed the closest child. "Danni wake up.." He urged as he softly shook the boy. His hands shook and his eyes misted over.
He looked toward the other kids.
"Rell? Faye? Sydell?" He moved to them. "Wake up! You three! Wake up..... please...."
The desperation in his voice scared even himself.
Then he spotted Annie and Daisy crumpled beside each other.
"No.... no no no.... please no..."
He lifted them both and hugged them. "Wake up... please..." He did everything he could to wake them up but not a single one among them awoke.
And then he stilled. A thought he had been avoiding had reared its ugly head.
Were they dead?
He shifted his eyes down to Annie and Daisy. With his fingers trembling, he checked for a pulse. He waited and waited.
Nothing.
They were dead.
But he was still desperate. He reached for the other children. At least one of them would be alive. At least one of them.
But reality was not as one would hope.
Not a single one survived.
He raised his head to the sky and screamed. Screamed out to any higher power. Anything that could help.
But nothing came.
But his screaming continued. It continued until his voice completely disappeared.
His head turned to his axe. If his children were dead....... what was the point of living? He reached for the axe and placed it an his neck.
One pull and he would join his children.
One pull and he would join his wives.
One pu-
Something was wrong.
His eyes widened.
Annie didn't have Tibbers in her hand.
Gregori looked around confusedly but the bear was nowhere to be found. And then the fuzzy feeling in his head began to clear, the weight on his mind began to lessen.
He blinked rapidly in order to gain some semblance of control.
The red hue disappeared and he found himself in the same position as before. No axe at his neck. No blood on the ground. No dead children.
They were all stood in the same position, their eyes glazed over and faces in shock, pain and FEAR.
Then he heard the cries from his children. Control returned to his body as he shook himself out of the feared state.
"STOP! IT IS NOT REAL!" He yelled.
Rell and Sydell were the first to break out of the illusion.
Gregori instantly rushed to his children and pulled them in close toward him.
"Its fine....." He whispered. "Nothing is wrong..." He hugged them tightly, "What you are seeing isn't real."
Little by little their eyes cleared.
"Daddy?" Daisy and Faye asked.
"I'm right here." He gave them a soft smile. "What you saw wasn't real." He told them. But his eyes fell on Briar and Daani. They were shivering. Tears flowed down their face but they didn't have the crying expression. Just expressionless.
Gregori placed his hands on each of their faces and kissed their foreheads. "I'm right here. Daddy's right here. Your family is right here."
Poppy looked at them from afar and slowly distanced herself from that area in the forest.
Quinn, having regained her mental stability did the same, but not before pulling Valor along with her.
Gregori carefully led his children back where thy had come from, the two newcomers tagging along.
He reached into the satchels hung from the Avalance beasts and pulled out waterskins. As he did, he looked over the beasts themselves. They were seemingly unaffected by the sudden surge of fear.
With a shaky voice, Poppy tried saying, "I guess we cannot say that word here. Heh ehe."
Gregori gave her a deadpan stare before giving each child a waterskin.
"Now you believe us?" He asked Quinn.
Quinn nodded. "We have to alert the army of this."
Gregori shook his head. "And they'll do what?" He pointed toward the forest. "That is a force of nature." He pointed to the group, "You think this is all it can do?"
Quinn just stared at him.
"It is as old as the lands themself. If it hasn't died then, how do you think it will fall now that it doesn't have any semblance of thought." His eyes shifted to the forest. "It has only one goal and that is to consume that one emotion." He looked Quinn in the eyes. "That emotion is one everyone feels. There are no exceptions."
Quinn looked conflicted. "But we cannot just other walk into this place."
"You could alert them...." Gregori answered. "But that would mean the creature would move locations." His voice hardened. "Could you handle that burden? Knowing that you were the reason it moved upward and into Uwendale?"
Quinn shook visibly.
"Could you be willing to take the responsibility for the deaths of those living there? Or anywhere that is densely populated?"
Gregori sighed. "I understand your reasoning but you have to consider whether not not your actions would affect a large group than the current smaller one." He pointed at Tibbers, "If we weren't alerted to the presence do you think we would have survived?"
There was no reply from both Quinn and Poppy. Even the children seemed peeved.
"It is how it is." Gregori continued. "Our world has so many dangers and you cannot underestimate even a single one. I've heard this saying many times in Shurima. Death is behind every dune. It might not be the most accurate but it emphasizes caution."
He pointed to the side, "So lets exercise that caution and go around shall we?"
After which he led the group around the area of the forest.
As he walked forward, this time, all the children stood near him. Extremely near. Gregori allowed them to be that close. Fear of such magnitude would have left some emotional scars and staying close to him would help alleviate some of that.
Knowing the children, he guessed that their illusions were all about being alone or him leaving them. They all were afraid of being abandoned. Even Briar.
But even he was finding calm in the fact that he was near the children. His illusion almost broke him but he pushed forth. Seeing his children dead was something that would truly tip him over the edge and it almost had.
Luckily he had spotted an outlier.
Tibbers.
His eyes flitted toward the bear clutched so hard that it might tear off. It had saved him. Saved them.
Not just the warning but its disappearance was so jarring to him that he had broken out of his Fear. Everything else was the same in the illusion. Just the absence of the Demon of Guilt. His rational mind had forced him awake.
Tibbers or rather, Tybaluk was important. Both as an alarm to other demons but also as a deterrent to them. Being on the the Ten, Tybaluk commanded respect from those under him. He had also learnt of how battles among demons went.
A demon could climb up the ranks and fight another for the domain it possesses. If they win, then they get control over the domain. The higher ranked demons all reigned over domains pertaining to emotions. And that made them stronger the more they fed off these emotions.
If the challenging demon lost? Then they would be enslaved, forever serving the demon they lost to. The smaller domains they ruled? Those were absorbed under the larger domain. It was a very predatory system. Created to define a clear hierarchy.
But there was one demon all of them were afraid of. The incarnation of fear. The demon was barely a demon anymore, more of a primal force of nature.
Gregori could not even begin to wonder if he stood a chance. It was just the difference in existence.
Even if he was fully assimilated into Caalyx, there would be no winning.
This Fear they all had experienced was the demon playing the smallest of pranks. A little bit of fun. That was what it was for it. A reflex to a probe.
Quinn gasped behind them. "I know what it is!" Her voice was shaky yet still victorious.
Gregori sighed, "We already know what it is." His eyes shifted to Poppy who had been strangely silent since the event.
"No no." Quinn shook her head. "We have a name for it here. It is there in all the old stories." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Its name is Fi-"
"STOP!" Gregori growled. "Would you like to summon it to us?" He had his hand raised in her direction, almost using his magic to keep her mouth shut. "Just the name of its emotion and it almost ended us and you want to say its name?"
Quinn shrugged. "I thought it might be useful to know."
"Maybe..... but not here." Gregori was on his last legs. He didn't know how much more patient he could be with this girl. "We will discuss this once we reach our destination."
The rest of the walk there continued without a hitch but that did not mean that they were fine. Being alert constantly had taken a toll on them. They were tired. Both physically and mentally.
They needed sleep.
They needed rest.
They needed to talk about what they had seen in order to lessen the burden on their souls.
"We are almost there." Quinn claimed as Valor flew around in circles ahead of them. After circling, it flew back to Quinn and landed on her shoulder.
The group ventured forward until they spotted the tents and caravans set up around a perimeter.