Chapter 186 - Into Quagmire (3) : HOOMAN!
Nothing is more insane than having every fantasy jumbled up together.
Shadow and the Augur must be having fun replacing my fears with movie villains and remaking a futuristic setting for some messed up nightmarish Skyrim.
As annoying as it is, replacing my cockroach phobia with Transformers is genius. I hate both equally.
Anyway, I finally found Wulf and rode a car with him to hunt down the Silver-Hand mob. Whether it made sense or not, I just had to work my way around it.
The cars reached a place and all the companions attacked a certain building storming it with bullets. I wanted to say that I saw that one coming but the Transformers joined hands with the Silver-Hand mob and the situation was messy. Wulfur, on the other hand, was kicking absolute ass. I dare to say that this guy is a game changer in open battles whether in this nightmarish world or in reality.
I was adapting the Magicka inside me to space around and shooting aimlessly while trying to finish quickly. I still had to evade injury and keep Wulfur safe, an injury in Quagmire is a real injury no matter what.
Once I was able to release enough Aura, I empowered my body to the max and carried Wulfur away from the fight.
"Hey, Jon. What are you doing? Let go of me."
"Sorry, mate. There is something important you need to hear."
"Not now, damn you. I want to butcher Don Kodlak killers."
This guy was so immersed in the dream. I'll have to remind him somehow.
"Svidi!"
"Huh?"
"Your sister, Svidi."
"My sister?"
"Yes, she went to college in Solitude, remember?"
"... Yes, I- I remember."
Wulfur seemed to be remembering but not fast enough.
"What about Bjorna?" I kept asking.
"Bjorna?" Wulfur wondered.
"Yes, 16 years old, fairly tall, red hair... maybe a bit to the pink, wide eyes, dazzling smile... remember that day when we went into the pet store in Solitude and you met her."
Wulfur turned silent for a full minute, suddenly, he started looking around left and right frantically.
"Jon!" His eyes landed on me and shouted in worry.
"Yep, you friendly neighborhood Dragonborn."
"You- You were taken in too?"
"Nope, I came for you guys."
Even Wulfur was panicked! Must have been tough for him to see weird nightmares of his own. Luckily, my nightmares can influence the ones around me.
"You idiot. You should have never come, the place is very dangerous."
"Calm down you idiot. I get it, everyone is trapped in here and the nightmares are coming to life, blah blah blah."
"And why are you so calm?" Wulf started shouting.
"Shaddap! Who said I am calm? I just saw Darth Vader and Optimus Prime in the same nightmare, do you know how nightmarish that is? And who knows how many movie villains are out there." I finally broke and shouted back.
"Wait… who are those?"
"Never mind it anyway, we need to find the rest and get the hell out of here."
"You know a way out?"
"Kinda! Let's just run from this place."
The place was still a war zone between the Mafia and the Transformers which made it rather weird. I can sneak out as I can use some magic to block the stray bullets easily.
"Jon, this thing looks familiar!"
But as always, Wulf was curious about the gun in his hand.
"You saw it in my sketches before, figure it out!"
"Oh! And what is that thing I am wearing."
"A suit… looks good on you though."
"Thanks! But to think I would dream of such a strange place."
"I hate to break it to you but this is my Nightmare we are in. I am using it to influence the area around by creating fake fears from fictional villains so that I can deal with stuff."
"Awesome! You too can see nightmares?"
This guy will never stop asking.
"I may be able to eat Awesome and fart Rainbows but I too see nightmares."
I had to endure the thousands of question from my curious friend to satisfy his thirst for knowledge.
<Lightning will strike soon!>
"Okay! Brace yourself." I said as I held onto Wulf.
"What?"
"Reality is shifting!"
"Amaz…"
***
Lightning flashed and the situation changed. Luckily, Wulfur was still there.
"Where is this?"
Wulfur, who was still holding a gun and dressed in his Mafia uniform, looked at the place around carefully.
It was… a forest.
"It kinda resembles the woods around Falkreath."
Wulfur and I really found nothing threatening about this space but I didn't want to stay in one place for too long so we moved to high ground.
While moving, I finally managed to figure out the magic law in Quagmire and regained most of my abilities to cast magic and regenerate Magicka. Also, I started explaining the situation to Wulfur.
"Hey, what is that over there?"
Wulfur pointed at the sky and I saw something flying through the gloomy clouds. It felt like… people.
I wasn't really seeing far so after I used some Aura to see further, I almost wanted to find Shadow and the Augur then slap them.
I know they are replacing my fears with bizarre ideas from my past life but they are taking it too far.
Anyway, judging by the direction of the people who were flying, there was some town over there.
We hasted our pace up until we reached the intended destination. It was a town made of dark brick houses with a weird shape. They didn't look like any past era so I assumed this is some sort of a countryside old town.
After looking around, we found some people gathered around in a town square. In front of them, some three individuals were floating on air, two boys with broomsticks and a small helpless girl was being held in the air by magic while struggling to break free.
The scene was a bit disturbing but I wasn't concerned about a dream.
"Listen, you lowly Muggles. If we find any more Mutants in this town there will be consequences."
I saw the word 'Muggle' coming but the word 'Mutant' was unexpected. Seems like the antagonist this time are the fanatic pure-blooded wizards from Harry Potter stories. On the other hand, there are Mutants too.
The headache!
It seems that Wizards hunt Mutants that hide among Muggles. Good job Shadow, I can now be in peace as I am pretty much unrelated to any of those.
I thought so as I turned around and was about to leave with Wulfur after unleashing out Auras to speed up.
"Hey, you! Stop where you are!"
A bolt of lightning landed in front of me and the two wizards shouted while blocking my path.
"What is it?"
"You… you are a Mutant! Don't even think about moving a muscle!"
Mutant? This handsome me?
I looked at Wulfur who wasn't bewildered at all… he didn't seem to understand what's going on.
The two Wizards were still aiming their little wands at me. One of them moved it wand and intended to cast a spell on me.
"Crucio!"
Oops!
I had to evade that one and counter-attacked him with a 'Lightning Strike'. The other was about to move but…
*Bang*
… Wulfur took care of it.
"Nice one."
"Thank you."
The townspeople who witnessed the exchange screamed and shouted, all of them ran to their homes. The only ones that remained was us, the two motionless wizards and the so-called mutant little girl that was being held by them.
She was the only person we can ask anything.
"Excuse me! May we ask you some questions."
The girl was scared but I tried to appear as friendly as possible.
Suddenly and without any introductions, the girl ran to me and hugged my leg.
"Mister, thank you." She kept saying so while crying.
"Yes yes, I know." I was kinda annoyed but Wulfur talked to the girl.
"Hello, what is that Mutant thing they called us with?"
The girl looked at Wulfur and tilted her head.
"Mister, didn't you just use Magic without wands or words?"
"Oh, I see."
So it was like that.
"Do you know anyone that goes by the name, Jullanar or Alina? there a black cat known as Nefertiti too."
"You are asking about big sister Nefertiti? She is the leader of our sanctuary!"
Ok! Hold on.
I let Nefertiti go for a few days and now she is making a group of Mutants and planning to take over the world?
That's my girl!
"I helped Nefertiti once back at Winterhold. I'd like to see her please."
"You are the hooman who saved her? Wow! I will take you to her, come come!"
It seems that my title as hooman is going around too damn well.
The girl led us outside the town to some cave. On the way, I picked up a wand from the wizards we killed.
"Hell yeah! I am doing this…"
I tried to use normal spells from by the wand but it didn't really work.
"Fine! Let's go by the book… Wingardium Leviosa! Hey, Wulf, look!"
I managed to carry a stone but the wand snapped all of a sudden when I tried to move it around.
Not that I was interested anyway. It was probably the laws of reality changing with some tricks to make it sound as if it is possible.
As we entered the place we arrived to, we found a lot of small kids with strange features all around, some of them had antlers and horns, some were walking through walls, some were doing strange magic with their hands.
Anyway, at the end of the walk, we arrived at a place where a small loli girl was sitting on a big chair wearing some oversized clothes and acting like a thug. The loli was black haired with blue eyes.
"Boss Nefertiti. Those two mutants saved me in town, they are…"
"HOOMAN!"
"NEFERTITI!"