Fadi, Faiza and the rest of the caravan sat in a circle with Eze standing above them. Multiple sceptres were placed around them, Wind blowing through them. At the centre, in a circle connected to the sceptres via lines, was a white crystal the size of a walnut.

“-Now, what we called Verdin Magic now, was in fact the study of Colour Flow born from the followers of Occultus sonos. However, the Verdin laid claim to it and-,”

Fadi raised his hand, “Mr. Eze,”

“Fadi-,” Faiza scolded.

“Yes Fadi,” Mr. Eze responded, pointing to him.

“We’ve heard tales of Occultus sonos a lot, can we hear about a different Signa Mortis,”

Mr. Eze sighed, “I guess your right. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t hear much about animas tenebrarum,” he responded.

“Why that, my boy, is because not much is known about that one,” he chuckled in response.

“Of the Second Generation of Signa Mortis, animas tenebrarum is the master of purple. The most well known tale of theirs is of a man called Moses.

Moses was the member of a people enslaved by Aeternum. Depending on the story, Moses was either raised among his people or the Aeternum. Even who his people were often changes. 

No matter what they’re called however, Moses always vanishes. No one knows where had gone, though everyone has some ideas. Perhaps he became a worshipper of animas tenebrarum, studying and pleading for their help. Some say he was actually animas tenebrarum in disguise, that he was a dream implanted upon the Aeternum and Moses’s people to mess with their heads. My favourite is the idea that he became concussed and fell into a deep slumber.

In that slumber, the Signa Mortis that ruled over dreams and death visited him and entered a battle of wits. A battle where animas hunted him within his own mind, giving him chances to escape. Animas loves the thrill of the game after all, otherwise death would be instant.

In this time, Moses was able to convince animas to his cause. No one knows what he offered or said, but animas agreed to the game.

Moses returned to the world of the living and brought word of animas to the Aeternum. He told them, if they didn’t let his people go, then the wrath of the Signa Mortis would fall upon them.

The Aeternum scoffed, for they were too proud to fear a Signa Mortis, even if they were of the second generation. They would soon regret that choice. 

Animas would unleash nightmares upon the Aeternum and their subjects. The nightmares were so intense that some believed them to be real: a river of blood, a plague of locusts, frogs, boils, and more. Despite this, the Aeternum didn’t sway, as despite the paranoia and fear brought on by such things: ‘they were only dreams’ they thought.

Animas would show them another trick: death. The first born child of many houses died if they didn’t show their fealty,”

“That’s terrible,” Faiza exclaimed, looking down.

“It is, but to the Signa Mortis, even Aeternum are just vessels for White Fragments. The Aeternum gave in, and let Moses and his people go. However, this was a ploy to get animas off of their backs. Animas, however,  was not easily fooled, so they punished the Aeternum with a curse. For the rest of their eternal lives, they dreamt of drowning to death,”

Fadi shuddered, looking left and right nervously. Faiza placed a hand on his shoulder to give support. Eze smiled.

“Now then, let that be a lesson not to toy with Signa Mortis of that kind,”

Chapter XXII

Lynception

AKT III

The Aforementioned Wild Goose Chase

Lyn and Amara landed on the floor this time. Problem: the floor was moving.

“Crap!” Lyn exclaimed, grabbing onto the ground as they were nearly pushed off.

“We’re gonna die!” she  exclaimed as Lyn grabbed her wrist to stop her from falling.

“Hm…what do ya know?” Lyn commented, reading the platform she held onto.

It was a newspaper that read ‘debut writer interviews rioters’.

The world smelled of oil, ink, and papier. The entire world was a series of conveyor belts and elevators made out of newspapiers. Lyn tossed Amara up onto the conveyor belt.

She looked around in amazement. So many papiers: ‘Mondgreif(‘s subordinates) Announce New Drescher Line’, ‘Jadeite Drescher: Lover or Player’,  ‘Housing in Crisis: What Can You Do?’, and many more.

“Is it always the front page?” Lyn asked, pulling herself up.

Amara chuckled, “wouldn’t that be mighty nice?”

“Attention Nightmare Dreschers: the enemy within is still on the run with our core!” Exclaimed radios floating nearby. “Repeat: the enemy within is still on the run with-!”

Lyn shot them down, “Can it,”

“(What do ya think yer doin’)?!” Amara exclaimed, looking around anxiously. “(‘re ya lookin’ to cause trouble)?!”

“Aye, Patridiot,” jumping onto a nearby belt.

“I told ya not to-AH,” she exclaimed before Lyn pulled her over with her wire.

“Let’s not linger ‘round the scene of the crime if ya care so much,” Lyn remarked, speed reading nearby newspapiers, her eyes subtly darting back and forth.

“What ‘re ya doin’?” Amara questioned, narrowing her eyes as she noticed Lyn's speed reading

“Gettin’ to know me prey of course,” she remarked in response, pulling them both onto an elevator.

“‘Re ya sure yer animas tenebrarum?”

“Ya sure ask a lot of questions patreejit *cough* Patridiot, man that's hard to keep up,” she responded, jumping onto and across multiple stacks of newspapiers.

“Why're ya havin’ so much trouble then?” Amara argued.

“What, ya think I give everyone the Moses treatment?” she shrugged, swing across a gap with her wire. “The world is a lot more fun when ya add some challenge to things,”

“‘Kay, but why’re ya not huntin’ me fer yer games?” she asked, glaring at Lyn. “an’ people that usually face ya ‘re usually in chomas ‘r somethin’,”

“I don’t tell ya how to live yer life,”

“‘Cept that’s the point of this game ain’t it?” Amara questioned, attempting to jump off.

“Nice try, Patridiot,” she remarked as she single handedly held her by the foot.

“Hey lemme go!” she yelled, kicking and missing.

“Now ya just stay there while I catch up on me readin’,”

Lyn felt someone watching them. She glanced over and saw nothing. Whoever it was was good, it left a chill on her spine. 

“Come on, let's look elsewhere,” She exclaimed, jumping onto a nearby conveyor belt and checking the time.

Down below, a portal opened up where the radios had been destroyed.

………

“Who’re you,” Amara accused upside down, as Lyn walked atop a conveyor belt.

“Just uhhhh….a blue hedgehog that loves adventure,” Lyn remarked. {reference to Sonic Adventure 2}

“Who’re you?”

“An idiot in a blue box,” {reference to Doctor Who S8: Death in Heaven}

“Who're you?”

“A Twilight Agent,”

“ANSWER THE OMNES DARNED QUESTION!”

“Yer gonna need more leverage than that lassie. I CAN SCREAM LOUDER THAN THAT ON A BAD DAY!” 

“NOT A CHANCE!”

“ALWAYS A CHANCE!”

“Attention: Amara Auer, your bosses(us), would like to have a word with you about {Distorted sound},”

Lyn looked left and right, up and down. There were no radios. 

The voice line repeated. Amara’s eyes widened.

[The woman with reddish brown hair kept flashing in her head]. The ringing came back, and the world became distorted.

Her face started appearing on every newspapier. Green lights flashed about.

There was a wild crumpling sound down below. Lyn’s eyes sharpened.

Down below, hoards of distorted Dreschers crawled up the world.

“Looks like the party’s comin’ ‘r way,” Lyn remarked as she pulled Amara up over her right shoulder.

She dashed along the conveyor belts, firing back six shots at the Nightmare Dreschers. The floor in front of her split apart, trying to trip her up.

She switched to her wire and SWUNG across from the gap, her cloak and Amara’s hair flowing in the breeze. The conveyor belts across shifted into a hill, down which our pair was rushed.

“Thanks for the express route, but we can’t afford the shippin’!” Lyn called out as she leapt across and latched onto a nearby elevator going up.

Nightmare Dreschers came down from above. Lyn shot a ton of them and swung her way through the world.

Amara narrowed her eyes, “Tell me who ya ‘re or I’m gettin’ off!”

“Eh?” Lyn questioned, eyes widened. “‘Re ya nuts patridiot?”

“This is my dream, they’re dangerous to you,” she stated, sweat on her face, her eyes shaking.

[The distorted name flashed in her head].

Lyn landed on a series of conveyor belts. Dreschers landed on it. She quick shot six of em down then kicked another off of the belt.

“Bad idea,”

“Yer a bad idea!” Amara snapped, elbowing Lyn in the face and jumping off as more Dreschers hopped on.

“Crap!” Lyn exclaimed, grabbing her with the wire and dodging a strike from a Drescher.

She shot it in the head. Ducked beneath another’s strike from behind and popped its head. She elbowed that one into the group behind before quick shooting at the group in front. Back to behind, she swept the leg, tripping multiple and shooting through them. 

The world tried to hit her wire. She swung it back and forth, careful to keep it and Amara safe. Amara was looking nauseous though.

Dreschers swarmed Lyn, so she leapt off, falling with Amara. Below them was the abyss. Lyn sighed and readied her right fingers.

A separate wire grabbed onto Amara. Across from them was a woman in black hooded jacket with a black mask,  blue jeans, and brown boots.

She had yellow eyes.

She fired a pistol at Lyn. Lyn swung herself to dodge and fired back, countering the shots. 

The woman wrapped her wire around a nearby structure and slid down it. She pulled out a second pistol and duel fired.

Lyn actually got hit, but she shrugged it off and fired back, destroying one of the pistols. The woman grabbed onto Lyn’s wire and kicked her hand aside.

She threw a newspapier onto Lyn and closed it on her. Lyn was gone, her wire sticking out of the closed papier. 

“Quick,” the woman and her familiar voice ordered, jumping back up to Amara and untying her from Lyn’s wire.

She let the newspapier with Lyn fall into the abyss while she shoved herself and Amara into another.

---

“Why can’t this ever be easy?” Lyn growned, getting up in a papier building.

It looked like a newspapier office, full of papier booths, desks, pencils and pens. Each desk was a mess, but one caught Lyn's eyes.

There was a newpapier that read: ‘Train Attack by Not Amara’ with a drawing of the train Lyn had been on. Her eyes narrowed and she started searching around the office for more papiers.

“Amara Auer,” a familiarly annoying voice called out.

There was a room with an iron door in the back.

Lyn raised the hem of her hood like an eyebrow. She passed by the newspapier she entered through and placed her head against the door.

A tiny, purple-red crack began to form in the wall nearby.

“We’ve enjoyed your work here, haven’t we Donna?”

“Of course we have,”

“Thank you,”

“But we don’t want you hanging around {distorted sound} anymore,”

“Okay,”

“Wow, just like that?”

“course, I wasn’t gettin’ nothin’ out of her anyways,”

“That seems unusual, she didn’t say anything, did she?”

“N-no, I just said-,”

“Well you just said, but the two of you spent a long time together, and you’ve been on this for so long, I’d of thought she’d have mentioned *something*,”

“Nope…nothing,”

“I see, do you see,”

“I see indeed. Good. You’ve wasted enough time to create this trap for ‘animas tenebrarum’,”

The metal door turned to papier.

“Oh, ya didn’t have to surprise me,” Lyn remarked, smirking and turning around as Papier Dreschers crashed through the newspapier she came from.

She quick shot six of them. She grabbed one with her whip. Another came in close. She spun, wrapping the wire around its head and popping it out while taking out the other.

The Dreschers stormed in from where she came.

“Sorry lads, lasses, ahn all the other sasses, but I have to report this place for a hostile work environment,” she remarked, grabbing a desk with her whip and FLINGING it around the room.

A Drescher got close. She elbowed it with her left, quick firing two Dreschers before taking out the first. Another came for her right. She snapped its arm and clubbed its head with it.

She pulled a desk close, destroying more Dreschers. She took a hit from a Drescher behind her.

She was surrounded. Beneath her were newspapiers and clips of papier all strewn about. She quickly folded a ton of them, making ninja stars.

“I never get tired of goin’ nuts in this place,”

As all the Dreschers charged her, she spun the stars around. They encircled her, stunning them so she could shoot them.

They tried to charge her in one place. She pulled all of her stars together into one MASSIVE star and threw it through them.

As more Dreschers came near, she spun and jumped like a ballerina. She caught the star mid-air, splitting it up and stunning the many. In quick succession, she whipped and shot them down.

She reached down to the ground and picked up a newspapier, “Thanks for the party, but I’m on the clock,”

She leapt into the newspapier, closing it on her way out. The Dreschers rushed to follow as the crack in the wall grew bigger.

They all turned their attention to it.

……..

Lyn found herself in a different world of conveyor belts. 

The newspapier in her hands dissolved.

She checked the time, “crap,”

---

Amara looked around anxiously. She and the other woman swam out of a pool of ink. They were in a MASSIVE tube surrounding a large amount of ink. It would’ve been a river if it were moving.

“W-where am I- Who‘re you?!” She exclaimed, spitting out oil.

“Amara, its okay,” she responded, taking off her hood and mask.

Standing before Amara was her dear sister, Armina Auer, “Yer safe now,”

To Be Continued………