Torvallis! wakes up in the bunkhouse

[Torvallis!]

[June 10th, 1:30pm]

Torvallis! tossed and turned on the hard wooden bunk. They slammed their face into a ladder.

"Cyanide," They sleepily intoned, "Tell the nice tree to move. Or burn. Burrrrrrrrnnnnn"
"'ssssss a very square tree . . .". Torvallis! opened their eyes.

"What? What?!". Torvallis! sprang upright and banged their head on the bunk above, "WHAT?!?!"

[Borin Ironhammer]

"Welcome back to the realm o'the living lad, I see ye had a wee nap." Borin says as he notices the fire mage wake up when he comes back to the bunkhouse for some gear he had forgotten. "I'm sure master Timmean would love t'see ye alive'n'well."

[Torvallis!]

[June 10th, 1:30ish pm]

"Ah! Clearly I am dreaming a fever dream deep in the woods far to the west of here! Or I've died and gone to a very strange afterlife, possibly one populated with the souls of people I've killed, however your tendency NOT to want to kill me convinces me that is improbable. Also, I do believe I've been a good fire mage in life and this place is suspiciously not on fire. "

"SO, Dream-Borin, will you give me any straight answer as to the type of realm this is?"

[Borin Ironhammer]

"Ye gotta learn te listen lad, it's the realm o'the livin'. Merryweather has got some stew on o'er in the tavern I think ye best be eatin' somethin' soon, yer all bones."

[Torvallis!]

"Ahah! You won't fool me into eating the food in the land of the dead! I don't know who this Merryweather is, but they sound like a poor imitation of someone I once knew. I've been trapped in dream realms before, y'know!"

Torvallis! got up and began walking around the Watering Hole and the various short paths nearby, carefully examining the differences from their memory. (Which is a lot, because they have a bad memory)

[Horns]

[June 10th, 1:30ish pm]

Horns whistled as he finished cleaning up the mess from lunch. The stew smelled delicious, with a lovely mixture of seasoning herbs. Horns breathed the scent in deeply and let the breath out in a happy sigh. He glanced longingly at the small pot of leftovers simmering on the stove. 'Just a little more cleaning, and it's all mine!' He thought as he moved to the next table. He had been so busy serving he hadn't gotten a bowl for himself, but that was about to change. As he moved, his gaze happened to fall on the window, and he saw a certain fire mage who seemed to paying a lot of attention to a leaf which had fallen on the path.

'Hey, Torvallis! is up!' Horns thought gleefully. His whistling stopped (Horns thought he heard someone softly praise a deity) as the glee turned to dread. 'Torvallis! shouldn't be up! They're in awful condition! Borin had to lift them to their bunk! They've been out cold for nearly two weeks, I've had to tend them everyday! Someone in that condition should not be walking about just after they wake up!' Horns' stomach growled wistfully as he passed the stew and ran off after his patient.

"Torvalis!," Horns panted as he reached his friend. "You," huff, "are in no," huff, "condition to be out of bed!" Horns tried to reclaim control of his lungs as he looked at Torvalis!'s face. "Have you hurt yourself again since this morning?" Horns reached into his medical kit for a strip of cloth without looking, and found only air. He looked down, bewildered, and found he had left it in the inn. Sighing, he ran a few steps back, and then realized that he should probably take Torvalis! with him. "Come along! I need to clean you up and check your injuries. And get you back in bed!"

[Torvallis!]

"Haha, no, I've been in a trap dream realm before, I know that sleeping brings me closer to death! Besides, this leaf is very suspicious. In this part of the hemisphere, the arboreal leafs should have uneven veinular parity, but as you can see, this leaf is perfectly symmetric. This could very well be a tell of the detail of the hallucination, or perhaps a hint of its origins. Y'know the fake dream Borin isn't even angry at me for the forest fire? How gullible does this realm think I am?!" Torvallis! tossed back their head and gave a loud HAH.

Torvallis! looked at their right shoulder suddenly, and then turned with glassy eyes back to Horns.

"Cyanide says I should burn you and find out what happens. Hm?" T! tilted their head to their left shoulder. "Bartholomew says that might be a waste of fire mana . . . and also not to do it, but he's always telling me not to burn things. What kind of fire mana tells you not to burn things?"

[Horns]

"The very wise kind!" Horns backed away slowly. "To burn something, fire mana must be used," Horns guessed, based on the wasting comment, "And, uh, clearly your fire mana don't want to leave you! They want to be your treasured friends and never leave your side! And you should keep them by your side!" Large beads of sweat rolled off the faun as he spoke. "Because they give such good advice!" Horns desperately hoped that the majority of Torvallis!'s fire mana would agree with the reasonable one, and would talk them down. Or at least distract them long enough for Horns to fetch Borin. "I-isn't that right, fire mana? You guys su-su-surely agree with me!" Horns absently wondered if mana could see/hear people who couldn't see/hear it, but quickly jolted back to reality when he realized that was a question for a time when a delusional fire mage wasn't threatening to burn him. The train of thought on what was causing the delusions was also filed away for later. Horns glanced over his shoulder, and saw he was getting closer to the tavern, but not close enough for comfort.

[Torvallis!]

[June 10th, 2pmish]

T! looked up from the leaf they were burning.

"Sorry, I got distracted. What's this you're saying about burning things? It sounds interesting!"

[Horns]

"Uh, I was saying, uh, maybe we could burn things in the bunkhouse! You have some new wounds which might need cauterizing!" Horns figured the wounds probably needed nothing more than bandaging, but Torvallis! didn't need to know that. If they were in the bunkhouse at least Borin would be around if they got violent, even if they refused to eat or sleep. Maybe then Horns could figure out what was wrong with them and cure them.

[Borin Ironhammer]

"Speakin' o' burinin' things I can't believe ye missed the forest fire that Timmean set. Although I spose ye wouldn't've like that we put it out." Borin says as he comes out of the bunkhouse. "If yer thinin' about cauterisin' any wounds though I would propose ye do it here. I put a lot o'work into savin' the inn from the forest fire and I'd like fer it te not burn down because horns is a medic who doesn't know how te use a bandage."

[Torvallis!]

"Heh, people blaming the earth mage instead of the fire mage. That'd be a new one! So whatever this realm is, it really wants me to stick around, and in particular, stick around the bunkhouse, hmmmmmmmm?"

[Torvallis!]

[June 19th, noon]

"So what you're saying is, none of you folks blame me for the forest fire?"

An incredulous Torvallis! sat at a table in the Watering Hole.

"Sorry, I know we've been over this, but I have a hard time grasping it still . . . You don't blame the Fire. Mage. For the Fire." Torvallis! was staring at the group as though they had accused them of putting water on a fire.

[Phineas J. Pennefeather]

Phineas walks into the room, takes a long look at the Fire mage and then looks outside at the charred remains of the meadow.

He slowly raises one hand and seems like he is about to speak. Instead, he then shakes his head, turns on his heal and leaves the room.

[Sponsored content]