Title: Nightmare revisited.
Authors Stana and Kit.
Date 5/6

It was a terse, encompassing silence that surrounded the party, but they continued to 
travel in it just the same. Whether because of uncertainty or fear, none in the group 
seemed to care to break the darkness around them with noise, which given their present 
situation, suited Stana just fine. They'd been following the effervescent gray "dirt" 
path for some time now with no change in surroundings.
Something about this situation seemed familiar. But she was not sure what. That irked 
her, although everything in this whole world had swirled together into a miasma of 
chaos. It surprised her that she could still tell her front end from her back.

All in all, the earth chosen was reminded of the yellow path in the woods of Disney's 
Alice in Wonderland. Reminiscing, she half expected the little brush dog, broomed head 
and tail, to appear walking toward them as he erased the path.

*If only this was wonderland, * Stana scowled, *I could find a mirror to walk through 
and be home. * This was a bad sign, reminiscing about these things, she hated Disney.

She could sense the comforting presence of her guardian side her right, and the tenseness 
of his strained muscles as well. Clip was rightfully suspicious of their situation. This 
was no Wonderland. She also took comfort in the fact that he was between her and Audion. 
Apparently he didn't trust him any more now than before. Good enough, she didn't either.

"Clip" she murmured "I have a really weird feeling I've been here before." 

"You as well?" he asked, wiping the brown hair out of his eyes with a long, artistic hand. 
"'Tis strange, I believe I have also." 

"You've been here?" Audion asked, "Then you know where we are?" 

"That's just it." She replied "I don't. This place feels familiar, like a half realized dream-"

Both stopped and stared at each other in mute shock. The Elementalist watched the dawning 
recognition on both of their faces. 

"It can't be-" Stana began

"It is." Clip replied "It's the same onus as the borderline Nachtmer." 

"Are we dreaming then?" Stana looked around as if she expected the area to explode into 
the battleground of monsters and battles her last journey here had been.

"Neigh." The Unicorn's form flickered, nonplussed. "Our forms remain physical."

"Would you care to explain what you know?" 

The phrase, although polite, was demanding. Both Unicorn and girl looked at the Wanderer 
as if wondering how he got there. Audion suppressed a sigh, noting that the Earth Chosen 
was being more animated than he recalled seeing.

"It's the Nachtmer, the nightmare world that legend says the form of Chaos has been 
imprisoned, or something like that." Stana began. "Teri, Estela and I were brought here 
with the Guardians as a sort of test. From what I understand, which is precious little, 
this place was almost like a dreamer's walkroad. Well not this place" she amended, looking 
at the dull gray surroundings "But the main dreamways were." 

* The Nachtmer * Clip enunciated, not bothering to change forms, as he could vocalize in 
the semi reality they were in. * is something different. It is not pure dream, but an 
annex of the unconscious where Kedmar sleeps. It is not controlled, as the dream world 
can be, it is Chaos. * 

"How did we get here though?" Stana asked "And how are we here physically?" 

* That is something that I am not sure of * At one time, Clip would have been mortified 
of admitting lack of knowledge, now, however, he was too ill at ease to pretend.

"Are you sure; then, that we are there?" Audion asked. "If it is a world of the 
unconscious, how are we here travelling?" His countenance was customarily emoitionless, 
but internally his scowled. Chaos? If whatever they said was true, then it had to link 
to the demiplane that Ujistre had sealed Chaos into, and he wanted no part of walking 
about that prison. He could remember vaguely hearing the Tower masters talk about the 
duties of the elementalists, and facing Chaos as it woke from the imprisonment had been 
one of them.

Neither said anything for a moment, but then Stana nodded. 

"I think so. I don't have any answers why; but I can feel it all around me, seeping in 
under my skin. It's - creepy." She pulled her arms around her body in a hug to accentuate 
the thought and shivered. 

* Could it- * The Unicorn began tentatively, but then stopped. 

Stana brought her hand up to her forehead, her sinuses contracting with the stress of the 
moment. She looked up immediately at a sudden flash of pale colors in her peripheral vision.
The blackness of the Nachtmer fluxed, churned and spewed into the air before them a 
translucent, projector like image. As though part of a Roman frieze, the two dimensional 
figure of a woman loomed above a man within a militaristic tent. Though similar in coloration, 
she was like the sun in the arctic and he was like the sun on the plains. 

"General Lieh." Audion's musically low voice cut through the darkness just as starkly as the 
image in front of them. 

"Lyr!" Stana easily recognized R'Kelnin as the man bound on the ground of the image, and 
the idea of that situation bristled her. She felt one hand closing into a fist. "What is this? 
What do you mean, General Lieh? Do you know her?"

Audion's eye's glimmered hostility in the light of the image, but his voice was emotionless, 
"The Lady General is the commander of the Sixth. " 

"The army pursuing us!" Stana snapped, her fright angering her tone. "Do you mean she has 
General R'Kelnin? Did S'Kae fall?" 

Clip snorted, tossing his head in distrust, not comforted by the distress the human was 
exhibiting 
* This doesn't matter. We've no way of knowing if what we see is reality or simply a trick of 
the Nachtmer. We need to keep moving; we don't know if the flux will move against us-* 

"Once it has our attention diverted." Audion finished, and walked straight on along the path, 
through the image. Almost immediately the image changed, and depicted the frail form of young 
girl entangled within giant vines and surrounded by black-crimson blooms.

"What-" Stana couldn't finish her thought, the terror on the girl's countenance too raw and 
unbridled. She felt a shadow of that horror on her own face as she stepped back hastily, 
memories of vines like that too close to the surface. They-they almost looked like what 
she had- no what the amulet had conjured in S'kae; her mind didn't want her to finish 
the thought. Her stomach turned warningly, and she lifted her fingers to her mouth in 
remberance of blood soaked earth and a gore-smattered dress. She heard Audion;s voice, 
laced with pain and true fear, but his words were incomprehensible. 
The distraction was blessed, if increasingly troubling. 

;<She wears an Elementalist;s rings, caught by vines no natural seed could produce;the Ribbon;
How could it have been found? >In his shock, he;d slipped into Freylian speech, but he 
didn't seem to notice or care. The Ribbon, one of the three artifacts of Chaos, 
could control any Elementalist on its tether.

The image dissolved, equally as startling to the three, and reminded them of Clip's earlier 
warning. 
Before they could act, though, Stana heard a familiar voice as its source approached 
effortlessly from the blackness. 

" I knew you;d come back!"