"I don't mind. Not at all."
He waves his hand slowly and a transparent veil came to surround them. They could see through it, but as Garlock soon explained, it was an illusion of the realm, rendering them unseen. The puma wandered off behind a tree, vanishing from sight and allowing the scene to unfold...
The man shook his head, becoming more aware of his surroundings. He was in...a woods? Yes. Nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. Well, he was on a path, of course. He wasn't sure what happened or where he'd been going, just then. He looked back and forth along the path, as if uncertain. Where was he going?
"Home, perhaps."Yes, that sounded right. Whatever it was he'd been doing, he could go home and try to recall, to figure out wherein lay the lapse of his judgement. And so, he proceeded down the path. Now...to Garlock and Raven, he would vanish at one edge of his territory and appear at another, but to him...he was seamless, continuous. He saw and felt no transition point. It was to become an
endless night... At about the time he would appear to be growing impatient, hurrying along and beginning to wonder if he path would ever end, Garlock introduced the intersection. It was actually something he'd seen at another woods, listing directions to the towns of different countries. Perhaps in the modern-day future, something like this would be amusingly placed inside of a mobile army camp for treating wounded soldiers. Ah, but that is
another story, and of no relation to this one. The intersection had the desired effect: Confusion.
"I don't remember this being here. Ah well. Connlaoth is home. Connlaoth, I go."He turned left, and went down the path. Soon, he became aware, aware of something moving parallel to him in the woods. It was dark, stalking quietly, but it was just barely audible to him. This, Garlock did by design. The act instilled uneasy, a sense of urgency and concern. Was it dangerous? Why did it follow him? He began to quicken his pace. Doing so got a similar reaction, and a
snarl. Oh, that was bad... An animal was stalking him, and it sounded predatory. Shit... He moved faster. The creature loped in the woods, becoming closer, yet remaining somewhat indistinct. It was approaching the path. He got off of it, having spotted a tree with low enough branches to climb. He could defend himself up there, make a stand. He leapt and began climbing, the sound of the critter
much closer, making him look back for a second to see where it was. Nothing? Suddenly, there was a roar in his face as the puma was
right there to knock him off of the tree!
They fell in a mass of man and furry beast, screams and snarls meshing as he furiously and mindlessly fought in a panic...and then there was nothing there. No beast! No tree that he'd been trying to climb! Only the cuts and bruises that he'd received - nothing deep, just yet - and the shocked sensation of having been in such a battle...and then finding that he was back at the intersection, where he thought perhaps the sign was at the wrong corner and that it pointed Connlaoth in a different direction entirely. Clearly shaken, he began to move in that direction. This time, however, he would find an area that might seem familiar to him. Not because it was any place in particular, but in his deja vu, he would feel that he's been at this grouping of trees before. While he was trying to calm down and get his bearings - because the path had
ended and he unsure of himself just now - Garlock turned to Raven.
"I would be pleased if you would join in and remind him of what happened here, compound his fears. You can see the borders while he cannot. He will know his place and be hunted. We will exhaust him, wear him down, and then he will be more at our mercy than before. He will know the terrible helplessness of being overpowered and torn apart. And when he understands that we have taken him from the deadlands to hurt, there the torment will
truly begin."