Harriet woke up with headache, enough so that she refused to open her eyes when she first realized she was regaining consciousness. She always found it frustrating trying to think around the pain, hoping that if she remembered what caused pain, she might be able to come up with a way to fight it. Was she drinking last night? She didn't remember doing so. Wasn't it a school night, anyway?
Oh, that's right. She was fighting a giant lizard monster.
She sat up suddenly, eyes open. Vicky, who sitting on the floor nearby, squeaked in surprise and scooted away from the bed in reflex. Harriet rubbed her eyes upon seeing her; the sleepiness in her eyes seemed to cause Vicky's figure seemed to shrink and grow right before her.
Harriet looked around. They seemed to be in some sort of square cage, about 15 feet on a side, with other cages positioned around them. The bars seemed to go straight into the rock ceiling and floor. Each cage, including their own, had two or three hide cots and a large urn in a corner. Harriet was occupying one of the two in their area. Evan was on the far side of their own cage, talking quietly to someone in the next one over. Vicky, who had stumbled back onto her hands, pushed herself forward so she was sitting up straight again and looked over her shoulder at her classmate.
Evan stopped his conversation when he realized he was being watched. He stood and came over next to her, . He seemed taller than she remembered. "Good, you're awake," he said in a hushed tone. "How are you feeling?"
"Somewhat upset that it wasn't a dream," she replied. "Still a little foggy. The last thing I remember was pinning the guy with that spear-thing."
"Alright. After you did so, something happened and you began to freak out a little--"
"That's right," Harriet interrupted, looking down and holding her head as she her memory came back in haze. "There was something odd about how he looked at me. Like I was..." She looked back at Evan, wide eyed. "Like I was ten-feet tall or something."
Evan grinned. "You were. Anyway, when you realized this, you got startled. You let go of the spear, backed up and shrank quite a bit--"
"Shrank?" She shook her head, trying to keep up. "Evan, what is going on here?"
Evan continued to grin. He smiled the patient smile of an adult who's reading a story to a child but can't get past the first page. "I can explain how things work, where we are, or I can explain what happened. Why don't you tell me which one you'd like to hear first. I just need you to avoid being so loud."
She thought for a moment before replying in a much softer tone. "Let's start with where we are."
"Ah, of course. It always starts with the hardest question." He stood up, pacing a little. "Well, currently, we are in the Pen. It's like a prison that the goblins use for those that they believe 'aren't allowed here.'
"In a grander sense, though, we're on the Edge, not too far from the Precipitous Bar."
Harriet stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she put her head in her hand. She couldn't keep up, and the headache, although fading, was not helping matters.
Before she began to ask questions, Vicky spoke up. "The goblins are the things we saw, and you stabbed, on the way in. They live in the area around here and tend to not like visitors, although they don't go in the bar. And the Edge is pretty much the edge of reality."
Evan shook his head. "That's not really what it is."
Vicky shrugged. "It's a semi-hypothetical place that only somewhat exists in what is the known universe. It's an undefinable space somewhere between physical reality and our minds."
"Psychoplanes," Evan said, crossing his arms.
"Whatever. You're not even sure if we're really here. It's the edge of reality."
Evan looked surly for a moment, then smiled and sighed. "Ten years studying this place, and yet still others have a better sense of what's going on than I do. Applause to the young student."
"I'm just trying to put a way that doesn't require two days of explanation. Like yours did."
"Of course. But brevity is a much a gift as understanding."
"Two days?"
Evan jumped at Harriet's sudden interruption. Vicky was suddenly enchanted with something at her feet.
"Yes. You were unconscious for quite some time."
"Two days."
"More or less. It's hard to judge time here, with any sort of accuracy anyway." Harriet only looked at him with a raised eyebrow, which Evan took to mean to continue on. "It's always sunset."
Harriet continued her puzzled expression. Evan sighed. "Alright, let me start from here. Ten years ago... well, ten years from my perspective, my uncle and I came to the same woods we were in not too long ago, pursuing an old family legend about the Precipitous Bar. We had some lore passed down from my grandfather that said a gateway of sorts would be appearing there. It took us almost a week of searching with a few other family members to find the stream we went down. The stream has some sort of strange effect on one's judgement. Uncle Todd believes that it's because it was projecting our physical bodies onto the psychoplane, although my theory is that our consciousness was actually being removed while our bodies were being held in--"
"Evan." Vicky interrupted.
"Right. Brevity. Anyway, we made our way through, fumbling much like I assume the two of you did. Although you, Miss Stanford, did surprisingly well. Something about the Edge likes you."
Harriet rubbed the back of her head, where her headache was still lingering. She wasn't surprised to find a sore spot. "Not all of it, apparently."
"We're coming to that. Anyway, my uncle and I came here and were set upon by the same gray-skinned Goblin you so elegantly dispatched. However, we were not as--lucky isn't the word. Driven, I suppose fits best. We were cornered, and frightened, and quickly captured. The goblins seemed to grow in front of us the closer they came, so we gave in. And they took us here."
"Why were you looking for the bar?"
"Oh, well, now that is a question. You know, the legends say that the drinks at the bar can heal all ailments. They say you can meet the dead there, or even creatures from other worlds. They also say that the bartender has the answer to all problems.
"Our family has been looking for the bar for generations. My grandfather disappeared while looking for it, shortly after her turned seventy; his body showed up years later, although he looked like he had only passed days after, dead from--of all things--lung cancer."
"Are you saying he got lung cancer from living here?"
Evan shook his head. "He had cancer before he disappeared. It was slow, and painful; far more painful than the peaceful look on his face had shown when we found him. I suppose that's why I wanted to find it, though. I was there when he was found, and I wanted to know why he looked so peaceful.
"It took a sharp turn when we got here, though. Being in this prison for ten years... It wasn't easy on us."
"Ten years? You got taken when you were three?"
Evan smiled. There was a tray sitting by head of the bed that Harriet noticed as he walked towards it. "Here," he said, grabbing a piece of hard bread off of it. "You've been asleep for two days. You must be hungry."
She took the bread, but realized she wasn't hungry. "No, thanks," she said.
"Water, then," he said, handing her a clay jug of clear water. Harriet turned this down as well, confused. "You've been out for two days; even if you hadn't, you were running and fighting. But you're not tired, hungry or thirsty. Two days have passed here, but to your body, it's probably been about five minutes."
"So... there's a time difference."
Evan nodded. "I was gone for ten years. To the rest of the world, though, I was only gone two days.
"Whatever theory is correct, something is going on here that somehow heightens our minds, speeding up our experiences. The link between our emotions and our interaction with the world here is much more direct. It can cause some disturbing physical changes."
"Like what?"
Evan suddenly leaped at Vicky's flank, looking like he was about to swing. Vicky shrunk back, then literally shrunk. She lost more than a foot in height before she snapped back to normal as it became obvious Evan wasn't intending to hit her. Growling, she took a swing at his knee, but he sidestepped quickly.
"What we feel can affect how we appear. Fear normally causes one to shrink. From what others have said, hope can make one powerful, uncertainty leads to frailty, selflessness can make one impervious and courage-"
Evan walked over to the bars of the cage. With a smile on his face, he pulled on the bars. The thick steel bars started to bend, until he suddenly yanked and ripped them out of the ceiling.
"Courage can make us stronger." He walked out of the cage and into the next one. "It's going to take a bit, but we can get out of here as long as we don't get frustrated. We'll talk as we walk. C'mon."
Harriet walked out from between the bars. "What happened to me anyway?"
"You got startled," Vicky said from behind her. "When you shrank, that yellow one we passed back came up and knocked you out with that sheath he had. Evan said we should give up, and they brought us here."
Harriet cringed. "Guess my emotions are my weakness."
"Yeah, but they're you're strength, too," Evan said. "You grew to ten-feet tall! I don't know what you were thinking about, but I'm thankful for it. That old gray goblin wasn't planning on let me escape again. So whatever you were thinking of then, don't forget it."
Harriet swallowed and nodded. She found herself hoping that they simply didn't run into these goblins again.
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