faerie rift chronicles 01 - faerie rift by jae vogel Page B

up seemingly moments late in the astral realm.
    The room was the same, relatively speaking, except that certain books spun about in mid air, while the others bobbed on the surface of the shelves like waves in the ocean. The dogs recognized me, and both of them nodded to acknowledge my presence. Erol, on the other hand, continued his work unaware that I was lucidly operating within a sub-conscious state. He was working on a solution to some sort of problem, and apparently having quite a bit of difficulty about it. He was talking to himself, and throughout the dream, the voice echoed around the room, reverberating against itself.
    "Unreal... unreal... unreal... By all accounts ... counts... counts.., it should have been there .. er... er... er... "
    The sounds of papers being shuffled from one stack to another, as well as the sound of books opening and closing followed suit. Looking down, I could see Amethyst biting at herself as if scratching some kind of itch. She only kept this up for a moment, and then was apparently satisfied with her progress, as she lay back down and offered me a lazy, but inquisitive eye.
    I rose from the couch and walked over toward the workbench where Erol hovered. To my surprise, he was literally three or four inches off the ground in this realm, which I found to be incredibly funny. I stared at him with curiosity until I was too dizzy to continue forward with the inquiry.
    His hands and eyes were moving at incredible speeds. I could literally see the thoughts flying around in his head, and down onto the papers around him. He was working on something, and there was math involved that I wasn't quick enough to understand. I looked down and the other dog was staring straight at me, narrowing her eyes.
    It was a warning.
    “You go anywhere near my master, and I will do everything within my power to fuck you over."
    The message was clear in my brain. As clear as anything I had ever heard from Thane. The dog had spoken.
    I offered a nod, and then stepped back a pace, so I could provide Erol with the space the dog had demanded, while still being able to peep over his shoulder.
    The numbers flew up into the air and swirled around the surface of the desk, forming runes and the mirrored surface of a portal.
    He's using math to scry... I thought, staring at him.
    Suddenly, he stopped, and turned in my direction.
    "What's that.. at ..at ..at..?"
    I held my breath and stood there, a phantom against the background of his study. He stared at me, and reached out his hand to touch my form. It passed right through me, and he turned down to the dog.
    "Rosemary, do you see something?"
    The dog snorted, and laid its head down on the ground.
    Over in the corner, sprawled out over a rigid couch, I could see my own body passed out half beneath the worn blanket. I looked naked, as my body pushed outward between the tears in my clothing. Erol stared at my sleeping body for a moment, and then stared back down at the dog. One final glance was cast in the direction of my dream body, and then he shuffled back over toward the standing desk.
    "Rosemary..."
    "Unique that I found... ound... ound... her there. Could be another piece of syner... syner.. er... gystic data.. da..da."
    Experimentally, I pushed up off of the ground with my mind, with the expectation that I would not necessarily come back down again. I began to float upward through the air, where I hovered for some time over the standing desk watching Erol work.
    The frustration was obvious to perceive, and honestly kind of irritating to watch. His mind worked like a maelstrom, circling around the same conclusions over and over again. Every point of his research was pushing toward a singular factor, but he did not have the relief that proof provided. Instead, he was simply being driven by some form of madness, forward into a future that he couldn't quite apprehend.
    I stayed there for a while and watched him, doing my best to absorb all of the information he was working