Mashup #17

Mashup of Dreams

Author’s note: Thank you to Bradan Writes Stories and Jonathon Sawyer for being such good sports and signing off on this, sight unseen. I hope you enjoy the story and receive it in the spirit in which it was intended.

Bradan was transporting precious cargo: sacks and sacks of money. He gracefully parked his 18-wheeler then headed inside the convenience store to stock up on Mountain Dew. Upon his return, he was shocked to find that his truck had acquired a passenger. Bradan stared at the girl now sitting next to him in the cab. She had fiery red hair which curled around two small devil horns, and wore a low-cut tank top, denim skirt and knee-high boots.

“Hands up, this is a robbery! Pew pew!” The girl grinned and fired finger guns in Bradan’s direction. If her intent was to put him at ease, it failed and only made her appear more bizarre and out of place.

“Heeeeeeeeeyyyyyyy uninvited-stranger-in-my-truck, can I help you with something?” He said it jokingly, figuring it was best to stay on her good side. She seemed a bit unpredictable.

The girl’s eyebrows disappeared into her flaming hairline. She cocked her head and jerked one shoulder down as if these words were a personal insult. “Are you serious!? It’s me, Luci. You know, not Lucifer.”

“Look,” began Bradan, “if this is a cosplay thing, I’m flattered that we’re that famous and you did a pretty good job with her, but I’m gonna need you to get out of my truck now.”

“OH, CUMON DUDE!” cried Luci, losing her patience, “I was hoping we could skip this part, I’m kinda in a rush over here!! Yes, I’m real, yaddayadda, Yes, I’ve been infiltrating your dreams, so that you write my story, blahblahblah. ARE WE CAUGHT UP NOW!??!”

Yeeesh, what a piece of work she is, thought Bradan. Out loud he said: “you’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?”

Surprisingly, Luci perked up at this. “I am THE baddest bitch, baby. So, are you gonna help me or not, fearless author?”

“With what exactly?”

“It’s hard to find real magic in this world and I need more than what I’ve got, so we’re going to kidnap Grand Hierophant Eshami from your Medium pal Jonathon Sawyer and use hers. Any questions?” She asked brightly.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I have many questions,” Bradan nearly spit his Dew all over the gear shift. One (formerly) fictional character was enough of a headspinner, and now he was being told Eshami wasn’t purely fictional either? WHAT!?

“Ok, well, ask them on the way.”

Bradan had a sneaky suspicion that today would forever alter his understanding of Medium’s fictional characters. And given what he knew about Luci, he was suddenly worried it would all end in fire…

Luci’s eyes flashed crimson and a swirling, smoky red and black portal appeared in place of the passenger side window. She grabbed Bradan’s hand and pulled them both into its whirling depths.

When the smoke cleared, the duo found themselves in a living room. It was ordinary in every way except that it was in Canada. Also, it belonged to Jonathon Sawyer. There was a cat (Kobe) laying across a desktop keyboard and a second cat (Oswald) stretched out under the coffee table. Oswald blinked at the new arrivals, then put a paw across his eyes as if to hide his face with a mask that was not a mask. This was all he was willing to do about the intruders; Neither cat got up to investigate any further.

Luci wanted Bradan to knock out Jonathon Sawyer, but he refused, so Luci did it herself. When Jonathon Sawyer was laid out, unconscious, on the couch, the veins in Luci’s forearm began to glow a deep, brick red and they writhed under the surface of her skin. She placed a hand with carefully manicured nails over Jonathon Sawyer’s temple and began to whisper under her breath. Slowly she drew her fingers away and a milky, white mist followed her palm away from his head.

As Bradan stared in shock, the mist materialized into none other than Grand Hierophant Eshami. She wore a long silvery dress with a cloak over it as if she had come from somewhere cold. Her long hair was plaited into a single French braid and she stood with graceful poise befitting her connection to the Sacred Mysteries, in spite of having just randomly arrived in Jonathon Sawyer’s living room.

“Well, Dang…” Bradan didn’t know what to say.

Eshami took in the situation quickly and started to draw her crossbow, but black tendrils jetted out of Luci’s hands and promptly wrapped her up like a mummy from her ankles to her neck.

“Hero! Help!” Eshami tried to rouse Jonathon Sawyer.

At first, Jonathon Sawyer thought the voice was part of his dream. After all, it was not unusual for him to dream of the great and powerful yet elegant and sensual Eshami.

Jonathon woke up just in time to see a girl with red hair and — were those devil horns?? — drag a real-life Eshami into a glowing red and black portal. A hand with blood-red nail polish reached back to grab Bradan, but he dodged out of reach just as the portal made a slurping sound, spiraled in on itself, and disappeared.

“So….. that just happened..” Said Bradan awkwardly, aware that this was not how he pictured meeting THE Jonathon Sawyer in person for the first time.

“Uh, yeah, I’m confused actually. WHAT exactly just happened?”

Bradan quickly filled him in on how his Medium character, Luci (not Lucifer) turned out to be real (surprise!), took him from his truck in The United States and transported him to Canada for the purpose of kidnapping Jonathon Sawyer’s character, Eshami, from his mind and using her magic for, well, something. He hadn’t actually gotten that information from the mildly fiendish Luci.

Jonathon Sawyer left the room for a few minutes and returned with a full-size replica of Orcrist, the legendary sword of Thorin Oakenshield. “Well, I do know that Eshami asked for help. And I intend to provide it to her. If we’re taking on a possibly evil entity with demonic power, we’re probably going to need this,” he said wisely.

“Sweet!” Said Bradan. “Do you have any way of conjuring a portal, though?”

“Negatory,” replied Jonathon Sawyer. “Oh, wait! I do have a magical dice set, though!”

“A… magical dice set…” Bradan was skeptical.

“Yah! I got them from a specialty games store. The guy said they were for display only unless I ever needed real magic. I thought he was joking, but seeing as how your formerly fictional character Luci has kidnapped my formerly fictional character Eshami… it might be worth a try.”

Jonathon Sawyer pulled two character sheets out of a folder and handed one to Bradan. “I’ll build a level 12 wizard. You build an advanced sorcerer. My wizard will use a scrying spell to see where Eshami’s being held. Then you can teleport to her and I’ll use my next turn to get us all back here safely!”

Jonathon Sawyer threw the d20 on behalf of the absent Eshami to determine resistance to the scrying. “Yes! It fails! The wizard knows where she is!”

Bradan quickly grabbed two d10s to roll for a successful teleport.

The dice came up with a 1 and a 3, or 13%. Mishap. A lamp exploded in the corner of the room. Both players flinched and ducked reflexively.

“My turn,” said Jonathon Sawyer.

The second teleportation attempt was successful. There was a whooshing sound as, with the help of the magic dice, the teleportation spell really took effect. The character sheets looked as if they were melting, like they were being sucked away somewhere atom by atom. Then it was all down to Bradan to attempt yet another teleportation miracle and bring all the characters home. The dice tumbled from his hand:

1d10 (9) x10 = 90

1d10 (7) x1 = 7

Total = 97%

All the gods and goddesses must have been with him. As the dice stopped, the displaced atoms trickled back into the living room like sand through an hourglass. As they connected, the character sheets of the unnamed wizard and sorcerer began to reappear and the form of a girl also took shape. Not just any girl, Jonathon Sawyer and Bradan realized. It was —

“ESHAMI!” Bradan yelled excitedly! “Yes! It worked! You’re back! That was FREAKIN’ AWESOME!” He thrust his fist at the ceiling.

Jonathan Sawyer was a little bit starstruck and his ears went a little bit pink when he looked at her. “Eshami,” he said, “I can’t believe you’re really here. In my living room.”

Eshami’s cheeks matched the colour of Jonathon Sawyer’s ears. “Thank you for bringing me to safety, Hero!”

With a small popping sound Luci rematerialized. And she was pissed.

“I.Still.Need.Eshami’s.Magic.” she hissed the words out between her teeth.

“Yes, but why…” wondered Bradan “I’m not entirely sure you should have it.”

“You did sort of kidnap her without asking, you know, ermm, Luci.” Jonathon Sawyer was still getting used to addressing formerly fictional characters in his living room.

That was it. Luci’s eyes went red and the coffee table suddenly erupted in flames. Oswald stretched, calmly walked over to Jonathon Sawyer and put a paw on his knee as if to say (in a posh British accent): “Yes, well, there’s fire now, so it’s probably time to be going. Make sure you bring food.”

Bradan picked up Kobe, Jonathon picked up Oswald, and Eshami led the way out of the burning house.

“So, would anyone like to get a latte?” asked Jonathon Sawyer enthusiastically, looking around at Medium pal Bradan and Medium character Eshami, “there’s a place just around the corner.”

They all walked away into the sunset hand in hand. And just as predicted, this story ended in fire.

Author’s note #2: An extra thank you to Jonathon for helping me write the D&D scene with names changed (lol). This story is a response to Mashup 17 as well as a February Prompt from The Kraken Lore. I got all the points except the one about making the stolen thing a mundane item. Kidnapped/Returned Eshami is certainly not a mundane item! Total points = 12.5 , I suppose, since I counted, but didn’t make a tally box. 🤷‍♂️