A nightmare and further planning

I had a terrible nightmare: Al’Reeza was sitting heavily on my chest, opening my skull, painfully rummaging through it and greedily digging after something precious. Every movement of her strange hands with their double thumbs sent waves of agony through my head, when she squeezed my brain and ripped it multiple times apart, pulling out chunks of bloody mess and devouring it with a cruel smile on her deep black lips.

I wanted to plead, I wanted to scream, but couldn't, because a giant furry paw laid across my mouth, immobilizing my jaw while covering all of my face except for the eyes, squeezing painfully and gouging deep, bloody wounds with its claws.

As weak as I was, I wanted to fight, wanted to push them all off but I couldn't, because Illyára held my arms with her lean, strangely long fingered, equally double thumbed hands in an iron grip behind my back. I couldn't move even an inch, let alone break free, despite all my struggle.

Helplessly I laid there. I couldn't move. I couldn't talk. I couldn't scream, just endure the cruel, merciless torture the girls inflicted on me.

Despite that I still struggled to fight! I squirmed. I writhed. I tensed my muscles to their limit and further. I tried to breathe in, against the immense weight of the demoness on my chest. All futile!

A tremendous pressure started to build in me, a power that pushed against the forces that held me bound. It pushed aside the pain from Illyára's grip, it pushed aside the pain from Lily’s claws, it even started to push away the pain from Al’Reeza’s greedy paws in my skull!

I primal howl ripped out of my chest, fought through my throat and escaped my lips as a raw scream that shattered the prison of this awful dream.

My eyes flew open and my ears still heard the echo of a scream that actually writhed free from me. My bewildered gaze recognized the familiar surroundings, my hammock, my Munchie, the big crater, the lava lake, all the basaltic rock, …and the large furry form of Lily squatting nearby, watching me with a somewhat amused, maybe a little bit sympathetic look on her hairy muzzle.

“Nightmare?” she grumbled in her deep, growling voice.

I gave her a weak look from bleary eyes.

Obviously!

“What’s happening out there?” I asked with a hoarse voice.

She shrugged.

“Yára is on the lookout up the rim,” she pointed upwards, “attacking whenever and whatever she can, and Reeza hunts the beasts down in the forest, zigzagging above the trees and roasting everything in sight.”

I felt sick. War really was not my thing!

“How long did I sleep?”

I did not want to ask what she was doing here!

The beast girl shrugged again.

“Maybe two candles. Seven short ones at most.”

Groaning, I fumbled for my phone. These damn different units!

The clock on my phone showed 11 pm, yet it was still broad daylight outside.

Another groan. Could I expect an isekai-jetlag of all things too?

“Can you tell what daytime it is?” I asked weakly.

Her look sharpened.

“Around three candles past noon.” she answered. “Or approximately eight short candles.”

Her piercing yellow eyes gazed intently at me.

“How do you feel?”

I stifled a sharp reply. What did she think I looked like? All rise and sunshine?

Instead I shook my head.

“I think my mind is processing some serious trauma.” I croaked. “I was transported from earth to a completely different world - one with uncanny, disturbing similarities and some more uncanny and disturbing differences. I was mentally attacked, wounded and healed, there is a big, looming threat flying above us, we are supposedly surrounded by probably the most hostile environment on this planet, and I don’t have the slightest clue how all of this would’ve happened. So what do you think?”

I spoke neutrally, extra non accusingly, since all of that almost certainly wasn’t Lily’s fault. Still she furrowed her prominent brow ridge and narrowed her eyes.

“Hey! It’s a lot to take in, I get that, but you won’t make it better by whining about it. What shall I say? Stranded of all places in Skîbæria: with almost no supplies, inexplicably and viciously under attack by one of the most dangerous monsters in our whole world, most of my comrades and friends lost or dead, and I can’t do a thing except watching a nightmare driven stranger who seems to be even more useless than me. Should I continue?”

Her harsh voice rattled me perhaps even more than her harsh words.

“No, it’s alright.”

Slowly I got into a sitting position on my hammock. My unfamiliar weight made balancing in this thing even more precarious than normal, but I had to train myself if I wanted to last.

“Al’Reeza told me she had a plan.”

Slowly my normal voice came back.

Lily cocked her unibrow.

“Really? To me, that sounded more like a desperate attempt to grasp at straws!”

Involuntarily I broke into a smile.

“What?” she huffed.

“Nothing, I just had the same thought.” I answered, shaking my head.

“And? What are you gonna do?”

“May I ask you some questions?” I asked back.

She huffed again and rolled her eyes.

“Go on,” she said, sounding annoyed already. Illyára had told me about her short temper. I decided to ignore it.

“How is the terrain outside the caldera to the south?” I asked my first important question. “Is it downhill, uphill or flat?”

She pondered shortly and then - for the first time - actually managed a factual answer.

“At first it goes a little bit downhill with rocky ridges radiating outward from the caldera.” she said slowly, “but it is practically just a flat plain afterwards.”

That was good to hear! So I asked my second important question.

“How are the snow conditions out there? Is it deep or shallow? Are there many snow drifts?”

“In the vicinity of the caldera the snow is pretty deep.” she answered. “There are also some snow drifts. The ridges are making the snow cover unpredictable. But the flatter the terrain becomes, the thinner the snow gets. The open plains sometimes have no snow cover at all, just blank ice.”

I nodded. It was clear: the first miles would be the most dangerous ones.

“Last question.” I said. “How good - and most importantly - thorough are the cloaking abilities of Illyára and Al’Reeza?”

The beast girl looked at me bewildered, so I elaborated.

“Are they cloaking just sight or sound also? How good are they at blocking detection of casted magic?”

“I don’t know what you are getting at.” Lily shook her head. “But when either of the girls were cloaking our group, a dragon could fly past us a few feet away and not spot us.”

I was impressed!

“Were you sailing with your iceboat at that time?” I asked to be sure.

“We obviously stopped and didn’t make a sound.” the beast girl explained, sounding again a little bit annoyed.

“I assume your tracks were covered?”

She rolled her eyes.

“What do you think?”

I took that as a yes.

“Magically?”

I just had to be sure.

“Yes, of course!”

The annoyance was palpable now.

“It’s the easiest way. And also easily hidden, because it doesn’t need very much mana. Illyára is especially good at it.”

“Well, that sounds good!”

I smiled to disperse the cranky mood.

“Now my last question: did anybody warm your group magically or used magical protection against the cold when the dragon was so close?”

“How many last questions do you have in storage?” shot the beast girl back. I was about to try to sooth her, but her reply came quicker.

“Yes, protection from the cold and sometimes simultaneous heating is absolutely crucial out there. Of course we were also protected by thick clothing, but when it’s windy, it may not be enough. So yes, there was some subtle trapping of our body heat and supportive warming via magic during this incident. Despite that the dragon had no clue that it was flying just a few feet by us.”

I broke into a huge grin and rubbed my hands.

"Perfect! I think I have a solution!”