A note from Coffeepen3
Alp-
1.from german folklore
PREVIOUSLY-
"Go."
The goblin fled, tripping over roots and its own fear.
Silence returned to the grove.
Her shoulders sagged. The whip dissipated with a hiss of steam. Her breath ca shallow again, blood dripping from her nose onto the forest loam.
But she stood. Alive. Victorious.
Raphael, perched silently above, watched from the pine. His eyes followed her every movent, every ripple of her magic, like a hawk watching the sea stir.
"...Interesting," he murmured, voice barely a whisper.
-**-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Miriel staggered back against the gnarled bark of the tree, breath catching in her throat. Her gaze lifted—t his.
Raphael stood perched upon a thick branch above, silent as the moonlight dripping between the canopy. Their eyes locked, and for a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Nothing was said. Not yet.
"Thank you," Raphael's voice was the first to disturb the hush—low, steady, and unexpected.
"Your warning today saved my life, Lady Miriel."
Miriel parted her lips. Her voice was no more than a breath, a strand of silk pulled loose from the spool.
"You didn't need my warning."
THUMP. THUMP.
A twin rhythm surged in their chests. Not loud, but present—like distant drums in a fog. Both turned their gazes away, as if the air between them had grown too heavy, too charged.
THUD.
Raphael dropped from the tree, his cloak trailing behind him like the wing of a descending raven. He landed with the effortless grace of soone trained to kill, yet hesitant now, unsure.
"Lady Miriel," he said, gesturing toward the hollowed alcove nestled within the tree's trunk. Its interior had been carved with surprising delicacy, a cradle of moss and layered bark.
"Please rest there. It's unwise for a lady to sleep in the open."
Miriel stepped forward, brushing a loose lock of wet hair from her face. "No, I'm all right—"
"Please," he interrupted, and the firmness in his voice was gentle, but immovable. "There's always a risk of a nocturnal ambush. Especially near a water source."
She glanced around—tall grass stirring with night-breeze, crickets chirping, the glimr of the pond nearby. The water shimred, placid and dangerous in equal asure. Her gaze lingered on it.
'He's right,' she admitted inwardly. 'Monsters may fear the deeper places, but not the ones that lurk between shadows.'
Her eyes returned to the alcove, then to the boy before her. The one who carved it for her. Not a word of complaint on his lips.
"Thank you for your help, but—" she tilted her head, a soft crease forming between her brows. "What about you?"
Raphael scratched the back of his neck, suddenly finding his thoughts as tangled as the undergrowth at his feet.
'What do I even say?'
He opened his mouth. The lie slipped past his tongue like an eel through water.
"I'm going to et my friend."
It was the first ti Raphaeldor Tigranclaw had lied to soone.
And it hurt.
SWOOSH.
A shimring glyph—green and angular—ford beneath Miriel. It pulsed once, lifting her in a silent, spiraling levitation into the alcove. Wind curled the edge of her cloak as she floated upward like a feather on enchanted air.
She settled onto the soft moss with a flutter, eyes wide. "Thank you... again." Her fingers nervously twisted the edge of her braid.
Raphael offered a slight bow, his eyes avoiding hers. "The pleasure is mine."
He turned, but her hand twitched—reaching out instinctively. Her lips parted, the words forming in her chest, but her throat tightened.
Nothing ca out.
She pulled her knees to her chest, curling inwards, eyes still watching him vanish into the tree shadows. The mont his silhouette disappeared—
She bolted upright.
"Aah! You dummy!"
THWACK.
Her forehead t the bark. She groaned, clutching her head.
'I should've at least asked his na!'
Her face flushed crimson as she yanked at her hair in exasperation, burying her nose between her knees.
'Dummy! Idiot! Who just lets soone walk away like that?'
Then—like sunlight through cloudbreak—resolve struck. She lifted her head, defiant.
"I'm not a shy girl," she whispered. She raised a clenched fist. "Next ti—I'll ask him. I swear I will!"
Far below the cliff, in the echoing stillness of the Basque cave, Raphael stepped through the yawning stone mouth of the entrance. Pale moonlight illuminated the jagged walls, and a few lazy fireflies flitted between the cracks.
"Oho~"
A smug voice curled through the air like pipe smoke.
Drelgor hovered lazily by a stalagmite, his insectoid wings buzzing with a low, teasing hum. His helm glead with mischief.
"Oh my, Mr. Raphael," he drawled. "And how does it feel to do sothing romantic for once?"
Raphael didn't stop walking. His voice was flat.
"Mr. Drelgor, you must've watched too many traveling operas. That wasn't romantic."
Drelgor glided beside him, elbowing the air near his arm.
"Oh? So you just so happened to carve a cozy alcove in a tree trunk for a random girl who, may I remind you, led goblins to your camp?"
Raphael bit his lower lip.
I'm not in love. I joined the Academy to study—not to chase fairytales...
He exhaled slowly, eyes flickering to the night sky through a crack in the stone ceiling.
"It simply felt improper for a lady to sleep exposed to the wild," he said.
Drelgor crossed his arms with a smirk thick enough to spread on bread.
"Yes, yes, of course. Ever the gentleman. Why not craft little shelters for all the ladies of the forest, then?"
Raphael shut his eyes and groaned.
Drelgor chuckled, then gave a patronizing pat to his shoulder.
"Classic defense chanism: if I can't see the world, the world can't see ."
But Raphael didn't respond. His mind had drifted again—drawn not by the teasing, but by sothing else. Sothing softer.
A smile. A whisper. Sapphire eyes that had seen danger and still warned him.
"I need to find Theo. Or Sig. Or Leon," he muttered.
Drelgor tilted his helm. "Why? You've just had a long fight. You're injured. She's safe. You don't owe—"
Raphael looked up at him, brow furrowed with the simplest logic in the world.
"Mr. Drelgor, I don't lie. I told Lady Miriel that I was going to et my friend... so I need to."
Drelgor hovered, blinking slowly. Then, ever so faintly—he chuckled again.
"Hopeless," he whispered. "Utterly hopeless."
Drelgor's gaze lingered on a short sword strapped to Raphael's waist.
"Why are you not using it?" he pointed to the short sword.
A smile curved on Raphael's face.
"You will know when the ti cos."
And sowhere above them, up in the forest canopy where the wind whispered gently between branches, a girl clutched her knees and vowed to be brave.
Next ti.
She would ask his na.
LOCATION- BIGFOOT'S CAVE
The cave's wall illuminated by the random flickered of the torch. Leon's claymore lay beside him, the hilt clutched slightly.
The sword's blade had beco chipped as crevices crept on its blade like serpent. The Bigfoot's attack power is no joke.
Leon winced, brows twitching. Gasps exhaled through his mouth as his face snapped from one side to other. As if he was caught in a nightmare.
'What is this pressure on my chest?'
He shrieked in a black void.
"Boy!" a voice bood beside him, Threxil.
Leon looked at him,
"Sir Threxil, what is this pressure?"
Threxil waved his helm sideways,
"Boy, we are trapped."
Leon's eyes widened,
"Trapped? Where? Where are we!"
Threxil pointed to small crack in the black void. Light escaped sparingly through it.
"You have been trapped in a sleep paralysis."
He pointed to Leon,
"Try to regain your senses as much as you can, spread your aura."
Leon closed his eyes and concentrated- nothing.
"Once more," he gasped- nothing.
"Once more,"- nothing
"Once more,"- nothing
"Once more,"- nothing
Fingers twitched.
A faint blue aura enveloped his suspended consciousness.
"Aaargh!" Leon woke up with a jolt.
A figure sat on his chest—bluish-black skin stretched taut over a squat, dwarf-like fra. Its limbs were wiry, yet tense as coiled iron, and its ears tapered like an elf's, though ragged and torn at the tips as if gnawed by rats. Its eyes glowed—a milky, unnatural white—set too deep in its sunken face, and from under its sooty cap—a Tarnkappe, if the old hunter tales were true—thin wisps of shadow curled like smoke, dripping into Leon's throat.
He tried to move—he couldn't. His limbs were iron bars nailed to the earth. His breath caught, as though the weight of a stone slab pinned his chest. The creature grinned, revealing teeth like broken needles. It pressed a clawed finger to Leon's brow, and the Evil
Eye opened—right in the center of its forehead. Pale, lidless, and wet like a slug's belly, it pulsed with a grotesque rhythm. A ringing filled Leon's ears. A pressure crept behind his eyes like sothing squirming beneath his skull.
And then the whispers ca.
"You will never be enough," they hissed. "They all see what you hide."
Faces flickered in his mind. Theo. Sigmund. Raphael. Sophie. His father's back as he walked away. Blood on his own hands. Screams he rembered, and so he didn't.
No.
His heartbeat roared. Mana surged—but it was like trying to light a spark underwater. The creature pressed harder. Leon's vision flickered. He was slipping.
But then—instinct. Not thought. Instinct.
A guttural snarl ripped from his throat. His core flared—wild, untad. A surge of primal mana exploded from within, crackling through his muscles like a storm reborn. His arm snapped up, grabbed the Alp's wiry throat, and squeezed.
The creature shrieked—no voice, just a psychic wail. Its form shimred, blurring between a child, a crow, a dead woman's face—then back to its squat true form. It clawed at him, biting, hissing, the Tarnkappe slipping sideways off its head.
The mont the cap shifted, its form shimred again—and Leon could see it clearly. The spell broke. His lungs expanded with fire and air. He hurled the thing from his chest with a brutal heave. It crashed into the underbrush with a howl, scrambling upright with spider-like limbs.
But it didn't run.
It stared—Evil Eye wide, leaking so black ichor that hissed on the leaves. Then, like mist before a blade, it vanished—vanished into the folds of night, taking its cap and its poison with it.
Leon sat up, drenched in cold sweat, eyes glowing faintly with residual mana. His chest heaved. He looked down at his hands, trembling with fury, still half-curled into claws.
"That," he growled to no one, "wasn't a dream."
And then, like a beast sniffing prey, he turned his head toward the forest's edge.
"...I'm going to find that little freak and rip that hat off myself."
Threxil stood there with his hands folded,
"Boy, let's follow him or else the curse will get stronger."
Leon snapped to Threxil,
"How?"
Threxil tilted his helm. Leon understood the smirk underneath the helm.
SHING!
He picked up his claymore and swung it on his back.
"That's an Alp," Threxil announced as they drifted through the woods,
"They are creatures who feed on nightmares. Their hat- the Tarnkappe is the source of their invisibility, shapeshifting and nightmarish powers."
Leon stopped for a mont,
"Then what did I experience?"
"An Alptraum, also known as 'elf dream'."
Leon nodded,
"What about the eye?"
"That's their evil eye. Damage it and your curse will be lifted."
THUD!
Leon's knees buckled as his eyes stuggled to stay open.
"It seems you have the curse of 'Sloth'."
"Sloth?" Leon murmured.
"Sloth, in simple words, you are gonna fall asleep."
Leon staggered to a bark as drowsiness took over him.
"Ah shit!"
Leon stumbled to the floor.
THUMP!
A pair of familiar arms caught him. The figure's black hair waved with the wind as the shaft of his spear shimred in moonlight.
"Rest well, Leon." The figure whispered, "Let handle that lump of at."
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