Café de Nuit

"Oh, but you are!" Franklin smiles broadly. "Your time in the Kargat. Your road to redemption, which even lead you to Bluetspur and back. I'm not familiar with this current chapter of your life, but..."

Franklin trails off again as he closes his eyes and shakes his head back and forth. "No, this isn't right. I shouldn't be talking to you. You aren't real, and I am either hallucinating or seeing illusions again."

Franklin opens his eyes again, and he sighs softly seeing Cole and his companion still standing in front of him.

"Or maybe I am not real? Maybe I was never in Nova Vaasa... Or maybe I only remember things because I'm supposed to. I just don't know anymore."

"I'm reasonably sure I'm real. The rest of this is just as confusing to me as it is to you. My companion," he indicates Laurel, "is someone I'm quite certain I saw dead and saw buried. And yet here she is. I was in the sewers of Hazlan, and then I found myself here. Wherever 'here' may be."

Laurel looked at the strange man.

"I do not know who this Desilda Von Luchen is but my name is Laurel and I am most definatley real. Just how do you know Cole?"

"Well, my dear lady, I don't know him," Franklin pauses a moment to take a deep breath and collect his thoughts. "At least, I don't know him personally. What I have learned about him are from a large collection of books that detail his adventures and history."

Seeming to gain an amount of lucidity, Franklin turns back to Cole. "I've been lost in this 'forest' for some time as well, and it still is unclear to me where exactly this place is. I've been trying to find my way back home for several weeks, but the creatures living in the woods make it nearly impossible to get past the forest's border..."

Franklin stops and shudders visibly. It is obvious that there is more to their imprisonment than what he had stated so far, but some sort of mental trama keeps him from speaking more.

"Creatures, you say?" Cole surveys the newcomer skeptically. Something about him was prfoundly irritating. "What sort of creatures?"

"Demons," Franklin whispers. "Some sort of shapechaging demons. However, it would be better not to speak of such things out in the open. You can never be too certain just who or what they are masquerading as..."

A thought dawns on Franklin even as he states such a thing, and he changes the topic.

"I was looking for food when I came across the two of you, but you are welcome to stay with me until we can find a way out of this acursed forest. There is a cabin not far from here, where I have been living the past several months."

"By all means, lead on."

Cole shoots Laurel a sidelong glance and mentally goes over his spell list.

"I would hear more of these books you say I feature in."

Franklin led the two up the trail. While on the way to 'the cabin' Cole could swear he saw something moving in the distance -masked by glass and mirror. Suddenly something leaped out onto the path but before anyone could react it disapeared into the overgrowth.

"It can't be..." Laurel shakes her head "I'm sure... I saw..."

"What?" Cole asked, having not caught a decent look

"Madness... this place... Doesn't make any sense."

They continued forward for another hour. Laurel strangely not wishing to say anything more.

"Here we are!" Franklin gestures somewhat grandley seeming to be lost in his own world for the moment and focussed on what stands in front of them. Ahead on a small hill surrounded by a clearing from the trees and tall grass -is a shack. Quite large and old it has both obvious signs of decay and evidence that someone has recently been trying to repair it. The maintenance is poor work but the extent of it indicates months of labour and hard work. Strangely enough the structure is made of wood.

Normallity it seems could exist in such a land.

"Be it ever so humble," Franklin adds as he approaches the ramshackle buidling, "there is no place like home. Well, except this place isn't my 'real' home."

Frankling stops and surveys the hillside for a moment before continuing.

"It has taken a fair amount of work, but I've been able to fix this place up quite a bit. You should have seen the condition of the building before I started repairing it..."

"It's certainly better than sleeping out in the open."

Cole eyeballs the building critically, taking note of the obvious fact that this "Franklin" fellow was no carpenter.

"You seem to have done all right with it."

"Thank you," Franklin answers with a smile. "It isn't much to look at, but we do have shelter from the elements and wild life."

Franklin begins walking towards the cabin again. As he moves forward, he motions for Cole and Laurel to follow him.

"I don't have much to offer for food, but there are some books that you might find interesting to read."

"Ah yes, these books I'm supposed to feature in... any idea who wrote them?"

"None," Franklin responds with a shrug of his shoulders. "Most of them don't have an author listed with them, and the few books that have a name listed are pratically illegible."

Moving up the hill the trio eventually reach the cabin. Cole could feel a sense of unease as he came closer to Franklin's house yet wasn't sure why. Something about that cabin...

Turning around he looked over to Laurel. She was facing the nearby forest and from her face -giving it a careful inspection. What had she seen? The silence of the forest hadn't been bad, he was even getting used to it but no-

The silence of the forest? Wait... there was something in the distance, a noise. His senses were confused in this place but it was there. An actual sound. A kind of low distant moaning like a person or people.

He moved a hand closer to a weapon being careful not to let Franklin see.

When they reached the cabin he understood.

It was subtle at first. Not many would have picked it up in the shadows of the cabin's verandah but they were there. Faces in the wood. They were contorted and undeniable when you focussed. People's heads and even the occasional other body part, a child's hand, a neck but never the whole. Mostly they were just twisted sometimes they bulged outwards.

He thought one of them moved to look closer at him.

"Never mind them. They came with the wood." Franklin said giving the wall a loud tap. Cole didn't fail to notice the moaning quiet down after that

"I saw one... in the woods. Some kind of table with a human head and arm..." Laurel whispered to Cole

"Oh yes that's where I get them from. Most of the parts shrink into the wood later after I nail them up." Franklin interrupted -aparently he had good hearing.

"That's..." damned odd, at best, and probably outright demonic underneath it all "... That's some interesting material you have, Franklin."