Nothing to make you appreciate a pair of well fitting boots like having to drag a full grown cow up a hill at 6 in the morning through a solid foot of shit mud and breaking your toenail badly because the boots are at least 3 sizes to large

14/01/18 - day 4

Hi all. I've been busy for the past couple of days but I'll be ready to get back into a routine allowing me to write a lot more soon.

For today, I decided I should really try to listen out for Arsene’s thoughts. As recommended by someone online, I planned to ask Arsene some questions and wait around 5 seconds for a response. I had a general idea of what the sensation of hearing his thoughts would be like, but this was still very exciting.

Lying down on my bed, I closed my eyes and called out to Arsene. “Are you there, Arsene?” I paused for around 5 seconds. I felt a strange sensation. It was as though there was a wire between my inner ears, through my head, and someone had plucked it. Arsene simply responded “yes”. The sound came from a deeper place than my normal thoughts. It was hard to really discern how the voice sounded. It was distant and distorted.

Entering the wonderland where I had left, I looked around to try and find Arsene. Once again, he was nowhere to be seen. I stood up from my chair and began to wander through the trees, away from the temple steps. After a short walk, I laid eyes on a lake. It was large and bright. A clear blue sky with a bold sun shone down on the water’s tranquil surface. Looking to the right, there was a stream that fed down to the lake. At a guess, this led all the way back up to the creek. Now I had a moment of peace, I thought I might focus on my own form in this world. When people had asked, I responded, “It’s just me,” but I knew there were some differences. I was wearing clothes that were not dissimilar to the uniforms from “The Land of The Lustrous”, with a black formal top, black shorts and formal heeled shoes. This form was more slim than my real form, and my arms and legs were hairless. Sitting down with my feet in the lake, I pondered if this form was even human.

Suddenly, I had an image of Arsene. He had stepped out from behind a tree, but due to the time it took to process the image, it did not make me jump as Arsene seems to have intended. Turning around, I called out “I know you are there Arsene! Come on out!” He did not bring himself forward. I guessed it was down to me to find him. Running back into the forest, away from the lake, I took care to peer around every tree that I passed, to no avail. Then, I remembered something. I closed my eyes, and listened. Behind me, a few meters away, I heard Arsene’s loud footsteps. I turned around, and there he was! He must have been stalking me to try and surprise me again. Or perhaps he had always been hidden, and I had caught a flash of his thoughts. Approaching Arsene, I congratulated him on throwing me for a loop.

Unfortunately, shortly after this, I was interrupted by a phone call again, so my memory became hazy. I recall ascending a tree again, and having Arsene guide us back to the temple again. We entered the temple, and reentered the room behind Arsene’s stone mural.

This room had remained unchanged, the fire was still lit and the table had not moved. Wandering around, I looked to Arsene, and saw him standing next to the fireplace, pointing into the fire. I approached and peered into the fire. Nothing seemed out of place. I could not see far into the fire, and it was too hot to reach into for something. What was Arsene pointing at? I did not think to ask him, as I was too entertained by trying to figure this out on my own. Perhaps as a prompt from Arsene, I recalled that there was already one secret room in the temple, a second would not be out of place. I shuffled back, away from the fire, and decided to look at the brickwork. Perhaps there was a brick I could push in? There it was, sticking out like a sore thumb, a brick in the centre of the fireplace, just above the fire, was bit fixed inside. I pushed it in. The wall adjacent to the room entrance opened up. A wide doorway opened, and another stone staircase appeared, leading down further into the temple. Ecstatic at this, I rushed over to the stairs and headed down.

The stairs led to a medieval style wooden and iron door. Grasping the handle, I tried to open the door. It was shut tight. Backing off from the door, I recalled that Arsene could open the door to the first room, so maybe he could open this one. As I thought, Arsene simply grabbed the handle and swung the door open. Peering into the new room, I recognized it as an area from Skyrim. Having not played much of the game, I recalled the early areas very well. The room was wide, with stone steps in the middle leading up to a raised area with a chest at one end. I knew we would need the content of that chest to progress. Stalking forwards, we noticed a guard walk out ahead of us, from the stairs. Arsene and I waited in the shadow of the steps, keeping out of sight. The guard would soon turn towards us, so we would need to act quickly. She wore plate armour and had a short sword, not something I was equipped to handle right now. Arsene suddenly dashed out and grabbed the guard’s leg. Yanking it up, the guard slammed into the floor with a heavy clunk. Arsene struck her in the face and her form dissolved away. Well, that was one way of doing it. The noise had certainly alerted any other guards  I had no clue how many there were. Before we could move, two more guards had spotted us and engaged us head on. Glancing at the floor, I noticed pools of strange liquid, probably oil that had spilled from somewhere. There was only one really cool way of handling this. I held out my left hand and summoned a red spell book that floated around 30 centimeters above my hand. I lowered my stance and threw my left hand out as though I was punching something. I opened my hand as it stopped, and a stream of flame shot forward from my palm and towards the floor. The oil on the floor immediately caught and exploded, taking down both guards in one fell swoop. I was quite pleased with myself.

Arsene and I advanced and turned, so that we were facing the stairs. We saw one guard with another sword heading down the steps, with another two a little bit further away, but still heading towards us. Just as the first guard reached the bottom of the stairs, using a yellow spellbook, I shot forth an arc of lightning that was quickly conducted by his armour, stunning him. Arsene dashed forwards and kicked the now-crouching guard forcefully, finishing him off. We made one hell of a team. The last two guards now approached, one with a sword on my left and one with a spear to my right. Wanting to further explore my combat ability, I drew a knife and stabbed towards the sword-wielding guard with my right hand, leaving my back exposed to the spearman. I landed a hit on the guard, but it did not make him ‘poof’. The spearman jabbed me in the back. It did not hurt, but I was locked in place and completely unable to move. Arsene lept towards the spearman, grabbed hold of his head with his ghoulish hands, lifted him up, and tossed him into the swordsman, sending them both into a wall and ‘poofing’ them both. Now able to move again, I congratulated Arsene and remarked to him how strong he was. We made our way to the chest and pried it open. Inside, were 3 keys on a single loop, one bronze and two iron coloured keys. I turned to Arsene, knowing that the likelihood is that he will know what to do, he pointed to a small keyhole alone in the wall.

While wandering back down the steps and to the keyhole, I recalled my aims for today and decided to try and chat with Arsene. “Do you enjoy fighting Arsene?” I listened, but couldn’t hear anything. I did however get a chill down my spine when I felt the metaphorical wire get plucked harder than ever. Perhaps Arsene did want to respond, but could not articulate it through words. I pressed on. “Did you get hurt at all” Arsene did not respond with words, but I felt the sensation of a response again, though less strong than before. I recalled reading somewhere that a tulpa may tire, and hazarded a guess that formulating word responses was strenuous for Arsene and that he could not do it at all for more complicated responses. I thought about which key to try first, but Arsene placed out his hand. I placed the keys in his hand and allowed him to take over. Shortly, the door was open and the next set of steps down had appeared.

The new room was vast, with a huge square platform in the middle, that was patterned in orange and green smaller squares. This platform was the only floor to be seen, each of the sides were lined with a pit and then followed by a cylindrical stone brick wall lining torches that were  lighting up the top of the room and platform, but barely penetrating the inky blackness below it. There was no telling how far it went down. Descending a lot of steps down to the platform, I noticed metal bars lined the walls of the room, like a prison cell. I guessed there was some animal in there and that it would fight us on the platform. Upon reaching the platform however, it began to shake. Suddenly, the the platform began to sink lower into the room, slow at first but faster and faster. I could not tell how fast, there was no lighting at all. Eventually, it began to slow to a halt at the base of a cavern.

I gazed around and saw three tunnels leading to God know where. Before I could explore any further, I was interrupted by another phone call. I did try to return again later on, but completing an exam and staying up until 3 in the morning the night prior had drained me, and I fell asleep instead.

Ta all!

Silver