Shadow Slave

Sunny had been able to sense what his other incarnations were doing in Mirage City. Similarly, his other incarnations had been spectators of his strange adventure — therefore, the information shared by Mordret reached Nephis and Cassie almost immediately after he himself received it. The news of a supposedly immediate threat posed by Asterion was not a great shock, even if they had to reevaluate how hazardous he truly was. In truth, both Sunny and Nephis had a feeling that they would have to confront the third Sovereign sooner or later, so they had taken steps to prepare for his eventual emergence.

Mordret’s warning came mere days before their own network caught the traces of the Dreamspawn — in fact, if not for the chaos caused by the winter solstice, they would have received the report containing the first clues even earlier. But now that they knew what they were looking for, the investigation had been accelerated.

The members of the Shadow Clan, although few in numbers, were spread all across both the waking world and the Dream Realm. Similarly, Cassie had her own network of informants — some of them voluntary, some unknowing — and kept an eye out for anything strange.

The first strange thing that had led to concerning results was one of the countless spreading cults, the Church of the Moon. “The cult began quite innocuously. Its members are in the habit of joining merchant caravans and offering blessings for safe travel... blessings of the Moon. Not Beast God, though — simply the Moon. What is strange about the Church of the Moon, however, is the speed with which its following grew.”

Cassie paused for a second and gestured to a paper report compiled by Aiko.

“People of the Nightmare Spell era are usually not easily led astray by superstitions, even harmless ones. But the followers of the Moon gained recognition both quickly and widely. It is still quite a minor sect, all things considered, but there lies the problem.”

She frowned.

“After noticing the suspicious pattern, we used the government personnel to run an analysis on the other minor cults in the database. The results are... quite worrying, to say the least. There are at least half a dozen similar sects spread around the world... they are in each of the three Quadrants, the basin of the River of Tears, as well as the former territory of the Sword Domain. And these are only the religious cults.”

Cassie’s expression darkened.

”There might be other unassuming groups loitering on the edges of society — criminal gangs, private clubs, black market enterprises, and so on. At the moment, there is no way to tell how countless people exactly are... let’s call them sleeper agents, for now.”

Kai, who had been listening to her quietly, asked in a concerned tone:

“How have we not noticed them before? And... even if they are indeed secret followers of that man, the Dreamspawn, what does that entail exactly? What do they do? What has raised our suspicion, apart from an abnormal rate of growth?”

Sunny smiled darkly.

”That is the question, isn’t it?”

Cassie let out a sigh.

”The second question answers the first. What do they do? Ostensibly, nothing of any importance. That is why we have not discovered anything suspicious about them sooner.”

Effie raised an eyebrow.

“If they have done nothing wrong, how do we know that they serve our favorite scarecrow, Mr. Lunatic?”

Cassie lingered for a few seconds.

“I said that they have done nothing of importance, not that they have done nothing. From the outside, their activity seems quite benign, if a little misguided — offering blessings, giving troubled people a sense of community, and holding sermons from time to time. However, once we dug deeper...”

She paused, then sighed again.

“Well, really, we still did not find anything sinister. At most, some members of these sects are guilty of minor vandalism... our agents could not discover more, because they do not know what they are looking for. But when I took a look personally and concentrated on the areas where the members of these cults are active, I saw something eerie.”

Cassie paused, then continued in a grim tone:

”Those minor acts of vandalism were mainly things like painting graffiti on the walls of various buildings. And those graffiti all contain the name I am not going to say aloud — the name of the Dreamspawn.”

Effie glanced at her, then at Nephis and Sunny.

”Do their paintings possess some kind of beguiling power? Are they using runic sorcery, maybe?”

Cassie shook her head.

“The graffiti possess no power. They are just mundane drawings. The name itself, however... the name itself does.”

Kai frowned.

“What kind of power can a name possess?” He paused for a moment and then added in an embarrassed tone: ”I am sorry, I misspoke. Names obviously possess power — there are True Names and Shaping, after all. But I don’t think you meant that kind of power, Cassie. So... what can the Dreamspawn’s name do?” ꞦἁＮО𝐁Ę𐌔

Cassie remained silent for a while, then said with a subdued expression:

”It has the power to spread.”

She lowered her head and exhaled slowly.

“Once someone learns that name, it seems to take root in their mind. Then, they start mentioning it from time to time without even realizing. And while that in and of itself does not seem too worrisome, the frightening part is that the name spreads like a virus. Anyone who hears it becomes a carrier, as well — and therefore, helps it spread further.”

Her expression turned grim.

“We caught it early enough, so the virus has not spread too widely yet. This is the good news.”

She did not seem too happy, though.

Cassie lingered for a few seconds, then added evenly:

“The bad news is that there are no countermeasures. We can destroy the graffiti, but the Dreamspawn’s name has already been seen or heard by countless people — and we can’t destroy people. Or rather, we won’t. There is no way to identify all of the hosts, anyway.”

Nephis nodded silently. Cassie turned her way briefly, then said:

“More than that, although I compared the Dreamspawn’s name to a virus, it is not... not in the traditional sense. It is an idea — an idea that acts as a virulent virus. And therefore, there is no cure that we can come up with, no vaccine, no easily reproduced way to treat the infected.”

She fell silent for a few seconds, then sighed heavily.

”So, even though we caught it early, there is no way to stop it. The rate with which it spreads will grow exponentially.”

Cassie faced them then, and said in a grave tone:

“It’s a pandemic.”