Warsman

"The universe is larger than you can fathom."

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The Xelu'tari

(Think of this as a continuation, of sorts, of this.)

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Dr. Hamilton has been experiencing some disturbances in his sleeping habits. As his psychiatrist, I am obligated to help him. This is a recording of his first official visit to me. Dr. Hamilton is a professor of historical studies at the local university. More specifically, he specializes in exotic topics from various parts of the world.

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"Good day, Dr. Hamilton, how are you?"

"Good...no, not good. Not good at all,"

"I am sorry to hear that. Please, sit down,"

"I'll stand,"

"Alright. You've mentioned nightmares before, Dr. Hamilton. Just what are you seeing? You wouldn't mind telling me, would you?"

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At this point, Dr. Hamilton shakes his head and looks at the door. Then at the window. He is somewhat satisfied with the daylight, but does not calm down in his erratic movements. He sits down.

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"There are some things, I have come to find out, that should never be explored. Yet the human condition is one of curiosity, and the possibilities haunt me more than the actual outcome. I will start by admitting that I have been having nightmares. Frequent, horrendous dreams,"

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Someone slams a car door outside. He jumps, and continues. A bead of sweat drips to the floor.

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"They all start the same way. I wake up, now in the dream, and it is total darkness. The only way I know that I am dreaming is that there are sounds that would not otherwise happen in the real world. There is a metallic grinding, grinding that stabs my bones, away in the distance, but it is always interrupted at varying intervals and the sound hops around my mind. It is never in the same direction at the same time. I already become disoriented, and the floor seems to be hot. I've gone to bed with thin sheets, without any blankets, and with the ceiling fan on full blast ever since these dreams started. I have no idea how to explain this, the blood just goes to my feet. Gravity draws my insides down there, and holds them. It is the same feeling of dread once a large, intimidating street fighter locks eyes with you and tells you he's going to kill you. Everything just vanishes except for that urge to run away. I can't move from there,"

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He is having trouble fully recollecting everything. Perhaps he has truly forgotten, or doesn't want to? It is a common practice for the brain to shut out unpleasant thoughts for extended periods of time. He runs his hands through his hair and continues.

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"I can feel my legs trying to kick me awake, but there's something there in the distance, beyond the grinding metals now having turned into frantic wails. I can almost decipher human voices at this point. Only, they're screaming. A few words lick my eardrums, not fully entering my brain as understandable, but I can tell the rest of my body that someone else is there with me. Maybe they can help, who knows? I've forgotten what happens after that. It is always different. Sometimes, I don't want to remember. But I will tell you of the most...humanoid of them. She says her name is Anguish. Or, that's what I understand it as,"

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People typically assign names to things they fear. That way, it is easier to avoid them once the brain recognizes the name to that fear instead of blindly obeying the fight or flight complex.

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"Like I said, it's always different. She appears the most frequently, however. I suppose that means she is the most militant or active, I don't know,"

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He starts to tear up, his face reddening, and I reach to offer him a tissue, but he holds up his hand.

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"No I'm not crying, I'll be okay,"

"Would you mind telling me what she looks like? This, Anguish, of yours?"

"A description? I-I guess,"

---

My hand starts to move. I sketch in my spare time, and make frequent use of this hobby to dream up what my patients describe to me. Dr. Hamilton's personal demons are certainly among the most...colorful I've seen. I will pause here to personally administer a concise look at what Dr. Hamilton has been experiencing. The recording from his first day is mostly just ramblings and minor panic attacks after he gives me a full description of Anguish. The others are harder to decipher, and he finishes with them quickly.

First, of course, is his primary specter.

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Anguish seems to be the most humanoid of Dr. Hamilton's phantoms purely because of her voice and mannerisms. What he has told me of her physical form, I shudder to even imagine. She is perhaps one of the most horribly mutilated of them, with her eyes sewn shut, and her forehead slashed open in a series of bubbling red lines. She is bald, and lacks a nose. Dr. Hamilton did not indicate any sort of nasal gash, subtracting again from the physical humanoid appearance of this ghoul.

He also did not put any emphasis on teeth, unlike some of the others.

Anguish's chin is the most interesting part, as it is affixed with several barbs or quills extending down. These were used to slash open Dr. Hamilton's chest while Anguish forcibly kissed him in his dreams. Further applications can only be hinted at for now, and I aim to keep it that way.

Now begins the lesser-seen and darker tones of Dr. Hamilton's library of nightmares. He claims to have seen these at least once, but no more than three times, each in his various attempts at sleep.

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This one, he had no direct name for. He claimed to not hear this one in the darkness, but he also described it without a mouth or eyes. He mentioned something about a Sandman, some voice in the distance, like children singing. The humanoid shape of this one, masculine in frame, had an off-putting silhouette thanks to the elongated fingers and nails.

Whenever he touched Dr. Hamilton, that body part eroded away into sand, and yet he felt every part of it crumble as if each grain were still attached to him. He often woke up with deadened limbs because of this, and could not get up no matter how hard he tried.

Dr. Hamilton also reported seeing this one outside of his dreams.

The haunting shape of the creature eluded him in the corners of his mirrors.

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Thirdly, dubbed Guilt by Dr. Hamilton, had a strange air about him. Dr. Hamilton reported feeling his heart sink each time he saw this apparition, as if everything applied to him had been wrought by his own two hands.

Nightmares often vary in degrees of horror. Sometimes they are legitimate fears or simply bad decisions extended into darker realities.

This one, however, I can only describe as being an extension of both. The mask is indicative of a fear we all possess about inhuman faces on human bodies, something that harkens back to the reliance on familiarity in clans or neighborhoods. The wheelchair is perhaps rooted in a schoolyard friend being bullied or some other form of guilt that Dr. Hamilton feels.

Hence the name.

Dr. Hamilton reported just watching Guilt stare at him for as long as the nightmare lasted. A growing sense of unease pervaded his heartbeat. The room they were both inside of grew quieter and quieter, until the heartbeat was the only audible noise. His heartbeat. Guilt had nothing in his chest. Dr. Hamilton would start to believe he was sharing a room with a corpse, not a living being, and would get up to leave. Guilt would plead with him not to, and crawl out of his wheelchair, leaving a trail of blood as he dragged his torso on the floor. Once he grabbed Dr. Hamilton's dream self, he reported waking up to intense muscle spasms that would stop after five or ten minutes. It was like having his leg being torn off.

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Scarecrow is the most simply-named of the apparitions, and yet it is perhaps the one that Dr. Hamilton feels the most lingering sense of dread about. He did make mention of another above this one, however, and that bothers me. He did not fully describe that one, nor did he mention it again.

Dreaming with Scarecrow hunting him down, Dr. Hamilton often felt the sensation of falling in those dreams. Yet, when the legs or other extremities violently shoot outward to wake the sleeper up, Dr. Hamilton stayed pinned there. Paralyzed. Just like he did in the dream.

He told me the Scarecrow dragged him back to a barn in the middle of a dark cornfield. The fruits on the stalks were all pitch black, down to the roots of the plant itself, and cawed like frightened birds. He told me he saw one of the cobs broken on the ground. It had been cloven in two as if by an errant footstep, and its contents were laid out for all to see.

He told me they were bird guts.

Dr. Hamilton told me that he woke up each time Scarecrow slammed the door behind them, but felt cold each time he did. Like he had come close to dying. The piece of straw in his bed once the nightmares ended did nothing to calm him down.

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Lard is an apparition I did not delve much into. After Scarecrow, Dr. Hamilton did not tell me much more. I asked if he wanted to stop talking about his nightmares, but he refused at this point. He wanted to get this off his chest, maybe feel better afterwards.

The fat man in the pig mask, reliant on blood he drinks through straws implanted in his mask's snout. Where this blood comes from, it doesn't seem to matter. He thinks it's a delicacy. For as large of a character as Dr. Hamilton described, he also mentioned of Lard's impressive agility.

For you see, every dream with Lard inside of it was a test of survival in a labyrinth of former victims.

Lard would chase Dr. Hamilton around with a cleaver for what seemed like hours, howling and screaming like a pig. Sometimes he would stop, and only start to make noise once he was just around the corner, and the chase would begin anew. Dr. Hamilton only ever escaped by reaching some form of exit or by voluntarily taking the cleaver and ending the nightmare then and there.

But each time he did, he woke up with a pounding headache and a mysterious head scratch he desperately wanted to attribute to something on his bed frame.

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Finally, he mentioned Gnasher.

Unlike all of the previous apparitions, Dr. Hamilton reported as to at least hearing Gnasher in each dream.

He likened him to a second-in-command, of sorts, under the other apparition he refused to go into extensive detail about.

While this apparition did not speak, he seemed to communicate through morse code using the clacking sound of his extremely mutilated teeth and mouth. Having no eyes or any facial features besides a bloodied and forcibly stretched mouth, Gnasher was responsible for keeping Dr. Hamilton inside of the dreams for as long as he wanted.

As far as his treatment, Dr. Hamilton is inconsolable. I've had multiple sessions with him since then, and he has not shown any signs of improvement. His sleep habits affected his job to the point of termination and he tried to attach himself to me in some way, seeking companionship. I admitted him to a temporary stay at a mental ward, to try and snap him out of these delusions of monsters haunting his footsteps. The nurses there tell me that he has worsened with each night, and I finally gave up on him.

He is now being treated at Bedlam Asylum in Gothic City.

I fear for his safety, but there is nothing more I can do.

---

Extradimensional beings, from beyond time and space, the Xelu'tari are bizarre and mutilated creatures who seem to gravitate towards the miserable and tormented. Dr. Hamilton was only the most recent addition to their routine, and his death during the Bedlam Breakout crisis lent to their release into the physical plane along with a large number of subordinate Xelu'tari.

Warsman leads them as part of a large group of like-minded individuals, almost to the extent of a hive mind, but each retaining their own personalities and affinities for torture.

There is still an enormous amount of data about them that can only be left up to speculation for now, but they are here.

And they are dangerous.

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