Foolproof's Method for Traversing the Darkness

Foolproof's Method for Traversing the Darkness

Polkadot and Thug discover a portal anomaly on the Island of Doors. Upon investigating they are thrown into a dizzying world - a malicious forest filled with poisons and predators. Fortunately for them, a tour guide offers her services.

Written: Dec 2023

Number of Pages: 20

First published in: The Polkadot Files Vol II

Part of the "Mosstober 2023" project.

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Characters

1. Fool - Upon entering the darkness you will inevitably find a mysterious character named Fool, whose face and features are covered by her large backpack of supplies, materials, and potion ingredients. She also wears a large alarm above her head.

“Lead the way, Fool,” said Polkadot.

Their tour-guide began moving with a series of clangs. Pipes around her head groaned as if strained by an invisible plumbing system. Gears whirred.

- Page 7

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Setting

The setting for this story is a kaleidoscopic dreamscape which Fool calls The Darkness.

You find yourself on the outskirts of a misty forest. You are a wanderer by nature. The forest lures you into its world. Among the wild flowers there’s a wooden sign courteously showing you the way, and you oblige.

THUG’S NOTE: I have modified the sign to warn future wanderers, but I had to hide the warning due to my boss’s rule of not interfering. DO NOT enter this forest. It is not a wonder of nature, but a freak; it enters the mind and fiddles with your intentions. In our journey, this is where we met Fool. She introduced herself as a 5-star reviewed tour guide, and she had the 5 gold star shaped badges to prove it.

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Excerpt

“Thug, listen to me carefully. Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. Stay focused on my voice. That’s it. Keep your wings calm now, they don’t need to race your heartbeat. Easy.”

He heard her voice over the sound of dozens of bell chimes. Each vowel she spoke rang in his ears. Her physical form outlined by a striking blue light was the only thing that told him it was she standing before him with her palms raised in a surrender. The rest of the forest was a kaleidoscope.

Twin orbs appeared in his vision, about where her eyes would be. An entrancing purple. He felt his wings slow at her familiar and easy voice. He wanted to hide in her coat again and forget they ever entered this nightmare.

The close-calmness lasted a minute before another command fought in Thug’s brain. He heard Polkadot’s voice ring over it: “Easy, Thug. We’re going to get out of here soon. Let go of the petal.”

A petal?

He clutched it in his palm. A pink petal dipped in revolting neon green.

“Yes, Thug, that one. Throw it on the ground and we can go back to the Mansion right now.”

Behind her another figure was outlined by sickening purple and yellow dots. “The Shadow Eyes are approaching. I’m sorry about your assistant, but you need to follow me if you want to complete the tour.”

Polkadot didn’t respond to the other voice.

Suddenly, her purple orb-eyes turned red and Thug panicked. He jammed the petal of poison into his boss’s flesh.

It could have been hours or days earlier, Thug was holding a giant magnifying glass to the ground and searching for a specific blue plant.

If it were up to him he would be back in his room, wings sprawled out, doing absolutely nothing. But his boss wanted to make paint. She had an absurd obsession with blue bow-ties, and the outstanding blue fabric that Thug wore on a daily basis reminded him of it.

Now she wanted to christen her ship the same way. And, as her faithful assistant for life, Thug had the mighty mission of searching for a pigment he could make the paint with.

The Island of Doors didn’t offer much variety in the way of flora. Apart from the trees, each trunk embedded with a spinning portal to another world, there was hardly anything else. No animals. Nor insects. Polkadot and Thug survived on the greenhouse at the Mansion for sustenance.

Occasionally, though, when Thug executed his lap around the island, making sure no portals were malfunctioning or diseased, he would discover a strange new plant or two. The magnifying glass was his handy tool in this search; it was made of a glass that could aid his vision through the dark.

Here in the island’s night, it was quiet except for Thug’s conversations with himself. His head dipped, fixated on the ground through the glass. He decided to start his search at the area near the lake in case a rock or shell formed by the water could provide anything.

“Blue pigment,” he said, “on an island in the middle of nothingness. I wonder.”

An idea. A wild one, so he knew his boss would approve. He raised his eyes from the ground and looked up directly at the spinning blue spirals of a portal. This one’s home was a yellow wood tree. Light yellow fungus bloomed from the branches like strands of hair.

“Old man’s beard,” Thug recognized. He raised a hand toward the portal, feeling the energetic buzz. “Can I borrow your light? My boss wants to make paint.”

Thug knew it wouldn’t respond. Still, he waited - thinking of a way he could use the blue portal to make blue paint.

He was wrong. A response, in the most terrifying form, erupted from the portal. The blue light morphed to neon green, letting out a surge of energy that kicked Thug backwards.

He landed on his wings but got to his feet as quickly as he could. He was not thoroughly trained with malfunctioning portals, yet knew there was something wrong with this one.

The portal’s color changed again in the few seconds it took to get to safety. Another surge of energy slammed into Thug’s back.

Thug flew straight to the mansion, the furious portal switching colors like a disco behind him.

Polkadot was still catering to the ship in the ceiling when Thug burst in.

“Thug, I’m so glad you’re back. There seems to be a lot more work to do on The Con-Artist,” she called from the crow’s nest. Thug could hear her religiously scraping the wood. The ship was not too pleased about repairs; it groaned and threatened to break its ropes. “Did you find anything?”

“Mam! There’s a malfunctioning portal near the lake!”

“Another one already?”

“It looks different.”

“Well, we have to investigate immediately. Gather your supplies, we’ll leave in a few minutes.”

“Mam, it looks dangerously different. The colors kept changing.”

“Interesting. Thug, make sure to pack your quill and parchment.”

“We’re going in there?”

“We must. Ship, we’ll be back. Or not.”

Thug did not feel the humor. As was always the case, he felt terror. But as his boss’s faithful assistant for life, he gathered an extra roll of parchment, feeling that this one would be a longer story.

Upon returning to the yellow wood tree, the portal had not calmed down. Shielded a few feet away from its powerful surges, Polkadot and Thug observed the lights switch from neon purple to electric blue then acid green. The longer Thug looked at it, the more psychedelic it felt.

“Well done, Thug,” Polkadot told him.

“Surely we have to destroy the portal?”

“Not without giving it a chance first. We must step into it and find out the reason for this behavior. Look around, Thug. You know these portals are gentle. This is misbehavior. We must correct it.”

He followed her lead into the sick world.

Vertigo gripped him - an unfamiliar sensation when portal jumping. Neon lights filled his vision before forming the setting around him. It was a forest by all definitions - trees, fungi, multilayer canopies, and an orchestra of creatures. An artwork in every square meter of ground.

Thug was highly experienced with nature. But this was something alien, like they had entered a dreamscape instead.

The neon colors he had seen clinged to each object, making zig zag patterns and dotting outlines. Again the feeling of a psychedelic or hallucinogen occurred to Thug. He felt his mind open up to this kaleidoscope. Soft bell chimes reached his ears. Willowy bubbles floated in the air through which saturated rainbows refracted. The ground was deep purple, then steel blue.

“Maybe it’s not so much disease,” Polkadot murmured, and her voice joined in the chimes like the notes on a pan drum, “but simply the nature of this place.”

“Tourists!”

The neon outlines on the tree bark shifted as if the new voice pushed it away. Both Polkadot and Thug looked for the source but saw nothing.

“Is somebody there?” Polkadot called. The dots and lines shifted again in the opposite direction, moving with the sound waves.

“Yes! My name is Fool! I’ll be your tour guide.”

Polkadot and Thug exchanged a look. They could not see a person among the colors.

“Oh, let me help,” said the voice. “I haven’t had new tourists in a while, I forget that it takes some adjusting. Here we go, can you hear this? Look for my goggles. Can you see it?”

They heard the clang of gears. Thug focused on a specific spot and then saw the pair of eyes appear in thin air. Not eyes - goggles. Purple, blue and yellow swirls covered the lens. Thug wondered what one would see through such a looking mechanism.

As he stared at it, more objects appeared. Not appeared - somebody had been standing there all along. They were so camouflaged that they were invisible.

What Thug found himself looking at was a short, colorful creature assembled from a junkpit of rusted objects. Gears, clocks, pipes, and wheels covered their body, and what looked like a belt encrusted with glowing gems. Then again, everything glowed here. The eyes - goggles with oval lenses - had segmented attachments to them on either side, making it look like an insect.

Most striking of all was the large dome making up her head, which Thug recognized as a siren. Thankfully it was silent at the moment. He winced to think of the commotion it would bring otherwise.

“Tourists, I welcome you to the darkness,” said the creature, a feminine voice that paired well with the chimes. Thug did not see a mouth under all the materials. “I’m Fool and I’ll be your tour guide.”

“Fool,” Polkadot stepped forward, mimicking the other person’s conversational air. “I’m not sure we signed up for a tour.”

“Oh then allow me to invite you to the tour. I’m highly experienced, you will love the journey. As long as you have reinforcement in your noggin-” she tapped her head (clang clang), “- then you’ll do great. Some of my customers have said it felt like a safari.”

She paused here to examine their reactions, and as if sensing Thug’s immediate fear at the implications of the word safari, she felt the need to add: “But all of my customers have left excellent reviews. I am a five star tour guide, I can assure you.”

As she said so, she stuck out her left arm to show off the five yellow badges stuck on her sleeve.

Polkadot amused her. “Sounds like we’re in good hands. And what is this place, exactly? We stepped through a portal so we didn’t get any brochure beforehand unfortunately.”

Fool turned her head and nodded sympathetically. “Yes, that’s quite common. No matter. This is the Darkness. Usually traversing through this realm is a mighty task, but I’m an expert tour guide. With my methods, we’ll make it safely across, all the while being able to enjoy the view. And there is much to admire, trust me.”

Thug believed her about the much-to-admire part. Already he felt his senses overstimulated with light and color and echoing bell chimes that sounded nearby and far away all at once.

“Lead the way, Fool,” said Polkadot.