Several weeks had gone by since his last nightmare, and since Puca became a somewhat regular occurrence in his home… mainly in the bedroom. Apparently, Baku were primarily nocturnal creatures, so Basil only interacted with her once the sun set and when he was about to head off to sleep. Every night, she would jump off his bed and stand at his side, waiting for him to sleep and eat the delicious nightmares that the Tantabus tried to haunt him with. Then she would jump into his bed just before morning and go back to sleep. Only ever getting up to walk, stretch, or eat.
This worked for Basil as he didn't have to worry about her showing up during business hours and freaking the customers out! Who knows how people would react to a celestial creature just hanging around his bakery? His being a dragon slayer was already too much as is.
Wrinkles had settled into his position at the bakery quite well. Despite having free reign to do whatever he wanted, he devoted himself to doing anything that Basil wanted or needed. Some days, it was an extra set of hands working at the cash register, giving out goods, or working outside. But one thing he always set off to do was clean.
Even though Broomy primarily did that job, Wrinkles was in charge of cleaning the places the magic broom couldn't or wouldn't, like the bedroom or bathroom. Basil was never immaculate, so washing up in a clean bathroom and falling asleep on fresh sheets was nice.
Melon…wasn't so happy about the new arrivals. Despite having free reign to come and go as she pleased and always returning at Basil's call, she didn't like her dad's new friends. But thanks to Wrinkles being a Kobold, they got along very fast. But when she discovered Puca…it was a different story. She would always hiss and kick the Buka in her dad's nest, only to get a face full of her smoke, causing no shortage of different things to happen! Most of them being instant sleep.
Basil stepped into his room where Teto, Wrinkles, and Puca were waiting on one such night after brushing his teeth. After dismissing the magic light in the bathroom, he slid into his bed and huffed, "Geeze. How much longer will it take to starve this thing out?"
"Could be days, could be months. Tantabus can sustain on fear for long, long time.", Wrinkles told him as Basil made another disappointing sound. Hearing this, Wrinkles inquired, "Is master displeased with this?"
At this time, Teto was having fun by bouncing on the bed, so Basil grabbed him, snapped his fingers for the lazy Puca to get off the opposite bedside, and placed the bird in the spot, tucking him in.
After seeing the Kenku fall asleep in seconds, he turned to the Kobold and assured him, "I don't mind having Puca around. She's a great cuddle buddy. It's just a bit frustrating, I guess. I mean, why is this Tantabus after me?"
Puca turned to his side and nudged him with her trunk in an attempt to get him to sleep so she could eat. Petting the Baku's head to calm her down, he listened as Wrinkles told him, "Someone may have sent it against you. Same thing happened with Mistress Anaya."
This struck something in his head, and he asked the small lizard, "Speaking of her, how come you don't look like her anymore? Beforehand, you looked like a mini version of her, minus the wings and acid breath."
Wrinkles came up to his feet and proudly professed with his eyes closed and hand under his chin, "We Kobolds are very good at adaptation. We even take traits from the ones we serve."
Thinking about this momentarily, he briefly saw Wrinkles with a face similar to his own, which made him shiver! After evicting the thought from his mind, he said to himself, "I really hope you never look like me."
"It only happens with dragons.", Wrinkles assured him, hearing what he said before.
With a yawn and big stretch, Basil held the Kobold under his arms and placed him by the foot of his bed, allowing him to curl up like a cat; where Basil put himself under the sheets and said before drifting off to sleep, "Welp, time for another night of peaceful sleep, Puca to fatten herself up on my nightmares, and slowly starve the Tantabus. Goodnight."
Only a few hours had passed when Basil was experiencing a dreamless sleep, and he suddenly awoke from his sleep and fell from his bed!
"Ow! What the-!", he began to say as he woke up from the pain, only to look around and realize that he didn't fall from his bed but was thrown from it!
His head had hit the wall so hard that it made a dent with his sheets trailing from behind! He looked for the source of his pain until he saw a giant shadowy creature of no discernible shape, with large white hollow eyes, glare down hatefully at him. He froze at the sight of it and realized this was the thing in all his nightmares.
"Fuck?", he squeaked out in fear as the shadowy thing began to expand and cover every corner of the room.
"Wrinkles!", Basil yelled in a panic.
"Hmmm?", the Kobold replies casually, just waking up despite everything happening.
"What. Is. That!?", Basil yelled while pointing at the thing trying to swallow his ceiling and walls in its body.
"That be'th the Tantabus.", Wrinkles answered casually as he looked up at the thing. He went back to sleep but quickly realized what he said and jumped up, yelling, "TANTABUS!"
Only for the Tantabus to change form into something much smaller and phase its body through the man! However, unlike how the media portrays it, a spirit going through a person is anything but slightly unpleasant. It's a painful experience that does horrible things to the body!
The moment it passed through him, Basil felt a pain like no other! It was a sharp, cold, yet searing hot pain that caused all of his nerve ends to explode! It not only caused him to stop breathing for a moment, but a black liquid poured from his mouth and eyes!
Basil choked out in pain, and Wrinkles cried, "Master!"
Only for the Tantabus to phase out of the wall above the man and phase through the Kobold, leading to the same effects as the man suffered!
Wrinkles writhe in pain as Basil yells, "Wrinkles!"
When the Tantabus tried to phase through him again, he put up a shield but was shocked to see the shapeless thing phase through it! As it was halfway in, Basil fired a fireball at it, which seemed to do little more than tick it off! So he tried different fire attacks, a lightning attack, the plants in his window box to attack, and even shot a spike of earth from the floor out of desperation.
But nothing happened!
He knew physical attacks would be stupid, so he quickly combined two of his skills and made Poisonous Webs. He tried to trap the creature using this new skill but watched as it once again passed through it! The Tantabus finally had enough and rushed him, phasing through him and causing the same pain and black resin as before!
Falling against the wall and coughing violently, Basil asks, "Nothing I do touches this thing, but it can hit us! That's not fair!", in reply, the Tantabus phases through Basil and Wrinkles again, all the while making an unholy noise that sounded like a scream mixed with laughter. After catching his breath again and wiping his eyes clean, Basil exclaimed, "Why is it even still here?! Shouldn't it have starved out like you said?"
Wrinkles coughed up the black sludge on the floor and explained, "Something be wrong with thine Tantabus. Only attack when starving or commanded to."
"So someone did send it after me!?", Basil yelled, only for the Tantabus to phase through him again. The pain was so intense that he fell onto his side, and Wrinkles crawled over to him, trying to shield his body with his own. Only for the Tantabus to pass through both of them. After catching his breath enough to speak, Basil asks in desperation, "How do we fight it?!"
"Wes can't!", Wrinkles yells over the creature's unholy screaming.
When the Tantabus tried to launch another attack, Basil sat up and cast the Hand of God to snatch up the creature. The blob disappeared into the giant glowing hand, and for a moment, Basil thought victory was assured as he exclaimed, "Gotcha!"
Only for the Tantabus to leak out between the fingers of the hand and begin to reform.
"Tantabus has no true form or body.", Wrinkles tells him.
"Oh, now you tell me!?", Basil yelled at him.
Only for the Tantabus to quickly reform and sound off his horrible scream, which sounds far angrier than before.
Seeing they were disadvantaged in such a small space, Basil grabbed Wrinkles and yelled, "Outside!"
Trying to make it to the bedroom door, he found it locked! The monster must have some other magic that affects the house, thus locking the door and probably all other exits! Seeing the Tantabus approach more aggressively, he stunned it with another fireball and burst out the window, sliding down the roof until he jumped off and fell to the ground in a roll. Luckily, the monster's magic does not make things unbreakable. He quickly got back up and ran out as far as he could before stopping to take a breather, feeling as though his stamina had been drained!
As he dropped Wrinkles and put his hands on his knees to steady himself while breathing heavily, he sighed in relief, "At least we have more space."
Only for the Tantabus to appear from their own shadows in the moonlight and stick a single tentacle of darkness through their backs! They both gasped for air as their bodies exploded in unimaginable pain! Then the Tantabus lifted them into the air and held them there for several seconds! Watching as they wiggled and writhed like worms on a hook! After finally letting them go, they fell to the ground, coughing for air while trying to clear their lungs of the black sludge!
The moment Basil was able to speak, he complained, "This is crazy! We can't touch it, we can't fight it. What can we do?"
"Wait for sun! Tantabus hate sun!", Wrinkles gasped.
"But it's three in the morning!", Basil yelled.
The Tantabus sounded its horrible cry again and circled in the air before trying to dive-bomb them! In a fit of desperation, Basil yelled, "Take this!", and threw a random spell.
A light ball emerged from his hand and exploded into a flash of light upon contact with the thing! The Tantabus screeched out something that sounded like pain and retreated before falling to the ground, its black body sizzling like water on a stovetop.
Basil looked on with shock before his face turned devious as he proclaimed, "Oh, I see. You're a shadow, and shadows burn in the sun. Then taste the sun!"
Basil then pointed both arms in the air and created a massive sphere of light that illuminated his whole property like a second sun! The Tantabus screamed in pain as its entire body burned like a flame before being snuffed out in the overpowering light! When he couldn't hear the thing scream anymore, Basil deactivated the spell and dropped to his knees while looking at the spot where the nightmarish creature once lay. Basil huffed and puffed, feeling wiped out from letting loose a spell of that magnitude with no restrictions. All while Wrinkles looked on with amazement and shock!
With sweat on his brow and a smile on his face, he celebrated, "I did it! I destroyed the Tantabus!"
Only for his good feeling to be immediately squashed out when he saw dark bubbles emerge from where the Tantabus was destroyed, watching as they quickly grew larger until the monster was reformed from seemingly nothing! Upon reforming, Tantabus screeched in anger and stared daggers at the man with its white eyes!
With shock on his face and a bit of anger, Basil yelled, "Wrinkles! I thought you said this monster had a thing with the sun!"
"Tantabus is not vampire! Sunlight hurts Tantabus, not destroy!", Wrinkles informs him.
Taking a determined stance and look, he stared down the reformed monster and exclaimed, "Then I'll just lighten you up till you give up!"
As he held his hands up once more to cast the same giant light orb, the Tantabus backed away from fear until it saw Basil's spell fizzling out before it reached its zenith. Seeing this, the only thing the young man could say in reaction was, "Crap."
Seeing this, the Tantabus smiled with its eyes and shot another tentacle of darkness through him, held him aloft, watched with glee in its vacant white eyes at seeing him struggle, and then threw him next to Wrinkles, who tried to help the man breathe again. The Tantabus made a sound like laughter and flew around them like a circling buzzard.
Basil gasped after finding control of his lungs, "What happened to my magic?!"
"Tantabus…siphon's vitality, including magic.", Wrinkles once again informed him.
Quickly looking at his stat sheet, he saw that his Stamina and Magic were both nearly gone! He growled and then scolded the Kobold, "Oh, now ya tell me."
Just then, the Tantabus flew up into the air, roared its horrible nightmarish scream, and expanded outwards while creating a reflective effect on its own dark body! The next moment, the world around the two began to fizzle and glitch like an old videotape or unfinished computer game. The sky changed color and cycled, the grass grew long, short, or entire sections came out of the ground, and even the trees and clouds changed positions!
Then Basil sees all the nightmares he had when the Tantabus was scaring him: his wife and kids, his mother and father, his workplace, and the greedy vultures that tried to undermine him! All of it! He even watched as they took their more nightmarish forms before reverting to their regular faces!
Everything was hell!
"What's it doing now?!" Basil yelled over the glitching world, whipping winds while holding onto the Kobold.
"It's trying to bring the Dream World into ours!", Wrinkles yelled over the wind and nightmarish sights.
Basil made a stupefied expression as he yelled, "The Dream World! That's a thing?! Oh, forget it!", just as the world seemed to be falling apart at its seams, a thought crossed the man's mind, and he asked, "Wait. Where the heck is Puca?!"
Wrinkles looked around, seeing no sign of the Baku, and guesses, "Probably left for other nightmares."
"How? Why!?", Basil yelled as the small slab of land they were sitting on broke off and rose into the air, surrounded by shapes, colors, and images of the nightmares the Tantabus had created.
"Tantabus must've stopped trying to cause nightmares. Making Baku hungry and leave.", Wrinkles yelled back as it began to rain upside down.
Basil looked up as their slab of safety began to inch closer and closer to the form of the vast sky covering Tantabus. It continues its screech, sounding like a cruel, mocking victory. Like a cat about to eat a particularly slippery mouse.
Seeing this, Basil didn't struggle, resist, or try to find a way out. He reserved himself to his bleak fate and said to his friend, "So this is it? This is how I go? For what it's worth…it was good while it lasted.", He said this with a dry chuckle and a tear running down his face.
"It was an honor to knows you, master. Yous have been Wrinkles' greatest and kindest master.", Wrinkles hugged Basil as the two of them closed their eyes and embraced one last time.
In Basil's three short but meaningful years in this world, his only regrets were not being able to say goodbye, thank you, and…I love you, to the people he wanted to tell. As they drew closer and closer to the black nothingness of the Tantabus's form, something miraculous happened.
A tremendous and comforting wind broke through the whipping ones of terror and fear, filling them with the satisfying scent of lavender. When they opened their eyes, due to the feeling of calmness, they saw a tremendous purple cloud flying all around at breakneck speeds, fixing the shattering world and setting it back to how it once was. Basil and Wrinkles also found themselves in the cloud, feeling light and calm, filling them with fear until it was gone.
Then they found themselves back on the ground in the deep of the night, back to the way it was before, and the Tantabus far smaller and less frightening than it was. Now it looked scared itself as its blank eyes, now brimming with fear, darted across the sky. For a moment, they wondered what could possibly scare a creature that was, in essence, fear itself.
Then they got their answer when its eyes finally locked onto something--the same strange purple cloud that fixed everything. It flew through the sky in a rhythmic motion, almost like water, until it finally descended between the two men and the Tantabus. Upon closer inspection, the cloud had little swirls, like a painting, and two eyes stared holes into the monster before them!
Then the cloud shrunk and reformed into a scarf that encircled the now-revealed Puca!
"Puca?", Basil asked, but got no reply or look back from the creature as it stared down and growled at the monster who slowly cowered away. "You came back!", he exclaimed joyfully, still getting nothing.
Just then, the smoke scarf around Puca enveloped her again and grew huge in size; when the smoke subsided again, Puca was now the size of Basil's whole house! Basil and Wrinkles looked on with their mouths hung open in amazement, fear, and shock. All the while, the Tantabus looked ready to shit itself…if it could do that.
"Oh. My. God! Puca is huge!", Basil cheered aloud while jumping up.
Just then, the monster made a fearful screeching sound as it pressed itself to the ground and attempted to slink away! Something that didn't go unnoticed by Basil, who smugly smiled and boasted, "Oh-ho! Not so tough now, are ya?!"
Before the Tantabus could do anything else, Puca raised her trunk into the air and trumped like an elephant! The sound was so loud and powerful that the very earth under Basil's feet began to tremble! With this, the Tantabus attempted to flee…keyword attempted.
Seeing this, Basil loudly exclaimed, "Get 'em Puca!"
Without hesitation, the Baku lifted its trunk into the air and began to suck a tremendous amount of air through its mouth and out of its nose like a vacuum. Nothing was sucked into the open maw; not even the trees swayed in the suction, nothing but the Tantabus. The monster tried flying into the air to escape, but the moment Puca began to inhale, it changed strategy and flew to the ground! Turning its body into claws, it dug into the ground and tried to crawl away. But that didn't last long, and the Tantabus had to root itself down instead to prevent itself from getting sucked up! But the longer that the Tantabus clung to the dirt, the harder Puca inhaled until a typhoon was being pushed from her trunk, yet the Tantabus held on for dear life!
Just then, the monster saw none other than Basil standing before it with a smug and sinister smile on his black-stained face. With little remaining of his magic, he produced a small light beam to shoot from his fingertip and destroy the Tantabus's hold on the ground! With a look of shock and horror in its eyes, the Tantabus screamed one last time, like a person being killed, as it was sucked up into the Baku's mouth! The moment the monster fell in, Puca quickly shut her mouth like a steel bear trap with a crunch and began to chew the creature up before swallowing and licking her lips in satisfaction.
Seeing that happen, Basil cheered, "That. Was. Awesome!"
Then, the Baku re-enveloped itself in its smoke ring and shrunk back down to standard size. Only for Basil to hug the lazy-looking creature and praise it with hugs and rubs, telling it, "You did it, Puca! You killed the Tantabus!"
Meanwhile, Wrinkles was utterly shocked by the sight of this and could only muster the ability to say, "Didn't knows such a feat could be done. To think a Tantabus could actually be slain."
After praising the unnoticed Baku, Basil got up and began to cheer, "Now no more sleepless nights will ever be–sleepy.", Basil fell off at the last moment when Puca threw part of her purple cloud scarf over his face, causing him to fall asleep right on top of the Baku.
Witnessing this, Wrinkles gasped before getting defensive and running up to the creature, poking its nose while scolding, "Hey! Why did Baku do–nighty night.", Wrinkles also fell off as Puca did the same thing to him.
With the two men fast asleep atop the Baku, Puca lays on the ground and begins pulling and eating the black substance that seeped from their heads--happily enjoying herself in the silence of the night. All the while, something else happened in the bakery's second story.
At some point in the night, Teto, who was sleeping alongside Basil and Wrinkles, got up to get a drink of water from the downstairs kitchen. Upon leaving downstairs, grabbing a glass and drinking down a cup, he grabbed a small chicken leg as a midnight snack and heard something from upstairs. Assuming it was just Basil getting up to pee, he ignored it and got another glass to wash down the chicken, then grabbed another glass for his trip back up.
Once he got back up, he noticed that the door appeared to be locked despite everyone already asleep, and he didn't lock it when he left. But after about a minute of pushing and giggling at the knob, it finally opened to reveal something that awoke the half-asleep bird! The entire bedroom has been utterly trashed, and the window has been broken!
Going to the window, he saw Wrinkles and Basil on the lawn and fast asleep on Puca, who was eating something from their heads. Unable to fully process what in the world happened or what was even happening at the moment, he decided to just down the glass of water and crawl back into the half-destroyed bed, falling asleep, leaving whatever's insanity for the morning.
xXx
Back in Charlotte's room in the Devil King's castle, the Devil Piere herself was once again clutching at the makeup table, holding her vanity mirror so hard that she dug claw marks into its wood and leather top!
"Another failure…AGAIN!", she yelled while slapping away the painfully organized set of hundreds of makeup covering the table!
After letting her anger out, she breathed a calming breath. Sitting up straight while fixing her hair, she said to herself, "No, no. Don't lose your temper, Charlotte. It'll get you nowhere."
After calming down thoroughly, she assured herself, "This is little more than a slight setback and a learning curve. There is a way to improve, and I know just how to do that." After convincing herself, she doubled down by saying to her own reflection, "All I have to do is take a far more…aggressive approach. Though credit where it's due, you are still impeccably lucky, love." She said with an entertained chuckle while licking her lips.
Just then, her door was open, and the sound of someone in hefty armor walked inside before stopping and kneeling behind her. Charlotte turned in her chair and faced the new figure bowing before her. She felt a sense of relief and joy wash over her as she knew what was to come next.
"There you are, my loyal knight. Did you lose your head again?", she joked with the silent person, who only angrily grunted. She laughed a bit, slapped her knee, and said, "Oh, come on. That was funny."
To which they only sighed in exasperation, and Charlotte instructed them while bringing up a picture of Basil on her mirror, "Now go out and bring that baker into the Far Lands. Make sure he doesn't escape. Cut his legs and arms off if you have to, or use bait. Just make sure he's alive. You can take the lives of anyone else you choose."
The knight "nods" and stands back up before turning around and promptly marching out of the door, leaving a pleased Charlotte behind.