Chapter 4: A New Bridge
The last chapter of the "Before The Rift" lore preluding the events before Tales from The Dancing Moon.
James’ dreams that night consisted of catching waves on his surf board as they curled their way onto the sandy shore. The water eventually turning into great tufts of blonde curly hair causing him to struggle as his board got tangled within its roots. He then found himself running along small stony valleys, knee deep in water, as a giant boulder chased him.
He woke with a start, sweat dripping from every surface of his body, making the insides of his sleeping bag uncomfortably moist. He sat up and looked around, it was still dark outside, and the crashing of the waves sounded distant. He figured the tide must have gone out overnight.
To dry off the sweat he decided to get some fresh air. He knelt up onto his feet, his body aching from the strain of yesterday’s events. Not wanting to wake Andrew and Desmond, he slowly unzipped the front of the tent and crept outside in his bare feet.
His limbs cracked as he stood straight and tried to stretch every part of his body, straightening his arms and legs, and flexing his fingers and toes back and forth, feeling the blood rush to every nook and cranny of his body. He closed his eyes and let in a deep breath of the cold air, embracing it fully in his lungs. He then let out a big yawn. He was still tired, but he felt energised by the clean air.
Blinking his eyes in a forceful flutter, he got his bearings again of the area. It was pitch dark so there was not much to see, from where he stood he could just about make out the fire pit near the tents, and beyond this he could see some flickering lights coming from Rhossili on the other side of the water.
He craned his neck upwards to the only other things he could see - the stars. It was a magnificent sight as a sea of stars patched their way across the twilight sky. The purple haze of the Milky Way stretched across the horizon. He was not familiar with the constellations, so he found himself lost amongst the blanket of twinkling dots.
He drew his focus to the moon, hanging high in the sky like a small chandelier. It was a full moon tonight. And as James stood there focusing on it, he noticed little black flies buzzing around in front of it in his eye line. He stretched out his hands and waved them around in order to shoo them away, but the flies did not budge. It dawned on him that the flies were actually much further away than he realised, as it was hard to tell the perspective in the darkness.
Feeling foolish, he took one last look around at his surroundings and then gently led himself back into the tent and into his warm sleeping bag. He checked his phone which read four o’clock, then laid back down on his back, allowing his eyes to droop and fall back to sleep.
After a few hours of dreamless sleep, James woke naturally and found himself alert. He kept his eyes shut and tugged the edges of his sleeping bag, making the most out of the cosy morning. As he lay, he could overhear the murmurs coming from the others who had woken up earlier.
“I don’t understand” said Desmond. “It’s nine thirty!”
“This is so spooky!” said Roz.
This was enough to pique James’ interest, he lifted himself up and turned to face Andrew who was still lying next to him, his eyes open, he too just listening to what the others were saying.
James stretched his arm out and grabbed his phone, and sure enough it flashed at him a big nine, a three and a zero on the lock screen. He gazed around the tent noticing that it was still dark against the walls. He knelt up onto his feet again and crept outside of tent. The entrance flap was already unzipped.
He saw Alexis, Roz and Desmond standing by the fire pit, looking around as if they had completely forgotten where they were. Above them, was the night sky, unchanged, just like how James had seen it a few hours earlier.
“James! Do you see this? What’s going on?!” said Desmond, asking him an impossible question.
James mouth hung open as he looked up at the night sky again, he then looked at Desmond with a frown and shrugged.
“I dunno... We’re not on some kind of... weird vantage point, are we? Like the sun rises later if you’re on the island?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, its nine thirty! Everywhere should be light!”
“We should head back,” said James, “It doesn’t sound like the tide is in any more and we can check in with the volunteer for an update.”
“Right, yes... of course.” said Desmond.
Leaving the tents behind, the group stuffed all their belongings into their backpacks. They began their journey back to the cliff leading to the pathway back to the mainland. It was still dark by the time they had finished packing their tents - so they used torches to illuminate their way towards the path.
When they reached an upper ridge with better visibility of Rhossili, Desmond stopped and stretched his arm out, pointing into the distance towards the beach at the mainland.
“Were those there before?” he asked.
Along the slope leading down to Rhossili beach were hundreds of dim lights, all fading in and out. It wasn’t clear to them what they were seeing as a misty haze brought itself upon the water between them and the beach.
“It’s so pretty!” said Alexis “Just look at all those colours!”
“Colours? What do you mean?” said Desmond.
“Don’t you see? The blue lights?” said Alexis.
“Blue? I see green!” intersected Roz.
“What are you talking about?” said Alexis again “They are clearly blue!”
James looked to each of them as they argued. “Andrew? What do you see?” he said.
Andrew squinted into the distance behind his glasses.
“I see orange. You know… just normal street and window lights? There’s definitely no blue or green as far as I can see.”
Alexis and Roz began to argue more about the colours they could see, each one stating the sight of a different one.
Andrew finally stopped them with an idea.
“Wait!” he said. “What if I take a picture! It might show up differently on that.” He took his camera from his bag and held it up to his eye, then snapped a picture.
“It’s dark so it’s not coming out great, but you can at least see the lights here.” He loaded up the photo on the digital viewfinder and passed it around the group.
Alexis and Roz both looked confused. As they could now only see the orange lights on the viewfinder but could still see the colours unique to them when they looked out on the hill.
“This is nuts.” said James and shrugged with no explanation. Without further discussion, the group decided to move on again towards the cliff. They each felt a sense of bewilderment and wonder as they eyed the lights pulsing in and out in the distance as they walked on. The darkness around them and the steady walking felt almost dreamlike. What was going on? And why are they each seeing different coloured lights in the distance?
It was certain now that something was wrong when they reached the cliff leading back to the mainland.
Instead of the small drop leading down to the pathway submerged be the tide, they instead saw the start of a rope bridge fastened to the side of the cliff.
Near the cliffs edge were two large, thick, wooden posts planted in the ground, each with a rope attached to it and following the sides of the bridge into the distance, providing a support for their hands to grab onto.
The bridge itself lead out towards the mainland but was engulfed by thick fog obstructing any attempt to see the end.
“I don’t like this.” said Alexis, her voice was quiet and uneasy. Roz stepped closer for comfort.
Silence followed as each of them approached the start of the bridge, they analysed the structure of it. James took a hold of one of the ropes and heaved it up and down with all his strength, seeing if the bridge would react in anyway.
“Hello! Is anyone there!?” he called out.
There was no answer.
“What do we do?” asked Andrew after a moment of silence.
James thought hard but settled on the idea that the only thing to do was to try to get back to the mainland. “We have to try and get across... there’s no one here on the island so there’s a better chance we’ll find someone to talk to over there.” he said.
Desmond groaned but agreed, and the silence from the others implied they didn’t have any better ideas.
“Tell you what, how about I go first to test the stability of the bridge, I’ll call out to say the coast is clear, then Alexis and Roz can go, followed by Andrew then Dez.”
They agreed, so James stepped forward and placed both his hands on the two ropes attached to the posts. He stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the structure of the walkway, the wooden boards were thick and didn’t show much sign of age, which gave James the confidence he needed to make the first step.
He placed his left foot on the first board and pushed down hard whilst gripping the ropes. The board creaked under his foot as he pushed down, but it showed no sign of breaking. He moved forward and placed his right foot on to the next board. He could now feel himself sway slowly side to side as he no longer had the support of the ground. He lifted his left foot and placed it on the next board, he was now fairly certain the bridge would hold his weight, so he gradually picked up a steady pace and started to cross the bridge.
“Be careful!” called out Roz, as James took each step.
The group watched as James moved along, the fog eventually swallowing his body. The bridge continued to creak and sway side to side slowly as James ventured forth.
It felt like an eternity until the creaking stopped, and they all looked up ahead, eyes wide and ears pricked.
“OKAY IT’S CLEAR!” shouted James, he also made loud clapping noises with his hands in case they hadn’t heard.
Alexis and Roz gulped and moved forwards, they decided to test the first few wooden boards to see if it would hold both of their weights as they wanted to stick together. Sure enough - it seemed to hold them with ease, so they began to walk across.
After another few moments, the creaking of the bridge slowed then stopped, and the voices of James and the girls could be heard again.
“WE’RE OKAY! YOU CAN COME NOW!”
Andrew led the way and Desmond followed closely behind. The more time they spent apart from each other the more anxious they felt, so they stepped forwards with confidence knowing the others were safe on the other side.
As they walked along Desmond looked over the sides of the bridge, he could not see the ground below due to the darkness and the fog, he looked back towards the island and was met by the same sight, the only thing in sight were two meters of the bridge ahead of him.
Andrew and Desmond walked on, eventually the bridge began to incline upwards and they could hear the voices of James, Alexis and Roz.
“Phew!” said Andrew in relief as he stepped off the last board and on to the grass of the mainland.
Desmond followed, but as he planted his foot on the ground, he let out an ear-splitting scream.
“AAAAHHHH!!!”
“What the-!? What’s wrong!?” asked James quickly, Desmond was now kneeling down on the floor, his hands were clutching the sides of his head and was shaking frantically.
“The voices! It’s so loud! Can’t you hear them!? There’s so many voices!”
The rest of the group stared with their mouths hanging open - petrified.
He continued to yell and scream and was now thrashing around on the floor, pushing his hands against the sides of his head.
“I can’t hear! Stop! Stop! Stop! AGGHHHHH!!!!”
The group continued to look on helplessly, James knelt down and grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to keep him still.
“Dez! Dez! Look at me! Listen to me! Dez!” James tried.
Desmond began to ease, his shaking slowed down, and he loosened his hands from his head. Eventually he laid still on the floor, his eyes wide open staring at James.
“Dez...?” said James. “Are you still there!?”
“Mmm...” Desmond mumbled.
“Are you okay? What happened?” asked James.
“There were voices... hundreds of them... all talking at the same time, I could hear them.” he looked shocked.
“Great. Lights, and now voices! What next!?” said Andrew. His voice shaking with anxiety. Alexis and Roz stood helplessly still.
“Can you get up?” James asked Desmond, keeping his attention on him.
Desmond nodded, then slowly stood up, he didn’t feel physically hurt, but his mind felt foggy and unresponsive.
“Well, at least we’re now on the mainland. All we need to do is find someone to figure out what’s going on... shall we go towards the lights? It looked like they came from the village area of Rhossili. We’ll be going past the car park on the way so we can check in on the van.”
The group agreed, excited by the thought of reuniting with their van, they started to walk towards the car park. It was still dark, so they made their way very slowly, being careful of with their steps.
However, as soon as they reached the car park, it soon dawned on each of them that they were somewhere else entirely - as the car park had completely vanished, replaced by a large field of grass. The landscape was similar, as James noticed the same slopes down towards the cliffs, and as he looked back towards Worms Head, the island and the beach were still there.
It was still Rhossili, but at the same time... it was not.
“Let’s move on” said James, after the group looked warily around the field. The pub opposite had also vanished.
They walked further down the road, each of them now walking tightly together for safety. They continued on what would have been the various little houses and the church of Rhossili, but instead they were met by fields and slopes similar to the area of the car park. They reached a point where they lost their bearing completely and could no longer see any resemblance to Rhossili.
Eventually, the path they were following began to incline upwards, and they could just about see some buildings towards the top of a hill. As they approached the buildings, their eyes had adjusted more to the dark and things began to take clearer shape.
They stopped in front of a set of large wooden doors, about three times the height of themselves. Outlining the door were stones, cemented together with dirt. On each side stood two towers with turrets on top like a castle. To the left and right, a high stone wall branched out and disappeared into the mist on either side.
James looked around at the others in hopes for a suggestion. “Should we try to get someone’s attention?” The others shrugged but had no other suggestions.
“Hello!? Is anyone there!?” he shouted.
They looked up towards the turrets, the outline of a body could be seen shuffling around, but there was no response. James yelled again, straining his voice, but once again, there was no response.
“Are they ignoring us?” Roz said, feeling small and patronised.
“I don’t know...” said James, shrugging.
James approached the big wooden doors and placed his palm on its surface and gave it a nudged. The door shifted slightly, forming a crack where the two doors met in the middle.
“It’s open!” he whispered and pushed a little bit further. The door opened just enough for him to squeeze himself through. No one seemed to notice, so the others followed.
On the other side, they found themselves at the entrance of a small village, they stood at the edge of a circular plaza with an inactive water fountain in the middle. Around the fountain was a cobbled pathway which branched off into different areas the village. From here they could see little houses and buildings sitting along the edges of these pathways.
In front of the fountain was a tall post which towered over them, with a big wooden board fastened to the top. Words were etched into it which read -Welcome to Ilissor.
“Ilissor?” said James. Desmond scratched his head with confusion, as Andrew lifted his camera to take a picture.
“Where should we go from here?” asked James to the rest of the group.
“It’s still dark… perhaps somewhere will be open? Like a pub or something like that?” Roz suggested. The group nodded with agreement, then looked around at the various paths leading away from the plaza. As they skimmed their sights to each path, they could just about hear the faint sound of laughter and chatting coming from a distance. Roz pointed in the direction of the noise which they steered themselves towards. They approached the village from the south, and this was heading east.
They walked nervously towards the noise, the mist dispersing below their feet on each step. The street they were going down seemed to be a commercial road of sorts, with various shops occupying each side of the street.
They arrived at the front of the pub and looked up at a sign swaying back and forth with the breeze, the lettering was made of a polished metal and reflected the light of the stars in the sky. It read - The Dancing Moon Inn - and below that was a painting of a stylised moon character, sporting a hat and twirling a cane around its finger. “What a funny name, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it!” said Roz.
James approached the front door, it was large and old fashioned - made of vertical wooden planks. The doorknob was spherical and rusty, he wrapped his hands around it and pushed the door open.
The group of them cautiously stepped inside.
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This was the last chapter of Before the Rift - a prequel set of lore to the game Tales from The Dancing Moon.
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