BRAHMA’S JOURNEY
co-written by Brahma and his player
Brahma and Angus © 2001 Brahma’s player

"This is a bad idea," Brahma mumbled as they moved further into the dark woods..

"Ah, come on, Brahma! Where’s your sense of adventure?" asked Angus, walking alongside him.

Together, they were quite an imposing pair--twin Minotaur brothers both standing nine feet tall with brown fur covering every inch of their heavily muscled bodies; their horns stretching out and pointing slightly downward. They were different from other minotaurs in that they were raised around humans, and thus were civilized. The other difference in that they were at least two feet larger than the usual Minotaur, and a lot heavier. Both bulls weighed in at 2,000 pounds each, yet they moved through the dense forest without the slightest rumble from the earth.

"My sense of adventure has the decency to give up when my common sense knows it’s dangerous, Angus," Brahma frowned at his brother, who had a big grin plastered on his face. "You want us to go to an abandoned temple."

"That’s right!"

"Don’t you see the inherent danger in that?"

"Of course!" Angus said, stretching his arms out. "That’s why it’s an adventure!"

"You’re an idiot, you know that?"

"Sure I do," Angus playfully punched his brother on the arm, which would have broken a human’s arm and send him flying across twenty feet, but Brahma didn’t even blink. "You tell me that every time we do something you think you won’t like."

"I usually don’t."

"That’s because you’re repressed."

"I wouldn’t call entering a hydra’s cave ‘repressed’, I’d call it ‘intelligent’."

Angus stopped walking and gave his brother an indignant look. "Hey, there wasn’t a hydra in there, if you’d remember."

"Thank goodness for the harpies; I bet they would’ve been eaten," sneered Brahma, not slowing down his pace.

Angus grew silent, but Brahma knew his brother better than to think he had won. Any second now...

"Yeah, but weren’t the harpies easier to beat than a hydra?"

Brahma shook his head. His brother was so predictable sometimes. "This does not change the fact I think this is a very bad idea."

"That’s why I dragged you out here, brother! You always have this knack to pull me out of trouble, just like I have the ability to get you into trouble!" Angus almost sounded proud of that fact, and knowing him, he was.

Brahma stepped over a dead tree trunk that had toppled across the path before he asked his next question. "Angus, tell me again how you knew this temple existed?"

Angus smiled like a child with a funny joke. "Well, I kinda found it when I snuck out last night."

"You did what?"

Angus grinned wickedly. "Yeah, I was going over to the centaur village to see Athene."

"But mother forbid you to ever come into contact with her again. She said Athene was a bad influence."

Angus’ grin grew even wider. "Mom was right."

"I don’t want to know."

"Smart bull. Anyway, on my way to see that lil’ filly, I stumbled across the temple. It’s real old--nobody’s used it for decades, I’ll bet."

"Could you tell what god it belonged to?" Brahma found it hard to believe Angus’ story of an abandoned temple, but he sounded so convincing that the bull was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Angus shrugged his massive shoulders. "I’m not completely sure, but I think it’s one of Morpheus’ temples."

"How odd, I’ve never heard of any temples dedicated to the god of Dreams being in the woods."

"That’s what we’re going to find out. Won’t that be fun?"

The look on Brahma’s face told Angus exactly what his brother thought, but he chose to ignore it. As usual. "Here we are," Angus whispered.

The temple was large, and fairly loomed in the dark woods; it was partially collapsed, but there was no outlying debri. Brahma found that odd, but shrugged off the thought immediately. They stepped into the temple, and the dust of many years flew up from their footsteps. Brahma sneezed, and it felt as if the temple shook.

Angus twitched. "Gods, Brahma! You want me to die of fright?"

"Would it stop you from being an idiot on occasion?"

"Not even a tiny bit."

Brahma and his brother lapsed into silence as they explored the different rooms -- some were once devoted to meditation; others were sleeping chambers or something close to it. It wasn’t until they reached the main chamber that they were at a loss for recognition.

In the center of the room stood two giant pillars of marble wider than a titan’s leg--Brahma couldn’t have even locked his fingers together if he had wrapped his arms around one of those monoliths (though he noted his brother tried to do just that). Unlike the rest of the room, these works were free of dust. Brahma didn’t like the feeling he was getting, and when Angus started poking at the pillars, that feeling grew worse.

"Wow, these pillars aren’t even dirty--look how white they are compared to the rest of everything else!" Angus exclaimed, wiping his palm across the slick surface of a pillar.

"We should go, brother." Brahma said, feeling tense. There was something different about this temple, something he couldn’t quite put his mental finger on. Before he could ponder it any more, a glint of bronze caught his eye. Located on the floor in front of him was a plaque. Wiping the dust from it, the bull could read THIS WAY TO THE DREAM. "Brother..." Brahma began to say before Angus interrupted.

"Hey brother, look!" Angus was in the center of the columns, his palms ready to push against either side of them. "I’m that Samson guy! Grrrrrr, watch me bring down the place!"

"Brother, don’t touch those!"

"Aw, I’m not going to really do it."

"Step away from them, I think they’re dangerous!"

Angus blinked. "What, these old things? Their just for decoration!" He then patted them both at once. "They won’t hurt--" The bull’s claim was lost at the pillars’ unexpected reaction to his touch. First came the teeth-chattering hum, which quickly reached painful levels of sound. Then the pillars darkened, until they became as black as obsidian. The hum grew even louder--Brahma tried to yell for his brother to move, but the bull was already backing away as he looked back and forth at the pillars, his eyes wide with fear.

Brahma tried to grab his brother, but it was too late as the sound brought both bulls to their knees. Covering their ears did no good, and soon, it was hard to anything but writhe in pain. Still, Brahma then realized what bothered him. There was no debri on the side Angus stood on; the wreckage was pointed towards the middle of the pillars. He would soon discover why.

A pinprick of darkness opened between the pillars, a tiny hole that quickly yawned open into a chasm. The wind started to pull Brahma towards it--his great mass as useless as a feather caught in a hurricane. "ANGUS!" he bellowed, but the roar of the wind combined with the sound of the pillars overwhelmed his voice. Soon, Brahma was pulled completely in, and the chasm closed, the pillars grew quiet.

Angus opened his eyes slowly--he had lost consciousness for a brief time. His ears were still ringing. "Brahma?" he called out. No answer. "Brother?" No reply.

Gods, if anything happened to him, mother is going to SMITE me, and I’ll deserve it! he thought as he searched the area for his twin, but Angus never found him that night; he also wouldn’t see his brother again for a very long time.

Brahma was drifting in a sea of darkness. He could feel nothing but a chill that permeated through his entire body. How long had he been in this place? Seconds? Hours? Years? Time slipped through his fingers like sand--he could not hold only any sense of it. All he knew was that he was completely, utterly alone.

Then, a tiny dot of white against the darkness appeared. Was it truly tiny, and hovering in front of his eyes? Or was it gigantic, and an infinite distance away? The question would never be answered as the darkness disintegrated and Brahma found himself falling towards a clearing in an immense forest.

The cheetah was stretched out against the rock enjoying a sunbeam when he heard the bellow of fear, followed by the resounding impact of something very heavy crashing to the ground--the force knocked him off his perch for that matter! When he peeked over the rock, he saw a very large crater, followed by a very large Minotaur who slowly crawled out of it. Dazed, the bull looked around, the confusion clearly evident in his eyes.

"I told Angus not to touch those pillars, but does he listen? No!" Brahma muttered to himself. "Just because he was born two seconds after me, he thinks he can do whatever he wants, and get me to bail him out?" This griping continued for at least another minute before the 'taur stopped long enough to have another thought: Where am I?

"Where" seemed to be the middle of a clearing in a large forest. As far as his eyes could see, he saw nothing but evergreen trees.

"This is not where I originally was at," muttered Brahma. "Mother is going to beat me until I'm one big bruise if I'm late for dinner without letting her know ahead of time!"

Making a quick check of his inventory, he found his storage ring was intact, and his armor necklace wasn't even scratched. He touched the pendant which hung from the necklace and after a brief flash of light, he was wearing his tailor made armor. "Never hurts to be careful, who knows what I'm going to discover in this place?"

With that, Brahma exited the clearing, wondering what else could go wrong... Brahma unspoken question was possibly answered by the arrival of a cheetah, with three differences--it stood on two legs, wore a loincloth to cover its netheregions, and...

"Hiya, welcome to the Dream!"

...it spoke.

Brahma blinked. He was definitely not in familiar territory anymore...