Dullahan Choose Your Own Adventure - Part One (Patreon)

Well, here's part one of the Dullahan CYOA story. The vote on the first decision will be for everyone, as it is a Tumblr thank you, but the poll itself will be on here, and public. I'm just about to post this over on my Tumblr, and I'll continue to post the story both here and on Tumblr as we go, in case you want to remind yourself of the story so far when it comes to making more decisions down the line, as some of them will be Patreon only. 

Hope you enjoy! I'm oddly nervous about this one!

It was definitely too late to be out, and yet your stocks of ‘demon claw’ mushrooms were running too low for you to finish Morwenna’s tincture. Three of the miners had returned from work with a brutal, hacking cough and a terrible fever, and you’d been run off your feet taking care of them for the past few days, only feeling able to leave their sides for long enough to brew more inhalations and chest rubs to ease their pain and help their breathing. Goblins were usually resilient to dust and underground spores, but whatever ailed them had hit them hard. 

And so it was that you were out hunting mushrooms like a truffle pig, mere minutes before dusk, your boots crunching through the coppery fallen leaves which littered the forest floor between the beeches, larch, and oak in the woods surrounding the small town. It was nice to be out of the sick room and among the trees again, and you took your time as you headed up the hill away from the buildings and into the trees. An eerie white mist coiled around the trunks like a lazy housecat twisting around the feet of a beloved owner, and you breathed in the quiet, late autumn smells of the forest. You knew these woods like the back of your hand, and turned off the road to wind your way with long familiarity through the ancient trees, searching out the strange, shiny black mushrooms which were shaped, as the name suggested, like large, tapering, curved talons. Your search took you across the path which led up to the silver mines in the rocky shoulders of the mountains, and as you paused to look back at the path behind you, you caught sight of the short figure of a goblin coming down the track. 

He was clearly returning from a day of work in the mines, and, recognising him instantly despite the distance between you, your face split into a wide smile. Barely three and a half feet tall, with skin the colour of the approaching twilight, you knew Kravik, your life-long best friend at even the briefest glance. You’d been born a day apart, and had spent almost every spare moment with him as you’d grown up. He worked in the mines with his father, and was usually jovial and outgoing. Now, however, he was walking along, cradling something in his palms which glowed with a soft, blue light, staring at it with an intensity that shut out everything around him. He didn’t even seem to hear you when you called out to him, but eventually he did, squinting through the darkness and slipping whatever was in his hand out of sight with the efficient rapidity of a pickpocket. 

Kravik waved vaguely and continued on his way towards town, leaving you puzzled, but you had other things to focus on. Perhaps he’d simply had a long day. Heavens knew, toiling in the mine was hard work, even for someone with his hard, wiry muscles.

With your basket half full of ‘demon claw’ mushrooms, you decided to call it a night. As you turned to head back to your small, wooden alchemist’s hut on the very edge of the town, your eye was caught by the rarest of sights - the glittering top of a pyrite truffle. These unique truffles could fetch an incredible price at market, with the way they glittered when sliced through, and you began to dig carefully around it so as not to damage it. It was right at the base of a massive oak, nestled in the crook of its root system, and you dirtied your hands clearing away the earth from a wide radius in order to lift it free without damaging it. As you pried the little treasure free, your fingertips scraped on something hard and flat just beneath it.

“Buried treasure underneath buried treasure?” you breathed, wondering if you had perhaps stumbled on a long-forgotten highwayman’s cache or something. Using a stick now to help you dig it out, you had the rest of the earth cleared away in no time and were able to haul the box free. Once you’d dragged it out of the hole, you took a moment to stare at it. It was unadorned, and made of some ancient-looking hardwood, about a foot long, and surprisingly heavy. The latch was rusted, but the hinges on the back were so corroded you were able to pry them off with your gleaner’s knife and open the box that way, the latch pinging off altogether as you lifted the lid. 

Expecting to find perhaps an ingot of precious metal, or some other treasure, you began to lift back the layers of shrouded material that lined the old chest. The moment your fingers touched the decaying fabric, you heard the distant scream of a horse and the thunder of galloping hooves on the road through the woods. It was late to be travelling the countryside, but messengers from the royal messenger corps occasionally rode through town, so you thought little of it and returned your attention to the unusual box.

Trying to shake the strange, and growing, sense of unease which billowed around you in the air and which seemed to settle into your muscles and bones like a sudden chill, you drew back the last fold of black, rotting cloth, and screamed in shock. Inside, a severed human head lay perfectly preserved, nestled among the dark wrappings. Long, black hair was braided back off the face in several neat strands to reveal high cheekbones and dark brows, but what fixed you to the spot with terror was the fact that its eyes were wide open, and they were staring straight at you with a look of such hatred that you thought your heart might just stop.

The head might have appeared human, but the skin was a dark, cloudy grey, and, spreading across the sharp plains and contours of his face like glowing roots, was a network of bright, gently-pulsing, greenish veins. The sclera of each eye was black as the night sky, while the irises, by contrast, were shimmering, pearlescent white. In the depths of the pupils, a strange, greenish light seemed to be glowing, the same colour as the branching, twisting, scar-like lines across his face, and a similar glow emanated from the severed neck.

And then those awful, unnatural eyes blinked. 

Your heartbeat thudded in your ears, your breath came in short, sharp pants, and as you toppled backwards in horror, you heard an awful, rasping voice coming from the head, its face contorted with fury. With a sound like scraping granite blocks, it said, “You dare disturb the head of a dullahan?”

“Oh gods,” you whispered, fixed in a of terror. The creature’s mouth had fangs like a vampire, and its dark grey lips pulled back into a hideous grin that turned your blood to cold slush in your veins.

Before you had time to process anything else, a black horse thundered into the clearing, rearing up with a scream, her hooves flashing with a strange light, and her eyes glowing with the same unearthly glow that was now familiar to you from the head. But the mare didn’t hold your attention for long. 

It was patently obvious that the rider was the owner of the head. 

His coat was black and had a vaguely military cut, with a high collar that covered an empty neck. Greenish-white mist swirled upwards in roiling twists from the opening at the neck of his coat, reminding you of slow-dancing flames. His bare hands which held the reins with ease as the horse reared and plunged and snorted, were a dark, storm grey, and they were clawed like a beast’s, or even a demon’s. A pale whip dangled from his belt, and with a jolt of horror you saw that it was made from the vertebrae of a human spine. His black boots gleamed in the dying light, and now that the moon began to rise through the trees, you felt utterly in this creature’s power. 

“What do you mean by opening that box?” he demanded. “You dare risk the wrath of a headless horseman?”

“Please,” you whimpered, “Please, I didn’t know…” Scrambling desperately, still sitting awkwardly on the forest floor where you’d staggered back in shock at your discovery, you grabbed the basket of mushrooms and the single pyrite truffle and held it aloft like an offering. “Please, I had no idea. I was only out gathering when I found… um… I wasn’t trying to harm you, I swear!”

“Please,” he scoffed, adjusting his seat in the saddle. “As if you could harm me.”

It was so bizarre to be looking at the body of the headless rider on the horse and hearing his voice coming from the head in the crate beside you. As you turned from the rider to gaze at the head, a flicker of worry crossed the dullahan’s expression, and you reached for the box again, hoping he couldn’t see the way your fingers trembled. 

He was bluffing. 

You felt the weight of your options in that moment, hanging over you like a headsman’s axe. You knew from the stories that holding the head of a dullahan would put them completely in your power. You had no gold to ward him off, and your options were terrifyingly limited. Dullahan were agents of death and justice: unstoppable, and almost un-killable. 

The wise thing to do might be to cover the head back up again, close the lid, and hope he believed you when you told him, yet again, that you really had had no idea that it was there, and that you really were just gathering supplies. 

Or… 

You could pick up the head and demand that he obey you, that he leave you in peace to live out a long and healthy life, but you would have to guard that head with obsessive care. If he ever laid hands on it again, he would come straight for you, eyes blazing with righteous and terrible anger. You shuddered.

The horse’s hooves shifted uneasily as the dullahan waited to see what you would do. 

With a shaking hand, you acted.

To vote on a decision, please go to the poll and vote!!  Don't forget to drop a like if you liked it, or leave me a comment! It really does mean the world to me, and it encourages me to keep going if I get feedback from you, in whatever form you like. 

 Edit: Part Two will go up next Friday (21st September) as I’m travelling on Saturday and wont’ be able to post. Votes will close on Wednesday 19th.