"The Black Hat" (A D&D horror story.)

Chapter 5: The great one

Peter let out a scream of terror as the man lunged at him. Peter's scream had woken both Benjamin and Fredrick. Both of them were startled and confused and asked what the fuck was going on. They saw Peter huddled up in the corner of the tree shaking violently as tears fell from his eyes. Benjamin ran towards him and grabbed him.

"Peter are you okay what happened?!"

Peter slowly lifted his hand while shaking and pointed to the end of the tree towards the dark wilderness.

"D-demon" trembled Peter as he continued shaking while pointing.

Benjamin ran outside and looked all around with his dagger in hand looking for this demon that Peter supposedly saw. He found nothing but he did pick up how "quiet" the forest was no bugs or animals were making their nightly noises. When he returned to Peter he placed his hand on his shoulders.

"Peter calm down you were probably having a night terror, it's been a rough few days, and besides with Fredricks's so-called magic hat you....." 

Just before Ben could finish his sentence he and Peter both realized that Fredrick was no longer in the tree log with them. They heard a faint whispering coming from outside and when they both looked they saw Fredrick who was sitting by the remainder of the campfire and was holding the hat in his hands and he was holding it close to his chest.  Benjamin got up and went over to Fred now suspicious.

"Alright, Fred what the hell is going on?" asked Benjamin in a demanding voice.

Fredrick then went quiet and slowly turned to Ben and what Benjamin saw shocked him to his core. Fredrick's eyes were now pitch black as if they were there at all. Before Benjamin could do anything else, Fredrick quickly moved to him at a supernatural speed touched him on his forehead, and whispered something really fast and unrecognizable soon both of them were now sitting around the fire while Peter sat horrified at what was now happening and not knowing what to do Peter just sat there and watched both Ben and Fred until the sun came over the horizon. When the sun was all the way up Peter emerged from the tree and walked over to Ben and Fred who were now staring into nothing, the fire had gone out hours ago so they were practically staring into each other's eyes.

"Ben? Fred? what's going on here we should really be getting a move on" said Peter but neither of them said a word while Benjamin finally responded.

"No," said Benjamin "we must stay here until he says otherwise".

Peter confused looked around before looking back at Ben and Fred.
"Who are you talking about Ben?" asked Peter.

Benjamin looked up at Peter and said calmly.

"The Great One".

Peter was kind of freaked out by the way Ben said that like he said it in a very calm yet robotic way as if he wasn't truly himself.

"What are you talking about Ben and what do you mean by "the great one" who is that?"

Then Fredrick took over the conversation.

"He's the one who lives inside this hat here and he told both of us that all of our dreams and hopes will come true if we all sit and wait".

Peter was more confused than ever. He went back inside the tree and sat trying to process all that was going on. He kept thinking and thinking trying to figure out the reasoning behind all of this "Why was Fredrick sitting by the fire last night with the hat?" and "What was that thing I saw hovering over Fredrick's body" And did it have something to do with all the strange behaviour that's been going on?" Soon Peter took a journal out of his sack and began to write in it.

(Peter's Perspective.)

28th October 1520:

Okay so I don't know what has been going on both Benjamin and Fredrick have been acting very very strange lately ever since we found the hat. To be honest we all should've just left the hat behind and moved on to something else because it was obviously a trick that the king had made. But yet how are all these events adding up? Food doesn't just come out of nowhere and how can a simple black hat make a portrait of my own family out of thin air?  But i'm getting over my head I think i'm just going to stay in this tree and watch both Ben and Fred to see if they snap out of this weird trance or whatever.