There’s smart like Alec, smart like Mensa, and then there’s smart like an infinite being who lives beyond time and space and was old when the first star was young.

And that’s exactly the sort of being that local lad Johnny Turnip claims he beat in a game of wits and nerve on New Year’s Eve.

“I’m not one to brag!” Explained the semi-professional paranormal investigator, “But when you’ve not only held your own but bested a creature of endless night and unlimited intellect then I think you deserve a little self-congratulatory pat on the back.”

Turnip told the Chronicle that not long after the “initial manifestation of the ancient nature spirit,” the house in Powys where he and the boys had been strategically placed as bait by their warlock friend, showed them its true face.

“We thought we’d been living the good life in a high-end rural retreat,” explained Turnip. “But the reality was it was a run-down hovel. As soon as the ancient bastard blew down the door and crept into our heads, the veil was lifted from our eyes.

"We realised we had been partying in a slum without electricity, sofas, or any mod-cons. There was no pool table, no fridge full of cold beer, just rooms full of cobwebs, rotting floors, smashed windows, damp walls, a couple of milk crates, and traffic cones. And bizzarely, a stack of Abergavenny Chronicles from the 1970s stacked against one wall."

Turnip added, “Cherry Tree Cottage was an illusion. We’d been sat in this twilight kingdom of filth and decay, necking cheap whiskey and kidding ourselves we were having fun. While all the time our minds have been enslaved by some sort of spell of enchantment.

“As Puerto Rico Paul said after grimly surveying the scene, ‘Christ! What a crap house!’”

Turnip revealed, “It dawned on me that the postman, Ishmael the farmer, and the witch were as much ghosts as the failed musician guy. We’d been toyed with for the duration of the stay.

"The ancient bastard was muttering something about us being his playthings. But playtime was over. It was time to draw a line in the sand and for this Turnip to get a little payback!”

Turnip explained that as he, Puerto Rico Paul, and Big Tony adapted to their new reality, they noticed everything was bathed in an unsettling green light.

“Through this weird green glow we saw the ancient bastard,” recalled Turnip. “I say saw it, but it’s more like we felt it. It’s difficult to put into words but it was a shape defined by its emptiness, like a tornado of nothing.

“Anyhow, it slithered into our minds like a supernatural eel and started gnawing away. It began playing on some of our most profound fears and tried to make them real. For a brief and hellish moment, I forgot I was in a Powys slum and thought I was in the front row of an Ed Sheeran concert holding a sign that read, ‘Marry me, my ginger prince.’

“It was truly terrifying stuff, but this wasn’t our first rodeo. This ancient bastard would have its work cut out if it thought all it took was a little illusion, alcohol, and substance abuse to claim our minds.

“We are at our most powerful when intoxicated. And this sucker was about to learn that the hard way!

“‘Come on you ancient bastard!’ I screamed. ‘I’ll be your huckleberry’

“Getting into the spirit of things, Paul snarled, ‘I’ll ride the snake to the ancient lake and drink it dry bitch!’

“Never the most eloquent or imaginative, Big Tony just growled, ‘Come on then dick head!’

“After a while of just jumping up and down on the spot and shouting threats in the face of the ancient bastard, or whatever it had that passed for a face. It sort of turned into a thousand arrows and launched itself at us!”

Turnip explained, We thought we were a goner for good, but as luck would have it, at that exact moment, the warlock Earl Elderflower miraculously appeared in front of us, looking a bit like Dr. Strange, but a sort of low-budget and Welsh version.

“‘Behind me you fools!’ He screamed. ‘Which was a bit redundant because we were already behind him. Anyhow, he did this weird thing with his hand and a huge glass wall appeared in front of him which the arrows fell harmlessly against.

“The ancient bastard then turned into the biggest sledgehammer you’ve ever seen and started battering against the glass wall. Elderflower then turned the glass wall into a bouncy castle and the sledgehammer went flying back, but then the ancient bastard came back as a huge nail and popped the bouncy castle. I realised then it was a game of imagination and wanted to play!

“As Elderflower screamed, ‘It’s far more older and powerful than I thought. I can’t harness it. It is picking away my mind like a vulture strips flesh from a roadkill.’ I visualised myself as rust attacking the nail, but then the ancient spirit turned into a can of WD-40 and it was game on!

“It went on like that for a long time. Towards the end, the ancient bastard became a desert where nothing grows and I became a solitary drop of rain. It then turned into a storm and I became a rainbow and then it stumped me big time by saying in a voice as smug and annoying as a room full of Tik Tok content creators, ‘In a world without colour, I am neither black nor white. Not even a ghostly shade of grey.

“No melancholy haunting that might or not have been. I am invisible and unobserved, an orphan of nothingness. Neither the darkness at the edge of night nor the mystery of shadows. I am not a past, present, or future. I am simply not there.

“No eyes can see me. No shade defines me. I lack, therefore I’m not. Not your deepest fear, not your greatest love, or life’s defining indifference. I’m simply what awaits at the end of a world without colour.’

“‘That’s you knackered JT!’ Said Big Tony.

"‘He’s played a blinder there!’ Agreed Puerto Rico Paul.

"‘All is lost!’ Sighed Earl Elderflower.

“‘Not quite old fruit!’ I grinned. I simply held out my arms, looked in the ancient bastard’s direction, and said, ‘And I am hope, and hope springs eternal.’

“It was then that Big Tony’s eyeballs disappeared into the back of his head and the dragon appeared.”

To be continued…..