I'd been dreaming. About what, I couldn't quite tell you. But there was certainly something. Before the world shifted, that is, and I fell out of it.

I felt as my perception tilted, and there was no longer a connection between me and my body. I slid backwards, and down, my vision peeling away at the edges, revealing a deep and enveloping black. The sort of shifting, colorful, not really black that was only there when you closed your eyes in the darkest rooms. The scene shrunk away above me, behind my grasping hand, the ragged flapping of my coattails and the vague silhouette of the rest of my body. Strands of hair whipped wildly at the edges of my vision.

The distant light moved out of view as my head craned... up? Down? In the direction of the fall. Far below me was a pinpoint of bright, all-consuming orange, rapidly drawing near. Nothing else marred the visage of the featureless abyss. Then, a fierce and sudden wind seized me in its grasp, spiraling violently out of the void and sending me careening off into the distance. I could feel the movement, but without a frame of reference it was, in truth, meaningless. Up and down and left and right I was flung throughout the nothingness. And yet, I felt no pain when I would snap to a sudden stop, or be twisted and wrung by the gales. Still, that hungry light drew near. The wind eventually faded and I found myself, once more, falling.

In it's place was heat, angry and scorching. Fire flickered in every direction. The gaps between blazes filled with yet more hateful, hungry red. A flame, so vast, and unending, that it might devour the world if given the chance. Tongues of flame licked across my skin, but I did not burn. My eyes dried and the burning air scorched my lungs, even as I choked and gasped on the heavy, smothering smoke from the all-encompassing blaze.

And then so too were the flames gone, and I was swallowed by a different light. This was a blinding brightness, without definition or border. Though I shut my eyes, and covered them with my hands, still the light penetrated and blinded me. And not only my eyes, no. I felt it stabbing through every inch of my body, shining through my flesh and bones as if they were not even there. The brilliant white screamed throughout me and left buzzing, energized trails in its wake.

And the light was gone, and I fell into a sea. Water, freezing cold, dragged me down into the depths, away from the wavering, shimmering, blue-tinted light above me. The heavy liquid filled my lungs as had the smoke from the fire. There was the taste of blood in my mouth, and I watched the faint trails of red swirl above me. Something, vague and threatening, passed over me. A tension in the waters around, like a lurking predator, quickly gone. I struggled fruitlessly and to no avail as the chilled hand of the abyss pulled me down, down, down into the deep.

I felt again as I came to rest. The silt of the sea floor puffed at the impact. And, as I laid there, I felt the sand creeping up around me. Slowly, inexorably, drawing itself over me, enveloped my body and took it yet further down. At last it covered my eyes, and I was buried. I felt the shifting weight, the pressure from every side. And then it too was gone.

I was lost to the dark. Floating in the lightless nought, cast adrift, weightless, amidst an empty black. And this was truly black. Not the vague grey or the conceptual emptiness of the voids I'd born witness to. But a real black, composed of shadow and darkness. Nothing, physically, but yet thick and tangible and viscous, like honey. Swirling and shifting with the ripples and wakes of the things that dwelt within its embrace. Great creeping and crawling, swimming and slithering things. Things that scattered and writhed, vanishing into the dark as something more came.

A vast platform rose from beneath me, meeting my feet. And thus, was the concept of down once more defined. Five great and crooked monoliths towered in the near, yet far distance, all around in most every direction. In the formless black before me, two points of light emerged. Hollow, ephemeral eyes, rings of purple, feathered smoke that trailed off into the nothing. Below them, a stretched, rictus grin cut out from the murky, indistinct silhouette that loomed out of the dark. All of it visible only by the virtue of being darker than the surrounding abyss.

There was a sound of laughter, hideous, shrieking and atonal. The voice was not that of a man or woman, old or young, nor did it bear any particular accent. It dug into the ears like nails stabbing into the brain. Clawed and tore at your thoughts and mind, cast them into discordant chaos. That maleficent smile grew ever larger, and yet it was obscured from my sight as the great hand closed upon me. All was dark, and my eyes opened, and there was light.

And I pondered as I laid there, gazing up at the simple, smooth stone ceiling. As my thoughts ran amok, spinning hopelessly this way and that, crashing into each other and flying off in another direction. Slowly, they oriented themselves, slowed down and rearranged into something vaguely resembling a facsimile of order. It was only minutes later, when I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed, prepared to rise, that they finally coalesced into words.

"What was that?" I asked the empty air. "Like... just actually what? I wouldn't call it a nightmare, it wasn't scary. Just... weird." I mused on the dream as I did what I could to get ready. Checking the time had revealed I'd awoken with a good amount of time before the first class of this second day. Once I realized where and what year it was, that is. How considerate of the incomprehensible elder shadow being.

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"The falling bit. I'm thinking that was the elemental planes, maybe?" I narrated my thoughts aloud as I roughly combed through my hair, standing before the generously provided mirror in the private bathroom. Note: Hands really suck for untangling luxurious locks, bring a brush next time."But why? That was most of it, so it feels important. How though... Eh, future problem. Like this mess. Ugh." I tossed the minorly-more-presentable mass over my shoulders in defeat. "I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend. Ominous dreams should stay a rare occurence, in my opinion. Very rare, preferably.." A pause, as a thought occurred to me.

"I'm oddly undisturbed by this, aren't I?" I looked up at my reflection and blinked. "You'd think one would be more concerned but... I'm just not. Something messed with my head and I don't care. Why don't I care? I mean, I'm annoyed, but you'd think there'd be more." My head tilted slightly. A habit I hadn't managed to break despite numerous criticisms. "Actually, have I ever reacted to things like that? Things that I should definitely be disturbed by, I mean." I looked back, searching my memories for any such moments, and I found... none.

"Uh... there was that time the neighbor died? No, I didn't really care then either. I didn't even go to the funeral. I know it's sad but... I can't bring myself to really care about it. Then again, we weren't very close anyway. Friendly, sure, but not much else. What's a better example..." I scratched at my face in thought. "I can't even think of anything. That could mean it isn't an issue. Or that it's such a problem I don't even care enough to remember. Am I a psychopath? Sociopath? One of those. I should read up on that." Deeply, I stared into my own eyes. "Huh. It would make sense, I guess. What with..." The sentence trailed off as I gestured vaguely.

"That would actually explain quite a bit now that I think about it. Well, not much to do about it now. Actually, do I even need to do something about it? I haven't had an issue so far. Well... No, there are definitely issues. I can see where empathy probably would have made my life eaiser. Does it warrant intervention though?" I chewed my lip lightly and stared into the distance as I considered it. "No, I don't think so. Not yet, at least."

The eye vibrated droningly, and the Commune Skill shivered. I gave the pendant a strong stink-eye and buried the Skill behind an irrelevant thought.

My wandering view caught a tiny symbol placed beneath the mirror. A small, black circle on the off-white wall, contained within a slightly less small circle and connected by short spiraling lines. (Twelve, if you must know, I'd counted them before, out of boredom and interest.) With great joy and expectation, and much willful ignoring of how long it'd taken me to notice it, I pressed my index finger to the surface. There was a slight, brief tugging on my mana. Nothing consequential, a mere fraction of a fraction, nigh unnoticeable.

To my delight, after a short pause, two very different yet similar objects appeared with a faint popping. Brushes, the both of them. One for hair, quickly put to use. Another for the teeth, irrelevant, as I was sensible enough to bring something for that myself, shoved into a back pocket with a tube of paste for the sole bones that we deemed fit to be cleaned. At least, pre-mortem. Touching the thing again banished the tools to wherever they presumably came from.

After my mane was sufficiently ordered, I threw myself quickly through the bare-bones provided shower, complete with cheap soaps and lacking in hair conditioner. So there was a limit to their funds after all! I grumbled a bit through the conflicting smug satisfaction and mournful despair at the prospect. Once cleaned and dried, I donned my coat -the armored one. Only slightly for the aesthetic factor. Mostly because I didn't know if protection would be provided for the impending delve into a dangerous, monster-infested, trap filled deathtrap. Also called a dungeon. But at least if I perished, I'd die stylishly.

And then I was off to the races. The races being, hopefully, my first real lesson in the blackest of magics. Which was weird, now that I thought about it. Why was it called black magic? Very odd color association, that. If anything, I'd expect 'black' to be a subdivision of darkness or shadow. Maybe void related stuff, if we were considering conceptual nonsense. Though, in my admittedly limited experience, that tended more toward grey, or abstract absences.

Anyway.

I made my way with great haste to the place of learning. This time, I took a seat near the very top of the circular room. An old-fashioned rotating whiteboard had been set up on the central platform, and seemed to be oriented just right now matter how I moved my head. Before sitting, I'd tried inconspicuously walking around the room to get a view of the back, under pretence of finding a place to sit. But, to no avail. Every angle showed the same black square with a little white diagram on it. Thankfully, I looked to have arrived early enough that nobody -besides one pointedly ignoring human- was around to witness my not-so-subtle embarrassment.

The image on the board showed, in what looked to be regular chalk, a somewhat crudely drawn stick figure with an arm extended, viewed from multiple angles. Projecting from the palm was a rough construction of spiraling lines forming a vague, jagged and hook-like shape. The vagueness could have been a result of intentional design, or a simple lack of drawing skills. I really coudln't tell.

I browsed tangentially related online pages for a few minutes, as others gradually filtered into the room. Though frustratingly little was available on the subject. What little there was, was locked behind subscription services or registration forms that were almost surely scams.

Eventually though, the instructor arrived. The air was split by the tolling bell, and the walls cast in writhing red-tinted darkness for but a moment. There was a hot breath on the back my neck and the sickly sweet scent of iron in my nose. A long fingered, pale and clawed hand wrapped around the edge of the board. The brief shriek of literal nails on chalkboard stabbed violently into my ears, despite the hands hastily slapped over them.

"Apologies." Wen -a ridiculous name really, even if it fit with the 'characters' of the environment- winced as he came around the corner, claws receding. "I wasn't considering the racket that would produce. Hello and welcome, all." He wore the same ratty and somewhat tattered suit as yesterday, or at least an identical copy. His hair was still visibly shiny and greasy, and the rather imposing antlers looked especially sharp when viewed from a higher angle. The intimidation was slightly put off by the tiny red ribbon tied around one prong, which he either hadn't noticed or didn't care about.

Anyway. On with the learning.