I

A stack of paper with the king's stamp lay on the table. She sat by the open window overlooking the mountain range. It was freezing, even snow covered the mountains. Two knocks from the door alerted Kimbra while she sat down enjoying the view.

He stood upright with his head a little lifted, well dressed. He walks elegantly and approached the sorceress, who was looking at the panorama. The man looked at the state of the room and dragged his finger on the table to check its cleanliness of the table. Then he noticed something.

"Mistress Kimbra, why haven't you eaten the breakfast the servant made for you?" he walked closer to her. "You haven't eaten properly for the last few months. You spent your days here in the library, reading books that each day a servant tidies up after you throw them across the room," the man stood right next to her watching the winds blow between the mountain ravine. "May I ask what is bothering you, mistress?"

"It's nothing, Okto. I'm just... thinking."

"Well, this 'thinking' clearly makes you sick, eventually. Have you ever considered taking a walk around the castle? You need time off, mistress."

The sorceress looked at him and weakly stood up to her feet.

"Come now. Let me prepare another meal. And this time you will eat it. And remember, the lookout told us the guest will be here in two hours. You must look as proper as it gets."

Okto opened the door for her. Kimbra ambled with her fragile body.

She takes a walk down the hall to the garden. Servants take a slight bow when she passes them. Guards keep their heads straight and keep on the lookout for this secluded mountain castle.

She walks out of the castle and sees her garden was being tended to by the gardeners. Kimbra strolls around looking at the alpine flowers, even though there are plants that were brought to her by either guests or royalties. They domesticated the flowers from around the continent, even the ones she uses to make concoctions.

The sorceress sat on a bench overlooking the mountain's forest far below. A mix of green, white, and grey. Minutes later, Okto and a servant came with a meal for Kimbra to eat.

"My lady, should I have a servant prepare your dress? You need to be looked up to by master Vong."

Before the spoon was about to enter her mouth, Kimbra stopped.

"The guest is Vong?"

"Well, this is the day. You asked to meet him to discuss certain things about a certain lingua franca."

"When did I ask to meet him?"

"Exactly half a month ago."

Kimbra frowns. She stares at the ground, trying to figure out why she asks for him. She only stares at the floor for a few minutes until Okto makes her snap out of it.

"My lady? Should I prepare the dress?"

"Y-yes. Please, Okto."

The man excused himself to leave.

The high sorceress ate her meals and then visited her library once more. She didn't even realise why she had come here again. Something was missing. The woman stood in front of the library door thinking about it.

"What is it..." she said to herself. Kimbra stood for over a minute before deciding to enter the room.

She contemplates the tidy room; she walks to her table and finds a book. It's the old book she found a couple of months ago when she found an anomaly in the magic. She grabbed it quickly and bolted out of the room in an instant.

The well-mannered servant was right before the library door. It startled the sorceress to see him there.

"Lady Kimbra, I knew you'd be here."

"How come you move that quick."

"Apologies. I talk, act, and move quickly. I did not intend to meet you outside the library. The dress is in your room. I will be out in the yard to greet the master once he arrives," Okto then walks away saying nothing.

Somehow the presence of Okto made her feel eerie. Nevertheless, Kimbra left the room after him. The sorceress walked around the hall, going up the stairs to her large, empty bedroom. A servant was there preparing to help her dress up. She puts the book on top of a wooden dresser while she prepares herself. A servant helped her dress while she faced the large mirror.

"This is the first time in a year you met with someone, mistress. Outside of your sorcerers' colleague," the servant commented.

"Is it?" she can't believe it.

"It is. And with master Vong. Must be a long time since you met him, no?" the servant looks at Kimbra through the mirror in front of them.

"I must've lost track of time and lost memory of who people are," she pauses. "Guess age does not care about looks, huh? Just what inside my head..."

"Oh, I don't know about that, mistress. I'm no sorceress like you. I age normally," Kimbra sat down while she applied the makeup.

"I take that as a compliment."

"It was a compliment, mistress. It's just I don't age slowly."

"Perhaps I look young, but I can look old too," she eyeballs herself from the mirror. "Tell me, would you like to be a sorcerer?"

The servant stopped for a second.

"I'm born not as a sorceress. I can't possibly be your student. Serving is not magic."

"You convince yourself that way. I can't really change your mind, can I?"

"I've no interest in becoming a sorceress," she spoke silently, as if not trying to go further into the discussion.

The sorceress was finally well-dressed for the meeting. She poses in the mirror, looking at her gown that was touching the floor. She pulled back her long indigo hair and make sure it was beautiful.

"Such formality. Well, thank you, dear," said the sorceress.

The servant lowered her head and left for the exit. Kimbra looked at the girl from the mirror reflection when she closed the door. Kimbra walks to the shelf and saw the book. The sorceress inspected the pages containing words she doesn't understand before placing the book on the shelf. Frustrated, the sorceress exited her room.

Kimbra exits her chambers and proceeds to the castle's door to meet with the person she asked to meet. For a long time, a guest has come to the castle. Before entering the front hall, Okto was already waiting for the high sorceress. He opens the door for her and announces her arrival to the guest.

"Masters, The High Sorceress of the Kingdom of Hattan. High sorceress Kimbra," he said as she walked out.

"No need. They already know who I am," Kimbra said as she saw a group of people from the balcony.

These people wore dark blue uniforms with red stripes on the collar. The people look professional. They act professionally; they are professional.

"High Sorceress Kimbra of The Iron Mountain."

"Master Vong," Kimbra descended the stairs, looking at the slicked-back white-haired old man with a moustache.

The group of people came together when Kimbra descended. Okto follows behind her. When they meet, the high sorceress shakes hands and makes small talk to get to know the guest better. They are Vong's subjects, working with and for him.

"Mistress and masters, please follow me," Okto points in a direction.

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All of them walk to the meeting room. Seven people, including the sorceress. They entered a small lounge room with the chairs already provided. These people sat down and made talks about Kimbra's work within the Kingdom. They share connections. For an hour they talk about work and the kingdom, but then it comes to the matter of personal issues.

"Master Vong, in your line of work... Do you know anybody that has any specialities in language?"

"O, mistress. Aren't you the king's court sorceress? You are the most knowledgeable of us all in terms of language."

"Every mouth has to confess. But by this time, I guess you already know I'm not that informed of the language I'm about to tell you."

"Informed, mistress?"

She looked at Okto, who was standing by the door and gave him a signal.

"Masters, can you follow me?"

The guest questioningly left the room and left old Vong and Kimbra together. They heard the door closed and stared at each other.

"Kimbra, you still look young. I can't say the same to myself."

Kimbra uses her magic to look older for a second, revealing her age was the same as Vong.

"I doubt myself as young as you, Arturo. Perhaps much older."

"Goodness, I've missed you."

She smiles.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Terrible. These words have occupied my head," she rested her head on her hand.

Vong's face sulked and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"What words?"

"First, I do not know the language. Second, it does not use our alphabet."

"Where are the words?"

She grabs a piece of paper and writes the word using a pen from the large coffee table in the middle of the room. She wrote the word and gave it to Vong to read it. The man keeps reading it back to back, trying to figure out what language it was. Eventually, he gave up.

"I don't know. I have never seen such language written like this. It certainly is not a code, nor the language of the wildlands beyond the mountains," Vong was sure of it.

"It's not old northern or southern either. We don't even use that alphabet. It can be much older."

Vong rubbed his moustache.

"I can't help you. But-"

"I know."

Vong made an uncomfortable pause.

"Yes. I can't help you. But what about your subjects? There are dozens of duchies here in Hattan. Each of them has a court sorcerer. Why don't you ask them?"

"That is out of the option. This..." she grabbed the paper. "We must keep this between us. People should not know the existence of it."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"I can't help you if you keep having secrets, Kimbra."

She gave up with a sigh.

"Sorry, Arturo. I must keep this a secret. I can't let other guilds know the existence of it."

"Then there's nothing I can do. Except help you rest. Okto told me you haven't been having a good sleep lately."

He placed a small bottle on the table.

"Is that a Vodka?" Kimbra looks at it.

"It's something the southerner has been creating to help people sleep. Try it."

She drank a small amount of water from the bottle.

"Rest a lot. You may be a sorceress. But you are no good if you die from exhaustion," he then stood up and walked up to the door.

Suddenly he freezes while holding the door handle. Vong looked back at her as if he was studying an open book.

"The words... it did something, didn't it?" he stood up.

Vong left the room, and the sorceress sat in silence. She thought about what she must do now.

Everything came to a halt, there are no alternatives, and she was at the end of the road. Alone in the room, came a loud ring of silence making her go mad. She heard a voice speaking to her, telling her what to do.

"Sorceress..." Something ghastly talks from beyond the stone walls surrounding her in this very room.

"Who's that?" the voice startled Kimbra.

She looked left and right, forward and back. The sorceress backed away from the wall and stood on the coffee table in the middle of the room.

"Who's talking?" the high sorceress demanded an answer.

Something was calling her from the wall, from everywhere. Then the wall radiated heat. Her vision blurs as if she was watching the heat emitting from a fire. Her body sweats, and she kneeled‌ as her vision darkened. Kimbra looked at the walls, black tar flowing out between the gap in the wall. Some of the tar merged and took the shape of a blob.

The black liquid creature floats to Kimbra steadily. It stopped in front of her and stared at her deeply. One of its black tar touches Kimbra's shoulder and it burns her skin. Kimbra avoids her, crawling away from the liquid tar. But it grabs onto her leg, preventing her from crawling. Kimbra uses her spell and casts a fire towards it. The fire did nothing. It controlled the other black liquid tars from the wall's gap to subdue her. The pain tortures her body, liquid tar enters her nose and mouth.

Eventually, everything goes dark.

II

"Sorceress..." Kimbra heard a buzzing voice.

"Sorceress..." then another one. "Sorceress," the same tone but done by different people at once.

Everything was pitch black. She can only hear the voices calling her into the eternal darkness. From one person calling her, it turns to a dozen. After that, a hundred. Kimbra cannot move her head. Her position felt like she was standing straight and facing forward. She cannot determine whether it was up or down that she was facing. All she knows someone was calling her. Her eyes were open all the time. The sorceress never blinked a single time.

Suddenly, she passed into a different place. She was somewhere in what seemed like an endless grassland. A crackling of firewood whispered in her ears. Kimbra saw a campfire already lit by someone in the middle of nowhere. She was sitting alone, still using the dress she wore when meeting Vong. There was no one around, even beyond the light of the campfire. Only stars and two large moons are above her head. The sorceress does not remember having two moons from where she was, especially not large enough to be seen as the moons are about to crash into earth. When she lowered her head from the stars, someone sat across the campfire separating the two of you. Kimbra gasped when a dark liquid blob in a shape of a woman appeared out of nowhere.

She was watching her. Kimbra feels uneasy when the thing stared at her. On the other hand, she felt no magic within her. Kimbra was about to escape something from the woman. The lady shifted and appeared much closer to Kimbra and pushed her finger to Kimbra's mouth and hushed her.

The dark blob points to the east of the sorceress. Kimbra turned her head and saw a city burning. A giant portal poured in soldiers with strange skeletal armour. Leaving trails of tears and blood. She saw a giant migration. And the last thing, she saw a towering person in armour with such unimaginable prowess in sorcery.

She opened her eyes to see the burning city much closer. Thousands of screams left the town. Kimbra can feel the heat, the fume of smoke as the city has fallen to dust. It feels strange watching it burn. It feels familiar. A tall bell tower rings to alert the locals to leave. At some point, the tall bell tower fell. Then, the only noise she heard was the burning of a town.

The blob raised her finger and touched the high sorceress' forehead once again.

The woman took the vision away from Kimbra by pulling her finger away. Kimbra was nothing but horrified by the vision she saw. The woman walks away from the sorceress. From the dirt, a four-legged creature emerged in the shape of a horse. That creature looks as if someone maimed its body before, but something healed him in such haste. The guts were still out, the head not fully attached. But it was alive. She mounted the horse. It reared when the woman sat on it. She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

The ground rocks violently. Lands and mountains lifted from the grounds to the air. Lightning crashes and explodes far away from her sight, while the sky darkens. The earth's insides blew up and exploded with the very existence she was in.

In the sky, stars disappeared. It was not only the world that was ending, the exact reality has ended. She closed her eyes.

III

Kimbra's body felt heavy. Once more, she opened her eyes. She was laying down on her bed. Okto was there, waiting for her eyes to open. Knowing she was awake, Okto called for a name. Kimbra can't move her head, but one sorcerer came into view.

"By the gods! She is awake! Master Tandem, could you please?" Okto hastily gave Tandem a herb which gives a strong relaxing scent.

Kimbra opened her eyes fully and can move her body. She looks around, she notices that she was now back in her room. Looking at Okto and Tandem confused her.

"What are you doing in my room?"

"Nevermind that. How are you feeling?" Tandem spoke rapidly.

She tries to move.

"My body... I feel weak. But I can move," Kimbra tried to stand.

"Mistress, with all due respect. You must stay in bed, you were..." Okto took a glance at Tandem in confusion.

"Well, we still don't understand what happened. But it seems you were in a state of..." Tandem trying to piece a word together. "You were delirious... in some way."

"Delirious?"

"Mistress, if I may speak freely?" Okto asked for Kimbra's permission. "I found you in the meeting room, standing on the coffee table in sweat. You were shaking, eyes wide open in fear. I can see the pupils dilate, the same when people tremble in horror. Something was wrong, so I instantly call for master Tandem through your vision portal in the room. The master opened a portal right away, and we rushed to you. By the time we're there, two guards are trying to put out another guard you set ablaze."

"You tried to cook him, high sorceress," Tandem elaborate.

"I did what?" it shocks her.

"It's fine now. Master Tandem helped him. He is now being treated by one of master Tandem's 'trainees'. While he was treating him, we were trying to subdue you at the table before the master puts you to sleep."

"What? I could never... Is Vong still here?"

"Mistress. It's been a long day and night. You were in deep sleep," Okto spoke.

"I needed a powerful scent when using the soporific sponge. You were relentless," Tandem spoke in amazement.

"But I'm glad it's over now. And I'm afraid the guest already left the castle."

"Who were the guests?" Tandem asked Okto.

"It's Vong," weakly Kimbra answered Tandem.

"Who?" the sorcerer doesn't have a clue.

"It's nothing of importance, master Tandem," Okto intervened. "Perhaps it is better for her to grasp the time, master. It's been a long time since she was conscious."

"How long?" the high sorceress grabs her spinning head, trying to stay awake.

"Just two days."

"But it felt like a minute of hell and death."

"Amusing..." it enthralled Tandem. "What did you experience?"

"Master Tandem?" Okto coughed. "Perhaps we should leave her for now."

He was silent and stepped backwards. Okto showed him the way out. By the time they left the room, Kimbra can still see their shadows by the door. Okto and Tandem spoke briefly before parting ways.

Not long after that, Okto entered the room.

"Sorry mistress, but master Tandem seems to be interested in your realms of interest. Should I silence him if he asks again?"

"Just dodge it or ignore him. Telling him to shut up will only make him much more of a hassle."

"Very good, mistress. And there's another thing that might need your attention," the servant handed the high sorceress a small piece of paper.

"And address for... 'Braun?'"

"It seems master Vong wants you to visit the person, mistress."

"What time is it?" she asks with her body not fully awake.

"The sun is about to be right on top of us."

Her heart was pounding. She breathes and tries to control her body once more.

"I will leave in an hour. Please get me a hot meal."

"Your body is still fragile."

"Not now, Okto."

"Mistress I do not want to see you lying dead somewhere like an animal carcass just because of this... sorcery."

"This 'sorcery' talked to me. Giving me visions I do not know. I will not rest until I found the answer to what is going on," Kimbra opened her chest and gathered her belongings.