Feeling that I had made decent progress, I sat down on the hard stone floor, placing my helm to my side. Although I felt my body was far from tired, my mind was reaching its limit. I searched for a state as free from conscious thought as possible, but failed abysmally. I had made a promise to myself to not be sidetracked by negative thoughts, but the reality was that my mind was too cluttered by a myriad of concerns and worries to make good decisions. Taking a quick break, I decided that slowly unpacking them now would be the better option, while I could. It turned out that digesting events and putting things into order helped me to relax.

I idly traced an armored hand through some of the green glowing lichen, Beron’s Dream, as this world deigned to name it. The tingling sensation returned, vaguely pleasant in that it helped to break up the general monotony and served to distract my mind. How easy it would be to fall asleep here, I wondered. Shaking my head, I quickly dismissed that disastrous thought!

Was that thought even my own? Was even the lichen working against me? A sudden spike of paranoia flared hot as I scrambled to my feet. I stilled myself, slowly forcing my breathing to resume its natural pace as my heart pumped wildly in my chest.

Beron’s Dream indeed! I debated whether I should dispose of my collected samples, then decided it would make no difference, surrounded as I was by the ominous lichen. They might make for a valuable alchemical ingredient on the surface, as I doubted anyone, apart from the local Troglodytes I had encountered, ventured into this deep realm. Indeed, if I was extremely fortunate, it might even be an ingredient to make a legendary potion. At the very least, I decided to refrain from physical contact with the lichen.

Time to move on.

Adjusting my bevor, which had begun to loosen, I rolled my shoulders and started up once again. One foot in front of another, I walked at a steady pace that ate up the distance until I finally came to fork. From the left, I could feel the flowing air caress my cheek and from the right I swore I heard the echo of… cats fighting? A ridiculous thought. Still, the goddess had suggested that I should choose the left path. Despite my suspicions of Iasis’ words, it was still the clear and obvious choice.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Choosing the left, I continued my slow ascent from this surreal and alien realm, my way lit now by more than just the light of my Holy Aura. A part of me almost missed Zala’s inane chatter, and accompanying this thought came a small twinge of guilt. No doubt she would have warned me of the dangers of Beron’s Dream, not that I would have chosen a different path.

Almost imperceptibly, as step followed step, the strange purple and green glows began to disappear as the path inclined ever upwards. Air was moving faster now, more than just the ghost of a breeze, cool against my face as it blew past me. Without the mineral and lichen glow, the ambience outside my circle of light was reduced to a dark gray.

Dull-colored crystal growths began to appear as sharp thin squarish blocks with odd spikes, lining the walls. Milky white, they sullenly refracted my emitted light. A quick Identify later revealed them to be simple salt crystals, but the how and why of their formation here was a mystery to me. I smashed one out of the wall with a stiff kick, to keep as a souvenir and seasoning for later.

I resumed my march uphill through this dark pathway. Was it me, or was it that the air in this place, where the salt crystals bloomed, had begun to lighten, making the atmosphere less oppressive?

The path grew wider, finally giving me enough room to swing the proverbial cat. There was a whistle now to the wind, bringing with it, I hoped, the promise of potential sunlight and sky. Soon, stone gave way to familiar white sand and I knew that I had almost escaped my dark hell.

There, ahead of me, was a patch of lightened gray that I rushed to with a new joy. The gray had been refracted light from the minerals embedded in the rocky walls, however, when I looked to my left I was finally gifted with the first hints that the light was not my own. A singular speck, a glorious speck, of blessed natural light shone gloriously like a faraway star.

I continued on, at a fast jog, as the speck grew ever larger. Creatures moved away from me, small things that looked like desert rats with large elephantine ears. They chirped in annoyance at having to give way to me, an interloper in their kingdom.

Natural light, a soft silver, contested with my Aura in providing illumination. With the singular goal of escape, I kept on walking, until there was no more ceiling, just the vast expanse of starlit heavens. No longer was I treading the ancient darkness within the bowels of the earth, but the pleasant dark of the old night.

I knelt in the cool sands of the Whispering Wastes, feeling a certain sense of dry relief. Then the reality of it all hit me. I had, at last, emerged.