When Dubhan awoke, he thought at first he may have been on the floor of his apartment. But the floor was too soft, the cold breeze was too strong, and though his surroundings were dark, they were not pitch black like his apartment had been with the curtains closed and the candles of his ritual snuffed out.
But as his senses returned to him and his groggy mind began working at full speed again, Dubhan took in the details around himself properly. A thick mist coated the ground. Dubhan’s right hand was still gripped around his scythe. He was relieved that at least that much was here with him. As he looked down and felt around, he thought the ground beneath him may have been sand at first. Perhaps snow, given how cold it was here. But no. No, that wasn’t right. This was ash. Grey ash.
Dubhan stood up from the ground and looked around. There were walls. Not walls of his home, but crumbled stone walls scattered around in the ash, some that stood solitary and others that looked as if they’d once been part of some sort of roofless structures.
Dubhan looked up at the sky. It was black, and at a glance, he thought there were stars that provided what little light allowed him to see here. Now that he looked at them, though, he wasn’t sure what they were. The last time he’d checked, stars were little dots in the sky, not rings of light that seemed to shift in color and position, slowly enough that his eyes weren’t sure that was actually what was happening, but quickly enough that some part of his awareness noticed it anyway. Just watching them for too long made Dubhan’s stomach knot itself, an uneasy feeling that forced him to look away.
The land around him, this wasteland of ash and ruins, seemed to stretch on for as far as Dubhan could see, though that was hardly very far here with the way the heavy mist obscured everything along the ground. There was one thing that Dubhan could make out in the distance, however. A single pillar of glowing light, stretching up into the sky, its light visible even through the mist.
As the cold wind continued to blow, Dubhan accepted that he had to do something, and so he began to walk towards the light in the distance. The sound of his boots on the ashen ground set him on edge. Anything could have been here, lurking outside of his vision, and he’d have no way of knowing until it was too late.
Periodically, as he walked past a ruined wall or structure, he eyed it with the hopes of making out any details as to what it may have been. The walls did not seem to be made of brick. The stone was smooth and dark grey, like the walls had been carved from a singular source rather than pieced together. No other landmarks accompanied the walls.
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As Dubhan drew closer to the light, there was a sound. Something was nearby. He looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the noise. Footsteps of something large could just barely be heard in the ash. Just over one of the walls, Dubhan made out the silhouette of something in the fog. It was difficult to distinguish any defining features, but whatever it was, was massive. The creature seemed to tower over Dubhan even from this distance.
Dubhan eyed the creature warily as it moved. He picked up his pace, walking quickly past the thing, and was relieved when he looked back over his shoulder and saw the shape was not following him. It must not have noticed him, or it did not care. Either way, Dubhan was not going to stick around long enough to find out.
Hurrying along, Dubhan reached the base of a hill. Atop it, he could see that pillar of light, and he was close enough to make out details from here. It was truly nothing more than that—a strange, brightly-glowing pillar of light that seemed to simply come out of the ground with no other source. It was something recognizable to Dubhan, however. A geomagnetic pole. He’d never understood how the things work, but he knew they appeared in Yggdrasil labyrinths, and that explorers could use them to travel to and from the labyrinth’s depths with ease. Some sort of teleportation magic that went beyond Dubhan’s understanding of the topic, no doubt.
The sight of it at this moment in time was both a source of relief and questions. Perhaps it was a chance to escape from this place. But, why would such a thing be here of all places, if they were found in labyrinths?
Something moved in the corner of Dubhan’s eye. More shapes could be just barely made out in the distance. They were moving. Moving towards him. Suddenly, an ear-piercing screech echoed the air, the sound of it vibrating through Dubhan's body. His whole body tensed up, and he felt his blood pumping through his veins as the sound and the bizarre, unfamiliar nature of his surroundings hit him all at once. The adrenaline flooding his body told him not to stay and fight, but to run.
Tendrils stretched out of the darkness with lightning speed, reaching for him. Dubhan obeyed his instincts, breaking into a sprint up the hill and just narrowly avoiding the first of the tendrils. He didn’t dare to take in any further details of the shapes attacking him, there was no time.
Another tendril lashed out as a creature in the mist gave chase. This one managed to grip onto Dubhan's leg, catching him mid-stride and knocking him down to the ground. Reacting quickly, Dubhan rolled onto his back, bringing his scythe up just in time to see a maw of fangs, the creature attached to the tendril, lunging for him. Dubhan swung the scythe, connecting with the flesh of the creature, and it retreated into the mist with more screams before Dubhan could make out its shape.
Dubhan took the chance to scramble back up onto his feet before anything else could close in on him and ran the final steps towards the pillar of light. He reached for it the moment he was close enough. The light was warm, and surrounded him in an instant, its bright white glow erasing everything from sight as it took him away from this place.