OMINOUS WARNINGS

...-From your loving father, Cain."

Tristan's mouth suddenly felt dry. War? Conscription? A sibling? 7 and a half years? He had been meditating for atleast two years!?

Tristan felt dizzy. The sudden blows he received with each fragment of information made he nauseous. Despite not having dated anything for over two years, Tristan felt like vomiting. It was disbelief!

The shocked Tristan didn't move for several minutes. He kept staring at that card shaped elegantly from bark, thin as a pin. A handiwork of his father. His father, whom he had begun to avoid for several years, because he looked down on him. Tristan was wrecked with guilt.

He had looked down on his father. A father who could barely write, and who read with great difficulty. A father who didn't know anything other than carpentry and making Tristan run around and exercise. A father who barely registered in Tristan's mind. His father had departed for war. Tears exploded from his eyes. Regret, guilt, shock, love and realization. He couldn't think straight. Right at that moment, he felt something wasn't right with that card. Touching the card made is manna react unpredictably.

Tristan transferred some manna into the card and discovered that his manna was blocked by a barrier. He could see in his mind's eye a red button. 

Ping!

"What is the first herbology book you read?"

The sound of Melany's voice rang in Tristan's head. 

"Grinding through Grass" 

He thought out without doubt. 

His response was immediately greeted with another 'Ping!' and the barrier restricting his manna dissolved and freely let it pass through into the card.

"Tristan. You should know who this is. You have been asleep for far too long, I'm afraid to imagine what you have realised this time."

Melany's voice. Why did she embed a secret message? Tristan didn't feel right.

"As of the message by your father, it's been over two years since you went into a meditative state. However, I returned to Sindry for the third time and secretly left a message on this card 4 years after your father left the the message. I hope you wouldn't mind. The world has changed a lot since you fell asleep. 

Never did I imagine that you would sleep through most of the training period! But I know this would probably be the peak period of your growth in powers.

I know you must be wondering why I've embedded a secret message for you here. It is to warn you. Do not return to the village right now. There are things going on in the village which you aren't ready for. This is an order from a teacher to her faithful student. You will follow it right?"

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Melany's voice was sobbing. Tristan couldn't understand it all, but he was stricken with panic. 6 years? He had been asleep for 6 years?

"When I returned a few months after you fell asleep, I tried awakening you using Manna, but you were in the deepest meditative state and nothing I did would awaken you. Eventually I convinced the village to keep your existence here a secret. It is thanks to that, that you still haven't been found out.

Urek mountains have become a war zone. The war consumed many lives. Including your father's..."

Tristan had been inundated with so many unbelievable events in a barrage that he had lost all his color. His face went deathly pale as he simply stopped thinking and blindly repeating.

"So.. Father is dead huh."

However the message would go on.

"Cain.. He died a valiant death in battle. He was amongst the crew fighting right outside the mountain range, repairing catapults, he fought till his last breath."

Melany sighed.

"I don't want you to go back to Sindry before you are prepared. It is my final wish as a teacher. No, to me you were a son I never had. Take the book that I encrypted, follow it's directions. The book... I recovered it from the herbalist locker at considerable cost. I am currently a fugitive in this region. Once this message completes, the illusion over the book will stop. Follow it. You must not fail.

Take care Tristan."

At that moment, the cards all began glowing and began whirling around until they fused together to form a locker made of cards. The locker opened and the battered book that Melany had entrusted him once he had finished his training was provided to him. The cards then lost the light and fell back into the box.

Tristan was conflicted. But the shock had been so great, that he stopped feeling it anymore and became surprisingly alert and rational.

"Aunt Mel kept asking me not to go back to Sindry. The war also seems to have gone poorly. Since father was an engineer for catapults in a defensive set up, he must've been in the rear. It probably means Sindry is in not the same town I know.

At the same time, she didn't tell me anything at all about mom or my sibling. Did something happen? No, I can't jump to conclusions right now. What about my friends? Diane.. She wrote she would wait for me.

Why is Aunt asking me to avoid Sindry? Come to think of it, I'm pretty close to Sindry myself. How have I not been discovered for 4 years? Even the messages other than the long one from Dad which was protected by enchantment seem to have stopped a long time ago based on the dust on them.

Aunt is a fugitive? There is a high chance that this must be due to me. The only one who came here in the last few years is Aunt Mel. That means.. She placed this area under illusion magic!"

Tristan had spread out his presence using magic and discovered the illusion magic! 

"This was cast two weeks ago! So she was here two weeks ago... It's necessary to collect all the data right now. Let's unlock the book."

Unenchanting the book was now child's play for Tristan. He quickly flipped open the book. The pages were all a dummy. The book had a secret compartment containing a rusted key and a small slip of paper.

Rush to the opposite end of the lake, where you will find a dungeon of unknown make, escape the traps, murder the monsters, trouble the dungeon master, steal their cores, burn their homes, avenge the large disaster.

Tristan was troubled. His family and friends might be in trouble, but Aunt Mel was telling him to enter a hidden dungeon inside Urek Mountains? Suddenly her voice again.

"Tristan, you've finally awoken. You need to go to the dungeon and defeat the master. I know this is heartless to ask of you, but you aren't prepared to face the ruler of Sindry. Be well prepared, use all what you have learnt till now."

Tristan realised that a lot of things were out of place. He also trusted his teacher Melany blindly. She had taken a lot of effort to hide him using a powerful illusion magic and become a fugitive to organise information for him. He decided to trust her judgement over his rage and emotional turmoil.

He began preparations to enter the dungeon.