Surrounded by dark cavern walls, Mankor felt thrown in a gloomy dream. Yet it seemed so real, his simple linen sleeping cloth not the best equipment for reality though.

His thoughts snapped back to the figure. Presumably not having witnessed the brightest of its moments, Mankor decided to investigate further. The mumbled words he had heard, suggesting a being not too distant of human origin. 

Slowly walking towards the dark cave, his vision started to turn blurry, feeling a prickle all over his skin, his vision snapped back, sharper than ever before. The cave was not dark anymore, but filled with a light blue transparent fog, crawling out of the cavern's gorge, entangling his feet and legs, winding itself around him, up to his chest. Squinting his eyes downward to see, the fog had crept even further, ending in infinetismal strands entering his nose.

The sight was more scare than dare, Mankor felt no discomfort, the prickling sensation slowly fading. He tried to shake his leg, dispersing the fog, only to see it form anew, gently entangling him, like a tamed python, yet not corporeal enough to obstruct his movement.

Mankor calmly looked down the cave, he felt strangely undisturbed. He slowly stepped forward, entering deeper into the fog, his vision tinted blue but bright. After a few steps into the opening, the narrow cave became a wide cave, the sidewalls and ceiling making a steep curve away from him in better judgement, disappearing from sight in a sea of blue.

The path he was stepping on continued slightly downwards in a straight line, but its flanks going down with a steeper slope.

Where the sidewalls had been, now only blue fog could be seen. The deeper down the flanks it lay, the darker its shade, only to swallow the bottom of this endless abyss in darkness. 

Mankor silently stepped along the path. The only noise his footsteps and the reassuring echo, welcoming the end of the track with shortening intervals.

The questionable adventurer was nowhere to be seen, probably untimely exiting the path, or his life, sideways. 

As vast as the surrounding seemed, there was no movement, no change. Everything seemed dull. Step after step Mankor treaded on his path, further into the depth. The fog getting darker and denser, the prickling returning to his skin. 

When his vision started to darken again, the fog being so dense, that the prickling had turned into a light burning sensation, a giant wall came into vision.

The path, unperturbed by the obstruction, kept character and ran straight ahead into the wall.

Yet Mankor made out a cubic shaped stone in front of the wall. The stone was strangely perfect. No chips, no indentations, it had a smooth surface.

Someone, or something, had placed it here. To support this theory, a simple cup made out of stone stood in its center.

Mankor leaned over, feeling slightly annoyed. The cup was empty. Not even a drop of ... something, could be seen at its bottom.

Against his better judgement, Mankor grabbed the cup.

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When he came to, his head was spinning. After collecting himself for a brief moment, he slowly tried to open his eyes, seeing nothing, since it did not work.

Everything was dark, but that was not the worst of it. Cendrux tried to move, every part of his body in agony. He couldn't move. His muscles contracting, but without the expected result. He couldn't breathe either.

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Yet, he did not suffocate. What a strange state. He did not feel ... dead. Not alive either, besides the pain.

"What a great adventure so far", Cendrux sighed. He felt helpess. Which he was, until suddenly the darkness became a dim greyness. 

He could move and breathe again, and so he did. Breathing was good, moving was a reminder of how bad a shape his body was in, so he gave up on it.

With the greyness, came sound. An airy sound, reminding him of sitting next to a river on a sunny day, dangeling his feet into the water.

He heard wind, gently rustling the leaves, heard the river water rippling alongside his feet.

But where did the leaves come from, where the river?

The wind became a storm, the river became a waterfall. Feeling slightly uneasy, Cendrux could make out a direction of the noise.

The direction was up, which felt like a bad direction for a raging water storm to him.

Before he even had the chance to crawl somewhere, the raging storm of water he imagined, became reality. It was no storm, it was a wall.

A gigantic wall of water, falling from what should have been the solid stone ceiling of the underground hall.

Cendrux panicked and hoped he could disappear from the spot, as it became harder to breathe, the pressure returning, rendering him immobile yet again . The wall did not panic. Nor did it disappear.

It rushed closer and closer, opening many maws, seemingly in anticipation of swallowing the prey it had found.

Much to its surprise, Cendrux did disappear.

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As soon as his fingertips touched the cup, Mankor was robbed of his freedom. He couldn't move his fingers away, his thoughts stopping all the same. 

The finger touching the cup was frozen in place, forming a bridge between body and cup. The cup was not as idle as Mankor was, using the bridge to gain, what was calling. A tiny stream of blood found its way through the bridge and the fingers pores, oozing through the cups wall, forming a drop at its bottom.

The drop started to glim blue, the surrounding fog whirling around it, entering the drop. The whirl grew to a twist, the twist expanding in a speed akin to an explosion.

A giant cyclone formed, absorbing the fog, guiding it into the now dark blue drop. The storm did not stop, until the blue hall turned grey, only a miniscule amount of fog left.

The dark blue drop, a mind of its own, travelled back where it came from, but not releasing Mankor from his frozen state. Instead a blue glimmering sphere formed around him.

As the sphere finished forming, the ceiling started falling, as if it had only been held by the now missing blue fog. 

The wall of water came crashing down, an unstoppable force of nature.

The sphere began to pulsate in color, turning from a light blue glimmer, to a blinding white and back. When he drew air into his lungs, the world turned white, releasing it, everything became a calm blue again.

Had Mankor opened his eyes, he would be blinded. Luckily he was trapped in his mind, feeling something he never felt before. As if a new sense had emerged, he could feel ... everything. He saw the hall in its entirety.

It stretched on for kilometers left and right, like a canyon. Somewhere deep below was the ground, empty, except for an unfortunate adventurer. 

Just when Mankor saw the lying figure, he noticed something within his all and especially hall-encompassing view. Well, two things. One was the surrounding water mass that was about to hit his sphere,

the other was what looked like a chain. A chain of dark blue connecting the person to the sphere surrounding him.

When the water touched the sphere, it did not crush it, but divided. Submering the sphere, not entering it. Yet his vision turned black everywhere the water replaced the light blue glimmer, that had been left in the air.

The remaining blue fog under the water was being compressed, becoming darker and denser, until only a few meters remained between water and ground.

Through the chain connecting to the about to be crushed person, Mankor observed that parts of the dense dark fog seemed to be pressed into the persons body.

The process being rudely interrupted, when the chain suddenly turned to a darker shade, right before the person as well as the chain disappeared.

Then everything turned black, as the water filled the hall. With darkness hitting the surroundings, Mankor felt pain hitting inside his brain.

The last thing he observed, was a persons silhouette entering his sphere, before losing consciousness.