"Who goes there? Are you a guide of the dead?", the man responded, frantically searching for the voice addressing him.
"Not quite, though in your case, it might not be too far from the truth.", the female voice responded, confusing the man with her ambiguous answer.
"Where am I?", he followed up with another question.
"A faraway place, yet never out of reach for those who know how to enter it. It is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It truly is an eternal dream.", the voice explained, her tone shifting to reverence as she talked about his surroundings.
"...the Eternal Dream? The one the scriptures of the Dark Covenant speak off? What is going on? Who are you?"
"Be not afraid, for We shall enlighten you about your situation soon enough. And for Our name, you may address Us as- "
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Ignis' sleep was cut short by something hitting his tree, causing him to drop from his branch and land on top of it.
"Hey, can't you see that someone is sleeping here?", the wizard yelled out, while slowly rising to his feet.
The thing he had landed on turned out to be a half-naked man, his exposed upper body covered in burn scars. Though his skin seemed to have healed already, he uttered curses under his breath as he tried propping himself back up on his black staff, which was adorned with an eye, as his scars seemed to still cause him pain.
His face, now completely visible to Ignis, showed the same scarring as the rest of his body on the left side, with his eye having become a milky white.
He looked at the wizard for a second, before his unharmed eye began to widen, and his annoyed grimace turned into one of unbridled rage.
"You! The mad bastard who burned down our camp! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT POWERS YOU HAVE MESSED WITH?", he screamed, spit particles flying into Ignis' face as he came closer.
"...no?", Ignis responded, but the man ignored him, continuing his screeching.
"I WILL SHOW YOU PAIN BEYOND YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES, YOU INSOLENT PIECE OF-", he was quickly interrupted by a wooden staff connecting loudly with his skull, as Ignis decided he had enough of the man's tirade.
He poked the floored man's side with his staff to see if he was still alive, which caused him to groan.
"What a rude man.", he mumbled, as he started to pilfer the downed but still alive body for valuables.
Sadly, the black pants the man wore did not have any pockets, so he picked up the man's staff instead. Upon entering his hand, the eye immediately sprung to life, turning around and looking up and down the wizard who had picked it up with erratic movements, as if to examine its new master.
"Eugh, what a hideous thing. I think I'll stick to my own, thank you very much.", Ignis uttered in disgust, before he dropped the black staff, hitting the man on floor with it in the process, who let out another pained groan.
"IN THE NAME OF THE WATCH! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP!", the booming voice of a man rang out behind him, causing him to drop his own staff and hastily turning around, hands rising high into the air.
"It wasn't me! I swear! He was like this before I whacked him!", Ignis yelled at the guards in front of him, while the body on the floor gave off another groan.
"Did you knock out that man over there, old-timer?", one of the guards, seemingly one of a higher rank than the others, as his armour looked different from the ones his comrades wore, started to interrogate Ignis, as he pointed at the half naked body beneath him with his sword.
"Erm...Yes? I mean, he did try to kill me and all that! So, it was only fair of me to act in self-defence and stea- I mean, ask for some compensation, was it not?", Ignis tried to justify, as he nervously looked from the one questioning his actions to the other guards.
"So you are not one of this man's comrades?", the guard asked, as the others exchanged looks with each other.
"...no?", the wizard decided to answer truthfully, though unsure if it was the right call in this situation.
"Hey, aren't you the guy that lit those tents on fire sometime during the night?", a familiar looking tall black-haired woman among the members of the guard asked him.
"Yes ...Erm, I mean, what tents? I never saw any tents. Nope. Especially no tents lit on fire by magic. Never heard of such a thing happening.", Ignis began to stutter, tears of sweat running down his face, as he feverishly tried to come up with a way to talk himself out of this.
"Oh yeah, he was the guy we ran into, wasn't he?", another guard, a young man in tattered uniform with short, black hair peeking out of bandages, which partially obscured his face, exclaimed in realization.
Finally, the pressure became too much for Ignis, and he resorted to an old classic.
"Look, what's that over there!?"
While everyone except for one of the guards, who looked where he had pointed, fixated the old man, not bothering to even attempt to look where he was pointing, he picked up his wooden staff and ran away as fast as he could.
"...should we follow him fath- I mean, commander?", the female guard inquired.
"No, let him run. I guess he thought we would detain him for trying to rob the guy over there. Can't really blame him for that, even though what he did to their camp would be the bigger offence, if one disregards the circumstances around it. Eh, whatever, I know where to find him if we need to interrogate him more thoroughly, now that I've seen who he is.", he answered with a chuckle, while slowly making his way to the still groaning cultist on the floor.
"Hm? What do you mean, commander?", his daughter asked, as he started to tie the man's hands on his back with a piece of rope.
"Never heard of the Ignis the Grey? He's a wizard who has made the ruins of Teles his home some 40 years ago. We had him detained a few years back because he almost burnt down half of the forest with something he called 'the marvelous self-igniting torch'. It took us weeks to actually apprehend him, as he's pretty good at running away. Besides that, I heard stories of him saving adventurers who lost their way in the forest and similar stuff involving him. Quite an oddity, that guy. Whatever, let's get this one wrapped up and go back to the others.", he concluded while throwing the now bound cultist over his shoulder.
"You should be glad that none of my little lamb's friends died, you bastard, otherwise I'd add some scars to that body of yours.", Commander Agnis mumbled under his breath, as they made their way back to the clearing.
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After a while, continuing forward became more and more arduous, as the terrain around Ignis began changing. The trees have become more twisted and more and more of them seemed to have died ages ago. The floor became muddier, and the songs of birds have been replaced by the croaking of amphibians. He had found himself in the Marais Marches, a swamp close to the north-western border of the forest. To make travelling easier for him, Ignis had stuffed his robe into his pants, though not before removing Mira from his pocket.
"Well, Mira? Any idea where we are?", he asked the rat, but received no concrete answer, as she started to chew on his sleeve.
"Hm...I guess some kind of breakfast is in order, I suppose?", he mumbled, as he looked around for anything edible. His eyes came to rest at a nearby pond, where a pair of eyes was barely visibly poking out from the murky water's surface.
"How about another lizard?"
The rat squeaked, then continued to gnaw at his robe.
"Splendid! This time, however, you will be the one to catch it. I cannot have you become a freeloader now, can I?", he said to his pet, a maniacal smile slowly forming on his face. The rat, who seemed to know what the wizard was talking about, quickly tried to make a run for it, but the old man's grip was too strong to overcome.
"Hehe, go fish, my friend!", he laughed, as he winded up his rat-carrying hand for a throw. He flung Mira into a high arc above the pond, which caused rapid movement in the water, as the eyes made contact with what looked like a snack coming closer to its hunting grounds.
The rat squeaked in fear as the Swamp Drake fully emerged from the water, opening its enormous, elongated mouth to catch her mid-air.
"Hmm...about 3 yards long, eh? AUGEO!", the wizard mumbled, before releasing a spell aimed at his pet.
Suddenly, Mira the rat started to grow larger and larger at an abnormal rate, making her even larger than most trees. The Swamp Drake, which had hoped for an easy meal, could only watch as a boulder made of flesh and fur hurtled towards it at an alarming speed. The brunt force of the gigantic rat colliding with the lizard was enough to break its jaw, but after finding her bearings, Mira decided to finish the job, ripping out the throat of the Swamp Drake with her sharp front teeth.
"See, wasn't so bad after all, was it?", Ignis chuckled, as he approached Mira. The growl he received in response made him step back again, his hands raised in an amending gesture.
"Alright, easy now! It was just a little light-hearted fun, nothing to get violent over."
The rat seemed to think otherwise, and started to devour the Swamp Drake, intending to not leave anything behind as punishment.
"Oh, come on! What am I supposed to eat now?", he yelled in frustration, but Mira continued without a care in the world.
"How about this blade?", a male voice whispered, and a sharp pain made itself known in Ignis' left calf.
"HEY, WHAT THE HELL!", he cried out as he jumped away, using his staff like a vaulting pole to create more distance between his attacker and himself, a bald halfling cultist, wielding a serrated dagger of which Ignis could see droplets of his own blood trickling down.
"Aren't you a bit young to play with knives, you little...ARGH, why my leg?", he yelled angrily at his attacker, who he believed to just be a rather ugly child.
"Huh? You can still talk? This dagger is enchanted to paralyse all creatures it cuts, no matter how shallow the wound!", the halfling inquired, but Ignis ignored him.
"Parents gotta get whacked with my staff, how dare they let their kid play around with knives in the middle of the forest without supervision.", he mumbled as he dressed his cut with a cloth, he procured from one of his pockets.
"Ignoring me, eh? I'll teach you what it means to toy with us.", the assassin uttered, before stepping back and seemingly merging with his shadow, disappearing from sight.
Meanwhile, Mira had finished her meal and was on her way back to Ignis, but she stopped mid-way and started to sniff the air. Just as Ignis was done dressing his wound with his makeshift bandage, the still enormous rat jumped forward and bit the air behind the wizard, causing him to quickly spin around to see what just happened. Suddenly, a loud scream echoed through the swamp, followed by the air at which Mira had snapped turning into a fountain of red liquid, within it, the halfling attacker. Before Ignis could react, Mira threw her head back and swallowed the man whole.
"By the Gods, Mira! You can't just start eating random children, you might get food poisoning! And just so you know, I had the situation under control but thank you for looking out for me.", he proclaimed while patting the giant rat on her side. The only answer he received was a burp, followed by the dagger of the halfling exiting her mouth.
"Anyway, let's return you to your normal size, I do not want to deal with people asking me about any children going missing.", he mumbled, before slamming his staff into the ground, undoing the enlargement spell. He picked up his furry companion and returned her to his pocket, then continued onwards.
Ignis followed a small stream, which flowed into the pond where he had spotted the swamp dragon, and, after a while, made it to a large palisade wall. It looked weathered and mouldy, and its large wooden gate was barely clinging to the log it was affixed to with rusty hinges. Behind the gate, he saw several wooden houses, each looking like they were beginning to be reclaimed by nature already.
"Ah, nothing like an abandoned village to take a small nap! What say you, Mira?", he asked, fishing for his pet in his pocket.
The rat sniffed the air for a while, until suddenly, her eyes seemed to widen, and her body started to shiver. She gave of fearful squeaks, as she desperately dug into the sleeve of the wizard's robe, trying to hide from whatever she had noticed behind the walls.
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"Oh, come on, don't be such a scaredy cat. I thought you were a rat, Mira? BWAHAHAHA!", the wizard asked, bellowing with laughter at his own joke. Mira apparently did not share his sense of humour, as she tried to dig deeper into his robe instead.
"Alright, alright, if you want to hide, get back into the pocket. I'll still go in there and take a nap. Whatever is in there definitely beats lying in the mud.", he explained, shaking the rat from his sleeve into his pocket.
Upon entering the abandoned village, he was greeted with the smell of decay mixed with mould.
'Eugh. No wonder Mira didn't want to get in here. Smells like something big chose this place as its graveyard. Maybe I should leave...', he contemplated, when suddenly different voices called out to him from inside the village. It was not like the harsh whispers that usually spewed insults at him, but warm and comforting.
"Weary traveller, why don't you join us? Our beds are warm, our food is tasty!"
'Well, the smell probably keeps other beasts away as well, and beggars can't be choosers.', he thought to himself, before plugging his nose with pieces of cloth.
The houses around him looked as if they had been abandoned for quite some time, but not quite long enough to justify the damage done to some of them.
'Looks like the aftermath of a battle... Let's hope whatever creature was fought here is the source of the smell, and not it's waste. I'm not in a fighting mood...'
As he walked through the village, he suddenly stumbled over a rather large rock, which he had missed because of the thin layer of mist covering the ground of the entire village. Ignis angrily mumbled curses into his beard as he approached the stone and picked it up. It was a white rock in the shape of a dome, made from some hard, brittle material. It looked like it had broken off of something, as the edges of the dome were serrated.
'Hm, almost looks like the dome of a skull. Whatever.', he thought to himself as he tossed the rock behind himself, not noticing the remains of a skeleton being uncovered briefly as the mist surrounding it was blown away by the impact. The wizard continued his walk, until he came across a fairly intact stable. He entered the building and found a wooden bench in fairly good shape and perfect in size for him to lay on. Ignis extracted a pillow and a large blanket from one of his pockets and laid down on his new makeshift bed.
"Just gonna rest my eyes for a bit. Wake me up if something happens, Mira, will ya?", he yelled out to his rat, then closed his eyes.
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"So, what now?", the man asked the voice.
"Oh, there is a plethora of choices to choose from. For example, you could remain here, in the farthest corner of the Eternal Dream, as our guest until your vessel has reached its limit. Or you could just ask us to end your life instead, releasing your soul into Mana to be judged by the Guide of Souls. Both of these options, however, we would advise against, seeing as the incident which brought you here tainted your soul with the Aether of the Void, a mark that would send you straight to Gehenna, where the Famished One awaits to devour you whole.", came the answer.
"Is that it? Await death and go to hell or just be sent there right away?"
"If that was the case, this conversation would be without meaning, mortal! However, Our aid comes with a price."
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Ignis awakened to the scared squeaks of his furry alarm clock.
"Hm? Is it mealtime already?", the sleepy wizard mumbled, still half asleep. However, some other noises than his frightened rat made their way to his ears, causing him to spring up from his bench, now fully awake.
He quickly put away his pillow and blanket, and carefully made his way out of the building, his staff at the ready.
Outside, roaming the streets, where at least two dozen people, clad in the attire of normal villagers. The buildings, which he could swear were no different from the ruins of his own village before he had started renovating it, had undergone a complete change, as they now appeared to be no different from new ones.
The streets were illuminated with enchanted streetlamps, as the sun seemed to have set already, and the fog, which had just covered the floor prior to his nap, now engulfed the area in its entirety.
Nevertheless, the people were going about their day as if it was early in the morning. Children were playing in the streets, women were chatting at the market, and some of the villagers even greeted him as they passed by Ignis.
"Erm, excuse me, miss?", he decided to address one of the villagers, a young woman selling vegetables in a stall next to the stables he just exited.
She wore a white apron over what looked like leather armour, and a white cloth hat, which partly covered her raven-black hair.
"Greetings, traveller. How may I help you?"
"Could you perhaps tell me where I am right now?"
"Of course! You are in Peikko, an oasis within the treacherous Marais Marches.", the woman answered chipperly.
"Ah... I see.", Ignis replied absentmindedly, as he tried to remember if he had ever heard of such a village existing. His thought-process was cut short by the growling of his stomach.
"There's just no way I can remember stuff while being hungry. Is there per chance a restaurant or pub nearby where I can grab something warm to eat?"
"Sure, just follow the road until it splits into two. The building in between the two paths is a pub with a menu to die for, I tell you.", she stated, while putting weird emphasis on the 'to die for' part.
"Well, thank you very much, young lady. If the food is as good as you tell me it is, I will get a good word in for you there! Who knows, whoever runs the place might give you a free meal for advertising for them.", Ignis announced, before making his way to the pub, having forgot all his suspicions of the place in favour of filling his belly.
He wandered through the village without a care in the world, ignoring the leering onlookers and heading straight for the pub. He reached a point at which the street split into two, and, in the middle of the two, he saw a building with a pub sign, which spelled out the name "The Poisoned Well".
'What a weird name for a pub... Whatever, no thinking on an empty stomache.'
Upon entering the watering hole, the room he found himself in fell silent, with all eyes being fixed on him. Ignis kept on ignoring the stares and headed straight for the bar.
"Good day, Sir. The girl at the fruit-stand down the street told me about how good the food here is, so I went straight for this fine establishment. One portion of whatever you have on the menu, and a mug of your finest beverage please.", he said, slamming down his hand on the bar.
The bartender, a frightening tower of a man with short, unkempt black hair, an overbite, and purple, lifeless eyes stared at him for a few seconds, before turning around and preparing Ignis' order.
The wizard chose this moment to look around. Upon being noticed, the other patrons quickly averted their gazes and went back to whatever activity it was that his appearance seemed to have interrupted.
The entire room was barely lit by some candles, but each of the patrons around Ignis seemed to give off a faint purple glow. The sickly noise of someone with a cold clearing their throat made Ignis look back to the bar, and before him, a wooden bowl of what appeared to be cooked meat and a mug of some amber liquid had been set.
"Ah, what a fine meal. What meat is this?", he asked.
"'s meat.", the bartender grunted devoid of emotion.
"...Right. And what's in the mug?"
"Beer."
"Not a man of words, are we?", Ignis chuckled.
"How much do I owe you?", he inquired while moving the mug towards his lips to take a sip of the brew.
"'s free."
Ignis stopped the mug mid-air upon hearing these words.
There were two things certain in this world for the wizard:
The first was that explosive spells in closed off spaces are rarely a good idea, and the second was that all things come with a price.
The mere thought of someone in a pub offering him free food or drink was so otherworldly to him, that it jump-started the gears in his head, with all things related to the village seemingly clicking together instantly in his mind.
"Wait a minute... is this a ghost town? And you and the other patrons are possessed, aren't you?", he inquired, causing all within the dimly lit room to, again, stop what they were doing, with one of the patrons even dropping a glass bottle in shock, which loudly shattered on the floor.
"...no?", the bartender tried to assure him, but Ignis had already readied his staff with a deep sigh.
"Oh come on. Now I will have to eat apples again. I just wanted a warm meal, is that too much to ask?", he lamented, as the tip of his staff began to glow, and a large spell circle started to form beneath him.
This caused the bartender and the other patrons to draw their weapons and hastily approach him to prevent the casting off the spell. The food before him, now no longer under the illusion spell of the bartender, has turned into rotten, mouldy chunks of some sort of organic matter, the mug now filled with murky, smelly water, no doubt about it having been drawn from the bog outside the village. However, before anyone reached the wizard with their weapons, he had already finished preparing his spell.
"PARIES!", he yelled as he slammed down his staff, and a sphere of radiant light now surrounded him, shielding him from his attackers and burning them to ashes.
The undead within the room screamed in agony as the light purged them from existence, and Ignis slowly left the pub with his head held low, as he was still saddened about the meal being fake. Once outside, he could see the village return to the decrepit state he had found it in. The villagers, now actually resembling the rotting corpses they had been all along, were led by a less decomposed looking woman, whom Ignis recognised as the woman from the vegetable stand who sent him to the pub.
Her eyes had lost their live and gained the purple glow of undeath, her hair has turned into a mouldy green with spots of grey, but nothing else would lead one to believe that this was actually a cadaver possessed by a powerful spectre.
"So, you figured it out, old man? I thought you had gone senile in your old days, but there seems to be some brain left hiding behind that hat of yours. Your body will make a fine vessel for me, once it- ", but the evil monologue of the possessed woman was cut short, as Ignis had channeled the next spell already,
"What? NO! I WAS STILL- ", the leader of the undead horde screamed, but Ignis had none of it.
"First giving me rotten food, then trying to give me a speech? I'm not a man of manners myself, but this is just insulting. Now begone and annoy the devil in hell!", he lectured, as he cleared the streets of the unliving.
'Might as well burn down the entire village. This place is starting to creep me out.', he thought to himself as he ended the spell and follows it up with a normal fire-spell, burning down the wooden houses and walls of the village while walking past them.
After having made sure that every building was properly set on fire, he exited the village and looked at the flames, sunken in thought.
'Should I have tried some of the food despite it all?'
A squeak coming from his pocket ripped him out of his mad thoughts, and Mira the rat exited with an apple in her mouth.
"Ah, thanks Mira, I needed that.", he said, taking the apple and sinking his teeth into it.
"I'm shorry for not lishning to yo shooner. If I new tha' 'ere wash no food 'ere in the firsht plashe, would't have want't go 'ere eiher.", he apologized through a mouth full of apple, and received another joyful squeak in response.
"Truer words will never be spoken.", he mumbled, as he finished his last bite and threw the stem behind him.
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Hidden within the Xifídio mountain-range in the Kingdom of Chóratonippotón, in the ruins of an old watchtower, the angered scream of a woman could be heard, followed by an explosion. A young woman whose face was hidden by a veil which was affixed to a silver crown atop her smooth ebony hair which was just long enough to go past her shoulder, was currently punching the wall in front of her, yelling and screaming all the while to vent her anger, while the cracks in the wall grew larger and larger. Her porcelain-like pale skin and her frilly, raven black dress gave of an aura of nobility in mourning, though her current demeanour was that of a child throwing a tantrum.
"WHY? AFTER ALL THIS TIME...AGAIN! Some nobody appears and disturbs the ritual site! Why! WHY!!!!!", she yells and, with another punch, destroys the entire wall in front of her, causing the entire building to shake and letting the cold air of the mountains flood into the room.
Her servants, several figures dressed in black hoods embroidered with the mark of the Sword of Truth cowered in fear before her as she continued her tantrum.
After a while, the woman seemed to have calmed down enough to continue the conversation. She settled on a throne which looked completely out of place, as it had been crafted out of obsidian, a material the rest of the tower was devoid off.
"If only you imbeciles were not too incompetent to craft another ritual site by yourself, I would be done ages ago! But no! Your decrepit organisation brought me nothing but pain and disappointment. I even gave you a second chance and more time than any of you deserved, and you managed to blow that one as well.", she barked at her servants, causing one of them to speak up.
"My Queen, it was not our fault that-"
"SILENCE! I am tired of your excuses. Begone!", she interrupted the man, before snapping the fingers of her right hand.
Her servants could only look at her in horror as the spell this motion released caused their bodies go up in black and white flames which devoured them as they screamed for mercy and plead for it all to end, before silencing them as they crumbled to ash.
"It took me years to recover from my wounds and make sure the altar had left the sights of the Ardent Path, all for naught...", she uttered in frustration while one of her hands subconsciously approached her face to touch it as her mind wandered back to the events that caused them, stopping just before she reached the veil covering it, as a distorted male voice called out to her in her mind.
'It was to be expected of a bunch of low lives who rejected my offer out of a false sense of pride. However, times have changed. There is no more need for them to return the Godslayer from her eternal prison, as you have far surpassed our expectations in your growth.'
"I thought that he was a bad match for me? Last time-", the girl responded out loud, confused about the words of her master, before being interrupted by him.
' That was before you reached the heights of your craft. Even my brother exclaimed his jealousy about not having realised your potential and taking you under his wings himself.', the voice answered amused.
"Truly? This humble servant is overjoyed to have met your expectations.", the girl exclaimed in elation, before rising from the throne and falling to her knees and clasping her hands in prayer.
' Make no mistake, you have yet to fulfill your purpose. I expect great things from you, so you would best not disappoint me!', the voice warned her as it audibly started to fade away.
Despite her master no longer directly being connected to her mind, the girl remained in her praying position for a while, before rising back to her feet.
'I have to properly prepare before facing him again. Failure is not an option this time! Also, I should probably have my servant send a report to the council. Once I have retrieved the page from the hero's grave, we need to start preparations to free the dormant Archons from their prison...', she started to organise her thoughts, before raising her left hand, causing her shadow to extend and rise like a pillar made of pure darkness.
"Very well. I hope my apprentice is still as lively as ever when I come to collect him.", she chuckled at her own joke, before stepping into the pillar which swallowed her whole before disappearing together with her.