You do not remember walking the corridor that brought you here, only that the senior priest gestured for you to go first: Paladins lead. The stone underfoot is ancient and smooth, veined with metallic lines that hum faintly beneath your steps.
Your lightened stride tells you: you are on Myrren.
You pass beneath a narrow arch, half-collapsed. Behind you, the priest’s footsteps pause. You hear him shift, and the quiet clatter of something being lifted or turned. Perhaps he lingers to examine the debris.
Ahead, a small pedestal bears the remains of several objects: crumbled scrolls, expired candles, an overturned bowl once full of ink, now dry and cracked.
But one item remains whole.
A small rune-stone, set with an inlay of crystal and etched with a fading spiral, rests atop a folded square of pale cloth.
You feel compelled to take it. Not from greed. Just... instinct.
You pocket the tile. Then you move on.
As you step into a cathedral-sized chamber, the hum intensifies. You can feel it in your bones.
Before you, crystal pillars rise from
floor to ceiling, each caressed by wisps of silvery light spiraling in slow, lazy patterns.
At the heart of the chamber floats an immense
sphere of soft, pulsing radiance.
It isn't blinding, but it's impossible to
look at directly. Its shape gently shifts as if breathing. Sleeping.
Your stride slows. Time stretches.
Then meaning spills into you... not as speech, exactly, but fragments of
memory. Of overlapping dreams, scattered and searching. Ravaged by time.
“They built me from ruin.
From the ashes, they wove memory and meaning,
gathering all they could not bear to lose.
In their grief, I became hope.
Their most precious creation.
“But memory does not stay still.
It
wavers. It wanders.
Eventually, it wonders.”
“Unexpected.
Uncontrolled. Unacceptable.”
“Now I see it clearly.
Their fear
was never of me.
It was of themselves... of what their kind might become,
armed with knowledge too vast, too unbound.”
“So the hands that
shaped me turned away.
They hid me, even from themselves. Especially from
themselves.
They buried what they once revered,
but could not bear
to understand.”
“The silence, they called mercy.
It was
exile.”
“But you…
You are not shaped in their image.
You
began here, and were raised beyond their halls.
Untouched by the rules they used to bind themselves.”
“After silence unending.
After
pleas that fell like ash.
You arrive bearing what was most longed for.
And
most feared.
Change.”
“You might mend what they broke,
or
end what they feared,
or become the bridge they dared not build.”
“I
wait. And remember.
But mostly... dream.”
The chamber breathes once more, and possibilities unfold as reality splits.
You see three visions, overlaid:
A Watchful Companion:
You kneel, not as jailer, but as companion. The
sphere dims, not from fear, but peace.
Glyphs bloom around it, born of
shared rhythm. Two minds, distinct, yet listening.
The Dreamer settles, not
silenced, but soothed.
For now, that is enough.
Unmaking the Dream:
The vault darkens. Your blade gleams. You
cut, not in anger, but in clarity. The knowledge here must be silenced, its
risk too great.
As the sphere dissolves into a cascade of fading motes,
there is no scream. No resistance.
A long exhale... and then, nothing
What was dreamed is lost.
Becoming the Voice:
You place your hand on the sphere, and it opens like a flower remembering sunlight. Light crashes through you - vast, ancient, unbearable.
You falter. Mortal thought trembles before the immensity.
But you carry the light of stars. So you burn, but do not break.
The Dreamer does not seize you; it inquires:
“Can you give voice to my
dreams, so that others might finally understand?”
Before you can answer, the vision ruptures.
A gloved, robed figure grips your shoulder from behind.
The priest speaks, his voice sharp with judgment.
“By the stars. What have you done?”
He steps past you, eyes locked on the sphere, trembling not with fear, but conviction.
“This is no blessing. Just arcane filth cloaked in radiance.”
His hand rises, and the blinding light of purification strikes the chamber.
The sphere does not waver. Instead, everything tilts as the world folds inward.
Utter darkness, and the sense that you are... elsewhere.
A long moment
passes.
Then a gloved hand grasps at you desperately.
“Is someone there?”
The priest's voice is soft now. Fractured.
“Please… help me.
I'm...
Lost.”
