My heart hammers as I run through seemingly empty ruins that are actually crawling with demons and monsters. Off in the distance behind broken towers rising up from burned out, broken husks of palaces and somewhat smaller buildings lay tall, snow-peaked mountains.

Dodging behind a tall wall, I pause as the ground starts shaking. Taking a moment to peek around the edge, there’s an enormous palace with tall, rusted fencing ringing it. My eyes rise to behold crenelated towers, part of this castle, purely out of fantasy. Long rows of tall trees, with withered foliage, stand in columns inside the gate with fancy metal-worked filigree, depicting figures of kneeling multitudes bowing before a tarnished figure that may once have brightly shone even under moonlight.

The clouds above are thrown across the sky by high winds, far faster than I’ve ever seen. The ground rumbles and in the corner of my eyes; I catch a grotesque, enormous foot land. Dodging carefully around the corner into a doorway, I crouch, pressing myself against the ragged broken door, listening carefully. The ground shakes again as the monster takes another ponderous step. Holding my breath, I keep myself as small as possible.

As I wait, the sun moves across the sky to set behind this building, throwing its shadow ever further across the main boulevard.

Damn it, if I don’t move soon, it will get far more dangerous.

The ground shakes again, and the sound of fracturing stone fills the air. 

Again stealing a look around the corner, there’s an enormous ogre-like monster, connected to that hideous foot I saw, far larger than any other creature I’ve yet seen. A thick mane of hair grows from the pinnacle of its head and runs thickly down its back. Its maw is full of pointy teeth, its ears turned back in an almost-Elvish fashion. On its massive hands grow thick, sharp nails, black enough to seem lacquered. Fitted onto its enormous, bulbous body is body-fitting armor with black roses wrought into black iron, looking heavier than anything a normal human could carry. Over its shoulder is propped a morning-star club, made from the same dark iron with a nasty, spiky orb at its tip. The weapon is at least as tall as two tall men alone, if they stood on each other’s shoulders.

It takes another pondering step, nearing a large fountain resting in the center of the plaza, depicting a woman holding two jars, one balanced in each extended arm. She stands on a single leg as though flourishing in a frozen dance. Its eyes look to the south with infinite wisdom and compassion shining in its eyes and its long hair almost seems alive, carved in such a way that a viewer gets the impression that the wind might tease it, breathing life into the statue. Wearing a flowing dress, it balances barefooted.

Off behind the ogre and fountain, I notice a long bank of bushes along a large building across the plaza the boulevard opens into. 

Those bushes would give me sufficient cover to reach the palace in stealth, if only I could get over there without getting crushed.

The ogre stops to look at the statue for a long moment and as it starts to swing its arm with its back to me, I carefully tiptoe towards the monster and when it brings its weapon slams down onto the fountain, sending shards of stone flying across the plaza, I run across the plaza and take cover in the earlier sighted bushes on the far side as stone clatters on the broken behind me, cracks forming in the cobblestones nearby, racing me. These cobblestones pave everything on the ground in sight except for patches of grass with fountains.

Taking a deep breath, I crawl through the bushes on my hands and knees, glad that the overgrown grass is clear of any obstructions so far. The blades are tall enough to cover my movements — if I move carefully and remain small. 

Any rustling noises I make might betray my presence.

The steps of the enormous monster fade in the distance as I part the grasses, creeping forward as the sun sets. Unlike in the Goblin Mountains, the bitter chill that creeps into the air the moment the sun goes to its resting place is absent here, wherever this is. With the sun down, the ambient temperature remains warm. Parting the grass, there’s a long, cobbled street fronting the gate, pacing along the long and tall fence.

Peering left and right, seeing no other creature in motion, I slip from the grass, scuttling across the cobbles to the gate and through. Taking a moment to peer around the interior, making sure there's nothing waiting here to ambush me, my heart beats rapidly and I sweat as I gamble with a rush forward. Placing my feet carefully as I move, I bound over the broken cobbles inside this courtyard. Slipping from shadow to shadow, cast by the withered trees I’d spotted earlier on either side, I make my way to the tall front door. Similarly ajar, I peer inside, swallowing to ease the built up tension in my throat.

So far, so good. But why am I here? I can’t remember why I’m even here in this strange place. Is this some different kind of strange dream?

Sneaking inside, I run across the decorative stone flooring. A glimmer of light catches my attention and I grit my teeth, freezing in place as I turn my head to see the suggestion of the same light now shining from down a stairwell in the first room of this castle. The walls are covered by hanging tapestries, some burned and others shredded to pieces. Wilted flowers sit dejectedly in pots on the banisters of the stairs and broken statues stand sentry on pedestals, similarly destroyed like the poor urn-carrying woman statue. Chills creep up and down my back as I remember my desperate flight with the sounds of mad destruction echoing behind. It was my hope that the clamor it was making would cover the noise of the slapping of my shoes on the stone of the plaza.

That gamble paid off fair enough, but why am I going ever deeper into ruins, crawling with monsters? Treasure? What? It doesn’t make any sense to me now. I can’t even fight anything I ran into. Why?

Stepping cautiously downstairs, I keep my eyes on the glimmer of light, always out of reach, like a will o’ wisp. At the bottom of the stairs, I find a long shadow-shrouded corridor waiting. The glimmers lead me onward through its dark, dank length. Its call pulls me onward relentlessly. Chasing those glimmers of light, I pursue them down the hallway along a long, soiled rug that covers much of it the whole breadth. Many doors open onto this corridor with all their wooden doors broken. Unlit sconces with torches stand on the walls along the hallway, faintly seen by the faint light that the glimmers shed. The various tapestries that mostly remain untouched break what might otherwise be a monotonous, long walk. Depictions of beastkin and humans joining hands, wildlife, flora that seem familiar and yet different from what I’m used to seeing, as well as murals showing ancient royalty that once ruled in this castle.

The glimmering leads me down another flight of stairs that spiral downward and at the bottom, I find another staircase leading even further down and yet a new corridor, looking much like the one above, every bit haunting as the rest. The glimmer leads me along this new, old corridor and as I start moving along it, a wolf-like creature howls, coming from the floor above.

Damn it... Maybe it caught my scent. Some of them are direwolves, able to track prey by scent.

Hurrying my running, I charge around a corner where another urn-like pot sits with a dead tree planted in it. Scabrous cysts grow on its trunk, oozing a green substance. The putrid and fetid odor it gives off makes me want to vomit. My lips compress and with distaste, I approach the tree, running my hands across its diseased bark and rub the ooze on my clothes.

This might help to cover my scent.

Sighing in relief, I suppress my nausea as I continue following the glimmering light to another room with its door knocked clear across the room. Seeing a balcony here with another set of stairs, I look down from the railing to see a glowing construction here. Softly glowing crystals slowly orbit something on thin loops of orbiting metal... 

There’s a pitch-black portal resting on its base, up a flight of steps onto some sort of pedestal. It hovers in the air among the wire-like structure that rotates the crystals around over it. Beneath the hole, looking to be a hole in existence, stands a healthy-looking branch of a tree coming from beneath the castle, spreading out and somehow supporting the hole. 

On the stairs stands a man with tousled silver hair, wearing a tough-looking black jacket with decorative stitching and matching pants with baggy legs. He holds a tall polearm with rubies set in it that glint in the light shed by the strange device. 

His eyes project a profound, cold sadness.

Kneeling behind the railing so he won’t see me, he still turns slowly and looks at me with a faint smile.

“Who might you be, intruder? We never entertain guests. Would you be so good as to come down and have a word with me?”

Licking dry lips, I shake my head, looking at the stairs leading out of this strange room. 

“None of that. Rest easy.” He lifts a hand in a placating gesture. “I pledge that I won’t harm you until after we’ve had our chat. Come now, don’t think you can get away unscathed, no matter. You’ve gambled and lost, so what more do you stand to lose after having come down his throat into the belly of a demon?”

With a sigh, I stand and walk carefully to the stairs leading down into the room. Checking my waist, I find that I’m unarmed. 

Why would I have come here without a weapon to protect myself? Am I completely out of my mind?

Step by step, I head down and halt at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hmmm… how curious. I can’t make out your features, though you stand before me,” the silver-haired man says, looking at me with dull curiosity. “I wonder how that could be?” He looks at the strange device and back at me. “Hahaha… did you think to make use of this under our noses? A gutsy one, aren’t you? Boldly creeping into your enemy’s grasp. I admire your courage, my friend, but unless… no… I highly doubt such — You’re no threat to us. I can at least tell that you’ve come unarmed. Do you look down upon us? Are we so disorganized that you think you can…”

Climbing up the stairs, ascending the strange pedestal, I behold the sight of the device up close, feeling a strange attraction to it.

There! The glimmer shines faintly now from the inside of the tear leading into whatever void it looks into.

“The bargain was for us to have a pleasant conversation, stranger. If you don’t speak, I’ll take your head at once.” The silver-haired man’s face mottles and becomes devilish.

Wincing, I hastily speak, “I… I don’t know why I’m here. Where am I? What is this thing?”

The mottling effect in the man’s face ceases and reverts as he smiles coldly, tilting his head. “You truly have no idea why you’re here, creature of light?” he asks, puzzled. An eyebrow arches at me. 

“Where are you, you ask? No, I won’t answer that particular question. Such a foolish query doesn’t deserve any answer. I will, however, answer the second, since telling you won’t matter in the end.” He laughs bitterly and wipes at an eye.

“I sometimes wonder if this thing has the power to heal me, had I any way to make use of it,” he muses. “The portal here peers into the unconscious plane, the void that you now behold. Legends state that this primordial darkness this peers into is a place of unborn, untainted souls, where dreams are born, the place of gods, the circles of hells full of demons, and ways to reach other dimensions. Choose whichever you would prefer to believe. But these things are beyond the reach of either myself or yourself. Mark my words: a step into the void through here means certain death.”

The unconscious plane? Gods? Hell? Chills race up and down my spine and a tingling sensation like needles poking into my skin, covering my body.

“Nice move that, covering yourself with odious diseased sap.” He pinches his nose and barks a laugh. “But I doubt that will help you to survive, my ‘friend.’ Scents where they’re unexpected are as conspicuous as your natural perfume…”

Turning my head in the direction of where the white-haired man’s head turns to look, there’s an enormous-looking three-headed wolf-creature standing at the bottom of the stairs leading from the balcony, its fur wild and black as the night, all six eyes burning with hatred. Slobber drips in ropes of fluid down from its long fangs.

“And so our conversation meets its untimely end, my ‘friend.’ You’ll find that Slecearh isn’t as reasonable as myself,” white-hair says with regret painting his face. That deep melancholy shines anew in his eyes. “I’m pleased that it need not be I who takes your life. Die well, and be reborn as our brother.” Swinging his polearm over his shoulder, holding it before him, he walks down the stairs away from me towards ‘Slecearh.’ The large creature bounds up the stairs leading up to the pedestal. 

Stabbing his spear into the stairs, the silver-haired man vaults over the monster in a heroic fashion.

But heroes don’t leave people behind to die!

Seeing the terrifying large creature, made of nightmares, swiftly narrowing the time and space between us, I know that I have left only a choice of how to die. Be torn to pieces and rise as a monster or…

I turn to the device and dive directly through the orbiting crystals into the void. The crystals make a ringing, tinkling noise as I leap through and the monster behind me roars loudly, its snarling filled with the frustration of the loss of its prey.

“Noooooo! I’ll find and slay you, so you’ll not rise again!” its voice fades away.

A shock of freezing cold surrounds me. Curling up in a fetal position, I float in the void.