Quote:
You awaken in a place devoid of color, flat and featureless, the earth made of pebbled stones. A track is beaten through them that suggests the passage of many, many hooves, although it is utterly silent and there are no signs of life to be seen. You hear cold, mournful wind, but you do not feel it: the air is still and cool. A strange, smooth-sided tower rises in the distance and glows from within with a light like the moon. If you approach it, you find it surrounded with strange symbols, but touching it hurts--unless you are a Legendary, in which case it triggers floods of ancestral memory, not just from your own race (as expected), but from all of them. You remember snippets of lives lived by dozens of Kin of all types.
The place he had fallen asleep in had been an unfamiliar one. It had been deep night, full of the calls of the midnight dwellers and a general sense of unease, as if a predator stalked the night. Despite that he had settled down without apprehension, found the comfiest position he could manage and had closed his eyes. The last thing he recalled was a questing nose at his side, Echo giving her reassurance that she was there, she was always there. Now he was here.
There was a difference, he discovered, between unfamiliar and completely beyond the realm of thought and understanding. It was completely impossible for him to be one place one moment and then in another the next. This place certainly wasn’t the Swamp anymore. It was more akin to a tale told around a fire by a wizened Zikwa. Yet here he was, in a place that felt just as a real as any other he’d been in but also entirely unfeasible. It was startling there, with a worn, stone path beneath his hooves and a crying wind he could not feel.
There was only one way to deal with his new predicament; accept it. He was here, it was done, deal with it and move on. Whatever game the MotherFather was playing, he would dance to her tune as she desired.
The world around him was empty but the ground suggested many had come before and that knowledge left him not as lonely he should have been. There was a sense of companionship here, despite the cold and alien landscape.
His path led forward towards a glowing tower; a beacon that spurred his body into motion. The Killing Moon began to his journey towards strange landmark. He breathed in the strangely still air, putting one hoof in front of the other in an easy, strolling gait. Through it all he smiled.
When he finally stood before the tower, he studied it slowly, gaze drifting up and down the smooth surface. He was seeking some clue to its purpose but even as time ticked by it was useless to even make conjecture as to what it really was. The strange symbols that surrounded the tower were intelligible, but they clearly meant something and it was frustrating to stare at them for too long.
The buck moved forward, closer until he nose could touch the tower…only to jolt back with a grunt of pain. He shook his head clear of the sudden shock and stepped away. Was he not worthy? Why had he been brought here if not to learn more? Was this the end? Would he even be returned to the Swamp?
Those thoughts swirled chaotically through his mind before he put a sudden, iron hold on them. It was enough that he was here, he decided, and that was a blessing. The Killing Moon sighed softly and settled down on the ground before the tower, basking in the glow with his eyes closed. It was here that he would wait until he was given the next stage of his journey, however long it took.
