Ferric: Divination

The incense weaves in and out of the low light as you close your eyes and center yourself. A breeze carries the smell out of your senses, replacing it with a cool mist. You open your eyes and see a tree shrouded in the mist. It stands alone, on the side of a mountain. The same mountain you see in your dreams. But today, there is no army in the valley below. There are no drums. Only the sound of bird song on a lonely wind.

And then you open your eyes again. Seeing things not as they appear to be but as they are. Sitting at the base of the tree is the slight figure of a young man. He sits still and straight, with the air of a monk. A long vest of blue and silver hangs over his simple attire, made for travel and movement. His skin is dark and smooth, his hair ropes of platinum blonde bundled at the back of his head and set with silver beads.

You approach the young man, who gestures to you without meeting your gaze, bidding you to sit. In his other hand, he holds a steaming cup of tea. On his shoulder sits a bright gold canary, who cocks its head at you with interest, intelligence in its gaze.

The wind smells cool and fresh, with snow lingering at the edges. You sit in easy silence for a moment, looking down over the valley that stretches out before you.

The young man turns and looks at you, a serious, but not menacing, expression on his face. His eyes are pupiless, bottomless pools of swirling, shining mercury.

“Your shoulders are weighted, my son. What would you ask of me?”

[Ferric asks him if he should take down this temple, even if it kills him in the process.]

He looks back over the valley before responding.

“You speak of your companions as if they are your weakness. They are not. They are your strength. Yes. It this temple is a weighty thing. But there are things that are weightier still. Things I would have you seek.”

He gestures to the valley. It’s now teeming with tens of thousands of soldiers. They move like the shadow of a thunderhead across the valley. An army, marching to war. You hear a scream, a woman’s scream, but an inhuman one. The cry of an infant. A hideous, chilling, high-pitched laugh.

He gestures then to the lonely tree at your back. Turning, you no longer see the mountain face. Instead, you see the Savalirwood, as though from one of the scattered protected glades that still exist. Glades like your home, and the Bone Orchard you spoke of just yesterday. You see the corruption encroaching on your location, moving faster and faster towards you, the grasses twisting and withering and thorned vines erupting from the earth. A wolf howls. A throbbing sound, rhythmic like a heartbeat, somewhere in the darkness.

Overhead, the clear sky has fallen to ominous thunderclouds. You realize how exposed you are, here on the edge of the world.

Mists cloud your vision again.  You blink your eyes against it, and open them again to the warm, humid environs of your jungle shelter.

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