vision of blood

Rova 24, 4719 - Inagra Ironbeater's Quarters

As you drift away to sleep one night, you feel as though you are torn from your body. You watch as your vision passes through the empty corridors and spacious rooms. Soon, you are above the citadel, yet it is not where it should be. Instead it rests in a massive, sweltering jungle. The sky is pitch black, as though someone or something has torn the stars from the sky. As you watch, you feel as though everything is growing hotter until it is an unbearable heat. Then, suddenly, bursting forth from the citadel, smashing everything into a fine dust, is the form of a dragon shaped of flames. It’s eyes stare directly at you, burning into you hotter than you have ever felt, as though your spirit itself were melting away.

Thankfully, it turns its gaze away and directs its ire towards the jungle below. It pulls in a deep breath, as though ready to burn everything beneath it. Instead of flames, however, only a slow drizzle of steaming blood pours forth from its mouth. The blood falls to the jungle, creating rivers of crimson tide where it lands. You can just barely make out creatures moving among the blood rivers, standing up and raising their arms in supplication to the massive dragon. These humanoids made of blood walk into the jungles, meeting other humanoids who are not marked by this crimson stain. Before long, the humanoids are indistinguishable from one another.

You awake, covered in sweat, panting hard. In your hands are clenched a handful of coins, held so tightly that you have begun to bleed. You gaze in morbid fascination as your blood pools in the small indentations of the gold.