Visions

To whom it may concern,

If you are standing where you are, then you've been unfortunate enough to stumble upon Amona yourself, but more likely you've been sent there by me. Please accept my sincerest apologies, but the horrors my people will show you now concerns all of Erdgard, not just Amona.

On these shelves are the dreams and nightmares that have plagued me for most of my young life. In days gone by, I'd have considered it pretentious to even remember such things, let alone petition the Archivists to document and store them for me. That changed since I glimpsed the true face of the enemy, cut a hole through the world, and watched my friend become something I had never imagined possible.

Many of these visions are recent, from my travels across Erdgard to my birth place, and thus likely a consequence of my newfound abilities. Read into that what you will. I only ask you adopt the objectivity of the halls you stand when you read of the splendid horrors that meet me every night of dreaming.

Ruins

Too uniform to be naturally occurring, but too ghastly to be of Erdgard, wherever I was being shown, it wasn't of our world. Even now, after the fact, I still can't imagine what their end truly looked like, but perhaps it doesn't matter. If nothing else, I can at least see the consequence of failure.

The Queen-In-Exile and Inla

We broke bread many times over the years, but he is not the Dawn of old. Without my dear Heartwood he is closed off. That being said; before he left to seek his birthright, he afforded me a small window:

"Rojani..." he said to me as pain cracked the corners of those verdent panes. "I used to dream of ancient worlds and forgotten times... of dead men's trails and choices to come. Now... after that day... all I see are lands beyond Erdgard. Things I can't explain. Places I want no part of. I see things no man should see—"

Other worlds

Beyond our sight and beyond our means, the lands I see are among the stars and already claimed by these gods that fell to ours.

Ancient Battlefields

Dark, tortured winds screamed around me threatening to tear my grip from the standard of our people, now red with blood. The earth beneath my feet crumbled with every step, the defeated now long silent.

I found the horizon, and through the ash of Erdgard's ruin, I found the enemy. Our enemy. My enemy.

A Temple Of Bone

What I see may be of little consequence to anything but history, I hope, but one particular vision perhaps requires our attention.

Twice before I have been standing before a place of darkness, dwarved by the scale of the construction. Yes, construction. Like a sculpted mountain of jagged stone, it rises from rubble, but I know it to be artificial, though of course not by what means.

This place is somehow in Erdgard, and somehow related to the Sleeper.

Halls Of Unlife

The first was of unquenchable, unnatural fires deep within the earth, like a smoldering hate left to fester.

However, the second was cold and dead, but not death as we know it. As I stood before a towering entrance under a colossal, bleached skull, the same whispers I heard in the other Amona blew like gale winds from its bowels. Screams, torments, and despair, and beneath it all a writhing evil that no longer slept.

This place was a cathedral to something not of our lands.

They weren't all dark tidings

There were moments of stillness, fluid thoughts that moved freely through my mind and found a placid sea of being. Often those times came when I longed after Leaf and the home I left behind.

Tea with Apsaalooke

I watched as the impossibly ancient Scryer took to a seat woven of and from the grove itself, and then he spoke.

"We didn't understand what was happening until it was too late. The Old one was gone. The sudden dissonance in our connection became clear, but to openly resist was death. At first, She came to our people in many forms until she settled on what you know as your truth. They were enraptured. Suddenly our dedication to these lands had finally paid off, and in return our love of all turned to love of one."

Alone

"Join..." it said to me. "Join and be at peace. Peace, seer. Sit at the throne and claim what is yours. Peace, as one."

I considered it for longer moments than I care to admit, then tore the walls of the vision down with my fingers.

They ached on waking.

The astral plane

I know now that the other Amona with our defeated kin is not the only of its kind. It is an island, yes, but the ocean of dreams holds many secrets. These pocket worlds have been described to me as shelter, but also as prisons that should not be.

It is clear that the latter is true of our home, but what I cannot ascertain is whether or not its creation was deliberate or not.

The Watcher's wings of perversion shed and it fell

It all happened so fast. When the beast was mortally wounded, its followers seemed to break. The framework of their structured madness shattered to pieces until they were only living shells. Vessels of evil before, yes, but then empty. With the great enemy vanquished, their twisted mockery of the natural order died with it.

I watched as one of its most loyal plummeted like stone through the air. The thing of corruption bitterly writhed and fought against its inevitable end. Knowing now who they truly were, I didn't feel the victory like the cheering men and women around me in the dream. I only felt pity.

Forgotten memory

All has spirit, as all has memory. I've come to learn this. As such, when I see world trees choked with raining fire and ash, I know the threat is real.

A wall of flame that was not flame

Cold, dead, wet stone, then the darkness gave way to a wall of spirit and flame.

At its center was a sea I didn't recognise and a sky as white as snow.

Conversing over impossible distance

"Apsaalooke spoke like you... we are connected to the dream. Like you have power over it? If that is true, then how does the Mother also speak to me?"

I have had lucid dreams like that which became frequent on the road to Haligern only once before, with Fern in our burning hall. Only, these were not the domain of the Mother, but one called Atsa, and another called Apsaalooke.

Moths

The priests of sleeping seemed to walk willingly to the singularity, to what in the corner of my dreaming mind was the mature form of the tunneling horror we're already familiar with.

I know not the importance of the Ah'Uaynix, but from my memory, our records are sparse. A Nodin agent should be sent immediately.

Portal

By this point in my travels, I had grown accustomed to the gifts you witnessed on that fateful day, perhaps even bordering on confident, but it was evaporated in an instant by the scale of the tear before me. I couldn't comprehend the power required for such a feat.

Then it dawned on me that it could only be Hers.

She was beyond, in wait, and I knew She suspected my true intentions. It was then, tired and alone, I could only surrender to fate.

Free from the pit, my strength left me

A distant voice told me to fight the fatigue claiming me, but I surrendered and fell into a deep sleep, my last thoughts a prayer that the enemy didn't find me in my vulnerability.

Joining

I can't imagine the circumstances of a future where I join with the father of the Sinti, but I am shown it all the same.

The king of ash

Of all the visions of potential, those where I am alone scare me the most. I suppose most of Amona would assume the opposite of me, but for all my troubles, I can't imagine a worse reality than being isolated in a defeated world with no hope, no enemy, and only a bloody rag to keep the ash from soiling my tears.

Bannerman

Banners of white, red, green, and everything in-between. I know they all mean something, but I am no champion. I have never represented any cause but myself. I still resent my place in these events, but nevertheless, I am duty-bound.

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