[RPG] [Dwi] A Fever Dream

[Timothy Collett]

Lying wounded, Drystan Bellator dreams...

Port Nebel is burning, set aflame by the rebels.  Drystan tries to  
reach it, but his wounds are too deep; he cannot stand.  As he  
watches, though, a bird rises from the flames, cries one mighty cry of  
triumph, and flies off to the east.  And then it is no flesh-and-blood  
bird, but a heraldic emblem, on a brown shield, the banner of the  
kingdom to the east.

Suddenly Drystan is able to stand.  He begins walking toward the east,  
where the bird flew.  A hand holds his, leading him on; it is a  
woman's hand, and black hair cascades past the shoulders of the figure  
before him, but he can see no more of her.

As they walk on, they seem to grow larger in size step by step, until  
they reach the eastern coast of the island of Nebel, where they make  
one great leap to the opposite shore.  Ahead and to his left, Drystan  
now sees mountains, which seem to grow rapidly in size as they grow  
nearer—or is he shrinking again?

After a time, they stand between the mountains on the north and a wide  
lake on the south.  Just then, the sun rises over the eastern horizon,  
illuminating a magnificent white city, sparkling off its bejeweled  
towers and spires.  The tallest tower cuts the sun exactly in two,  
looking very much like a sword.

His guide seems slightly peeved by this, and turns him to the south.   
There, he sees another city, no less than the first, and sitting atop  
its highest tower is the moon, no more than the thinnest crescent,  
bisected by another spire like a sword.  She starts leading him to the  
south, toward that city.

They advance at great speed, and soon are in the city itself.  They  
continue through the city until they reach the south side, where an  
inland sea opens up, and they walk out onto the docks.  There they  
look out across the sea, where a third city, as great as the first two  
together, reaches its spires toward the sky as if seeking to possess  
the moon.

Drystan turns to his guide in puzzlement, and looks upon her face for  
the first time.  It is exquisite in its beauty, the lips turned up in  
a small, mysterious smile.  But it is the eyes that arrest his gaze:  
deep pools of darkness, fathomless, seeming to contain a night sky  
without stars...

In his guide's other hand, she holds a sword, twin to the one that cut  
across the moon.  With a triumphal cry, the same cry the bird gave,  
she hurls it skyward, where it becomes a spear, a javelin.  The  
javelin flashes with a brilliant starburst as it passes in front of  
the moon...then vanishes.
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