Unknown date, 4433
Three other people enter the room. Two are clearly guards, tough looking Viridian veterans who stand at attention on each side of Salzige. The third is an old Ghinoran woman: she wears an ornate gown of foreign design, a circlet studded with gems around her brow, her fingers covered with gold rings of various sizes and shapes. Her walnut-coloured hands shake with weakness. Phaidros holds her arm and helps her into his chair, and Salzige sees that she is blind - her eyes are blank and white.
"Allow me to present Lady Metztli, of the distant south," intones Phaidros. "My lady, the subject is before you."
Lady Metztli grabs Salzige's hand and flinches visibly. "Aah! Much darkness I see, in the land beyond shadows! We will purge you of this blight now... Hold him!" The guards each clamp down on Salzige's shoulders and hold his head still. Lady Metztli's sightless eyes stare directly into his and again he gets the sense of having his mind and soul scrutinized -- but this time, the pain is immense!
The agony burns every nerve ending in Salzige's body, as if he were immersed in boiling magma. It seems to last for eternity... at a certain point he begins to hallucinate, entering a waking dream. He hears Lady Metztli's voice echoing in his mind:
"We will rewrite his future for him..."
Salzige's Dream
The face of the moon was the Hideous Monkey Statue, mocking as it leered down from the sky. Below, Zalan schemed and cursed in a graveyard, calling up the dead for his vengeance. An army of undead rose, devoured their maker, and swept across the land in a great holocaust of blood. A few terrible figures led the charge: at the forefront were a vampire in a jagged pointed crown; and a floating, legless skeleton with a circlet and a staff.
Against them was arrayed a strange army: in the front were the wood elves, painted savages with spears and rocks. Beside them walked more bizarre examples of elfkind: some ghoulishly pale and tattooed, others with night-black skin. Behind these were shadowy creatures, almost like elves, their very skin the stuff of darkness and dream. Behind these, driving the charge, were tall ethereal beings with glowing skin and shining armour, blasting their foes with terrible eldritch forces.
These two armies met in a titanic conflict, a war which spread to every corner of the world. Even the Emerald City was consumed with flames!
The fires died down and acrid winds scoured the dust of the city away until nothing remained. Over the ruins of the Empire rose a massive horned monument to evil: a statue of Yredelemnul, the goat-demon, lord of death!
Lady Metztli's voice echoes: "This is as it may be, not as it must be..."
...
An androgynous figure in black clothes walks down darkened tunnels. It passes a huge, glowing red ruby on a marble platform, then walks down a white staircase, passing beneath three golden gates.
Later, this same being stands in a dark room before an ancient, weathered book written in blood-red inks. On a stone block rest a plain golden cup, an oddly-shaped skull, and a jewelled spear. The cloaked figure intones unpronounceable words from the book, and ripples of darkness flow from the walls, plunging it into a sea of liquid black. From this sea of darkness rise humanoid shapes, bodies of pure blackness which climb the walls, drag it under, and flow out of the room in a flood...
An ibis bird floats on a vast lake dotted with rushes. It is peaceful. The bird speaks, and its words bring a sense of serenity and wisdom, but afterwards they cannot quite be recalled...
A great set of golden merchant's scales...
A floating fortress inside a storm cloud...
A crumbling white dome, set amongst the mountain peaks...
A distant glowing star, streaking blue and pink trails across a silvery-grey void...
A frozen city beneath an enormous glacier, with a blood-soaked gate guarded by a demon..
...
...
