Open Into the Dark

You have been here for a long time, haven't you? All alone. It's too bad, though. You haven't explored beyond your little farm. Don't worry, we all start somewhere. But I need you to know - you are not alone. "I knew that," you must be thinking. "I've seen the monsters." But I don't mean them - more people, real ones, like you. That's exciting, isn't it...? I think you'll like them.

Look out your window into the snowy wild you live in. Beyond the cold, you will find a place where stone meets sand and the twin guardians stand, and where ancient knowledge is just waiting for you. You have a destiny - and the buried temple will arm you for that destiny.

You may not trust me, for I'm nothing more than a voice in a dream, but you always believed in the power of dreams, haven't you? And this dream will show you a path through this maze called life, where a monstrous beast waits at the End.

Uncover the temple. Find the girl. Slay the dragon.

-

The vast wilds of Kael have been whispered about for generations, the wilderness too powerful for the human or testificate people to tame fully. This can be owed to the hordes of vicious monsters that creep out of the shadows when night falls, devouring any foolish enough to venture outside after dusk. Sure, small habitations have popped up in the plains of Kael, but they are few and far between. This is a savage land.

But you still ventured into the dark.

You have lived all alone for a long time in the vast, snowy land of Kael, all alone except for your livestock, maybe a dog or cat or two...and the monsters. You left home, and after much wandering, ended up here, or maybe you don't even remember that much. But you haven't seen another human being as you ventured in the snowy taiga, the lush jungle to the south, the vast ocean to the west, the insurmountable cliffs to east, and even the caves deep beneath the earth. You have lived off this land for a long time, defending your home from beasts at night, searching for food and material during the day, delving deep into the earth and not knowing how much time had passed...

At first, you may have been scared of all the monsters, but now they are commonplace, but even the sound of footsteps that are not yours can set your heart racing. The dull groan of a zombie, or clanking of a skeleton, or, the most horrifying of all, the dull hissing of a Creeper. Sometimes even the elusive and strange Endermen may have appeared, only to flee when the clouds brought rain.

And then you had the Dream. A strange voice spoke to you, showed you images of a vast sandy desert, and flashing images of all kinds, too fast to make some of them out. But you distinctly remember a pair of reptilian purple eyes gazing right into your soul, and you could never forget that. Then you woke up.

The dream didn't fade after you woke, like most dreams do - it remained vivid and branded into your mind, the words spoken to you echoing softly in the back of your mind.

It is time to act.

----

The sands have been calling you, the haunting voice of the desert beckoning from your dreams. It's dark now, monsters lurking everywhere, but the call needs to be answered. But when you answer...that's up to you.

It seems someone else has answered the call already, however, rapid footfalls leaving shallow prints in the soft sand, moving quick to avoid burning their skin on the lingering heat of the day. The desert is one of the most dangerous places to be at night - nowhere to hide, the shifting sands making building a shelter a very difficult task - but the mysterious figure doesn't hesitate.

Anyone watching would be able to see the figure climb to the top of a hill of sand and stone, bow in hand and arrow loaded. Upon closer inspection, the figure would seem to be a slender, dark-skinned woman, black hair pulled back into a messy, fat braid, and wearing tattered scraps of leather over her more delicate areas. Her stance is alert and wary, watching the monsters in the sand below.

She seems familiar to the dreamers - one of the flashing images.

What will you do?

Another figure crawled onto the sands, tired, sweating and looking a little beat up. Her fabric skirt had certainly seen better days, just barely able to stay tied to her waist. She appeared to have also padded herself with a bit of leather in the time it took to get here, perhaps to mitigate that.

But nonetheless, Violet had made it. With a few books from her library on her person, a satchel filled with things like spider eyes and sugar, and a pickaxe in her left hand that sparkled and shimmered in the dull light... and with a faint glow on it, she had made it to the desert she'd dreamed about.

"Luna smiled on me tonight..." she murmured, wiping her brow. She felt almost ready to fall over and finally sleep, but there would be no rest now. If she could still fly, this trip would have been a lot easier.

"Maybe this is my key to going home... I hope they're okay without me..."

With that, she struggled out into the sands, wincing as the lingering heat stung some healing burns from a creeper attack. The monsters hadn't killed her yet, and they would not take her now.

Then she spotted the woman on the hill.

It was a curious sight, seeing another person... another human. It was almost as if Violet wasn't entirely sure what a human was. Being alone for so long will do that to you, I suppose. She was hesitant to approach. What if this woman was hostile like the monsters? It was easy to defend against their attack patterns by now, but she had never seen this.

Still uncertain, she held her ground and watched.

Pin's black eyes, despite the hours, remained wide-open as he treked across the sand. Walking in sand was hard, and he tried to avoid it, but he had had this weird dream with purple and black stuff in it and now he felt kinda compelled. 'Why not?' was the overarching theme of this nighttime trip, basically, and the boy was fine with that. It certainly beat staying at home and muttering to the lambs (not that he would say that to the lambs, the poor dears) or sleeping. Pin didn't sleep much anyway; that much was obvious from the dark crescents rimming his eyes.

His shirt, a blue striped affair, was slung over his back; the desert remained uncomfortably warm even in the dark, and Pin really didn't ever say no to a reason to not wear clothes. Wool was itchy, after all, and itchy was not something that Pin enjoyed being. As a concession to his sheep, to show them that he loved them, he tried to keep at least his pants on, though. They were also useful for pockets; one of the multitude that covered his shorts had a torch stuck in it.

An arrow twanged past his head. Still thinking a little bit about his sheep, Pin dashed forward, swung a large, heavy object upwards from foot-level, and caught the skeleton in the ribs. Arms tensing with effort, Pin poured more effort into the swing, bringing the screeching undead monster up over his head and, as he twisted about, slamming it into the sand. He did this several more times until, finally, the bones fell apart and he could get back to walking. Before that, though, he snatched up one of the unshattered bones and a couple of arrows.

Scratching himself absentmindedly, Pin hoisted his oversized pick to sit alongside his aforementioned shirt and crested the dune in front of him. His feet sunk into the sand, but he didn't really notice the hot particles as the entered his sandals; there were, among other things, people here.

Maybe they were skeletons. Skeletons had bones, and from the way these two were standing, they did too. But no, puzzled Pin, that would make zombies and his sheep skeletons, too.

"Hello!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm, waving. "Are you guys alive?"

His darkly-freckled face was plastered with a grin. People! Probably!!!

At the sound of Pin's voice, the mysterious woman turned in her heel, firing the arrow in her bow toward the boy as she went, though obviously not aiming to strike him, more a warning shot. She continued to stare as she loaded another arrow, face hard to read.

She waited.

Pin fell onto his chest, bare skin rubbing roughly against the sand. The arrow the guy (woman?) had sent at him landed in the sand several feet away. Was she blind? Daft? A skeleton after all? Skeletons did have bad aim, after all. Pulling himself up off of the sand and readying his pick, Pin picked up the arrow and put it in his pocket.

"Hey, um, please don't do that? Are you a skeleton or something?" Pin shrugged mildly. "Because I'm not! I promise!"

To be safe, Pin lay down on the sand again, only his head poking up above the dune he was on.

"Stay... quiet." Violet hissed to herself as she slowly began to back away. She had witnessed the other 'human', seen the woman fire at him. She didn't want any part of that, at all... but this was a woman she had seen in her dreams. She didn't understand. Were they meant to fight her?

Suddenly it seemed like a better idea to just go back home.

...Home.

This place wasn't home.

That may have been the only thought keeping her from bolting. She wasn't good at it, but if she had to fight, she would. She had come this far, fought so many monsters to get here, some bitchy filly with an arrow fetish wasn't going to stop her from seeing her wife again.

She held her ground and brandished her shimmering pickaxe.

"Hmm...this is certainly...not a friendly meeting. Too hostile...enemies maybe?"

Reva peers at the scene before her, one of the odd woman and the other that had a arrow sailed toward him. Biting her lower lip she mused on the aim of the woman, trying to judge the skill they may hold. The woman looked to be a survivor, so she would have needed some kind of skill to do just that, yet she missed when the other spoke. Tilting her head a bit, she wondered if the shot was more of a warning than a attack.

A warning would make sense, good for testing the waters to see if you are under attack or trying to scare off something unpleasant. None the less, she kept to her perch, watching the people silently. She could make out another figure clad in purple with blazing hair, seeming to also be watching the exchange from what she could tell. Neither of them seemed to want to cause a bigger fuss, she certainly didn't want to be the fault for another person to die.

People. There were people. How long has she been alone, she wondered. She could still remember vague figures from her youth, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. Maybe it was a dream, like all the others that has gripped her life. This would not be the first time she questioned what was real and what was a dream.

Like now. She was seeing a woman from her recent dreams, standing there loosing arrows at another person. Is this real, or is this just fantasy? She wasn't sure anymore, but she was content on just riding it out and watching the story unfold before her.

People were fun to watch at least.