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Description

The sound of footsteps echoed in the near silent halls. Distantly, one could hear the bustle and hustle of city life out in the ancient desert city of Yunalet. The footsteps stopped at the sound of someone calling out to another.
“Lady Marie! Lady Marie!”
The owner of the voice came running down from the opposite end of the hall, his face red from exhaustion. The tawny haired teenaged boy paused in the middle of the hall to catch his breath. Like any other priest that walked these halls, he wore a mainly white cloak with dark red intricate markings decorating. The newly christened priest dusted off what one could see of the dusty gray pants before turning his attention back to the other.
The other happened to be an older woman, faint wrinkles and even fainter scars crisscrossing her face. Unlike the rest of the priests and priestesses in the ancient temple, her cloak is of the reverse colors, mainly dark red with white markings. Her hair was black and tied back to keep it out of her face even as she focuses all of her attention on the boy. “What is it, Rulio?”
Rulio gave her a nervous look. “Ah, well, Lady Marie, it seems that we have kind of a problem…”
“If it’s about the annual Realm Gate opening, then it will be fine. I trust the Elders to be able to take care of it on their own,” Marie said.
The younger shook his head hard. “No, no!” Rulio cried. “It’s something else. The Elders refused to tell me and only said that I should get you and tell that the ‘Seal’ is breaking!”
Marie let out a breath of startled air. What? “Are you certain that is what they said?”
“Yes!”
She mentally swore. The Seal wasn’t supposed to be renewed for a whole other year! The Temple didn’t even have all the necessary bits and bops they needed to renew said Seal! It’d take another month before they got any of that.
Which…is probably why they were asking for her. Marie was the only one who could possibly seal it without needing the extra parts.
“Alright.” She decided. “Come with me. We’re going to the Elders.”
Rulio looked startled. “But they said…”
“And I am the Head Priestess of the temple. If they did not wish for you to know, then they should have chosen someone who already knew about the Seal.” Marie sniffed in slight disdain towards the Elders. They truly were narrow-minded idiots at times.
Or…all the time, as it were.
Marie brushed past the boy and began the walk back towards the stairs. Rulio, knowing that it was silent command to ‘follow’ he turned on his heel and jogged to catch up to her.
It didn’t take long to get to the sandstone stairwell that led up to the Elders’ chambers. At the top, the duo stared at the giant bronze doors. The ominous lion face that had been pounded into the metal stared back.
After what seemed an eternity, Marie reached forward and pushed the doors open. Arguing voices slipped out through the crack between the doors as she pushed it open.
(Meanwhile, Rulio looked stunned at how the priestess had just nonchalantly opened the door without knocking.)
The six Elders, dressed in their dual colored robes, were arguing. For Rulio, this was a first. For Marie, this was typical. The woman crossed her arms. “Are you really going to continue this argument? It is silly and pointless.”
One of the elderly woman, Bao, spun in her chair to glare at Marie. “How dare you say that our arguem—discussion is pointless?! This situation is beyond bad!”
Marie stepped forward to the center of the round room. “If your argument is what to do about the Seal, then it shouldn’t matter. I’m here now, so I can reseal it myself.”
“Ah, yes.” The oldest of the six, Koranat, murmured. “You could…However, there seems to be something incredibly wrong. With the Seal, that is.”
Her eyes narrowed as they landed on him. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Koranat placed his hands on his crossed legs with a sigh. “It appears the Seal is damaged somehow.” He grimaced. “We are not certain as to how this happened but what we are certain of is that it is the reason why the Seal is breaking earlier than the usual ten year deadline.”
“Ah, sir?” Rulio muttered aloud. The Elder turned his eyes to the teenaged priest. He blushed. “Um, if this…’Seal’ is damaged, does that mean that Lady Marie cannot reseal it by herself?”
“Yes.” Marie answered for the man. “If it’s damaged, that means we have no choice but to use the other method. However, we don’t have all of the necessary requirements for that method, so it makes that a moot point.”
Rulio frowned. “…Does that mean that we’re out of options?”
The youngest of the Elders, though that didn’t mean much, closed her silvery-blue eyes. “There is another way. However, the Aura Saber has not been seen in centuries. Without that Realm Weapon, we cannot simply let the Seal break and then create a new one.”
“Oh.”
“However,” Marie said, “If we can find the Aura Saber before the Seal breaks that too will be a moot point.”
A scoff. “Impossible. There has been no one worthy of wielding the blade, or else it would have shown up already.”
Marie glared, clearly about to contradict the Elder when the whole of the Temple shook and an explosion rang out. She knelt down and balanced herself out on the ground as the Temple continued to shake and rumble. Around her the Elders squawked and stumbled, clearly stunned by the earthquake-like shaking.
The shaking started to tone down but Marie could still hear the distant sounds of more explosions and…screaming. From all around, above and below. She realized quite suddenly that the screaming was not just from the city-dwellers outside the Temple walls, but from the very priests and priestesses that guards the Temple itself.
She pushed herself back up before throwing herself back out the still open doors. Rulio hastily followed her.
There were several heart-wrenching moments when Marie was certain she would fall down the stairs as the shakes started to grow again. But maybe it wasn’t that they were getting stronger again but that she was getting closer to the source.
A scream.
Marie gritted her teeth before dodging a falling piece of sandstone. Ahead was a small cluster of priestesses attempting to shield a group of trainees. Unfortunately, it seemed their efforts were for not as one of the walls near them exploded inward, leaving all of them scattered across the hall, badly injured.
A pair of healing priests appeared from a side room, already casting. “Heal them, now!” Marie ordered before jerking her head around to Rulio. “Come on, we’re heading further down.” The tawny haired priest nodded shakily as he followed her order.
The next set of stairs were blocked. Marie, frustrated, grabbed a staff from one of the shattered statues that had once lined the halls. “Let the fires burn!” She jabbed the end of the staff at the blockage. “Inferno!”
The stone burned. Rulio gapped, no doubt surprised by how strong the flames were. “I’m a talented mage.” Marie stated simply before jogging down the broken stairwell.
At the bottom lay several charred corpses. Marie let out a furious hiss. How dare their attackers kill people under her protection?! She would not let this insult stand. Leaping over the ashes and bones, the dark haired woman ran down the new hall to the magick elevator.
The duo entered and Marie slammed the button down, hard. “Did you…have to hit it that hard?” Rulio muttered as the elevator shuttered downwards. She sighed at the boy’s apprehension.
“It’s old, so you have to hit hard to get down to the Seal. Whoever is attacking us seems to be after that…” Marie trailed off. She sensed, just at the edges of awareness…Her eyes went wide. “Shield us from harm! Barrier!”
A silvery barrier surged up around the two and Rulio spluttered in confusion—just as the elevator jerked and fell.
It felt almost like an eternity before they hit the ground, but thanks to the barrier, there no deaths nor injuries. Rulio coughed through the dust, pushing a slab of sandstone away from him. “L-lady Marie, are you alright?”
“I will be, when this is over with.” The woman growled, stepping through the open way into the Seal Chamber.
The Seal Chamber looked wholly undamaged from the shaking and explosions…save for the Seal itself. The door which held the Seal was ripped clean in two and several bodies were scattered around it. The only ones standing beside herself and Rulio was a man wearing a dark blue cape attached to black armor and a being made of living shadows.
The latter turned to face them and a slit opened across its ‘face’ in a sinister pantomime of a smile. It hissed something in another language and the armored man replied in the same before the helm covering his face turned to the duo. “Well, if it isn’t the Head Priestess.”
Marie glared. “Who are you? And why are you here?”
“Why,” he said, “I am merely picking up an old friend.”
Rulio whimpered. The priestess shot the boy a look to try and silence him, but that was a mistake. The armored man raised a hand and slashed down. Marie spun back around to face him, a barrier spell ready to shield from the fire.
But she was too slow.
For a split second, Marie thought Rulio had been hit, but no. Extreme pain sparked across her legs and up her spine and she let out a startled gasp of pain. Another furl of flames flashed towards them and Rulio cried out before falling to the ground, limp and clearly dead.
Marie raised a hand to begin casting a heal spell for herself. However, before the words could pass her lips, something burned across the right side her face and she fell to her knees, stunned.
A soft chuckle right above her.
“Did you actually think you could stand up to my fire? Even the Sealer of Roranti fell to them. A simple Head Priestess would never stand a chance.”
“Y-you...are…?” Marie choked out.
“Does it matter?” Another laugh. “You won’t be able to tell anyone about this. All they’ll think is that Roranti’s seal broke and decimated the city. As far as everyone else knows…I was never here.”
Marie gagged on a growl. Everything was going dark…
A pitying sigh. “It’s too bad…I was looking forward to your little quest of revenge. But perhaps things will be more interesting this way. Come now, Roranti. It’s time you got your chance to reclaim your land.”

The last thing the head priestess heard was a sinister hissing laugh…

-------------------------
The water hissed down around her into a sunset colored pool. The young girl blinked crystalline blue eyes, confused. This dream again…?
She glanced around to stare at the waterfalls from the sky. Said sky was, surprisingly, a dark blue, the color of the night. Not a single star shone and the only light came from the sunset trapped in the water she stood in.
The girl brushed red-brown hair out of her face, frowning. Odd. This was a bit different. She glanced around, searching for the crystal structure that usually ended this dream. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing but water in every direction.
She muttered an insult to whatever deity was cursing her with this dream before trudging through the waters, her coal gray pants soaking up the water in an instant. The spray from the waterfalls made her pearl white shirt damp and the girl wrinkled her nose: The water smelled like roses.
Despite her walking through it, there were absolutely no ripples in the water. It was like she wasn’t actually there, which was a strange thought. Her eyes flicked back and forth, searching for some sort of shelter.
There were none and that troubled her. How was she supposed to get out of here without that trigger? “Lucid dreaming is such a pain…” she muttered under her breath before sitting down. Had she not already been soaked to the bone, this would have been a problem. The red haired girl clutched her legs to her chest, burying her face in her knees.
She was very literally stuck. Without a way forward…
The water shifted.
The girl blinked in confusion. What?
Before her eyes a stone path rose out the water, ripples forming for the first time since she had arrived. The path floated on air as it sailed up into the blank sky and the girl stood up, droplets splashing into the water.
A way out.
She stepped onto the path and was already half way up before the girl even realized what she was doing. The girl paused. Why was she going up? Granted, it was probably the only way out, but it was still rather suspicious.
What am I saying? She thought. This is a dream. It shouldn’t matter if it’s suspicious. If something happens, I’ll just wake up.
Coming to a decision, the girl continued on. As she moved up, the red head started feeling nervous. This was mostly because she was very high up and it very likely that if she fell off the edge, the girl would die when she hit the ground.
Or wake up, in this case.
The girl froze as, above her, crystals spun up and out of the waters below to form a crystal structure. At first it looked similar to the structures that had appeared in the other dreams but this time it was apparently not to be as the crystals seemed to grow and become a castle before her eyes.
She stared with wide eyes before rushing up towards it. The end…! It had to be the end, just like all the other times!
Yes, she was rather desperate. Yes, it was shameful. But did she really care? No, no she didn’t. The girl much rather look like a fool than be stuck in nowhere land inside a dream for the rest of eternity.
(And, yes, she was rather overdramatic as well.)
When she made it to the crystal stairs, she rather gracefully tripped over the first step and slammed her forehead into the last. The red head groaned her displeasure at nearly knocking her brains out of her skull but pushed herself to her knees anyway.
Now standing straight, she tugged on the door handles.
They didn’t budge.
You have got to be kidding me.
She grit her teeth, frustrated tears spilling from her eyes. This was ridiculous! Why did she have to go to such lengths just to wake up? This entire situation was dumb. And stupid, and…!
The girl’s thoughts would have gone, but falling face first after the doors slide open was quite the interruption. Tears still sliding down her face, now more from pain than anything else, the girl gave the room a once over.
It was wholly unremarkable, beyond the fact that it was made of crystals. It reminded her of the pictures she had seen of the entrance halls to large castles. Which…was not surprising at all, given the fact that the building was a castle.
Passing the see-through pillars, the girl stepped up the main steps to where she assumed the ballroom would be. She wasn’t wrong with that at all, as the spacious room indeed looked like a ballroom. The girl smiled to herself before giving the room a cursory glance.
The ballroom, like the entrance hall, was complete coated in crystals. Normally, she wouldn’t have thought this odd, as said before, she had noted the entire castle was made from silvery crystals. What was odd about this room was the giant crystal formation in the center of the room.
Her smile turned into a frown as she moved towards, intent on investigating. Distantly, she heard voice echoing and wondered if there was someone else there. The red head decided the pillar before her was a far more pressing matter and ignored it, even as it started to get louder.
She stepped up to the crystals, lying her hand on the outer layer, eyes searching for anything at all.
“...sh...”
Ah, there! The girl spotted something buried deep inside.
“As…e…”
The crystals began to crumple away from her hands as she tried to push through them towards the sliver of black.
“Ash…!”
She was almost there…!
“ASHE CASHERMER WAKE UP THIS INSTANCE!”
She screamed and leapt up before falling straight back into bed, clutching her nose. Why? Because she had just slammed her face into her father’s. The man, known as Yuan Cashermer, gave her a flat look as he pinched his nose lightly. “So, finally decided to return to the land of the living, huh?”
Ashe, the red haired girl, glared at her father. “Oh, Shdaup.” She slurred, holding her own nose to stem the bleeding.
“It’s almost eleven. Didn’t you say you wanted to hang out with your friends befor—Hey!”
“GEEET OUUUUT!” Ashe leapt to her feet, pushing the balding man out the door, furious. “You should have woken me up earlier, but now I’m going to be late AND I need to get dressed AND you ruined an interesting dream! Stay out while I get dressed, dumb Dad!”
Yuan huffed good-naturedly while his daughter slammed her door in his face. Only a couple minutes later, the door slammed back open. “Where are my shoes!” She yelped as she tripped out into the hall, clothes and hair looking very disheveled.
Her white shirt was hanging off one shoulder as Yuan gently guided her down the hall to the forge, where her slip on flats were lying out. Ashe quickly flattened the wrinkles out of her gray pants before slipping her shoes on, kissing her dad on the cheek and skittering down the hall like a bug.
“Remember!” He yelled after her. “You need to be back by three, so we can get started on those orders from Yunalet!”
“Yeah!” Ashe yelled back. “I know! I’ll be back right about then, so don’t worry! And don’t forget to take a shower, you big idiot!”
There was a snort of laughter as the door slammed shut. Ashe shot off from the Blacksmith slash house and into the village of Bora.

Description

The sound of footsteps echoed in the near silent halls. Distantly, one could hear the bustle and hustle of city life out in the ancient desert city of Yunalet. The footsteps stopped at the sound of someone calling out to another.
“Lady Marie! Lady Marie!”
The owner of the voice came running down from the opposite end of the hall, his face red from exhaustion. The tawny haired teenaged boy paused in the middle of the hall to catch his breath. Like any other priest that walked these halls, he wore a mainly white cloak with dark red intricate markings decorating. The newly christened priest dusted off what one could see of the dusty gray pants before turning his attention back to the other.
The other happened to be an older woman, faint wrinkles and even fainter scars crisscrossing her face. Unlike the rest of the priests and priestesses in the ancient temple, her cloak is of the reverse colors, mainly dark red with white markings. Her hair was black and tied back to keep it out of her face even as she focuses all of her attention on the boy. “What is it, Rulio?”
Rulio gave her a nervous look. “Ah, well, Lady Marie, it seems that we have kind of a problem…”
“If it’s about the annual Realm Gate opening, then it will be fine. I trust the Elders to be able to take care of it on their own,” Marie said.
The younger shook his head hard. “No, no!” Rulio cried. “It’s something else. The Elders refused to tell me and only said that I should get you and tell that the ‘Seal’ is breaking!”
Marie let out a breath of startled air. What? “Are you certain that is what they said?”
“Yes!”
She mentally swore. The Seal wasn’t supposed to be renewed for a whole other year! The Temple didn’t even have all the necessary bits and bops they needed to renew said Seal! It’d take another month before they got any of that.
Which…is probably why they were asking for her. Marie was the only one who could possibly seal it without needing the extra parts.
“Alright.” She decided. “Come with me. We’re going to the Elders.”
Rulio looked startled. “But they said…”
“And I am the Head Priestess of the temple. If they did not wish for you to know, then they should have chosen someone who already knew about the Seal.” Marie sniffed in slight disdain towards the Elders. They truly were narrow-minded idiots at times.
Or…all the time, as it were.
Marie brushed past the boy and began the walk back towards the stairs. Rulio, knowing that it was silent command to ‘follow’ he turned on his heel and jogged to catch up to her.
It didn’t take long to get to the sandstone stairwell that led up to the Elders’ chambers. At the top, the duo stared at the giant bronze doors. The ominous lion face that had been pounded into the metal stared back.
After what seemed an eternity, Marie reached forward and pushed the doors open. Arguing voices slipped out through the crack between the doors as she pushed it open.
(Meanwhile, Rulio looked stunned at how the priestess had just nonchalantly opened the door without knocking.)
The six Elders, dressed in their dual colored robes, were arguing. For Rulio, this was a first. For Marie, this was typical. The woman crossed her arms. “Are you really going to continue this argument? It is silly and pointless.”
One of the elderly woman, Bao, spun in her chair to glare at Marie. “How dare you say that our arguem—discussion is pointless?! This situation is beyond bad!”
Marie stepped forward to the center of the round room. “If your argument is what to do about the Seal, then it shouldn’t matter. I’m here now, so I can reseal it myself.”
“Ah, yes.” The oldest of the six, Koranat, murmured. “You could…However, there seems to be something incredibly wrong. With the Seal, that is.”
Her eyes narrowed as they landed on him. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Koranat placed his hands on his crossed legs with a sigh. “It appears the Seal is damaged somehow.” He grimaced. “We are not certain as to how this happened but what we are certain of is that it is the reason why the Seal is breaking earlier than the usual ten year deadline.”
“Ah, sir?” Rulio muttered aloud. The Elder turned his eyes to the teenaged priest. He blushed. “Um, if this…’Seal’ is damaged, does that mean that Lady Marie cannot reseal it by herself?”
“Yes.” Marie answered for the man. “If it’s damaged, that means we have no choice but to use the other method. However, we don’t have all of the necessary requirements for that method, so it makes that a moot point.”
Rulio frowned. “…Does that mean that we’re out of options?”
The youngest of the Elders, though that didn’t mean much, closed her silvery-blue eyes. “There is another way. However, the Aura Saber has not been seen in centuries. Without that Realm Weapon, we cannot simply let the Seal break and then create a new one.”
“Oh.”
“However,” Marie said, “If we can find the Aura Saber before the Seal breaks that too will be a moot point.”
A scoff. “Impossible. There has been no one worthy of wielding the blade, or else it would have shown up already.”
Marie glared, clearly about to contradict the Elder when the whole of the Temple shook and an explosion rang out. She knelt down and balanced herself out on the ground as the Temple continued to shake and rumble. Around her the Elders squawked and stumbled, clearly stunned by the earthquake-like shaking.
The shaking started to tone down but Marie could still hear the distant sounds of more explosions and…screaming. From all around, above and below. She realized quite suddenly that the screaming was not just from the city-dwellers outside the Temple walls, but from the very priests and priestesses that guards the Temple itself.
She pushed herself back up before throwing herself back out the still open doors. Rulio hastily followed her.
There were several heart-wrenching moments when Marie was certain she would fall down the stairs as the shakes started to grow again. But maybe it wasn’t that they were getting stronger again but that she was getting closer to the source.
A scream.
Marie gritted her teeth before dodging a falling piece of sandstone. Ahead was a small cluster of priestesses attempting to shield a group of trainees. Unfortunately, it seemed their efforts were for not as one of the walls near them exploded inward, leaving all of them scattered across the hall, badly injured.
A pair of healing priests appeared from a side room, already casting. “Heal them, now!” Marie ordered before jerking her head around to Rulio. “Come on, we’re heading further down.” The tawny haired priest nodded shakily as he followed her order.
The next set of stairs were blocked. Marie, frustrated, grabbed a staff from one of the shattered statues that had once lined the halls. “Let the fires burn!” She jabbed the end of the staff at the blockage. “Inferno!”
The stone burned. Rulio gapped, no doubt surprised by how strong the flames were. “I’m a talented mage.” Marie stated simply before jogging down the broken stairwell.
At the bottom lay several charred corpses. Marie let out a furious hiss. How dare their attackers kill people under her protection?! She would not let this insult stand. Leaping over the ashes and bones, the dark haired woman ran down the new hall to the magick elevator.
The duo entered and Marie slammed the button down, hard. “Did you…have to hit it that hard?” Rulio muttered as the elevator shuttered downwards. She sighed at the boy’s apprehension.
“It’s old, so you have to hit hard to get down to the Seal. Whoever is attacking us seems to be after that…” Marie trailed off. She sensed, just at the edges of awareness…Her eyes went wide. “Shield us from harm! Barrier!”
A silvery barrier surged up around the two and Rulio spluttered in confusion—just as the elevator jerked and fell.
It felt almost like an eternity before they hit the ground, but thanks to the barrier, there no deaths nor injuries. Rulio coughed through the dust, pushing a slab of sandstone away from him. “L-lady Marie, are you alright?”
“I will be, when this is over with.” The woman growled, stepping through the open way into the Seal Chamber.
The Seal Chamber looked wholly undamaged from the shaking and explosions…save for the Seal itself. The door which held the Seal was ripped clean in two and several bodies were scattered around it. The only ones standing beside herself and Rulio was a man wearing a dark blue cape attached to black armor and a being made of living shadows.
The latter turned to face them and a slit opened across its ‘face’ in a sinister pantomime of a smile. It hissed something in another language and the armored man replied in the same before the helm covering his face turned to the duo. “Well, if it isn’t the Head Priestess.”
Marie glared. “Who are you? And why are you here?”
“Why,” he said, “I am merely picking up an old friend.”
Rulio whimpered. The priestess shot the boy a look to try and silence him, but that was a mistake. The armored man raised a hand and slashed down. Marie spun back around to face him, a barrier spell ready to shield from the fire.
But she was too slow.
For a split second, Marie thought Rulio had been hit, but no. Extreme pain sparked across her legs and up her spine and she let out a startled gasp of pain. Another furl of flames flashed towards them and Rulio cried out before falling to the ground, limp and clearly dead.
Marie raised a hand to begin casting a heal spell for herself. However, before the words could pass her lips, something burned across the right side her face and she fell to her knees, stunned.
A soft chuckle right above her.
“Did you actually think you could stand up to my fire? Even the Sealer of Roranti fell to them. A simple Head Priestess would never stand a chance.”
“Y-you...are…?” Marie choked out.
“Does it matter?” Another laugh. “You won’t be able to tell anyone about this. All they’ll think is that Roranti’s seal broke and decimated the city. As far as everyone else knows…I was never here.”
Marie gagged on a growl. Everything was going dark…
A pitying sigh. “It’s too bad…I was looking forward to your little quest of revenge. But perhaps things will be more interesting this way. Come now, Roranti. It’s time you got your chance to reclaim your land.”

The last thing the head priestess heard was a sinister hissing laugh…

-------------------------
The water hissed down around her into a sunset colored pool. The young girl blinked crystalline blue eyes, confused. This dream again…?
She glanced around to stare at the waterfalls from the sky. Said sky was, surprisingly, a dark blue, the color of the night. Not a single star shone and the only light came from the sunset trapped in the water she stood in.
The girl brushed red-brown hair out of her face, frowning. Odd. This was a bit different. She glanced around, searching for the crystal structure that usually ended this dream. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing but water in every direction.
She muttered an insult to whatever deity was cursing her with this dream before trudging through the waters, her coal gray pants soaking up the water in an instant. The spray from the waterfalls made her pearl white shirt damp and the girl wrinkled her nose: The water smelled like roses.
Despite her walking through it, there were absolutely no ripples in the water. It was like she wasn’t actually there, which was a strange thought. Her eyes flicked back and forth, searching for some sort of shelter.
There were none and that troubled her. How was she supposed to get out of here without that trigger? “Lucid dreaming is such a pain…” she muttered under her breath before sitting down. Had she not already been soaked to the bone, this would have been a problem. The red haired girl clutched her legs to her chest, burying her face in her knees.
She was very literally stuck. Without a way forward…
The water shifted.
The girl blinked in confusion. What?
Before her eyes a stone path rose out the water, ripples forming for the first time since she had arrived. The path floated on air as it sailed up into the blank sky and the girl stood up, droplets splashing into the water.
A way out.
She stepped onto the path and was already half way up before the girl even realized what she was doing. The girl paused. Why was she going up? Granted, it was probably the only way out, but it was still rather suspicious.
What am I saying? She thought. This is a dream. It shouldn’t matter if it’s suspicious. If something happens, I’ll just wake up.
Coming to a decision, the girl continued on. As she moved up, the red head started feeling nervous. This was mostly because she was very high up and it very likely that if she fell off the edge, the girl would die when she hit the ground.
Or wake up, in this case.
The girl froze as, above her, crystals spun up and out of the waters below to form a crystal structure. At first it looked similar to the structures that had appeared in the other dreams but this time it was apparently not to be as the crystals seemed to grow and become a castle before her eyes.
She stared with wide eyes before rushing up towards it. The end…! It had to be the end, just like all the other times!
Yes, she was rather desperate. Yes, it was shameful. But did she really care? No, no she didn’t. The girl much rather look like a fool than be stuck in nowhere land inside a dream for the rest of eternity.
(And, yes, she was rather overdramatic as well.)
When she made it to the crystal stairs, she rather gracefully tripped over the first step and slammed her forehead into the last. The red head groaned her displeasure at nearly knocking her brains out of her skull but pushed herself to her knees anyway.
Now standing straight, she tugged on the door handles.
They didn’t budge.
You have got to be kidding me.
She grit her teeth, frustrated tears spilling from her eyes. This was ridiculous! Why did she have to go to such lengths just to wake up? This entire situation was dumb. And stupid, and…!
The girl’s thoughts would have gone, but falling face first after the doors slide open was quite the interruption. Tears still sliding down her face, now more from pain than anything else, the girl gave the room a once over.
It was wholly unremarkable, beyond the fact that it was made of crystals. It reminded her of the pictures she had seen of the entrance halls to large castles. Which…was not surprising at all, given the fact that the building was a castle.
Passing the see-through pillars, the girl stepped up the main steps to where she assumed the ballroom would be. She wasn’t wrong with that at all, as the spacious room indeed looked like a ballroom. The girl smiled to herself before giving the room a cursory glance.
The ballroom, like the entrance hall, was complete coated in crystals. Normally, she wouldn’t have thought this odd, as said before, she had noted the entire castle was made from silvery crystals. What was odd about this room was the giant crystal formation in the center of the room.
Her smile turned into a frown as she moved towards, intent on investigating. Distantly, she heard voice echoing and wondered if there was someone else there. The red head decided the pillar before her was a far more pressing matter and ignored it, even as it started to get louder.
She stepped up to the crystals, lying her hand on the outer layer, eyes searching for anything at all.
“...sh...”
Ah, there! The girl spotted something buried deep inside.
“As…e…”
The crystals began to crumple away from her hands as she tried to push through them towards the sliver of black.
“Ash…!”
She was almost there…!
“ASHE CASHERMER WAKE UP THIS INSTANCE!”
She screamed and leapt up before falling straight back into bed, clutching her nose. Why? Because she had just slammed her face into her father’s. The man, known as Yuan Cashermer, gave her a flat look as he pinched his nose lightly. “So, finally decided to return to the land of the living, huh?”
Ashe, the red haired girl, glared at her father. “Oh, Shdaup.” She slurred, holding her own nose to stem the bleeding.
“It’s almost eleven. Didn’t you say you wanted to hang out with your friends befor—Hey!”
“GEEET OUUUUT!” Ashe leapt to her feet, pushing the balding man out the door, furious. “You should have woken me up earlier, but now I’m going to be late AND I need to get dressed AND you ruined an interesting dream! Stay out while I get dressed, dumb Dad!”
Yuan huffed good-naturedly while his daughter slammed her door in his face. Only a couple minutes later, the door slammed back open. “Where are my shoes!” She yelped as she tripped out into the hall, clothes and hair looking very disheveled.
Her white shirt was hanging off one shoulder as Yuan gently guided her down the hall to the forge, where her slip on flats were lying out. Ashe quickly flattened the wrinkles out of her gray pants before slipping her shoes on, kissing her dad on the cheek and skittering down the hall like a bug.
“Remember!” He yelled after her. “You need to be back by three, so we can get started on those orders from Yunalet!”
“Yeah!” Ashe yelled back. “I know! I’ll be back right about then, so don’t worry! And don’t forget to take a shower, you big idiot!”
There was a snort of laughter as the door slammed shut. Ashe shot off from the Blacksmith slash house and into the village of Bora.