1. Fountain of the Dead
I've slept to the sight of blood and the sound of fire.
As my village burned to ash, destroyed by the god-man Morpheus, I found myself at the center of it all, unharmed. Yet everyone around me has died.
Awoken by the birds of a strange new world. She speaks to me from beyond the veil:
-Come awake, child…
-Open your mind to the world around you…
The crest throbs on my hand. The black lines burnt into the skin, the sound of my father's scream as he died, the smell of burnt wood all around me.
-Darius, you have awoken. She is beautiful yet strange. A light floating in the breeze, like a fairy-cloud.
"Who are you," I ask.
-You must go to the Castle beyond the hills. Her voice is like the timbre of spoken silk. She flutters her form across the waters of a fountain, splashing her light through the falling water. I sit up and drink. Thirst overcomes me.
I finish drinking. "Where is the castle?"
-Take the Sword of the Dead. Protect yourself and the future. And with that, she is gone, yet I feel the voice calmly resting nearby. As I take the sword from the ground, I feel a burden lift itself onto me, like the sigh of centuries.
I hear the sound of darkness everywhere.
-Darius