Seraphina stood in a dark room. The floor was black, its surface cut with green lines to make hexagon shaped tiles. The lines continued up the wall and ceiling, and a single hallway led away from the room. She stepped down it hesitantly. The hall continued for an indeterminable length, but eventually she reached the end and looked out over a wide chasm.
A robed woman, a gnome like her, kneeled at the edge of it. Seraphina approached her hesitantly, not wanting to startle her. She reached out a hand to touch her, only to discover the woman was frozen like a statue. She looked like flesh and blood, but the robe was smooth and solid instead of soft and pliable.
Seraphina leaned around a bit to look at the statue's face. Somehow, she wasn't surprised to see that it was her own under the robe's hood. The whole scene seemed familiar to her in a way that was actually just a little bit irritating. She felt like she was looking at a scene from her memory, and she should know what happened next, but she couldn't remember.
A burst of red rocketed up over the chasm edge in front of her, blowing her backwards. She peered up, open mouthed, as a huge red dragon filled the sky, its burning golden eyes glaring down angrily at her. Its mouth opened and there was a sharp intake of breath, but before he could burn her to ashes with its fire, two smaller streaks of silver slammed into it. The red dragon was slammed down over the chasm edge, and Seraphina scooted forward to see it being dragged out of the sky by two silver dragons.
Beside her, the other gnome had come to life and was also peering over the edge. "What's going on?" Seraphina asked her, but there was no response. She poked the gnome to get her attention, but was ignored. Seraphina frowned at her, then looked back towards the dragons. Together, they peered down the chasm and watched as the three dragons battled in the sky. Below them, a veritable army of small, red skinned creatures danced about in glee as they too watched the fight.
One of the silvers managed to get on top of the red and ride it into a wall, sending them both plummeting towards the ground. The gnome next to Seraphina cried out in denial, but there was no changing what had happened. The red twisted in midair and dragged the silver underneath it, so that when they crashed, it was the smaller dragon lying twisted and broken on the side of the mountain.
The other silver swooped down and unleashed a cone of frigid cold air on the red. It lashed out with its claws and sank its fangs into the red's neck. Even from the top of the chasm where Seraphina stood, she could hear the crunch as its fangs penetrated the red's scales. The red bellowed in agony, but the silver wouldn't be deterred. It continued raking its claws, and a moment later, it released the red's neck only to breathe another blast of ice directly into its face.
Rime covered its features, and ice dangled from its jaw. The red cried out again, but this time its voice was hoarse and weak sounding. The small red creatures on the ground swarmed towards the dragons, and the silver was forced to retreat. It lifted up and flapped its wings powerfully, gaining distance from the ground. It swept by for one last freezing breath attack before it took off, though.
Seraphina watched it fly away, somehow still looking graceful despite practically limping through the air from its injuries. Next to her, her duplicate shook with sobs as she stared down at the two dead dragons at the bottom of the chasm. Awkwardly, she reached a hand out to comfort the other gnome. As soon as she touched her, the world faded away in a wash of colors, and she was standing back in the black room with its hexagonal patterned green lines.
Another hallway had opened up, but instead of taking it, she plopped down on the floor and mentally replayed what she'd seen. That gnome had been her, that much was obvious. She didn't remember any of that happening, but she didn't really remember much at all, so that was no help. She didn't know where or when she'd been in that vision. On the other hand, she had been caught by a witch, and who knew what was real and what wasn't anymore?
Sitting there wasn't going to do anything to help her though. She heaved herself back up onto her feet and peered down the new hallway curiously. It looked just like the old one, except going a different direction. She started walking down it, and the farther she went, the darker it got. Finally, once the green lines had faded completely, she began trailing a hand across the wall to guide her.
The wall fell away, and she walked into a large, lightless room. The air felt different, cooler, somehow, like it would just before it began to rain. Something shifted in the darkness before her, something massive. Its body ground against the floor as it moved, and even without being able to see it, she knew it was enormous.
Larsik stood in the middle of a cracked and broken chamber, one apparently made of ebony. Green lines laced it in a hexagonal pattern, but the floor had been split apart, and red light welled up through the rifts. A single hallway led away from the room, but it had collapsed, and was filled with the same glossy black rock checkered with green that the room was made out of.
He approached it anyway, hopping over broken patches of floor as he went, to examine the damage. It was complete enough that he didn't see himself digging through it. Some of the stone chunks were as big around as his chest, and he wasn't that strong to begin with. His magic wasn't strong enough to blow through the stone either.
Even as he thought that, he realized that it was. He waved a hand, and the ebony rock dissolved into a black and green puddle. Larsik looked down at that hand and flexed his fingers ponderously. He felt like he'd always known how to do that, even though he didn't have a clue what he'd done.
Either way, he'd cleared the hallway and could leave. He strode confidently across the black stonework, occasionally tracing the green lines with his fingers as he walked. The hall seemed to continue on forever, and he was seriously starting to consider melting a hole in the wall and leaving that way.
He looked at the wall thoughtfully, then reached out a hand and made a twisting motion. An entire section liquefied and drained away, leaving him standing over at an edge looking down on other sealed tunnels like the one he was in. They looped around and through each other, forming a veritable maze. Most of them were that same black with green, but laced through them, sometimes intersecting, was a second set. Those were red glowing with jagged black lines running through them.
"Interesting," Larsik muttered to himself as he considered the passages. He stepped out into empty space and lightly drifted down to one of the red and black corridors. He tried to melt open a hole, but the material resisted his command. Shrugging, he altered his own body to turn transparent and ghostly, and slipped through the floor.
He regained solidity on the other side and touched down. Unlike the black stone room and hallway he'd started in, this one was alive with flaming light. It rushed up and down the walls, which themselves seemed to be made of fire held behind glass. The jagged black lines made panels as they intersected at random points, forming squares, circles, and other shapes on the walls.
Larsik peered down one direction, then the other. Frowning, he tapped a finger on his chin as he thought. Finally, with a helpless shrug, he lifted off the floor and began drifting down the hallway at high speed. It didn't even occur to him to think of how he was doing it. He simply wanted to move faster than a walking speed, and his magic obeyed.
The farther he went, the hotter it got. The living flames seemed to be straining to reach out of the wall and catch him, and more than once, the jagged black lines writhed across its surface. He paused to watch them move, nodded as if he'd expected it all along, and continued on his way.
The hallway crossed other ones, forming an intersecting, looping maze of corridors. Larsik approached each intersection without hesitancy, gliding smoothly past them and moving forward. He didn't even bother to look down the other halls, he was so sure of where he was going.
He stopped suddenly, and looking down, ghosted through the floor. He came into a large, open chamber shaped like a sphere. Floating in the center was what looked like a gigantic egg, easily taller than he was. It pulsed steadily with light, and heat radiated from it, heat so hot that Larsik was forced protect himself from it magically.
He drifted around it, examining it from different angles as he tried to puzzle out what it was. Finally, he lifted up a hand and placed it on the egg's surface. Immediately, painful electric jolts shot down the length of his arm, but Larsik didn't break contact. He used the connection to mentally explore the egg a moment longer, then pulled away.
"Bael," he said to the egg, and a shadow inside shifted. It was curled up on itself, but Larsik could see that it was man shaped, with a long tail and huge wings. "I remember you now."
He willed it, and a giant whip of energy appeared and struck the egg. It shuddered and wobbled from the blow, and a thin crack appeared in its surface. The whip struck again, and the crack widened.