A Disturbing Dream

Aldrich/Brand

Aldrich/Brand

Adept
A few days ago, I received a vision regarding quite a terrifying occurrence regarding the elders, the world dragon, and an ancient adversary from across the mists: an experience that shook even me to the core. I hope, with every fiber of my being, that others have experienced this vision. I'll describe it the best I can:

I awoke to a cold wind blowing inside my room. It felt like winter inside. The fire in my hearth appears long dead. I sigh, frustrated; I'd have to fix it. When I exhaled, I could see my breath. Unusual for this time of the year. Another wind hits me, and grabs hold of me. It pulled me outside and up into the air. I realize your spirit has been pulled from my body. Flying far, far to the west, I come upon a small continent. Many Wildkyn have made their home here.

The colors are very bleak here, maybe as a result of my being a spirit, maybe not. The Wildkyn are going about their business when suddenly it starts to snow. They are freaked out by this occurrence. The snow is pilling up fast, soon there is already a foot of it on the ground. It does not let up. There's a the sound of a large rip, as I'm pulled into the sky. Below me, the whole continent is covered in snow, it looks like a bleak wasteland now. I saw a portal open, it's very bright blue and huge. I could see a large group of mountains on the other side of the portal. Large amounts of undead poured through. These undead were strange though, their features are etched in ice. They didn't yield, or slow down. Like a swarm of locust they grew and grew, moving at an incredible speed.

Than something unexpected happened. The Phoenix appeared. Not an Avatar, the Phoenix's true form. He unleashed a barrage of fire. The undead quickly turned to ash. The fire was hurting them more than usual.

More undead poured through. The Phoenix kept burning them, but some were running past him. As they neared the village the Gryphon swooped down. Each swipe from a claw shattered the form of these creatures. The Gryphon landed and met the undead face on. Still more emerged from the portal. Overrunning even the two of them. I heard a horse galloping behind me as the Unicorn ran past, a white energy pulsing from the horn. In large flashes of white light, the undead crumbled.

The Sphinx landed and started walking around the portal. Inspecting it from both sides, and not involving itself in the fight.

It was very strange to see many of the Elders together like this. And then something stranger happened. The World Dragon appeared. It roared and the magic in the area stops, with it the undead's ability to even exist. Before me laid a bleak wasteland of corpses. Then one body started to pick itself up, then another. Until they were all doing so.

"It is as we feared. *muffled* has come. Dealing will not stop him this time." The World Dragons voice was so powerful, it was almost hard to listen.

The portal shakes, and through it came a huge white dragon.

It is during this time, the Satyr and the Shadow appeared from their hiding places. Both jumped at the dragon. The Satyr's swords stuck into the dragon, and the Shadow's strikes were quick. Although the moves seemed to have pierced his hide, the giant white dragon did not wince. He seemed to not even notice the attack.

He roared and locked eyes with the World Dragon. His wings flapped, the flap hitting everything like thunder. The Satyr and the Shadow were knocked far back from the white dragon.

The World Dragon disappears. I somehow understand that both dragons are bound by a deal, forged when the World Dragon recreated the world. This deal forced the World Dragon to retreat. The Dragon roared again, and the storm picked up even more. Even the other Elders couldn't resist his power. They were also forced to retreat.

My spirit snapped back to my body, and I was covered in a cold sweat, the dragon's name on the tip of your tongue.

I would rather not think that I alone am pitted against this creature of power equal to the world dragon, as I already have one arch nemesis.

(To clarify, this was Chris I.'s work of literacy, not my own: I only changed it to first person past tense.)
 
Unfortunately, I am well aware that a substantial number of you are painfully aware of this dragon's identity....
 
Well s***.

-Radi
 
I was told by my first nemesis that I was biting off more than I can chew. That was an understatement.
 
This warrants a LONG discussion. Has anyone else experienced a similar dream?
 
This would be a very grave vision if it does come true.

The lands that were described we referred to as the Callanstine Wildlands. This is the home to a vast number of kin and west of Voewyn.

Many of you are familiar with the Elders and even the World Dragon. The Elders being tied directly to the source of all magic and I believe something about them being less involved in Arden after being sealed away clearly present how dire this vision is that they would break that oath to combat this foe. Even the World Dragon enters the field, to tackle the foe head on. All are forced to retreat. All the most powerful and mystic beings we have ever encountered are forced to retreat.

The white dragon has to be the one known as Bleak. Our allies from Dragonsreach having being fighting off his forces and working to weaken for quite some time. His aspects cover ice and death, but does make use of undead. Even I have been traveled to the future within Dragonsreach and there was not much left with Bleak so powerful and invulnerable.

This worries me greatly.
 
*removed post, as Raynn posted first*
 
Yes.
 
Thank the heavens, I thought for a while that Bleak was coming after my books as well.....
 
Damn, That was Bleak alright. We need to discuss and seek guidance from the elders and stars.

Lady Fallingstar
 
Alright zo first off Elder Dragons who are in the material realm are scared of Bleak, zo the pansy elders of Arden who are not even really around anymore are going to do jack. It is the destiny of mortals to beat this dragon. Perhaps one key to it exists in Arden otherwise he would not risk over extending himself before he completes victory. He becomes less mindless by the day and thus more dangerous.

Kit
 
Hahaha! Okay, so this a**hole and I were kinda friends for a while, after he grabbed my spirit from the Plane of Chaos. Because of our newly formed friendship, I asked him to do a little favor for me and get rid of some salt elementals plaguing the marshes of Dragonreach. Long story short, he took me there and helped me to do it myself. He coaxed me into raising swathes of undead to help me unravel the elementals, while also creating an army for him at the same time. Naturally, they're tainted with salt and ice. Worst part of this too is that the marshes still aren't fixed yet.

I also have a few pieces of his egg from when all the adventurers went into the future to collect them. We have been told that these egg pieces will be used in part of a ritual to weaken him.

Lastly, for those of you who now don't trust me, calm down. I have been completely purged of his taint, through the use of a destroy formal magic ritual (obviously, against my will at the time). It's been over a year now since this has happened, but if you don't want to trust me, that's cool too. I don't really care.

-Radi
 
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You were an elemental for a while Banradi? I thought the only reason I wanted to run my sword through you was that you were loud.

It all makes sense now.

This is not great. Mathis has mentioned him to me before. I'll see if he can't chime in.

Link
Order of the Emerald Flame
 
HA! No, I was still an obnoxiously loud gypsy throughout this whole thing. Sorry to disappoint.

-Radi
 
I disagree with Link, this is fantastic. .

The Kingdom of Dragonreach has had plenty of experience dealing with Bleak and his impact on the realm. In the past year the adventurers have been able to ward the land against his influence and have taken steps to weaken Bleak to the point where an actual confrontation is not a completely suicidal venture (though such a battle is still a ways off). It seems that as we've decreased his power he has become a more cunning adversary and now he is attempting to regain some of his power by extending his reach to Arden.
As I said, this is fantastic.
  1. He is now fighting a two front battle, dividing his attention between two sets of opponents
  2. He's now double the resources arrayed against him.
Thus, instead of finding a quick victory to reinforce his power, Bleak has actually made his tactical situation exponentially worse.

Things that will benefit you when fighting Bleak:
  1. As stated above, he is tied to Death and Ice (though we were able to cut him off from a large amount of that power). His presence in the lands seems to cause the dead to rise in a number of unique forms. If someone from Dragonreach with the list of undead he spawns could add to this information it would be appreciated.
  2. His presence in the lands has a muting effect on life. For a time in Dragonreach this was so bad that no children were conceived and crops did not grow. This should be your first concern, but fear not, it is possible to offset this presence. We have had success working with Dwarven Rune Magic and Nature Totems as counters. I will be happy to share what I can of this knowledge, but most of what we have done has been the result of uncovering artifacts left over from the kingdom's previous encounter with Bleak years ago. It sound like your Elders may have dealt with him in the past, perhaps there is knowledge to be found there.
  3. Even for a dragon he is immensely powerful. For those that gathered when TadRon was on his dragon killing crusade, Bleak appears to be tougher than anything we fought then. Currently in Dragonreach the Kingdom is preparing its army to deal with Bleak's minions, while the adventurers seek ways to further weaken Bleak in preparation for a final confrontation. There is a plan for that confrontation that I am happy to share in person, but not here. I suggest the best course of action would be to continue to locate allies that can offset Bleak's strengths. If we can offset his Ice and Death aspects with enough Flame and Life it should make any future confrontation easier. We must also consider how to keep him from simply fleeing any future battle if it begins to go badly for him. Finally, it is also important to remember that as a dragon he will have many defenses against any form of mundane attack so we must be prepared to overwhelm him in that regard.
If you have other questions, please ask them and I will share what information I have. Over the winter I have done a great deal of research on the matter and am beginning to compile my findings.
I will be in Dragonreach in a few weeks and in Arden in the coming months. Please contact me in either of those places or in this realm, so that we can coordinate our efforts and put an end to this problem once and for all.

Mathis
Order of the Emerald Flame
 
I would indeed like to speak with you, Mathis, as our previous discourse was extremely informative.

That being said, I don't like Bleak's timing. Paranoid as I may be, the fact that he threatens these lands nearly immediately after I begin my quest to gather all the books containing the knowledge of the Seekers, and the power that I was told comes with them, I find this hard to consider a coincidence. In addition to that fear, there are more seeker rituals than that detailed in my original book: some of which, I'm sure, should not be tampered with lightly, if at all. That being said, it's entirely possible that Bleak knows more about my profession than myself, and that which he could obtain: he wouldn't be the first, to be sure.

Obviously, this is simple conjecture, but a question that arises in my mind is the outcome should Bleak indeed be after something contained in those books, the question in question [chuckle] being: should I be marked as a target for his forces, would you, as a whole, possibly entertain allowing them to dribble me until I pop, metaphorically, but not hypothetically, speaking?

- Wycliff, the Seeker.
 
Wycliff-

There is an old saying, "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not all out to get you."

That said, Bleak is an ancient being so he may indeed have some knowledge about these rituals you seek, but thus far we have not seen him demonstrate any interest in targeting his opposition. He has struck like a force of nature, destroying because that is what he does not because he attempts to achieve any particular goal. As we have weakened him over the past year (including the jaunt forward in time that you experienced in Dragonreach) his focus and cunning has increased as his raw power decreased.

Considering those facts, it is possible that he is changing tactics, but I would say it is too early to make more than hazardous guesses. I would like to learn more about your studies so that I can be aware if I come across anything that might change my opinion on the matter. I will track you down when next I make it to Arden. Until then, remember another old saying, "paranoia is just another word for ignorance." Strive to learn more and it will guide your choices.

Travel safely,

Mathis
Order of the Emerald Flame
 
As I found out only two weeks prior, and for the first time in over one hundred years, I am indeed in a state of ignorance. As the an equally antiquated saying goes, "Ignorance is bliss", and to an extent, how true....
I would welcome such a discourse, though it may be a while before I have enough new information worth mention.

- Wycliff, the Seeker.
 
Funny, I had almost the EXACT same dream.... including a windy spirit walk.... though... I am pretty sure my spirit was torn from my body and I wasn't dreaming. ..... awkward.

With lust and laughter,
Eldandiril
 
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