[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/08HqN03.png[/img]

[b]Dreams of Light and Medley I[/b][/center]


Habode sighed as he noticed where he was. Once more, his old home, Hanging Bird Hall. The faintly lit corridors are surrounded by little square rooms on both sides, originally these were open but the residents had built makeshift walls of scrap metal and wood boards. That is where they lived, in the wings of the bird-shaped structure. The central area, where you had to descend through stairs, was where they tried to grow whatever was edible enough. Of the many ruins encased in cocoons of metal within The Fallen, it was one of the most peaceful ones and it even opened up to the surface at times.

That memory as it was brought him a sense of unease and disgust, he had moved on from that life as a squatter in some centuries-old building built by who knows what. He hated the Bird, he hated The Fallen, he wished to never return. As these feelings took over his mind, his dream became worse, now the halls of his hometown were empty, everything they had built, the shanties, was now gone. The people, gone. All that remained were the cold walls made of smooth rock-paste, as he called it. And those empty box rooms on both sides of the halls. Just him, no other human in insight.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/UlBMFE3h.jpg[/img][/center]

At least not a living one. There were... them. The faceless. Gods, he hated those bastards. The first time he learned how to swing a bat he crushed a few to dust. All the elders loved to tell horror tales about those things, humanoid in shape but cold, not like statues, as they were too light and empty inside. Some say these were the people who built this place, zapped into stone by the angry gods, the fact so many of the faceless were found with clothing made some believe that. He thought it was all bullshit, but in his dreams, they followed him, they watched him, they moved, and if he got too close, they grabbed him.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/NyipIdQh.jpg[/img]

Escaping the faceless, he entered the tunnels, ah the tunnels, the core of The Fallen, and its lifeblood. When he was young he and other boys would explore the minor ones despite their mother's warnings of dangerous sadistic gangs and untold monsters lurking down there. When they became adults, they were expected to dive into the tunnels, despite the sadistic gangs and untold monsters.

Why? Because the runnels led to ruins, and ruins led to the most precious treasure of The Fallen. True wealth was not in the precious metals, not in the stocks of water, not in the scraps of food, no, what the villages of The Fallen fought for was only the most essential of all things:

Light

The tunnels protected from the disaster above, even the earthquakes seemed to do little to their metal shells. But in turn, without light, they were stuck in darkness, and the darkness was terrible. People would rather go days without food than days without light. So the villages had to send forth their youth to go gather light as it was found in The Fallen. In crystalline stones. 

The white ones were the ones most commonly found, very faint glow, but it was light. Then there were some rares one. The green ones, faint sickly green light, only the desperate used them, as the light was cold and yet it caused their skin to burn. Some weird ones like the dark purple stone he once found which was barely light. And then... ah, the most wanted, the thing that could a beggar become king in a day, and then be stabbed a thousand times by a thousand different criminals, the golden stone. He had only seen one of those, his group found it, by that time he had left his village and joined a gang, but the sight of it, it gave him hope, as the light of the stone was enough to sustain a few crops and could be the line between survival and death. He almost felt guilty enough to want to steal that stone and bring it to his worried mother back home and his baby sister, but he was not suicidal, and even if he escaped, they would have gone straight for his village and attacked it.

Habode now found himself too deep down the tunnels, gang territory, way beyond the villages. He wondered why he had joined a gang, why he had left his family. It was just natural for an ambitious young boy, it was also fun, there were so much death and drama, violence, it was distracting from the terrible fate they were set in, and if you weren't in a cannibal or worse gang, well, the memories were almost not too haunting, most people you robbed just let you take their things in peace, and they never cleaned any village or house they raided.

Looking back, it was all so dull, it was always the same thing. Gangs rose, became too big, and then imploded. Sometimes some degenerates would find a lost room with some cache of weapons and then there would a whole year where they would take massive sways of The Fallen for themselves eliminating entire gangs and villages, then their little toys started to break apart one by one while the number of enemies they made had only increased. The ending was obvious.

There was only one gang that had escaped this cycle, he called them The Cold Feet. Fuckers. Arrogant little bastards. They were brutal like any other gang, as dumb as any, but oh, they had a backstory. According to these delusional freaks, they were not simply descendants from the people who built The Fallen, they were the very people who built it. When the world started to first go to shit countless eras ago, they were encased in cocoons of ice to wait it out like bloody cowards. 

The shadows of "Cold Feet" members, lurking through the vents and catwalks, started to approach, bastards. In his dream, he had a scavenged gun though, one that never broke after five bloody shots, and he could take them down like they were rats.

What he hated the most, was their bloody excuse on why, if they are the masters of everything, they are as inept when it comes to opening doors and safes, messing with the cables, or using weapons. Hell, they can't even bloody read. In fact, why can't they make the weapons and kill every enemy they have? Well, you see, according to the snobs, they 'lost their memory' over the eras they were gone, only a few glimpses, enough to support their claims, remaining. If it was not a lie, it wouldn't mean anything still, who needs ancient masters straight out of the ice if they are as useless and clueless as the squatters, but it was a lie, and he hated it.

He hated it because he hadn't thought of it, it was genial, and it was the reason why those he called "Cold Feet" had survived longer than any gang so far. There was a myth, a foundation, an eternal quest given to newborns from birth. They were not hopeless squatters' surviving, they were vengeful spirits of the past, out to reclaim all that is theirs.

While other gangs broke, they persevered, they trained, they amassed resources. There was a sense of guilt in going against fellow gang members, who they called brothers, family. They couldn't just kill their leader, it was not honorable, they had to be better.

He was pretty sure these delusional bastards would slowly, bit by bit, become the biggest cats in The Fallen, if that place had not been flooded to hell and back when the waters returned to the world. He hated it, because of his envy and his desire to be out there doing something better with his life, but, at least, if they were ruling, their honor or whatever, would have meant fewer raids, then his mother would have been....

He sensed something out in the corner of his eyes, quickly taking out his amazing, unbeatable gun, he turned to face the figure, it was... a faceless? No, she had a face, but the stare was as cold as the faceless' one, it bothered him so much, that he fired, but for the first time in his dream, the gun broke, crumbling to dust. The figure looked surprised for a moment as the whole dream of The Fallen broke apart, and he fell into the darkness below.

[hr]

"GODDMANIT!" he woke up kicking and screaming, his hand flew to his side in search of some weapon, but no gun or sword or even knife was to be found, only the bed and his little room in an equally small shack. He was no longer in The Fallen and its dark corridors, he was in Cloudy Hillocks, the sky above him glowed faint red. 

" 'nother nightmare brother?" Maydly entered his room with a smile and the smoked leg of some sort of creature. "You slept through lunch, the hunters arrived from another monster raid, I hope you enjoy griffin leg! Cut it myself from the carcass they brought" she added with a simple chuckle.

He nodded at her. "Thanks, sister. Oh, and I got some of that worm-earth you asked for, found some in my scavenge hunt."

Her eyes shone with joy. "Oh did you!? Great. I am sure the little amber slapping will enjoy it." she hummed.

"You still looking after that thing? Damn. I don't see how you find it pretty. It's so... twisted and weird, and it smells bad. Like the depths of The Fallen."

She puffed her cheeks. "Well, I found them just as the waters first arrived. So they surely must have been a sign of goodwill, right? Plus, it's soothing, you really should pick up some tasks which don't involve killing things brother, maybe it would help you with those dreams."

"Not botany though, taking care of plants... reminds me..."

Maydly gasped and nodded. "No, I understand. Take your time. I just want you to know that... I am thankful for all that you did, even if we are often bickering, you are my brother, no matter how much of a numskull you are, I will always be here."

He didn't know if he sighed or if he smiled at that. 

[hr]

[code]Ah! How unfortunate.[/code] the goddess' body slowly started moving again as the dream connection had ended. [code]While I have learned to intercept dreams more easily. It seems my divine nature brings interference. I will have to adapt my code to deal with that if I am to be able to perceive mortal dreams without changing their content.[/code] 

{di e vin aque frirque que?} Nalmepror questioned. The goddess shook her head.

[code]Not really. I am sure the waters would have carried the branch in this general direction. But so far I have not been able to find any hint of it in any mortal dream. Yet it has also not moved past the edge of the world. So surely it must have been intercepted somewhere... Ah. It cannot be helped. We will need to keep searching. It is good because I can also perform the task of exploring this continent as we continued on our hunt.[/code]


[hider=Enter The Fallen]
We meet a man called Habode as he reminds himself in a dream of his early life in the underground tunnels of a massive region of ruins called The Fallen. In this land light was the most precious resource, gangs and villages fighting over it.
Eventually, after catching a glimpse of I'Iro, his dream collapses and he wakes up screaming.
He is no longer underground in The Fallen, but instead in the hunting village of Cloudy Hillocks. His sister wakes him up with the promise of Griffin Leg for lunch, he repays it by telling her he found some fertile ground for her to use on a little amber-colored tree sapling she found. 
Meanwhile, the goddess wakes up after dream searching for hints of her lost tree branch, having just missed that key info, still, she is sure it is around, and as such she will continue to explore this area.
[/hider]