At first there was nothing. Rem hung in a black so absolute it had no texture, no up or down to orient himself by.
Until two suns opened above him likes eyes. Not rose but opened, the way a sleeping monster wakes to lock it's gaze onto prey. Twin and burning.
A continent rushed forward from beyond the dark. It didn't rise up to meet him, it slid across an impossible distance, as though the world itself were in violent motion and he was the only fixed point left in existance. Forests unrolled beneath the two suns, trees swaying to a wind he couldn't feel, the entire world moving in an unnerving silence.
The suns sank on opposite horizons at once, and the dark returned. In it, one by one, distant stars lit themselves one by one, only for the suns to rise again and swallow them whole.
It happened again. And again. Faster each time, day into night into day, until the two suns blurred into a single, blinding streak across the sky. A smear of black and gold, spinning relentlessly.
Rem watched the forests shrink in real time beneath the streaking light, he watched valleys fold flat and mountains sink into themselves, until there was nothing left but a vast, featureless plain. Then the plain dissolved, replaced by an ocean of shifting sand. Endless dunes spilled over the world's edge into the abyss below.
When the dunes vanished, the ruins of an ancient civilization sprang from the dead earth. the city was a sprawling graveyard, choked with mountains of skulls and shattered skeletons, until a sudden, brilliant fire consumed it all.
From the embers, the dead city began to heal. Broken stone walls knitted themselves whole. Streets reformed. Flowers, grass, and thick, braided vines sprouted directly from the ash, creeping over the restored city in lush, wild cascades. As the flames died, the skeletons vanished. In their place, living people fled through the pristine streets in sheer panic, utterly oblivious to the fact that the ground beneath their feet had just been rebuilt.
Beyond the fortified walls, on the plain once paved in skulls, two massive armies closed in on each other.
The last thing Rem saw before the dark folded shut around him was the soldiers on both sides clambering over the writhing bodes of their own comrades just to keep swinging their blades.
Then, a voice resonated in his mind, cold, echoing, and unmistakable:
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial...]
Then a scream, distant and frantic, dragged him to reality.
"—r...."
"Ros—"
"WAKE UP, ROESELLE!"
Rem's eyes snapped open into a different kind of dark, not the endless void of the vision but something closer, more solid. His skull throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse, and his shoulders ached as if someone had been violently shaking him.
Instinct took over before his mind fully caught up. He rolled backward, coming up low with his fists raised, every muscle coiled and ready. Out of the darkness, a shape materialized just paces away, unmistakably human, and unmistakably armed.
The shape exhaled, a long, shaky breath of pure relief.
"Thank the gods... you're finally awake, Roeselle." The voice was soft, stripped of all the panic from a moment ago, as he stepped forward with a faint, breathy laugh. "I was starting to think you'd never wake up."
"Stay where you are, bastard!" Rem snapped, his voice hard. "Where are we, and who in the Spell's name is Roeselle?!"
The figure froze in his tracks. "Spell? Bastard? What's wrong with you? did you hit your head when we fell? You don't even remember your own name?"
A sharp thread of panic pierced the man's initial relief. He took another eager step forward, hands reaching out. "it's me! it's Valdo!"
By now, Rem's vision had adjusted to the darkness. He locked onto his surroindings in an instant. Valdo was armed, while Rem's own sword lay on the ground behind the man. He was unarmed, and cornered.
"I told you to stay back!" Rem barked, shifting his stance. "Throw me the swo—"
The words froze in his throat.
Dammit.
A cold sweat broke across his neck. He had just told the person across from him the exact information needed to kill him, and he had no idea if Valdo was the only threat lurking in the dark.
Valdo went dead still. He looked down at the ground for a long, agonizing moment, long enough that Rem's pulse climbed higher with every second of silence. Then, slowly, he raised both hands high into the air and began taking measured steps backward, away from Rem.
"I mean you no harm, Roeselle." His voice had dropped, careful now, deliberate. "If i wanted you dead, you'd already be a corpse on the ground. But we'll do this your way."
Reaching the fallen weapon, Valdo gave it a deliberate nudge with his boot. the blade slid across the stone coming to a rest precisely at Rem's feet.
Rem released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He squatted down to retrieve the weapon, his eyes pinned to the stranger, refusing to break focus for even a second. He couldn't remember how many times his father had warned him about being careful, and betting his life on a stranger's goodwill was a quick way to end up dead.
Once in his grip, he realized the blade was dreadfully dull, it would barely cut bread, and blood still dripped slowly from its tip. He sheathed it anyway. The scabbard at his hip was slick with wet blood that wasn't his. slowly the tension drained from his shoulders.
"Fine. We'll do it that way." Rem kept his eyes on Valdo. "Who are you. Where are we, and what's going on?"
"Can i sit first? I'm exhausted after all the fighting above." Valdo glanced around, then up, into a darkness that clearly meant something to him. He lowered himself to the ground, arms resting over his knees. "We've got a long way up. Might as well rest while we can."
"Suit yourself." Rem remaind standing, far too tense to lower his guard. "What do you mean fell?"
"Right. From the beginning, then." Valdo rubbed the back of his neck." I'm Valdo, your best friend, in case that part slipped too. We're part of the unblooded, and we were fighting up above before an Ascended uesd one of their abilities that tore a whole through the ground. You were close to the explosion but you hid behind enemy combatents in time, and I managed to grab you before you fell."
"Unblooded?" Rem repeated, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "And if you grabbed me in time, how in the spell did we end up down here?"
Valdo seemed taken aback by that response. "You forgot that too? that we're unblooded?". He paused, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. "And what is this 'Spell' you keep talking about?"
Valdo took a long sigh before continuing.
"The unblooded are followers of War God. The lowest of them, those that have yet to prove themselves and awaken. We march with one of the armies sworn to invade, conquer and enslave." He muttered that last part reluctantly, a faint edge of shame in his tone. "You can see as much if you look down at yourself. By the time i reached you, the ledge i held onto collapsed, sending us both down."
"And where are we now?"
Valdo tilted his head back, and looked around the dark tunnel.
"No idea," he said, his tone almost cheerful. "Not a clue."
Rem stared at him. This one's unwell, he thought.
Valdo's face brightened suddenly, as though struck by a vital afterthought. "Oh, did I mention that I'm your best friend?"
Rem kept staring. Yeah. Definitely unwell.