Milo dreamed of a stormy river. The river was surrounded by ruins of old. Different buildings, monuments, and other structures were collapsed. Then the moons in the sky began to fall, being take over by the sun.
Time reversed, the collapsed ruins rose once again their destruction began to reverse, and the surrounding landscape became less desolate wasteland and more occupied wasteland. Giant siege machines moved towards tall castles and fortifications. Small figures moved, clashing, fighting.
'It's a war.'
Milo watched as time reversed even further, to a calm before the storm. His vision focused in on a particularly hulking castle. The walls were different, instead of weathered stone they were made of a mixture of metals.
Milo felt his vision fall in closer and closer into the castle.
Then he finally entered his body…
'Uhhh. This isn't right, I'm dead?'
No, he was nearly dead. Or perhaps he was deprived of all his senses? He didn't see, hear, feel, smell, or taste anything. Milo tried to reach out a limb only for nothing to happen.
Milo then entered his Soul Sea. Sure enough, he was still alive. Except his soul cores were hardly producing any essence. Not only that, the essence was just sitting in his soul core. It didn't spread out across his body like usual.
'What the hell? Alright, calm down and think about this.'
Milo knew that he would be transported into a new body. What body would fit him most? It would obviously be that of a humans so being transported into anything else seemed like a no go.
Unless they were no humans present, but that wasn't an option because he saw people fighting when time was rewinding. Was he in a prison of sorts? Maybe sealed indefinitely?
Without an answer, all Milo could do was sit and wait with his thoughts. There was a myriad of problems to sift through.
First and foremost, the Spell had counted three people as having entered the Nightmare. Which made no sense, there was quite literally no way anyone else would've been able to sneak in.
There was Seishan, a very powerful legacy. Milo himself, a Divine Aspect user who could see in the dark, and there was Olivia who's very Aspect had to do with observation and sight.
Yet the impossible had happened so suddenly, and Milo had no idea how to feel about it. Someone was elusive enough to slip past all three of them without even flaring up their senses.
'Maybe the Evermore?'
The Evermore did contain a conscious within it. However it was odd that the Spell would count it as a carrier as the conscious within shouldn't be a carrier of the Nightmare Spell. So that was a probable reason out the way.
'There's no other explanation, someone managed to sneak in. Why? How?'
Milo would just have to find out on his own eventually. But for now all he could do was wait…
***
'One… two… three'
***
'I wonder how Olivia is doing… maybe I should've given her the [Dreamer's Hope].
***
'Slow, slow, quick quick, slow.'
***
Milo was reading through everything the Nightmare Spell had to offer, the comfort of his Soul Sea was one Milo didn't know he'd appreciate up until now. If he wasn't in his Soul Sea he felt like he'd lose his mind.
In truth he had no idea how long he had been stuck without being able to feel. He had split his consciousness to focus solely on counting but even that stream of consciousness got distracted and lost count.
All his streams of consciousness were just extensions of himself so it was to be expected at the end of the day. Unfortunately that meant he had no count on the passage of time. For all he knew it could've only been eight hours or eight days.
In times like this, the database he received from Carmen's fancy little location tracker disguised as a gift was rather a huge boon.
Endless amounts of info to keep Milo distracted while he awaited rescue. Even though Milo technically had all the information engraved into his brain by his Aspect. It was just dormant and waiting to be remembered.
So, he researched everything he coild about the Moonriver Plains, its history, and its creatures. It was entertaining to see each of Carmen's personally written logs with jokes or connections to other entries from earlier.
Which led to the question of a lifetime, would this Nightmare have Carmen involved? Milo certainly thought so.
The castle he zoned in on seemed far too dexterous compared to the others, it was no doubt the result of status. Like the head of a cult. Like Carmen
'That would be ironic, being imprisoned or sealed by Carmen in the past. Only for the same shit to happen in the future.'
Luckily, Reina's hold over had long since passed. With that reassurance, Milo laid down amongst the gentle sea of his soul.
***
Milo walked among his Soul Sea. He had to admit he was going a bit mad with boredom. Milo had done everything in his Soul Sea. He had done it thrice over. When would he feel something, anything.
It was so bad that Milo began to recall some rather harrowing Memories from that damn cabin… it's hold on him was everpresent now. Flashes of that shadowy elusive monster haunted the corners of his eyes.
***
Olivia poised herself. She held her breath, her hands steadying.
In one moment, there was silence along the riverbed. In the next a streak of purple flew across the river and struck a Nightmare Creature. Killing it.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Noir Deer]
It was as harmless as a Nightmare Creature could get really, and would serve as a good source of food.
Olivia knew that Milo was likely safe out there. He knew how to handle himself better than most. Yet she hoped they could reunite sooner rather then later.
The body she had taken in was rather a role that she enjoyed, a generous hunter who fed a local village right next to a calm river.
It was peaceful, all Olivia had to was go out and kill some Nightmare Creatures, bring them back, and celebrate with the locals.
However, she knew sooner or later this peaceful life would come to an end. That was because this village would be the first to fall in a war. A hostile takeover that would wipe this village clean of any life.
Olivia wanted to preserve the life of the villagers at the very least. Her plans were constantly running through her head as she grabbed the dead deer and hauled it back towards the village.