That place could only have come from the fever dream of a sugar-addicted child.
Giovanni felt a strange discomfort, as if an invisible hand was probing his soul.
It was as though he were being watched. Judged.
His seismic sense swept the area in a limited radius, unable to pass through the cavern walls.
As far as he could tell and beyond, there was no sign of life capable of posing a threat. Was he losing his mind and becoming paranoid? Or was it some unique effect of those endless whispers?
Like a fleeting hallucination, the feeling dissolved the moment he became aware of himself.
'Beako's punches must've left me with brain damage. That has to be it.'
Walking to the edge, he tried to glimpse the end of the cavern, but it looked like a true bottomless pit. Would they have to descend all of that? His legs would snap in half before they made it a third of the way down.
'Elevators are truly convenient technology. Where are they when we actually need them?'
While Sofia focused on the surroundings, enchanted by the striking details like the natural patterns lining the surfaces, Giovanni studied the path ahead, formulating an idea to reach the bottom.
"It's like the entire cave is made of bismuth! If we took it all and… never mind." She pouted before finishing. "What I was going to say is… this is my new favorite place."
Aguiar extended his hand and pulled a stream of water flowing from the waterfalls toward himself. As exotic as it looked, it behaved like an ordinary liquid.
His satisfied expression said plenty about what he was about to do.
"Do you know the one thing I hate more than waiting in line, darlings?" he commented with a grin as he approached the pair.
Sofia and Giovanni glanced at each other.
"Studying?"
"Studying?"
They spoke in perfect sync.
Aguiar's smile cracked, wounded by unnecessary honesty. He had intended to be gentle, but now it was also a matter of revenge.
Grabbing both of them by the waist, the muscular young man tucked them under his arms and deliberately stepped into the void.
"Stairs!" he announced, laughing as they plummeted.
Screams of terror echoed through the cavern, blending into the sea of sound. Giovanni had planned to use his glider with his friend to shorten the distance, but this was far more extreme.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" the delicate boy shouted, his stomach dropping as they fell faster and faster. Sofia looked ready to faint on the spot, covering her head with her arms.
"Stop whining and enjoy the thrill!"
Aguiar, laughing without a single concern in the world, watched as water from every direction answered his call.
The rainbow fluid wrapped around the three of them, gathering especially beneath their bodies.
While gravity tried to drag them down, Aguiar's aspect pushed upward, resulting in a steady deceleration.
The free fall turned into a controlled descent.
"You… could've told us you were going to do that!" Sofia exclaimed irritably when she realized the situation was under control.
"I could have. But I shouldn't. Otherwise, I'd ruin the surprise." He replied while enduring a barrage of punches from the girl.
After the brief scare, Giovanni caught his breath and began observing the environment from an entirely new angle.
All along the massive stairway spiraling through the cavern, countless dark entrances must have led to rooms, halls, and storage chambers. It was hard to imagine how vast and populous that place had once been.
They could spend days exploring it and probably not see even half of it.
But that also raised a question.
How was it possible for there to be so many women in one place? And how had they had descendants?
Maybe there was some sort of mating season with people from outside…
'That's the first thing that comes to your mind? Pervert…' Sofia judged playfully.
'Why am I being judged?! You're thinking the same thing!' Giovanni pointed out the blatant hypocrisy.
Sofia covered her mouth to hide her small smile.
Beyond the passages, there were murals telling stories, depicting achievements, and important figures from the past.
With her aspect, she could glimpse those stories and how those women had risen to prominence.
"These are works of warriors, scholars, and artists who stood out enough to catch their lady's attention… becoming her lovers," Sofia explained to the boys, who were also watching with interest.
"So the mermaid had a harem? She was a woman of fine taste, from what I can tell!" Aguiar recalled the fleeting sensation that had overtaken him when he heard the song at the gate.
Even minimal exposure to a remnant of that entity had left him defenseless. He did not want to imagine the depravity present in a society that revolved around her presence.
A place where love was an act of devotion.
After falling for some time longer, the end of the stairway became visible, leading into a vast hall that seemed to have served as a great plaza for leisure and cultural events.
Considering the many water channels running across the floor, other sea creatures might have also participated in the festivities.
The trio landed on the damp, cold ground, feeling like ants in a structure built by giants. There were no further paths downward. This was the lowest point of the Whispering Caverns.
Beyond the plaza, a single colossal corridor stretched forward, swallowed by darkness. Above its entrance was the family crest of a pristine castle, wrapped in colorful waves beneath a night sky.
The symbol of Thalorim.
"It's just ahead," Giovanni said, his voice leaking expectation and anxiety. The light that had seemed like a distant mirage, always out of reach, was now there at the end of the path.
If, after all the blood they had shed, some monstrous insect was waiting on the other side, he might truly lose his sanity.
"It'll be fine, right?" Sofia reminded him of his own words, offering a warm smile.
"Of course." Giovanni smiled back and advanced beside them.
For the first time, conversation died, replaced by solemn silence. A palpable weight settled on their shoulders as they approached the end of the corridor, surrounded by columns and shadows.
The voices grew sparser until none remained, leaving the atmosphere ghostly compared to the rest of the cavern, once vivid and vibrant.
Only the sound of soft footsteps and heavy breathing remained.
Half-open gates awaited them at the corridor's end, inviting.
The sensation of being watched intensified into certainty. Something was on the other side, calling.
Calling for him.
'From where… and how?' Giovanni kept wondering.
Sofia did not feel the same, and Aguiar only seemed unsettled, not worried about something lurking.
Through their connection, Sofia sensed his concern but was unable to identify any culprit through her aspect.
No hidden mechanisms were waiting to split the ground open or drop spikes from the ceiling. It was truly just them, which only made the lingering feeling more frustrating.
'I don't sense any traps, Gigi. Just keep your head cool.'
With nerves on edge, all that remained was to see with their own eyes what lay inside.
Sofia summoned the hydra heads resting beneath her skirt and positioned herself in front of Giovanni, just in case.
After slipping through the opening, the three stepped into the deepest chamber of the abandoned cavern.
The lack of obstacles contrasted sharply with the deadly journey that had led them there.
And then three pairs of eyes widened, unable to believe the scene awaiting them.
Without the varied perfumes and aromas of the surface, the place reeked of death. Water had given way to blood and strands of a black, viscous liquid stretching along the walls and ceiling.
This was the image of ruin.
Of a civilization that had once been glorious.
***
Massacre failed to describe the scope of that scene.
It was genocide.
Hundreds of bodies had been piled high, filling the royal chamber with such a nauseating sight that Giovanni could not hold back his vomit.
He knew that in the Dream Realm, nothing had remained intact.
People reduced to creatures, transformed into abominations.
Everything in that other world was a depraved distortion of what it had once been, existing solely to kill any humans who tried to explore it.
Perhaps it was the colorful environment, the soothing music, but he had truly believed that at least here some of the former grace had been preserved.
But the heart of the waterfalls bled, staining the cascades outside with the remains of those who had once inhabited its waters.
"But… how?" Aguiar was not frightened by the number of dead, but by the condition of the corpses.
That should have been a rotting pile of skeletons, maybe not even bones. Yet to the observers' horror, all the dead women remained perfectly preserved.
Children, adolescents, adults, their throats slit, bleeding eternally, feeding the crater.
From the mimic trees in the ivory forest to the bloody geysers in the salt plains, to the rivers, lakes, and waterfalls outside.
Was it their blood?
Sofia kept walking, feeling dizzy. Using her aspect on the bodies, she understood the anomaly.
"They're… healing." Even with their souls destroyed and minds shattered, their flesh and blood remained alive.
A regenerative gift that defied logic, yet was undeniably real.
Giovanni wiped his mouth and steadied his breathing. He could not collapse now. He had to focus.
With eyes closed, the light pointed toward something at the far end of the chamber, at its darkest point. His seismic sense swept the area in search of the promised solution.
What he found was a deep spring of water… and a mermaid.
Over four meters tall, the massive body of a nude humanoid creature lay on its side, its neck torn open. From the wound, black sludge poured like a river, diluting into the water below.
With pink skin and long, pearlescent hair, her beauty made every painting and statue seem like failed attempts to represent her.
Tribal markings ran from her face down her bust to her waist, where instead of legs there was a long fish tail covered in colorful scales.
Giovanni ran forward, stopping mere steps from the water. Sofia and Aguiar followed, only to be further shocked.
"Why? Why would the light bring me here to see this?!" He did not understand. Was he meant to learn some lesson from a vision that would haunt his nights forever?
Some hidden knowledge within so much misery?
He closed his eyes again, despair threatening to consume his chest.
The light shone like the sun, so close, practically within reach of his fingers.
Beneath the water.
He needed to dive into the black sludge.
Sofia stopped him the instant the thought crossed his mind.
"Don't even think about it… that… that will kill you!" she shouted in fear.
Aguiar circled the spring, hesitantly touching the mermaid's face. She was as warm and delicate as a sleeping lady.
Instead, she was a piece of flesh that had refused death for ages.
"I have to go! Trust me, Sofia!" Giovanni tried to pull his arm free, but he could not exert excessive force due to his flaw.
He could not hurt her, so he was unable to break free on his own.
"Trust you? You're not even sure! I won't let my friend dive headfirst into a pit of corruption!" She tightened her grip, dragging him away.
She could not gamble everything on a bet. To Sofia, Giovanni was a thousand times more important than Shelly and Eric combined. If she had to let the two of them die to ensure he lived, so be it.
"I… I… Aguiar! Help me! Hold her, please!" He had only two options.
Order her… as a vassal.
Or receive his friend's help.
Sofia went pale, fearing the worst, because she knew that if he wanted to, he could make her obey.
The muscular young man turned, his confident face turning into a sea of uncertainty.
"You're the one who says we should be glorious, right?! That life is made of risks! So hold her and let me try to save everyone!" He truly understood Sofia from the bottom of his heart.
If the situation were reversed, Giovanni would never let his friend walk into near-certain suicide.
But humans are hypocrites by nature.
"We're connected, Gigi! You and me, we're one! What do you think will happen to me if you die?! Shelly is a miserable, ungrateful person, and Eric sees us as useful soldiers at BEST!"
Anger. Sadness. Fear.
Aguiar stepped forward.
If he died… would Sofia perish too?
His mind was in chaos.
Their late-night conversation at the academy.
The battle against Gaius in the wastelands, when Shelly saved his life.
The confrontation with the Hydra Mother, when Eric alone served as a shield so none of them would die.
Giovanni did not want sacrifices.
He was tired of losing.
How many more times would he have to stand by while people around him were sent to their deaths?
"I promise… Sofia. I promise it'll be okay." Margaret's face, waiting for him at the orphanage, flickered in his eyes.
Sofia was crying in frustration. Why did he have to be like this? Why did he want to protect others so badly? And the worst part… she loved that about him too.
Because it was that same desire that led him to make that fateful offer at the solstice. The same desire that drove him through hordes of thousands of monsters and into battles in the sky, all to reunite with her.
Aguiar took a second step, controlling the surrounding water.
A wave surged violently, wrapping around Giovanni and separating him from Sofia, who was sent away encased in a bubble of water to prevent injury.
"Just go already… and make sure you come back, my dear. Fortune favors the bold!" Aguiar shouted, gripping his friend's shoulder.
Giovanni felt Sofia's thoughts, begging him not to go, until the final moment.
Without looking back, he jumped into the spring of water and sludge, plunging into the depths.
To find his light.
***
He dreamed… of nothing.
No memory resurfaced from the depths of his mind, not even the abyssal song trying to lull him into eternal sleep.
A drop struck the still surface of water.
Vibrations spread through the void, fading into darkness.
For the first time in days, Sofia's mind was not connected to his.
Giovanni was alone.
Unable to see, smell, hear, or touch, he was less a body than a concept diluted in sludge.
His part had been done. He had followed the light. So where was the solution?
Plink…
A second drop fell, creating circular ripples.
'Please… something. Anything.'
After what he did to Sofia, if nothing was found, he would be the most miserable creature in two worlds. For a long time, he screamed louder and louder, wanting to be heard.
Wanting an answer.
Time enough to feel anger, shame, regret, sadness, despair.
Long enough to realize it was impossible to leave.
The screams ceased, and agitation became stillness.
Trying to activate his aspect was useless. His light did not shine there, and his Soul Sea seemed nonexistent.
There was no hunger, thirst, fatigue, or illness.
Giovanni had treated that as a privilege out there, but here it was the worst torment.
The relief of death was out of reach.
A final never attained.
Plink…
The vibrations struck something in the immeasurable void.
"I am awakened… by the sound of a drop."
"…awakened…"
"…sound of a drop…"
Giovanni gasped. Each word floated in the void, detached from meaning. A thread of understanding formed, fragile and uncertain.
His weary spirit reacted faintly. Was something speaking?
"I wonder… who it might be?"
The ethereal voice sounded again, allowing the boy to seek it. So beautiful, so calm, so gentle.
Piece by piece, his body regained form and sense.
Arms to touch, legs to run, a mouth to shout.
"ME! I… It's me." He declared from the depths of his heart, and finally heard.
Silence.
But at last the formless voice responded.
"Have you come to devour our dreams, child? Have you come… to bring endings… instead of new beginnings?"
Giovanni could not understand what it meant. Devour dreams? Bring endings?
"I-I don't understand… what do you mean?" he asked, confused and frightened.
The darkness around him shifted, changing… taking shape.
Like an invisible hand probing his soul.
"He told me stories… so many stories. Your light… is familiar."
A golden glow emerged from Giovanni's being, like a candle being lit. So faint and fragile before the void.
"He told me of someone in a distant Realm, ruled by the sun, with immeasurable power in his hands. Bearer of a sacred title, leader of a prosperous people who bathed in abundance. As a sovereign, the promised duty, shared by so many predecessors, was placed upon his shoulders."
The darkness molded into a scorching desert made of shadows. Even distorted, Giovanni could not shake the feeling… that he had been there before.
"The tradition would continue, the divine tower would rise another step, and the people of the sands would see a new day, with a new king. But he feared his destiny and hated his nature. The power he possessed had not been earned, but given. When his story reached its end, everything he had controlled since birth would be usurped by the next… by his son."
From the sand, walls rose, banners were painted, a tower was built, and a city came to life. Rivers brought fertility to the land, sustaining animals and people alike.
"One night, he heard voices whispering from the darkness. They promised a solution, a way to become truly eternal. Tempted by the offer, the man listened to the same voice every night."
A massive canyon split the earth, sheltering the kingdom like a protective shell.
"Through atrocities, he deceived, controlled, and used all who crossed his path, offering a promised kingdom under his command. Many resisted, few remained, and in the end… all fell to their knees."
The entire city seemed restless, thousands filling the streets, eager, expectant.
"And with so many souls in his grasp… he committed an unforgivable crime. He reached for the most radiant light in the cosmos. The light of the sun."
The illusion of darkness shattered, returning to silent emptiness.
"The price of his mistake… was everything. Stripped of power, wealth, and land, he was condemned to wander eternally through the ruins of his failure. For his greed and fear, he sacrificed all and everyone in pursuit of a miracle that never came. What a vile individual he was… the one who brought ruin to the first solar kingdom."
Giovanni felt his heart nearly leap from his chest. Those walls, that art… that tower.
"The Golden Prince."
***
The revelations hovered in the air, suspended by the slow passage of time in his mind. Suddenly, it made more sense why the light had guided him there, straight to that thing.
There, he might find answers.
"Your radiance… your gold… so similar. But you, child… seem incomplete. Devoid of the crown of laurels… your potential… limited. Tell me, what light do you seek so desperately?"
Giovanni clenched his fist, knowing that question was what drove him.
"The light of my home. I just want to return there… because so many people are waiting for me."
The voice fell silent again. Would it be satisfied with his answer? Or merely indifferent?
"What a kind wish. I, too, would like to return home, to my passions."
He had spent all this time trying to decipher who that presence following him was. Of all possibilities, only one seemed to make sense.
"Lady Voice… are you the Eternal Symphony?"
A melodic laugh reached the boy's ears.
"No. I am merely an echo of her… preserved in the waters of her chamber. Ophelia is long gone, though her symphony remained."
Giovanni had witnessed the mermaid's powers since his arrival in the waterfall woods. He knew her song could preserve moments in the world, but it felt unreal to converse with a copy of a centuries-old being.
"I-I saw, Lady Echo, the bodies outside, the immense abyss, the eternal darkness! How? How did things end like this…" He saw the remnants of a talented people, passionate about creation and its diversity, but, even worse…
He saw the misery brought by darkness.
"It was simply inevitable. We, the emissaries of the black skies, had a duty to fulfill with our goddess. Guided by her grace… we banished the darkness to the abyss with our arts."
The environment took shape again.
This time, five silhouettes descended from the skies and sank into the freezing ocean. Accompanied by a pristine castle of divine power, they swam to the darkest and most fearsome depths, where an abyssal crater expanded, thirsting for more and more…
A dragon, a giant, a mermaid, an old woman, and…
The fifth figure was unrecognizable.
With the seductive voice of the woman, the sacred silk of the elder, the impenetrable clay of the warrior, and the dragon's paints, the ravenous madness was pushed back and sealed by the castle, which radiated the immeasurable power of the Lady of Storms.
"Exactly! You were incredible and had a goddess at your side, a goddess! How did you lose?" Not the spiritual power granted by prayers… by faith… but the physical presence of something divine. They should have been invincible.
The space reshaped, becoming a different image. The empty dark crater was now a kingdom under construction.
A magical seal had been raised to ward off the devastating pressure of the waters, creating a unique atmosphere in which marine and terrestrial life could coexist in harmony.
"For many years, centuries… millennia, we prospered, undefeated. We created families, hierarchies, and established a kingdom to shelter those migrating from other lands. We taught them art not as a pastime, but as a weapon. For the enemy had never departed, merely… retreated."
A third vision appeared, now showing a collapse of cosmic proportions. The very sky seemed to be tearing… dying.
Terror and despair spread like never before through the streets of eternal Thalorim.
"The spider… brought ruin to all the Realms. Even gods die, child. And, in the absence of ours, the enemy resurfaced. Even sealed, its influence was too powerful to be contained completely, now that the grace of the heavens had vanished."
Fights erupted like never before through the cities, and madness consumed women and men alike. Twisted cults, claiming that the emissaries were actually false saviors who imprisoned an innocent god in the abyss, emerged.
"We were on the brink of the end… when he decided to take our lady's place. Using his own soul as a conduit, he reactivated the castle in all its glory, employing the storm lineage in his blood as a substitute. The madness ceased, and peace returned to our lands."
His mind seemed to have turned into pure static.
He refused to believe it.
It made no sense. How could a god simply die? And to a spider, of all things? His head was about to explode.
"Who… who is this 'he' you keep speaking of?" Since the beginning of the conversation, the voice repeatedly referred to someone. It could only be the same person.
Silence.
Why was she taking so long to answer? Speak!
"I cannot remember. None of us can."
The distorted silhouette materialized beside him, like a ghost constantly shifting shape.
"The abyss is… curious. It is not a creature… a monster. It is merely intentions, desires, and madness left behind after a primordial being was struck down by our goddess. Any physical struggle is useless, and any mental confrontation is a guaranteed defeat. Mere exposure to it, no matter how slow, over time will consume your mind and spirit completely."
The silhouette was now inside the pristine castle, wandering alone through corridors once populated by children and adults passionate about study and knowledge.
"He took on the solitary role of confronting the abyss head-on… for the rest of his days. The fight was long, arduous, but, like everything else, he eventually succumbed to insanity. Fearing the worst, it was his plan to be sealed in the castle, forced to serve as a battery for the seal, long after he had become a monster."
Now, Giovanni was in front of the castle gates, on the floating island that sustained it above the abyss. The legendary figures, combined, had ensured that the bastion of purity would never be opened again.
"We knew that grief… the pain for a dear companion would be used against us. Madness bathes in weakness, in hatred, in uncertainty. So we allowed their memory to be consumed by oblivion. We could not shed tears for someone we never loved… or so we thought."
They erased him from history so they would not feel pain? Giovanni wanted to be angry at that, at the idea that someone who sacrificed so much was condemned to total oblivion.
But Giovanni had firsthand experience of how dangerous it was to give in to grief. It only took faltering once for the abyss to capture him in the mansion a second time.
"The plan… does not seem to have worked." The boy murmured, hopeless.
"There is pain both in absence… and in presence. Seluvarin had lost his best friend and, consequently, an integral part of who he was. Even without memory, the void in his chest poisoned his mind. He sought comfort for his broken heart in vices… indulged in the incenses of his lady, believing that, in eternal bliss, there would be no suffering."
An inconsolable dragon, isolated in his atelier, removed from his responsibilities and those who inherited his blood. His paintings, devoid of the glamour they once displayed, were reduced to layers of paint born of endless delirium.
"But when even that did not bring the relief he desired, madness took hold. If feeling too much was not enough… then feeling nothing became the solution. The collapse of the mangrove was not the work of an external enemy… but the consequence of the lord himself unleashing the gray catastrophe."
All the pieces Sofia had noted, which they slowly gathered over the days, seemed to be falling into place in his head.
"Magnus and Lysandra acted quickly, trying to contain the maddened companion. Hydras and golems waged war, trampling the land and shaping the local geography, while the elusive elder lady wove her threads beneath the soil, preventing the gray from spreading further beyond the eastern lands."
"And you? I mean… Ophelia. What did she do to help contain the dragon?"
The image of the gate being sealed for the first time, isolating the female communities of the world outside, flashed before him.
"Ophelia, to protect her beloved devotees, locked the inhabitants of the Rose Tears in the Whispering Caves, needing to leave a few outside her territory behind. She knew news of one of the lords' madness would spread like wildfire… and also become the poison necessary for her maidens to become easy victims of the abyss."
The mermaid had simply preferred to hide from the conflict, leaving the rest to fight alone? How could she have been so cowardly?
"You could have fought together! What was the point of hiding until the last moment? They died anyway!"
"Ophelia no longer believed in victory. Her goddess was dead, one friend sealed, another maddened, and the rest… on the brink of insanity. The giant and the elder could believe otherwise, but their plans became more extreme and obsessive each night."
Glimpses of the enormous man replacing parts of his own body with clay limbs, and of the lady experimenting with turning living beings into pure silk, haunted him, showing the raw truth.
"Even if she helped battle Seluvarin, the moment he was killed or contained, the war between the other two was inevitable. One believed salvation was transforming all into golems, free from the weaknesses of flesh and mind, while the other wished to seam the world pale and all its inhabitants to make them sacred and immune to madness."
The seamstresses and sculptors, victims of their sovereigns' war, had no choice but to fight to the death in a meaningless battle. In the end, there was no victor.
Both sides succumbed completely to madness, becoming servants of the abyss, just like Seluvarin.
Together, the three marched through the waterfalls with the twisted intention of hunting the traitor, the one who dared to flee the grace of darkness.
"Those marks on the gates… they were theirs, then." He commented in a low, almost whisper. Each second listening to the echo's stories wounded his spirit. Why did things have to end like this?
The echo recognized the young man's empathy and appreciated it as much as it felt pity. There is so much pain in the world.
One who feels the pain of others is destined to suffer eternally.
Hundreds of young women and adults were seen leaving their homes behind, descending toward the lowest point of the Whispering Cave for a final gathering.
"In the end… Ophelia, along with her beloveds, committed mass suicide, killing partners, mothers, and daughters alike. All so that their spirits and minds would never be touched by the madness of the world outside and could find a worthy rest. I watched, child… the dark army marching the cave stairs… violating the dead bodies… tearing out their throats and piling them like dirt."
And finally, the vision of the royal chamber, filled with the cave's former inhabitants along with their queen.
"I witnessed the birth of the abyssal symphony. The voices stolen from their bodies transformed into a weapon capable of dominating minds like never before."
And after all that… there was Giovanni, in the lost ruins of an erased civilization, accompanied by an echo of the past.
What solution had he come seeking there? Was there even one?
"Since then, I have waited… for the savior promised to me… in the stories he told. The devourer of Dreams, capable of bringing an end to the age of darkness… to all souls consumed by the music… to the ancient heroes devoured by madness."
A savior… it was a joke for Giovanni to be considered anything close to that. He couldn't even save himself.
"I… cannot save you." He confessed, head bowed.
The echo did not seem disappointed.
"But you wish to help someone."
"My companions. All I want is to return to my world with them."
After a long silence… the presence echoed, like thunder.
"Then listen…"
***
In the depths of a mangrove consumed by gray, where roots intertwined to form profane paintings and nothing living knew the warmth of emotion, a graceful figure moved through the dark corridors of an old atelier.
Prismatic scales, now only black and white.
A dragon who had abandoned the skies to hide in the depths of the earth.
Walls covered in paint formed abstract art, spirals representing what remained of a fallen artist's spirit.
Even in the darkness, his eyes glittered, searching for something, for someone he had long forgotten.
A violent roar shook the hideout.
Not even the gray had been able to fully consume his desire.
A failure even in ruin.
"Seluvarin, The Master of Hues!"
***
Alone, on an isolated farm, surrounded by pale wheat fields made of the purest silk, a lady sewed in silence, a wooden smile fixed on her face.
Little by little, new dolls were made for her children.
This time, from magnificent raw material.
Fresh blood dripped onto the counter.
A horde of beasts and transformed people wandered around the dwelling, their graceful appearance only disguising the irrational instincts that drove them.
Behind her mask, black pits regarded another job well done with pride.
They would be protected, blessed by her silk.
On the walls of the dwelling, shelves filled with old toys and some newer ones watched silently, alive, waiting for the next to join their family.
"Lysandra, the seamstress of the veils!"
***
Inside an industrial factory, hidden within the scorching interior of a lava flow, dozens of golems marched in unison, repeating tasks that had long lost meaning.
Not a single soul remained to wield their weapons and tools.
But the machines continued unchanging, fulfilling the purpose they were created for.
At the core of it all, the largest golem, so massive it seemed incapable of moving on its own, lay inactive.
Without a trace left of what it once had been, discarded flesh gave way to a perfect being.
No emotions, no thoughts, no suffering.
Not even appreciation for the art of its children and brother craftsmen.
Still, from the bony cavities of its eyes, lava flowed like tears, filling the room with infernal heat.
The topaz beings surrounded it, tending to its maintenance for all eternity.
"Magnus, The Sculptor of Wonders!"
***
"Eliminate the ancient rulers of Thalorim and recover the fragments of the key. Only then can you open the pristine castle seal… where the forgotten await… and the way out lies, deactivated. This is the path to your home, young dreamer."
They had barely managed to defeat the creatures serving these beings… how were they supposed to slay the leaders themselves?! This wasn't an epic quest, but a death sentence.
"How?! We can't even leave here without my friends being consumed by the symphony! It's impossible…"
Tears streamed endlessly.
He was frustrated, desperate, dying of pain and exhaustion.
There was no miracle in the world capable of resolving this.
Giovanni was probably the only one who could assert such a thing with such certainty.
"I cannot fight by your side… but I can offer a gift. This echo that I am… is a special creation of Ophelia. The rest of her gifts… a small seed left behind."
The voice seemed closer now, echoing through his soul.
"Use it. Crawl, bleed, face the shadows of death more intimately than anyone ever has, and triumph… we will be waiting, devourer of dreams. For the day you return, that you will save us, but until then… live."
The transformation had begun in his very essence, but Giovanni simply could not stop crying. Mourning all those people who suffered, unable to defend themselves.
Condemned because things far beyond them decided their fate.
For the echo, forced to wait alone for so long, for a false savior.
"Th-Thank you… and I'm sorry… I'm sorry." He murmured through his tears, his face and body changing wildly, incapable of assuming a single identity.
A young girl, an elderly man, a delicate boy, a muscular young man, a fragile lady.
"Do not weep for me."
Perhaps it was only his imagination, but Giovanni could feel a smile in the shapeless voice.
"We will be together, forever."
And everything faded away.
[End of Volume 2: Dream Eater]
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Author Notes:
Hey, this is Trojan speaking. That really was an emotional rollercoaster, wasn't it? With the end of the second volume of Golden Prince, I wanted to let you know that my college classes will be starting soon, so keeping the same chapter frequency will be impossible.
I want to thank everyone who commented, donated their little stones, or just took the time to read this little hobby of mine.
The next volume will focus on the second part of this journey, with our heroic group hunting down the former rulers of Thalorim and, hopefully, reaching the exit so many are seeking.
If you've read this far, I would truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart if you left a review of what you thought. I'd love to have an official rating for the fanfic.
Other than that, kisses, and see you in the next one! (6k chapter, btw, I'm dead)