Chapter 4: New Day

There is no response from the Guardian for quite some time.

When it does come, it’s not in words, but images.

A wolf stands at the edge of a mild slope, overlooking a forested valley. Peaceful. Calm.

With no warning, a cub leaps onto the wolf, tiny teeth bared and growling.

The adult seems unsurprised as the young one vainly attempts to gnaw on it, snarling as menacingly as it can.

The cub leaps down from the adult’s back and drops into a crouch, hindquarters in the air, tail wagging furiously. It hops about, letting out small barks, tail going at top speed.

After a moment, the adult drops into the same crouch, and they chase each other down the slope into the valley.

Your dreams that evening are strange.

...you soar past mountains, effortlessly wheeling in thermal updrafts that launch you into the sky, sending your heart racing with fierce joy...

...you burrow through the dirt, the scent of decay somehow not bringing uneasiness to your mind, but comfort... this is the scent of life returning to nourish new life...

...you stand still, but your arms reach far, stretching toward your fellows, whispered not-quite-words telling you that you may stand alone, but you will never be alone, your feet and toes burrowing happily into the ground to feel a force of life that strengthens you...

...you watch a storm arise out of clear skies, a raging tempest that is like nothing you have ever seen, and you race desperately away, hearing the cries of your herd behind you as one by one they are consumed...

...you stand, dipping your head to drink from a brackish pond barely an inch deep, and you wonder desperately where the lake that once stood here has gone, and where your next drink will come from...

...you stand together with your fellows, and despite the poisoning of the earth around you, you draw that poison up from the ground and concentrate on breaking it down, sequestering it from those creatures that might be harmed more severely...

All these and more swirl through your head as you sleep, and while many are disturbing, even terrifying, even more are inspiring and joyful, and you awake the next morning surprisingly refreshed. The forest around you teems now with signs of life you hadn't noticed yesterday. From the tiniest of insects to the bull elk that grazes casually not twenty feet away from your camp to the countless varieties of trees, the preserve seems somehow refreshed as well.

The Guardian's voice, even after the quiet night, seems quiet and distant. Certainly more so than when you arrived yesterday.

It responds to Yelnar first, but only in images: a stormy sea, with wind-tossed waves towering as they rush toward the shore. A rocky cape juts out into the sea, looming vast as the sea pounds against it. Slowly at first, increasing in speed, time in the vision speeds up. The sea rises and recedes, storms and calms, but the cape remains solid and stoic, wearing away only in small increments over time.

To Verrian, the Guardian says, Death is the natural course of life... bringing death may or may not be part of that course... wisdom lies in considering the question and its answer... I can be of no other help than that, I fear...

There are other entrances and exits to this place, but none that would place you near where you need to go, the Guardian responds. It would be fastest to depart from the portal you used to enter, and travel that way.

My awareness does not extend very far beyond this place, but as far as I am able to sense, the road to where you travel is clear of corrupting influences. Whether that means there is no danger to you, I cannot say. But the land itself feels... whole.