Depending on who you ask, omens are powerful things. Dreams can be prophetically significant, as can mysterious whispers in the dark. An animal may guide your path to discovery and realization, or an ancestor. The specifics in this case are less important than the following warning you receive:
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You wander the dark until you discover a large tent surrounded by torches. The flames are a sickly green, their unholy light slithering through the shadows like putrid tendrils. Despite the cool autumn wind, the fire is still, as if boasting some dominance over the forces of nature.
This isn’t a place you want to be. Deep in your bones, you know it isn’t right, but you keep moving forward, drawn past your fear and toward the truth.
You linger by the entrance to the tent, an uninvited guest. There are voices within.
“Calladen was a fool to leave behind such treasures. With weapons such as these, our forces will sweep through the countryside and put an end to this childish resistance,” says the first voice. It is both callous and exhausted in tone, speaking with certainty rather than optimism.
“Not enough blood left in those remains, Roman,” says a second voice.
“Edwyn doesn’t need the blood, you lascivious dizzy-eyed pumpion. Any piece of Zermarx or Lucius will do,” Roman snapped at his companion.
There is the sound of a whimper in response, but it rapidly grows into a girlish giggle of delight.
“You must really want to make them hurt. Do you think they will cry?”
“That is no concern of mine.”
“You’re no fun, Roman. I want to play with them and hear them sing beautiful dying songs.”
“We are at war, Claudia. Your childish games are secondary to fulfilling our master’s purpose. Pull yourself together, or have you forgotten that we already failed to retrieve the vial of the Serpent God’s blood? If we are to be worthy of our order, we will return in victory. I will not have the Knights of the Aberrant Gate and all our deeds again mocked in a public court.”
A feeling of unease grows in the pit of your stomach. There is a crack of red lightning across the sky, and that’s when you realize you’re standing in the middle of a war camp, not merely beside a single tent. You are surrounded by lifeless soldiers still as statues, and the red light of desecration flares to life within their sunken eye sockets. Their numbers go on for miles, and at that moment, you awaken.