The dreaming world swirled with color in the night, and the stars above swam unreal circles and swirls in the lucid skies above. The half moon hung suspended too close to earth, like a pendant lamp dangling just above.
The manor’s people were all safely hidden away in their rooms, like so many frightened little mammals hiding away from the darkness, and it was a darkness waiting so eagerly to devour them. The screaming and howling of the forests grew closer every night.
Mine’s voice rang through the air, and Ban-Fei the Nightbringer answered. He did not speak with words, but the sky changed above her head. Where there was once a moon, now there glowed an ember-red circle of light, the sun eclipsed in the blacker than black expanse of the dreaming heavens. It was a sign, one that seemed to say ‘Yes, it is I.’
Mine descended the levels of the manor, and found the Vaults. Here there were treasures of the ages, from new and marvelous objects of magitek, to ancient artifacts that hummed with inner power. She might not see it in the waking world, but here in the Between, she’d see their magicks swirl like living watercolor, seeping into their surroundings and staining the dream in multicolored beauty. Many of these artifacts were weapons, some were jewelry, and a rare few were full sets of armor and clothing.
Deeper. The earth was as black as the sky when she came to the next level, the Undervaults. Prison. Iron bars and darkness. There were two prisoners within. One of them was a scarred viera woman who was asleep in a corner of her cell, at ease in spite of her surroundings. The other was a Garlean, pureblood, and this man was wide awake. He was not familiar to Mine, but he was an older man, grey in hair and tired in eyes. His beard said he’d been here a while.
There was not an Alsis to be found. Some of the other cells, however, looked like they had been recently used.
Deeper.
Mine sank into the dark, the yawning depths beneath the Undervaults, but something stopped her from descending. There was a force at play, one preventing her from going any further down.
Her voice echoed in the dark, and the dark echoed back.
“Save us!”
“We are here!”
“We hear you, please find us!”
The auspices all cried out to her, somewhere in the black below.
Though she could not descend any further, Mine would spot a vital clue. The entrance to the Vaults had been in the courtyard and the Lady’s chambers. On the other hand, the entrance to the Undervaults appeared to be in a basement tucked away behind the mess hall and kitchen. Its double-doored hatch entrance was large enough for any prisoner the Sect would bring, be it humanoid or otherwise.
She now knew where the auspices had gone.