Zadown

DPS = damage per second, a value which tells how much killing power ye have toon = character main = the character somebody plays the most, or somebody's only character alt = somebody's (usually lower level) character they don't play as much as they do their main ebay = the ultimate EQ insult, calling somebody ebay roughly means implicating they've bought their character and have no skill whatsoever with it CR = corpse run/retrieval disc = discipline, a melee ability to do something extraordinary for a short period of time before having to wait a long time to be able to reuse it WS = weaponshield, ranger ability to avoid all frontal melee damage AA = alternative advancement points; you get them with xp an ye can buy new abilities with them but only if yer 51+ level ML = main looter, a person who loots all the mobs and then redistributes the loot as per group's loot rules MT/MA = main tank/main assist, the person the mobs are supposed to be attacking while the rest of the group or raid stab em in the back ST = secondary tank, the person who waits MT to die to get his 9.5 seconds of glory before he dies 0.5 sec before the first complete heal would've hit Then there's endless list of AA skill and spell and zone name abbrevations, but even veteran EQ players don't know 'em all so listing them here is useless. AHG3 might say something to a cleric but most warriors respond to it with a "Huh?" (it's Advanced Healing Gift 3 in case somebody was wondering).

Happy birthday Peredhil! Glad Val tipped me off, otherwise I would've missed the party.

Another streak of fire clawed it's way across the sky. It crackled and hissed, then passed below him, beyond hearing. He took a long swig and put the bottle away. A slight shudder went through him as he turned his beautiful face heavenwards, let a perfect smile illuminate his handsome features. Moving in small overly controlled measures of a drunk he made himself more comfortable on his high perch, paid close attention to his wings after he almost knocked his bottle down. It'd be hard to find this stuff soon. A blackened corpse fell wreathed in crimson flames, hugging itself with blackened bones that used to be arms and hands. It passed closer than the previous one, let the dying wind carry the smell of charred flesh and burnt feathers. He picked the bottle again with meticulous care, savouring the feel of the bottle in his hand, the weight and reality of it. Clear liquid sloshed inside the bottle as he raised it to his lips, took another slug. The shudder was more pronounced this time and he did not even try to supress it. He let his eyes close, tried to feel the bricks under him, behind him through the white silk of his robes. Opening his eyes slowly, he turned his focus on the vivid cerulean blue of the sky ahead, deliberately not looking straight up. Across his field of vision two new ones fell, locked in a final struggle. The fire had burnt out all differences - what remained was two brothers in embrace dropping down from the sky, blackened eyesockets fixed on the rapidly approaching earth, gaping mouths opened in a final mute protest to the unfairness of it all. They vanished, left only some ash adrift in the wind. Soon it'd be all over. He hung down his noble head, stared at his own knees through half-closed eyelids. The bottle made a startling 'clunck' noise as it hit the top of the chimney. He devoured the noise, listened to it with the hunger of somebody who knows there will be no more feasts. When it had disappeared utterly he took a look at the bottle, made the tiniest of shrugs and drank the rest. Sadness creeped over his face when he finished. Looking down to the far-away ground, he let the bottle fall.

Marks the post with Approved for the Dreamer Canon stamp.

http://www.bartleby.com/105/72.html <--- "Death, be not proud" .. as a non-native english user it's meaning and spirit eludes me, but I can't read Kalevala either so I guess I'm just stupid like that when it comes to poetry. That's intresting stuff, Hopper. About the only thing I know about poems is that I don't know anything about them, but I'm always willing to learn.

The water is the same temperature as my skin. I float in a silent void, dimly feeling the borderline between the lake and the sky. I let myself forget my limbs, my lungs, knowing that the secret of floating is to not to concentrate on it. I forget my nearby friend, the lingering smell of smoke and soot, the pier twisted by moving ice in winter, the road waiting to bring me back to civilization. The sound of my breathing reverberates through me, is one of the few sensations left. Above me darkening sky is filled with clouds, all different shades of grey. Trees crowd the edges of my vision, a black-green frame for the picture. I can almost forget who I am, here.

Falcon - getting bard title used to be so much easier in the old days. Wonder if anybody still remembers from where that one is...

Congrats to all .. and especially to my old apprentice Valdy!

Anybody giving spoilers at this point will be shot! ... at least with water pistol or something.

Happy birthday Z!

Prelude It’s too hot in here. The air simmered with heat. It was as he was in a huge sauna, all furnished with baroque style, or in a Hell’s waiting room: red velvet, black wood twisted in tormented shapes, bronze and steel, huge chairs and massive tables. Only the flames in the fireplace illuminated them – all windows were covered, making the heat even more oppressive. Jacob Vladonov wiped some sweat off his forehead with his already wet sleeve and tried with limited success to concentrate on his master’s elaborate plan. He glanced up from his cards and watched his master carve words on the air with his right arm as he explained some minor point or perhaps was really giving needed information. Jacob shut his eyes for a short moment and fought against the lack of sleep and the hotness. “… for, as you should know, my agent, the moons and planets are moving on their tracks according to the heavenly rules and agreements, and their eternal race is nearing a checkpoint, a moment of conjunction if you will. The effects of this rare occurrence should be readily apparent to even a mind of limited capabilities as yours, but in case you have been neglecting thinking lately, let me illuminate the very nature of the situation it places us in, and again state the small but not completely insignificant role you, my messenger, shall play in this chess game of powers. The sides, or North and South as the local population of degenerate humanoids call them, are …” The small, grey-clad middle-aged man called Jacob tried to force a look of alertness on his tired face even though he knew master would not be looking at him. He would not be looking, but he would certainly expect him to do his duties, no matter how hard it was to follow the intricate and thin thread of thought his master wove with his words. At the moment the story of the mission seemed to wander off its intended path and digress to the territory of obvious background information, as was usual with his master. Rubbing his left temple to fight against a growing headache, he let the words flow past him, confident that he’d notice when the story would veer closer to the actual mission again. With his right hand he shuffled his deck of cards, dealing himself a hand of four cards over and over again. The distant thunder of artillery drifted in through the covered windows, muffled to the point of sounding almost like a far-away music. Hope it doesn’t take hours, I’m too old for that in weather like this. The Fool, the High Priestess, Temperance, Justice … hmmm. Odd to get four of the Major Arcana like that. He left the four cards lying as they were and grimaced slightly as he put his deck down. His master was again talking about his part in the mission. Time to listen. * * * “But I don’t WANNA!” wailed Minta. “I wanna go play with the froggies, nownow! I was just learnin’ how to split them an’ I want a frog zombie!” The little gnome sniffed and her hands wandered to her pocket, pulling forth a pixy-stix. “This place is dumb, just rocks an’ stone an’ books.” She jumped on a table while slurping the stix to get a better look of the place, hoping that somewhere would be something interesting, like a skeleton or something sweet. However the room was as she had described: a small library room, walls of bare stone, a few forlorn books on the half-finished shelves, rocks here and there. Rosemary sat in the corner, drawing in the dust with a yellow finger bone. The results weren’t circles, not any more – they were ellipsoids cutting through each other, creating a net of intersections. She rose, sand and dust falling off her yellow robes and turned to look at Minta. “Viewing four, four major lay. Intersecting adjoining conjunctions stories parts play. Follow the deck … in and away.” She smiled beatifically and lowered her gaze to study Minta’s shadow. Tzimfemme sneered at the show. “Twisted ramblings! This interrupted my travels too; there’d better be a good reason to meet here in Shadowhaven.” She took off her gauntlets and tossed them on the table with more force than necessary, then moved as to remove the rest of her plate armour but stopped, uncharacteristically showing signs of uncertainty. There was something wrong -otherwise she wouldn’t have come. Minta ignored Rosemary’s words and jumped down from the table to touch Rydia. “Tag! Your it!” She then ran away, but the room was too small and she stopped in dismay at the other corner before the dust drawings. Rydia didn’t follow but frowned and bit her lip. She too felt the wrongness, saw it in Tzimfemme’s posture. Her ears drooped. “Not now Minta…” * * * “ … and thus, should this unnatural state opposite of the current status quo be achieved, the forces I represent and you serve would be so greatly inconvenienced as to be downright threatened by the new order. As you consider this, I’m sure you can see how displeased we would be in case the plans we have devised would be compromised by your incompetence, laziness or bad luck, so you should see the virtues in composing a set of actions that would negate all possible unwanted results. As a matter of fact …” The mission was more or less clear now, but still his master droned on. The heat got worse and worse and he felt sleepy. Jacob’s eyes shut for two long seconds, and then they fluttered open, trying to focus on his master’s silhouette, only to have his blurred gaze fall to the cards. He blinked, not believing his eyes at first: they were shifting and changing – without his permission! The Fool was a small girl with indigo hair, brilliant sun shining in the upper right corner. She held a hammer and a pulsating white light and behind her loomed a cackling skeleton, tall and threatening. The High Priestess hadn’t changed as much – she now wore yellow robes over the blue ones and a plethora of silver jewellery. Her vivid eyes looked out from the card with blind intensity and on the black and white pillars of the card had been engraved spiralling circles and interwoven runes. Third card, Temperance, now had a female pointy-eared angel suspended in mid-air, wearing sparkling shiny armour. Her hair was green and her wings seemed to fade into the background slowly, reluctantly. In the fourth card sat a naked woman holding a severed decaying arm and a flail. The two pillars of Justice were cracked and eroded, sky above clouded with lightning bolts zigzagging through it. The woman stared back at Jacob with an imperial gaze, long brown hair cascading over her bare shoulders. Ice filled his veins and sleepiness disappeared as cold sweat started to pour out of his every pore. He could feel his master reaching inside him now, plucking the strings of his talent with a freezing presence. The cards were alive under his terrified gaze, but not letting them to captivate him, dreading what he’d see, he turned to look at his master again. The master was standing right before him. Shocked to silence by seeing his master face to face the first time in all these decades Jacob stood still. And when the master spoke again, his voice boomed, struck at him like a beast’s fetid breath: “You thought your talent is yours and yours only, something to keep a secret? You are our creature, messenger – your talent is ours. Behold! The barriers between places grow thin, and I have summoned four daemons to help you and to guard you in this mission. Do not fail me!” Jacob cringed and hid behind lifted arms in an attempt to ward himself from his master’s unfamiliar fit of anger. The last shouted words hit him like a gust of wind, and the hand of cards he had dealt flew up and away before he could catch them. Clutching the rest of his deck he took a step and another backwards, dripping cold sweat to the floor. When he finally lowered his arm to look around him, his master had gone. But there were four burning rune-circles hovering above the floor… * * * Their shadows turned darker than night, so deep black they weren’t a colour any more. Creeping across the stone floor faster than an army of spiders they surrounded their hosts and then turned into holes, devouring the girl, angel and two vampires. Minta had time to shout: “WHEE..!” Then the unfinished room in Shadowhaven’s library was empty and silent again. They appeared again in a vast room hot as Solusek’s Eye, red velvet covering the windows, dark wood carved into twisting shapes everywhere and a small boring old man in front of them. Around them red runes and sigils of summoning flared one last time in the air over the floor, then dissipated. Around their necks those same runes shimmered and danced, solidifying into astral collars. Tzimfemme was the first to react. “Take this thing OFF me NOW!” She let out a wordless snarl and grabbed the collar trying to rip it off with bare hands. Finding the futility of that after a frenzied second or two she drew the Lobotomy and threw it at the frightened grey-clad man. Or tried to – mid-throw the runes around her neck flashed and sent lances of pain through her, making her stumble and fall to her knees. At the same time, Minta protested loudly as she realized that she was collared. Jacob stared at the four of them and swallowed loudly. “Umm… hello?” * * * “… so we are here to act as messengers? And he called us daemons?” Rydia looked slightly puzzled. “Yes and mmhhmm … yes”, muttered Jacob staring at his toes and opened the door. It was late evening, almost night – the light that poured in was deep blue, more illuminating the fact it was dark than helping to see. The ambient thunder of ceaseless artillery fire was faint in the background, unseasonably sparse. In front of them they could see the jagged outline of ruined skyscrapers, faint lights marking the few lived in apartments. Below their feet was rusty iron, above them cloudy sky, horizon marked by occasional red flashes of explosions. “My master is not the most ... mmhm … practical person. But I doubt he’ll release you before we have done this … mhhhmm … quest. He is very particular about these things, I’m afraid.” “And this will help the war to continue? But why would anybody want that?” Rydia’s puzzlement stayed on her face while she wound between the worst sharp metal shards and trash mounds. Her expression transformed into a displeased frown when she realized just how much rust there were; it was practically a graveyard of shininess. Tzimfemme barked a short laugh even before Jacob’s face turned so white it could be seen in the deepening darkness. “But … it is the war, miss! It has always been there!” In his words was the panic of faith questioned. “We need the Zone, miss. Take it away and we have nothing. Nothing!” In his agitation he forgot to stumble over his words. None of the three continued the conversation. Following Rosemary in the failing light was hard enough as it was. * * * They had reached the edge of the town and from there the border of the Zone. Jacob paused to regard the guarded gate to the camp and shivered in the cooling air, tried to shake his sweaty clothes loose from his skin. He never liked coming here, but this is what he did, why he had been granted extra years of life. And now … they had a problem. Alone he could’ve just talk with the guard, get through the usual paths. People changed here, sometimes rapidly, but they all knew him in some vague way. He was the old messenger, harmless and trustworthy. These women would never be allowed to pass that way. What was the master thinking? They just make it all more complicated! He turned to look at the three women, the girl having scampered away sometime during the walk. To his horror the one in yellow-blue robes hadn’t stopped but was walking away from the safe path towards the other side of the camp and the mine fields, the two others following her. With a half-swallowed sigh he run after them. Whispering angrily at the least frightening of the three, the green-haired one, he tried to make them stop. Rydia just smiled. “It is safe to walk with her leading. She calculates the way – see?” She pointed at the arrowhead pendulum and the hand abacus Rosemary was using. Hesitating as a thought entered her head Rydia halted briefly and looked behind them. “Minta?” But the darkness behind them was silent. Her ears drooped slightly from worry but she kept on walking. Tzimfemme noticed her concern distastefully and grimaced. “Ha! She’ll be all right. I’d worry more about the locals.” They all gathered at the point where the dangerous path ended and the truly dangerous started. A skull sign was hammered into the ground, dirt and rust making it a piece of landscape. Deep in the darkness on the other side of the deadly field a lone red star flickered and shone: a watchman’s cigarette. In the eerie, total silence Jacob realized that the distant thunder of artillery had fallen silent. It was a real sign of the apocalypse, enough to make him shudder in a way that had nothing to do with cold. A sense of unreality washed over him and he reached for his deck – there would be a way to get past the mines, past the watchmen and to deliver the message, even if it would require several cards. He had already lost four of his Major Arcana. Nothing could make it worse. No reason could be greater than to end this horrible silence. And he would not dare to risk the wrath of his master, not after what he had said about this mission. Drowning in that unreality he turned at a movement glimpsed out of the corner of his eye was. A silvery arrowhead glinted mutely in the dim light pointing towards the burning red spark in front of them, an arrow set to strung bow. The yellow-blue robed woman drew the arrow a bit more, then loosed. Far from them the red star flickered, fell, vanished. Without a word Rosemary unstrung her bow and started following her pendulum through the minefield once again. * * * The soldier was young and clean, clad in rust-grey fatigues. He stared at them with a critical look on his spotless face, standing straight and angular in the middle of his small tent like a statue made of gunmetal. “So, civilians, you are telling me that North wants to meet in the demilitarised zone? Why such an irregular group of messengers?” He turned his icy gaze on Rosemary, then to Tzimfemme, then Rydia. The mental temperature in the room was, if possible, even lower than the actual one. Jacob had stuttered through the message, with the soldier’s face twisting in disgust at the poor and halting delivery, which contempt made Jacob stutter even more. Tzimfemme snapped and lunged forward to grab the soldier’s lapels. “Stop staring at the unimportant details! We are here, message is delivered, now act on it!” She released him and took a step back but unreleased anger still hung around him, a black cloud of irritation waiting to thunder. She had been imprisoned before and she hadn’t liked it the first time around. The real messenger moved as to go between the soldier and Tzimfemme, but the motion was half-hearted and insincere. Sweat glistened on his pale skin as he muttered, barely audibly: “Mmmhh, she is right … mmhhm. You know me and how I’ve … mhmm … always delivered true messages.” But Jacob could see the doubt in the soldier’s eyes. And so with an inward sigh he moved back, let the daemon-woman have the stage for long enough for him to use his only, secret, precious talent. Drawing the card he needed from the deck (and he knew it was the right one without looking), he threw it away, one more lost to this mad mission. It dropped at first, and then some unseen wind picked it, made it twist and turn, fly out and vanish to the night sky. Before it was lost it was illuminated one last time by the torches inside the tent: behind eight staves of wood coming from the upper left corner towards the lower right one a column of cars and tanks travelled, kicking up a huge cloud of dust that obscured the blue sky. Somewhere, quite close now, the guns roared. The silence was broken.

Umm.. this friday (which is at the ripe old age of 4:30am here right now) is 27th, not 29th. 29th is sunday. At least that's what the calender in the world I am living in says...

It's good stuff. No point in not reading the books just because it's popular.

A well written window to a world I do not know .. and never will.

I reach the beach with wet shoes. One of those forgotten places, near civilization but paths avoid it. Two tires greet me, half submerged into the lake. They rule supreme over an assortment of smaller trash sitting there looking smug. Behind me cars pass the spot one at a time. They sing their nightly solo of steel and rubber and asphalt, knowing they will be relegated to a minor part in the chorus during the day. Interludes are hummed by the forest, cried by the birds - a different piece altogether and far older. My gaze sweeps from left to right, notes the road leading nowhere, glides over the mirror-smooth water and stops at an odd tripod of wood. I do not know what it was, or is - but I can see it is huge, the part that has been exposed by the drought well over twice my height. Behind it glow the constellations of a factory's lights, bright yellow and orange and blue stars. I still let my gaze linger on the tripod, idle hands trying to find the camera I never had. In the end I nod to it, sagely, as if knowing what it was all about.

Low growl of a car fades to distance. The silence is profound, something hard to attain so close to a city, beautiful in it's rarity. Absence of noise pours extra strength to the vision before me - even the faint smells sharpen, turn more green. I stand alone in a canyon of stone. Behind me is nothing important. In front of me a deep black tunnel gapes open, a pair of steel rails running inside. On both sides is a sheer stone wall, made taller by a barrier of birches. In the low light the dew-soaked trees and weeds are vividly, deeply green. A color impossible to paint, too real to accurately remember. Standing there on the rails, I realize what it would be like to gaze into the cave of a dragon.

Heya evil woman who always blows my cover! ;P

It's a poll in electronic media, what do ye expect?

You not-quite forced me (not-quite since polite people don't) to continue translating my old poems after I had translated a few. The original had a different name, but then again when ye translate a poem to another language it changes more than simple prose. So I thought it fitting for this one to be titled thus. Edit: I just wonder how many poems I did translate - my finnish archives have 34 poems. Hmmm.

Princess Mononoke had an excellent plot that rises in tension towards the end continously, making you to grip yer seat's armrests, while Spirited Away is sadly chaotic in a bad way. It might be better for children suffering from ADD, and the animation might be better, but I loved Princess Mononoke - Spirited Away was pretty but that's it.

The sweet sounds of nature hummed all around the forest as though harmonizing with his thoughts. He felt his awarness expand all around him like a huge balloon. Spiders .. a bear nearby .. wolves .. ahh, there it is! Aramye draw his sword and axe and started running forward to the direction he felt the disturbance in the nature's harmony. His movements were effortless and swift, and after a few steps he seemed to blend with the green colors of the forest and all but vanished from sight. Noiselessly, camouflaged, he glided forward like an owl that had seen a mouse. When he got closer to his goal, even the sounds of the forest faded. Birds and small animals alike had sensed something wrong and kept well clear of the .. something that had invaded his forest. Hurrying forward to end this disturbance as quick as possible Aramye almost ran too far, but the whiff of corruption in the air made him stop before it was too late. He came to a halt behind a tall bush and peered through it to the meadow beyond with his enchanted eyes. There, ambling through his grass and turning it black and dead, was the disturbance, the evil he had felt - an animated mummy dragging behind it a gigantic sceptre. The mummy was cutting a gruesome path of decay through the plantlife, and the ranger winced in physical pain as he saw it. Not pausing to think any further, he muttered a word and gestured towards the undead menance. The weeds heeded his call and rose in a wave to trap the dead thing, only to die and wither as they touched the wrappings. Uh oh. Sensing the nature magic directed against it, the mummy turned and attacked with a wordless roar. Acting by pure instinct Aramye muttered a different word, made a different gesture, but the roots surging from the ground to stop the undead thing's charge met the same fate as the weeds. And now it was close, very close. Cursing to himself he gestured the third time and had a short moment of satisfaction when the brushfire he conjured scorched the mummy, then it was upon him. The sceptre rose and whistled towards his head. Feeling a sick sense of despair flood him at the speed of the attack, Aramye nevertheless managed to fling himself aside, dodging the blow. It connected with earth instead, shattering a stone bigger than the ranger's head. Aramye took hasty a step back and drew a deep breath as his opponent rised the huge weapon up. Then the mummy attacked again without any noise or warnining, but this time he was ready. Twirling both of his weapons deftly he blocked the blow and riposted with lightning speed, striking the animated corpse with an endless stream of blows. Again the mummy attacked, only to be blocked and then riposted, not caring about the fact it was turning into tattered shreds. The ranger blocked a third blow with seeming ease, then surged forward hacking with both sword and axe, and managed to chop off mummy's right arm. Realizing it's defeat, the animated cadaver turned and started lumbering back the way it had came. Aramye, now covered with a sheen of sweat and trembling from the effort of maintaining the concentration blocking those attacks had needed, just threw his axe instead of pursuing. It spun through the air and time seemed to slow - then it connected and time sped up again, and he fell to his knees, totally exhausted. A short moment passed before he got his breath back. Then he rose slightly unsteadily and walked to the corpse, noticing how dirty his axe had gotten in the fight. Grumbling he dislodged his axe from the back of the now limp form of the creature. Filthy undead .. I must go and find out what sent this to my forest. Frowning to himself he held both of his soiled weapons away from his nose and walked slowly away from the rapidly decomposing corpse. Once he had gotten away from the horrible smell, he started to clean his blades, whistling and started to smile - one more enemy defeated with no scratch or wound to show. And then his rising good mood made his realize he had almost forgotten his original mission! Hastily finishing the chore Aramye jumped up and ran away to find what he had been looking for in the first place. * * * "Here, cookies can get you anything." Aramye smiled and gave the flowers he had collected to Malinda. "Huh? What's so special about these flowers? You look like picking these up was some heroic deed." But she did smile back. And that was what counted. Written in memoriam of all the rangers I have neglected to heal - next time use /disc weaponshield, kkthx~la!

I can do the organization, all of it, as a sort of enlightened dictator ... or dumb tyrant, whichever. I've organized numerous live-action RPGs in the past and they all started in time, what came as a shock to many of the participants. If Valdar decides to pass the sceptre to me, I'll post further info later. And oh, I'll join too as a writer (which means I might need to assign myself in the loop, bah).

Happy birthday! o_O

Wyvern fixed the two squirrels with an expecting gaze and started tapping the floor in the beat of the Money Song with one of his taloned feet. The smile, very toothy and very yellow, remained fixed on his face. "So, cough it up! It's 100 geld per squirrel .." Lewis and Simon sighed - that didn't sound that bad. ".. for me to start processing your entry fees, that is." If possible, Wyvern's smile grew wider. And both squirrels switched their attention from him to something behind him, their eyes widening in almost comic look of suprise. Dismissing it as the old oh-look-behind-you trick the almost draconic enterpriser kept on staring at the squirrels, determined to not to let such an easy prey flee. He did not turn even when he felt a wave of cold air hit his back or when he heard the sound of heavy boots right behind him. Then he heard something that made him forget Lewis and Simon in a blink of an eye: coins clinking against each other. He turned so fast he half-stumbled on his own tail only to freeze in place by the vision before him. It was the Dreamer, drenched in blood and sweat and steaming gently, his weapon dripping something vile that ate little holes to the stone floor. The planewalker was wearing a mismatching set of plate and chain, silk and leather, and on his right hand he held a flail with three heads .. and on his left, few coins of platinium. "Greetings, Wyvern. I trust you were here to show hospitality to our guests, neh? As for their entry fees, this should pay them in full. And I mean .. in full" The Dreamer dropped four heavy coins depicting some god in shiny platearmor into Wyvern's waiting claw and nodded a curt greeting to the squirrels. "Oh yes, this'll do for now!" With those words still hanging in the air Wyvern was already running to weight and measure his newest profit, squirrels and the grim planewalker totally forgotten. "Um, thanks ... Zadown?" said Simon, uncertainly. He had located a small hole in the roof he just might make it through but was feeling no more relaxed now. At least Wyvern wasn't much of a mage. And Zadown hadn't looked quite like this the last time. Lewis just whimpered softly and took a step backwards. The Dreamer swing his gaze from the retreating scaly back of Wyvern to the squirrels. His astral-blue eyes seemed very deep and very distant, only partly here, when he studied the two squirrels. "Say hi to yer master if ye see him, little ones. Good journeys." He nodded again mostly to himself, and walked slowly away. Lewis breathed a sigh of relief.

The normal thoughts marched through his bald head – the usual parade of stats, dreams and shallow virtual memories, all centred on his current favourite computer game. This and that could be reached, if he could spare the hours for the boring xp grind, wrist and boots could be upgraded with some raid gear, so on and so on, a tight looped train of thought chasing its own tail. In the background his decrepit shoes made their odd, loud noise every time they hit asphalt. Wind blowing through their holes, then through the holes in his socks distracted the lone traveller in the night and made him aware of his surroundings, got him to raise his gaze from the dark road. Somewhere deep inside his brain a switch clicked to a new position. It had hovered between the everyday “Existential Angst” and “Escapist Obliviousness”, but now it snapped to “Existential Euphoria” for a brief moment. The world, the real one, came into focus: an asphalt road curving to the right, black in the unreal light of northern spring night, vividly blue but mostly clouded sky suspended above him in the state between dark and light, streetlights blazing as modern stars so close you could almost touch them. Trees, birches still mere naked wooden skeletons, firs as clothed as always, lining the road on both sides even here almost in the heart of this little town, a real forest of them covering the hill on the other side of the road; ugly square houses and silent, sleeping cars ahead, towards the centre of the town. No other people anywhere, no distant sounds of cars, no flickering blue lights of TVs, ambulances or police cars in sight. Instead the soft velvet-like silence of undisturbed night was cut to shreds by birds trying to out-sing each other. They claimed their territories and did it unopposed – this time of the night was theirs, even if some silly human was still walking around. It smelled faintly of the promise of growth, of dew and rain and decay. The smells of a forest. He lowered his gaze again and continued his ungainly but fast walk. The moment had passed. He could not decipher the birds, and as all noises incomprehensible it too turned into white noise, then faded to background. In front of him the first hints of dawn started to appear in the horizon, the light not getting a good hold on his black clothes but defining even him better by contrast – behind him the birds went on with their gossip, disturbed less by the traveller than they had disturbed him.