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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xorne" data-source="post: 6377926" data-attributes="member: 61194">Prologue:Wispy trails of stinking, black smoke snaked up from the blurry gloom of a nameless village, traced back to a dozen smoldering fires across thatched roofs and overturned carts.  A large, greasy feathered crow landed heavily on the corner of a taller building near the town’s center, and looked down at the mayhem on the dusty street below.  The setting sun was leaving a red-orange splash of color in erratic streaks where the dark smoke wasn’t blocking the rays, making an unsettling, almost living dance of snake-like shadows across the market square.The crow peered to its right, looking back towards a looming wall of rock and mortar that formed the base of the town keep, perched atop a hill and above the tallest buildings in the rest of the town.  The keep was not exempt from the twisting plumes of smoke, which actually seemed to be drawn towards the main tower of the stronghold.  Dozens of inky tendrils converged as they spiraled up the tower, spinning faster and faster as they rose up the outside of the spire.  The crow launched into the air with a lurching caw of protest.Climbing higher, the walls of the tower disappeared completely beneath a whirling maelstrom of the smoke, now turning into something solid, almost like a fabric made from the shadows of a nightmare.  The town as a whole was swallowed into a gaping maw of loose fabric, forming into a cloak of deepest night that continued to swirl and billow in a torrent of sinister consumption, long after the entire town was gone.  The crow climbed higher, seeing a point of light faintly above it, fleeing the consuming darkness below.The light split and there were then two, gleaming like piercing jewels of power in the obliterated, starless night, where no sun would penetrate.  As the crow flew towards those jewels, a face started to form around those jewels—a man, wearing a flowing robe of the darkest purple, holding something in his outstretched hands, away from the crow.  The bird beat its wings furiously, trying to see what the jewel-eyed man was hiding.With a sudden lurch of motion, the gemstone eyes separated into five distinct pairs of stones.  Ruby, onyx, sapphires, emeralds, and agate—and the crow soared towards them, enthralled with their beauty.  So enthralled, the crow flew ever closer to the floating eyes, as their sparkling countenance began to blur, and melt into liquid pools that swirled together, until they exploded outward in a torrent of havoc--sweltering fire, sizzling acid, freezing ice, rotting fumes, and crackling lightning—and consumed the crow greedily.Rubick sat upright in bed, gasping for breath, feeling an involuntary shiver as a cool breeze wafted across his sweat-soaked nightclothes from the open window in his bedchamber.  He looked about the room in confusion, for a moment still not sure of his surroundings.  That was the third time this night the same dream had plagued him.  Finally regaining enough of his cognitive ability to tell that he was, in fact, awake and in the real world again, he let out a soft grumble and slid out of his bed.Stuffing his feet into a tiny pair of gnome-sized slippers, Rubick grabbed the candle on his bed stand and  spoke a soft word of magic with a whisper.  The wick of the candle burst into flame with a soft pop, and the young gnome smiled inwardly with an appreciation for the arcane possibilities he tapped into, despite being relatively sleepless for three days.  Walking over to a small desk (by human standards) he grabbed a mug from the surface, then walked towards the towering door of the chamber (by gnome standards) and grabbed a cowl from his coatrack to sling over his shoulders as the ventured out into the cold hallway of perfectly fitted stone.Rubick walked down the hallway to the main staircase of the Candlekeep library where he lived, and ascended to one of the upper floors with an expansive garden balcony that overlooked the city, which he found calming.  After propping a pillow he’d brought with him up onto one of the benches, he scaled the human sized slab himself and sat down on the pillow, so that his elbows were at a comfortable angle on the surface of the stone table, out in the moonlight.  He pulled out a small book (by human standards) that had been tucked into the inner pocket of his cowl and started to open it.  Despite the dim light of the moon, he could read the writing clear as on a sunny day, thanks to his gnomish eyes.Apparently he spent the rest of the evening reading the small tome, because the first rays of sunlight were peeking over the outer walls of the city when something broke his concentration.“Don’t gnomes ever sleep?” came a harassing call from behind him.Startled at not realizing he wasn’t alone out on the balcony, Rubick quickly snapped his book shut and tried with dubious success to conceal the small tome back under his cloak before the source of the voice saw it.“Of course we do,” he sputtered, agitated at being taken so unaware.  “I’m just… not tired,” he lied.  He looked across the garden for the female whose voice he recognized.A human girl stepped out from one of the taller shrubberies in the garden, trailing her left hand along a flowering vine that wrapped about a pillared archway leading back into the library.  Rubick knew her by the name Ashlyn, and was pretty sure she was still considered a girl by humans; she looked very young, and wasn’t as rude as he considered most humans when they reached adulthood.  Still, he wasn’t spectacular with telling the age of humans at a glance, nor had he asked her.“Did you have the dream again?”Rubick started to deny the event reflexively, but didn’t see the point—Ashlyn had been outside his room the first time the vision had woken him up screaming three weeks ago, so there was little point in hiding it now.“That’s correct.” He stated with a note of bitterness.  “It’s becoming quite irksome to me.”Ashlyn arched an eyebrow in puzzlement.  “Didn’t you say that you only have the dream every few months?”Rubick did remember telling her that three days ago, when she first heard him wake up screaming.  Now he just wished that it was still true.  Every night when he tried to sleep now, the nightmare returned.  Was it a nightmare, really?  It was ominous, regardless of what title is assigned to the visions.“That used to be the case,” he sighed with concession in his voice, “but apparently that’s not the case anymore.”“This makes...” the girl looked up into the sky as she recalled the times she knew of, “once every tenday?” Ashlyn reached the stone table and sat on the bench opposite him casually.  “What are you going to do?”Rubick felt the book underneath his cloak, tucked safely back into the pocket where is always rested.  “Actually, it’s twice every tenday now.  And I’m going to leave Candlekeep,” the little gnome revealed.There was a small, trifling feeling of amusement in Rubick as he saw the complete shock in Ashlyn’s face.  Leaving Candlekeep was no small act; entrance into the city required an impactful donation to the library, and once a guest left they were not allowed to return without another contribution.  Ashlyn had been born in Candlekeep, and the thought of leaving this haven in a world of relative chaos was something she seemed unable to fathom.Before she could say anything, Rubick explained.  “I came to Candlekeep to understand my dream.  I think I’ve learned all I’m going to here, or at least I’ve run out of time to learn more.  I know where I’m supposed to go—at least I think I do, and it would appear that my visions are imploring that I pay them more heed.”***</blockquote>

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