Shadespire

Far from the Spell's space between worlds, Acoria's gates stood open despite the deadly night encroaching upon it. Elder Iranea sat on a blackened wicker chair between the doors, carving away on a piece of blackened wood with naught but her nails. After finishing what seemed to be a leg of some sort of strange creature, her gaze lifted into the distance towards the Soul Tree.

The irises of her black eyes were filled with dozens of tiny silvery runic circles, and an especially long one lit up with a red glow.

After a moment of pondering, she stood, and the chair and piece she had been working on disappeared into silvery sparks.

The gate closed behind her as she walked into the village. Barely a step away from entering the Hall of Elders which Arino had been sent off from, she turned back towards the Soul Tree to see one of its truly vast branches near the top shutter with motion. The runes in her eyes lit up once more as all the doors of the garrison beside her opened. Countless Awakened emerged, ready for a possibly grueling expedition. They had a Dreamer to find.

Arino jolted upright with a gasp, nearly slamming his head on the Soul Tree next to him. He was so caught up with the potential death from his flaw that he had not heard the spell tell him to arise, but here he was, in the wilderness again. This time however, he did not have an Elder to teleport him the majority of the distance. He just had to hope the expedition sent to find him would be able to do so before he was too far off track or killed by some abomination of the night.

'At least now I'll have some time to see how my ability functions.'

He didn't expect much to occur close to the Soul Tree, but the darkness was still dangerous. He needed to stay fully focused until dawn came. Luckily, he could see the moon through the branches of the behemoth sized tree and there would only be a few hours till dawn. Then, he could rest for an hour and begin his return.

By the time the night had ended uneventfully, with the exception of a few bloodcurdling screams from beyond the tree's roots, Arino was ready for dawn's embrace and the sleep he got was just divine. When he arose, he summoned the [Silver Guard] and his new Memory, the [Lotus Stigmata].

It was a strange set of decomposed hands? Arino would have had no clue what they were if it were not for the hideously twisted silver blades extending from their palms. At the base of the hand the wrists were wrapped into grips of sorts, and at the base of the blades was a beautiful pink lotus, like the blades were it's stigma.

Something about the blades was otherworldly, which is to be expected of a Memory of the 6th tier, but the tips of the blades seemed like they held a horrible venom. He wasn't particularly interested in being reminded of that nightmare, so he withheld from reading the Spell's description of the blades.

He was fully armed, he still had a horn full of water, his rucksack, and some basic supplies like rope and flint. He doubted the silver blades he had would not spark on it, nor that an axe could do anything the blades couldn't so he left the unessential weight behind. His newly reinforced constitution wouldn't mind the current weight for dozens of miles, but Arino was more inclined to be prepared for any unexpected interruptions of sorts.

And so, he set off and began searching for an unknown rendezvous point with the village. He knew about most of the landmarks between the village and here, but due to to the nature of the Titans that dwelled deep beneath the earth here, they were often not in the same place. Even worse, he was constantly having to focus the earth beneath him to try to sense calamitous movement.

The [Blessing of Stone] wasn't as powerful out here on this constantly shifting ground, but he could hopefully get a sliver of a warning when the Titan's may begin to shift around beneath him. This wasn't a world that was friendly to a mere Dormant, and many of the plants he passed could have easily devoured him were he a more tasty snack.

There were several odd bugs in his surroundings, little red and blue beetles crawling across and even nibbling on exposed roots. They didn't seem aggressive like Nightmare Creatures, more like the Noble Beasts the Elders of the village spoke about. Strangely, the plants too should have desired to tear him apart.

'They're friendly!' Arino stooped down to look at the odd beetles and a small red one with tiny black dots opened it's shell and beautifully shimmering wings emerged, lifting it to flight. Sparks flew between bits of dust, and the odd mist erupted into a small but ferocious flame.

Jumping back as not to lose his eyebrows, Arino kicked dust over the embers and got back to walking. Several miles passed before he tried to discern the time from the position of the sun, but the jungle surrounding him was untouchable even to direct sunlight.

He could barely make out what seemed to be several smaller lights in the sky around where the sun should be, which explained the shattered shadows beneath him. Unfortunately, this meant he was at one of the deadliest zones he could have wandered into.

The Shadespire Jungle was formed of tree's harvested from the Shadow God's Realm, before it was consumed by Weaver's machinations at least. The strange and wretched Titan who's back acts as a tectonic plate for the locale has an aspect which essentially shattered any elemental influence. Nearly every form of sorcery was useless here, with exception of that which formed the Spell.

The 'Lords' of the area were thought to be sentient by Acoria, since the huge amount of uncorrupted flora and fauna are seen to be a buffet to their Dream Realm inhabitant overlords. Luckily for Arino, he was too insignificant to be devoured without maturing. On the less kind side of that coin, he had to get out of this jungle alone.

If he didn't, the well saturated cores of the Acorian forces would send the jungle into a starved frenzy. There were several spots where fruits were known to drop from the high hanging branches of the Soul Tree which attracted the vast majority of the predators of the area. Arino was lucky to have always been a good student, otherwise he would have long fallen prey to the world that seemed to be trying it's best to kill him.

All he had to do now was avoid making a splash in the ecosystem, killing anything too big, and saturating his core here.