'Where... am I?'
Cracking open his eyes slightly, a greenish warmth pulsed in his surroundings as various shapes flitted about around him at incredible speeds.
Whatever those things were, they sure didn't bother to stay long enough for Ren to get a good look at as they were replaced by a seemingly unending tide of blobby shapes that swirled around him
Staring at it all, Ren felt the green tide shift
He didn't know where it started, but by the time Ren noticed, the Green Tide was starting to churn dangerously, undulating and shaking as they crashed into a black screen
Feeling his heart thunder against his chest as the swirling green continued to shake and scream in ways that elicited anxiety, Ren closed his eyes in the panic.
Then he woke up
'I died!?' Jolting back upright, a familiar sight greeted his eyes as his ears took in the silence interrupted by his own panicked breaths.
A cave.
'A dream? No, a Nightmare? Was that all just a nightmare?'
Shakily getting a hold of his breath, Ren looked at the both of his hands and confirmed that they were both in fact intact.
'So it's all a dream.'
Sighing a sigh of relief as his body slumped against the rock, Ren placed his hand against his face only to feel bandages against it.
Blinking in confusion at the sensation of coarse fabric, he rubbed his hand against his face and felt bandages wrapped all around the right side of his face.
Instinctively trying to blink his right eye and failing to do so, Ren hurriedly looked at his legs and tapped his right ankle.
Feeling a subtle pain jolt through it as he did, Ren grimaced and thought. 'So not all of it's a nightmare.'
Remembering the face of that Traitor who had taken both an eye and the ability to walk properly from him, Ren grimaced and felt for the dove.
Feeling its familiar presence, Ren grunted as he turned his body and pushed against the ground and paused just as his hand made contact with the ground.
'Sticky.'
Feeling at what should've just been dusty old normal ground, Ren felt his heartbeat quicken as his brain finally realised what he had been subconsciously ignoring all this time.
'The scent of blood.'
Ren sniffed at the air.
'It's thick in the air and the ground.'
It had dried somewhat, but the smell of iron was still thick in the air, a bloody scent that would only appear if there was enough blood to be had.
Lifting his hand as the rest of him followed, Ren gulped down his saliva as several worries spawned from the hyper realistic nightmare he had just spawned appeared in his mind.
Sure he distinctly remembered the pain of losing his arm and not so much his leg, but since they were still here and functioning, it should've just been a hyper realistic nightmare.
"Right?"
Looking around as his eyes slowly but surely adjusted to whatever light was available to him, Ren bit the bottom of his lip
'That doesn't look good.'
Despite it being incredibly dark and mostly grey in what he could see, Ren could make it darker than normal splotches coloring the walls... everywhere basically.
A quick touch of the hand proved that these darker than normal grey splotches was blood.
'Not blood right?' Recalling the scene of the nightmare where his body was torn to shreds by that Tiger, Ren hurriedly shook his head and felt for the dove on his chest.
'No. It's impossible for that to have happened.' Ren hurriedly rationalised. 'I wouldn't have all my limbs if that was the case.'
Stomping his left leg and pinching his left arm to confirm that they were indeed intact and not figments of his own imagination, Ren once again confirmed the existence of his pained leg.
'That Barbarian attack still happened though.'
Ren swallowed his saliva as he looked around and finally noticed the numerous boulders hidden under the black splotches of blood.
'And if the Barbarian Attack happened, then what happened? Why am I here?'
Heart nearly escaping his chest as his hand twitched at the thought of seeing that Tiger that had appeared in that Nightmare again, Ren looked at the broken apart walls and imagined himself splattered across it.
It didn't take much imagination when a distinct memory of it happening still existed.
'Actually...' Ren paused as he parsed through the unpleasant memory, recalling how he had been smacked around by that tiger skeleton.
'There's a very simple way to confirm if all of that happened.'
Ren wasn't sure if he liked or dislike the option, but for the sake of his mental ability and hopeful non existent existential crisis, he was going through with it.
'I think I saw the Tiger from the left as he dug at the wall.'
Mentally tracing the vague place where the Tiger was, he slowly but surely stepped forwards over the bloodied and boulder covered ground.
Gingerly stepping over one more boulder, Ren paused when he saw a broken stick on the ground.
'...That might just be a coincidence right?' Hoping for... something, anything that wasn't what he was terrified about, Ren gingerly moved past the enormous pile of crushed stone and looked.
'Oh thank god it's just a nightmare.'
Breathing a harsh sigh of relief at the sight of absolutely nothing behind the giant pile of crushed rubble, Ren stared at the dead end and turned to see an eye staring directly at him
"!?"
Flinching and stepping back at the sudden sight, when he looked around for whatever it was was looking at him, Ren found nothing around.
'Am I hallucinating now?' Rubbing the back of his head as he stepped forwards, Ren felt something kick against his foot and saw something that caused his stomach to drop instantly.
An eye.
One that had been sliced in half at that.
One that was directly next to the broken remnants of a spear head.
One that should've just been a figment of his horrible imagination.
Hand trembling now as he bent down and touched the Spear head first, the cold touch of metal stained with blood met him with solid confirmation of its existence.
The eye...
A brief but hesitant touch confirmed absolutely nothing as his hand jolted back as if the eye would suddenly summon a tiger that would devour him.
It didn't.
Ren licked his lips in a mix of anticipation and fear, his heart beating against the cage of bones surrounding it as his trembling hand touched the eye again, now holding it with eyes closed.
"...."
'Nothing?'
Cracking open an eye lid and seeing another pair of eyes right in front of his face, Ren snapped back in shock, his back colliding against the wall as he clutched his chest in fear.
By extension holding the dove against his shirt like a sign to ward off those demons that the Pilgrims always talked about, Ren's eyes snapped around looking for before a blue flash nearly elicited a scream from him.
"!??!"
Head snapping back as fear filled his eyes which soon closed in the anticipation of whatever it was eating and killing him, Ren felt his heart try to escape his chest before...
Nothing...
Absolutely nothing...
It seemed as if everything was just in his mind.
Cracking open an eye, Ren instantly closed them when the blue dot still floated in front of him
'Please don't eat me.'
Staying stock still pressed against the wall with eyes closed praying that the weird blue light wouldn't eat him, more moments of unknown length passed.
He cracked open an eye with no other choice and noted that the light was still in front of him and hadn't moved in the slightest.
'Please please plEAASE don't eat me.'
Praying desperately for life in his mind, it wasn't until several more moments of unknown length passed did he crack open the eye again and notice that the blue light meant no harm.
'It's still scary.'
Nightmare of the Tiger using its blue eyes to stare him down still lingering in his mind, Ren gingerly looked up at the blue light and noticed...
Words?
Blinking in confusion as all sense of fear was washed away just as easily it had come, Ren looked around for any signs if this was a dream and felt a jolt of pain come from his right ankle.
'Not a dream then... What is it?'
Staring at the blue box like structure similar in structure to those chalkboards the teachers used in that school Ren went to, he read the words starting from the top.
[R█cor█ of Ren ████ ███]
The Words seemed to have been scrambled in parts, but the meaning of what it said wasn't lost on him.
'But a record of me?' Licking his scarred lip, Ren furrowed his brows at the strangely distorted text appearing right after his name. 'It's weird that those words are distorted more than the others.'
And although he was curious on what it could be, since it couldn't be a last name, Ren was rather lost on what it could be.
'And no use in trying to find out.'
Moving downwards where more text could be seen, Ren silently read the words, strangely engrossed in this record or whatever.
[One ey█: The Falling l█aves █peak]
[Ef██ct: S█nse of A██u██ enhanced.]
[████████ B██y: L█c██d in t██ Hour.]
[██fect: Ba█e sta██ loa█ed af██r d█at█ in ██ Ho█r]
'If that's not a headache to read, then I don't know what is.'
Rubbing his head in irritation from trying to decode whatever language this was and discovering it was still just normal Arsinian Common with a whole hell lot of it obscured by scrambling.
'My head hurts.'
Moving on from his hurting head. From what he could tell, the first one said something about an eye? And something about a sense he couldn't just wrap his head around.
The Second one wasn't any better as the only discernable word was just In and Hour.
Hardly anything to go off on.
Staring hard at the blue screen and looking down for anything else that might constitute a record, Ren blinked once, twice, three times before realizing that was it.
'That... That can't be it.' Gingerly tapping at the blue box like screen floating in the air and noticing that he could move the words up and down with a single finger, two fingers moving the screen in its whole, Ren tried to scroll down.
'Where's the rest of it?'
Trying and failing to read what made up this so called record which so far made itself out to be a disappointment among disappointments for a record, Ren accidentally made it disappear.
'Wait how did I do that?' Blankly staring at the space where the screen had disappeared from, Ren waved his hand at the place where it was only to be met with absolutely nothing.
'Where did that Record of me go? Am I still dreaming?'
The Blue screen suddenly reappeared with the same amount of scrambled text, hardly any different despite disappearing as if controlled by some sort of magic.
'How did that happen?'
Swiping three fingers to get rid of the screen only to discover that it disappeared before he could even try, Ren paused in confusion before experimenting a bit more.
He may not understand why the hell this blue screen had any relation to him, but it was a rather nice distraction from the dark and bloody environment.
Especially since it was a welcome source of light in this otherwise dark and silent cave.
'Ah so you disappear like that.' Waving his hand at the now empty space in front of him, Ren thought about how it was brought up.
'But how do I call up that Record again?'
*Blink
Staring at the screen which had suddenly appeared, dots formed in his mind as he waved the screen and called up the words 'Record' Mentally.
Lo and behold, he discovered how to open and close this incredibly disappointing Record.
Pushing his back off of the cave wall while mulling about how this weird blue thing worked, through incredibly horrible or incredible timing with how you looked at it, Ren paused.
He hadn't noticed it before because he was focusing on the Blue record, but at some point in time Ren was able to see a lot more than usual.
Eye blinking as he looked around, it was as if every single dust particle and crack in the rock was actively trying to make itself seen.
'What... the hell?'
Raising his hand to look at it, strangely enough, despite the cave itself being as colorful as dirt, the hand he held up seemed rather dull compared to it.
'I guess I'm duller than dirt?'
Trying to understand what it was that was happening to him, Ren's eyes happened upon the distance where he saw something stepping on the stone ground around the bend ahead.
'But how?' Ren thought, his eye staring at the invisible pressure pressing on the stone as it walked towards him.
With four incredibly skinny claws, Ren saw whatever it was near the bend and instinctively skipped to the side and hid behind a corner.
'Why did I do that?'
Wondering why exactly he did that despite not understanding what was happening, Ren peaked around the corner and calmly returned to it.
Moving his hand over his heart which just now spiked in how many times it was pumping blood around his body, Ren closed his eye and bit his lip
'Ow.'
Feeling the pain of his lip being bitten by his teeth in incredible detail, Ren looked around the corner once more in hopes that what he had just seen was nothing more than an illusion.
It wasn't.
Forming a mental image of the thing that he had just seen with his eyes, Ren compared it to the thing that he had seen in the thing that he once thought was nothing more than a nightmare.
With a skeletal body of a beast impervious to magic and a ghostly form that was impervious to anything physical, the beast had three eyes on its head and a ghastly mouth that could switch between the two forms.
Now Ren had never seen the skeleton of a Tiger the month before, but with prior experience now, he could tell someone with high confidence that That was a Tiger Skeleton.
One that was now missing three eyes from what he could tell, but a tiger skeleton nonetheless.
'Am I hallucinating?' Thinking that while hearing and seeing the skeletal clatter of bones against stone made it incredibly hard to argue for that thought.
Holding his breath as the Tiger fully entered the bloody room and he could see it at the corner of his eye, the Tiger said something that made his heart drop.
"Who's there? I swear I won't eat you, just tell me your name."
Placing one hand on his dove and the other on his chest where his heart was rapidly beating in what seemed like a thousand times per second. Ren closed his eyes
'I'll be damned if I answer.'
"You are here aren't you?"
---
Meeting of Nature transcription: 508
GrandM: Of all those gathered here today, can anyone provide any valuable insight on the Abyss.
WM: The Fallen trapped in the Frozen Pits has information on the Abyss
SpM: Did the Yeti guarding the pits finally let you in?
WM: No
SpM: You crazy...
GrandM: What did the Fallen say about the Abyss.
WM: Similar to the Gravity discovered by AM, the Fallen have revealed that the Abyss has a special attraction force that allows the Abyss to act as the eventual end.
AM: How does gravity involve the dimensional pockets created by the Abyss?
WM: Much like the Spirit World of the Sultanates and the Pantheon of the Gods of the Humericans, the Eventual End of the Abyss is a different plane from ours, resulting in it needing a pathway here.
AM: So you are to say that the Dimensional Pockets are in fact passages to the Abyss?
WM: According to the Fallen, the Dimensional Pockets are not passages more so they are weights that drag our World's dimensional wavelength to the same one as the Abyss's.
AM: So Anchors that require removal every so often to prevent the world from falling into the Abyss.
SuM: Finally a coherent sentence I can understand from your mouth. And here I thought you only spoke to rocks
AM: When I get my hands on you, I swear I'll- *Excerpt Omitted*
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Tree