"Come thee, Natalak… come thee…"
An old, near-fading voice of a man, an invitation to a curious traveller… a young man, the messenger from Earth, unfolds his eyes…
Here—comes nothingness, comes darkness. Then, as consciousness follows, Natalak marches without consideration. He looks around, wondering where he is and how he arrived. The surroundings were nothing but warm mist engulfing the far sight.
A path, a simple yet pleasing road and warm to the touch. So much so that his feet kept walking, marching towards the endless road. There were no other sounds to be heard, only his steps. As no echoes coming from his footsteps.
"What the F is this—" Natalak's mumbling halts.
A gleaming white coin lay waste on the road, reaching a step of seven; it revealed itself to be a golden coin.
Natalak halts for a second and freely takes the coin before his legs shift again. Toying— fingers flip the luminous piece of gold before keenly looking, inspecting. Disappointingly, there were no carvings; it was only a simple, polished gold token.
"Hmm… Gold."
The traveller looks one last time before tossing it into his pocket.
A few hundred steps… again, he comes across another change, this time it was a copper. Different, so to say—the copper is high in purity of red, but tainted, tarnished from its look. Giving a few rubs of his fingers, before chucking it into his pocket.
And then comes the third: it was two silver coins—oddly, for his eyes, the coins are identical, with no flaw.
Grinding them together, to see if the roughness of the coins can sander each other's surfaces—
"Hmm… this is a bit odd?"
Natalak was quite intrigued. And seeing no changes, Natalak adds it to his pocket.
The road seems to have no end, yet his legs are not to his command. Even though he himself felt no sense of fatigue nor loss, he couldn't even command his flesh to stop. However, the awareness of walking on the warm road and the fascination with the mist keep him from other thoughts.
His body might be in a trance, yet his mind is full of thoughts and answers to seek, but would occasionally dwindle as he trudges unhurriedly. The coins he comes across, the road he walks, and the muddle of the mist. That until—came from nowhere… a light suddenly walked in front of him as if guiding him. Closer for a few meters, another blink, and the light was now an older man with a cane. He could see the older man was weary—his left hand on his spine, his back arched slightly.
The traveller's mouth opens slightly, trying to grasp the situation while his mind thinks of something. Natalak tries to reach the person, but somehow, he can't, and he isn't able to.
"My child, it's best to give your thoughts a voice." The older man's words were soft, weary and calm to Natalak's ears.
"I ah… is this a dream?" Natalak replied, confused, mind wandering.
The elderly man chuckles, "I cannot say. Believe it or not, but are you perhaps you?"
"I don't know—maybe or maybe not?" Natalak replied with a hint of jest.
Again, the three-legged man titters. Blink, and Natalak saw the person wasn't up ahead, but he was now right beside him. Then it came, the traveller's consciousness felt it. The older man was neither a mortal nor a spirit. A sense of paradox he cannot explain, an answer that gushes his soul.
"Are you?—" Natalak couldn't utter another word; he senses it, he knows it, a comprehension he cannot explain, yet it is, or maybe it wasn't.
The old man smiled, "Perhaps… I am that I am or so to some. But you can call me as you like… I am but one of many."
"I see, then perhaps an old man would suffice."
"I think so too." The Creator responds fondly.
After that, silence trails—Natalak's questions were many, though the presence of the one that walks beside him overwhelms his mind, his tongue to utter an explanation. As a result, his queries were diluted.
"You seem to be lost, Natalak." The creator continues their chatter.
"Yeah, I think so, possibly bored." Natalak stares up ahead.
"Then, if you serve, do you want to walk the road with me even for just a small time?" The older man follows.
"Sure, what will it be?" Natalak replied that, in fact, no hesitation or second thoughts were coming from his own decision.
Natalak blinks, and suddenly his walking stops—the older man, now in front of him, facing him. And this time, the creator's presence voids him to the core. It is overwhelming, yet somehow, he felt a deep sense of something he cannot explain, without being devoured himself.
The traveller looked down to see that he was holding a peculiar black leather bag. Before Natalak could look back at the older man, the world around him begins to shift. He couldn't utter, for he begins to crumble like ashen flakes.
"Travel well, my child, Travel well…" The creator's voice whispers, yet it echoes in his ears.
Natalak couldn't utter a word even if he tried, and as soon as he begins to be swept away, he understood what the creator had tasked him to do.
Out of consciousness, Natalak came to a road…
Come, welcome to Vashkeil.