Lost In The Glasslands

[Balthazar Black]

28 Cylus 720

He did not know how he'd come to be in this place. It was not like his others dreams where the sea had deposited him. No... he had more control this time. His body was on Idalos but his mind could venture beyond his own dreams now. Was that what this was? No... still something else. In every direction he turned he saw only himself. Billions upon billions of himself in every direction. He didn't look all that bad. Maybe he could afford a few more pushups in the morning. He knew this was a dream. It had to have been, but he was still trapped in it. He reached out his hand to see it he could touch the other him and his hand found an invisible wall... only the other him had done the same thing.

Mirrors.

Balthazar turned and began to walk where the nearest copy of himself was farthest and found that as he took steps the other images of himself seemed to step into and out of existence. With this realization came the flurry of colors. There was a path to find but now the glass around him shifted to bright neon shades as if distracting him or refracting a light from some unknown source. Balthazar did not know what it meant, but he kept venturing forward, following the only path that his feet could walk on.

[Devin]

Devin really liked mirrors. He had a couple of mirrors at home because he was a vain follower of Delroth and quite enjoyed admiring his reflection. Besides that, he could enchant mirrors and use them as a communication device of sorts or a window to the future which came in handy every once in a while. And now, he had finally begun to take his obsession with mirrors to the next level. He had had a mirror maze built on an island near Scalvoris. The mirrors in the maze weren’t made of normal glass though. They shimmered in all kinds of colors, changing from dull reds, yellows and blues to bright neon shades – because why not?

Some of the mirrors looked very thin and fragile while others were so thick and sturdy that you could stand on them, walk on them or sit on them. The latter was exactly what the Mortalborn did because he wanted to admire his newest acquisition from above. He did that for a while, with a happy and content smile on his face, until he suddenly heard footsteps in the distance, getting closer. A few moments later, a man appeared in the maze, a somewhat strange looking man with white hair and skin that seemed to glow slightly.

Devin watched the strange man from his vantage point, high above him, for a little while, before he reached into a pocket of his fancy dark grey and violet outfit, removed a small pebble from it and threw it in order to get Balthazar’s attention before he called out, “Hey, albino-man! What are you doing in my maze? I’m up here, by the way!” he added, laughing, in case Balthazar turned his head in the wrong direction. If the mage looked up, he would see a young man sitting on top of one of the thickest and biggest mirrors. He appeared to be in his early twenties. He had pale, porcelain skin, he had shiny black hair, vivid violet eyes that looked a lot like some sort of magic mutation and fingers that ended in sharp black nails.

The nails and the eyes were not the most unusual things about him though, although they were definitely a bit out of the ordinary. From the Mortalborn’s back grew a pair of luxurious feathered wings, black, like a raven’s wings. Since he had first met Kalortah the cycle before and dueled him (with music, not with weapons because he was not a barbarian), Devin almost always dreamed himself with wings because he was so very jealous of his fellow bard and because he looked better with wings than that stupid Avriel, anyway.

[Balthazar Black]

28 Cylus 720

The maze spiraled on and on and Balthazar continued walking until suddenly a pebble struck the ground beside him. The mage would have looked to the left and the right had he not felt the rock come from above with his Rupture spark. Balthazar's actual movement to look up was delayed only by Balthazar pondering if his motion sensing counted as using magic in Emea. It had never quite damned him before but Emea was an ever shifting land. All the same Balthazar eventually craned his head up to see a familiar but also strangely different figure than he remembered. The man looked like a combination of two bards Balthazar had seen in musical battle at some point in Zi'Da. He couldn't remember the exact trial but he knew it had been that season.

Balthazar knelt down and picked up the pebble, considering tossing it back at the dreamer above him before deciding the effort was not worth it. Then he thought about conjuring a portal to reach the dreamer- an idea that was ruled out when Balthazar remembered where he was. Balthazar looked around at the myriad of colored glass around him for a moment before looking back to Devin on his perch. "I thought it would be fun to walk around." Balthazar lied before he continued walking. The trouble with the gift of his Rupture spark was that the mirrors were not moving and so Balthazar did not know if he was walking towards a mirror or on the path until he bumped into the mirror and had to redirect himself... which happened more than a few times.

"You should really try it, it's quite the good time." Balthazar lied again. While Devin might enjoy trapping himself in a mirror maze, Balthazar was more or less only entertained by the puzzle the maze presented to his senses. He had to rely on his vision to sus out the small differences between a reflection and a path- yet he still advanced with one hand held out slightly to prevent himself from walking head first into a mirror. After his one glance up to Devin, Balthazar had put his focus back on navigating the maze. "I love the colors."

[Devin]

“Do you mean that you enjoy walking around mazes and possibly getting lost?” Devin asked incredulously and raised an eyebrow. “That’s weird!” he decided. He wanted to say more, but the albino-man already started to walk again. The Mortalborn watched him for a couple of trills, wondering if he should bother and if the other man had anything interesting to offer, before he shrugged his shoulders and spread his wings. A moment later, he landed directly next to the mage, grinning and folding his wings neatly behind him again so that they wouldn’t randomly bump into mirrors and such (they were quite wide).

“You remind me of my roommate”, he informed Balthazar as he walked next to him with a spring in his step. “He also enjoys going for walks. He enjoys sitting still, closing his eyes and not doing anything as well though. He calls that meditation”, he continued. “Do you meditate?” he wanted to know before he abruptly asked, “Why do you have golden eyes? I’ve never seen an albino with golden eyes. They normally have red eyes!”

“The colors are pretty nice though”, he agreed a moment later and glanced at the mirror next to him for a moment, admiring his reflection. He looked good! His wings matched his hair quite well, and what more, they were the same color as his nails on top of it!

“Do you want a map?” he asked a moment later and rummaged through the pockets of his jacket that contained a lot of random objects (he was worse than all of the crows in Idalos combined when it came to collecting stuff). “The man that built the maze gave me one. I should have it somewhere”, he murmured, furrowing his brow fractionally.

“I could also fly, take another look at the maze from above and tell you where you should go though!” he offered because he couldn’t believe that Balthazar might actually be enjoying what he was doing. Nobody that was in their right mind enjoyed that!

[Balthazar Black]

28 Cylus 720

"I'm physically incapable of getting lost. I have a great sense of direction." Balthazar shouted back in an offhand way as he walked. He wasn't entirely wrong in terms of navigating the waking world but a dreamscape was not nearly as solid at the rest of Idalos. While Balthazar's Attunement spark ensured he would always be able to retrace his steps, the places he'd been walking might not have existed anymore in Emea. But such was the learning curve of a confident mage. Balthazar continued walking and before he knew it, the man from the glass high-chair stretched his massive wings and flew down to Balthazar. Neat trick. Balthazar kept that thought to himself and continued moving through the maze while Devin spoke behind him.

The more words that came out of Devin's mouth, the more convinced Balthazar became that the dreamer was just that- a dreamer. Not a dreamwalker. Not in total control. As Balthazar had learned from Wald that could be dangerous so he slowed his pace until Devin was close enough and the turned suddenly, swinging his arm just a little wide so that he bumped into Devin. "Sorry, it gets narrow here." Balthazar lied before shuffling sideways through the mirror. He cast a glance back at Devin who had stopped to admire himself in the mirror much like Balthazar had. A mischievous grin spread across Balthazar's face as he got an idea that he couldn't act upon. He wanted to leap from the mirror and startle Devin but lucidity had it's drawbacks, primarily being bound to your real abilities even if your body was not physically there. Balthazar decided to answer Devin's question rather than prank him, so Balthazar stopped to similarly admire himself in a neon blue mirror. "I meditate when I can, though- and this might surprise you, I like to walk when I do it as well."

Like to. He really had to. His Rupture spark demanded a certain level of physical activity after a period of sitting. Then again the better he got at clearing his mind, the easier it became to resist that urge. When Devin jumped to the topic of Balthazar's eye color, Balthazar tilted his head slightly. He'd heard more inquiries about why his eyes appeared like a puzzle than why they were gold in the recent trials. It was somewhat refreshing to get back to the old inquiries. Though the use of the term albino threw Balthazar a little. He looked at his faintly glowing hands and his face contorted a little. The glow did make him more pale... he'd have to go tanning with Isabella."I'm not albino." Balthazar answered simply before pointing to his eyes and then his hair "Mutations. I'm a mage."

He had never been one to hide his magic from others. He hadn't really had an experience yet that made him think he should. Every time someone had had a significant problem with him being a mage, Balthazar solved it with magic (and generally some degree of fatal combat). Yet the lightning bolt that was Devin in his dream came out with more questions. Balthazar shook his head at the offer of a map or a flyover. "That's cheating." He said simply. "The real fun is trying to do it without the map. You get to see all your angles." He was indeed referring to watching his own butt as he walked.

It was a joke.

But it was also kinda true.

[Devin]

When Balthazar claimed that he was physically incapable of getting lost, the Mortalborn’s eyebrows rose. “Really?” he asked. A moment later, he grinned mischievously. “Well, if you are physically incapable of getting lost, feel free to try and find the way out of the maze! I’ll let you take the lead and follow you!” he decided and pulled his hand out of his pocket again. Since the other man had claimed that he had such an awesome sense of direction, he wouldn’t give him his map, and he wouldn’t fly in order to take a look at the maze from above either, since it wouldn’t be necessary.

And if Balthazar had lied or exaggerated things, well … too bad!

A moment later, something occurred to him. “Wait … how exactly can you be physically incapable of getting lost?” he wanted to know because that seemed strange to him. “Is it some sort of mutation? I mutated due to an accident with a magical tree, and now my eyes are violet. I like them better that way though. They used to be a really boring brown. I also got these”, the chatty Mortalborn continued and showed Balthazar his black nails, expecting the other man to admire them, of course. “A grafter made them for me from the spines that grow on a dubaebo’s back!”

A moment later, Balthazar bumped into him, as if by accident. For the first couple of trills Devin walked next to him normally, and then he abruptly stopped, stared at Balthazar, stared at the mirrors and asked in a very serious tone of voice, “Where am I? How did I end up here? Am I high or drunk?” It had happened before, so the question made sense from Devin’s point of view. The Mortalborn was quite fond of ingesting all kinds of questionable substances.

When Balthazar informed him that his eyes and his hair were due to his being a mage, Devin didn’t recoil, he didn’t spout some kind of nonsense about magic being evil and the spark being dangerous either; on the contrary, he looked at the other man with utter admiration and exclaimed,

“That’s awesome! I want to become a mage as well! I want to be initiated into Becoming! Are you a Becomer?” he asked hopefully – he had been looking for someone that could initiate him for a while now - before he suddenly noticed something. He craned his neck in order to take a look at the unfamiliar weight on his back.

“These weren’t here yesterday”, he observed before he grinned all over his face and tried to touch his wings. “Maybe I got initiated without being aware of it while I slept! That would be awesome! I always wanted to have wings, just like Kalortah!”

“You stare at your own butt?” he asked incredulously and furrowed his brow before he looked at the butt in question. It was a nice butt, but still, it was a bit weird, nevertheless.

Either way, Devin turned back to admiring his newest additions after a little while. He was in fact so busy trying to examine his wings and getting them to move and such that he didn’t pay any attention to where he was going. For a moment, he actually managed to hover a few inches above the ground, and then - he almost ran straight into a mirror.

“Fek!” he exclaimed and proceeded to laugh at his own thoughtlessness because he was in quite an excellent mood at the moment (he had wings, and they were actually better than Kalortah’s!).

“Maybe you should go first!” he suggested.

The man had bragged about his great sense of direction, hadn’t he?

[Balthazar Black]

28 Cylus 720

It would have been hard to tell whether or not Balthazar was listening to the things that Devin was saying to him. The mage's head bobbed slightly whenever it could serve as an appropriate response and when something was presented, Balthazar looked back only slightly to see what Devin was talking about. Otherwise he kept his focus ahead of him- attempting to navigate this maze of mirrors with the multitude of colors was more difficult that Balthazar would ever admit, but at least he knew he wasn't going in a circle. Balthazar could feel, his spark insisted, that they were moving in a new direction. Devin rattled off his questions and Balthazar didn't answer, he just waited for the reality to hit the bard.

Then the questions turned from Balthazar to where Devin was and the mage turned around "You're dreaming. All of this is a dream. The wings are part of the dream." Balthazar said abruptly before turning and continuing onward. "I'm not a Becomer." Balthazar thought to warn Devin about the dangers of initiation but based on how happy he seemed to be about the wings Balthazar decided it would be a fruitless gesture. After a few more paces it would become difficult for Devin to tell whether or not he was still following Balthazar or if they'd been separated and Devin was instead following one of the hundreds of reflected Balthazar's, because when Balthazar turned to speak the next time, his voice would come from behind Devin.

"Alright then move aside and I'll lead." Balthazar was standing behind Devin now, he'd walked in a circle and ended up behind the man while the dozens of mirrors made it appear that he had been walking straight ahead the whole time. When Devin and his new best friends scooted over for Balthazar, if they even did, the mage would continue on ahead. "So you like mirrors?" Balthazar asked with a gesture around while they walked. That was the only reason he saw for all this. Balthazar looked back at Devin briefly, he'd mentioned the winged bard that Balthazar remembered meeting once or twice and that helped Balthazar remember where he'd seen this man before. A small grin passed over his face which couldn't be concealed because it passed over the face of every reflected Balthazar as well. "I wonder what would happen if I just smashed one of them mirrors." Balthazar thought aloud, unrelated to his discovery of where he knew Devin from.

[Devin]

Balthazar was not very talkative, but the Mortalborn didn’t mind. On the contrary, he was quite happy about the fact that his new acquaintance didn’t talk a lot – because it meant that he had more time to talk He absolutely loved talking, about a wide variety of different topics. When Balthazar insisted that he was dreaming, he abruptly closed his mouth, stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the white-haired mage though, furrowing his brow as he did so.

“Is this some kind of prank?” he wanted to know. A moment later, he pinched the skin on his right arm that Balthazar could see was covered with peculiar feather-like markings that moved slightly every now and then. “Ouch”, he remarked, making a face, and proceeded to inform Balthazar, “If it hurts, you are not dreaming. At least that’s what my mother always said!”

“Oh”, he made and sighed as Balthazar told him that his wings were part of the dream and turned his head in order to take another look at his new and absolutely magnificent appendages. “Maybe you are right”, he agreed rather reluctantly. This being a dream made marginally more sense than someone sneaking into his bedroom and giving him a spark without him noticing anything. From what he knew, the initiation was usually quite unpleasant.

“Wait!” he told the mage a moment later. “Does that mean that the wings will disappear again when I wake up? I don’t want them to disappear again! You said that you are a mage. Can’t you use your magic on me? I’ll do whatever you want!” he pleaded almost desperately. Devin was a thief and a liar and a number of other bad things, but this time the young man was absolutely serious. If Balthazar used his magic so that he would still have his wings when he woke up, he would do whatever the other man asked of him!

“What kind of mage are you anyway?” he wanted to know. That Balthazar was not a Becomer disappointed him – it meant that he would have to continue looking for one – but maybe he would still be of use! With that thought in mind, he stepped aside, allowing Balthazar to go first, grinning as he did so. He doubted that the man’s sense of direction was a good as he had claimed, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he had to admit that he had gotten lost!

“Ummm …” he made when he suddenly heard Balthazar’s voice behind him even though the man had been walking in front of him the entire time – at least he thought that he had. He turned around and looked at the mage in utter confusion. “What just happened? You were just …” He broke off, eyed the mirrors around them that contained at least a dozen Balthazars and Devins – and abruptly grabbed Balthazar’s hand.

“This way we won’t lose each other!” he insisted. A moment later, he was already chatting away again. “I love mirrors! Did I already tell you that I can enchant mirrors and turn them into communication devices? I can also see the future in the mirror. I’m an actual seer!” he proudly proclaimed. “I got that ability due to the same accident that mutated my eyes!” he explained. He really thought so. In truth, it was due to his immortal blood; but alas, he was still completely unaware of his divine heritage.

“Well, why don’t we simply try and find out?” he asked, abruptly let go of Balthazar’s hand again, moved his wings in an attempt to lift himself a few inches off the ground and give himself a bit of extra momentum and kicked the nearest mirror. He had planned on executing some sort of impressive and elaborate martial arts move that would allow him to smash the mirror pretty much instantly, but he ended up looking fairly ridiculous instead; and the mirror did of course remain whole.

Due his complete lack of experience when it came to having wings, he was rather uncoordinated.

“You wouldn’t have some sort of hammer, would you?” he asked sheepishly. “This thing’s sturdier than I thought! You look pretty strong!” he observed before something suddenly occurred to him. “Simply smashing the mirrors would kind of be cheating though! You told me that you had such a great sense of direction!” he reminded him before he abruptly made a step back in case Balthazar decided to smash a mirror regardless.

He didn’t want any shards of glass to fly in his pretty face!

[Balthazar Black]

28 Cylus 720

"I could impale you on a giant rock, it would hurt, and you'd still be dreaming." Balthazar replied more to himself that Devin. The bard seemed to like talking a lot more than Balthazar who was focused on trying to find his way through the maze. While Devin inquired about whether or not his wings would remain when he woke up, Balthazar tried to move passed Devin so he could continue on his way. "The odds are that when you wake up you won't even remember the wings." Balthazar admit to Devin. He had no way of making the dreamer's wings remain passed the dream, not yet. "And regardless I can't use magic here- well I shouldn't. This is Emea." Balthazar said that as if it explained the complexities of ether use in Emea and the nightmares it could bring on.

When Devin grabbed Balthazar's hand, he immediately began trying to pull his hand free. He didn't mind getting separated from his chatty companion if it meant some peace and quiet to figure out where this maze was going. "Well don't try and pull that here, I'm not sure if it will attract Emeyans and I don't want to risk it." Yet before the struggle for his hand's freedom could escalate, Devin released his hand and tried to kick the mirror with a wild flap of his wings to try and add force, yet the mirror did not break. It didn't crack, it didn't shatter, and it hardly shook under the impact. Balthazar's golden eyes narrowed at the glass and then he looked over at Devin who pointed out that breaking the mirror would count as cheating. Balthazar nodded slightly. "Only cheating if it shows us the way out. Who really determines the rules after all?" But Balthazar turned and continued on the path without swinging at a mirror.

Balthazar was slowly coming to realize that the floor they were walking on was not perfectly level, in fact it seemed to be slowly angling downwards the further they walked. So they were walking in circles but they were still getting somewhere. They were moving down. Before very long the multitude of reflected Balthazar's and Devin's would begin to converge on a single doorway at the end of a long hall. It would be easy to see and navigate to the doorway because it was not a mirror like the world around it. Balthazar made sure he approached the door before Devin but he did not open it. Maybe he'd let Devin do that to see if it was a trap. "See, great sense of direction."

[Devin]

“I will remember my wings, and I will always be lucid in my dreams from now on”, Devin informed Balthazar in no uncertain terms as if he could initiate himself into Dreamwalking through sheer force of will and bypass the need for a mentor and all the other things that were usually part of the process. A moment later, he looked at the white-haired mage questioningly and asked, “That’s what you call it when you know that you are dreaming, right? Lucid, I mean”, he clarified. He wasn’t particularly familiar with Emea, but if Emea could give him wings, at least when he was asleep, he would learn everything about it – and he would eventually learn how to move things from here to the waking world as well!

“Why can’t you use magic here?” he then wanted to know. “Does it have something to do with ether?” While he was absolutely clueless when it came to how the world of dreams worked, he was familiar with magic, to some extent at least. The cycle before, he had started to attend university. His goal was to get a degree in Magical Theory, because magic was totally awesome. University had already helped him so much! It had made him realize that Becoming was the best choice if he wanted to get fully functional wings – and that he should definitely not subject himself to Rakvald’s fleshcrafting stuff again.

Body parts that had been attached with Grafting often didn’t work perfectly!

When Balthazar continued on the path without smashing a mirror, Devin lowered his arms again and blinked a couple of times before he breathed a sigh of relief and followed the mage. He didn’t attempt to hold his hand again, mostly because he was rather busy thinking about how he could make sure that he still had his wings when he woke up.

After a while, he noticed something though, stopped for a moment and furrowed his brow. “Are we walking in circles?” he asked. A moment later, he realized that this was not the case. They weren’t moving in circles and constantly returning to the same place; they were moving in circles and downwards – closer and closer to a door that was located at the end of a long hallway.

When Devin saw that door, his eyes lit up, and he turned to face Balthazar. “This is my dream, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “I know why there is a maze in it now – and what’s behind the door! I had the maze built in order to make it harder for people to find my treasure chamber! Come on! I’ll show you!” he urged Balthazar and gestured for him to follow him.

Normally, Devin wasn’t particularly eager to show people his treasure. He was a very greedy man and afraid that someone might steal from him. This was a dream though. Until he found a way to move stuff from Emea to the waking world, none of the things in it mattered – apart from his wings, his beautiful, glorious, marvelous, amazing wings that he never wanted to let go again!

With that thought in mind, he opened the door – and let out a piercing scream. A moment later, he was sliding down a rainbow-colored tube – or slide, or whatever – so quickly that his heart began to beat faster and threatened to jump out of his chest. After a while, he relaxed though, and the screams of fear turned into screams of pure delight – because sliding down the tube was fun!

“Wheee!” he exclaimed and threw his hands in the air when he finally reached the end of the tube and landed in … a field of grass? It wasn’t just a field of grass, it was bouncy like some sort of trampoline, and it was completely devoid of any kind of treasure! Jumping up and down, mostly because he couldn’t not jump when he was on a trampoline, the Mortalborn took a look around, the look on his face darkening more and more.

“What kind of shit is that?” he asked Balthazar who was probably not far behind him, moving aside a little so that the mage wouldn’t crash into him. “I thought there’s always some sort of treasure at the end of the rainbow! I thought that I would at least be a successful treasure hunter in my dreams!” he complained. Devin had gone on a couple of treasure hunts during the past arc, and all but one had been unsuccessful. Someone else had usually gotten there first. He had either been greeted by an empty treasure chest, or there hadn’t been anything at all. It had been absolutely frustrating!

In fact, Devin found the lack of treasure chests frustrating that he almost woke up then and there, despite the fact that he had been so excited about having wings before. Balthazar could see that the Mortalborn’s form in front of him flickered for a moment. In the waking world, Devin abruptly punched the person that was sleeping in bed next to him very hard before he stopped moving again – and started to snore incredibly loudly!