The carriage left for Reverie early morning. It would take at least two hours to reach there. I was hoping to enter the Dreamless Town before the night occurs otherwise the darkness there will turn darker…
This would be the second time I would be going inside it, chills still ran down my spine just remembering the tune of the player. The town originally belonged to the fifth Magi, a woman known as Delphi Astia Lucina who was a muse and scholar. When she died, the town which was her hometown also died with her and turned into this nightmare. Nobody knows why and how these changes happened and I never thought I wanted to know the reason.
The town had a perennial night without heavenly bodies. It was completely deserted with no lamp burning at any corner, looking as if it was preserved from centuries. Two-story buildings with porticos in some homes ran parallel on either side of the road. The colorful cloth used for flags and portico sheets were still preserved, looking bright and warm with colors. Then I saw a woman near the fruit shop. She was dressed in a pale-colored skirt till her ankles and a matching oversized shirt with her head covered by a red scarf, was looking at the fresh fruits in the stall. She was still…still like a statue that had a casual smile and keen unblinking eyes set on the fruit.
The small mirror just adjacent to the woman showed my face but not hers. She was already dead.
The mirrors hanging and plastered at every wall of the town were always catching glimpses of something that could not be seen. It looked as if someone had deliberately put irregular pieces of mirror. It might be a shaman who came here to challenge this town. For young, hotblooded Ichors this used to be a challenging ground. Gambles were made and alcohol was shared. This town was more like a tourist attraction than an actual threat. All the shenanigans happened until a dumbass died a few years ago. Since then the town had been left alone in its eerie requiem.
I moved swiftly, feet slapping the rough cobblestone path. Licht and Schatten helped me to scout the area. I only had a small lantern with me because the less the light the better it was for being not detected by it…
A nostalgic sound of the lyre was heard. It was sweet yet chilling to the bones, a sense of melancholy and longing washing over the like sorrow of losing a loved one. The sound was mesmerizing, alluring, and peaceful.
The atmosphere was humid and small beads of sweat already formed on my forehead, there was not even single vegetation in this town as if it was a clay model with various figurines.
The tune of the lyre reverberating in the atmosphere stopped into a lifeless silence. I was startled, my feet stopping for a moment but quickly regained my senses. The best way to survive here was without stopping otherwise the lyre player would sense our presence and if it already had then moving instantly out of this town would be the best option.
The sound of the lyre started again, but this time a different song with a different tune. A dangerous tune unraveling unknown secrets, threatening me and drowning me in its tune.
"My lord, what is happening ?" Virgil whispered.
A heavy sound was heard deafening my ears. The ground trembled from shock. When I first experienced this I shut my eyes afraid that I might become a clay doll just like that woman.
By this time, I came to understand how the lyre player controls the town. The town was divided into four parts, when the lyre takes higher notes left side of the town changes, and the right side takes lower notes. The change not only limits itself to erecting walls or changing the flow of streets, sometimes like a jigsaw puzzle one of the four parts interchanges their position with the other part which mainly happens when the song ends.
Guessing the time and part of the town on which lyre would be affected was easy however there was still uncertainty that lyre player who seemed to guess my location by now would follow this pattern again when one song ends.
"Ah…found it !" I laughed and dashed to the narrow pathway.
I was in the alley between two buildings. One after another the buildings continued to change around me. Some were tall four-story buildings making the alley look darker like a pit, while others were less than three stories. It was shocking how the path remained unchanged both in its width and the roughness of cobblestones.
This is the loophole that travelers usually take if they want to complete any useless mission over here.
The town transforms but the distance between each building doesn't, it is only limited to the roads and other factors.
I first found it my chance when I was running for my life afraid that the everchanging pattern of the town would swallow me. Took me three days and four hours to realize an easy way out of this wretched town. In those times I also came to know the survival instincts of animals, especially my two snakes who moved through these loopholes.
I moved swiftly.
"Finally !!" I touched the golden statue of Delphi as I saw the small world crack.
The town started cracking like glass. The sky became strained and then a breaking noise was heard. The magic that had enveloped the town started fading. The buildings crumbled transforming into dust and something smoke-like which I thought was the souls of the people were liberated. The path, the town, or the rough cobblestones everything that was once standstill, preserved in its original form from many thousands of years started to rot. All came to an end; the journey was over. Just like the trial of a game the town would return to normal once the player finishes the stage but would soon return to the same nightmare it was before. The soul of Delphi cannot be liberated because it is used as a place to level up by the players. Shards of glass came falling from above since the moonless night turned into a glassy sky with light from the outside world escaping slowly through the cracks.
"Welcome Home Frithjof." said the woman in front of me as soon as the magic was lifted.
"Midgard is not my home Frejya."
End of Prologue