Stepping forth through the arched crystalline portal, Eric Emberhart found himself emerging not into the familiar misty confines of the Elven ritual glen where his physical body still knelt in deep meditation, but rather into a mystical ethereal realm seemingly separate from the earthly plane he knew, a dimension populated by otherworldly wisps of luminous mist that danced and darted playfully around him as the boy took his first cautious steps forward across the soft cloud-like ground.
Squinting ahead into the pearlescent gloom wreathing the path before him, an imposing inky black silhouette gradually appeared, wreathed in lazily curling shadows that seemed drawn to it like iron filings to a lodestone. As Eric slowly but deliberately approached the ominous unknown figure, it gradually gained more solid form and definition, eventually revealing itself to be a truly colossal wolf with fur as pitch black as the light-devouring void itself, but eyes that burned with fierce wild intelligence and awareness like twin golden moons floating luminous in the dark.
Somehow, in the deepest recesses of his young yet ancient soul, Eric Emberhart knew without doubt or hesitation that this imposing lupine figure was the living, breathing physical embodiment and guardian of the ancient totemic spirit guide the High Priestess had spoken so reverently of summoning to preside over his coming of age ritual.
Sensing the wordless primordial recognition igniting like a flame within the boy's unwavering gaze, the spectral wolf inclined its great shaggy head in a nearly imperceptible subtle gesture, as if acknowledging through that simple motion the power and significance of the arcane connection already tying their souls together across the worlds.
Then the ghostly beast turned swiftly upon some silent cue only it could perceive, flicking its bushy black tail in an unspoken yet clear beckoning for the entranced boy to continue following its lead further into the murky gloom and uncharted realms ahead. Together, lone boy and lone wolf slowly ventured side by side deeper into the swirling mists, neither speaking nor looking back even once.
As Eric walked cautiously forward, eyes straining to pierce the gloom, brief vivid scenes began flickering around him, momentary luminous glimpses into people, places, and events both foreign and intimately familiar.
He watched with a mixture of curiosity, apprehension, and wonder as long-forgotten yet cherished memories from his parents' first tender chance meeting played out before his mind's eye, blurring and shifting seamlessly into crystal clear visions of his own momentous birth witnessed by the joyful new parents, and presided over by mysterious cloaked figures who whispered words of prophecy and blessing over the precious babe.
The swirling visions surrounding the enthralled Eric soon transformed further, blurring into more cryptic glimpses of majestic snow-capped mountains towering impossibly high above endless skies that stretched on into infinity, and of thundering coastal vistas where shimmering turquoise waves crested and crashed with primal intensity against jagged windswept cliffs.
There were also brief yet breathtaking flashes of cosmic phenomena entirely beyond human reckoning - blazing comets streaking past through the ether above leaving trails of stardust in their wake; massive galaxies slowly swirling in their eternal gravitational dance; luminous nebula blossoms scattered across the deep darkness, their vivid hues and spectral patterns unknown on earthly shores.
Throughout these awe-inspiring scenes both intimate and alien, Eric sporadically glimpsed shadowy humanlike figures moving furtively in and out of his peripheral vision, always remaining obscured by the mist whenever he turned to look directly. Though their forms and faces remained anonymous, somehow on an instinctual level they struck a chord of half-remembered familiarity in Eric's spirit, like the residual fragments of an ancient fading dream or mythic past life left imprinted upon the psyche.