I have always known one thing more deeply than breath.
My dreams speak.
They whisper beyond the walls of night,sketching horizons no eyes have seen.
My name is Fauster, I'm twenty years old, slender framed, with restless fingers and eyes that linger on star maps long after the lamps are out.
They call me the Dreamer in our little town of Ardalen because while other sleep, I wander.
Since childhood, I devoured myths. The old keepers in the tavern would speak of the four realms:-Lumereth,
-Somnara,
-Elumina,
-Mythera and of the lost fifth realm Marielle, hidden from mortal eyes, To me those stories were not relics but questions I carried in my bones.
What if they were true?
I would like awake, tracing constellations and imagining the realms bleeding into our world, waiting for someone to re_ignite them.
It was on a rainless dusk this past autumn that something changed.
A letter arrived _no postage,no seal ,no slender name _ only a parchment folded thrice. In it, a faint sketch : a sigil half -erased, a heart enclosed by quills of light,and at it's base the words,
"Seek the flame beyond sight".
Below that , a map fragment, a twisting path into a forest, the label
"Lumereth gateway"
My pulse pounded. I folded the letters with trembling fingers.
I knew this was my call.
.
I packed lightly water,bread,a dagger,the family talisman (the only heirloom from my mother), and the letter tucked close.
I left Ardalen under a moon veiled by bark and clouds . The townsfolk sleep,
I walk the road wound upward,past fields of silver grass, through groves that whispered in the wind.
I felt the world quiet around me as if holding it's breath.
At the forest edge ,the path forked , one road deeper into dark trees, the other lifting toward high cliffs .
The sketch matched the first. I stepped into the forest.
The air shifted , leaves glowed faintly with pale luminescence, and shapes moved at the corner of vision.
Shadows that seemed too deliberate,
I swallowed.
Each foot ahead felt like a prayer.
The map fragment burned softly in my satchel .
Yes , I told myself
"I choose to believe."
I pressed on until the path ended at a clearing ringed by ancient stones at the center stood a monolithic slab.
Mossy, fissured, inscrutable on it's face was faintly etched.
The same sigil from my letter.
The heart with quills of light.
My breath caught, the sigil pulsed faintly.
Blue sparkles danced at the edge of the carving.
I approached. The wind held it's voice. My heart beat hammered
One step then another, I laid my hand on the stone, It was cold with age and quiet power. And then a hum. A ripple in reality.
The stone glowed softly when I touched it.
Patterns of light traced from the sigil outward, flowing into the earth, into the air , like veins of living energy.
The forest hush deepened. The glowing quills moved , unfurling into realms of color - blues,violets,pale greens.
The air filled with echoing whispers, half songs, half wind .
My pulse stilled the boundary between night and start seemed to waver.
Then , with a breath, the stones sigil opened like a doorway.
The ground split . Light spilled upward.colors streamed. I stumbled backward shielded my eyes.
When I dared to look again, I stood not in Ardalen's forest, but in a land of shifting light and shape ,luminal and vibrant.
Welcome to Lumereth.
He studied me, the color threads in his form shifting.The river glowed Brighter .
The forest breathed. The realm watched.
At last the man nodded.
"I'm Aurelio's the guardian of lumereth the realm of Imagination. Many have came with questions, few with faith , Imagination is the seed. But to grow, it needs root, soil,love"
He gastured.
The sigil stone behind me glowed in resonance.
Then Aurelios said" You will journey here first. Prove that you can dream what others forgot. Then you may walk into realms beyond.
But be warned Imagination without purpose collapse. You must carry hope in your heart.
Tears stung my eyes. A tremor in my chest. The weight of it all.
The road ahead. I bowed my head.
He spoke again."Enter the gate of lumereth"
Awaken your sight".
He stepped aside. The sigil stone unfolded into a glowing archway light beckoned . I drew breath gripped my talisman, and stepped through.
The moment I passed, my mind surged . Thoughts unfolded, Ideas I never dared. Fragments of worlds. Colors yet unnamed.
I gasped my vision stretching, feeling the pulse of lumereth flow through me.
I stumbled into the new land ,
Floor painted on luminescent grass .
Aurelios's voice echoed .
"Begin "
And so I take the first step into a realm of endless creation, where imagination blooms or fractures.
The journey has begun.
The air smelled of fresh ink and first words
Imagination made world.
Floating motes of light drifted like fireflies, but brilliant. Trees grew in impossible angles, petals glowed with inner hues. A river of soft luminescence wound through hills that bent in dreams.
The sky shifted at times pale blue, at times lavender, at times starlit black all at once.
I stepped forward in wonder my heart pounded with awe and fear, this was real . The realm of Imagination itself,the realm whose name I whispered in secret prayers for years.
And then I heard a voice soft, echoing like wind through papers.
"Fauster, Dreamer" it said
"You have came"
I spun, searching. A figure stood across the river a silhouette of shifting color, bright and dim at once.
The presence of Aurelios , Guardian of lumereth.
His shape glimmed a tall being of light, sometimes more abstract threads of color weaving through him . His eyes were burning stars .
He raised a hand.
"Why do you come?"
He asked not harshly, nor kind , but weighty.
"I..." I swallowed, my voice cracked.
"I seek truth. I seek to restore what was lost.I received a letter, a map , a call.
I believe I can find the fifth realm that bound all realms. I wish to find it"