A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Velen

Velen had focused her attention on the surroundings of the dungeon entrance to the point that she struggled to hear anything happening anywhere else, she wasn't even aware that she was capable of doing such a thing, or that such a thing like that was possible. Time had passed with her hovering invisibly around the square and the guards stationed there, more time than Tamara and Luchael had spent inside the dungeon on their previous expedition.

Where will they be? Will they be okay? She wondered as she got as close to the dungeon entrance as she could.

There was a specific point where the dungeon stopped being in the real world and began to enter its own personal dimension, in the case of the Sleepy Swamp dungeon, this limit was about 1/3 of the scale that allowed access to its meanders; once she got there, Velen's consciousness ended up hitting a familiar barrier, the same one she crashed into when she tried to move further than her domain allowed. The guardian spirit pressed her metaphorical forehead against the barrier, with the same result as always: nothing, no information, for her it was as if the world ended where her ability to move ended.

She was then surprised when some adventurers returned from the dungeon, literally walking through her without them being aware of it in any way. The three adventurers were made up of a girl with brown hair and light blue eyes, equipped with armor that properly protected her body, a thick wooden shield and a messer tucked into a sheath on her left side. The other was an elf with long, perfectly groomed white hair, holding a gnarled staff in his right hand and with the other helping to carry a smaller, androgynous figure that Velen had no difficulty recognizing.

“Luchael!” if Velen had hands and a mouth, she would have covered it now, “oh no… where is Tam?? It can't be..." she didn't have the courage to finish the sentence.

Velen again threw all the power of her consciousness against that invisible wall to try to enter the dungeon, but no matter how hard she tried, the result was the same.

She had to believe that she was alive and that Luchael had only been taken out by the adventurers because Tamara was a wild monster and had therefore been abandoned to her fate.

Or maybe they had mistaken her for one of the monsters that was fighting the leporan and killed her...

No, no, stop that, she thought to herself, the trio of adventurers were now moving away, not that they could escape her perceptive abilities, especially while she was actively focusing on them, I have to find a way to communicate with Luchael and try to understand what happened.

Velen chased the trio through the streets of the city; the guardian spirit had an idea where they were going considering that around the girl's neck there was a medallion depicting the sun of Gornowayl, and it was therefore probable that they were taking the leporan there to receive basic treatment... this was a problem given that the temples of the gods were sort of embassies of the deities to whom the temples were dedicated and therefore she would not have been able to enter there without attracting unwanted attention.

Not that that changed the fact that if she had simply spoken to Luchael, the gods would have noticed it without a doubt. The guardian spirit thought quickly: the leporan seemed unconscious, and she knew that trying to penetrate his dreams would have been something much less conspicuous in the eyes of the gods, the problems she identified in this plan were two: communication in dreams were very nebulous and problems in understanding questions and answers could be found both entering and exiting the subject's mind. The second problem was that if the leporan was unconscious rather than asleep, communication would fail instantly.

Velen reached out the invisible fingers of her spirit to tentatively touch Luchael's mind; the spirit figuratively smiled to see that there was some mental activity going on and the brain was in a condition where a dream could have happened.

The two rescuers were going at a brisk pace, they would arrive at the temple in less than five minutes. Velen concentrated his magical power and directed it towards the head of the wounded leporan…

- - -

POV: Luchael

It was a pleasant situation where the leporan's consciousness was wandering: he was back at home with his parents and brothers, he was eating one of his mother's fabulous soups. The environment was warm and comfortable, the light from the fireplace and some magical lights radiated throughout the room while outside a window you could see a light spring rain falling against the glass.

“So you still intend to become an adventurer?” Asked one of his little sisters sitting on the opposite side of the table, “will you become like great-grandfather Thresen?”

Luchael nodded, “yes! And one day I will return to the farm with a bag of Leuns and we will build a huge property where our whole family will have space to grow and houses to live in!”

“I reckon you'll be running home before you reach Stanbroodge!” One of his brothers exclaimed, chuckling.

"That's not true! I am the bravest among us!”

At that moment, the window of the spacious dining room shattered, exploding into fragments as a dark, yellow, reptilian-looking shape plummeted into the room, transforming the serene family situation first into darkness and then into what appears to be the meanders of a labyrinth. Luchael jumped with a cry of surprise and horror and quickly looked around, confused and unable to understand what was happening.

“Aradra?” The leporan looked around; Sleepy Swamp? No, it wasn't the dungeon he knew, it almost seemed like a representation made by someone who only knew what it was like inside through hearsay.

There was a sound he heard in the background, something that almost sounded like a river was speaking, only the leporan couldn't understand anything that was being said to him, he only sensed that there was something, some...one, thinking through that sound of water, someone that was desperately trying to communicate something to him…

Details were added to the maze: monsters Luchael couldn't identify were fighting Aradra… yes… yes, that was what the water voice was trying to ask, that had to be it.

“She's in the dungeon! We were fighting, there was a humanoid hynarl!” He exclaimed, her? Since when do I know what sex Aradra is? What is going on??

Everything was so damn confusing to him...

There was a period of time in which the leporan remained waiting, the dream seemed like a series of paintings in sequence as if inside a gallery, then the landscape changed again, crumpling like a ruined piece of parchment before taking a new shape. Luchael found himself looking at himself outside of his body, from an angle that showed him only part of his profile, he didn't appear injured and therefore he thought he had gotten drunk, but then who were the elf and the girl who were holding him up? He had no idea who they were, never seen them in his life.

"What's happening?? Am I dead??"

More blurry images, then he saw the temple he was being taken to, he seemed to understand what was happening.

"She's dead? No... it can't be..." he covered his mouth and opened his eyes wide, he feared the bizarre nature of that salmadrer in exactly the same way he was intrigued by it, and he was growing fond of it, in some respects, Aradra was not an asset in fighting, but a friend… “I have to go back! She's tougher than that! She must still be alive!”

The strange creature that Luchael could neither see nor perceive, except as the deep sound of a river with bubbling and crystalline waters, responded by pouring on him other images, other emotions...

That thing, whatever it was, wanted him to return to the dungeon to save Aradra, the rest was so confusing to understand, so difficult to interpret…

The dream ended suddenly and Luchael's consciousness found himself once again in his limbo between the unconscious and the alert.