NEVEREALM, DAY 286
The wolf has been following me for six months. He never comes into my camp and doesn’t seem to be hunting me. He just keeps his distance and watches. I’ve seen him at least once almost every day. Sometimes he has companions, three smaller wolves. Their presence is oddly reassuring. Occasionally he greets me, his words carried on waves of pneuma.
I can’t explain what it is, but it feels like I’m being drawn southward. At first I was just exploring, following the river, but for the last several weeks, I’ve felt this weird yearning, an ache in my chest that grows when I stop to camp for more than a day or two and only seems satisfied when I am following the River Di’tash.
A week ago I spotted an aura of silver light on the southern horizon. I’ve been obsessing about it ever since. Today I saw the source of the aura for the first time. I’m hoping it’s somehow connected to this sensation.
I’m 99% certain it is.
Tabby stood atop a rocky outcropping, a bluff bereft of shrub and soil, naked stone before a broad blue sky streaked white and gray by thin, wispy clouds. She stared out to the south, over a vast plain, waves of golden grass a head taller than her dancing in the morning breeze. To the west, the River Di’tash wound its way through small groves of trees, their leaves splashed in the reds and golds of autumn. A hint of movement drew her attention to the riverbank, a flash of white fur amidst the tree bark and leaves, a reminder of her lupine shadow’s constant presence.
She smiled, pondering her taciturn companion for a moment before letting her gaze sweep to the south again. There, jutting unceremoniously from the swaying brush of grass, stood a tall structure, a spire of silver glinting in the morning sun. Even at this distance – several hours of intense hiking – it loomed far above its surroundings, easily a thousand feet of argent pillar. She’d spotted it early in the morning, just as the sun rose into view in the east. Now, standing at the peak of this butte, she could finally take in its full height.
Something greater than mere curiosity pulled at Tabby, a need to investigate, an urgent hunger for knowledge, drawing her like a moth to moonlight. Determined, she set off down the rocky slope, boots crunching against gravel. She descended from the bluff into an ocean of amber, an endless sea of wheat-like grass, undeterred by the long, arduous journey ahead. She pressed forward, parting the thick stalks, which gave way with reluctance, each step bringing her closer to the tower, its silver surface shimmering in the sunlight.
An hour passed as she trekked across the open plain, wading through the deep foliage, then two, three. The distant spire grew larger and more imposing with each moment, dominating the view as she drew near. The sun climbed upward in the sky, reaching the apex of its arc before beginning its descent, the post-summer heat intense enough for Tabby to strip down to her threadbare chamise in an effort to stay cool.
The amber waves ended with a jarring suddenness, and she stepped from a curtain of grass onto the rim of a large concave platform, a shallow bowl of smooth, gray stone polished to a glassy sheen, as broad as two city blocks. At its center stood the tower, the lone structure, featureless save for its metallic surface. She sat at the edge of the bowl, then pushed off, letting gravity carry her down its gentle curve, then she stood and walked to the curved mirror of the spire.
Her reflection met her at the wall, and Tabby flinched when she realized how she must look. Hair in matted tangles, clothing stained with dirt and sweat, a smudge of mud across one cheek, and vague lines, the white scars left after her tempest trial, crisscrossing her once-smooth face. She stared at herself in disturbed wonder, one hand stretching out to meet the fingertips of her mirrored self at the wall. But as her fingers reached the sheer facade, a pulse rippled outward like the surface of a pond struck by a stone, and a deep clanging sound–
–FWANG!–
–echoed outward through the stone bowl. Tabby staggered back from the wall, tripping over her own feet and tumbling to her rump. The sound echoed, shifted, stretching and melding into a rich, constant THRUM! And then the tower itself began to change. The wall pulsed and a seam appeared, a vertical line extending down from the point where her fingers had met the shimmering surface all the way to the ground, and then upward several feet. The line folded into a seam, which then split into a gaping aperture, expanding an inch at a time until it formed a gateway ten feet tall and just as wide.
She scrabbled backward and to her feet, her hand dropping to the knife at her belt, preparing for the emergence of the tower’s guardian, whatever form it might take. But no golem or construct, no beast of legend or eldritch monster appeared, only a soft golden glow in the depths of the darkness, a gentle pulsing of light and a singular word spoken into her soul.
Enter.
It struck her as more invitation than command. For a moment, she stared in gobsmacked uncertainty, then she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and strode into the darkness.