Healing Dungeon

An elderly bald man, shuffling and dragging one leg, moved through a dirty and filthy street. His eyes were nearly empty and emotionless, his clothes more like potato sacks that had just been used for field work, hanging in tattered pieces from the man's body. Everywhere you could see different colored stains, and some even resembled dried blood, while others were fresh and only a few days old.

The man hobbled further along the alley, stopping only now and then to support himself with his shaky right hand against the equally dirty and greasy stone facades of the houses and to catch his breath, gasping. A disease had settled in the innermost part of his lungs and he knew that it would soon be over with him, too.

After a few gasping and wheezing movements, he continued to the end of the alley, where the elderly beggar once again held onto the corner of a house and let his gaze wander over the other people and inhabitants of the slums, until his gaze sadly and wearily wandered upwards, behind the wall that separated the miserable quarters from the wealthier and richer people of the city. Behind the wall, one could see cleaner streets with functioning gutters on the sides, winding up a massive hill and ending in an extremely well-attended marketplace.

Beyond that stood another wall, kilometers higher up from where the old man was standing, towering majestically over the merchants and the ordinary townspeople, separating this rabble in turn from the even richer and nobility of the town, who lived in huge mansions that could be made out even from kilometers away.

A rasping and rasping sigh passed over the old man's lips as he sighed something barely perceptible. "So much wealth, so much power, and yet even these people are nothing more than grains of dust in the gears of the fabric..."

With these muttered words, the man headed left, dragging his left leg behind him, toward a busy main road that led from the city limits up to the royal palace and cut through the city more than ten carriages wide.

"These dirty and useless eyesores of our beautiful city! How I wish the king would finally grant the petition and chase this whole pack out of town!" Complained a noble looking lady excitedly and disgustedly to her friend, who was walking hooked on her arm and by her side, both surrounded by servants who were blowing wind with long wags and some personal guards who were marching loosely around the noble couple. Disgusted, they both turned away whispering and walked the rest of the street until, after a quick conversation with the city guards placed there, they disappeared into the tunnel that ran through the wall.

The old man didn't even have the strength to think about what was being said about him and the other beggars on the side of the road, but just sat there, slumped over and smelling of sweat.

He knew his last days were numbered, but he still thanked the Creator every day for the opportunity to have lived a life. Even if it had been an unhappy life, which had passed from one misfortune and miserable coincidence to the next, the bald older man was still satisfied.

He thought back to how it had been to touch his wife, her soft skin, her smile like a thousand rays of sunshine. Their three children together, his son and his two daughters. Of the beautiful days in his life, together with his family.

And before he could digress to the first misfortune, which had taken all but him by a magical plague, and it had even affected him physically and not curable, and the greedy relatives and neighbors with lies and deception had snatched everything, he concentrated once again on the here and now.

One deep painful breath after the next, he looked down into his cracked and bowl-shaped hands to see if he had had more luck with a kind soul today than many of the days and months before.

Surprised to actually find something in his hand, he opened his crusty and aching eyes, shakily shielded them from the setting sun with his right hand, and stared at a white, perfectly round object in the palm of his left hand. The object nestled warmly and yet at the same time coldly into his sore hand, but gave him a feeling of well-being that he had not felt for years.

Startled by the precious gift, which had certainly cost a fortune, the older man looked around with cracking joints and rigid muscles of his neck for the one good soul, which must still be near. He let his blurred vision wander over the people scurrying by, over the carts and carriages rolling up and down, people on horses and reptile-like mounts, but found no one who had walked even remotely close to him to be able to lay something in his palms. Only one person, in a white robe with hood, and an almost white gnarled wooden staff in the hand, wandered on the left side down the street, on which side he also sat today.

Astonished and speechless, but already too far away from the person, he looked down again at the ball in his hand, and put his other palm trembling over the object until it was closed between his palms.

The old man did not know what the object represented, but he could not shake the feeling that he had just encountered a god on Aorus. He didn't know why, or how, but the object between his palms was calling to him. It wanted to be more than just an object in his hands. It wanted to help him. It wanted to heal him. It wanted to breathe LIFE into him!

Without thinking further about the absurdity, the older man raised his left hand to his mouth and swallowed the object.

He named his allegiance after the god who had breathed new life into him. That much he knew, and the bald man smiled up into the sun.

Behind him, at the foot of the hill and all the way up the hill, stood hundreds of other formerly poor souls, with new hope in their eyes, and a new purpose in their lives.

The old man, after his encounter with the Creator, had gained knowledge that he had never thought possible. Not only knowledge as practiced by other healers on Aorus, not only superficial knowledge about herbs and mana, but an insight behind the fabric of the world, the mysteries of mana, body, mind and soul. Knowledge with which he had helped others on their feet and had healed the body, mind and soul of other fateful individuals through his deep-seated knowledge. Limbs had grown back, magical and mundane illnesses had disappeared, and where before there had been despair and death, there had been a sense of hope and peace.

The community and following that had gradually gathered around the older man as he had passed through Eos had at some point numbered in the hundreds and had led him to this place and this place.

Looking down from the sky and the warm sun, he saw once again the fabled place where they would found an order together. And just as majestically as the white temple shining from within sat before him in the flat valley, the gigantic-looking reddish shimmering tower, which dominated the horizon and pierced the sparse clouds in the sky, also impressed him.

Taking his arms out of the sleeves of a brown robe, he spread his muscular arms and turned to all the people, who were of different races, ages and cultures. Where before there would have been a sick and slumped man, there now stood a younger man, without scars and with a gentle smile on his face. With another thought back to that fateful day, he opened his mouth and spoke to those present in a clear and magically amplified loud voice.

"And here, on this one day, in this special place, everything comes together. Each of us had finished with life, but we fought, day in and day out, and finally HE intervened!"

Like a prophet, but not remotely fanatical or resembling one of the many priests of the untold deities, he smiled into the crowd, his arms continuing to spread out to his left and right.

With a final sweep of his right arm, he made a welcoming gesture and beckoned the assembled to come out to him. As the first and gradually the last arrived on the plateau of the hill, everyone whispered excitedly to each other and the older man rejoiced heartily as he saw all the tears of joy and gestures toward the two heavenly buildings. People were hugging each other beaming with joy, talking excitedly with each other, a few were even dancing with happiness, and everyone was rejoicing together with their neighbor.

And with a final invitation, the old man's voice drifted over those gathered.

"Welcome home, Order of Akkalon!"

Drenched in sweat, Avan pushed himself away from the mural and shook his head as he staggered back a step from the wall.

"What the abyss...?" he muttered, moving his head slightly from left to right, as if he had drunk too much.

He sat back on the floor and stared at the detailed sculptures and painted scenes in front of him. "Did I really just...? Witness that?"

"Oh wow..." he whispered, running his right hand through his hair ending back in a horse braid, his left palm still resting on the floor left behind him.

"THAT'S what I call having a trip. That was... like four-D cinema, only more real."

A few minutes passed, during which Avan internally processed what he had just experienced and sorted out his thoughts.

Why can't all history books and lore be SO? That's what I call instructive. And that must have been the founder of the order... Holy shit. Holy, in the truest sense of the word. He chuckled briefly, and knocked the dust off his pants as he stood up again.

After some more careful research of the murals while keeping his distance, and another ten minutes later, Avan was back in front of the portal in the middle of the room.

Somehow happy to have had this experience, Avan walked through the portal with a dreamy smile on his lips. And landed directly on another meadow, directly in front of a hundred meter high white temple.

Before he could marvel at the building any further, however, and before his dungeon senses could warn him, something crashed into his side and pulled him down onto the meadow floor.

Laughing, and immediately recognizing it, Avan wrapped both arms around the small attacking beast.

"Horny! Where the hell have you been all this time?"