The Magi's Society

Mevi found herself, once again, drifting in the infinite expanse of her own subconscious. Her lucidity within her dreams had been less frequent, during the few days of peace she afforded with Kalesi. Here, in this realm of strange and ever changing shapes and colors, Mevi seemed truly alone.

She drifted within the empty void for a time, she was partially aware of her physical form in the waking world. As she had fallen to the ground, something grabbed her. Who, or what, had retrieved her from the rusting battlefield was unclear. She had vague memories of ships, darting and attacking one another in short skirmishes. Her few visions of the clear skies were fleeting, and blurred from her all-consuming exhaustion. A strong tension hung around her physical body, so potent that it infected her senses within her dream. Some degree of chaos outside of her mind was jostling, and affecting, her body, which in turn created stress that formulated into twisted clouds projected in her dream-scape.

Mevi recalled, suddenly, Kalesi. Her burnt and wounded body had laid beside her. What had happened to Kalesi, was she saved? Was Mevi saved? What few pieces of this unending puzzle Mevi could quantify showed little sense. The last few day’s events showed some strange connection that Mevi couldn’t fathom, and yet she knew there was some strings of connections that tied her fate to the actions of others. Pondering by herself, in her empty dream plane, would not help her to accomplish anything, especially if even Kalesi wasn’t able to fully understand these strange events.

Kalesi made some show of confidence, for her pupil’s sake Mevi thought, in the last few days. Yet as Mevi marveled over her scattered memories, she was sure Kalesi had little more understanding than Mevi herself held. Whatever secret plots hid behind the recent events Mevi didn’t find or see the connections, even within her essence of memory with her perfect lucidity.

As Mevi attempted to comprehend the unknowable reasoning behind her fate, a dark shadow began to creep into her mind. A familiar feeling, and her dread companion of many years. As the dark began to crawl into her mind, Mevi was almost relieved to sense something so familiar. Her darkness, whatever it was, had nested within her dreams for as long as her memory lasted. Yet after her days calmed, or when cared for by Kalesi, it seemed warded away. This stalking depression within her deepest soul, it had finally returned to seek some amount of retribution for her days of peace. The miasmic entity drifted towards her, and began to consume her entirely.

As the darkness fully engulfed her, Mevi was almost curious of its meaning. For the first time in her life she wanted to understand the entity that stalked her, rather than fight and flee in its presence. Mevi held some small amount of clarity in her lucid dreaming, where before her nights were strife with terrorized escapism she instead now reached out to the abyss. Her every memory and sense told her to avoid the dark, but the last few moment’s events forced her to recognize something was indeed within her.

Reaching out, in the way only a dreamer can, Mevi melded with her soul’s shroud. Its overwhelming presence began peppering her with cruel memories. Her childhood: the days she was locked away without light, in starvation and fear. Yet Mevi knew better now, she knew something within her could somehow manifest in the waking world, and she willed it to ward away the evil memories. Her focus was staggered, and what thoughts she could coherently process revolved around forgetting her terrible memories, but as she drew from within herself a new power coalesced at her command, placed upon her mind was now a shield. The dark entity wailed in anger against the wall that prevented its advance, but as it lamented Mevi was confused.

Mevi had attempted to ward away this darkness before, in stronger fits of dedication than now. Yet what little focus she maintained was somehow powerful enough to block the advance of her perpetual daemon. As Mevi beheld the dark power, it seemed entirely feeble; or perhaps weakened. Her attention was drawn further into the dark abyss, and within its own core Mevi could sense something that’s origin was neither hers nor this darkness’.

Binding some strange core of the monster within herself, were three hot-white ethereal locks. What small amount of miasmic power could seep out of the locks made up her now-weakened daemon. Three powerful white starlights, glowing with an overwhelming authority; beautiful, if not for the hanging terror that rivaled the dark abyss’ own.

Mevi didn’t understand what these locks were, or how they came to be. Had these always been within her, or had they recently developed? Her instinct told her they were invaders, something recently put into place. Yet she didn’t realize what they were until she approached closer. What she beheld as mystical locks, gleaming stars of pure power, were in fact ephemeral gemstones projecting a near invincible authority. Ethereal chains strung out of them, wrapping around the core of her monster. These chains dung into, and infected, the dark entity as the chains seemed to spread deeper inside the daemon’s core as she watched. The more the dark power struggled, the more it used itself to rail against Mevi’s meager defenses, the deeper the chains spread. It seemed as if the chains harvested something from the monster, small tendrils of its dark essence streaked into the chains; the angered daemon writhed against the chains as they harvested steady amounts of power from it, but it could do nothing against the powerful gem’s power.

Mevi knew she should feel glad, the forceful taming of this power could no longer haunt her, yet this method felt wrong somehow. This wasn’t her taming whatever daemon lurked inside her, it was akin to enslavement. Whatever enabled the process was wrong, and she felt some small desire to set free this daemon that had terrorized her dreams for countless nights.

As Mevi investigated her inner self, she suddenly felt a new presence near her corporeal body. An amount of time, unknown to her, must’ve passed. The area around her sleeping body felt somehow more stable, the tension she could sense moments before was erased. Even within her chaotic dream-scape she became calmed. Whatever danger stalked outside of herself must have disappeared. While the tension had left, she could still feel the occasional touch and firm grasp.

Suddenly, as Mevi carefully investigated her inner daemon’s core, she felt a great cold wash over her body. A vision of bubbling liquid, a cold embrace of water, flashed across her dream. The momentary image dissipated, but her mind had been shaken. As her body fully dove into the unknown waters, the dark power began to cower and shriek within itself. The white locks were almost cooled, dimming from their previous power to a more moderate light.

While Mevi’s daemon writhed within itself, Mevi was curious what was happening. Yet without entering the waking world, she couldn’t guess what might go on around her. She focused hard, remembering how she activated her power in moments of need. She demanded sight, and remembered Kalesi; Mevi needed to know where her mentor was taken and if Kalesi was safe. As she summoned further desire, the white locks burned brighter than they had before, and seemed to absorb a large amount of essence from her caged daemon. As her desire burned with command, the dark substance within her daemon’s core was rapidly absorbed into the glowing chains reaching out from the locks. The black power snaked up the ethereal chains, and its fashion was reminiscent of her own veins becoming infected by a black taint. As Mevi watched the glowing chains, she forgot her initial desire and realized what those three locks might’ve been. Her Maige.

As her desire faded, and the glowing chains reduced themselves to their normal state, she felt a sudden wave of worry in the air around where her body slept. She felt like it wasn’t her own, like she could feel the drifting emotions in the air of others who might be around her. Some amount of panic had briefly possessed the presences around where she slept, but had begun to pass as her command to her Maige was dismissed. She still needed to see Kalesi, she needed to know she was safe, and this need trumped her own safety.

Mevi, knowing how her Maige drew power forcefully from her imprisoned daemon, couldn’t use her abilities. The sorrow she felt at its torture, it was strange to describe her feeling anything but fear towards something so terrible within her. Yet she didn’t want to harm the entity, she felt it was part of her in some way, and her mind fought with itself to decide what desire would win over. Her need to see Kalesi again or preventing further pain to this thing inside her.

As Mevi fought against herself for what to do, an overwhelming presence slowly became obvious to her senses. Gradually at first, a great blue expanse in the far distance of her mind, but it quickly grew in power. This presence approached her, both spiritually and physically. She knew it was there, and it was entering her consciousness to reach out to her. What she could understand of her own mind was then overcome with a great blue sky, stretching farther than fathomable. No obvious avatar of this effect came into understanding, instead an all-encompassing gentleness. A great curiosity, some creature that longed to see the end of an endless space, an insatiable desire to see and know all under this strange ever expanding sky. Then it entered.

The great presence, showing itself as an avatar of the sky itself coalesced into a humanoid form. From the far distance Mevi could see its approach. This being was somehow familiar, yet completely new to her. As if some forgotten memory was dredging its remains to the surface, but only scraps of the scraps remained. This far presence, it stood still and watched as Mevi seemed to be slowly approaching it. Indeed, both Mevi and her chained daemon were approaching closer and closer to this alien calm.

This entity remained at a far distance, but Mevi was steadily traveling nearer without her own effort. Mevi could barely sense her corporeal surroundings, what senses she had left in the waking world were preoccupied with the swirling water that rushed around her. She was traveling somewhere, and this state she found herself in was somehow diluting her abilities to understand the world around her. Kalesi’s condition was still unknown, and this new entity desired to block her vision in some strange way. Mevi would not allow this. While she regretted using her chained darkness, Mevi needed power to see her mentor and confirm her safety.

Channeling what little energy Mevi had within herself, she supplemented her mind by drawing power from her dark daemon through her Maige. The dark taint was drawn into the glowing chains, which quickly shone with an unnatural light the color of pitch. With the power she now possessed, Mevi reached out to her surroundings in attempt to ascertain where she was. Images did not come to her mind, but instead she could feel the presence of many. A vague understanding of a body, and their shifting emotions, was all she could understand of any individual. There were many creatures near her, but she could also sense a great open vastness below, as if they were in birds of a flock among the skies or over a great trench in a vast ocean.

Mevi could only remember glimpses of Kalesi’s wounded form, she had been so quickly and fully consumed her enraged mind turned away from Kalesi’s condition almost instantly. Yet the image of charred skin, metal fibers bonding with soft flesh, like a host of ragged flesh fighting to melt away from its metal casket. The memory she conjured in her mind was made of pure emotion, terror, and skewed perception. Mevi refused to believe it was an accurate memory, and Mevi searched for some hint of pain or deformity that might be detected through her mystical radar. As she searched, sifting through the minds and bodies became exceptionally difficult. The longer she used her power, the more frantic the bodies around her became. Their panicked attitudes stalled Mevi’s search, as the unknown people’s psyche made such wild noise that it cascaded against her senses.

Just as Mevi was beginning to give up on her search, a faint thought seemed to reach out to her. Despite the overwhelming chaos of those around her, and the overwhelming presence the great sky avatar created, a single thought pierced through the chaos to touch her spirit. A damaged, weak, and pained psyche was also searching for her. Some small fragment of Kalesi was submerged in unconsciousness and weakly probed the dream-scape Mevi traveled across. Mevi rushed her focus past all other creatures that swarmed around her, and placed her full attention on this faint spark of her mentor.

Kalesi was drifting in and out of the waking world, dipping into unconsciousness only to be thrust back into wakefulness by shots of pain. She was wounded, and in such great pain she found no rest. Kalesi’s mind raced with memory, thoughts, regret, military strategy, and all the things that Kalesi always paid attention to. The tiniest detail of her surroundings were ingrained onto her memory for every moment she breached into the waking world and opened her eyes. Even in her agony Kalesi was assessing her surroundings for threats, strategy, and searching for information. Within her mind was a great concern, and its importance rang like a bell to awaken and force her search to renew. Kalesi was looking for Mevi, in her delirious state she still worried about the girl. In her thoughts few words, meanings, or reason could be detected, but Mevi could sense Kalesi’s need for Mevi to be alive. Her want to keep her safe, so as to keep herself alive occasionally breached the surface of her thoughts. But most of all a strange attachment pushed out all other concerns and proper reasoning. Mevi could not accurately decipher the message, as she had no true experience as to what it looks or feels like, but Mevi thought the emotion was that of love.

Mevi knew where Kalesi was now, and refocused what power she had left. She could not accept Kalesi being harmed. Mevi channeled all the power she could draw from into her wounded mentor, Mevi forced her body to endure great pain so she could harvest more power to heal Kalesi’s wounds and scattered psyche. Mevi’s own pain increased, what had been there before seemed to be stalled by the strange water she rested within. Yet as Mevi drew more and more of herself to heal Kalesi, the pain overcame what little comfort the sky avatar’s presence provided and what numbness the water produced. As the pain grew more, a new mind forced its way within her dreamworld. An unknown creature, foggy mind and weak fortitude, this new entity thrust itself upon Mevi in a crude and inefficient way. As if they were climbing through an air duct rather than using a door, all the while they shouted Mevi’s meaning. Not her name, but called out to what she was. This entity finally breached what few defenses Mevi could hold against it, and a single clear voice echoed for a brief moment in her mind, “Stop! Don’t use your Maige! We will help your master, just stop!” The voice rang with such a faintness, and an infecting echo, that what tone or gender might’ve existed was completely lost. Mevi realized what the bodies around her were panicked about; they were rushing and tending to Mevi’s corporeal form in a crazed response as she used her powers. Her pain grew greater and the daemon within her screamed out in response to Mevi’s thievery of its being.

Without realizing it, Mevi had been siphoning a great deal of power away from the daemon that was chained within her. It was shrinking, and dying, as she took more and more from it. Noticing Kalesi’s mind was calming, and more and more bodies rushed away from Mevi to interact and treat Kalesi, Mevi calmed herself and stopped her usage. She was promised Kalesi would be looked after, and the various panicked minds rushed away from where Mevi was in the cosmic plane to instead be with Kalesi. So Mevi decided to trust this crude voice that had attacked her defenses simply to send a message.

The crowd of clattering thoughts and emotions calmed themselves, after a time. As their work was divided evenly between Mevi and Kalesi, Mevi felt some comfort leaving the work to whoever was outside of herself. Yet as time went on, the great sky grew in intensity. After a while of waiting and observing the dream world, the overwhelming presence had grown so vast and bright that Mevi had to hide against her weakened daemon to shield herself in its leftover miasma. They seemed to be orbiting the entity’s avatar, who was watching with an overwhelming calm far below. Mevi could sense many other loose consciousnesses far below herself, less potent and almost unnoticeable in comparison to the power that shone like a great star.

Then, as Mevi hid from the great light, her position began to lower towards the bright avatar. As they delved lower and lower, inching slowly towards the vastness coalesced into a coherent form, Mevi’s consciousness began to wane within her own plane. Within her dream, and into her own mind, drove a great weariness that slowed her thoughts and calmed her. A strange rest that wanted to take over and force her into a blank, singular, thought. To think of, and be, nothing while she rested. Her grasp on the cosmic plane within her dreaming mind was slipping, she was falling into true unconsciousness. With her last vestiges of strength Mevi reached out to reassure herself of Kalesi’s presence. Kalesi was there, nearby, and healing. Whoever had tended to Mevi were now fully focused on her mentor. With some semblance of satisfaction, and hope, Mevi slipped into a true sleep. One without lucid memory, and without an invading darkness to escape from. Simple dreams of better places.