[ Dungeon ] [ The Main Hall ] Awake

'No!' Menat's mind screamed the second the water smacked into her back. Her Khiimori, her steed, was ripped from under her as the powerful wave washed over the duo. The motion causing the steed and Princess to go tumbling through the sudden tsunami right over the side of the bridge. She had escaped the draconic beast that stopped her with his overwhelming power and suffocating aura of fear and hopelessness, she had even avoided the kind of impact from the unthinkable downpour that would have dealt any kind of physical damage. But at what cost?

'I should never have come here. There's got to be dungeons out there I could have gone after that wouldn't have been so overwhelming.' Her mind continued to consider all the reasons her coming to this island had been horrible to begin with. Anything other than acknowledging the imminent end that awaited her at the bottom of the dragon's chasm. She wasn't ready to let it all end. To say goodbye to her siblings or to never return to her mother. She wasn't ready to meet her father like this.

The life-ending impact she expected never seemed to come. She had gone through and made peace with every aspect of her life there was left to make peace with but yet it all seemed for naught. At least at this moment. She had thought her eyes had been closed the entire time she had been falling through the chasm yet when she attempted to open them she found it to be impossible to open more as a phantom sensation of having them open wide already existed. Yet saying it was a phantom sensation was incorrect in itself. Much of the sensations of her body, all of them really, seemed to be lacking from her form.

The heaviness and alien sensations of her Spriggan body that she had come to be accustomed to had vanished without Menat seeming to realize it. Not that she had worn much clothing in her new form but what she did wear seemed to be missing as well. Even the weight of the weapons and equipment she had brought along with her had all seemingly vanished. A sense of terror filled her non-existent being as a single thought intruded upon her.

'Where's Ipos!?!' She attempted to look around, to pat herself down in search of the tuning fork that housed the djinn she had obtained from her first ever dungeon. Nothing was there for her see let alone touch in her search. Was she actually dead? Had her death come so swiftly that she hadn't even felt her essence leave her physical form behind? One new hope did burn to a roaring flame in the core of her essence. Was she free from that prison of a body Jiryu had "gifted" her with?

Before she could relish in this possibility or even consider the fact that it was pointless if she was dead and unable to return to her family as the Menat they wouldn't have to worry about being embarrassed or ashamed of her attention was pulled towards a starlight like glimmer in the darkness. How she did it was completely lost on her but somehow Menat managed to direct herself towards that light, something about it seemingly aiding her by offering an odd pulling sensation to draw her in. Soon enough she was passing into the very light that drew her attention, replacing the cold darkness around her with blinding white for several moments before a new scene was painted before her.

Water pooled under the Princess, rippling in waves synchronized with the breathing of the being before her. Lounging out across a colassal cushioned piece of furniture lay the form of an equally gigantic man. It was an odd sensation for Menat, possibly as weird as anything else she had dealt with recently, but Menat's first reaction to the man was to think that he was rather adorable with how he slept. There wasn't anything that made her feel like he was anything more than that from a visual perspective. The way he clutched his blanket as he slept was just simply that to the young Princess. Adorable.

Then he woke. Questioning if it was time for something that only he seemed to know about. Was Menat's arrival something he had been anticipating? Was this the embodiment of death that had come to welcome her to the great flow now that her time had come? She was unable to ponder more of these outlandish ideals as the giant of a man began to physically stir from under his covers. Menat wanted to run as his far more sizable fingers reached for her but lacking a physical body meant she also lacked the ability to retreat from the colossus before her. Fearing the worse she instead felt nothing more than the pad of a finger far larger than any should ever be somehow simply grazing what would have been her forehead. The giant spoke again to the Princess, deeming her a "Champion" and claiming that he had waited long for her. He also commented on her bravery for entering "the Dream" of her own choice.

Like everything else that happened outside of Meridia's borders this too added to the list of things simply confusing Menat. What was "the Dream"? Was it inside the dungeon? Sure she had wanted to enter it through the gate willingly but she had been knocked off the bridge to it rather unwillingly. Was the gate door this time a simple misdirection and the chasm that dragon had emerged from the actual entrance to the dungeon? So many questions and, as with all of them, Menat knew she would never get any answers to any of them even if she ever got the chance to ask in the first place. Such as now. The giant continued on, questioning her something along the lines of "what doth thou see when thou ponder upon thy form?" to which she could only attempt to understand as his asking of what she normally thought of her own appearance when she looked upon her reflections.

A sourness filled Menat's phantom mouth at this question as golden waters blinded her and pulled her down below the ripling surface she had been floating over. Breathing only threatened for fill her lungs with the freezing cold waters that she had been submerged within yet the ability to hold her breath had become close to non-existant since she had undergone her transformation into a Spriggan. As a result she found herself forced to take in that very chilling fluid containing her. The golden light that had pulled her down while blinding her vision had faded away to darkness yet floating before her was a figure. Vaguely humanoid in shape and pure white Menat had no idea what it was. But her first guess was that it had something to do with the djinn's question. A question she didn't want to answer or even think about yet again. Yet something within her seemed to compel her to answer. Was it something to do with the water she floated in and as it happened also filled her lungs.

"At my core I am a Fanalis like my mother before me.Tall and powerful and radiant. A warrior fully capable of holding her own with a spear with the best of our soldiers" She wanted to stop there. To remember herself only as she was prior to her transformation into that horrific plant creature that she felt made others view her family in a worse light should she ever make herself a known face among them. But whatever had forced her to answer the djinn's question in the first place seemed to force her to continue on until she had fully described her feelings of her own self-image. "Or at least I WAS a powerful Fanalis like my parents before I ate that damned fruit. Now I feel like a monster. My body is nothing more than vines entwined with each other and held in a humanoid shape by a strong and powerful skin of bark tough enough to be called armor itself. The strength and speed I took such pride in was stripped from me in favor of learning to manipulate those vines to fight in new ways. I hate it!" Tears began to form in the edges of her eyes. Or at least phantom tears for phantom eyes. "I don't want to go back to that body! It's a prison that does nothing more than forbid me from being a part of my family!"

Just because the young woman had accepted the power and protection that her transformed body had come to offer didn't mean she had grown anymore comfortable with the divide she felt it created between her family, her kingdom and herself. What kind of a ruler could she be if she had to keep herself to the shadows of her family's palace like she did? How could she bond with her younger siblings without worrying they'd find her horrific or, even worse, consider her anything other than their sister?

None of this nade sense to the emotionless magician as he entered the dungeon. None of it that is until he was asked to define himself and what he saw. He would look almost dead eyed at the voice and speak.

"I ams Silva Kaida but also not him. I am not the past self that went into a frenzy at the site of blood and took loves with ease. Nor am I the current Silva before me, the one that had love and those that he cares about but failed to take the drastic measures to protect them. Instead I am aspects of both. I am one who realizes they have things to protect but will do anything possible to protect them even if it means killing threats that have not yet become such. I am the sold unfeeling protector who feels nothing as they dole out the protection needed for his people.

With this he would picture himself as a living statue more than a man. Something cold and unmoving. A bit taller than his normal height of 2m, a stone grey with a large two handed staff that was simply a tool for protecting. This was how the current Silva saw himself. Someone that had cast their emotions aside and could no longer be consider part of humanity

What was happening to him? It was as if his body was being pulled in all sorts of forms.
But what was so weird was the feeling of drowning and then he was not. This had Ghost feeling very unusual in a way. Yet here he was and this was him. As he tried to move he would realize that he had his right arm now and as he tried to look around he could not see anything.
Well at least at first until he saw a light. It was his only sort and alas he would race to it as best he could. As he looked on and now in the new place.
It would not take long for him to stare upon the giant of the man that stared at him. As he saw his long finger get closer to him.
Ghost would step back just a few feet.
But as he did that he would notice that he had a solo glass covering his right eye.

As a matter of fact. Ghost did not look like Ghost anymore.
As he would then say to the Ghost of a Man. "I say, sir, you did catch me off my rocker for a brief moment. But I assure you I was Ghost when I woke up this day as hopefully, I will be him when I lay my head down to rest." It was as if his speech. pattern changed. But Ghost would look on and see a pair of gloves. As he walked to them he would pick them up.

"How splendid are these and they should do. They are magic-casting hand clovers and I simply adore them."