"500 kilometers in a matter of seconds?" Crystal asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I had ended up in the village of Tragorio, which is a good 500 kilometers away from the Freespirit compound. Honestly, I was lucky that I ended up in the same kingdom. As I realized a little later, these portals could've spit me out anywhere on the world, even in an area, where nobody was speaking my language. That would have complicated things even more," Sebarius explains, raises the piece of meat on a stick out of the campfire, checks whether it's done and then places it a little away for it to cool down a little.

"So the legend was true...interesting," Crystal murmurs, absentmindedly biting off a piece of her own stick, apparently not minding the heat at all.

"Wait, which legend?" Sebarius asks and turns around so fast that he almost knocks over his own food.

Aiko explains, "More like a ghost story, really. When we were in the area, we heard a bunch of rumors about 'strange voices' from inside the compound in the middle of the night and strange lights. Some even claimed to have seen ghastly people wandering around and then vanishing without a trace. But nobody could ever prove anything. And now nobody never will be, I guess."

"Still, I'd love to know just why the portals started opening and snapping shut when I entered. I mean, it hasn't done that before for centuries, I'm hardly the first to examine that cave and I'm really not that special either."

Aiko remarks with a smirk, "Who knows, maybe you're a descendant from a lost line of spirits yourself."

"Yeah right, as if," Sebarius retorts, when something clicks in the back of his mind and he asks, "Say, you just said you 'had been in the area'. When exactly was that? It wouldn't have happened to be around that time, right?"

"Are you suggesting that we somehow blew up the thing?"

"I am suggesting that you are a curious duo who want to learn about before the great reset just like me. And that you have a reputation of getting in and out of dangerous if not downright impossible situations. I am not suggesting you did it on purpose, mind you, but since I didn't press any buttons that had not been pressed a thousand times before..."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it. And we were 'in the area', looking for clues on that 'rumor' Aiko mentioned. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, on with your story, time's a wasting," Crystal concludes the conversation between Sebarius and Aiko, obviously disliking the course it was taking.

Sebarius makes a mental note to try to talk to Aiko without Crystal being within earshot, even though he knows the chances of that ever happening are slim.

After making a small pause to actually eat, Sebarius nods and says, "Fine, so I was 500 kilometers away from where I was been supposed to be with next to no supplies and no clue on how to get back on track. However that wasn't even the worst...the worst was the dreams in the nights that followed."

"Dreams?" Aiko asks, suddenly perking up again.

"Yes, dreams. Look, I can't explain it myself, but somehow it felt like 'something' happened to me when I went through that portal. As if some part of me 'connected' to a different world. It stopped in the meantime, mind you, but for a while, these dreams haunted me almost every night."

"So what were those dreams about? And you can skip the lewd parts, thank you very much."

Sebarius shakes his head and replies, "I wouldn't even have mentioned the dreams, if they had only been lewd fantasies. I mean, of course those happen ocassionally too, but those are—"

"Stop stuttering and get on with it," Crystal demands, cutting Sebarius off.

Sebarius clears his throat, trying to reel his thoughts back in and making an effort to not look at Aiko, fearing that his mind might go on vacation again when he did.

'You've come here to tell a story, not to stare at pretty girls, you damn fool!' he tells himself.

As I said before, the dreams started in the night after going through the portal.

They were not like the usual dreams, where you are a part of the situation unfolding.

On the contrary, I was more like an observer of sorts, watching the events as they unfolded.

I saw great and strange cities in the distance, against whose splendor even the most magnificent capitals of our world are mere villages.

I mean it, the cities I saw reached until the horizon and then some more, with buildings reaching towards the heavens.

Countless people wandered the streets, many of them human or at least 'humanoid', much like the two of you. There were all kinds of creatures roaming around, but none taking notice of me as if I wasn't even there.

I've even seen a few of the creatures soar through the skies above me, landing on poles that seemed to have been made specifically for that purpose.

It was a breathtaking sight to be sure.

The noise, however, was deafening.

A cacophony of voices speaking in tongues I could not comprehend, sounding like the chirping of the birds.

It was only on the third night, when there was only a few persons around me, I started to make out sounds I had known, namely the sounds you'd translate the runes found in the ruins to.

At that point I realized, that I was seeing the distant past, the world before the great reset and that the people were simply speaking the language of old, the language nobody today could decipher.

The same night, I began taking notes on the sounds I had heard, trying to match them to the runes I knew, attempting to decipher what the people had been saying in these dreams of mine.

It took me three whole weeks and a lot of referencing with the local branch of the scholar's guild until I managed to decipher a sentence which would translate to 'Would you please put 'bread' on the shopping list? We're out.'

Aiko suddenly burst out in laughter at Sebarius translation, interrupting his tale.

"Seriously?! Y-you took three weeks to figure out they needed to buy groceries?!" she cackled.

Sebarius endured her laughing fit patiently and finally explained, "My apologies for not conveniently dreaming of the moments that defined history. Yes, they were everyday scenes and not very exciting to the layman, but to I was still seeing the past, by whatever means that was even possible!"

Crystal, calm as usual, asks, "While that is certainly interesting, there must be more, right? I mean, you mentioned it being 'the worst part', so..."

Sebarius nods and explains, "You are right...shortly before the dreams stopped, the visions I saw changed."

Hell.

That is the only way I can describe what I saw in those last days.

The once magnificent cities set ablaze by destruction raining from the skies, people running in panic, shouting, yelling...and everywhere I looked, there was death.

Shattered bones, lifeless eyes, a terrifying nightmare if I have ever seen one.

I saw people in strange armor roaming the streets with what looked like strangely formed sticks made from metal.

And once they pressed a button on these sticks, a beam of light would emerge from the far end, bringing death to all it touched, be it man, woman or child alike.

The inhabitants of this town did, of course, not take this punishment without putting up a fight and, in turn, employed terrifying weaponry of their own, slaying the attacking soldiers by the dozen with one fell swipe using their own machines of war, like for example the warrior made of stone you fought earlier.

But they could not last, the numbers of the attackers were just too great and in the last dream, I saw a dark city, all splendor long since lost, with all kinds of people slowly dragging their feet through the streets, all the happiness and carefreeness long since gone from their faces.

The victorious soldiers roamed the streets and singled out every one who did not look human, taking them away, I don't know where to, but I am very certain that it was a cleansing going on...everyone who was not human was removed from the streets.

I watched some of the 'animal people' disguising themselves as humans, hiding the traiterous body parts with their magic and indeed for a while they managed to evade capture...until the soldiers started using the spirit orbs, which would shine each time it got close to one hiding this way.

And finally, after being forced to watch a woman with child getting dragged away to her demise, the dreams stopped.

A long silence spreads among the three of them, until Crystal finally asks, "And...you think all of that was...real? And not just a bad nightmare?"

"I...I don't know, really. That's why I went looking for the spirit orb in the first place. I...I needed to know whether it would really lead me to...well, you, Mi...Aiko. To know whether what I've seen could possibly have been real. And since I am now sitting here with you, courtesy to the shard of the spirit orb..."

Sebarius leaves the sentence incomplete, letting the heavyness of the situation and its implications hang in the silence.