I dream of the fall of Shepherd’s Stead. 

It was early winter. A few days after the Festival of the Dying Sun, right before sunrise when everything began.

 I was seven years old. My grandfather had been taking me out to Drachenweald every day since I was four, and old enough to understand some of the words he had been saying. He wanted to train me just as he had trained my sister when she was my age. She had left the spring of that year to join the Guild. With his tutelage, I had already discovered my first Wheel at the age of six, and was on the path to discovering my second. 

The town sat in a small clearing in the middle of the Drachenweald, in the shadow of the White King — a permanently white peaked mountain that jutted out from the middle of the like a God. The house that I was born in, and spent my first seven years, was the town’s mayoral house; an honor given to my grandfather. It was made of hewn stone, and ancient wood, and had been constructed in an alcove formed by a stony overhang that jutted out from the base of the mountain. The remains of an ancient fence sat within it, as well as a giant linden tree that held its green all year round. White flowers would bloom every spring, and sprinkle to the ground, and carpet the stony soil floor. Beneath it lay two ancient stones, side by side. It was too hard to dig through the ground now to see what lay beneath them.

It was an old town. That’s all that anyone really knew. Most of the history of Atoria had been lost over the past 800 years since the monsters first appeared and begun to take over the world. It was around for longer than any of the old people of the town had known, and longer still than their parents, and even their parent’s parents. It was a mystery how long it had been there. Morgan, my sister, theorized that it had been there since before the first monsters began appearing, though she only came to that conclusion based on the age of the linden tree. 

Grandfather had tried to train Morgan, but she wasn’t as receptive as I was to his teachings. Neither were my brothers. He trained them how to survive in the wild, but none of them were able to grasp the concepts of the Wheels as well as he had. Morgan trained to use a spear instead. She had no master and taught herself how to use one. By the time she left to join the guild, she was able to best both my older brothers, and my father in combat. 

It’s a dream I often have, of that night. In it, I awake in the bed there, right before the loud boom. 

“Where am I?” I think to myself as I frantically look around. 

I’m in that old room. With the window facing the town. The floors creak and groan as the heat from the fireplace expanded the frozen boards. I know where I am, and I know what is to come. I try to struggle out of my bed, but my blankets are like lead. I try to yell to get the attention of my grandfather, who sleeps in the room above mine, but I cannot open my mouth. 

The hole house shakes as a massive explosion erupts in the Drachenweald, I fall out of my bed and through the floor as the shock-wave knocks the bell tower down. I lay on the ground in the middle of town while the people run. My parents run. My brothers run. Every person in town runs. All except for my father. He stands there, above me, urging the people to escape. 

Over the treeline, the head of a giant elk — glimmering as white as the snow that lay on the ground peeks at the town. The light of the full moon peered through its empty eye sockets as it stared at the retreating people. Tree roots hang off of its pointed antlers. It lets out a call, so loud that the earth itself shifts under us. A few people stumble. Those that do don’t make it. The call — no, the hellish scream, shakes loose a shelf of snow on the side of the White King, sending it, and a cascade of boulders dragged along, careening into the town. The houses are covered in an instant. So are those still trying to retreat. 

From the Drachenweald, hordes of elk in various forms of decay, burst forth from the trees and swarm like rats. Baying and calling and screaming. They run down the people who are too slow in their escape. My family is in the front, and in reality I was with them. In this dream, however, I am laying on top of the thick layer of snow covering what was once the town green, and watching my grandfather. Watching the pinnacle of magic.  

He reaches to the heavens and releases a great explosion of yellow energy. It sweeps across the land and into the woods. All of the attacking creatures turn away from the retreating citizens and back towards the town. 

“Run!” His voice echoes, “I’ll hold them off as long as I can!” 

He moved like a phantom. Untouched by the goring horns of the shambling elk. Moving in the empty spaces between them like a mist. At his touch, the creatures exploded in brilliance. Golden flashes illuminate the night. The earth forms spears of stone and compact soil around him; shattering bone and sundering rotting flesh as they jut forth. Twisted roots tear from the frozen ground and grab hold of the creatures by the dozen, squeezing and slamming them against one another. 

The wind moves at my grandfather’s command. Cyclones roar through the hellish hordes, tossing them and dashing them against the buildings still standing after the avalanche, and against the stone of the mountain. Snow, stone and broken wood animated themselves into child size golems and aided my grandfather in his struggle. 

Even the starlight obeyed him. Streaks of pale light crash to the earth and melt snow and eat away at everything they touch. Turning the undead bodies into ash. 

The giant elk turned its hate filled, empty gaze towards my grandfather. It roared again, and shook the earth. Most everyone still alive was out of view when this happened, including me, and that’s when the dream ends. And I wake to the familiar murmuring of, “the Hermit is dead. The Hermit is dead.”