The first day of Lucien's journey passed in relative peace. As an Awakened Devil, there weren't many monsters in the coral labyrinth that could threaten him. And with his storm sense, he avoided those who could.
Lucien spent the night atop a particularly tall coral pillar where the dark sea couldn't reach. Although he'd only been able to travel for a few hours, he had managed to cover quite a distance. With no one to look after, he could fully utilize his speed. By his calculations, he'd reach the Dark City in a few weeks at most.
Lucien sighed, "If only I could find the headless walker, I'd be able to return so much sooner."
If he'd been able to hitch a ride on top of the walker, he'd be back in only a few days. Alas, that was not to be.
Pushing the thought away, Lucien summoned his storage memory and fished out a piece of cooked monster meat. He'd been preparing for this day for a while now; he had enough food to last him at least a week, maybe two. The best part? The meat wouldn't even spoil inside the sack; he was practically set!
That didn't mean he wouldn't be hunting nightmare creatures every day, though. It had become a daily routine at this point, and he wasn't going to stop. Plus, the storm fragments were a welcome bonus.
Shaking his head, he went to dismiss the memory, but something caught his eye. Lucien's vision shifted as he peered beneath the dark fabric of the memory. Three stars lit up inside the soul sack, almost blinding him for a second. Each of them a nexus of innumerable diamond strings that stretched across the fabric, weaving an intricate, elaborate, unpredictable pattern.
Even with Nether's lineage augmenting him, his mind felt like it was on fire, unable to keep up with the sheer amount of information crashing into it.
Wincing in pain, Lucien forced the memory back into his soul sea. That…what was that?
Maybe he should try with a different memory.
The stone spear manifested itself out of dancing sparks in his hand, and Lucien peered into the memory. It was an awakened memory of the first tier, as such it should've been easier to look into.
Sure enough, when the complex weave showed itself again, Lucien didn't feel like his mind was burning away. He stared into the single bright ember in the stone, and the relatively simpler pattern. This time, he could actually interpret the pattern. He drank in every detail of the seemingly chaotic placement of strings, a defined purpose behind every twist and turn. They were meant to achieve one specific thing: Durability.
That lined up with what he knew of the weapon. The memory had only one enchantment, [Durable], allowing it to endure a lot more punishment than other memories of the same rank.
The stone goliath had told him of three forms of sorcery: runic, naming, and weaving. Lucien himself was only familiar with the sorcery of runes, having learnt some from the gateway in Nether's Citadel. And according to the goliath, Naming was simply the vocal form of runic sorcery. That left only weaving.
Unfortunately, the goliath didn't know much about that form of sorcery, even though that was what Nether used.
Now, Lucien was looking at that sorcery. To think that the memories granted by the spell were created using weave sorcery…
Was it Nether who made all of these memories?
Something told him it wasn't that simple.
As his head started to throb, Lucien looked away from the memory, his vision switching back to its normal self. He couldn't quite decipher the pattern itself, but he had made progress.
There was something else he wanted to test. Lucien stared at the Dark Sea below him as it clashed against the red coral. Kneeling down near the edge, he extended an arm and closed his eyes.
A single command echoed in his mind: Arise.
The water did not respond. Lucien tried again, this time more forcefully.
The dark water rose for a split second before falling down and returning to its usual ebb and flow. Something was stopping him, negating his command before it could take hold. It was not like wind, calm and willing to listen. Neither was it like the lightning, which was violent and transient.
Lucien suspected that the Dark Sea was more than just a sea, that there was someone behind the flow of these waves. Someone who commanded the water to rush out and drown the world in the night and return when the sun rose.
With this newfound knowledge, that theory seemed to be close to the truth. Lucien had even tried looking at it with the [Fountain of Knowledge] attribute activated, but he saw nothing. No new information flowed into his mind. It was as if the sea was truly inanimate.
Lucien doubted that was the case; still, he had no proof. Sighing, he turned away from the sea and returned to the center of the coral. He should get some rest.
That night, Lucien had a dream, the first dream after a long while. He dreamt of the past, before becoming a sleeper, long before.
Lucien was only a child back then, four, maybe five years old. Back then, the world didn't seem so haunting to him.
It was a few weeks after the Winter Solstice, which meant new people. It was always like that every year, dozens of new sleepers would arrive in the city, trickling in over the course of a few weeks. Over a hundred people had already reached the city, and more were coming every day.
To them, it was monumental to finally reach civilization after being sent to the dream realm. To Lucien, it was just the start of another year.
In the Dark City, there weren't many ways to pass the time, other than simply wandering its streets. That was exactly what Lucien was doing.
Every day, he would spend most of his time outside while his mother was out on a hunt. Normally, for a kid of his age, it would be considered dangerous to be outside on his own. But he wasn't normal, and these weren't normal circumstances.
A commotion brewed up nearby, drawing his attention. People had begun gathering near the city gates. Lucien squeezed his way through the crowd, curious to see what was happening.
There, right at the gates, a man was dragging himself through the dirt, using his cracked sword as a cane. His silver armour was drenched in blood, making it look more crimson than silver.
Lucien knew this man; he was a member of their leader's cohort. They had left to siege the tall spire a few weeks ago. He watched as the man stumbled forward, staring at the expectant faces of the sleepers of the Dark City. Had the Bright lord conquered the spire?
"..Gone…" The man whispered, staring at the ground, too ashamed to look at them. "They're…gone."
"W-what?" One of the sleepers stepped forward, "What do you mean they're gone?"
The man clenched his gauntleted fist and finally looked up, his hollow brown eyes staring through his broken visor. His face stained with tears and caked with blood.
"They're all dead!" He yelled, grabbing the man by the shoulders, "They're gone…"
Then, his grip slackened, and his shoulders sagged. His memories disappeared, like glass shattering, and his bloodied body fell, never to rise again.
Lucien jolted awake, jumping to his feet. His memories already forming themselves out of silver sparks. He looked around wildly, seeing nothing but darkness in every direction. As the shaft of his spear materialized, he squeezed it tightly, taking comfort in its presence. Where was he?
Somewhere below him, the Dark Sea was receding, and the sun finally rose from beyond the horizon.
'Oh, right, the labyrinth.' Lucien sighed in relief. Why was he dreaming of his own past?
He remembered that moment when the last member of the second bright lords' cohort returned to inform them of their deaths. It wasn't long after that that Gunlaug became the third lord.
Frowning, he pushed those thoughts away and began climbing down the pillar. He could think about it while he traversed the labyrinth.
That night, he had another dream. A year after the news of the second lord's death. A third lord had already taken his place and had begun enforcing some new rules, including the rule of paying to stay in the castle.
Before, during the reign of the first and second bright lords, the castle served as both the home of their cohorts and a refuge for the weaker inhabitants of the shores. Those who could not survive by hunting monsters. And in Aletta's case, those who had children to take care of.
With the new rules, that changed. The weak were thrown out into the outer settlements, and the rich paid to stay in there. Although Aletta could have paid soul shards every week to stay in the castle, she chose to leave. Mostly out of principle, but she was also not comfortable with leaving Lucien around those people.
So they chose to live with the others in the outer settlements. Their life in the outer settlements was…well, he wouldn't say good. But he was content with it.
It was during that solstice that Lucien ran into her. A lone sleeper standing quietly at the gate to the city.
The first thing Lucien noticed was her skin. It was grey like storm clouds. He had never seen someone with skin like that. It was weird.
Noticing someone staring at her, the girl frowned and turned towards him, expecting to find a teenage boy staring at her. But her frown died as soon as she laid her eyes upon him.
"A child?" She muttered, approaching him. What was a child doing in the dream realm? The nightmare spell didn't infect children that young.
Lucien didn't move even as she got closer. Growing up in the dark city, he had learned to notice it when people meant to do something bad. It was hard to explain, but something about their faces changed, especially the eyes. Lucien didn't see any of that on her face.
"Who are you?" She asked, bending down to his level, "Why are you here?"
"I'm Lucien," he said, extending his hand in a gesture he'd seen older kids do when greeting someone. "I was born here."
'A dreamspawn?' The girl stared at him through narrow eyes, reluctantly accepting the handshake. "Seishan of Clan Song."
"Why is your skin grey?"
Seishan blinked, taken aback by the directness of the question. She took a moment to think before deciding on a lie, "I was born with it."
"Cool." Lucien said, "Are you new here?"
"Yes," She nodded slowly, "Can you tell me where the gateway is?"
Lucien tilted his head in confusion, "Gateway?"
"It's a structure through which people return to the waking world." She explained, "There might be glowing symbols on it."
"Nope, never heard of it." Lucien shook his head, "You could ask the people from the castle about it."
Seishan frowned and looked toward the tall castle. The gateway should usually be inside there.
"But I don't think you will find it." Lucien said, and her gaze snapped back to him, "No one has been able to leave the city; they are pretty sad about it."
Seishan could suddenly hear her heart beating wildly in her chest. There's…no gateway?
"Good luck, though," Lucien said as he turned to leave, "I hope you do find it."
Lucien woke up to the sound of receding waves. The sun was up again, and he was still confused. Why was he having these dreams all of a sudden?
Try as he might, he could find no reason behind it. He didn't usually dream, maybe once a few months? For him to dream of the past two nights in a row…was weird. And why now, when he was this close to the end?
All that remained to be done was killing Gunlaig and guiding the sleepers of the Dark City into Nether's Citadel. Why then was he dreaming of the past?
Maybe that was exactly why. Maybe he was dreaming of past events because of how close it was to ending. Maybe his subconscious was simply reminiscing?
That was just a theory. Lucien didn't know nearly enough about the human mind and dreams to make a proper observation. Not yet, at least.
Deciding not to dwell on his dreams too much, Lucien continued his journey through the coral labyrinth.
Every night he would dream, and every morning he would be left confused and sometimes longing. He dreamt of meeting Effie for the first time. He dreamt of living with his mother in the outer settlements. He dreamt of his first hunt and how he had almost died. He dreamt of his life before becoming a sleeper, and then after. He dreamt of everything until the day he met the three sleepers inside an abandoned tower in the Dark City.
Days bled into weeks, and he finally saw the grandiose walls of the city and the statue of the young woman in front of it.
Lucien felt himself smile as he gazed at the walls. After all this time, he was finally home.