Ruins

Lumian instinctively looked around and saw the familiar table and chairs, the bookshelf, the wardrobe, and the bed. This was his bedroom, but it was shrouded in a faint gray fog. A lucid dream? I'm having a lucid dream? Lumian's pupils dilated at once. A lucid dream meant that although one was dreaming, one kept the thinking and memory of waking hours. It was a rather rare state, and people with special training had a higher chance of triggering it. Before this, in order to uncover the secret of Lumian's gray fog dream and rid him of that hidden danger for good, Aurore had tried many different methods to induce a lucid dream, but none of them had worked. And now, for no apparent reason, Lumian had regained his clarity inside the dream. After a brief shock of astonishment, Lumian collected his thoughts, and a possibility came to mind: "Was it caused by that tarot card, the Seven of Wands? "That woman said this card would help me uncover the secret of the dream... "So its effect is to put me into a lucid dream, so I can truly explore this region shrouded in gray fog? "Hmm... compared with my impression before, the gray fog seems much, much thinner now..." His thoughts racing, Lumian turned, hurried to the chair set at an angle, and, bracing both hands on the desk pushed against the wall, leaned out to look through the window. What met his eyes was no familiar scene. This dream had not reproduced Koldu village, where he lived. Beneath the thin, pale gray-white fog, the most striking thing was a towering peak. It was made purely of brownish-red stone and reddish-brown earth, reaching twenty or thirty meters up into the sky. Ring after ring of buildings surrounded the peak. Some had collapsed to the ground; others were burned black, so that no one could tell what they had looked like when intact. Seen from where Lumian stood, they were like ruined tombs, arranged in rings that were not quite neat. As for the whole area, the ground was pitted and uneven, strewn with broken stones, without a single weed. Higher up, the fog thickened and turned white. Lumian had no way of telling whether there was a sun; he only knew that it was unusually dim here, like a night lit by starlight alone. After studying it carefully for a while, he murmured to himself: "Is this the entirety of the dream's scene?" This dream that had plagued him for so many years—was this really what it looked like? After a moment of blankness, Lumian turned to more practical questions: "Where is this so-called secret of the dream hidden? "On that peak, or inside one of the ruined buildings?" Lumian did not rush to leave the bedroom, enter that region, and explore the dream. He stayed where he was, surveying every place he could see. Suddenly, he felt as though a figure had flickered past among the building ruins surrounding the peak. Since the house he was in was only two stories tall and not high enough, and though the gray fog was thin its presence could not be ignored, Lumian for a moment could not be sure whether he had been seeing things. After a while, he slowly let out a breath and told himself inwardly: "Don't rush. Be patient. Don't rush. Be patient. "It looks like this dream really does hold a good many secrets. It doesn't seem to belong entirely to me, and exploring blindly could well get me into danger... "Yes, first thing tomorrow morning I'll go find that woman and see whether I can get the details out of her. Then I'll decide what to do..." Amid these crowding thoughts, Lumian withdrew his gaze, ready to leave the dream and get a good night's sleep. But being lucid, he found for the moment that he had no idea how to actually wake himself up. After repeated failed attempts at self-suggestion, he lay down on the bed and tried to muddle his own thoughts, simulating the state he had been in when he used to fall asleep. Without noticing how much time had passed, Lumian sat bolt upright and saw pale golden sunlight seeping through the curtains into the room. "Finally awake... "As I thought—falling asleep inside the dream brings back that muddled state, and then you can break free..." Lumian breathed a sigh of relief and went on muttering silently. Just then, a knock-knock-knock came at the door. "Aurore?" Lumian's heart tightened, afraid something bad had happened. "It's me." Aurore's voice came into the room. Lumian rolled off the bed, strode to the door, grasped the handle, and pulled it back. It was indeed Aurore outside. She wore a white silk nightgown, her long golden hair falling softly behind her. "Well?" She seemed quite certain that Lumian had just woken up. Lumian held nothing back and told Aurore exactly what had happened to him. Aurore nodded as if pondering: "So the card's effect is to let you have lucid dreams..." She then asked, "What do you plan to do next?" Lumian gave a "Mm": "I'll grab a quick bite in a bit, then go find that woman and see if I can get more information out of her and work out what she really wants." "All right." Aurore raised no objection. Then she added, "I'll also write to some people and ask about the dream you described, to see what those things actually represent." At that, she glanced at the sudden tension on Lumian's face and broke into a smile. "Don't worry. I'll dress it up a little, and I won't lay all my cards on the table at once. I'm the one who taught you the principle of taking things step by step. "Mm, when you talk with that lady, don't push too hard. Try to stay friendly. That doesn't mean we're afraid of her—it's just that one more friend is better than one more enemy." "No problem." Lumian agreed solemnly. ... Koldu village, the Old Tavern. The moment Lumian reached the bar, he called out to Maurice Bénet, the tavern owner who also worked as its bartender: "Which room upstairs is that out-of-town woman staying in?" The Old Tavern was also the only inn in the village, with six rooms on the second floor for guests. Maurice Bénet was neither fat nor burly. Like most of the villagers, he had black hair and blue eyes, and his most notable feature was a nose that was always red—the result of drinking too often. He was kin to the parish priest Guillaume Bénet, though not closely related; they were distant cousins. "What do you want with that?" Maurice Bénet asked, curious. "You think a woman from the big city would look twice at a country bumpkin like you?" His face wore an unmistakably probing expression; he had a keen interest in improper relations between men and women. "Aren't you a bumpkin and a barefoot yokel yourself?" Lumian snorted, then made up a reason on the spot. "That woman lost something last night. I found it this morning, so I'm bringing it back to her." "Is that so?" Maurice Bénet was skeptical of Lumian's credibility. Eight out of ten things this fellow said were made up. "What else? You think she'd take a liking to me?" Lumian said, wholly self-assured. "True enough." Maurice Bénet was convinced. "She's in the room near the square, across from the washroom." Watching Lumian head for the stairs, the tavern owner wiped a glass and muttered under his breath: "It's not impossible, though. Sometimes people want to try a new flavor..." He muttered just loud enough for Lumian to hear. ... On the second floor of the tavern, Lumian found the only washroom in the dim corridor, and saw a white paper sign hanging from the brass handle of the dark red wooden door opposite. Written on it in Intis was: "Resting. "Please do not disturb." Lumian looked down at it for a few seconds. Instead of hurrying over to knock, he took two steps back and leaned against the wall. He meant to wait here for the lady to come out. His vagrant life in the past had taught him that when an opportunity appeared, he had to seize it without the slightest hesitation and do his utmost to grasp it—no wavering, no second-guessing, no worrying about face, no cowardice or timidity, or the chance would surely slip away and he would fall into an even more miserable vicious cycle. And when no opportunity had appeared, he had to be patient, had to endure, had to hold back every discomfort and wait. Time passed minute by minute. Lumian stood there without a trace of impatience. Had anyone been watching, and had he not occasionally shifted his hands and feet, they might well have taken him for a statue. At last, the door opened with a creak. The lady had changed into a long pale green dress with white trim, her brown hair gathered loosely at the back of her head. Her pale blue eyes swept over Lumian for a second; then she glanced down at the paper sign on the door handle and asked with a smile, "How long have you been waiting?" She showed not the least surprise at Lumian's presence here. Lumian took a step forward. "That's not important." He tried to keep his tone even, so as not to seem eager. "What do you want to ask?" the lady said rather directly. "Here?" Lumian glanced left and right. The lady smiled. "If you don't mind, neither do I." Lumian had in fact already checked: Leyn, Lia, and the others who were also staying here seemed to be out at the moment, and there was no one else on the tavern's second floor besides himself and the lady before him. He chose his words and said, "What secret is actually hidden in that dream?" The lady let out a laugh. "That's for you to answer, not me." She paused, then added, "All I can tell you is that you can obtain certain supernatural powers there." Supernatural power... Lumian's heart stirred, and then he asked in confusion, "What good is supernatural power obtained in a dream? "It won't affect reality anyway." The lady smiled. "In the realm of the supernatural, anything is possible. "Perhaps it really can affect reality." The supernatural power I've searched for so hard has appeared in my life in this way? Lumian fell silent. The lady's expression grew serious. "Let me warn you about one thing: that place is full of danger. Die there, and you will die for good." An accident while exploring that dream would make me die in reality too? Lumian could not understand it, but he chose to believe it. For one thing, the gray fog dream that had plagued him for years did seem rather unusual; for another, his sister Aurore had said that caution never hurts—better to see a problem as harder and its consequences as more severe than to treat it lightly or carelessly. After a few seconds, he asked, "And if I don't explore it, what happens then?" "In theory, nothing will happen. No one is forcing you," the lady said after a moment's thought. "But I'm not sure whether it will change as time goes on, and if it does change, the odds of things getting worse are far higher than of things getting better." "How much higher?" Lumian pressed. "Ninety percent to ten percent?" "No. Ninety-nine point nine nine percent to zero point zero one percent." The lady added scrupulously, "Of course, that's only my own judgment. You don't have to believe it." Lumian immediately sank into a struggle, thoughts surging through his mind: "Lately I've come to feel more and more that that dream is a hidden danger, and leaving it alone is the worst choice... "But if I really do explore it, with no idea what's there, the chance of an accident is very high... "Wait until Aurore has gathered some information from her pen pals before making an attempt? "But then Aurore certainly won't agree to me using the chance to explore the dream to gain supernatural power... "Isn't investigating the truth of the legend exactly a search for supernatural power... "It's too dangerous. It really could kill me... "Or should I first make a preliminary exploration of the edges of the dream ruins, without risking going deep? That amounts to gathering information too... "Yes. I can tell Aurore about that conversation just now, but I can't mention the possibility of gaining supernatural power..." As one thought after another settled, Lumian looked at the lady across from him and asked in a low voice, "Who are you, really? "Why did you give me that tarot card? Why give me the chance to explore that dream?" The lady smiled faintly. "When you've uncovered the secret of the dream, I'll tell you."