Lyght looked at the girl walking along beside him, frowning. No, he’d never met anyone quite like her; who asked the questions she was asking. He somehow found himself agreeing with her points – although he couldn’t see why – while also burning to learn more. He decided to try something.
“You know”, Lyght said, “my mom and dad back in Kona are fond of asking people to describe themselves in one word when they meet to new people. So, how would you describe yourself in one word?”
She answered quicker than he would’ve thought, “Me? I’d say… idealist.” Lyght nodded appreciatively, “Good one”. “But”, Lyaness said, holding a finger up, “now you have to answer the same question. How would you describe yourself in one word?” Lyght laughed a little self-consciously, “Me? Oh, I don’t know. Average, I guess.”
Lyaness looked at him seriously, frowning. “I don’t think so”, she said.
Lyght smiled, “Well, thanks for the complement. If I have to be serious about it, I don’t know… dreamer, maybe?”
Lyaness raised her eyebrows, “Oh yeah? Do you mean that literally, because you’re a Dreamcaster, or…”
Lyght shrugged, “Both, I guess.” Lyaness tilted her head, looking a bit impressed, “Hmm… That’s a good one. I like it.” Lyght performed a mini-bow, “There you have it then.”
They both laughed, and kept the small talk going all the way until they reached Triumph, entering in through the lobby just as they had before. They walked over to the lift, still bantering back and forth. Lyght felt comfortable talking to Lyaness, more than he thought he should with someone who was still pretty much a stranger to him. Still… it just felt like their personalities clicked well, like they have some type of intuitive understanding. It was the same type of understanding, Lyght realized, that he had with Mikael. And considering he’d known Mikael for over ten years, that was a pretty strong conclusion to come to.
He wondered about it.
Before he knew it, they got off on one of the top floors and Lyaness led him down a hall to a room with a dark black wooden door, carved with an intricate leafy vine pattern. As they drew toward it, Lyaness looked back at him and said, “Alright, so the King’s servant came to me earlier and instructed me to bring you to this room. We’re about on time, so the King should –”…
Lyaness stopped dead, having opened the door and looked inside. It was not the King at all, but rather a Legend standing in full armor, looking out the window. Lyght’s eyes were immediately drawn to a massive Warhammer strapped to his back. “Oh”, Lyaness, said in a small voice.
Turning suddenly to leave, Lyaness looked at Lyght in puzzlement, “So, you’re meeting with the First Legend then? Alright, I guess I misunderstood. Anyway… I’ll see you around, Lyght.” She opened her mouth, looking like she wanted to say something, but snapped it shut, shaking her head. Lyght could only nod, in somewhat of a daze at the sudden turnaround, “Yeah… see you around.” The door clicked shut as Lyaness left, and Lyght looked over as the First Legend turned around to look at him.
Lyght couldn’t discern much about the man’s appearance, as he wore a full battle helmet for some reason, even inside the Tower of Triumph. The Legend just stared at him for a few moments, and Lyght waited for him to speak. Lyght noticed him take a half-step forward before apparently thinking better of it, turning to look out the window again. Lyght stepped forward himself, unable to contain his enthusiasm at meeting one of his idols.
“Hey, nice to meet you, I’m Lyght. I’m really – wow. Sorry. It’s just… I’ve always wanted to meet the First Legend. I’ve heard so much about you, what you’ve done for the Dreamscape. I’ve thought… I don’t know, I hope even I can become First Legend of the Dreamscape someday. But forget that, got to crawl before I can run right?” Lyght laughed a little nervously, “Of course I’ve got to make it through the Legion Academy first. Speaking of which, do have any advice that might help me with that? Making the Legion, I mean? It would mean the world to me; it’s always been a dream of mine to join the Legion. It was my dad’s dream too, you know, but he…” Lyght trailed off, realizing that he was rambling on, and had probably gone too far. It was the First Legend, after all, who had called Lyght here for a meeting. He hadn’t invited Lyght to hear him talk. So Lyght quieted down, saying “Sorry… got carried away”, and waited for the First Legend to speak to him.
He didn’t, however. He just stood by the windowsill, looking… tense for some reason. Taking a deep breath, the First Legend spun on his heel and walked over toward Lyght. Lyght unconsciously took a half-step back, not sure what was going to happen, but the First Legend simply pulled out a scroll from his belt, extending it to Lyght. Lyght took it in his hands, examining it curiously. He looked up at the First Legend with a questioning look, but the fully-armored warrior just stared back into his eyes for a second, before placing a hand on Lyght’s shoulder and nodding to him, walking past Lyght and out the door. He shut it behind him. Utterly confused, Lyght untied the gold ribbon around the scroll and began to read.
Lyght,
Congratulations! Consider this an invitation from me, the First Legend, to you, Lyght, to join our sacred order – the Legion. Myself and the King Decimader Vuruman make this special offer to you and your friend Mikael, offering you the opportunity to bypass the traditional training and selection process, on one condition. You see, we need you two’s help in a mission vital to one of the Legion’s central objectives; which is to destroy a certain enemy of the Dreamscape. We can’t fill you in exactly on who this is right now, but if you accept, the King will personally prepare you for the mission. This success of this mission is of the utmost importance to the Dreamscape, and we need your and Mikael’s special talents and skills in tracking this enemy down and defeating them in combat. If you do this, we would be eternally in your debt. And, of course, you and Mikael would be initiated immediately as full Legion members. If you accept, come with Mikael to the King’s office in Triumph a week from today at midnight. The King has asked me personally to forward this request to you. Just know this:
I trust you, Lyght.
It was great seeing you today – I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.
Yours in Service,
First
Lyght, stunned at the sudden possibility of coming so close to his goal, stuck the scroll in his back pocket and wandered over to the window, looking out across the soaring city, overcast under a chilly November sky. He bowed his head; he’d made it so far, but he couldn’t help wondering if he was on the right path. Why? Why doubt himself now?
Lyght pressed his forehead against the glass, sighing and fogging up the windowpane. He stood there, high above the city, thinking about his encounter with the First Legend as the first snows of the year began to fall outside. He looked up at the rolling gray clouds.
A new season, huh?
Chapter Forty
The lights of Decimader Vuruman’s city twinkled below as the King stood in his office, looking out across the cityscape and letting his thoughts wander. Although the city had pretty much been fully constructed for the past hundred or so years, he still vividly remembered the centuries upon centuries of building, planning, and scheming it had taken to set the city up exactly to his liking and necessities. As he looked out, he variously laid eyes upon the Tower of Justice, the Royal Bank, the Senate building, the Legion headquarters, and the Citadel. He remembered the construction of each and every one of these soaring buildings in detail, and the changes they had gone through over the centuries as times and needs changed. Standing up here in his office atop the sparkling tower of Triumph, it really was quite fascinating for Decimader to look down and see a physical map of time as it had passed during his reign. He remembered it all, and all he had to do was look down and see it. For as long as the centuries had been in which he had ruled over the Dreamscape, Decimader Vuruman’s memory never failed him. That was a gift, he supposed.
A remnant from what had once been his people.
>
But he had a different people now, and had for over a millennium. Times always changed, and one thing that he’d learned was that he had to change with them. This was something that, although he struggled with at times, he always came around to in the end. If he had to choose a defining word for his reign, he might have said action. This was what he contemplated now, as he looked out across his soaring dark steel city inhabited by the people he gave his life to lead. He knew he had to take some form of action. The question was; which action to take? The answer, whatever it was, would either be successful and preserve the Dreamscape for many more millennia to come, or it would pose a serious threat to existence of the land itself. Those were the stakes, and Decimader was taking extra care to not take them lightly.
He heard a knock on the door as he contemplated, and sighed. He’d hoped to come around to somewhat of a conclusion before the meeting started, but that hadn’t happened. Oh well, Decimader thought, he supposed he could use the man’s input in any case. That had been the original intention, anyway. Decimader remained with his hands behind his back, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling sheet of diamond acting as both a wall and window, and called out in a firm voice, “Come in”. After a polite pause, Decimader heard the door open and someone step into the room, swinging it shut behind them. He didn’t need the reflection in the window; he already knew who it was. The First Legend, showing up for the scheduled meeting.
A meeting on what to do about Decimader’s two young Dreamcasters of interest; Lyght and Mikael.
The First Legend bowed behind Decimader, “Good evening, sir”, the First began formally, “Reporting as asked for the conference about our discussions with Lyght and Mikael today.”
Decimader nodded, still looking out the window. The plan had been for Decimader to meet the two Dreamcasters separately; as he had promised them at the monthly Legion dinner he’d invited them to, and assesses their character and ambitions. He felt he had a knack of doing that – maybe a product of reigning as King of the Dreamscape for a thousand-plus years. Regardless, when Decimader had filled in the First Legend on his plan, the First had requested to help Decimader out with the evaluation process, and proposed to meet Lyght himself – leaving Mikael of course to meet with Decimader. Had anyone else asked for the same duty, the King would’ve refused outright. He trusted the First Legend, however, and knew from the combination of his background and diehard service since his recruitment that he could perform a vital role in the process.
And the process of making this decision, Decimader knew, was one of the most important things he’d had to take on in his reign in at least the past couple hundred years.
Looking down for a moment, Decimader wrapped up the reflecting he’d been doing earlier and came to a preliminary decision about what to do. He wanted to hear what the First said about it, of course, before he fully decided on a plan of action. So the King spun on his heel, walking over to his desk, and poured out two glasses of the scotch he’d saved for the meeting, handing one to his First Legend, who thanked him. Taking a swig of the top-of-the-line drink, Decimader raised his eyebrows. “Good, stuff, isn’t it?”
The First nodded, and Decimader took a step back and sat down on the edge of his desk, brushing various bits of paper and clutter out the way. He’d never been that into formality; and so he had no qualms about conducting a highly important meeting while sitting down and drinking. The First Legend, in his eternal discipline, remained standing, however. The King swirled his drink a little bit and wondered how to begin.
“Well”, Decimader started, “I don’t know about you, but I highly enjoyed meeting with this Mikael kid. Our personalities clicked really well; we had an intuitive understanding that is actually kind of hard to describe – almost like we’re two sides of the same coin. We speak and think in much the same way, and I feel like I know him better from a thirty minute conversation than half my advisers who have been working here their whole career. Not you, though, of course. Obviously not.” The First laughed, and Decimader knew he wouldn’t take offense. The man was loyal, above all things – to a fault, even, Decimader had found.
The King stared into his drink, remembering his conversation with the young Mikael that afternoon, “He’s definitely the more outgoing and outwardly confident – a touch arrogant even – of the two. He didn’t seem intimidated by me at all – a rarer trait than you might imagine. He had no problem steering the conversation himself, asking me as many questions as I asked him. Of course I gave him more evasive or general answers than he might have liked, but I can’t give away everything at this stage, now can I?”
The First Legend took a drink himself, “To an eighteen-year-old? Not exactly, no.”
Decimader laughed and refilled his drink, “Nothing against the kid, really, but considering the fact I’m over a hundred times his age, I don’t really think he could truly understand me at any level.” The First nodded, conceding the point.
Decimader took another drink and continued, “Anyway… in terms of his aspirations, to get to the point, it’s pretty much what you might expect from a highly talented, confident eighteen-year-old male at the Legion Academy. Although he has some unique traits, of course; he’s self-centered, but in a selfless way, if that makes sense. He wants to make the Legion, obviously, but his primary motivation for doing it is to establish himself in a position where he can do the most he can for the people he cares about; his family and friends back in his village, that is, and to a lesser extent the people throughout the Dreamscape. So that’s good, that’s what we look for in prospective Legion members, as you know.” The First nodded.
Decimader set his cup down and shrugged, “So the way I see it, he has all the requisite tools – talent, ambition, ability, and confidence – of one of the Dreamcasters mentioned in the Covenant, who are destined to track down and destroy the Heir. And if he is, of course, then we know by extension that Lyght must be as well. So my initial inclination is to go forward with the assumption that these are the two I’ve been looking for, and I will tell you my initial plan of action if we decide to go forward in that direction. I still want to hear your assessment of Lyght, however.”
The First Legend nodded and cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable for some reason. Decimader knew the man well enough to read his facial expressions, and his face gave away a slight “What should I do?” message, though Decimader could not fathom how that made sense in this situation. The King figured that maybe the First was thinking about whatever this “plan” was, and his role in it. The man needn’t worry, however; it was nothing outside of his skill set. It would be somewhat difficult, true, but he was sure it wasn’t anything that the First, powerful as he was, couldn’t handle.
“Well first of all”, the First began, “I’d like to thank you for letting me meet Lyght as well, it was a very… interesting experience for me. And it – … um, anyway, thanks for that. I guess you could say I had a good conversation with him, though I think I’m right in saying that the kid is pretty different from his friend Mikael. While undoubtedly talented in his own right, he probably… I mean, he does have a more low key personality than this Mikael, anyway. I would guess his motivations are probably similar to Mikael’s, even if he doesn’t discuss them as openly.”
Decimader frowned at the First’s assessment; this seemed pretty subpar work for him, “You guess? You did actually talk with this kid, right?” The First nodded, “Yeah, but our conversation didn’t go exactly the same way as you and Mikael’s. Don’t worry though, I felt like he checked out – I got the feeling he is definitely what we think he is. I gave him the note.” Decimader exhaled, closing his eyes. So both kids had been given the official offer. So the show was officially on the road, now.
The First Legend took a step towards his King, explaining himself, “I feel like I’m able to glean more information from what you say happened in your discussion combined with what happened in mine, and I think we can definitely say these two are equipped today
to help us find and destroy the Heir. I can tell you for certain, because Lyn reports to me, that both Lyght and Mikael are clearly Legion-level already in terms of both natural ability, work ethic, and skill level. I think your idea to offer them immediate Legion status in exchange for them helping us is perfect. We don’t need to spend any time placing them in The Legion through the traditional Academy route because they’re already there talent-wise. They’ve got it all, from what I see. Them, and the other two class leaders – Seth and Iridia, are Legion-level as we speak today.”
Decimader raised his eyebrows, “Funny that you mention those last two names – I’ll get to them in a second. So what you’re saying is; you believe that right now, based on skill-level and loyalty – which is crucial – of these two kids, they can track down and destroy the Heir at this stage?” The First nodded firmly, and Decimader frowned, thinking of the next step.
Decimader had guided the First in writing the note he’d given to Lyght, but given the man very strict instructions that he was only to hand it to him if he was highly impressed with his character and ability, and thought Lyght could get the job done if they made the offer today. The King himself had planned on being just as tentative with handing out the offer to Mikael, but had been so impressed himself he couldn’t resist. Of course, if one was impressive enough to look like they could get it done, by the Covenant the other one must be as well. So if one of the two got the note, the plan would be underway. However, Decimader hadn’t really thought that would happen. Despite the First’s tentative remarks about Lyght, he’d handed out the offer anyway. It seemed that both the King and his First Legend must’ve been impressed, somewhere deep down, by these two young kids. Decimader closed his eyes.
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