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Are we awake or dreaming? Every night we see visions of the mythical Tree, said to hold ancient knowledge. It beckons to us in a language we know but cannot speak. Compelled beyond our wills to seek the Tree’s wisdom, my companion and I set out. A great quest is before us, but why were we chosen?
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Ambush at Orcshead Rock
03:47
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The Banshee Bluffs visible to the east, we cross the purple fields. Orcshead Rock looms before us, majestic, foreboding. A stillness takes the air – the weather has turned. We hear the beat of a drum. In the shadow of the monument, disoriented by our fear, we are set upon by a horde of murderous Stickwolves, their bone headdresses rattling as they bind us. We are captured. We are doomed.
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3. |
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At the call of the horn, the King approaches on a mount. An imposing, dark figure, fiery eyes glowing through a hideous mask of antlers. We are one with our captors, trembling in his shadow. We hear, yet he utters no words: “Release them into the Labyrinth of Madness!” For weeks we wander, trapped in a maze of thickets, hope dwindling. Deep in the labyrinth, we find an Elven grave from the old time. We are the first since the Dragon Age to behold this ruin.
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4. |
The Map
02:32
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Clearing moss from the tombstone, the image carved into the slab reveals a map, altering not only the course of our quest, but our lives, forever. We kneel before the gravestone of Ailuin the Seeker, her immortal soul, guardian of this secret for all of time. We press parchment to stone and rub it with charcoal from our fire. The strange symbols we’ve seen in our dreams now illuminate our path; a rune carved into a tree, birds flying in formation across the sky – these glyphs guide us on our quest. We must press on.
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5. |
The Witches' Hands
04:23
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We reach the edge of the lake as the sun sets; fear rises in our hearts. As children, we trembled at the feet of our grandfathers, who stood at the Hearth of the Ancients, weaving stories of the Witches’ Hands. Legend tells of an iniquitous coven of sorceress sisters, caught summoning fire elementals. Caged and thrown in the lake, their malevolent magic was to be forever extinguished. The water boiled bog-black, and a curse befell its depths. We swim now, the cages barely visible beneath the murk. As their ghostly hands claw at our legs, we are pulled into a boat by a mysterious oarsman. He says nothing as he rows toward the lights of an island, a look of great consternation across his face.
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Silent Innkeeper
01:41
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Alchemist, ale maker, Inn Master, guardian. Familiar in a strange sense, our rescuer watches us through the smoke and chatter of the bustling tavern, yet never speaks. Soup and a strange cider lull us to sleep by the fire. Our sleep is no longer restful, but another life in servitude of our quest; voices without origin, action without consequence, a type of boundless existence. Our dreams are lessons that teach us our waking lives are but a constriction. We awaken to find a note in the innkeeper’s scrawl: “Foretold there would come an Elf and a Dwarf, and long I’ve waited, unable to speak: seek the Vale through the mountain.”
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7. |
Beneath the Mountain
03:09
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We circle the peak for weeks, lost, searching for the path marked on the map. A dark, infernal magic lies beneath this mountain, yet we are compelled to discover its passage. A dragonstone cairn, once lost to the eons, marks the mouth of the cave where we enter and descend. This mountain is a foul place; the heat, unbearable, we bake inside our armor. Our vision, normally keen in any light, can barely distinguish our hands at the ends of our arms. As we travel, time becomes distant. We know neither day nor night, and strange creatures, bound to these depths, lurk in the impenetrable darkness. At the bottom of the earth lies a door. The Door of Dreams, a door to another realm.
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8. |
Refuge at Wizard's Vale
03:21
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Emerging from under the mountain, our eyes meet the gentle light of the three suns, illuminating a beautiful vale shrouded in morning mist, and the ruins of Aramath, where Elves & Dwarves once lived in harmony. At the tower, the benevolent Wizard sits in waiting, our map drawn in griffinsblood on the altar cloth before him. “Take respite here, for soon you will cross the Dreamless Waste, where even I am powerless.” We drink his potion and fall into a sopor free, however briefly, from the troubles of our journey.
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9. |
The Dreamless Waste
02:30
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Sleep drops away and we stand broken and bewildered on the endless crust of wasteland. We stumble, exhausted and on the brink of insanity. In the distance, an impenetrable wall of trees haunts us like an oasis always out of reach. How long have we walked? How long must we walk? Our sense of the passage of time is absent. Wide awake we live a nightmare of the burned tree, our map in tatters, our spirits broken. My companion wanders from me, a distant memory, a trailing voice, as one standing at the brink of death grasps at the illusion of life. We wander alone, lost from each other and from ourselves.
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10. |
Forest of Densest Black
04:21
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I wake to the cold of the forest floor under my body, my companion beside me. A dense canopy of black leaves obscures the sky. Have we been summoned to this place? The weight of this question sits like a mare on our chests. An answer in the clearing, we are mesmerized by cloaked Stickwolves dancing, consumed in ritual. For hours into the night, their fire grows and grows yet no one feeds it. Soon it touches the sky, and the stars begin to change.
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11. |
Celestial Passage
03:59
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Madness, confusion, and ecstasy now inhabit the same infinite space in our minds. Dreams and consciousness, distant concepts of the past. We walk through this new forest of stars, our minds unable to comprehend our surroundings. The druids’ ritual transports us and we sense the end of our quest drawing near. As the stars swirl, we are overcome by power and wonder.
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12. |
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At long last, we have found The Tree, a giant reliquary for the memory of our ancestral universe. Our entire field of vision and awareness now encompassed by a tangled cosmos of branch and root, filling us with the wisdom of the Dragon Mage and the Winged Drow. We move through both space and time— infinity, a blink. We are the last of our kind. A rocky shore upon which breaks the sea of time itself. Existence, a void. We receive knowledge both crushing and vast… Our time will come again.
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Elves & Dwarves Minneapolis, Minnesota
Elves & Dwarves create realms of oneiric soundscapes shrouded in myth and mystery, where wanderers and adventurers uncover Elven graves and wizards' towers, encounter ancient rituals and sentient trees, explore portal caves and haunted lakes, and collect artifacts from the Dragon Age and from their own imaginations. ... more
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