Chapter 1

Staring into the darkness is like looking into nothing. The soft grey-pink of the sands are a stark contrast to the blackness above. Nobody really knows what causes the sands to glow so softly, as if highlighted by some unseen light invisible to human and roan eyes. You have heard the long told folk tales of a Moon that once decorated the sky, but those are just children's stories. Something to give them hope in a dark, bleak, and tormented world.

Or are they? The town Ancient, a roan who has existed for over a century, called for a Searching. An obelisk of streaked marble and broken bone came to them as a vision during a Deep Sleep. Something deep from within, crying out in anguish, fear, and sorrow. Something trapped... Imprisoned for far far to long begging to be free. And... To bring the light.

A door too. Double hinged on either side and broken into four even squares. Deep set engravings with locking mechanisms who's keys have been lost in the sands. The Ancient swears that the keys, four of them, can be found each within their own Obelisk protected by guardians straight from the Abyss.

As you let the sand sift down between your fingers like an hourglass, you wonder just how long has it been since your last Deep Sleep? How long have you been under the black shadow of the Nothing above?

Let's roll some numbers and set your time line up.

Time awake:
Roll 1d6 for # of days
Roll 4d6 for # of hours
Roll 1d6x9 for # of minutes

This will give you a Days:Hours:Minutes value that can be slotted into the "Time Awake" area of your character sheet.

Victoile scattered the last few grains of sand into the air and watched the sparkling, irridescent cloud slowly drift down and away. Their eyes, a typical electric blue today, traced the sand and wondered. Did she alwys wonder? Perhaps not. Sometimes though, yes. Now was one of those times. Her mind wandered back to the little space that was hers. It sorted through the odds and ends of projects started, half-done, and finished scattered around that place. Categorically, she knew where each object was, what state it was in, and had a plan for advancing or using it. But her mind always flitted from one project to the next rather than settling into one for any time. Solving the problem was hardly as much fun as considering it. One she knew the solution was a matter of inevitability, the appeal began to fade. The problem was solved, working on it further seemed unnecessary, a concern for others. In her life, she'd handed off plenty of plans and designs for others to complete. She wasn't possessive of the solution, only the problem.

Her blood quickened at the thought of this new problem. One that could to be solved so easily, she thought. A dream, a sign, and portent. Keys lost but to be found. A door closed, secret, but waiting to be opened. A new place. In all her life, she knew all the places that her people knew. She hadn't seen them all, but she knew them. But something new. Something with no old stories? At least, none her people knew?

Clicking her tongue, she felt the excitement speed her blood up. She wanted to go, to explore, to tackle the problem. Did she alway want to tackle problems, yes. Sometimes the problems that fascinated her were different though. Blinking, she craned her head back and gazed up at the sky. The inky black expanse soared over her where it always did. Casting back, she recalled the most recent project. A tool with a new shape. A tool better for scraping things. She'd just cracked it. Had to make the prototype though. Tools were annoying, you never knew if the solution was right until you tested. It was satisfying in a way, but frustrating in another. It had held her down now for, what, almost two days? No, a cycle before that plus the two days. Yeah. But almost two days awake making the prototype tool to give to someone to test. Smirking, she bounced on her heels and wondered if she should sleep early this time.

She doubted that she would; a new problem had presented itself and she felt giddy with energy.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:20, Wed 01 Mar 2023.

A small azure lizard, it's eyes gleaming like sapphires from some unknown light scurries across the sand in front of you, stopping to snatch up a tiny scarab with it's long tongue. I chomps on the insect, the sound of crushing carapace quite evident in the silence of the darkness. The two of you look at one another for a few moments before it scurries off in search of more food.

Food. How long has it been since you had a bite to eat? With hardly any sense of time, it makes you wonder. Sand dunes have come and gone, but the wall of the great and towering obelisk has always been there, to your left, as you continued south back towards Stonemeadow.

Go ahead and roll 1d6 to see how many rations you currently have left. And then, roll 4d6, 1d6x10, to see how many hours : minutes since you last ate. The 'days' slot is left at 00 for now.

As you stretch out your sore muscles, shake the sand out of your clothes, and rinse your face off with a bit of water from your canteen, something catches your eye. A flash...in the sky...

It was just a brief sparkle, a hint of bluish white light in an endless obsidian sea.

Seconds, maybe even minutes pass as you squint and stare into the darkness above. You suddenly gasp as you realize you've been holding your breath, as if doing so would help your eyes to better see whatever it was. You can't help but wonder if it was just a hallucination...how long has it been since you've eaten?

But no, there it is again. A speck of white, like a candle flicker on a piece of quartz. Undeniable this time. Something is out there...far into the darkness above and beyond. Something in the nothing.

She had to stop as he stomach rumbled. The continuous and focused work that her problem/projects demanded often took its toll on her health. She didn't need to eat as often as some, but she ate less often than she needed. Resources were scarce, true, but not that scarce. The simplest truth was, when deep inside a project, she would go hours or days barely doing anything anyone else might consider nourishing herself. That had been teh case recently. She recalled the meal she'd eaten a little over half a day ago as she stared back at the lizard. Her meal hadn't been much more appealing than the insect the lizard now crunched on. She wondered, briefly, what the beetle tasted like to the strange reptile.

She had to shake the notion loose before her mind was distracte by the problem. It was not truly a solveable problem, but that would not stop her wayward brain from wasting hours or days thinking of futile plans to try to accomplish the task.

She should eat. She was just making up her mind to do so when the flash took away her thoughts. Staring at the sky, her eyes searched. She felt a dangerous need to know where the flash had come from, to see it again. Dangerous because it threatened her perspective. Gasping then breathing heavily, despite her reticence, her eyes scanned and searched the sky. A sigh of relief escaped her as she spotted it again, the searching curiosity ebbed and was replaced by more naked and direct curiosity. Moving smoothly, she sank to her haunches and stared up at the light steadily. The need to ear, once again, momentarily forgotten.