46: The Way to the Daar'len Nau

Liran found herself in a dreamscape.

Shadows of a winged beast tainted the sky, below were surreal lands. It all felt like a memory. Yet, time didn't move linearly. The darker the sky's shadow, the slower plants bloomed. Whereas the lands beneath the bright sky were rapidly shifting through ages.

A mixture of emotions flowed through her: old hurts, joys and hopes that died under the bright sky and continued where the shadows fell. One particular old hurt lingered with the shadow. Beneath its sky she saw the back of an alfaren warrior in silver armor and bright, blond hair, yet his shoulders sagged like he was struggling beneath an invisible weight.

Sudden fierce sounds rippled through the air to shatter the man's image into dust.

Her soul trembled beneath the bellowing of a hammer fall strike, which changed the landscape to cast her into another vision. She stood before a high palace cut into a desert mountainside.

Another hammer strike changed the vision.

She stood before an oasis of a gushing waterfall and a lake of crystal blue waters. Her emotions were stirred by a tinkling melody the waters cast. Words appeared in the alfaren language, spelling out the Waters of Siren.

A final hammer blow sent her mind reeling across sand dunes of the Dark Forth Plains.

This time she was a winged beast soaring the sky. Her flight spanned across dunes and deserts, reaching the mouth of a cavern system cut into a stone mountain. She entered the cavern, across a massive chasm with a square floor and into a cave where dark waters covered the ground like a small pond. She landed on a far ledge and looked down into the waters to see outlines of a hammer submerged within.

A mighty roar snapped her out of her mindscape.

Liran woke, panting for breath and squeezed her eyes closed when she felt strong daylight make them sting.

'Finally awake," Aiden said as he checked her forehead and wiped it with a cool cloth.

"How long have I been sleeping?"

"Four sunturns," Rat answered when he hopped onto her lap.

"That long? But all I did was drink tea." She frowned.

"Potent magic tea." Xiao chuckled as he approached her side. "It's the soul flower after all. I can't imagine it would be drink and go."

Liran nodded and glanced at her hands, feeling a lightness to them. Her mind felt clearer too. Images from her vision surfaced: a gut instinct telling her that she knew where to find the Immortal Hammer.

"Maybe that Soul Flower did more than help my health. When I was under, I had a vision of traveling to an oasis where the waters sang, then I flew to a cave where another pond showed a hammer and the face of a dragon, I think."

"Dragon?" Xiao frowned.

"I know right. They're meant to be extinct. At least the big ones as far as I know."

"Maybe, but it's possible one still lives: bound by immortal links."

Xiao explained that the Immortal Hammer is known as Daar'len Nau. A magical tool refined by an immortal mage of sage level.

"Sage level?" Aiden chuckled. "Sometimes I wonder if you're just as good a bard as Liran-sai."

"Idiot child, it's a power rank." Wei scoffed from nearby.

Xiao nodded. "Unlike our blood codes and magic uses, immortal mages can increase their power to certain levels. It's pointless to go into them, but know that Sage level is a high tier immortal."

"So they created this hammer?" Liran frowned.

"They would've refined it, but not sure about making it. Legend has it that this sage bound a dragon to it as the guardian. Anyone who tries to steal the sage's treasure would be the dragon's food."

"What?! So how are we to defeat the dragon and nab the hammer?" Liran groaned.

Wei shook his head. "Bard, trying to defeat it would be like ants trying to shake a tree. Not possible."

"Thanks for the boost in my confidence." She felt disheartened.

That little pebble she picked up had cursed her soul, and to counter this ill fate was to nab the immortal hammer. "Anything with the word immortal in the title is impossible, isn't it?"

Aiden patted her back. "Let's get to this cavern first, then work out the rest when we get there."

She nodded and had him pull out the map.

Aiden fiddled with the dial, to cast an expanded version of the whole region midair. He then pulled off the needle to mark spots Liran pointed out to him.

Fortunately her vision was still clear to her. She felt hopeful when a lot of her vision's locations existed on the map.

Aiden reset the map to be a compass again.

The group packed up camp and resumed their journey.