Merlin's visions

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Merlin had been having strange visions. One unfamiliar with divination might call any such vision odd – yet for a sorcerer like him, with his strength laying in this most obscure branch of magic, even these were of [[a singular peculiarity.|NextPage]]

<div class="titlelettersone" style='font-size: 100%;'>Llamagirl</div>

<div class="titlelettersone" style='font-size: 100%;'>A short story</div>

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<<link "Credits">> <<script>> Dialog.setup("Credits"); Dialog.wiki(Story.get("credits").processText()); Dialog.open(); <</script>> <</link>>

<<set $read to false>> <<set $read1 to false>> <<set $read2 to false>> <<set $read3 to false>> <<set $read4 to false>> <<set $read5 to false>>

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<div class="titlelettersone" style='font-size: 150%;'>The Bastard of Camelot</div>

They came to him as most other prophecies did. Glimpses, like a curtain quickly drawn to allow but the quickest peer at what lay behind. Disjointed images he puzzled over for days, attempting to make sense of them. At first, it was nothing too curious. He saw the endlessly expanding space, but he was not on ground, peering through a scope at the coldly twinkling distant stars. He was suspended, higher than the trees, higher than the mountains, higher than everything. Cradled in that strange expanse, suspended among the planets, floating along jagged, rough stones of the space. Sometimes he was seated within a strange abode, neither made of stone or clay or wood. Its strange walls looked slick and smooth, covered in decorations – if they even were that – which had prompted arduous research to find a simulacrum of it, within accounts of faraway lands or distant times in history, but he came up [[irritatingly empty.|NextPage1]]

The visions came to both his waking and dreaming mind, trickling in fuzzy and wispy as if blurred by slowly dispelling fog. People garbed in foreign, strange cloth – a uniform of some kind, was what he gathered it to be, all black and snugly fit, a fashion he’d never seen before. And then there were those who only vaguely resembled humans, in the frame of the shoulders and arms and torso; yet look anywhere beyond, above or below, and they sooner put you in mind of creatures of the sea. Where the nose and mouth would be poised within a human face, sprouted forth tentacles, as did in place of legs. Their skin bore fascinating markings, and was tinged the wild colors one might only see in fae. Fae, indeed! That’s what he’d have placed them as, if stressed for an answer, but truth be told he had no idea what they were, and the confusing revelation both irked and intrigued him. Merlin could come to only one, sound conclusion after weeks and weeks of these premonitions haunting, plaguing, beguiling his senses: these were glimpses of worlds away, times away. Someplace else in this vast, mysterious cosmos – or faraway into the future, farther than any sorcerers had seen. He needed to know more. [[So, he set to work.|NextPage2]]

Visions and premonitions came unbidden a lot of the time, but there were many ways to summon them forth. Certain tools could be used as aid, too. In order to truly hope to gain clarity, one needed to achieve the right environment and state of mind. Merlin cleared his schedule for the day and demanded not to be disturbed, lest they were under siege. He locked himself up in his tower and pulled close all curtains, casting the chamber in blood-tinged dimness. He lit up candles in a circle with a flick of his wrist and sat among them. He closed his eyes, shuttered his mind and senses to the distractions of the world and focused solely on the magic, within and without. He picked up on it, simmering and crackling in his veins, in his very being, picked up on the threads of time and space and reality. He let himself be lulled into that tranquil state of meditation, reached out to the magic to inquire upon those fractured, [[strange images and sensations.|NextPage3]]

The scenes he’d seen prior paraded before him again, clearer and longer, presenting a world foreign, suspended in the void of space within odd, sleek walls, inhabited by the humans, dressed so differently, and the fae-like creatures. He saw a woman with flaxen braided her, exuding the elegance of a Courtier yet poised in the stance of a respected general, dressed in that black, fitting clothes unlike anything Merlin had ever seen. The least odd, and most familiar being he saw was a cat, with white fur spotted black and keen eyes; a voice called, muffled as if submerged, one name, tenderly spoken: Cleo. Superimposed over the swirling, ever-changing images was a low droning, like the hum of a thousand insects, like the rumbling of some slumbering beast. A word, spearing unbidden through the clutter of fragmented visions, rose to the forefront of his mind with startling urgency. Asking – demanding – to be acknowledged. To be understood, to be memorized. [[Mah'Abeu|NextPage4]]

An understanding of it – of its meaning, of the power behind it – slowly trickled through, reverberating in Merlin’s skull, [[rattling in his bones.|NextPage5]]

<<if $read != true>>[[I AM A MAH’ABEU|NextPage5][$read to true]]<</if>> <<if $read is true>> <<if $read1 != true>>[[I AM AN ENVOY|NextPage5][$read1 to true]]<</if>> <</if>> <<if $read1 is true>> <<if $read2 != true>>[[A PROBLEM SOLVER|NextPage5][$read2 to true]]<</if>> <</if>> <<if $read2 is true>> <<if $read3 != true>>[[I'VE ALWAYS HAD A PURPOSE|NextPage5][$read3 to true]]<</if>> <</if>> <<if $read3 is true>> <<if $read4 != true>>[[I WAS BORN INTO IT|NextPage5][$read4 to true]]<</if>> <</if>> <<if $read4 is true>> <<if $read5 != true>>[[IT IS WHY I CAME TO BE|NextPage6][$read5 to true]]<</if>> <</if>>

<<if $read != true>>[[I AM A MAH’ABEU|NextPage5][$read to true]]<</if>> <<if $read is true>> I AM AN ENVOY <</if>>

Merlin resurfaced from the vision with a gasp. [[Oh, this was fascinating indeed.|Next7]]

Intrigued by Merlin's vision? [[Check out Infinite Stars here!|https://infinitestars.itch.io/game?utm_source=Llamagirl&utm_campaign=Merlinsvisions]] <img alt="banner" src="Banner02_small.png" /> Want to learn more about Merlin and his prophecies? [[Check out The Bastard of Camelot here!|https://llamagirl.itch.io/the-bastard-of-camelot?utm_source=Llamagirl&utm_campaign=Merlinsvisions]] <img alt="banner" src="edited_bocbanner_small.png" />