The magical world of Yensere holds the key to saving humanity from a horrific apocalypse. Too bad Nick can only get there in his dreams.
When an ancient alien artifact chooses research cadet Nick to explore the world stored within it—a place full of forgotten empires, heroes with strange powers, and monstrous creatures that he is automatically transported to when he sleeps—he finds he has no choice but to grow stronger within the realm of Yensere to uncover its mysteries.
But Yensere isn’t all fun exploration. In this land guided by statistics and levels, Nick is seen as a demonic threat by its diseased inhabitants and always killed on-sight. When he dies in Yensere, he awakens in his bed upon the research station, his body in a state of panic; when he sleeps again, Yensere drags him back for another life...and another death.
Nick can only keep this up for so long before he dies for real. But there’s a good chance Yensere holds the key to saving humanity from a terrible fate, and so he ventures on, getting stronger and stronger with each new enemy defeated. And there are a LOT of enemies to defeat…
From David Dalglish, author of The Vagrant Gods and The Keepers trilogies, comes the start of an exciting new LitRPG series.
About the series: Join Nick as he adventures through the incredible world of Yensere in this progression fantasy isekai. Featuring multiple POVs, traditional LitRPG elements, magic and fantasy weaponry combat, friendships, light romance, and sarcastic robot guides, this is the perfect series for anyone wishing they could explore the galaxy and fight terrifying liches at the same time.
Release date:
January 14, 2025
Publisher:
Orbit
Print pages:
400
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
The sun was blinding on Nick’s face. His head ached, and his confusion was made no better by the soothing feminine voice speaking within his skull.
Unique visitor cataloged
Level: Unknown
Visitor? Level? He glanced about, but nothing made sense. He was in a field of golden wheat, the stalks waving in a soft breeze flowing down from the mountains to the west. Their peaks were jagged and tilted, like shark teeth rising from the plains. Behind him was a small clearing, black soil surrounded by a circle of stones. The sky was a comforting blue, with nary a cloud. If only the sun wasn’t so bright…
No. That wasn’t right. Nick squinted. In the sky, there was a second sun, except it was black instead of yellow. Dark blue veins stretched out from its circumference, seemingly frozen.
Initial assessment commencing
Archetype: Unknown
Special Classification: Unknown
Statistical allocation determined by approximation of visitor’s physical and mental self-definition
Nick flinched again. It felt like a spike was driving into his forehead. Stats? He didn’t care about that. He didn’t even know where he was. The last thing he remembered, he was… he was…
Where?
He glanced down at himself. His clothes were wrong. They were plain brown suspenders and a white shirt, the fabric surprisingly soft on his skin despite its thickness. A sort of farmer? That wasn’t him, not him at all. He was a…
… researcher…
Nick dropped to his knees and clutched his head, fighting off a wave of pain so intense he feared he would vomit. He forced himself to breathe in and out, his gaze focused on the wheat before him. He watched its subtle movements near the roots, watched a little black bug crawl along the dark soil before vanishing beneath.
Again came the same soothing voice. It was female-coded, pleasant and calm, and with every syllable the ache in his forehead faded.
Assessment complete
Level: 1
Agility: 1
Physicality: 1
Endurance: 1
Archetype: None
Special Classification: None
Nick forced himself back to his feet. Ignore the hole in the sky. Ignore the dwindling pain. Focus on what can be dealt with in the here and now.
“Level one?” he tentatively asked aloud. He didn’t know why, but instinct told him the voice would hear and respond.
Simplified estimations of overall caliber of being
“Fascinating,” Nick said. Curiosity got the best of him, and he started walking through the wheat in search of where the field ended. “So, uh, do you have a name, voice, so I can call you anything other than ‘voice’?”
I am Cataloger
“Nice to meet you, Cataloger. I’m Nick.”
I am aware of that user attribute
He laughed, and it felt good to move. With the lifting of the painful fog around his mind, he grew more aware of his surroundings. The mountains to the west were beautiful, if distant. Their snowcapped tips rose in stark contrast to the flatness of the field before them. To the south, perhaps a half mile away, he saw a small stream whose water was siphoned off into little rivulets to water the field.
To the east, Nick could see a village, so he set off in that direction. Perhaps, once among people, he might get an explanation for whatever was going on.
“User attribute,” he repeated aloud. Part of him knew it should be strange talking to a voice in his head calling herself “Cataloger,” but at the same time, it felt normal. It felt… right. “I’m guessing you’re not much for small talk, are you?”
I provide information and guidance for unique visitors
“And I am a unique visitor?”
Yes
Nick paused a moment. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Unknown
Time to get used to that response, he suspected. He waded through the wheat as if it were water that went up to his chest. Given how its golden glow continued onward for seemingly miles and miles to the west, it was like being lost in an ocean. Scattered throughout the field, he saw people in similar overalls hacking away with sickles that gleamed in the bright midday sun.
Nick thought to call out to them but decided against it. Let them work. He’d find someone in the village to talk to, someone who could explain what was going on. Maybe… maybe he was a farmer here and had passed out from the heat? He certainly felt thirsty. Perhaps dehydration? Given how much his head hurt, that could explain his difficulty remembering things, like where he’d been, or what the name of the village ahead even was.
Location: Meadowtint
Description: A small farming village, population one hundred and seventeen, largely dedicated to wheat production and harvesting
“Meadowtint?” Nick asked. It carried no familiarity on his tongue. If this was his home, there were no attached positive feelings or emotions. He pushed onward, glad to see the end of the field. The village seemed pleasant enough, about thirty homes arranged on either side of a main dirt road splitting through them. Their thatched rooftops were the color of the field, their walls wood and clay plaster. Beyond the village, from what little he could see, was a dirt road leading toward a distant little river; on the other side grew what appeared to be an oak forest whose contrast to the nearby field was stark.
Several people milled about the well in the center of the village. Nearby, an older woman sat in a rocking chair beside the door to her home, protected from the sun by a rickety awning. Nick approached, strolling over as if they were acquaintances… which they might even be, if he was suffering from memory loss.
“Hello there,” he said. “I fear I might be a little lost and confused.”
The woman hunched over in her chair, slowly rocking back and forth with the press of her heels. He thought she was busy sewing or crocheting, but her gnarled hands were empty when she looked up. Her silver hair was covered in a bonnet, her dress, a mixture of faded blues and pinks. Her eyes, though, were the color of night, as if the pupils had swallowed her irises.
“Lost?” she asked. “You’ve wandered off the beaten path, stranger. How does one lose themselves in Meadowtint, here where the west ends?”
“I somehow managed it,” Nick said, doing his best to not recoil. The woman’s tongue was a shade of black, as if she had spent the past minute licking tar. He smiled at her, trying to be disarming, while she stared at him until, suddenly, her eyes grew wide with terror.
“Vaan almighty, protect me,” she whispered harshly, shriveling into her chair. Her hands clenched into fists. “Though I am weak, through him I am strong.”
Her voice was getting louder. Nick glanced about and saw others in the village, simple farming men and women, staring at him.
Several still held their sickles from the fields.
“Though I am frail, he is my iron. Though I weep, he dries my tears.”
Nick retreated from underneath her awning, his hands up to show he meant no harm. Villagers arrived from every direction, surrounding him with unnerving silence.
“I give my heart to the Conqueror of Time, and in his hands, I am made safe.”
The nearest man lifted his sickle. He wore the same clothes as Nick, only they were far more worn and faded. His skin was pale, too, pale and almost gray. Not tanned, like it should be for someone who spent their days in the fields. His eyes were the same as the old woman’s—black.
“Demons in the village,” he said, his tongue appearing as a void in his mouth. “Vaan be with us.”
“What… what are you?” Nick asked, horrified by the pallid nature of the man’s skin, the emptiness of his eyes, and the dark color of his tongue. Text appeared above his head, the black font faintly outlined in white to ensure clear legibility.
Cedric: Level 1 Human
Archetype: Villager
Sickles, rakes, and knives rose skyward as the other villagers readied their weaponry.
“Vaan be with us,” they called in unison.
Nick chose a direction and ran, attempting to burst through the growing crowd. Shouts accompanied his sprint. When the people did not move, he tucked his shoulder and rammed through, saw open road, and then screamed as a sickle raked across his back. His vision flashed red, and then strangely, a red bar appeared in the upper corner of his left eye. Nick might have given it more thought if not for the pain flooding his body.
Thankfully his momentum carried him, and once free from the crowd, he dashed along the center road, eastward, toward the river and the oak forest beyond. As he ran, he noticed the red bar stayed firmly in place in the corner of his vision regardless of where he looked. It was like the little floaters one noticed if looking for them in one’s vision, always there no matter where one turned.
This is insane. This is absolutely insane. This is a dream, or a nightmare, or, or…
Nick didn’t see who fired the arrow, only felt it thud into his side. He gasped, and when his mouth opened, a faint spray of blood dribbled down his chin and onto his clothes. The red bar shrank, now half its original size.
Health, he thought as he ripped the arrow out. Only now did he see the archer lurking at the edge of the village, an older woman with a straw hat and a hunter’s bow. That’s my health, isn’t it?
A graphical representation of your body’s overall condition
Nick hated the idea of this Cataloger thing having access to his thoughts, but there was hardly time for that now. He had to run. He followed the road toward the river, and when he glanced behind him, he saw a huge group of people giving chase with crude weapons held at the ready. He’d no clue what he’d done to upset them, but he knew for certain he was no “demon,” whatever that meant.
Now aware of that first bar, Nick noticed there was a second below it, similar in shape and simplicity, except slightly longer and filled halfway with solid green.
“What is that?” he asked Cataloger, and was disturbed by how weak and out of breath he already sounded, given the distance remaining to the river.
A graphical representation of your physical endurance
“And what happens when it runs out?”
You will need to rest—or to use a human colloquial term—“catch one’s breath”
Nick eyed that little green meter in horror. With his every step, it emptied at a shocking pace. It certainly felt like he was about to drop from exhaustion. His legs ached, and his lungs burned when he gasped for air. But that made no sense; if he pushed on, if he forced himself to move, he should be able to run for so much longer…
The meter emptied, and it felt like Nick slammed into an invisible wall. He gasped in air, his chest tightening and his legs wobbling beneath him as he slowed to a walk. His every step felt like pushing through molasses. Pure stubbornness kept him stumbling across the grass toward the river.
Another glance behind him, one he instantly regretted. Still the villagers of Meadowtint gave chase… and they were so much closer than before.
“To the river,” he muttered, resuming his sprint. “Just… cross the river.”
Any attempt at running ended immediately. The damn green bar—it drained in seconds. His chest constricted, and even his throat felt narrowed in a way that reminded him of how his brother had once described an asthma attack.
… brother…
Again that searing pain in his mind, somehow worse than the ache of the arrow wound in his side and the cut on his back. Nick stumbled, dropped to one knee, and gasped.
“Just a dream,” he said. “This cannot be real.”
The world of Yensere is real by most definitions, with interactions, emotions, and events that are both consequential and long-lasting to the individuals who experience them
More answers unasked for. Nick pushed onward, refusing to argue with a voice in his head. After what felt like forever, he reached the river. Nick could practically feel Cataloger’s presence hovering nearby, eager to tell him the river’s name, but she blessedly remained silent. He pressed through the mud that formed the bank and then waded into the water. It only came up to his knees, which ruined his hopes of using its lazy current to swim away from his pursuers.
“Suffer not any demons to live!” a deep-voiced man shouted. Nick glanced back, saw the man leading the others, taller than them, his pitchfork raised above his head like a battle banner.
Nick waded onward as fast as he could while making sure he didn’t push himself too hard, all so that damn green bar could steadily refill with his every exhausted gasp of air. Surprise, though, had him momentarily stumble in the mud-slick water.
There, on the opposite riverbank, was the strangest woman he’d ever seen. Her skin was pale, her blond hair even more so, and cut short, just below her jawline. Her eyes were such a vibrant blue they seemed to glow despite the distance. She wore armor made of silver chain, yet azure fabric flowed throughout it, hiding the creases, covering her chest and waist, and coming together to form a sort of skirt that ended just below her knees. Her boots were of slender plate. In one gloved hand, she held a sword. Her other was bare, and she pointed its palm toward him.
Frost: Level Human
Archetype:
Special Classification:
“Sorry about this,” she said, “but we all have to learn eventually.”
Blue mist coalesced into a sphere that hovered just shy of her palm and then shot across the river. It slammed into the water between Nick’s feet but made no splash of impact. Instead, the water froze, ice stretching several feet in all directions and then locking together into one thick sheet.
Nick twisted, shifted, tried to move. Nothing. The ice had him trapped in place.
“What is this?” he shouted, baffled. “What are you doing?”
There was no hiding his panic—the villagers were right behind him. He heard the splashing of their steps. The woman grinned at him playfully, amused. It’d have been downright charming if he weren’t afraid for his life.
“Everyone dies the first time they come here,” she said. “Don’t worry, Nick. You’ll get used to it.”
Nick’s jaw dropped. “Get used to—”
Pain spiked through him as he felt the sharp teeth of a pitchfork stab his back. He gasped, his arms flailing to push them away, but he still could not move. The ice had him imprisoned. Another hit, a slash with a sickle across his side. Blood splashed to the river. The villagers surrounded him, muttering, murmuring, always that word on their black tongues, that same expression in their dull, hollow eyes.
“Demon. Slay the demon.”
The red meter that was his life flashed just beyond the edge of the box. The pain was unreal. Nick awkwardly collapsed onto his side as the ice dissolved, releasing him. Above him, he saw only bodies, cruel in their aims, heartless in their words. The largest of them lifted his pitchfork and aimed it for Nick’s throat. For once, Nick saw a bit of life and light enter the man’s eyes when he spoke.
“Vaan be praised.”
Down came the pitchfork.
Health: 0
Visit terminated
Nick lurched in bed and immediately vomited.
“Easy there, deep breaths,” his older brother, Simon, said as he grabbed him by the arm. Nick retched several more times, but nothing came out, just dry heaves that were painful to his abdomen.
“There you go. You’re fine. Just take it slow, Nick.”
Nick leaned back, his head resting on a pillow. He was in a bed. No, not just a bed. A med ward. There were wires attached to his wrists and a sensor on one finger. The world grew firmer around him, more real. The carefully chosen white of the station walls. His brother’s blue eyes, staring at him with obvious worry. The stars shining from the room’s lone window, as well as a tiny portion of the barren planet, Majus, around which Station 79 hovered in orbit.
The smell of the vomit across his chest and lap.
“Get this off me, will you?” Nick said, tugging at the blanket.
“Of course.” Simon pulled it away, bundling it so the vomit was trapped in the center. Nick noticed he wasn’t wearing any sort of med gown. He must not have been here long.
Nick pulled off his shirt, dropped it to the tile, and then shivered as he lay on the bed. No sign of a doctor. Just his brother.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Simon opened a nearby shelf and pulled out another folded blanket and tossed it to Nick. He caught it and gratefully wrapped it about himself.
“Honestly, Nick, I was hoping you could tell me,” said Simon.
Nick relaxed onto the pillow and closed his eyes. It felt like he had just emerged from a dream so deep it bordered on the absurd. His head felt light, and his heart heavy in his chest. All his limbs ached, too. What happened? Today had been special; he knew that in his gut. His brother’s clothes, they were nicer than normal, formal attire, crisp blue fabric with gold trim. His brother… his brother was doing something special, something with…
The Artifact.
Nick pushed back up to a sitting position.
“What happened?” he asked. “The Artifact, what happened when you activated it?”
Simon’s careful smile cracked.
“What happened is that my little brother had a seizure the moment I put my hands on it. Don’t worry about the Artifact. Let’s worry about you. Did you notice any particular irregularities? Hear unusual noises, maybe experience sensations you cannot explain?”
Nick felt memories hovering just outside his reach, refusing to come easily. The research station over Majus had originally been sent to Majus because of long-distance scans suggesting the possibility of life. Instead they had found a dead, barren planet. They continued their research, of course, collecting rocks and attempting to analyze the fate of the planet and discern why the scans had been so wrong… and that was when they found on the surface, seemingly waiting for them, the Artifact.
It was an octahedron, its surface as smooth as obsidian, its height thrice that of a man, and its weight, somehow a shocking fifty tons if placed under universal standard gravity. The researchers on the station had eagerly brought it aboard for study—this was potentially the most important discovery in all of humanity’s long history. An actual piece of alien technology, the first ever found among the stars. Was it from a prior civilization, or the remnant of a spacecraft that had crashed? Whatever it was, the proof of life beyond humanity in the stars was exhilarating and frightening in equal measure. The scientists aboard the station did all they could to open it, speak with it, interface with it in any way. For a month, they accomplished nothing, but then the Artifact itself changed. Curved writing appeared upon the perfectly smooth surface, along with near-invisible grooves clearly meant to fit a pair of human hands.
Simon, Nick’s older brother and the youngest station director of the Offworld Planetary Control organization, had been given the honor of tearing it open. There had been a grand ceremony earlier that day, with everyone on the station gathered in the curving observation deck overlooking the Artifact, as Simon spoke aloud the words that had been painstakingly translated.
So far as everyone expected, Simon would be chosen for… whatever might happen. Simon, the charismatic director of Research Station 79, tall and handsome in his gold-trimmed blue OPC uniform, was the perfect person to make first contact with anything alien.
Yet when his older brother spoke the words, Nick had felt strange, like sharp needles were stabbing deep into his temples, followed by queasiness, a sense of vertigo, and then… then what?
Demons in the village.
“I did experience something unusual,” he said. He swallowed. His tongue felt like sandpaper. “My head hurt, and then my stomach, too. After that, I think I passed out and went… somewhere.”
Yensere.
“Went somewhere?” Simon asked.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I awoke in an entirely new place. And I don’t mean, like, in a dream. It felt… real. Vivid. And very bizarre.”
Simon grabbed a little rolling chair and slid it closer so he could sit. There was no hiding his excitement.
“Nick, you have to understand, this was our first significant reaction from the Artifact. For the briefest moment, its core lit up with faint violet light. At the exact same time, you collapsed, hundreds of feet away in the observation deck. This isn’t a coincidence. If you had some sort of dream or encounter immediately after the Artifact’s activation, it might be your mind’s way of processing the information sent to you. More importantly, all my colleagues think the Artifact influenced you, and they’re demanding tests.” Simon twiddled his thumbs. “Lots of tests. I understand if you want to refuse, but it’s important that you—”
“Refuse?” Nick sat up straighter in his bed. “Are you kidding? I want to help, Simon. Everyone’s considered me a freeloader for months now, so for me to have a chance to be useful, to actually accomplish something worth a damn?”
“Language,” Simon said, and grinned.
“Fuck you,” Nick said, and grinned right back. “I’m important now, aren’t I?”
“To the detriment of all of us, yes, Nick, I think you are. But I’m glad you’re taking it well.”
Nick sank back into his bed, already starting to feel better. It was frightening, of course, to be linked to the unknown Artifact in ways he did not understand, but he would overcome that fear. When their father passed away two years ago, Nick had been shuffled from caretaker to caretaker on their home planet of Taneth until Simon pulled enough strings to bring Nick aboard Station 79 upon Nick’s eighteenth birthday. Nick was technically a lab assistant, but he heard the whispers. Everyone considered him an unwanted helper, brought aboard through nepotism so Simon could keep an eye on his younger brother.
“I’m going to do what I can, but first, you need to do something for me,” he said.
“What’s that?”
Nick pointed past him to the med ward closet. “Grab me a shirt. It’s cold in here.”
Simon’s mood immediately lightened as he walked to the thin med room closet and pulled out a clean shirt, tossing it to Nick. The shirt was basic white and short-sleeved, similar to a dozen in Nick’s room. He slid it on though it was a bit too big for him, then settled once more into the bed.
“All right,” Simon said, and he brushed his thumb over his watch twice, activating a recording program. “So after the physical discomfort, you said you experienced a vivid dream. Could you repeat everything that happened? Anything at all, no matter how strange or insignificant.”
Nick closed his eyes and tried to think. It was all a bit hazy, as dreams often are when one wakes suddenly, but a few images stood out in stark contrast. The first was of an old woman, cowering in fear as she recited a strange mantra. The other was of being frozen in the middle of a river due to…
Well… due to magic.
“Remember, I’m not making any of this up,” Nick said. “I exited a field of wheat into an extremely old-fashioned village, was chased by villagers wielding sickles and pitchforks calling me a demon, and died because a woman flung a ball of ice at my feet to freeze me in a river.” He shrugged. “Told you it was bizarre.”
“Perhaps,” Simon muttered. He had no notes. Nick knew he would not write anything down, not yet. His older brother would transcribe everything by hand later while listening over the entire conversation. It helped him memorize things, puzzle through them at a pace that elevated him to a savant among his much older peers. “You say you died? How so?”
“As in I was stabbed to death and bled out,” Nick said. “And it wasn’t like a normal dream, either. I didn’t wake up just beforehand. It… it hurt.”
Simon tapped at his lower lip.
“Strangely enough, I’m not surprised. Near the end of your period of unconsciousness, your heart rate rocketed to the 180s, and at times you were thrashing around like a wild animal. I almost bound your hands and feet to protect you. Whatever you experienced, it was traumatic, and your body reacted accordingly.”
“But why am I encountering any of this at all?” Nick asked. “The people I saw were agrarian. They had no complex machinery, just pitchforks and sickles. I was wearing overalls, Simon. Overalls. It doesn’t make any sense. Whoever made the Artifact were more scientifically advanced than we can yet conceive. Nothing about what I saw implied those people were the ones who made it. And they looked human.” He squirmed uncomfortably. “Why would aliens look human?”
Simon rose from his chair and tapped the watch to click off his recording software.
“Remember, we don’t know what we are dealing with,” he said. “Perhaps you were shown what you could understand. Appearances might have been altered to be more acceptable. Perhaps you were introduced to a specific moment of the aliens’ history, like a sliver of time before their space-faring began. If the Artifact is meant to initiate first contact between civilizations, they can’t know what state of technological advancement the discoverers will be at unless the Artifact was purposefully positioned on uninhabitable worlds that required beyond light-speed travel to…”
“Hey, hey,” Nick said, interrupting him. “You’re rambling conjecture again.”
Simon paused, then resumed that cocky grin of his.
“Right,” he said. “Well. I’ve got enough to form some theories. Prepare for a barrage of tests, blood vials, urine samples, all kinds of fun.”
“Can’t wait,” Nick said, and stared at the ceiling.
Simon left, and sure enough, the cavalcade began. Nick did as was asked of him, enduring the pricks of needles to draw seemingly dozens of vials of blood. Pupils were checked, pulse tracked. He recited the alphabet backward, twice, and proved his balance by hopping from foot to foot.
By the end of it all, Nick demanded a return to his room. Dr. Haley, the woman in charge of the med ward, had initially refused, until Nick brought Simon in to argue on his behalf. This resulted in a compromise, with Nick allowed to sleep in his own room instead of the med ward, but only if his sleep could be monitored. By the time the machinery switched rooms and Nick relaxed into his own bed, the ceiling lights had dimmed to signal the end of the daytime cycle.
“You here to observe my beauty sleep?” Nick asked the scientist sharing the room with him, a heavy-jowled man with a clean-shaven head and glasses so thick they seemed like an aesthetic choice. His name was Pagle, and Nick had never liked being around the dreadfully dull and serious man.
“I will be monitoring your vitals, yes,” Pagle said, sliding an oxygen sensor onto one of Nick’s fingers. Much of the machinery was stacked on his bedside table. The photograph he kept there of his mother and father had been swept aside to make room, a fact that annoyed Nick greatly. “This time, we will be ready if you experience another episode, and be able to properly track any stress-induced tachycardia.”
Nick closed his eyes as the room darkened further. His stomach clenched. Had he eaten anything since he awoke? He didn’t think so. What he’d give for a granola bar right now.
“So,” he said, his eyes closed and his mind drifting. “You’re going to be staring at me while I sleep?”
“Nothing so crass as that. And I will spend much of the time reviewing the results of your various tests, which are only now arriving on the shared server.”
“Sounds great,” Nick muttered. His eyelids were so heavy. It felt like it hit him all at once, a sudden exhaustion that made speaking difficult. “Have… fun.”
Pagle responded, but Nick couldn’t bother to spare the energy to make sense of his words. It felt so good to rest. His mind drifted further. Pagle’s voice faded into nothing. Just silence. Darkness, mixed with a bit of color floating across his eyes.
And then.
A ring of stones.
Nick stepped out from the barren circle of stones into the waving field of wheat.
Returning visitor cataloged
Level: 1
Agility: 1
Physicality: 1
Endurance: 1
Archetype: None
Special Classification: None
Welcome back
“Happy to be back,” Nick said, squinting against the light. He meant it, too. To return so immediately only confirmed that his previous experience had been anything but a dream. He closed his eyes and slowly breathed in and out to gather himself. The dreamlike fog vanished from his memories of this place. He recognized Cataloger’s voice. The field of wheat, the jagged mountains, the strange black sun; it was all coming back to him.
Including, of course, his unceremonious death.
“All right, let’s take this slow,” he said, opening his eyes. Judging by the yellow sun, it looked to be late in the day. No one was in the field, not that he saw, but he knelt down to hide within the flowing ocean of grain just in case. Hands to the dirt, he forced his mind to push through the fog to remember the previous day. The med bay. The Artifact. His real life, separate, unique, different from…
“Cataloger, where am I?” he asked.
You are outside the village of Meadowtint, which is situated in the western province known as Vestor
“I was hoping for a bit more information than that.”
It is spring in Vestor, in the six hundred thirty-seventh Year of Vaan, seeing its second year of peace since Batal the Beast began his—
Nick shook his head and grinned despite there b
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