Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Brent looked down at his paper, then up at the construction and back down at the sketch. Something wasn’t quite right.

He was in the forested city of Fensalir with tall oaks and maples towering over their measly stone construction. Off in the distance, he could see the outline of the Aurelien Arch, the structure in which the design was based off. The team of workers had erected two rectangular columns of a much smaller scale, and spaced about six feet apart. They looked fine, although Brent wondered if their foundations had been dug deep enough.

However, now the team was hoisting up a massive rectangular beam of stone to be placed horizontally on the two columns. Brent’s sketch, on the other hand, showed an archway comprised of two elegant curves that connected at a point at the top.

“Hold up! There’s something wrong!” Brent called out. But the team of men didn’t seem to listen as they struggled with the weight of the rock.

“No, no, really!”

Between grunts and curses and the occasional cry of “Heave!” the men ignored Brent and got the stone beam to balance precariously on the two columns. Brushing off their hands, they adjusted the beam to be flush with the edges of the pillars.

Even though Brent had a sinking feeling in his stomach, it appeared to be stable. He felt detached from the laughter and celebratory thumps on the back. It didn’t look as pretty or elegant as the Aurelien Arch, but was it still functional?

An ominous dark cloud passed overhead, and with a frown Brent started drawing a sketch of what they had actually built. It looked like something primitive and which would cause the displeasure of the spirits. However, once he had drawn the horizontal rectangle, something strange caught his eye. There was a small vertical line forming at the bottom of the rectangle near the middle. He hadn’t drawn that line. And now it was growing bigger.

Brent looked up quickly at the crude stone arch and there was an identical crack creeping up the stone.

“Watch out! Get out of the way!” Brent cried and leapt towards one of the workers staring up curiously at the arch.

There was a resounding “Crack!” followed by the thudding of stone and Brent found himself on top of the man with fallen stone only inches from them. He was still breathing heavily as he looked over at the two large pieces of rock and some rubble scattered on the ground between the two pillars.

Brent had landed heavily with a few scrapes on his legs but otherwise unharmed. More importantly, the man underneath him was also unscathed. Awkwardly he got to his feet and muttered an apology, despite the words of thanks from the worker. Brushing off the dirt from his hands, he looked up sharply to see a striking young man in a suit inspecting the rubble. The Raelian lord who had commissioned the project. In comparison, Brent felt underdressed in his traveler’s clothes and simple black cloak.

Something with the foundation is wrong.

Brent frowned, momentarily perplexed. How could the foundation be wrong if it was the stone beam that had cracked? Unless the foundation was also wrong. He had a moment of self doubt which was only enhanced by the noble’s next question.

What did you do?

He paled at the accusation. He had designed something faulty. He had wasted precious material. He had nearly killed a man. “I, I…” Brent stammered under the gaze of the lord.

Shaking like a leaf, he recalled his initial gut instinct.

“No… No, it’s not the foundation.” He said quietly and strode towards one of the rock pillars that remained standing. He placed his hand on the cold stone surface and continued a bit louder.

“No, the pillar is still intact. If it was the foundation the column would have broken too. It was the beam, the stone beam.” Hands on his head, Brent gripped his short brown hair as if it might help him find an answer to the problem at hand.

He began to pace in front of the rubble. The workers were slightly faded, no longer important in the dream, yet he felt compelled to find an answer to what had happened. Brent glanced briefly at the noble in his finery. Soft hands, free of callouses, and words that spoke so sweet. Brent had doubted his gut at first due to those sweet words.

“If you are here to deceive me or lead me astray, you’re going to have to try harder, since I intend to find out the truth.”

In his non-lucid state, his words reflected his thoughts much more keenly and what would have sounded naïve or blunt in reality seemed sensible or at least not out of the ordinary in his dream-like state.

Brent strode away from the construction site with a lope to his gait, and looked up at the tall trees that surrounded them.

“These are pillars of wood, are they not? Just like pillars of stone. But they grow and flourish with the spirit’s blessing. But what of beams? There are timber beams on roofs, over doorways, even holding up great long houses and halls. But stone beams… I have never seen one that is flat. They are always arches. Sometimes round, sometimes pointed, but never flat.”

Brent mused as he paced, his thoughts a tangle that he wanted to make clear. He glanced at the well-dressed noble and this time spoke in a more friendly yet inquisitive tone.

“Why are there no stone beams? Why only wood? Why did it crack? Why at the bottom?”

Brent scooped up a large stick from the forest floor and placed it on two small rectangular looking rocks, spaced about a foot apart. With his boot, he stomped down on the stick and there was a loud crack as it broke. He tried to inspect it, but it as a clean snap. Tossing the fragments away, he tried it again and this time the stick only partially broke. He picked up the angled piece of wood. On one side, the wood splinters opened up like a spiky gash, while on the other side they were crushed inwards.

Snap! Crack! Snap! Brent broke piece after piece under his boot trying to make sense of it.

“Why do cracks start from the bottom? Why not the top?”

At last he picked up a thin long twig in his hands. It was small enough to bend without breaking right away. When he held it up to his face, he let the ends bend downwards so that it formed an upside down ‘U’. Then with a tiny ‘snap’, sudden realization flooded his face.

“The crack started at the top.”

Even through his intensity, Brent noticed a certain degree of curiosity from the noble. In contrast to the fine clothes, the young man had a magical halo of light and exotic wings that let him take flight. And yet as Brent struggled to grasp at meaning and a reason behind the cracking of the stone, his observer seemed carefree in light of the problem. Was Brent really going astray with his thoughts? You are capable of doing that all on your own. You do not need me for it.

When the noble stared blankly at what Brent had thought had been a useful conclusion, the cartographer gave a sigh of his own and tossed the twigs to the ground. His mind still itched at the unresolved idea, but he was embarrassed that he wasn’t yet able to put it to words.

However, at the noble’s beckoning and friendly words, Brent became receptive and strode over to sit on one of the broken pieces of stone. The other workers had disappeared, out of sight and out of mind, leaving the two of them alone in the clearing amongst the tall Fensalir trees.

“A labourer?” Brent repeated. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself that.” He still spoke a little dreamily as the platinum blonde came rather close. Brent followed the man’s hand and gesture with his eyes. But at the sudden snap, he blinked in confusion. Momentarily disoriented, Brent looked around as the bizarre but familiar feeling of lucidity swept over him. The trees weren’t real, nor was the rock he sat upon. Maybe not even the man in front of him… but no, that man was most definitely real. For a moment he wondered if this was Malach in a different form, but he swiftly dismissed the thought. There was nothing about the man that resembled Malach.

Still blinking, Brent recalled that the blonde had asked him some questions.

“That is… I do have, more clarity.” Brent replied a bit cautiously, now able to be more selective with his words. “I labour and I design. But I would like to design more. I just, I need to know how things work…”

He stood up and looked around the forest. Tall pine trees stood sentry, their evergreen needles giving extra shelter to the forest city. “I’ve built things with timber, and even a little with stone, but what if something falls down or breaks?” He slowly started turning on the spot, gazing up at the mighty trees. Just as slowly, the trees began to petrify. The bark grew hard as stone and the tree limbs disappeared. What started as a forest of trees soon turned into a forest of pillars. Arches formed, connecting the stone columns in pairs and at last the scenery settled on the inside of a great cathedral.

Brent looked quickly over to the platinum blonde man, almost afraid he had lost him. “You’re still here. Isn’t it beautiful? I think it’s one of the Raelian temples. It’s definitely not Fensalir anymore. Pillars of timber, pillars of stone. And look! There are arches!”

The noble looked more suited to the grandeur of the cathedral and Brent’s footsteps echoed as he looked around at the tall windows streaming with light and massive columns supporting vaulted arches. As much as he was enjoying the dream, there was part of him that was vaguely aware that it was only a dream. He also understood at the back of his mind that he had a visitor to his dream.

Turning to face the platinum blonde, he addressed him quite directly. “You look like a lord, but you have wings of a dragonfly. At first I thought you had commissioned the arch we were building, but… you’re a visitor here, aren’t you?”

There was a part of him that was itching to get back to investigating the arches but for the moment he refrained and simply admired the grandeur of the dream.

You design... what?

Brent didn’t really have a good answer at hand, so for the moment he didn’t reply. He had designed the Alivilda fortifications, but that wasn’t exactly a building like this. It was an organizational plan. And he had done up some simple drawings for the gate, but again, he had his brother’s help in how to build it. And then the theatre? It wasn’t truly a ‘design’ in his opinion. Yet at the same time, he had called himself a designer.

Still, he smiled as the other man marvelled at the glorious stone and stained-glass windows. Here they shared the same wonder. Not a lord and yet the place reminded him of home. Brent couldn’t help but smile at the irony but he chose not to voice it. Maybe home had a different context for the winged man, or that he meant something broader.

Do you design temples?

“I will.”

A sudden look of surprise flooded Brent’s face. He hadn’t quite meant to say it like that, and yet as he thought more on it, he realized that his words were true. Somewhere buried deep was the ambition to create and build something as glorious as this. Maybe not quite this big, but maybe someday it might be.

He glanced at the young man seated against a pillar, gazing up at the cathedral’s wonder. Brent placed a hand on another pillar and ran his fingers along the smooth straight fluting. At the top of the pillar was an ornamental capital with feathered designs sculpted into it. Here, standing next to one of the smaller columns, he could see the rounded stone of the archway it supported.

At the man’s stream of questions, Brent paused in his thoughts.

“Yes, I’m from Melrath. You know of it, and yet, I don’t think it is your home.” Although Brent did not ask directly, there was the implied question of where his visitor had come from.

“My name is Brent,” he answered simply. “Cartographer by trade but… it seems like my dreams have something else in store for me. And is it not prudent to follow one’s dreams?”

His lips twitched in what could almost be considered a smirk. While he still found it strange to be so aware that he was dreaming, there was something intensely fascinating at the same time.

“And what is your name? Did you come here of your own accord?” He was reminded again of Malach, and yet in contrast, she had so seamlessly entered his dreams. Perhaps it was just that he was now aware that there could be more to dreams.

“If you’ll humour me, there’s something I’d like to try.” Brent stepped away from the pillar and clasped his hands together almost as if praying but with interlocking fingers. He glanced up at the stone arch above him and then mimicked the shape by curving his wrists out and widening his forearms.

“This is an arch. If you will, push down in the middle. Use some force, but apply the same amount of pressure for when I change it to… a beam.”

So long as the svelte blonde decided to go along with the request, Brent would then flatten out his forearms, but still keep his fingers interlocked in the middle. With enough pressure, the latter configuration would be near impossible to maintain, and his fingers would slip out from each other bending down and away.

“An arch is strong because it can’t really bend downwards, if it’s already curved up.”

Mister Magpie. Weren’t magpies black? Speaking of colour, the platinum blonde’s eyes shifted to a brilliant light purple. It was almost as though he was a mystical being or even a spirit of sorts with his eyes changing colours and his iridescent wings. Yet maybe it was all because it was but a dream and Mister Magpie didn’t really look like this in waking reality.

Brent was pleased when the visitor engaged in the little experiment. Not only did it help Brent better understand the forces involved, but it seemed as though there was some genuine curiosity in Mister Magpie and not just an aloof nobleman.

“Towers with tall rooftops,” Brent murmured as he imagined what they might look like and how they would function. For a moment the dreamscape shuddered as if subconsciously influenced by Brent’s imaginings, but it soon restored itself. In the next instant, the cartographer found himself suddenly alone as the winged man darted up into the air.

Brent craned his neck as Mister Magpie climbed higher and higher into the air, practically touching the stone vaulted ceilings where light shone in through a circular rose window. With rays of light glittering off the buzzing wings, Brent wondered again if he was some sort of spirit visiting him in a dream.

“I have built a wall, a wooden wall with a gate,” Brent replied from below, envious of the blonde’s flight and vantage of the cathedral’s wonders. “And I have done a little work with stone and mortar. But nothing like this.” He wished he could have been able to say more, as he had the impression it would have pleased Mister Magpie.

Brent considered his visitor’s words on clarity. Should the winged man stay in flight, Brent would wait till he landed once more, or if necessary beckon him downwards so they could speak face to face. Some things were more personal and not meant to be shouted to the heavens despite only being within a dream.

“It is still new, but not unfamiliar,” Brent replied as his eyes looked over Mister Magpie’s face. “The other times were short, but pleasant. And a woman… she crossed into, through… to my dreams.” He stumbled over the correct verb to use. He still didn’t really understand how Malach had done it, but she had made her way to the waking world through his dreams.

Then looking quite seriously at Mister Magpie, he added, “But if it is your intent to visit me at my house, I would humbly request that you do not. Not to say that I am any less grateful for you bringing me… clarity.”

He didn’t want to sound like a poor host and he was finding the dream fascinating, but he couldn’t imagine having a second mysterious guest at his house. It was already strange enough and he wasn’t quite sure of Mister Magpie’s intent.