Ur Ung Baen

They tryed...

Andrea’s office or salon, as she liked to call it, was big. About half a kilometer long and four hundred meters wide. Since she had carved it from a cave inside the volcano extending it to its sleeping center, all walls except from the floor were perfect pure, black.

To light it up, from the ceiling, guilneas of all sizes and forms hang at different heights, giving the illusion that they hovered in the air like stars.

To adorn the salon, she had sculpted the walls with stories from creation, and to make it seem bigger and more exotic, both the Est and Oest side had gigantic four-meter-high windows adorned by sculpted columns of the Fallen.

From them, you could see the beautiful garden Andrea had placed in the Vulcan center. Warmed by the dormant lava, the garden was luxurious and colorful, full of flowers from around the Tuatane. Being the most exotic and opulent right in front of the east wall. Rising to form a forest of ten-meter-high threes. And two-meter-high blood red flowered plants. It gave of a felling of mystery and doom.

From the Oest windows a Labyrinth stood about four meters high, with a six meters high statue of Opat in the center.

The rest of the garden was made of six small nuclei of different species. Each one with their own small edifications, some hidden some shown, imitating ruins, temples and pagodas like edifications. Although not all of them were visible from the salon, since Andrea had no windows behind her desk.

But the walls of the salon had not just windows and garden. The East wall was carved with the saga of the birth of Chaos and Raen and the in Oest, the saga of the birth of the gods. Behind her audience chair and considerably long desk, was also the story of her own creation, and in front of her, the rules that all gods should abide for. That was also the side from which you could access the Salon.

The door in all black wood had only one inscription that read “Welcome to the domain of the goddess of Dreams”.

The pretense was clear. She was warning them where they were, from where they had come from, and what she and her role in this world was. Although more often than not, they did not care for it.

The floor in contrast was pure marble white, no veins, no other shades, as if the entire thing was made form one firm block. It was her favorite part of the whole room, for when she carried out her punishments, the effect of them were more... permanent.

Andrea walked down the length to her desk, sat on her chair and conjured some water and opened her entry book on which she wrote all the audiences pasted. Her last entry was from two weeks ago, when Crya had asked her for assistance in a personal matter. Well, she didn’t much asked as she demanded. But she had nothing to do, and leverage on her sister was always welcome.

She was remembering said meting when the familiar felling of someone approaching her temple hit her. Closing her eyes, she stepped into the dream realm, where she could see all within the walls of her domain. It was Tiny, she came with a small party of five Nitter warriors. She was nervous, she gave him a parchment and some instructions and left him at the top of the Volcano before vanishing. They were trying to sneak by doing the distance by foot.

Teneriny, goddess of Hate, was not the best example of a “god”, she lacked a lot of the conviction and resentment that took to be a god of hate, that role was better performed by her twin sister Calustrácia, the goddess of Love. Tiny, as most of her brothers called her, was quite a pushover, easily manipulated, and fragile thing.

By Chaos command Andrea had to punish her several times in the past. Of course, that was the reason why so many of her brothers hated her. Because Andrea was the hand of Chaos, the judge of the gods.

Amused she watched as one of the Nitter extended his wings and started to descend the volcano. She waited until que nitter was close to the ground to call upon her hound. With one bite to the neck the hound took the nitter down.

His companions flinched slightly scared and opted on another approach. They took out their weapons and descended the mountain by foot. But in the end, they suffered the same fate.

- Oh, oh... clever... - She felt several other species presences, they were Aorumm creatures.

The Hintuan were six- to seven-meter-long serpents, venomous, and vengeful creatures. They were Aorumms “law enforcers”. Eating their prays alive, they would slowly digest them while they were still alive, torturing them before they finally died. She should kill them herself.

- You should not let them know your power.

Andrea flinched. She had forgotten all about her unwelcomed ghost guest. Opening her eyes, she looked at the semitransparent body of the undead god Pláticus. At his time of death there was no In Between or Below. And since he didn’t fit any of them, he was stuck in a nonexistence stage, where he could not affect or be affected by the physical world.

Not many could hear him, and even less see him. But, as the goddess of dreams Andrea was not just able of both, as well as she was able to get extremely annoyed by him.

- They will just think this is my “father’s” protection. - she responded dryly.

Pláticus let escape a very loud sigh.

- Not all of them are fools. If they learn of your powers, they will try to hurt you. You should remain out of their site, stick to That plan, why the hell did you accept that boy, do you not remember Arad...

- Don’t talk to me like I'm a child! I have … You should leave.

- Andrea...

She stood at her name being called. Furious with his nagging.

- Do not think, that just because of our past you can lecture me. Now be gone! - she raised her hand and the fallen god spectrum disappeared into the dream land.

She knew all too well how risked this game of power was. She had the scars to prove it. The turning point had arrived a little too early from her liking, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

Looking inside herself to find her calm, she sent an order to her hounds to deal with the serpents and wandered once more into The Blanck Space. Was there any chance that Pláticus was right? And what the hell did he know about her plan?