But there was more hidden in the rock. The tendency to contain, to stay together. A claustrophobic feeling turned into a pressure in his ears that tickled his mind just right. The idea of a core. Safety. It was hard to find a word to describe the feeling at first until he realized he knew it all along:Within.
Kraghtol stumbled back a few steps.
“Is that… Alchemy? What it really is like?”
He knew this was a dream, but it was unlike any dream he had ever experienced. He already felt he had learned more than from all his teachers combined in the half year he had been at the school. Since the voice didn’t answer, Kraghtol turned around and reached out his hand to the gust of wind.
The wind ruffled through the tiny hairs on the back of his hand, but even that touch was not what the truth behind it stood for. It wasn’t about the wind at all, but about something even finer, something defying the material world entirely. There was more to the world thanjust matter, something he couldn’t touch or smell or sense in any way but with his mind. It gave purpose and sense but also filled and connected every living mind.Spirit.
More was mixed into the image of the wind that didn’t belong there. He felt dizzy as his focus shifted up, away from all constraints, into the sky and towards the stars. Nothing could hold him, and he felt as if he were expanding beyond every limit.Without, the principle opposing and complementing the Within.
“I think I’m beginning to understand. The Principles and the elements… It’s a lie, but a clever one. There is enough similarity that some things kind of work, even if you don’t know the truth. But it doesn’treallyfit, not entirely, right?”
Still no answer. Kraghtol wondered if the mysterious voice was still with him. But he couldn’t hold his curiosity now. He needed to know the rest, too. To his right was the waterfall.
Whatever he had expected was not what he felt when touching the water. It was icy cold to the touch, and his finger ached from the sudden chill. He tried to see, but found a bottomless pit of blackness waiting for him, plunging his soul into the deepest night. It was totalDarkness, the absence of any light or heat.
And as expected by now, there was another Principle in it, too, and it made clear in an instant why all his experiments had been bound to fail. Water carried with it not the potential of change, but stability. Structure and organization. Neat geometric ice cubes and reliable canals. Boredom and bureaucracy. This Principle touched something primal inside of Kraghtol. It was something he longed for, and something he hated at the same time. The intensity of thosetwo emotions surprised him, but both were equally true. And it was certainly something entirely different from the other Principles he had touched before. This one wasOrder.
The feeling lingered for a moment even after he had stopped touching the water. With no further hesitation, he turned around to the fiery column. He had to know the whole truth.
The pain was intense. Piercing brightness and searing heat threatened to burn him. The Principle was powerful and clear, permeating even closed eyelids and burning through the thickest leather gloves. Where Darkness had been the absence of any kind of energy,Lightwas the overabundance. No wonder the glowing paste had been so easy to produce.
But his mind had already latched onto the last of the eight, a part of him resonating perfectly with it. The absence of rules. The destruction of order. Every impression, all at once. A symphony of multicolored notes running all over each other. It felt familiar and easy. It was like looking into a mirror, showing his own mind. Or at least the parts he used to hate. Again, conflicting emotions surged up in his soul.Chaos.
And finally, the voice spoke again, carrying with it a sense of satisfaction.
“Light and Darkness. Chaos and Order. Matter and Spirit. Within and Without. These are the eight Principles of alchemy. Remember them well, for they are the foundation.”
Kraghtol couldn’t have forgotten what he had just experienced even if he had wanted to. As darkness returned to the hall he was in, a million questions rushed through his mind.
“Wait! What —”
With a gasp, Kraghtol woke up. The ship was already in motion, meaning he had slept over the departure and had now indeed fled the city before getting caught. The strange dream was still present, clear as day, and every single muscle in his body was aching from both the ordeal of the previous hours and the hard wood he had slept on. His rumbling stomach didn’t make the situation any better.
Thankfully, someone had placed some food in his hiding place while he had been sleeping. It would be easy enough for him to leave the small compartment, but as he understood, also perilous. Even though the orderkeepers from Winterstone hopefully didn’t know where he went, he didn’t want to risk anything by showing his face to more people than necessary on the journey. Truth be told, he didn’t mind the chance to calm down and think a bit. About his dream, for example, or what he was going to do when he arrived at Bronzebreak.
There really was a lot of opportunity to think. One of his favorite topics during the next weeks was: “How are river ships so slow upstream?” followed closely by “How did I end up here?”
The dream didn’t return. It didn’t have to. Every single impression had burned itself into his memory with the force of a branding iron. Not only could he recall thenamesof each of the eight Principles with ease, but also all the emotions and sensory impressions he had felt. Still, it felt like something important was still missing. These were the Principles. But what was he supposed todowith that knowledge?
One thing was for certain: the plain wooden planks of his dark hiding place did not hold the answer, and there was only so much pondering in the darkness he could do during the journey. It was always the same sailor, a boy considerably younger than himself, whobrought him food and water, and exchanged the bucket for an empty one. He didn’t speak with Kraghtol, and the half-orc felt no motivation to begin a conversation either. It was probably safer this way, and his situation felt oddly humiliating, more like a prisoner than a passenger, even though he could have walked out of the compartment at any point.
From time to time, he could hear muffled sounds of the sailors talking, singing or laughing, but never clear enough to follow the conversations on deck. Telling time was difficult, too, since all he had were the cracks in the wood letting in some daylight. There was just one exception: one evening, about two weeks after they had departed, he heard more laughter and songs than usual, and he realized it had to be the evening of the spring equinox. A pang of sadness rose in him as he thought back to the other equinox and solstice festivities he had been to. This certainly was a new low, and he was glad when the good mood outside ended later that night.
To fight boredom, Kraghtol resorted to working out, starting with the idea of restoring mobility to his healing left shoulder. Thankfully, the injury had recovered with no problems, despite the overexertion during his break-in. Once he could move his arm without trouble again, he proceeded with exercises to keep his muscles strong, pushing himself up from the floor or squatting down until he exhausted himself enough to be content.
While these exercises helped him to get his mind off the mind-numbing boringness that set in over time, they did not help another emerging problem, and even though he had his bucket fullof water every day, after a few weeks, there was little Kraghtol wanted more than a bath.
After what felt like an eternity, a soft jolt went through the ship, and the bustling activity that broke out all over the ship told him he had reached his final destination. Not long after that, the bearded captain appeared to escort him off the ship, not speaking one word more than necessary.
Blinking against the sudden brightness, he stood rooted right at the quay, taking in the unfamiliar location. The ground beneath him was solid stone, and so was the ceiling above. The docks of Bronzebreak were built into a giant cavern, carved out of the mountain stone in what had to be the work of generations. Everything was sturdy and right-angled and seemingly built for eternity. Where the docks of Winterstone were dominated by planks and ropes, he spotted mainly stone slabs and metal chains here, heavy and sturdy beyond what Kraghtol thought useful.
Despite being surrounded by stone, it wasn’t dark. Bright sunlight beamed through the ornate granite entry, and radiant metal lanterns illuminated the docks so brightly that Kraghtol assumed an alchemical lamp oil had to be used.
And then, there were the people. Kraghtol was used to rising taller than most people around him, but standing in a hall mainly populated by dwarves who weren’t taller than one and a quarter meter, made him feel like a giant. Of course, there were the mainly human sailors from Winterstone, and a few other humans and elves dotting the crowd, but all in all, Kraghtol stood out more than ever.
“Stars above, you reek.”
