The Vision of Sharos

The vision begins more as a sensation than anything else. You're flying - you can feel the wind whipping over your body, hear the thin gusty sound wind makes only at high altitudes, taste the moisture from high in the atmosphere, even smell the ozone all around you. Only after embracing all of these senses do you break below the clouds, and your eyes are filled with the vision of a great valley below, flanked by mountains to the north and west, and the far off sea to the south.   Almost immediately, you feel leathery wings wrap around you as you dive into a spiral, plummetting towards the ground. Splotches of color become features of terrian - greens of the forests, browns of the hillsides, and far off in the distance, blue green marshes catch your eye. But you head towards a splotch of white next to a stripe of blue cutting across the plain. "Milborne, the Humans call it," says the voice in your mind. It both is and isn't your voice, all at the same time. You flap through the village, seeing an old woman humming a tune and carrying a bushel of bread into a store. You see an old man sitting outside a tavern, wildly gesticulating as he tells a story. You see a young couple, sneaking off behind a building to steal a kiss.   Then, you're back in the air again, flying across the plain, over the river, and across the great forest below. You see a single white building peeking from the tops of the trees, a tower that appears to have been broken in what could only be a massive explosion. No time to investigate however, and you fly past, eventually coming to another small village, this one ringed with a wooden palisade. Outside the walls, several buildings stand in ruin and disrepair. You see fishermen bringing in their days haul, and a wagon carrying lush red fruit approaching the city gate. You see another castle in the distance, but you get the feeling you've seen enough. With a thrust or two with your wings, you gain some altitude and rush toward the ground. Then, THROUGH the ground, you feel the rock grabbing at your skin as you burrow deep under the surface. Briefly, you pop into open air, long enough to see a massive purple object open a gargantuan mouth to try to bite at you, but you're too quick and you're back in the dirt before it finds purchase.   Before you know it you find yourself standing in an immaculately decorated office. Rich wood furniture adorns the room, with fantastic silks and tapestries unlike any you've ever seen hang on the walls. At the far end of the room is an elegant mahogany desk, with a stunningly beautiful burnette sitting behind it. She's wearing a tight fitting suit - In another world it might be called "modern", but you don't have the word for that. She seems to be rubbing a stick against her fingernails intently, while chewing something vigourously.   "I'm here to see the boss" you hear yourself say.   "Eee's expectin ya!" she quips, nodding at the door behind her. You approach and the door opens on its own. You stride in, with another room as beautifully decorated as before. In the office you see a tall man, stairing out the window. Looking past the man, you see only inky darkness. But then your eyes adjust and you see the object he is looking at. Far in the distance is a massive tower, far larger than you could believe would be built underground. Surrounding it are four smaller, but still enourmously tall towers. The entire complex seems to be pulsing with energy you feel almost more than you see.   The man turns to you, and smiles. He's exquisitely handsome, almost irresitably so, especially when he smiles. The only thing that betrays his humanity is the dark purple hair, even well groomed as it is. "I.... I was supposed to meet Pallestrin," you hear yourself say, uncertainty creeping into your voice.   The man sighs gently, and then waves a hand. Thick purple smoke fills the space where he was standing, and then suddenly clears, revealing a large demonic purple figure, with giant horns atop his head. His voice is now filled with a deep reverberating bass note that fills the air around you, and you find yourself unable to breathe as he speaks. "I am Pallestrin," He says. "We keep things more...subtle here. Now what news do you have of the surface? Do we know what they are up to yet?" He asks, nodding at the tower. You blink, and in the space of blinking, he's returned to his human form. You gasp for air for just a moment.   "No, your greatness. Whatever the plan is, the surface shows no sign of it yet. But the people also seem unaware. Their plan may still work."   "Work or not, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that we are here when it's completed, and we will take it for ourselves." He continues speaking, but your vision has become distracted by the looming towers in the distance. You feel them call to you, pulling your mind to them. The edges of your vision begin to go black, and then it's gone entirely. You're surrounded by darkness deeper than you've ever seen or felt in your life. Then, high above you in the darkness, a hint of unholy green begins to appear. You realize it's a single, enormous eye. Then, directly above it, another opens, and below it opens a third. They blink in succession, and turn downward to look directly at you. You hear what sounds like laughter in your head, but it is unbearably loud. Then, the voice echoes in your brain - "Come to me, Sharos. Come to me and meet your destiny."   You snap out of the vision, certain hours had passed, but you find that you were only distracted for a few seconds. The only change is the certainty that something very, very bad is in store for Haranshire, and you may be the only one that can stop it.