Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (ink book reader .txt) 📕

The young girl blushed with embarrassment for the seer’s hands were indeed empty. But then Irba outstretched her right hand and waved her left over it, her bangles clinking melodiously, almost hypnotically. Soon, a slightly cloudy crystal ball was woven out of the air in her hand. It was as if a swirl of morning.

Alice clapped, changing from a young lady to a child. To complete the image, she was missing two braids tied with colorful ribbons and dirt from a mudpie gone awry on her face and hands.

Irba walked between the Stumps, passing over each of them the strange, shimmering ball. Blackbeard, who had been following her actions closely, could have sworn by his beard that every time the sphere passed over someone’s head, the mist inside transformed into the shape of a face. However, it was unlikely that he’d ever tell about it — he didn’t believe in any otherworldly nonsense. Magic was an exception. But foresight was for fairy tales and ballads.

After completing the circle, Irba sat down on the pillow. Her lips moved, but no one heard a sound. There were no mages in the area who knew the Words that came out of her mouth. Alice, swinging her lush brown curls, felt inferior. Before, she could boast of knowing about a hundred Words. During the campaign, she realized that many people know less, but much more effective and useful Words.

Irba kept whispering, weaving an unknown spell. The wind picked up; the cloth flapped, turning into the sound of invisible birds rushing to the seer’s call; the fire, which had been locked in a chaotic dance, suddenly stretched out and spun like a tornado; the ashes and sparks no longer flew, but transformed, dancing and taking the form of small, humanoid spirits.

The spell lasted for only a couple of moments, and soon the birds stopped clapping, the flames were subdued, and the spirits disappeared.

The seer’s eyes rolled back, revealing the whites, which were slightly dark, as if covered with a film. Irba didn’t see what was happening in the square, and did not notice Blackbeard’s chuckles and Alice’s shushing. Her mind was in the misty fields of Farlon.

The songs and legends claimed that there, in the corners of the divine halls, the straight course of the river of time is erased and the boundaries of space disappear. Few believed in the existence of Farlon, and even fewer happened to visit it.

However, despite the skepticism, Irba roamed these fields. She tried not to focus on any details as it was against the rules, and anyone who broke them risked losing their mind and being stuck forever in the changing lands.

If you looked for too long at a stone, soon, it’d turn into a bird, the bird into a river, the river into a mountain, the mountain into a lake, the lake into a kingdom, the kingdom into a man. And a string of images would endlessly turn your head and pull you in, until the mind finally dissolved in the flow of nothingness.

Irba tried not to close her eyes, so as not to miss something important, and not to concentrate on anything for too long. She looked like a tired passerby, absentmindedly trudging along a paved road.

Treading carefully through the soft grass, she finally found what she was looking for — a small stream, the end of which was lost somewhere in infinity.

She leaned over the stream and opened her eyes wide, trying to see as much as possible. At first, the stream looked like a thread of blue silk, but the longer you looked at it, the faster you realized that from one “bank” to the other you’d have to swim for no less than an eternity.

Vague images rushed into her mind and she seemed to pass them through herself, searching for the necessary fragments. Finally, led by her heart, some higher force, or intuition, she came across the image of the Stumps. With a smile, she reached for it, but a fierce flame flared up in front of her.

A tall pillar burst out of the ground, throwing Irba away from the stream. She screamed and abruptly opened her eyes to find Raland holding her and Alice chanting a healing spell. The girl’s hands shone with a soft, blue light and the pain in Irba’s eyes and head gradually subsided.

“Irba, what happened?” Raland asked, concerned.

“Is that unusual for her?” Tul inquired, thinking that such screams and convulsions were just part of the show.

“This is the first time I’ve seen her... like this.” Raland turned to Irba, whose face was covered in sweat.

The seer struggled to a semi-sitting position. Her whole body was trembling, and in her head she could hear the fading tolls of the bell. Her vision was blurry, but she could clearly see two blue eyes staring at her. Ash was gazing intently at her face. Irba swallowed.

Ash had learned a lot about the nameless world during his travels, and one of the lessons things was that you couldn’t see the future without changing it. And the Twelfth Master couldn’t allow anyone to change their future. Ash glared at the seer for a moment longer, then returned to the dance with a smile, hugging the pretty girl who clung to him.

“Miss?” Alice whispered carefully.

Irba flinched. With unexpected strength, her fragile fingers gripped Alice’s wrist, pulling her to the ground.

“Your journey,” she uttered so softly that only Alice could hear. “Your journey will bring terror to all of us. The last king will be born... When he falls, he’ll rise in vengeance. Flames will be everywhere... In the sky and in the waters... Horror... for all of us... The madman is walking in the shadows...”

By this time two acrobats had arrived. They carefully picked up the