As I rose within the Astral, I noticed a slow change around me, a dimming of the surroundings, for lack of a better word. It wasn’t that the amount of power around me was declining but it felt like the power faded into the background tapestry of reality, making it harder to perceive it, at least with my senses.

I was moving carefully, remembering the painful experience I had last time when stumbling into the radiance of the sun, feeling out my surroundings as I went further, guided by the pull of the dark moon, somewhere above me. In the Astral, I was able to perceive the moon, its radiance similar but different than the light I was used to. I had a feeling it was due to the side of the moon I was moving towards not being illuminated that I could perceive its glow at all, a freezingly cold, dark radiance flowing towards me and the planet below.

At one point during my journey, when distance in the real world had lost all meaning due to the strange properties of my mode of travel, or maybe the realm I was travelling in, I stopped moving, letting the Astral flow around me. Up here, it had faded far enough into the background of reality that it wasn’t moving me, not unless I wanted to move, allowing me to come to rest. There was nothing around me, an emptiness devoid of everything, unless I focused on my connection to the moon pulling me in one direction and a pair of links, connecting me back to Mundus, to Sigmir and Lenore.

But I was quite certain that there had to be Astral around me, just that it might be beyond my ability to detect it. Crossing my legs, as I floated in the void, I tried to widen my focus, curious if that might allow me to glimpse a little more of the world. It was pure curiosity, the drive to learn more than I had known before.

As I sat there, I began to notice something, a faint glimmer that faded from existence as fast as it appeared. A twinkle in the fabric of reality, short sparks of power, existing for the briefest of moments. Not trying to focus, I let my senses roam, trying to catch a better impression of them, their brief existence making observation difficult.

Suddenly, one of them sparked into existence right in front of me, making me flinch back but it wasn’t dangerous, as fast as it had come, it was gone again, leaving behind a faint taste in the air around me, barely there but a change nonetheless. Now, that was something I could try to focus on, drawing in the non-existing air around me, trying to taste what was there now and hadn’t been a moment before. My mind was making analogies up as I went, neither my mind nor my language suitable to describe the experience but it was either that or go crazy. Maybe more crazy than I already was.

The void I had breathed in had a faint taste of purple, faint in power but intense in its fabric, pure in power but it was a small remnant. I associated the taste of purple with Darkness-Magic, but such an intense purple I had never tasted before. It was fascinating, to watch the sparkles spring into existence before fading and for a while, maybe seconds, maybe minutes or hours, I was just sitting there, watching the void and thinking, trying to get a better glimpse, maybe even use Identify or Observe to get more information.

Finally, I decided that it was time to move on, I had an idea what I had observed but I had places to be. I wanted to reach the moon and while watching the sparkling void was interesting, I doubted I would be able to learn more.

For now, I thought that I had watched the equivalent of Eternal Ice, only for Darkness Astral Power spring into existence briefly, before fading again. It fit with what I had heard about Darkness-Magic, that it was of change and concealment, making me wonder if there was a vast amount of Darkness-Astral-Power around me and I was merely unable to perceive it. I had a feeling the question would keep me awake for some time, trying to figure out what I was seeing but it would have to wait for later.

Distance was a funny thing within the Astral, within what felt like a short time, especially compared to the vast distance I would have had to cross if distances were equivalent to their real-world counterparts, I felt close to the Moon. I was hovering above what appeared to be an endless expanse, a desert of silvery-grey emptiness, dull with age and despair. A dim glow of Astral Power turned the darkness into a strange twilight, distances and the terrain seemingly shifting around me. There was an innate sadness, a coldness to the place that made me hesitate.

I stopped myself, wondering if trying to touch down on the moon was a smart idea or if I would freeze myself making the attempt. The amount of power I could perceive was vast, my mind straining with the attempt to make sense of it. Looking down, I concentrated on a small part in front of me, the narrow focus working like a set of blinders, allowing my mind to process what I perceived.

As I focused, all of a sudden, I felt a powerful surge of emotions battering against me. At first, I felt lost, my mind swept away by the force of alien power, a leaf in a storm of emotions. My first instinct was to shield myself, to try avoiding the onslaught of emotions.

Curling into a tight ball, I embraced the darkness around me, hoping to hide in an attempt to keep my mind from shattering. I started to feel loopy and a little out of touch with the world around me, my mind straining but as the darkness around me returned my embrace, I felt the pressure on my mind lessen, allowing me to do more than cling onto the rests of my sanity. It allowed me to actually process the pressure around me, to experience it as something but pain.

My cheeks were stained with tears as my mind was reeling with what I had just felt. I had been lonely in my life but the brief glimpse into a solitude that had lasted eons and would last eons more had my mind on the ropes. I wasn’t sure what, or who, was radiating those emotions, if they were real or a figment of my imagination, my mind trying to process something I didn’t understand.

After a long moment of hesitation, I decided to try again, carefully allowing my senses to explore my surroundings again, glimpsing out of the cloak of darkness I had spun around me, like a safety blanket. I was a lot more careful than I had been with my first exploration but I was here to learn, to gain power and to understand.

Again, my senses were overwhelmed, the sheer amount of lingering power in my surroundings enough to make me shiver and curl up again, as I narrowed my focus even more, unable to hold it together otherwise. But I wasn’t blasted to the point of incomprehension, I was able to function, mostly.

Strange sensations welled up within my mind, images, tastes and smells, sounds and noises, nothing I could easily understand but somehow, parts of my mind did understand. There seemed to be a pattern to the sensations, a strange ethereal melody, a progression of rhymes creating reason. In a way, the Astral Power I was feeling bound in the moon was a tale, a tale of solitude and longing, of sadness and wandering, of eternal stillness and constant change.

I simply drifted there, trying to understand, clinging to the darkness around me and my connection to Sigmir and Lenore to keep my mind from crumbling under the stress. I had the impression that I was trying to shift a mountain, one grain of sand at the time, but at the same time, I was able to feel a change within me, a resonance between the core within my chest and my surroundings. I wasn’t sure what was changing but change was happening.

Finally, the change I had been feeling manifested in a physical sensation, pain radiating from my face, near my right cheek, as if I was being stabbed with an icicle. Sharp, penetrating but at the same time, it allowed me to focus on something but the feeling of eternal solitude I had been subjected to. As such, I embraced the pain, letting it drill into me but also anchor me in reality. It was a strangely welcome distraction, allowing me to endure for a little longer.

But then, even that wasn’t enough any longer and I escaped, focusing on my connections to Sigmir and Lenore, to the rune I had created on my throne and to my own body. Unsure just what I had experienced but changed by it.