Darkness. It enveloped everything she could see. She could hear in the background the tireless sea, waves slowly rising and flowing back towards their fathomless home, accompanied by the sound of seagulls adding their symphony to this tune. Truly a sound of complete peace.

She slowly opened her eyes. The peaceful bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds here and there looked back at her.

“I don’t remember the last time the sky was this peaceful.”

After those words escaped her mouth she spent a few moments to try and commit this image to her memory before she decided to start to get a hold of herself and drop her drowsiness. As she tried to wake up her body from its comfortable nap the sounds started fading away though she did not seem to react in the slightest to that phenomenon, which most would have thought was the effect of narcotics or other such influence. Not even the simple thought, that it’s a side effect from her still being sleepy, crossed her mind. Her lack of reaction almost embraced her predicament, as though all her life she has been waiting for this exact moment.

As she started to regain her senses she felt that her body was in a liquid, but she didn’t feel as though her clothes or body were affected by it. The calming sounds slowly faded into what sounded as mumbled speaking before it took the shape of countless words being spoken at once melding into the sounds of a crowd. She pressed her elbows against the ground she felt beneath her and she slowly lifted her head along with retracting her legs closer to herself to keep balance. She had expected to feel a bit dizzy, but there was no such thing present.

As her view changed from the deep blue sky to the horizon it was first met with lots of sandstone yellow tints and after that a variety of colours which melded into black with deep blue and reds. It was the crowd she was hearing among a lot of sandstone buildings. Despite all that, more than half of her view was white and blue now due to where she was sitting. It looked like a fountain with clear deep blue water. There were no drops coming from her and she felt more refreshed than any other point she could remember in her dozy memory.

As she tried to get up by lifting her left arm first followed by relying free weight to her right one as she was getting up. The white bit was the end of the fountain which she was lying in and it shined brightly like radiating snow. The fountain itself reached 15 meters (49’ 3”) ahead of her and the sides looked like they were stretching even further as if to say that she was merely at the tip of a circle big enough to cover an entire square. No, two? The sandstone buildings, on the other hand, looked sturdy and most were two stories while some closer to said fountain were three.

Apart from this normal looking town at first the crowd themselves stood out incredibly. They were all sorts of beings and entities which you could only hear in fairy tales and legends, ranging from humans, orcs, elves, dwarfs, gnomes, goblins, people which resembled humans but with some animal features all the way up to some which had almost no resemblance to humans apart from their upright position and a huge troll here and there going all the way to angels, demons, undead, dragonkin which are humanoid dragons and even incorporeal beings which had no words with which to be described with aside from living balls of radiating energy which did not even seem to obey the laws of physics or even functioned in measly 3 dimensions.

Other such beings which seemed to defy logic itself roamed but they numbered the least out of all after mentioned ones. Some looked like cubes that had more cubes rotating in them while others looked like; No, you can’t say they could even have been seen but you could distinctly feel the presence of their watery membrane like bodies moving about.

From all of this she again didn’t react at all as though this was, but normal and expected. She looked around with only twisting her body and neck slightly to see the same scenery all around the fountain. It looked like said fountain was in the middle of some huge square which explained the lively cloud which in turn had not reacted to her as if her behaviour was also to be considered acceptable. And how could they?

In the huge 100 meter (328’ 1”) distance the fountain occupied behind her stood many others also like her all surrounding the middle of the fountain, which looked like water had flowed in reverse to form its silvery white base, followed by another two such bases one after the other, each smaller than the previous. Only difference being that the first one was three times as bigger than the second while the third was only slightly smaller to its own base.

The same clean blue water seemed to be spewing from its high center on the third floor which was high enough that two people the size of a grown man could stand on each other’s shoulders and they still would just barely be unable to glance at the top of the fountain. She was, in fact, standing on the base beneath all of those, but unlike those which looked like an actual decorative fountain the edges of hers which stretched her entire view and behind, looked like they were a few quartz blocks put up, just so the water doesn’t flow over to flood the square.

Around the source of the pure water, the many others like her were also sleeping in it, or just waking up while very few were getting out of it awkwardly. They were from the same species as all around and all looked like they’re wearing leather clothing which covered their entire bodies and some belts to store valuables but not much else could be made from the great expanse separating them. She herself wore leather as well, but her entire getup was completely different from theirs.

For starters hers was all shades of blue which made her stand out in contrast and even if it was compared side to side, it would seem thinner it simultaneously looked sturdier as well. It perfectly fit her petite and slim frame. She seemed no more than 150 centimeters tall (4’ 11”) and she was in an upright and stern position. Her golden straight locks went down to the middle of her back while the front was an evenly cut fringe, that deformed with a few small gaps in it as it couldn't stay perfectly put on her forehead. The feature that stood out the most for a human were her two slightly dark, lively crimson red pupils, thou amidst all the characters around her it seemed nothing out of the ordinary, but was still considered weird among said humans.

Another thing that separated her from the rest of the people positioned in the fountain were her gloves. While some of the rest fountain dwellers also had gloves, hers were woollen and the finger tips were cut.

She looked back ahead and then slowly started walking to the edge of the fountain which wasn’t far from her. As she lifted her feet, their souls were still submerged in the water, but it offered no resistance at all, almost as if encouraging her to venture forth. When she finally got out she took a closer look at the scenery before her. Even though with the size of the square was easily 200 meters wide (656’ 2”), the crowd of people had almost fully occupied it, yet there was plenty of space in between so that at least one person could fit in between here and there and sometimes there was room for a child as well.

But the one thing that stood out was that they did not get too close to the fountain as if avoiding great danger. The only exception were girls that stood a little over half the distance from the fountain to the crowd and they were just standing there waiting for people to pass by. They looked like those people you find in the center of towns that offer you adds or ask for donations. She didn’t dislike those people and understood that they had to do it and so really didn’t have an opinion on the matter.

Just as the girl had set her mind to a course of action and set out to view ahead a sudden running and gasping came from behind her and it could visibly be heard how it had jumped out of the fountain and staggered its landing outside it. Of course, she paid it no heed and was already moving forward, she could not be sure if it had anything to do with her, so there was no need to bother even turning. It would eventually become evident if it indeed was towards her. And just to prove her right a sudden voice was heard:

“Stop!”