A dream:

After seeing the many flashes of black and white that have appeared in many of your dreams, you once again find yourself in a small stone room. Whatever the object is in the center of the room still sits amongst the burning coals of the fire that raged there before. It appears to have been some time since you saw the man leave after performing whatever ritual it was. The floor underneath is covered in a thin layer of ash and you can see that more wood or charcoal has been added as well as other materials to the flame that sits under the object.

You can hear a kind of tapping, like stone against stone. You look around and there is no one there, just the object in the center of the room and the fire burning constantly under it.

You get closer and you can see more coins in the fire, some of them appear to be partially consumed by the fire, as if they were made of wood, they do however also glow white hot as if they were metal coins heated in flame. There are a handful of different types of coins in the fire and you don't recognize the imprint on any of them, the lettering too on them you don't understand.

You hear footsteps and hear someone coming down the hall on the other side of the room. The figure reappears carrying a large wooden box. He places it down on the floor near where he entered the room. He moves to the object and again places the side of his head against the object. He pulls his head back away from it and quickly moves back to the box. He opens the lid and starts to remove large pieces of meat from the box and he tosses them into a corner of the room. There is a bit of levity in the way he goes about this work. He empties the box then picks it up and leaves the room. Returning a short time later with the same box again. Once again he sets it down then opens it and begins emptying the contents into the corner of the room. He repeats this cycle a handful of times. There is now quite a pile of meat in the corner of the room. The figure every now and then goes to the object and will do as he did before and place his head on the side of the object.

You can still hear the tapping every once in a while, sometimes a series of slow steady beats and other times just a couple of the taps in quick succession. If you had to guess you would say that the taps are starting to get more frequent. You still do not know where they are coming from. The sound seems to fill the room as a whole and all the sound in here echoes dreadfully in such a small squared space with stone walls. Even the sound of the figures footsteps as he comes in and out seem to continue on forever. The pile of meat lays as he had orignally tossed them with the occasional piece sliding off the pile with a kind of wet slap as it hits the stone floor. The meat itself appears as if it could be from any number of beasts. Some of the pieces came from larger animals, cows or pigs, while there are some pieces that almost certainly came from chickens or some other small foul. They have not been cooked or prepared in any way it seems.

After one final trip, delivering another box full of meat, the figure checks on the object one more time then quickly heads for the hallway. He interacts with something on the wall and you can see a large metal portcullis fall between the hallway and the room. You can then see him start to cast some kind of spell, and barely perceivable shimmer starts to come off the iron bars. The man then walks down the hall away from this room. The tapping sound is getting louder and happening with more frequency. The sound echoing to fill the whole room with the sound. The fire is now burnt down to near embers, all the contents of the fire burned down to ash. The flame itself dies down and the red light and heat from the embers is all that remains. The light from the embers and the slight glow of the magic-ed iron bars cast long shadows across the room. The tapping continues louder than before. There is another sound like the snapping of a twig or branch. A small crack appears in the object that is sitting in the center of the room. Then more tapping and another snap as the crack widens some more. More tapping, less random this time and harder than before, the crack widens some more each time with a deep snapping sound. The cracks start to come together and then all at once on the far side of the object you can see a piece fall off of the object. It falls to the floor and shatters. It appears to be a thin layer of something like porcelain. With a bit more tapping more and more of the pieces begin to fall away. Each in turn smashing into tiny pieces as it falls on the hard stone floor. The tapping stops and you hear another sound instead, breathing, deep quick breaths, rough ragged. Then after a few seconds you can hear what sounds like a small growl or cry. The sound of which echoes through the room.

You wake