Page 3758

He began to feel his concentration wavering, his focus lagging. A sign of fatigue. These heightened meditations were tiring. He wanted to keep going, but it was probably time to stop--or to take a break and reassess, at least.

It wasn’t immediate. Pulling himself and Axiolis safely out of the trance required a bit of patience. A gradual awakening back into the real world.

Although, “real” might not have been the most accurate word, at the moment.

As his eyes eased open, and as Axiolis’ soul melted out of his own, Zeff was again reminded of his ethereal surroundings.

The sky was completely dark, though not because it was nighttime. This place had no sun at all, as far as he and Ax had been able to discern. And yet it was not without luminance.

The world itself glowed with a ghostly pale light. Buildings were almost as dark as the sky, but they had flickering outlines to them, highlighting every edge, every corner. The ground, too, was dark, illuminated primarily by lines in the sidewalk and cracks in the pavement.

It had taken a while of frustrated faffing about, but they’d come to the conclusion that this place was actually Ridgemark. Or some shadowy representation of it, perhaps. If they’d been more familiar with the city, maybe it wouldn’t have taken them so long to locate some of its more notable landmarks.

The Ruby 88 Hotel & Casino, for example, was standing not far in the distance as Zeff sat cross-legged on a street corner. By now, they’d also seen the Lucky Llama and the Golden Hierophant, too. They’d gone inside each one multiple times--along with most of the other buildings around here--hoping to find something. Or someone. Or just some trace of life, even.

But to no avail.

This phantasmal world was empty, save only the two of them.

And they still had no idea how they’d ended up in this place, much less how to return. Zeff and Axiolis had both woken up here, and that was the last thing they remembered after being with everyone else at their encampment in the defense of Ridgemark.

Which was doubly odd, of course, because reapers did not sleep, other than when they were seriously wounded.

Or being psychically manipulated, maybe.

By now, the notion had certainly crossed Zeff’s mind that their new friend, the esteemed Field Marshal Graves, might very well be the one responsible for their current predicament.