Streams of dust flowing through the air passed his vision like wake through water, out upon a barren land; a grey desert that was cold and filled with much wind and rain. There was nothing but the darkness that steadily closed in on the world.
Animar’s feet crunched through the coarse ash-like sand, stopping in front of an ancient stone tablet that stood five feet from the ground. He looked over the landmark carefully, noting the elegant characters engraved within it that flowed from top to bottom. His knowledge of eastern arcane arts was more limited than he’d care to admit, but he was sure he knew the significance of this thing.
An illusion ward, the shadow of a smirk appeared on the edge of his mouth, something is indeed hidden here…
He began to take a step, but hesitated. The stone was probably an alarm, too, he thought. If he passed it they would know – if there was anyone there at all. Besides it being a lookout of sorts, if it was indeed an illusion technique, he would most definitely lose his way by passing through unprepared. He had to diffuse the spell.
Animar reached within his cloak, retracting it with a slip of paper with markings similar to those on the stone. He placed it on the five foot landmark, stepped back, and raised a hand towards it.
I may not know enough of this sort of magic to dispel it through its own methods, but using the technique I salvaged from the classics, and a clever bending of my own art, I can dismantle this device.
He drew a breath and focused, muttering a few words under his breath: slowly, deliberately. His limbs tensed, the power flowing from him through the paper. It was working! He channeled more energy into it, grappling with the enchantment.
Gradually he could sense and feel an invisible wall that spanned from the tablet in both directions to identical stone statues, all of which encircled one colossal area, forming a single, uninterrupted, circular barrier of energy.
The wall itself began to appear, through ripples in the air like heat rising in the distance of the desert. Rapidly the image of beyond the stone – of the endless dead lands – became distorted, as if looking through warped and clouded glass.
Then like the calming of water, the waves settled, revealing the base of a strange and formidable mountain.