The Cataclysm Slumbers
Ozone, with its sweet pungent smell, assaulted Kestiln's nostrils as he stumbled forward onto the ground. Smiling, he twisted so that he could face the sky and the swaying canopy of leaves above him.
"I did it," he whispered to himself, "it wasn't a fluke."
Taking only a moment to gather his strength, he sat up to dust off his red and black doublet while gathering his bearings. Trees spread around him, thick enough so that he could see nothing else, but not enough to stop light from creeping through the canopy. Every breath he took carried with it the scents of loam and tree, and the wind carried upon it the chittering and chirping of smaller woodland creatures. Opening up his senses to the mana of the world, he felt the swirling green mana of the forest, and something else. In the distance, to the south, he could feel a steady pulse of green and red mana, like the heartbeat of a giant beast. Grinning, he flipped out his shadik knives for inspection. Finding none of them the worse for wear he slipped them back into their sheaths and began walking south.
Each step brought him closer to that pulsing source of power. Each skip further into the unknown. Every so often, as the trees parted in just the right way, he could see a looming mountain jut up from the forest's canopy. Larger than even then his old home, the Citadel, this monolithic formation scraped past the clouds which swirled around it. Jet black and spiked in peculiar ways, it was an odd rock formation. Kestiln also thought he saw a winding section similar to a large serpent in certain sections of the mountain, which just added to the mystery. Was it a titanic creature, like those that had been hunted to extinction on the first plane he had inadvertently traveled to? Was it a sacred site to this plane's religion? Carved and worked on by master artisans ever since its discovery, like his home had been? Was it something else, something wholly unique to this plane?
As the hours passed, the curiosity grew. It was larger by orders of magnitude than the mythologically titanic creatures of Plensdar, and the location was too unnatural to be a normal geological feature like his home. Which left something different, something outside of his knowledge and experiences. As he set down camp in the shade of this mountain, eating some freshly caught and cooked squirrel, he saw in the fading twilight veins of crimson dimly pulse between the jagged peaks he was traveling towards. In time with the pulses of mana he could feel.
The next day was largely the same, and the day after that. He walked towards the mountain of power to the south, taking detours to grab food and water from the areas he passed. Always the mountain grew bigger, the pulse of power stronger. Those were not the only changes though, the forest he walked through changed as well. It grew darker, thicker, and a white cool mist began to cling to the ground. It was, somewhat to his surprise then, that he suddenly the forest cleared away to reveal a low stone fence with a gate barring his path. Mist swirled past the gate, hiding everything beyond the fence in a white expanse of swirling clouds. More surprising were the two entities with polearms guarding the gate. Stout and muscled, with what appeared to be a turtle shell on their backs, they glared at Kestlin's approach.
"Good day my friends!" Kestlin began, "May I have the names of the fine gentleman guarding this gate?"
Each of the guards furrowed their brows and quirked their heads. They responded with a rumbling noise, something similar to the groans of stone under stress.
"Well… this is problematic."
One of the guards gave a sharp nod to the other and disappeared into the mists while the other shifted to cover the gate himself. Nodding to himself, Kestlin dropped to the ground and took a seat, carefully keeping himself from engaging in the habit of playing with his blades while waiting. Fortunately, it was not an overly long wait before the disappearing guard reappeared escorting someone else. Taking the shape of a human serpent, it spoke to the guards in a sibilant hiss before stepping past the gate and sitting down in front of him.
"So, are you the translator?"
Responding with a hiss, the creature made a beckoning motion with its hands.
"You want me to keep talking?"
Another hiss and the same motion came from the serpent.
Grinning, Kestlin began to speak of the wonders of his home. The towering pillars that an artisan must carve before being deemed a master, the works of smiths which meld shadow into metal, painters who capture glorious sunsets on canvas. Of the mountains that covered his homeland and the caves that carved through them. It took about an hour of regaling his host with the beauty and wonder of his home before a raised hand stopped him.
"Can you understand this?" The creature asked, with only a hint of a hiss on the last word.
"Yes! Wonderful. My name is Kestlin, my I have the honor of knowing yours?
"Kestlin? A good name. My name is Scholar Langar. What brings you to the Misted Garden?"
"Well, my good Langar, I was traveling through the forest to the north looking for inspiration when I sensed something to the south. Being the inquisitive sort that I am, I could not help but investigate to satisfy my curiosity!"
Tilting his head, Langar took a movement to respond, "My apologies for being circuitous before. I do wish to know what caused you to walk to this plane?"
Kestlin's grin became a tad sharper, "Would you believe happenstance?"
"Yes."
"Then it was happenstance."
"Well then," began Langar with a stretching smile, "welcome to the Misted Garden Kestlin, he who came here by happenstance. Are you here to visit or to continue traveling?"
"I could hardly pass up a chance to visit such a peculiar place!"
"Then I shall be your guide and the first to welcome you to the Misted Garden. Home of the Scholars and the Guardians. Resting place of the Living Mountain, the Dreaming Cataclysm, the Lords of the High Garden."
A/N: This omake is brought to you by MGTA and the idea of Zhengui being a planeswalker of massive size where he wakes up every so often and planeswalks to another plane, trying to get back to the world which he accidentally left when his spark ignited. While he dreams, guardians cultivate and protect the area around him while Scholars try to figure out how to get Zhengui back. When he wakes he engages his spark which causes a cataclysm in the plane he is leaving.
