I felt laying on my back on a cold and hard surface. There was a light breeze, but I felt it on the naked skin. Shivering a bit I opened my eyes. There were stars shining in the dark sky, but they looked different. They coated a rugged stone desert in an eerie light.

On the edge of my vision to the right I noticed a movement. Milly sat there on the rocky surface. I rose to a squat and checked my surroundings. A few meters away from Milly Tilly was laying on the sheer rock, and began to stir.

I looked at Milly and shook my head. She shook her head as well. In a distance a bit above us I could see a faint blue light shimmering behind a ragged ridge a few hundred meters away and above our altitude.

“Where are we?” Milly came to me.

“There is something behind that ridge.” I got up

“Last I remember was I dozed off.” Tilly walked up to us.

“We’re naked!” I looked at Milly and Tilly.

“At least there is no one other around.” Milly looking at me frowning.

“What should we do now?” Tilly looked in the direction of the ridge.

“Wherever we are. I would like to sneak a peek ...” I

“Curiosity kills the cat!” interjected Milly with a stern gaze.

“It’s the only interesting around.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“Waiting here is not going to help. Do you have food and water?” Tilly looked at Milly with her head tilted to the side.

“Well. Maybe we simply wake up after a while.” Milly crossed her arms under her chest as well.

“This is no ordinary dream. Maybe we find something interesting.” I pointed at the ridge.

“Let’s carefully look what we can see beyond that ridge. It’s just a dream.” Tilly pointed out.

“Okay. But try not being an idiot!” Milly shot me a fierce glare.

“Promised. We sneak a peek and discuss what we do next.” I gave Milly a short hug.

Carefully I started to navigate the stony ground. Choosing the more smooth parts helps without having shoes. The starlight was bright enough to see enough. The last part involved some easy climbs, but eventually we arrived at the ridge.

“Let’s crawl the last few meters.” I looked at the others.

They nodded. We got to our knees and crawled to the edge.

In front of us was a crater about fifty meters below our position. I could see five bright glowing light sources spread around the rim of the flat stone desert inside the crater. The drop down was steep at most places, about 30 meters, followed by loose rubble field. About two hundred meters to the right I could see a ravine, which may be a way down in the crater. The crater itself had an diameter of about an kilometer.

The nearest light source was near the exit of the ravine, on the flat ground of the crater. It was a large glowing crystal. The others were far away, evenly spread around the circular crater. In the center of the crater was a faint yellow light as well. It flickered in an regular pattern. There was a pause, then 3 short flashes, 3 long ones, followed by 3 short again. After that was brief pause and it started again. Was that Morse code?

After a while I crawled back from the ridge until I could get up without being visible from the crater.

“Did you see the flickering light?” I looked at the others.

“It flickered, yes.” Milly shrugged.

“It’s the SOS in morse code.” Tilly sat down on a round large rock.

“This would imply, that someone from back there is in the middle of the crater.” I scratched my head.

“And he or she calls for help.” Tilly shook her head.

“This doesn’t make much sense!” Milly sat down beside Tilly.

“I’d propose to check out the ravine over there.” I pointed to the right.

“We could get a closer look at the crystal.” Tilly nodded.

“Are you sure we should approach the crystal more?” Milly frowned at us.

“It’s better to keep moving, it’s not as cold as sitting here.” I started to do a few squats.

“Well. As long as we keep some distance.” Milly smiled a bit strained.

“As long as there is no visible danger, we should try to figure out what this is. Maybe the next time the dream comes it’s less peaceful. Come!” I started to walk in the direction of the ravine. We had to climb down the ridge a few meters to get to the entrance into the ravine.

Carefully we followed the ravine in the direction of the crater. The ground was a bit rugged, but it was not much of a problem most the time.

A few meters from the exit to the crater we found a rather gruesome sight. Over a few meters there were small humanoid skeletons scattered on the ground with the remains of shattered swords and armor. From a small crevice came faint shimmer of light.

Tilly squeezed herself into the crevice. She found four blunt maces, all surrounded by a faint white light.

I picked up a mace. With one hand they were a bit heavy, but with two hands I could handle the weapon quite well.

“Let’s gear up!” I laid the mace on my right shoulder.

“We haven’t learned to use them!” Milly frowned at me.

“Well. It’s better than having no weapon.” I grinned.

“First treasure!” Tilly exclaimed and picked up a mace, too.

“You’re silly! All of you!” Milly picked up a mace as well.

“A young girl dreaming has the right to be silly!” I gave her a smug smile.

“Let’s go.” Milly started to walk ahead.

“What about the bones?” Tilly put the head of her mace on the ground.

“Without proper equipment we can’t do much, it’s all rocky. ” I patted Tilly on the shoulder.

“Maybe we could put them in the crevice where we found the weapons.” Milly proposed.

I nodded.

We collected the bones and put them in the crevice. Not much of a burial, but at least they were not laying around in the open.

After we had finished, we carefully advanced to the exit of the ravine. We stood on top of the rubble field, which continued in an about 45 degree angle down to the bottom of the crater. The blue crystal was about fifty meters away from us. The bottom of the crater was only partially rugged. There were was a noticeable path along the wall of the crater passing the crystal. The terrain in the direction to the center of the crater was more rugged. Walkable, but running would be hazardous.

The crystal was large. It had a square base with one meter side length and was over two meters high.

“And now?” Milly leaned against the sheer rock face.

‘I’d like to climb down the rubble field. This place is deserted and we can see the entire crater.” I waved at the crater.

“Waiting for nothing to happen will be pointless.” Tilly nodded in my direction.

“Then let’s go. I’m still not comfortable with all this, but I have to admit that waiting will not help us in any way.” Milly started to climb down the rubble field, taking the mace with two hands for balancing.

We slipped a few times and sent some rubble downward, but nobody was hurt and nothing showed up. After a while we arrived at the bottom of the crater.

“I will examine the crystal. You two keep an eye on the surroundings?” I looked at Milly and Tilly.

They nodded.

“Be careful!” Milly readied her mace.

I nodded and slowly approached the the shining blue crystal. Walking around the crystal I didn’t find anything special, except it was glowing blue.

“Nothing.” I looked at Milly and Tilly.

They stood about five meters apart and were both about ten meters away.

Suddenly three thin rays of light came out of the crystal, hitting each of us.

“At least one crystal must be destroyed to open a path for you! Beware of the guardians!” A booming female voice appeared somehow in my head.

“Please! Come to the center of the crater thereafter!” she continued in a pleading voice.

Then the beams of light winked out.

“Did you hear that voice?” I could see the answer already. Milly and Tilly looked quite confused.

They nodded after a few seconds.

“How do we continue?” I readied my mace.

“We don’t know much about all this. How can we decide?” Milly readied her mace as well and started to check the surrounding.

“She sounded desperate.” Tilly readied her mace as well and came over to me.

“And there was the SOS signal.” I looked at Milly.

“Let’s help whoever this is. I hope I won’t regret it.” she came to our side.

“Let’s put these maces to an use. In the case a guardian appears we should focus on the guardian as long as he is a threat.” I looked at the others.

We stepped up to the crystal and hit it in perfect sync. A few small cracks originated from the points we hit. I made my mace ready for another swing as the crystal flashed brightly, dazzling me. A humanoid crystal thing stepped out of the crystal and turned in our direction.

“Enemy!” I cried turning to the crystal thing. A golem?

We stepped back from the crystal as the guardian stepped up swinging his arms. I attacked as its arms came into reach, connecting hard with its left arm, turning it a bit to the left. It opened its defense for the others and Milly connected her mace to its shoulders, which cause a few cracks to appear. Tilly’s swing went wide. In the meantime I had my mace ready again. The guardian hit Tilly at the shoulder and sent her flying. I stepped to its side and managed a wide diagonal swing at it back which let it stumble a step in Tilly’s direction. Milly had recovered her mace in the meantime.

“Try a leg!” I cried.

Milly swung down her mace and connected to the right leg of the guardian causing a few cracks to appear and messed with its balance. Tilly tried to get up again, her face contorted in pain. The guardian got its footing again and made a few steps towards Tilly. I follwed up and as it ignored me I swung horizontally at it’s knees. I managed to swipe its legs and it fell to the ground. Milly came a moment later and swung her mace overhead to make some new cracks into the guardian. Clumsily the guardian came back to his feet. Tilly picked up her mace again. Since the sweep was quite efficient I tried it again, sending the guardian back to the ground. Milly followed up with an overhead swing to its head. New cracks spread through its head. Tilly hit the guardian as it tried to get on its feet again, sending it sprawling. My next swing came overhead with my bodyweight added to its already damaged right leg causing it crumble into small pieces.

With a few swings we finished the guardian off and returned to the crystal. The crystal was much tougher as the guardian, but we managed to add new cracks with every hit. Then I heard something from behind me.

We all turned around and saw a second guardian come running down the path. Milly and Tilly readied their maces. I stepped to the side to sneak a peek into the other direction.

“There’s another one from the opposite direction! Charge this one first. Try to get one down before attacking the second!” I readied my mace and ran towards the guardian we noticed first.

“I’ll take him head on. Try to get in its side or back!” I prepared to counter its first attack.

The guardian charged as it was running already. I swung the mace from the before me and let it sweep me to the side, trying to remain on my feet. The thing was strong. Milly and Tilly went to both of its flanks. Tilly swiped at its legs, sending it stumbling. Milly waited a moment and sent it sprawling in the direction it was stumbling.

“Finish it off! I’ll try to get our other friend occupied!” I turned the next guardian which passed by the crystal at the moment. I advanced a bit to give Milly and Tilly some room to handle the first guardian.

The guardian charged, and this time I stepped aside just before it reached me. I used the mace to push its arms to the side and swung down at its feet as soon as it wasn’t able to reach me anymore. It stumbled a few steps forward.

The first guardian tried to get up at that moment but Milly swiped away its legs again while Tilly followed up with an overhead swing as soon as it was on the ground. My attacker got its balance back and turned around. I stepped back a few steps in the direction of the crystal.

The second guardian tried its next charge. They we’re not really intelligent, but I won’t complain. This time I tried a wide swing, which caused him to step back. I could see Tilly turning away from the first guardian while Milly hit the guardian on the ground with a overhead swing. Blood was running down her left leg.

My attacker came with some short jabs, which were a bit more difficult to counter with the mace and it managed to graze my chest. I was winded, but managed to dodge its followup attacks until Tilly swept its feet with a wide horizontal swing. As I regained my wind I smashed my mace right onto its head as it tried to get up. The guardian fell back to ground again and Tilly crumbled its head to pieces. The guardian was unfazed losing its head, thus I sent him back to the ground again. Soon Milly joined the fray and we finished the last guardian off.

We stood there panting. Our wounds closed in an astonishing rate. I was used to wounds closing fast by now, but the healing time here was much shorter than normal. After we finally caught our breaths, I heard noises. They sounded like the running guardians, just more muted.

“Do you hear that?” I looked at the others.

They nodded after a few moments.

“Let’s go a bit towards one of them, perhaps we can disable the first one before the second arrives.” I readied my mace.

“Good Idea!” Milly followed suit.

We walked until we could see the guarding approaching.

“I take the first attack and you try to trip and smash it.” I walked a few steps in front of the others.

The guardian approached as fast the others. I managed to sweep away his arms again, that was fine. His kick to my tummy wasn’t. I felt like throwing up and flew a few meters through the air, crashing onto the hard stone surface. I managed to keep my head away from the ground, but was completely winded while my tummy and my back hurt like hell. I heard Milly cry out in fury.

They kept the guardian on the ground to the point he won’t get up again as the next guardian showed up. Milly succeeded to survive the charge and Tilly managed to sent it sprawling.

As I got back my winds again, I managed to get up. I limped to my mace and picked it up. The guardian on the ground crept towards the fight with the other guardian. I finished it of with two hits to its body.

Milly and Tilly were doing fine apart from some bleeding wounds. Well. Next the guardian send Milly flying, but she managed to land gracefully, but she held her shoulder. Tilly swept its legs again. As the guardian tried to get up again I joined the fray and sent it sprawling again with a hit on the back. Milly got on her feet again. A few moments later the guardian stopped to move with concerted efforts.

“Oaahhgghh! Beware of the guardians!” Milly kicked at the remains of the last one.

“Let’s continue. There was probably one guardian per crystal in the way they arrived in pairs.” I started to walk back to the crystal again.

“Yeah. Let’s get over with this!” Milly groaned.

Tilly just nodded.

We returned to the crystal and started to destroy the crystal again. The light of the crystal dimmed down gradually until it was gone completely. We added a few more swings just to be sure.

“Then lets go to the center of this crater. I hope this is worth it.” Milly looked at us skeptical.

“Yeah. Let’s go!” Tilly started to walk in the direction of the faint light.

After half an hour we reached a smoothed out place in form of a pentagon. The air at the edge was blurry and we could see a humanoid figure at the other side raising her arm warningly, followed by gesturing to the right. The figure slowly started to walk in that direction.

“Let’s follow her.” Tilly started to walk in the same direction.

I shrugged and offered Milly a hand.

“I hope this is over soon!” Milly took my hand and we followed Tilly.

We followed the figure around the corner of the blurring air. As blurring effect was weaker at this side I could now see that the figure looked female, but odd. The form of the head was more like that of a reptile and she had a long tail and wings. She walked to the center of the side of the pentagon and started to wave around for a few moments. Then a portal opened where the air wasn’t blurred.

“Come inside, for it’s exhausting to keep the portal open!” a voice in my head ordered.

Without thinking we went through the portal, which closed behind us.

“What?” I piped up.

“I can open the portal for you at any time. I can’t leave this place though.” the voice in my head continued.

“Who are are you? And what is this all about?” Milly sent the strange monster a furious glare.

“I wanted to talk to you.” the voice announced

She was humanoid and had purple scales all over the body, including the tail. Her head looked more like from a lizard and she had a mouth filled with plenty of pointy teeth. The pupils of her eyes were slits and surrounded by a purple iris. Small plates formed a crest down her spine. At the side of her head were curved up horns with nasty looking tips. Her fingers ended in subtle claws and the feet looked like clawed feet, too. She was naked and seemed to be totally unfazed by it. Maybe she was in that condition long enough to mind about it.

“I would want to give you a common language since telepathy is a bit awkward to use, since I get glimpses of what you’re thinking at the moment all the time. I would use a bit magic, but I have to touch you for that and you have to consent.” the voice in my head continued.

“What language would that be?” Tilly looked at the monster with a curious glance.

“Draconic.”

“Will we keep the language later on and would we be able to read it?” I though about books the we could maybe read.

“You’ll keep it for the rest of your life and you’ll be able to read. Writing requires some training though.”

“Sounds useful.” Milly looked at us.

“We do it!” we answered in unison.

“Stay calm, it will be a bit confusing for a while.”

She stepped up to us and touched Milly’s head. Milly’s eyes started to roll back in her sockets and she lost her balance. The lizard gently sat her down on the ground. Next she did the same with Tilly.

The lizard touched my temples and suddenly a torrent of pictures started to flood my brain. After a while the chaos subsided and I started to remember many new things. After a while I came to my senses again. We all sat on the ground, I was hunched to the front a bit but after some tries I was able to move normally again.

“Welcome!” the lizard women looked at us with a hint of pride?

But it was spoken language, so much was clear. I still felt a bit woozy.

“Why are we here?” Milly asked in draconic.

“This is a longer story. I will keep it concise and I can’t tell you everything I know, since it would potentially harmful for you. My name is Ziualzhilnazzarlunialell. You can call me Ziual.

I lived a long time ago and this is only the remainder of my soul. My body is long dead. First there were much more guards around here but most of them left eventually. The crystals outside anchor my soul to this place, they all have to be destroyed to let me move on, but I digress. What connects us is that my enemies butchered my body, since parts of monsters are useful components to fabricate artifacts. Each of you was infused with a part of my blood. This gave me a mystical connection to you to call you here in your dreams.”

“Your blood?” Milly’s eyes were wide open.

“Why?” Tilly scratched her head.

“Our bodies came out of this summoning ritual!” I pulled my legs to my chest and gave Ziual an inquiring look.

“This is true, as far as I know. The blood came later, but you were prepared to accept it. I was told there was a picture...” Ziual gave me an slightly amused smile.

“Picture?” I blushed looking at my feet.

“That picture?” Tilly piped up with mouth wide open.

“What does that mean?” Milly pulled up a knee and looked at Ziual.

“Well. In a mystic way we’re of the same blood. Like family. I’d call you my daughters if I was still alive.” Ziual gave us a warm smile.

“Daughters?” we asked.

“This is how I see it. I can’t raise you anymore, but I want to give you a few useful gifts. Nothing fancy, I’m really weak now.” She folded her arms below her chest while her tail swished over the ground.

“Well, this is a surprise. But can you prove it somehow?” I propped my elbows on my knees and my head on my elbows.

“It’s a bit difficult without you possessing the proper magical abilities.” she looked on the ground before her.

“Why would you want that? There are only few similarities among us.” Milly looked her in the eyes.

“All my other children are long dead. And you are legal daughters of mine in regard to our customs.” she looked at Milly with a smile.

“We don’t have any parents here. I would like to have a mother.” Tilly looked at us.

“I’m okay with it as well. We don’t have any relatives here in the first place.” I looked at Milly.

“Well. If you put it that way.” Milly gave me a thoughtful glance.

We looked at each other and nodded.

“So you’re our Mom now!” Tilly looked at Ziual.

“I will have to give each of you a name to make it official.” she looked at us.

“But this slave mark messes with us to use these silly names.” I objected.

“For the moment it won’t make a difference for you.” she gave us a somber look.

“Get up!” Ziual got to her feet.

We got to our feet.

“It is custom to whisper the name to a child. You may share your names once you are able to. It’s normal among siblings.”

She stepped to Milly and whispered something in her ear. Then she stepped up to me.

“Your True Name is now Nhizziualzhil.” Ziual whispered in my ear.

I fell a wave of affection for Ziual wash through my mind. The fact she was my mother was nearly tangible! I felt really weird, but in a good way.

Then she went to Tilly whispering something in her ear, too.

After a few moments of silence Ziual gave us a heartwarming smile.

“Now there are some details you may want to know. These names are your True Names. They have a mystical significance and you mustn’t tell anybody this name. You may exchange them among yourselves, this is quite usual. You should feel now that this is your name now, but you won’t be able to speak it out unless you get rid of these marks.”

I am Nhizziualzhil! Yes. Better than Lilly! “I’m Lilly!” Well. As she said.

“It works!” I was happy to be rid of that silly name, even if the new one was quite long. We would need to use fake names at some time anyway

“Cool!” Tilly exclaims.

“I can’t wait to share my new name with you!” Milly smiled.

“Another useful thing I can give you, is to awake your eyes awarenes to magic. Humans use a spell for that, but we use an ability which can be enhanced by using mana. You won’t see much detail, until you you’re able to use your mana. But you can see if something has magic properties, which may help you sooner or later. Come here.”

We went over to her and she touched us again with some eerie feeling.

“It will need some time until you see something. Look out for things out of place in your vision. After some time to get accustomed to it, it will be like you had it ever since.”

“I think I’ve done everything I wanted. You should be outside when you wake up. Good-bye. Grow up and make me proud!” Ziual started to make gestures again and after a few moments the portal appeared again.

“Goodbye!” We waved while we left the pentagon.

“Ahh. Seek my heart for it shall protect you!” she exclaimed.

Then the portal closed again.

“Wow!” Milly exclaimed.

“This was intense!” I looked back at the figure. She was waving.

“Let’s try to set her free!” Tilly announced.

“What about the heart?” Milly looked around.

“I don’t think its here. It must be somewhere in the real world. She mentioned they took her parts for magical stuff.” Tilly explained.

We looked at each other and nodded.

“Let’s take the next one over there. We should have one, one and then two guardians. This puts the hardest fight to the end.” I proposed.

Milly and Tilly nodded. We walked to the next crystal. We were silent since the terrain needed our attention.

“This time Tilly attacks the stone while we wait, looking away to avoid being dazzled. After the flash is gone we take on the guardian.” I proposed.

They nodded. The flash came, and I could see the other crystals flashing in the distance as well.

We tackled the guardian with little problems. We had some experience how they fought and it was only one. I think the guardian was weaker as the one we encountered first, too.

We smashed the crystal and watched out for the path. The first one came from the direction where the next crystal was, which wasn’t really a problem. We listened a bit while waiting for the next, which should be two. And as we heard the footsteps we walked a bit in the direction of the shattered crystal and managed to defeat the guardian before the second one arrived from the other side.

After beating the last guardian to bits we smashed the second crystal and walked along the path to the next crystal.

“This went well.” I looked at Milly.

“They were weaker than the first batch.” Tilly waved with her mace.

“They were. Let’s hope this trend will continue.” Milly grinned evilly.

The next crystal was quite the same, and the guardian was weaker than the ones before and we got only one enemy at a time. After crushing the crystal we set out for the next one.

We had no real problems with the weak guardians, and smashed the fourth crystal to bits.

The last one was pathetic.

As the last crystal was destroyed, a bright light flared up in the center of the crater.

A translucent image of Ziual appeared in front of us.

“Farewell and thank you for letting me finally die! Make me proud!” she waved while she was fading out.

We waved back and a few moments after she was gone all went black and I woke up in our bed. Milly and Tilly were awake as well.