Grishold's legs were numb from sitting in the wooden chair all night, the stacks of books and parchment surrounded him in the dim light of the study.
He wiped sweat from his forehead before itching his unkempt growing beard on his face. He glanced at his fingers to see the shine of grease telling him that he had gone too long without bathing. He wiped his hand on his cloak before placing his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands.
His eyes hesitantly moved to the drawn family portrait on his desk. His wife Trella had sketched a picture of them after last year's Sun Festival, with their daughter Theadora sitting on Grishold's shoulders. Their expressions were frozen in a laugh, and Trella had drawn Thea's curly hair as if it was caught mid-breeze. Since she's always on the move, it just felt right. Well... Was always on the move.
The blight had spread from the Outer rings first, causing a quarantine of those sections that limited travel in and out of the city. Grishold had organized many of the community leaders to start looking for a cure or something, but one-by-one they each started falling to it until there were only three left: Kale Starvane, famed Human Sorcerer of Sunclaw; and Broom Ungoln, an Orc Bard elected as an outer ring representative.
Then, as if a nightmare had come to life, Trella and Thea both contracted it. Their bodies became covered with black, vine-like tendrils that sapped their strength. First they were just weak, then they began to turn violent.
At first Grishold just worked faster, but their sickness worsened faster than he could read, so he placed them both under a spell which slowed the progress but kept them frozen in a deep sleep.
At least for now.
"Nothing... I've found nothing," he said to the empty room, his words balancing on the edge of a sob. "This goddamn blight..."
A low, raspy laugh bounced off the ancient wood of the study, and Grishold jumped from his chair to look around.
"Kale?... Broom?" Grishold called out.
"No, no, no... not those idiots," the voice said with unsettling familiarity. "Just the main one."
Grishold grabbed his staff and waved a hand over it, causing it to glow with a faint blue light. Long shadows were cast around him and danced with each subtle movement.
Empty. The room was empty. He was alone.
"Oh you're most definitely alone," the voice said again. "And don't look so startled, you can't hide your thoughts from me."
Grishold froze as he tried to work out what he meant. Then, in horror, he looked back at the drawn portrait.
"He's figured it out now," the drawing of himself said, his expression now a twisted grin as his wife and daughter remained frozen in their joy. "Give the man a prize."
"I've... lost it. I need sleep."
"You've lost everything already, you just don't know it yet," the drawing said, glancing at the family around him. "You remember you told her you'd always keep her safe... even gave her that big, stuffed Falcon she's holding now in that deathbed—"
"SHUT UP," Grishold yelled. His chest was tight and his face felt like hot coals. He went to take a step forward, then stopped as if tethered to an invisible rope before he closed his eyes and took a long breath. "They're held in a chronostasis. They won't die."
"Oh, a chronostasis. A fancy way of saying you put them on ice," his facsimile said back mockingly. "A frozen fucking family. Everything spoils in the ice box eventually, Grizz."
"Don't you call me that," Grishold's threat was betrayed by a tremble that held onto the last syllable.
The drawing's smile spread from ear to ear as it glanced next to him at Trella, whose once joyous expression was replaced by a pained look and black veins that covered her skin. She looked out from the frame, her voice sharp with pain.
"Grizz, it hurts... it hurts so much. I feel it wrapped around my... my soul. Like it's pulling me through to the void..." she pleaded, glancing up at Thea who had the same veins. "We can't... we can't hold on."
Grishold felt the warmth of a tear run along his cheek and into his beard. He wiped it away, and the pressure of his hand against his cheek made the heaviness of his eyes feel that much more prominent.
"Fuck. How did I let myself this tired," he said to himself, no louder than a whisper. "I can't even tell that I'm in a dream... a dream."
"There it is... you found it, Lord Covington," the drawing of Grishold said, as the flesh-and-blood version locked eyes with him. "What you read in Father's Book all those years ago."
He remembers holding the old leather tome in his hand. The feeling of his fingers tracing the Dragon Finches that adorned the spine.
Father's spellbook had outlined the steps for a spell that created a pocket outside of the Time Tree. A place where time stood absolutely still and you would have all the time in the world you needed.
You needed two things... The Temporal Compass that created a looping segment of time in the pocket, and a stone tablet to exist inside the timeline to act as an anchor, holding your physical self so that you could return.
But that was meant for a single person.
"Oh I have faith in you," the drawing's words dripping with honey. "After all, you're the smartest chronomancer in all Satyria. Surely you could find a way... but there's a bigger problem."
"I would need everything I have in the city... just pulling us three into a dream would be useless," Grishold said with a nod. "So I'm not just expanding this to be three instead of one... I'm expanding this to the populace. And I would need to make sure all those not willing evacuate the city beforehand."
"Daddy," Thea's weak voice said from the frame, and Grishold's blood turned to ice as he refused to look at the drawing. "Daddy... I... I need to sleep. I can't stay awake anymore."
Grishold stared at the papers and scribbled notes strewn across his desk. The days and months of frustration creating flimsy towers of parchment that lead to nowhere.
"I can keep everyone healthy in a moment of time, and arrange it so all the sick are kept in the tower," Grishold said to himself as if he needed to convince his conscience of the plan. "If we use the Tower as a beacon... I can manipulate their memories so that they don't even know..."
"They'll live blissfully in the dream giving you all the time to cure the blight," the drawing said, mirroring the tone. "Once somebody knows they're dreaming though, things start to unravel."
"Then I'll have to be the only one who knows. We'll need a few more folks to help, with the casting, but..." Grishold said. "I can just manipulate their memories too. I think this might actually work."
Grishold smiled and looked at the drawing again, but it was in its original position. His smile gradually faded in the lonely study. After a few long breaths, Grishold took deliberate steps to the door, and left the room. The raspy laugh of the sketch still echoing between the books.