Stromharad, Asendavia
2043 Hours, February 8th, 3757 AA (2020 AD)
Viktor III meandered down the long hallways of the palace as he made his way to the art gallery. Earlier that day, Prince Hjalmar, Prince Ivan’s son and the Kaiser’s nephew, requested to talk with him sometime later that day in the art gallery. The taps of Viktor’s cane echoed quietly through the empty hallways as he walked, piercing the silence of the palace. Most everyone had turned in already, as they were wont to do on Fridays. Eventually, he reached the gallery doors, outside of which stood two guards who snapped to attention as Viktor approached. He merely nodded to the both of them and they opened the gallery doors for him, they were used to his late night journeys by now. As soon as he was inside, the doors were softly shut behind him. Viktor stopped first in front of an artist’s depiction of the Twin Kings Adelar and Gunnar, who both ruled Asendavia after their victory in the First Asendavian War Over Succession. Slowly, he made his way down the rest of the gallery, admiring statues, mosaics, and paintings of kings and kaisers long dead. Eventually he reached the end of the gallery, and there he met Hjalmar.
“I trust that your walk was pleasant?” Hjalmar mused.
“I make this walk most nights nowadays, whether or not my hip cries out in agony. My hip may be weaker than it used to, but my mind is still as sharp as ever,” Viktor replied.
Hjalmar nodded absent-mindedly. “If your hip truly bothers you that much, maybe you ought to take a short break, you’ve been working practically nonstop these past few years. I hear that Masceola is good this time of year. Besides, your son Jon can take over as acting Minister in your stead, he’s already done it a few times before.”
Viktor waved him off. “I don’t need a break, I’m doing just fine as of now. Besides, if I was to take one, I’d rather stay in Yoria, it’s been too long since I’ve had a good long stay at home. Either way, that isn’t why you asked to meet with me,” Viktor sat down on one of the couches that lined the center of the gallery. “So tell me, what’s on your mind, Hjalmar?”
Hjalmar took a seat right next to him and began speaking in hushed tones. “It’s about my uncle, Viktor.”
“What about the Kaiser, my boy?” Viktor asked, lowering his voice to match Hjalmar’s.
“Well, I’m a bit concerned about his well-being right now,” Hjalmar admitted.
“Your uncle’s as fit as a horse! There’s nothing to worry about there, Hjalmar,” Viktor exclaimed.
“No, no, no I mean his mental well-being,” Hjalmar sighed. “The other day, Alexander told me that he found a stash of papers written by his father. The oldest ones are at least a year old, and the newest one is from only two weeks ago. Alex said that he read through some of them. Supposedly, most of these papers are my uncle’s musings on what it means to be human, the reality of the world we live in, human nature, and… his nightmares.”
There were a few moments of pure and utter silence, Viktor was disquieted. Having been Minister of Foreign Diplomacy since before Jon was born, Viktor had gotten to see him grow up over the years, and what he was hearing now seemed very unlike the Kaiser. “What… were the contents of these dreams? Did Alexander say?” he whispered.
"Aye, Alex said that the nightmares were described in vivid detail. In one, my uncle was in a vast and empty grey plain, where he was driven east by ferocious winds and the baying of far off and unknown creatures that constantly followed him. In the distance, there’s a lone mountain and a castle at the base of it. He apparently felt drawn to the mountain. As he gets closer though… the creatures behind him start getting faster and faster, and he can see them! They’re horrible, misshapen figures with ear-piercing, human-like shrieks! He’s able to get into the castle though, and once he’s in there, he had apparently written that he was filled with awe and fear at the same time. To his left was a long line of ancient Harstad rulers, going as far back as to when us Asendavians first arrived here! To his right were the rulers of Gliat Shea.
"The writing continues by saying that he eventually reaches the end of the long hallway, and he sees his grandfather’s statue, his uncle’s statue, his father’s statue, and then his own. He reaches out to touch his own statue, and it feels warm, almost as if the statue is alive. He’s filled with indescribable fear and runs deeper into the castle, where he sees statues of Ademar and the God-on-Urth. He lays down beneath Ademar’s feet and drifts off to sleep. That isn’t even the worst of it, Alex described to me another one of his father’s nightmares which was far more worse than that one.
"In this next one, he’s surrounded by what he describes as ‘an everlasting darkness filled with endless screams.’ He wrote that this screaming lasted for what felt like several eternities as he floated in a void until he nearly went insane. He says next that all of a sudden, the screaming stops and the darkness gradually fades to light, and he’s in a large stone hallway lined with torches that continue on forever. Not only that, but he suddenly hears whispering all around him, quiet enough that he can only pick out the occasional word. He says that’s when he also noticed the faces, which he says were masterfully carved with no blemishes, and that each one was unique from the last. My uncle begins walking down the hallway, and he suddenly asks himself what’s going on. I guess that the whispering stops after this, and the torches behind him suddenly start to go out. As he starts walking again, a distant high-pitched scream suddenly starts, and he begins running.
"This continues on for what he says felt like tens of miles. As he runs though, the scream gets closer and the torches start going out faster. Even worse, the whispering comes back, but this time he can make out what they’re saying. They’re all either begging for help, mercy, or the sweet relief of death! Eventually, the scream is so close behind him that he fears it will grab out for him, but it suddenly stops when it reaches him. My uncle looks behind himself and notices that the torches aren’t going out anymore too, but when he looks back, he sees a hole in the wall that matches him exactly. Alex said that his father wrote that he felt drawn to the hole, that he wished to see what was on the other side, so he strips down and enters the hole. For a good distance, he continues like this, shuffling further into the wall.
“Then the tunnel starts getting longer, and thinner, and the tunnel twists his very being into something indescribable. Yet he feels no pain, only pleasure as the stone slowly molds him. The last part of this nightmare says that a single thought in his mind protested what was going on, but the pleasure and desire to see the end of the tunnel overpowered this though, and so he continued until he woke up,” Hjalmar finished, tears beginning to form in his eyes. “My father also told me recently that, around a year ago, he found my uncle resting next to their father’s spot in the family crypts in total darkness, just thinking, apparently.”
For once in his life, Viktor was utterly speech. What he heard absolutely horrified him, the image of the man he thought he knew crumbled. “Something has to be done,” Viktor muttered. “Your uncle needs help, Hjalmar. We need to help him in whatever way is possible, he can’t go on like this, he needs to be fixed. He needs professional help. How the hell have I not heard of this earlier!” Viktor nearly shouted.
Hjalmar stood up, “I only learned of this recently myself, as did Alexander. My father however… he seems to have known for a long time.”
“I need to speak with your father, now. Where is he?” Viktor demanded.
“He should be in his apartments like usual, he’s probably up smoking still,” Hjalmar admitted.
“Thank you, and goodnight, my boy,” Viktor stood up and hurried out of the gallery, his cane angrily tapping the floor as he headed straight for Prince Ivan’s rooms.