You are wandering the forest of your youth, the woods nestled deep within which can be found, by those who know to look, the Temple of Rillifane. Every tree, every blade of grass, every flower and plant is familiar. You follow a path from the Temple towards the river, a path you’ve travelled countless times as a boy. Winding down through a copse of ash trees, past the Glen Of Good Morrow, where your master first taught you to meditate; down a sharp cliffside switchback to the water’s edge. You look down into the water, the sunlight glinting off the surface, but instead of your reflection there is only darkness, a silhouette.

You look up, and it is night, and in the logic of dreams the river is a road, paved with silvery stones. You begin to follow the road up, up, up, cresting the top of a hill. And before you stands a monstrous, towering oak tree. It is massive, filling the sky, the stars twinkling from within the leaves. The starlight dapples the shimmering river stones with long shadows.

Despite its massive size, the tree is oddly distant. It does not, it cannot see you. It cannot even conceive of something so infinitesimally small as you. You feel a coldness seep into your bones, and you look around, and realize you are completely, utterly alone.