The moment you step into Fantasia, the air itself feels alive—thick with shimmer and old magic, like the land is breathing alongside you.
Behind you lie the sunlit meadows where fairies darted like living sparks, their laughter chiming as softly as windbells. You remember the elves, tall and watchful among silver-barked trees, their eyes holding centuries of knowing. You remember the unicorns standing still and showing majesty.
But Fantasia is never only gentle.
Ahead of you, the land sinks.
The colors drain away as if swallowed. The ground grows soft beneath your boots, and a low fog crawls along the earth, curling around your ankles like curious fingers. You’ve reached the swamp.
Cold presses in immediately. Not the sharp cold of winter, but a damp, bone-seeping chill that slides under your cloak and settles into your spine. The light dims, smothered by towering, twisted trees whose branches claw at the sky. Long vines hang down, swaying slowly, as though the swamp itself is breathing… watching… waiting.
Every step makes a sound—squelch, suck, sigh—and each one feels far too loud.
Then it happens.
You freeze.
Right in front of your face, no more than a breath away, something moves.
A snake, its body looped over a branch above, dangles down like a living rope. Its scales gleam wetly in the faint light, eyes unblinking, ancient and patient. You can almost feel its cold presence measuring you. Time stretches. Your heart hammers. Slowly—so slowly—you lean back, easing past it. The snake doesn’t strike… but you feel its gaze follow you long after you’ve gone.
You force yourself onward.
The swamp deepens. Water pools around your calves now, black and opaque. The silence grows heavier, broken only by distant croaks and the low hum of unseen insects. Then—
SPLASH.
The water erupts beside you.
An alligator surges from the muck, jaws snapping shut where your leg had been a heartbeat before. Mud and water explode into the air. You stumble back, slipping, barely keeping your footing as the beast thrashes, its armored body rippling with raw, prehistoric power. Yellow eyes lock onto yours—hungry, calculating.
You don’t wait.
You run.
Branches whip at your face. Vines tear at your clothes. Your breath burns in your chest as you burst through the reeds and into a clearing—only to stop dead.
Because you are not alone.
They rise from the shadows like the swamp’s final judgment.
Trolls.
Huge, hunched shapes with skin like moss-covered stone, eyes glowing faintly beneath heavy brows. Their bodies are scarred, ancient, as if they were carved from the swamp itself and given cruel life. One grips a massive club studded with bones. Another snarls, revealing jagged teeth stained dark with old victories.
Their laughter rumbles low and ugly, shaking the air.
“You’ve wandered far, little traveler,” one growls, its voice like rocks grinding together.
The cold, the darkness, the weight of Fantasia’s trials all press down on you in that moment. Behind you: the snake, the alligator, the endless swamp. Ahead of you: the trolls and whatever fate they decide.
And yet…
Somewhere deep inside, the magic you felt at the beginning—the fairies’ light, the unicorn’s calm, the elves’ quiet strength—flares again.
Fantasia has tested you.
Now it waits to see who you truly are.