How long have you been here? Here in the Desert of Dreams and Nightmares. Putting one step in front of the other, exhausted, thirsty, lost. How long since you embarked on your quest? And what is it you seek?All you know is that you must resist hopelessness, put one foot in front of the other until you have crossed the desert. Although you no longer know if it even has an end.As twilight deepens and the air chills you think you hear the distant barking of a beast, and shadows stir in your memory, tales of a great bear that roams the vast liminal regions of the world, consuming all without the sense to stay huddled around the comforting campfires of civilisations.The day fades and hope rises with the Moon. She drapes the land with an ochre pall and makes horizon silhouettes of jagged mountains that look like broken teeth in an ancient sun-baked jawbone.The mountains.A memory stirs – are the mountains not significant? The sharp summits and plummeting cliffs, the aggressive rhythm of their outline, they speak to you in a frequency that rouses recognition within your soul, dim recollection of fragments of charts and illustrations concealed in the dilapidated tomes of private libraries. Your heart beats faster. This is the place. The end of the desert. The dullness that has clouded your mind lifts and clarity washes over you like a cooling rain. You remember embarking from the City of Gold – the memories begin to flood in. Only two years have passed and yet it feels like a hundred. And you know your quest; you seek the knowledge of the invisible worlds which are hinted at in the hidden texts.With this clarity you hear the mournful wail of a siren. A warning, but from whom? You sense the way ahead will be guarded. Bronze, mechanical cubes etched with shimmering circles of power appear above you, around you, floating in defiance of all natural laws, emitting howls and throbbing pulses that disorientate your senses. You slow your breathing, calm your mind. The cubes arrange themselves into the 77th Configuration. It is the form of the Angels. Your fear is banished and your spirit fortified. But what does this remarkable structure contain within?The configuration disperses and before you stands Talos the Sentinel Who Guards the Border of Dreams and Nightmares. The great bronze bull rears back on his hind legs and bellows. You plant your feet and ready yourself. The bull charges.The winner of 'The Steampunk Sentinel' auction will also receive two more NFT variations of the square format artwork for proper display on 16:9 and 9:16 screens.