Dianna awoke with a silent scream, an outpour of bubbles emerging from her mouth as she soundlessly cried out in pain. She gripped at her chest, where she had been wounded in her dream, and still felt the pain of the cold steel running her through. Her hands raced along her torso, feeling for any injuries, and to her surprise she was completely unharmed. Dianna worked herself down, calming herself from the terror of death, and to her surprise the level of the strange liquid she was immersed in gradually lowered.

"You seem to be in great distress," Cetus spoke to Dianna. "Hence, I have elected to release you from the resting chamber. Please report to the helm of the ship to be analyzed."

"That... won't be necessary," Dianna said through heavy breaths, still out-of-breath from her experience. "It was just a bad dream."

"A night terror?" Cetus inquired.

"Yeah... a really vivid one."

"Your kind's myths have often place importance on dreams, presenting them as vectors by which messages are transmitted."

"That's what has me worried," Dianna said grimly.

Dianna joined the others at the helm, having dried off and dressed herself, and most importantly calmed herself down. This was the first dream Dianna had that she remembered, and for it to contain her death no less, it chilled her to her core. She figured that it had something to do with everything that had happened within the last twenty-four hours. Finding a flying machine, receiving a prophecy from some kind of deity, something about a Black Throne, and then she has to aid an entire city to evacuate? Far too much for one woman to handle. She would take her time mulling this all over by herself, ensuring none of the others heard of this.

"Hey, I had an absolutely wild dream last night," Simon blurted out.

"Me too!" Mina exclaimed cheerfully.

"What happened in yours?" Simon asked.

"Well, I was at a bathhouse in Kagami, and outside there were a bunch of other buildings. I went in the closest one, and ended up in some low-end Velstadt diner, where this woman approached me and asked me all these cryptic questions."

"Wow... I just walked through a bunch of different weird places. Like this misty forest, and then up a huge tower, and then I was in this flowery glen... What kind of questions did this woman ask you?"

"She asked me if I knew her, and that I needed to find her again, and a bunch of other cryptic shenanigans. I guess she didn't really do a lot of 'asking,' more 'telling,' now that I think of it."

"Nothing good can come of dreams like that," Lawrence shook his head. "If a stranger in a dream talks all cryptic at ya, it means they want your soul. That's what my momma always told me."

"It... wants my soul?" Mina cocked her head. "I think that if she wanted it, she would've taken it."

"Nah, see, it's not that easy- they can't just take it, it has to be given up willingly. Makes their hold on it that much stronger, lets them keep it forever."

"Source?" Simon jeered.

"MY MOMMA KNEW EVERYTHING ABOUT FREAKY DREAM DEMONS!" Lawrence shouted. "I've followed her advice every night that strangers tried to take my soul in my dreams, and look at me now! All soul-having... full of soul..."

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"Let's get you back to bed old man," Simon shook his bed and walked over.

"To be honest," Dianna interrupted, "I... had a strange dream too."

"Really?" Mina looked surprised. "What happened?"

"I was... in a school-"

"Red flag," Lawrence interjected.

"Hush, you." Dianna flicked Lawrence on the forehead. "I was in a school. A school that looked very, very familiar to me. And I approached the corner of the schoolhouse, when suddenly..." Dianna swallowed sharply, realizing that a sweat was starting to break out across her brow. Clearly, she wasn't as "over" her dream as she'd managed to convince herself. "And then, suddenly, I was stabbed from behind."

A wave of shock gripped those assembled at the helm.

"Are you alright?" Mina asked.

"Mina," Simon shook his head, "it was a dream. Of course she's alright."

"I mean emotionally," Mina sharply retorted. "I was pretty shaken by that woman speaking to me, and I can only imagine how Dianna must feel about being stabbed."

"I'm fine," Dianna lied. "What concerned me more was that the man who stabbed me- I recognized him."

"A past lover?" Lawrence joked.

"Absolutely not," Dianna fumed. "It was Otto von Bismarck."

The smile on Lawrence's face disappeared. "That old codger?" he gagged. "What the hell kinda connection you got with a grouch like that?"

"You know him?" Simon asked. "He sounds familiar to me, but only vaguely."

"I know the guy a little too well. Whenever we had to coordinate with the Army, we'd hear about the terrible things Otto was doing in the Dreinrich Theater. The man was committing outright atrocities, razing villages to the ground wherever he went, leaving behind a trail of dead and burned behind him. They say the Velstadt Empire went through a lot of work to cover it all up."

"I know of what Otto did all too well," Dianna shook her head. "He killed my mother, my only family."

"I'm sorry," Mina winced, and reached her hand out to touch Dianna, who brushed her away."

"It was a long time ago... so long ago that I'd forgotten, somehow. Yes, my hometown was one of those that Otto had visited, and reduced to smoldering debris in his wake."

"And now you're thinking of getting revenge on the man?" Lawrence mocked. "It's not gonna happen."

"And why the hell won't it?" Dianna asked indignantly.

"First of all, the power gap. The man's level is easily double-digits. But more importantly: you'll never even get close to him."

"What's that mean?" Simon asked.

"You not keep up to date on world events, son? Otto's next in line to be Minister of Power in Velstadt."

"Minister of Power?" Simon asked.

"You really know nothing about how other countries run? And you call yourself a baron..." Lawrence shook his head. "Look, basically, here in Eldenvale the power is divided between three dominions, overseen by the king with minimal involvement. The king's only real job is to make tough calls or to crack down on dominions that are harming the rest of the nation. In Velstadt, things are a little different. Their entire nation is overseen by a single Prime Minister, who is elected every five years or so, who oversees the nation alongside a cabinet of other Ministers. Each Minister is in charge of a different branch of government, so for example there's the Minister of Law, the Minister of Finance, and of course the Minister of Power, who oversees the military. So in short, the man's all set up to be in charge of the whole nation's military in less than a year."

"If he gets elected," Mina interjected hopefully.

"He's gonna get elected," Lawrence snapped back. "The people love him. To the Velstadt, who know nothing of what kinds of war crimes the man committed, he's a goddamn national hero. And for some of them, I bet they like him in spite of, or maybe even because of, the things he did."

"Won't be the first time I've offed an official," Dianna cooed as she mimed a decapitation motion across he neck.

"Lemme guess, some city mayor?" Lawrence laughed. "Nowhere near the same. Offing a national leader, and one so beloved, will put a target on your back for the rest of your life."

"Not if nobody finds out," Dianna smiled.

"They're gonna find out," Lawrence said.

"It's a whole nation," Simon shook his head. "They're gonna find out."

"I'm with the others on this one," Mina added. "In my village, you'd have the whole force of the citizens after you if you killed our leader. A whole nation... there's no beating that."

"Are we gonna pretend she didn't just conspire to kill an elected official?" Chix asked hesitantly. "Like seriously, that alone could land you in jail."

"Technically, he's not elected yet, so it's okay," Lawrence said with a smile.

"I don't- is that how that works?" Chix asked.