I was walking down a long and winding road in a dense fog, the echoes of my footsteps my only companion. Strangely, I can’t recall how I got here. The last thing I remembered doing was reading another newly released FAQ document for one of my many armies of miniatures on my computer.

Now that I think about it, I don’t remember much of the details on that document either, only the vague residual feeling of annoyance from another wave of adjustments. These changes used to be exciting, but eventually, like most things in life, they ceased to be so. The world seemed to get grimmer as one aged. The thrill of gaming and the fickle glories it entailed faded to dust over the years. These thoughts were running through my mind as I continued to walk forward in a semi-consciousness state, and slowly a realization came to me.

Wait... am I lucid dreaming?

Being an indoors-type person all my life, the current scenario of walking down a long winding road in a dense fog with no destination in mind just doesn’t make any sense.

What is going on here?

I looked back, only to be greeted by the same road that disappeared into a fog that shrouded everything. I shrugged and continued forward. Something was compelling me to walk forward, and I got a feeling that answers would be found at the end of the road. This was beginning to look like a setup for a horror movie, but I felt at peace.

The lone walk continued for a while until something was visible in the distance. There at the edge of the fog was the silhouette of a person. As I got closer that person came into view. Ok, I thought to myself, I must be lucid dreaming.

Appearing out from the dense fog was the prettiest girl I had seen in my life. As someone who had spent a large chunk of my time surfing the internet and as a result, got bombarded with an endless stream of advertisements and media featuring pretty ladies, it was a really tall order to top that list.

She was a girl about 165cm in height, and underneath ahead of straight flowing platinum hair was a face of idealised perfection, and a simple yet elegant-looking white robe completed her angelic look. She had this paradoxical quality about her that made guessing her age an impossible task, looking youthful yet ancient at the same time.

'Hello.' I said, not sure what to expect from this encounter. She stood perfectly still, observing me with her large, soulful silver eyes in a dead neutral expression. After a period of awkward silence, she performed a hand gesture I recognized but least expected to see in these most unusual of circumstances.

It was the hand sign of Aquila, a universal greeting gesture of humans in the grimdark universe of which as a hobby I had invested too much time and resources into. I really have to cut back my spending on that front, I thought to myself, evidently, even my rare occasion of a lucid dream had elements of that universe seeping in.

Flustered, I responded in the only way that made sense to me by making an Aquila sign myself. There I was, responding to a very pretty girl by making a geeky hand gesture on a road surrounded by dense fog. It was very surreal.

We stayed like that for a while, maintaining the Aquila hand gesture while looking at each other. Finally, she seemed to have made a decision and reached out to me with her right hand. So we are playing handshake now? I obliged and took her hand, it felt soft and cold. Her expression softened and she closed her eyes.

I had no idea what she was up to but since this seemed like a dream, I was not about to refuse any chance of skin contact with an attractive potential target. Suddenly a distinctive feeling came to me as if I was being asked specifically for permission to know more about me.

While this lucid dream was getting weirder by the minute, it was not unpleasant. So I said, 'Yes, let's get to know each other better.' Immediately after that, the mysterious girl seemed to glow with a soft radiant light.

Alright this is getting too weird, I concluded and tried to let go of her hand but she held on tight.

She opened her eyes, and to my surprise, they now glowed with a faint golden light. Then she spoke for the first time and made the most ridiculous statement I ever heard in my life.

'Help me,' She said, her voice a whisper, 'help me and the others. In exchange, my abilities, my body and my soul are yours.' I was like, woah young lady, we just met, we don't know each other and have yet to even exchange names. Talk about instant escalation.

I tried to let go of her hand again but stopped after having another proper look at her face. She was dead serious and seemed so full of sincerity it made me pause. I knew the old saying ‘never stick it into crazies’, even a 12/10 won't be worth the endless troubles ahead but I felt torn between refusing or accepting to help a pretty stranger.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I hesitated again but by then her golden glowing eyes started to well up. Hey, this is unfair, I am weak against this type of attack. It was then my logical mind proposed listening to her first. Maybe, just maybe, for once in my unfulfilling life I could be a hero for a fair maiden. After all, this is a dream, right?

Sighing, I said. 'All right, I will do what I can to help.'

'You promise?' She asked.

'I promise.'

Two streaks of tears went down her lovely cheeks. Darn, she cried anyway.

'I am sorry,' She said, 'This is the second time I cried in my life.'

Well, that was oddly specific but hardly possible.

'What’s your name?' I asked, trying to switch the topic.

'Syrine.' She answered, now beaming with a bewitching smile so bright it seemed to break the fog apart. I must admit, this surreal scene of a radiant pretty young lady smiling and crying at the same time during a heavy fog was mesmerising.

'Thank you,' Syrine finally said, her next words hit me with a wave of foreboding, 'and farewell.'

My world exploded, a flash of white light swallowing everything. Syrine, the fog and the road were no more. Up and down, space and time became irrelevant as I battled the worst case of vertigo I experienced in my life.

In the blinding white light, I felt myself moving forward, slowly at first, gaining speed gradually. Without any distinguishable means of locomotion, I was being pulled forward towards something, or someplace. After that my world became nothing but pure blinding white.

* * *

The world of pure white receded. When my vision finally came back, it was all blurry and took me some time to realise a person was standing in front of me. I could not see properly yet but it was definitely a female.

Was it Syrine? Darn it girl, you should have warned me of that. I reached out with my hand, feeling disorientated from the experience.

A gloved hand caught my arm to stabilise me, and someone I guessed was the owner of it was saying something, but I couldn’t catch any of it. After I gained my footing my vision and hearing slowly returned.

Then I saw it, in front of me was a person wearing a rather faithful replica suit of power armour belonging to the famous Adepta Sororitas, a.k.a Sisters of Battle. My jaw almost dropped as I got a clearer look, the number of details and material quality was leagues beyond any attempt I have seen in photos or real life, a low humming can even be heard coming from the supposed power backpack generator. Really nice details.

The wearer of this fine suit was not Syrine. This new lady here was quite young, probably just over twenty. There was this perfect mix of youthfulness and soldiery about her, a perfect candidate for a perfectly faithful replica of what a battle sister should look like in real life. She was a pretty brunette, but a far cry from the previous girl I met.

No offence to any ladies who had cosplayed as a sister of battle, but compared to this fine work of art in front of me all previous renditions would just be crude imitations in comparison. My only critique would be that the colour scheme of her suit was too lazy, just dull silver overall with elements of white cloth finished by golden embroidery decoration.

I laughed a little inside at all this, first an Aquila lady, then a Sister of Battle cosplayer? Well, at least this lucid dream was consistent in its theme. Expecting to be in a geeky convention setup of sorts, I looked around, we were in a dimly lit large chamber with unconventional futuristic decoration. We were standing on an elevated end of the chamber, I could see a slight slope going down. Nice place, but the lighting was not optimal for a photo session.

More battle sisters were seen scattered around the chamber. I counted ten, they were all wearing the same colour scheme but had less decorated power armour. The thing that struck me was none of them was laughing, having fun or doing any sort of goofy selfie-taking activities one would typically expect to see in a convention.

The brunette sister in front of me, who must be the leader of this bunch, was looking at me with a concerned face. An uneasy feeling welled up inside me, they all looked far too serious for this to be in a squad cosplay session and the way they were handling their supposedly prop bolters exuded a type of practised ease that can only be the result of countless hours of drills and training.

Something buzzed, the leader-looking sister said a single word.

'Contact!'

It was not English nor any other language I knew but somehow I could understand it, the eerie implication of it almost made my skin crawl.

The air tensed up, everybody either donned their helmets or closed the visor of their helmets. The pretty brunette was the last to put hers on, it was a more decorated variant that had a huge chrome-finished Fleur-de-lis symbol on the forehead. I observed up close the reflective sheen on the helmet in the dim light, the complicated light refraction on the helmet’s lens pieces and the weight of it as it slid down to completely cover her head.

This... this is no prop, I realised and my skin crawled.

There was a commotion happening at the far entrance of the chamber. Two people ran in, but the sisters did not react and let the two cross half the chamber hide behind a cover piece. Sounds of footsteps came thundering down from the entrance.

From the shadow, a mob erupted into the chamber. I watched in disbelief as a horde of gunmen rushed towards us with their guns blazing, their silhouettes lit up by muzzle flashes. In an instant, the serenity of the chamber was shattered by deafening gunfire. Tracers and las bolts filled the air,

My faintest hope that this was all some elaborate prank shattered after I witnessed the shower of plaster and shattering of stonework in the wake of weapons impact.

Amongst the cacophony of weapons discharging were some louder, heavier sounds followed by actual explosions that landed far off their mark, but close enough to make me wince and feel their impact.

Heavy weapons, the mob had heavy weapons and soon they will have the time to aim. This lucid dream had officially turned into a nightmare.