In the dream, there was still yet another dream. Layer within layer, obscured only by the act of thinking. Dark, dark.

___

The Healer brought them to the brink of death, thinking it would heal them. Great heaving breaths, circulating through the wooden sacs of their Persephoniac host; they could feel themselves returning to the artificial coffin constructed by the archmystic of the Crusade. Failure.

In another Era they desperately tried to wake their host, to bring a Goblin woman back from the shores of unconsciousness. But even though they desired nothing so much, the cloudhome remained.

Despair began to set in.

They saw time as a broken corridor, in which rents of darkness could be abyssal portals and they knew those hollow cracks to be times when they had lain quiescent, in a body without a mind.

What was it they so feared, what excuse threatened their sanity?

The ancient godly taboo against speaking the secrets of possession still remained; for if the mortal species knew that gods could only enter the world with the consent of a host - why, they might just rebel - but they were weary of this waiting interval.

Millenia had passed since they last walked the Globe and they wished not for another millennia to pass.

___

“…you’re talking about the Taboos?”

The Healer’s sole concession to propriety was a dress today, one of a earthen brown that highlighted her green skin.

“Indeed, and know that this is a secret few know. Only paladins and the highest of the hierophants were party to the Divine Secret—“

The Healer raised a hand.

“Allow me to interrupt. The secrets of how gods enter the world has been known for centuries, millennia even.”

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The god paused. They took a deep breath, trying to focus through the relentless wave of horror beating in their chest. The cloudhome shook, if albeit once, its grassy knolls wavering, as if seen through a hot day.

Was this one of the ‘panic attacks’ the Healer had spoken about?

“Breathe,” she said, pushing their head down below their knees.”Deep breaths, and listen to my voice.”

“…when the Humans of the Origin did so invade the Homeland Continent…”

Her voice took on a cadence of repetition, a story being told.

“…I could not stand and abide such wanton destruction and let my kin be enslaved…”

The pounding in their skull began to abate.

“…and that child who had I healed during the first skirmishes of Wars of the Collar now led the charge…”

They breathed in, out.

“…and so the Moot of the Free was held, enshrining that all thinking species have the right to the determination…”

They breathed out, and found that the unease had stilled, that the heart that was more a figment in this place was no longer startled. The cloudhome began to firm, no longer a mere suggestiom.

“The world has changed so much in the time I have slept,” they said, feeling the words to be of little use, yet necessary to mark the sentiment.

“Oh, it is not flowers all around. But the days of slavery, when gods could force their wishes on people, when nobles trod on the common man are far removed.”

The god managed to not flinch. That could have been a description of a sorts of them.

They thought again of the sky.”I think, Healer, that I want to see that world.”

Her smile was brilliant:”this is the first time you’ve ever said that.

___

And so it came to pass that the amnesiac god met the Golem.

They had changed the cloudhome into a place of mirrors, experimenting with the limits of matter and real - the Healer had told them try to see how far they could take the world - when they heard a gentle cough.

He, and the Healer had coached them on the adress, not it, held the form of a Human man. Dark of countenance and with eyes the color of green leaves he could have been any Human. Yet that disguise held only up to the unwary.

To those with [Lots] of perception and knowing he could be no mortal. Too perfect, the idea of an actor taken too far and even in the cloudhome they could feel banked power of a great mystic.

“I greet you, Steward of Fevered Dreams.”

They bowed.”And I you, Protector of Se; Inheritor of Sarundel the White, Immortal and Founder of the Ubiquity.”

Green eyes twinkled.”Did she tell you to say that?”

The god sighed.”She told me that you were not fond of flattery, only truth, and that the last part of the adress would either work to infuriate you or make you help me.”

The Golem’s robes expanded as he laughed. They knew not this Sarundel, but they must have been one of the truly great archmystics to make an artificial being of such credibility.

“For that, old god, I will help thee. I too, have a soft spot for those who have been left adrift in this modern Era.”

This too she had whispered to the god. Once, the Golem and his maker had founded the Embrace of Peace in the lands that would later become the Ubiquity. For centuries he and his siblings had safeguarded that land, led it to prosperity, only for its people to banish him on a whim. Thus unmoored of purpose the Golem had wandered aimlessly for decades.

“Let us see if we cannot cure thee of this affliction.”