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The Only Game In Town [Adventure]
Chapter 30 - What Happens In The Dream Stays In The Dream

Chapter 30 - What Happens In The Dream Stays In The Dream

Lillian had spent years honing her skills in her craft. If there was a world competition for sleeping, Lillian would be a grand master. A great guru who sat in the hills pondering her sleep schedule; she would guide the flocks of sheep as she counted them, introducing her to slumber.

Despite all her talent and skill though, she was still having trouble going to sleep. It was all just so exciting.

Joy had arrived back at camp all sweaty and dirty. And he had walked with purpose towards the prince’s tent. Where some sort of hushed discussion took place.

Lillian knew that Joy was not one for keeping secrets, so she bid her time after seeing him enter the tent. She felt he was going to spill his guts as soon as he got the chance. He just had too big a mouth.

The hushed discussion was obviously incredibly important and after a long time of anxious waiting Joy left the command tent and the prince called everyone to gather.

Lillian had immediately set upon Joy and badgered him for details, to which he only smiled. He enjoyed holding the knowledge and being withholding of that knowledge. Lillian pretended not to particularly care, but she made sure to remember this moment, for revenge was a beautiful thing.

But she didn’t have to wait particularly long for her curiosity to be alleviated. The prince had made an announcement to everyone.

“Our enemies are here. We do not know who this mysterious leader is, but his organization has been working to destabilize the Hearth continent. Their manpower mostly consists of giant monsters. They are usually grotesque and horrifying to look at. There are a few powerful operatives that guide these monsters, but it seems that the operation’s manpower relies on these monsters.”

He had then taken a brief pause to gather his thoughts. The prince’s blue eyes surveyed the crowd, taking it all in, before continuing.

“Some of you know we have made an alliance with the Freer Men. These people are the reason for the alliance, we will be working hand in hand to stop this threat from truly spreading to our continent. The disposition of our allies kept them from joining us as quickly at these ruins, but they will soon arrive, and we will march upon our enemies.”

The prince pointedly looked at Joy at that point. Lillian knew to most people in the crowd, it would seem like a normal glance. But she saw the eyes of the two men meet. Joy just grinned, while some of the stress lines on the prince’s face deepened.

“However, we are not the aggressors in this conflict. Earlier today, a teleporter was found in the tunnels, trying to sneak an entire army in under our noses. Thankfully, that plot was foiled. But we must strike back for the safety of our homeland and our way of life.”

Normally, the prince was quite brief with his speeches. He didn’t truly believe in sweetening his words, but that had been quite the honey coated speech. Lillian was still all pumped up from hearing it.

But her skill in falling asleep eventually prevailed and she fell into a deep slumber.

Lillian stood in the home she grew up in. In the distance she could hear the cows grumbling and bumbling along, the air smelled of manure, but it was home, nonetheless.

She felt something was missing though. Lillian ambled around the house searching for whatever she had forgotten. It was quite an annoying experience, to know she had forgotten something, but she was unable to grasp it in her mind.

Footfalls echoed throughout the empty house. Logically, she knew in the actual house that there would not be such a crisp and clear click of her feet striking the ground, but here the empty house seemed filled with her footsteps.

A place that used to be so filled with love was just empty now.

Eventually she turned a corner to enter what should have been her room in the house, but she instead found herself in her room at the prince’s castle. With its eclectic decoration style and Theo’s more reserved and orderly half. It didn’t quite make sense why her room was here, but she didn’t mind it too much.

There was one thing in the room that was wrong though. In the center, right in the divide between her side and Theo’s, sat a mirror.

She walked towards it, feeling a slight twinge of apprehension. It had been facing the wrong direction, so that she couldn’t see her reflection, but she slowly stalked her way around it.

Just as she was about to glimpse herself in the mirror, she saw motion in the mirror. Something was behind her.

Without thinking her arm punched out behind her. She struck whatever was hiding there and whatever it was recoiled from her hit. There were no cries of pain or even a catching of breath. Silence pervaded the room.

Lillian turned around to face this new threat, but she realized she couldn’t see it. It was entirely invisible. Unfortunately for the poor creature, she didn’t need to see it to give it a good walloping.

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Strike after strike landed on the invisible being. Lillian could feel the reverberations crawl up her arm. Every hit transferred the force into her knuckles, which flowed up her arm, like she was a gong. It was a cathartic sort of violence.

The beating continued and continued, but the creature never so much as moved a hair. It let every strike hit it harder and harder, but it was unaffected.

Lillian could feel the exhaustion catching up to her. Her body couldn’t keep up with the absolute level of violence she was displaying. So, she got desperate.

When her arms got tired, she kicked. When her legs got tired, she used her body, elbows and knees creating hollow knocks as they struck whatever stood there. Finally, when she could barely move, she used her teeth. Biting down in the neck area of whatever impervious creature stood there.

No blood filled her mouth, but she could feel the tender flesh there. So, close to her terrible violence, and yet, untouchable.

Her body wouldn’t move, she was done. She had given this creature every shred of violence contained in her soul, and it didn’t even flinch. Lillian shivered as she heard the slow laborious steps of the invisible creature pass by her. Seemingly uninterested in her and the violence she had given them.

It moved towards the mirror and touched its surface. The entire room shook, and the mirror rippled as if it had been liquid.

The beast had been unveiled, but was just a nobody. It was someone from around the prince’s camp, she knew their name and it was on the tip of her tongue. But it wouldn’t come.

The person had such vague features, such a quiet speaking voice, and was just plain boring. But it did baffle her, that this monster of incredible proportions was just some person from around the camp. No one special, no one important, just another person.

The being reached down its throat; a horrible squelching noise came out as its fist was enveloped by its gullet. Ripping and tearing sounds reverberated around the tiny room as a chair was ripped out of the person’s mouth. Blood and teeth sprayed all over the floor, but the creature calmly put the chair down in front of Lillian then said through its mangled face, “someone would like to speak to you.”

“Thank you.” A voice that sent a chill down Lillian’s spine. She knew that voice, it came from a hideous face that looked like a fly.

Susan walked in from around the corner. The demon had a bad habit of using various combinations of its twelve legs to keep it supported. And since dreams don’t truly conform to reality, the demon had never been encumbered by pesky physics. She tilted this way and that, her bug eyes staring down at the helpless Lillian.

It had been a very long time since Lillian had seen the truly hideous form of Susan. The demon was a fan of tricks and mischief, constantly changing forms to confuse and fool Lillian. But the demon looked rather grotesque as it sat down in the chair directly in front of Lillian.

“Why am I here?” Lillian quietly asked. She was at the mercy of this demon, but she knew she had a final solution. She could always escape by waking up.

“We’re here to chat, my darling.” The mouth and the words never quite synced up as the demon spoke.

After a brief pause the demon let out a small sigh and posed Lillian a question, “what do you think of the dream world? What do you think this place is?”

"It’s the land of Dream. Humanity gets to travel in it during the night, seeking wonders and frights beyond delight.” Lillian almost grinned as she said that, but she kept it under control.

“How cute. How quaint. A silly little answer from a silly little girl. Tell me silly little girl, would this land still exist without humanity? Would those of us living in the fantasy land truly be alive once you stopped dreaming?”

Lillian paused. She didn’t know.

What was a dream?

“Well, what does it matter to you, foolish human. You take and take and take from the land of dreams.” The demon paused and closed its bug eyes, as if truly contemplating its thoughts and feelings. “You are so selfish. Taking from this perfect land. It is belief incarnate, unhindered by pesky rules and laws. Everything exists solely because anything can exist here. But you plunder and pillage our trophies, our very existence. You make us journey to the land of reality. I have tasted how the outside world tastes, and it is bittersweet compared to this idyllic haven.”

Lillian sat in awe of this outburst. Susan had always seemed like some sort of archetypal villain to her. She wanted out of the dreamworld to wreak havoc upon the living. But this Susan seemed much more in control, much more dangerous than before.

“As I said, you take from the land of dreams. Yet you give nothing, your existence is a plague to my fields. You are the locust ravaging my crops, ruining my soil, destroying the foundation of this very world.”

The grotesque mouth clicked at that moment. The eyes looked deeply into Lillian’s soul. Inside those eyes she saw herself, weak and battered as she was. Still somehow defiant in the face of this demon.

How could she be afraid? This was her world. Her power, her very soul was like a fish in water here. She was the dream, and the dream was her. No one could hurt her here.

“So, I will take from you. Just as you have taken from us.”

Lillian could feel something brewing in the air of the dream. It vibrated and undulated as Susan started to do something.

Lillian mustered up strength she didn’t know she had and began to run. But before she had taken a few steps one grubby hand grabbed her by her raven hair.

“Foolish girl, if you take so much from the dreaming, who’s to say we cannot take from you.”

Lillian awoke with a start, shivering. Cold beads of sweat cascaded down her face. Thankfully she was in a section of camp near Emmy, otherwise those beads may have frozen directly onto her skin.

Theo was still asleep; he hadn’t been awake to make sure her dream ended well. That meant her system had been disturbed, she did not get her normal, full night of sleep. Instead, she had awoken too early. But she felt she couldn’t get back to sleep in her current condition.

Slowly and surely, she started checking her whole body. Susan had been spouting some bullshit about how the dreams would take from her. But Lillian was a queen of the dreaming, there was no way she could be hurt there, right?

The shivers kept wracking her body even through The Heater’s warmth. She checked herself just to make sure Susan hadn’t escaped or hurt her. It never hurt to be safe.

She found no injuries, she found no blood, she found nothing wrong. Maybe the dream had been a sham, a power play by Susan for their nefarious plans.

Lillian slowly put her head in her hands as she let the rest of the nervous shivers seep out of her.

But there was no hair on her head. Just skin.

Lillian let out a small yelp that disturbed the peace of the tent she was sleeping in. Her hands started shaking and she escaped the tent, running away.

All thrones crumble, the queen had fallen. What could she even dream of now?