I woke while I was still sleeping, which seems a redundant thing to say until you realize I was still asleep despite this. I’d heard tales of this. Being awake inside a dream. For most it was a strange experience, nothing more. A small glimpse beyond the vale. For the rare unfortunate few, they became trapped within.

Personally I’d always wondered what happened to their bodies. Did they wither away without a soul? Did they disappear, wrapped up in their own dreams like a snake eating its tail? And how did anyone know they had been trapped? Where had the tales come from?

I was still in the dungeon in my dream. In the chamber where I’d fallen asleep, the one behind the mosaic room. My wounds still hurt here, even in my dreams. That probably wasn’t a good sign. Conan had said my wounds looked bad. Hopefully my ointment would keep infection at bay.

The chamber had four exits. I always forgot about the other three. One of them looked like one of the holes in the wall. It was only when you got up close you could see that a human could pass through it. One of them looked almost indistinguishable from the stone wall, so it made sense I rarely went through there. The last one... it was a door like any other. I just tended to take the other one for some reason. But there was a remarkable space behind it. A little grotto with access to the sky and a small patch of bare earth. Perfect for planting the dream seed. I slipped through the door, careful not to wake the others, and closed it gently behind me.

An albatross awaited me, hovering on the breeze above the hole in the roof. It made no move to retreat nor come closer as I approached the patch of earth.

“What are you then? Do you breath fire? Bear a curse? Bring misfortune wherever you go? Escort my soul down to hell?”

The albatross was silent.

I knelt and dug a small hole with my hands. The soil was soft—hard—soft. It only became hard if I paid the digging mind. The seed was already in my hand the moment the digging was done. A shallow pit, so shallow the seed was half exposed above the lip of the hole. I buried the rest with the dirt I’d dug free from the hole, making a small mound.

The sun shone down above me, illuminating the entire courtyard except for a small shadow in the centre. The albatross’s shadow, cast over my seed.

“Hey! Move away!”

I jumped and waved my arms at the creature—ow. Right. My chest still hurt.

The albatross bobbed on the breeze, but its shadow remained steady.

I sent my swords after it. They failed to do any visible damage. It was more like passing a pane of glass through a pool of water. There was resistance and ripples, but not much else to see. I felt my swords enter the bird’s body, and tear out the other side, but the bird itself remained unharmed.

That did not mean my attack went unnoticed. The albatross tilted its head down to look at me one last time then swooped off, spiralling around the hole in the ceiling in an ever widening spiral.

Light fell on my face, and on the buried seed. I smiled and turned my face towards the sun. It had been too long without light. Why didn’t I come here more often? I made a promise to myself to do so in the future. All living things needed the sun. Even badgers and moles, and the worms who tilled their soil.

The sun rose.

For real this time. Or as real as it could be.

I woke, and the seed was gone. Its absence notable by more than the sudden space in my pouch. It had left behind a strange heaviness, as though I'd placed it in my skull rather than my dreams, though with it came a reassurance of a job well done, and no sense from my druidic nature warned me of a physical invasion of my skull.

The others around me were waking as well. Brace and Stovepipe had kept vigil over Rian’s body. Mosses and fungi had already descended, invisible to the naked eye. To my life sight he was covered in a glowing green veil. At once beautiful and tragic. We would need to deal with his body, and the bodies of the two others, soon lest they all end up like the poor dryad.

Will-o’-Wisp

The vigilant nodded at me, but did not otherwise acknowledge my presence. I left them to it and made my way to the room with the ladder beyond the giant room to do my business.

When I arrived I immediately noticed the change. The explosions from the volcano had reached even here. The wall to my left had crumbled into rubble from the force of the blow, revealing a hidden room beyond.

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Holes like the ones in the mosaic room were cut in the wall to my left giving vision on the gigantic chamber, but they tapered at the far end making them hard to see through or notice from the other side. On the opposite side of the room a row of grotesque faces, twisted, sneering, and melted, were carved into the wall.

As with the demonic faces on the floor above, these faces were my own. Prophecy? Or more black magic?

Eliminate II

I didn’t linger. I’d found the otherwise empty room a purpose, but the carvings made me uncomfortable.

Lesser Heal

Lesser Heal II

I made my way back to the gigantic chamber as my wounds slowly knit both un-aided and under the influence of two spells over the course of an hour. Waiting safely in the corner, I faced no interruptions or complications.

Lesser Heal III: The caster’s body heals four hours’ worth of injuries over the course of an hour.

Will-o’-WispII

As my will-o’-wisps rose into being I once more felt that tug. Like something had tried to devour my spell and had been repelled. Despite the loss of one of the suns, the others were still omnipresent and evergreen.

The sun rose.

It was as if the thought itself had summoned it. Perhaps it had. With such a confluence of magic in one place the will of individuals might make all the difference. When I’d been focused on Rian’s death, little had happened for the entire night.

Breakfast was going to have to wait.

Lesser Heal. Lesser Heal II. Lesser Heal III. Three spells cast simultaneously worked in harmony to draw the wounds in my chest ever more closed. I did not neglect the rest of my body. All parts were healing at all times, my chest wounds simply being the most notable. Scratches and scars slowly faded across my back, chest and legs, aches from sleeping on stone floors flowed out of my muscles and back into the ground from which they’d come. Though I still couldn’t feel it, I was renewed.

Lesser Heal IIII: The caster’s body heals eight hours’ worth of injuries over the course of an hour.

I continued on to my stash of fish rather than reuniting with the others. I’d managed to eat a little last night before bed, but I’d mostly been preoccupied with observing Rian’s last rites. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

I got my fish without incident and returned to the hidden chamber. I’d not yet asked about the volcanic explosions or Conan’s map. Once more, Rian had taken priority.

“Conan! I’ve found a map claiming to be of the eleventh floor of this dungeon, I’d like to compare it with your own. Perhaps we are deep than we are aware.”

The two of us spent the next several minutes studying our maps and consulting our memories. As best we could tell, we were not, nor had ever been on the claimed eleventh floor.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Conan began as we put away our maps, “the explosions yesterday. Do you have any clue what those were?”

I felt my face grow red, “I disrupted a ritual. Caused the volcano the dungeon is built about to erupt. I was worried I’d killed everyone at first, including myself.”

“Is that how you got your burns?” He pointed at my chest.

“That was a trap I set off. Combustible darts. Probably would have kept burning until there was nothing left of me if I’d left them.”

A twinkle entered his eye and I sighed. He barked out a laugh, “You had to know it was coming. Come on, what happened to your skin? Are you a fairy now? Did your supply of fish go so bad even your clothes turned green? Did you fall into a bucket of paint?”

I couldn’t help but join in with a laugh of my own. Truth be told, I’d been rather unhappy with my disfigurement, and I’d felt all the more self conscious of the very fact no one was bringing attention to it.

“I was attacked by a giant winged-toad. It knocked me into a room full of a mysterious gas which I was unable to escape until it was too late. It turned everything green.”

I drew my dagger to show him.

Conan whistled, “We should get some of this warlock poison of our own. A stronger one if we can. As scars go it’s far from the worst. Not that you’ll be attracting as many ladies as the man with the eyepatch come next autumn’s dance.”

Fionn leaned over his shoulder to look at the dagger, “I should hope not. I need all the luck I can get with women. Can’t go sharing it around. You got yourself a desired one, Oswic?”

Something tickled at the back of my mind. An old pain, or perhaps a new awareness of a new one. My chest maybe.

“No. I... I kept... myself mostly to my studies as... a Magi.”

“Are you alright?” Conan asked.

I nodded, “Just a strange feeling. It’s fading now. Don’t know what it was about. Perhaps something to do with all the dark magic in the air. Or all the salted fish I’ve been eating.”

“If you ever want to trade for some of our hardtack, please, I’ll be first in line,” said Fionn with a face.

I smiled at him, “I might take you up on that. I’m starting to dream of sea birds.”

Conan and Fionn laughed. The Delta people were easy with laughs. I envied them for it, but did not begrudge them one bit. The sound of real laughter tamed the demons of these halls.