Nar stared down the windy, narrow path that led up from the neon blue canopy of the mangroves of the Den below.

  In the distance, he found the long, faded, glowing gray expanse of the Marshlands, the starting zone that some of the other apprentices had taken. To his right, the seashore was a tiny sliver of a shimmer before it was gobbled up by the darkness of the Brightnight’s boundary. According to Sej, there wasn’t more than a couple dozen feet of sea within the dungeon, and given that they were starting at the Jungle Tops, it made sense that he hadn’t heard about it.

  “Here comes another one,” Mul muttered, looking down the narrow ledge that snaked its way up from the basin that sheltered the Nest. “Pile. I just know that this place is going to be the worst of them all.”

  Nar nodded, glancing back to the new area in their extended journey.

  To the right, stood the Jungle of Silence, with its white, shimmering bone dust blowing back into the darkness thanks to the salty, fresh wind coming up from below. To the left, stood a towering fortress of glowing pale-pink tree trunks and impassable foliage, which marked the beginning of the Dream.

  The domain party milled about in a small clearing between the two areas and the narrow path leading down to the Den and the Marshland beyond. Small tufts of tiny, glowing dark-lilac flowers swayed in the breeze, and Era had requested to harvest them. They held aether of nightmares from growing in between the Dream and the Gloom, and Kur and Row had taken the chance to add yet another valuable material to their backpacks.

  “Another one’s here,” Mul announced, his tone flat but louder this time, so that everyone could hear.

  As they had done during their climb up the path, the party parted for the dinosaur that slowly made its way up into the clearing.

  A raptor, Nar thought, as the shimmering blue scaled beast ambled past him. Its purple tongue lolled from his open jaw with a trickle of saliva running down its length. The beast’s eyes should’ve been reptilian red-slit, but instead, they shone with the same pale-pink glow that emanated from the Dream’s boundary trees.

  “Trapped within a dream,” Era said, her tone barely a whisper in the breeze. “It will never set itself free again.”

  “Tygars. That’s a fucked-up way to go,” Eum muttered.

  “And you haven’t seen anything yet,” Sej said.

  “Damn,” Tuk whispered. “It doesn’t even see us!”

  “I feel like we should just kill it,” Jaz muttered. “It would be a mercy.”

  “Just let it be,” Sej said, shaking her head. “It’s cramped enough up here, and it will go berserk if we interfere with its journey.”

  “Journey,” Mul said, shaking his head.

  Nar followed the beast with his eyes as it headed to the tall arch in between the giant trees. It was a gaping maw of twisted branches and lilac dense light that prevented them from seeing into the Dream. The air sighing from within the archway glowed lilac from in between the dense foliage, with motes of blue, purple and pink shimmering in the sea breeze. And then, the beast simply vanished into that archway of lilac.

  “I’m going to hate this place,” Viy muttered to herself.

  Yes, you will, Nar thought, scanning the tight expressions across the domain party. And I don’t think you’ll be the only one.

  And that was, of course, if he himself was not about to have a similarly bad time within that lilac light.

  He clenched his jaw. Viy hadn’t asked him again why he hadn’t felt guilt within her skill’s hallucinating capabilities, and he was glad for it. He didn’t know why he hadn’t been hit by her guilt then. Her skill couldn’t be resisted unless the affected entity was at least 35 levels above hers… unless there was no guilt to trigger in the first place.

  He kept his expression neutral as he remembered the blocked path home. As it had been happening as of late, his aura stirred within him, something deep seated and far worse than rage and more choking that grief staring up at him from the abyss. His aura seethed, whispering of blasphemy…

  “Alright, everyone," Kur called, pulling Nar back from that bottomless, whispering pit. “Is everyone ready to do this?”

  Kur stood before the assembled domain party, his back to the lilac archway. Neither he, nor anyone else in the party donned their masks, as what awaited inside the Dream was neither miasma nor spores, but pure, minute aether in every breath they inhaled.

  Nar looked up at the pale-pink trunks again. They grew so densely together, and intertwined with such twisted branches and foliage, that apparently there were only two entrances into the Dream, one being this one before them, and the other the exit they would take into the Canopy of Giants.

  “You all know what’s going to happen in there,” Kur continued, his hands behind his back, his tone level. “The dream aether in the air might show you things, but you have to remember that no matter what it shows you, they will not be real.”

  Nar clenched his jaw again. That damned aether better not show him anything to piss him off further.

  “Whatever you see, be it a dream or a nightmare, or whomever you hear calling for you, none of it is real,” Kur said. “Your family and friends are not here with us. The people you knew from the cubeplant did not just somehow make it into the Brightnight… Probably nobody else will be here, since none of the other apprentices are likely to come into the Dream, and everyone else is focused on their war quest to the East. Few of the locals risk going in here too. So it will just be us, and nobody else.”

  “And if you do happen to see ‘us’, in double, give us a warning,” Sej added. “It’s unusual, but it can happen.”

  Given Sej’s multiple, continued warnings, Nar wasn’t very confident of his capacity to resist that dense, lilac aether, even with his astonishing [Ego]. Even Leon, with his paladin boosted [Steadfastness] was staring at the archway with a tight expression. Only Era appeared unconcerned amidst the aethermancers, but then again, she usually did.

  The white-haired, dark-skinned won-alfin was not immune to the Dream’s aether, not even given her affinity. As part of her quest, she had to face its slumbering touch before submerging herself in the dream waters of the Pond of Tranquility, which was their goal on the other side of the Dream, right by the southern boundary of the Brightnight and the destination of her quest.

  “The healers will be on duty to purify anyone that gets any status effects, but other than that, you are on your own to resist this aether, and to let us know when it starts affecting you too much,” Kur said. “We will also take turns sleeping, as we will all be a lot more vulnerable in our sleep. Regardless, remember that there will be no combat here. Our only enemy will be ourselves.”

  “Crystal, man,” Jaz muttered. “What a pep talk.”

  Row tutted at him.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kur, however, chuckled at the archer, his serious countenance softening. “I’m sorry, Jaz, but we all need to know what’s at stake here. Yes, we’ll be making a filthy amount of XP with that dream water, but getting there, and back out, is not going to be pleasant. But, we have each other, we have some boosters for emergencies, and we have people with strong [Ego] and [Steadfastness] to look after the ones that don’t. So, we’re going to be alright.”

  He smiled at the archer, who pursed his lips but gave him a nod. Then Kur swept the whole party with his gaze.

  “Just think of all the nice things we’re going to be able to buy with this XP, eh?”

  “Well, that’s a bit better, I guess,” Jaz said. “Shall we go on, then? The faster we go in, the faster we get out. And richer.”

  A ripple of laughter passed through the delvers.

  “If everyone’s ready, then? Row? Leon?” Kur checked.

  “We’re ready,” Row said.

  “And we’re born ready!” Leon replied.

  “Ugh!” Calli said, rolling her eyes.

  With another smattering of laughter, they formed up behind Leon’s party and filtered into the archway.

  Nar, at the back of the party, cast another glance back to where the breeze was blowing the bone dust into the dark recesses of the pale, calcified trees and deathly white mushrooms of the Jungle of Silence. Even now, those pitch dark, misshapen hollows gave the appearance of eyes staring back out at them, and he couldn’t help but think, and worry, about the assassins.

  Their foe had shown no signs of life, or any other attempt at attacking them ever since the fungal nightmare. While the more optimistic amongst the party hoped that maybe something had gotten the assassins killed, Nar worried that they were preparing something even worse for them.

  The Jungle of Silence was too dangerous for them to try anything, and they left us alone in the Den, Nar thought, as the others stepped into the pink archway. I don’t think they’ll bother us in the Dream, either… Too risky, probably. Which means they’ll try something in the Canopy of Giants.

  He pursed his lips. All they could do was keep their senses up and wait for it to happen, unfortunately, and deal with it when it came.

  “Stay close and don’t stray,” Kur said, as it was their turn to enter the lilac light.

  “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Rel whispered at Nar’s side.

  Her emerald eyes gave the lilac reflecting from them a harsh tone, but Rel showed no outward signs of concern. Still, Nar patted her back.

  “It will be alright. We’ve got you.”

  She blinked away from the entrance and smiled at him.

  “You too. I got you too,” she said.

  Nar stopped himself from clenching his jaw and returned her smile with a nod of thanks. As Kur had said, there was no way in the Pile, or the Abyss, as the aethermancers used to say, that he would allow some hallucination to convince him his father had somehow made it through the entirety of the B-Nex, boarded a ship, leveled up faster than Nar in order to make into the Brightnight, and was now waiting for Nar within that lilac jungle of all places.

  Who would fall for something like that? Nar wondered. Still, his stare hardened as they stepped under the thick, neon lilac foliage, in anticipation of seeing his dad again…

  Up ahead, he saw that Gad and Jasphaer walked on either side of Viy, and together, all three of them disappeared into that diffuse light, leaving swirling motes of purple, blue and pink in their wake.

  Nar stepped up to the light with Rel.

  “You really can’t see anything,” she whispered, her voice suddenly low in the gentle breeze blowing in from behind. There was nobody there now except the two of them. It was as though the others had entered a gateway and jumped to some far-off place.

  “Come on,” Nar urged, glancing back at the dark eyes of the Jungle of Silence. “We have to stick together.”

  She nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  The alfin stepped into the light. Nar cast one last glance at Jungle of Silence, and the beginning of the path downwards to the Den. He would never see this place again. Then he followed after Rel.

  There was a flash of bright lilac, and Nar found himself walking upon a lush and soft bedding of pink, purple, white and blue flowers.

  He froze at the sudden change, and cast his eyes back to where they’d come from. The Jungle of Silence was invisible beyond the arch, hidden by the dense curtain of lilac that they had just traversed. Two titanic tree trunks, the biggest he had so far seen in the Brightnight, surrounded and formed the arch. Neon lilac leaves formed an impassable wall of foliage around them, as their branches came down almost to the carpet of flowers that covered the floor.

  “Well, that was freaky,” Rel muttered to herself. “And yay! It’s already begun.”

  Nar blinked away from the arch behind them, and found Rel squinting hard at something he couldn’t see.

  “You okay?”

  She shrugged; her expression twisted into a mask of resigned unhappiness. “It’s obviously not great, but don’t worry. I’ve made peace with what I am and with what I need to do, so I don’t mind them… much.”

  Her tone was strained, and Nar squeezed her shoulder.

  “They’re not real,” he told her. “Just tell me if it gets too much and I’ll call Jasphaer over to help.”

  The archer nodded, but her eyes were lost in nightmares he could only begin to imagine.

  “Come on! Are we going to stand and stare all day?” Mul asked, raising his voice in the quiet.

  At the front of the group, Sej cleared her throat and Leon seemed to shake himself awake.

  “Erm… right,” he said, his face beaming scarlet. “Yeah, uh… let’s keep going, shall we?”

  They resumed walking.

  Gad now held Viy’s hand. Despite her earlier glaring, the halberdier was now holding back on to that hand tightly enough that Nar could see it shaking.

  We left the cubeplant and the Climb, but did they leave us? Will they ever? Nar wondered. Oh, hold on!

  With a startled look, he searched for Jul.

  “I’m okay,” she was telling Kur, her voice surprisingly calm. “I’ve seen a lot more scarier things than them since we left.”

  The rogue turned warrior noticed Nar staring and offered him a smile. “They don’t control me anymore.”

  Nar felt a swelling rush within his chest, one that seemed to comfort the unease swirling within his core, and he grinned back.

  “Good,” Kur replied. “They don’t deserve to control you. Nobody does.”

  Nar looked forward as they stepped out from amidst the two colossal trees.

  “Wow,” Tuk whispered.

  The flower carpet stretched into a field that curved down in a slight bowl shape. Enormous trees grew from that carpet of flowers, and their dense foliage seemed to somehow join together high above their heads to form a canopy that completely blocked out the sky above them.

  The distant horizon was a shimmer of diffuse lilac, and Nar looked around him at the blue, purple and white motes that floated up from the flowers at his feet.

  “I was going to say that it looked pretty but that’s really screwed up,” Tuk mumbled.

  Nar didn’t need to ask the trugger what he was referring to. The soft carpet was littered with bodies of beasts of every shape, color, and size.

  “They’re all asleep?” Nar heard Mach whisper from up ahead, through the general hubbub of whispered conversations.

  “Dreaming their best dreams,” Era confirmed.

  The blue raptor that had passed them by was even now walking past the sleeping bulks of other beasts, some of them enormous, as it seemed intent on heading further into the Dream before deciding on its “resting” spot. The poor beast had no idea that it was to its doom that it walked, and not to whatever it was that it chased after.

  “Hmm,” Mul said, smacking his lips. “It kind of tastes sweet…”

  “Like honey,” Cen said, making funny expressions as she too, tasted the air. “And it’s so warm and cozy, too.”

  “Come on,” Sarke said, her tone strained. “The longer we stay in this place, the longer we risk never leaving.”

  The Dream looked idyllic indeed. It even felt idyllic… Like the kind of place Nar could lay down and let go of all his worries and concerns. Just dream happy dreams upon that soft, soft mattress of flowers and forget everything.

  Prey and predator slept side by side, dreaming. But the stark reality soon became apparent as they neared the hulking figure of the first sleeping beast, an enormous dinosaur with a truly humongous size, its tail and neck stretching for over a hundred feet from end to end.

  “Look. The flowers…” Cen breathed. “They’re growing on the beast!”

  Nar twisted his nose at the flower-ridden corpse as they walked besides its bulk. Not only the flowers, but also deep, pink tree roots squirmed over the poor beast, piercing its flesh.

  “Crystal! It’s still alive!” Tuk said, his eyes going very wide. “How?”

  “What?” Cen cried.

  “Look! It’s still breathing!”

  Similar shouts had gone up ahead of them, and Nar too, called on his [Sight] to have a better look at the beast.

  “Dreams are not real, no matter how much they seem to be. Those who live within the Dream, be it fauna or flora, still need real sustenance, and they rely on the dream aether to get it. And their sustenance comes willingly,” Sarke said, her usually turquoise eyes brightened by lilac as she examined the flowers growing from the still living beast. “There might be no combat here, but fall to the [Dreaming], and you will be slowly devoured as you yourself starve to death. And all the while living the most beautiful of lies…”

  “Everything in this jungle is just so fucked up,” Mul said, twisting his lips.

  “Eat or be eaten. Everywhere, all the time, no breaks, and in many, many different and horrible ways,” Kur said, shaking his head. “Do you need to harvest these flowers?”

  The reptilian guide shook her head, slowly, as though the movement took effort. “I’m not into this kind of research.”

  “Fair enough. Come on, then, let’s keep going,” the party leader said. “Warn us when you see things, and keep an eye out for each other. The flowers are pretty, but let’s not become their food.”

  With muted yesses, the party got underway again, heading deeper into that beautiful nightmare.