Fire lashes out of the dreamer’s body as they lay there, floating, lost entirely to whatever deep sleep it is that has consumed them. The ground smolders at my feet as they twist and turn, tossing uncomfortably in their slumber. With every uneasy movement, another eruption lashes out at the ground before me. Flailing tendrils whipping every which way, lashing out like so many reaching hands of the drowning, trying to claw their way up to the surface of the black-water ocean.
I duck down low, swiping in a semicircle with my boot as the blade of the lance flies up behind me in an arc to meet the hero’s sword. An eruption of energy blasts out from the strike, sending a ripple through the dungeon. The stones beneath us, paved and ornate blast up and rise into the air as if a crashing wave was surging beneath the surface, only to have them drop down a second later, as it passes in a loud clamber.
The dreamer dreams of fire, as the wizard claps her hands together, sending out an eruption of lava my way. The shorn and torn apart stones of the ground, loose-set from the disturbance a moment ago, now fly off to the sides as something tunnels beneath the dirt straight towards me. Swiping my sword free from the hero’s blade, the metal of our weapons sparks, as their firm bodies slide over another. With my boot pressed into the ground, I leap backwards as the world below me erupts and as the hero swings again.
I watch, as the tip of his blade swipes just past where my face was. I watch, as it slices through the fiery serpent that has just blasted itself out of the ground beneath my feet. The energy of his strike severs the serpent in half, sending a firestorm cascading off to the side as the winds caused by his attack blast it away.
The dreamer stirs as the fire wraps around them. The fiery tendrils from their body swiping away the heat. A moment later, I land with a resounding thud. The echo of my metal boots, striking the stones below, rings out aloud as a clear signal.
Tossing in an uneasy sleep, the dreamer flails with their arms. The fiery tendrils recede, vanishing back into their body and a moment later, the floor shifts.
The tightly packed bricks that make up the dungeon floor begin to rattle as they begin to come undone. The ground begins to shake, as half of the bricks that make up the floor begin to float, levitating in the air, leaving patchy spots of a fungus-infested dirt visible just beneath in the fresh holes.
The hero-party converges together, as the fight shifts into a new phase.
Leaping again, I rise into the air, landing on one of the floating bricks as I continue my retreat. A second later, the world explodes as it has done so many times before. Thousands of bricks start flying every which way. Towards me. Towards the hero-party, as the dreamer dreams something terrible. Dust and rock crumbles all around me as I swing my lance as fast as I can, pulverizing the heavy dark-stone bricks that fly my way with surprising force, each the size of my own skull. Others I miss and they fly into my armor, crashing into it and leaving heavy dents as they impact against my body.
The slime lets out an unsettled, glibbery cry as she hides inside of my breastplate, listening to the heavy hammering sound striking against my body. Something smashes against the back of my skull and I watch as shattered fragments from the back of my head fly away, crashing down to the ground together with a rough brick.
A second later, I land, having gained some distance from the hero-party who are able to defend themselves from the dreamer’s repelling strikes as a group. Something grabs my skull and cracks it back into place, like two forceful hands grabbing my head to adjust my spine. With shining eyes, I watch as the dust and broken bits of my bones drift towards me, fragments of my skull climbing up my armor as they make their way back to my broken head. A second later, I feel them being reattached. The bone mending as if nothing had ever happened. Thanks dungeon.
The dungeon doesn’t respond.
Seeing that I’m escaping, the wizard shouts something that I don’t understand and she blasts another attack my way. Time seems to slow to a crawl, as I watch the simple fireball arc towards me, crashing towards my body like a descending meteor.
The dreamer groans and turns over. The temperature drops in an instant, shifting from the ever-present warmth of the deeply buried dungeon into a frigid cold. As if we’ve been submerged in an ice-bath, everything is simply frozen in the blink of an eye. The stones crack, as the ice crackles loudly as it grows over their surfaces, the many bricks that were floating a second ago, now plummet back to the ground, now that the dreamer is dreaming a new dream. The fireball simply dies out, fizzling into nothing.
Turning to escape, I take another step.
In an instant, a spire of ice bursts out of the ground, a jagged crystal rushing towards my face. I pull my upper body back and swing around just in time as the frozen lance scrapes past my eyes, the frigid crystal rubbing against the thin bone on the outside of my right eye. I can feel it scraping along the edge.
Pressing forward, I run, doing my best not to slip on the icy floors, which is harder than you’d think. Metal boots don’t have great traction, okay? It’s a design flaw. They look stylish though and in the end, isn’t that what really matters?
Arcing my arm back as I run, I lift my cape to let it billow behind me as I move. The material flaps, resounding out like a gentle clap as the wind catches it and begins to lift it up on high. The sound travels around the chaotic arena, reaching the dreamer who flops over the other way, mumbling to themselves in their sleep as they pull themselves into a fetal position.
The ice filling the entire room shatters, sending thousands of crystal fragments raining down to the ground and a moment later, the room shifts again. The dungeon shakes, the floors give way, sinking down low as if this entire level had been caught in a mire. Several platforms stay where they are, held aloft as the dreamer creates a deep pit, filled with writhing nightmares.
Landing on one of the platforms, I look down into the freshly made abyss and see thousands of clawing hands and faces, all of them reaching up for us, all of them reaching up for me like the souls of the damned, drifting down deep beneath the black-ocean as they try to cling to anything, anyone to pull themselves free from the water.
But you can’t help the drowning. They’ll only pull you down with them.
Turning, I leap again, moving to the next platform as the world I stood on a second ago erupts with a violent force, as the hero’s sword strikes where I just stood.
The dreamer turns over, their arms flailing as they rest uneasily.
The dungeon shifts again, as the nightmare continues. It continues as it always has and always will. There is no waking up from the dream. There is no escape. Nobody gets out alive.
The hero jumps after me, not ready to give up the pursuit. Not now, not ever.
Time skip?
A little. But it's just up the next staircase from last chapter, wizard intercepted MC here