Standing there, amidst the chaos, I spotted Nicola—or rather, his lifeless body. He lay on the ground, unmoving, a stark contrast to the nervous shuffle of the guards encircling him. They seemed oblivious to my presence, even though I stood out like a sore thumb—well, I suppose I didn’t with my Phantasmal Mist skill shrouding everything in a ghostly fog.

They’re all acting like I’m not even here. Must be my skill doing its thing.

Your skill? Maybe it’s my skill?  

“Oh, knock it off,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “We’re the same person, remember?” My inner dialogue was turning into a full-blown sibling rivalry.

[Phantasmal Mist] Summon the ethereal embrace of the Dream Realm. Type Spell Activation Cast Description: Emanating from the depths of dreams and nightmares, you can summon the very essence of the Dream Realm in the form of an enigmatic mist. This Phantasmal Mist distorts reality and cloaks the surrounding area, confounding and ensnaring the senses of those engulfed within. To those trapped inside, the lines between dreams, illusions, and waking reality blur, leaving them vulnerable and disoriented. Harness this power wisely, for while it can serve as a potent weapon, it also reminds of the fickle nature of dreams.

The mist, ‘my skill’ in essence, seemed to do nothing—yet no one took any notice of me. Was it a quirk of the Dream Realm, or the skill’s subtle artifice? It cast a ghostly veil, its intent as opaque as the fog itself. Despite having read the description, its true effect was lost on me. I saw through the shroud effortlessly, but whether it worked its intended magic on the others remained a mystery.

Maybe it’s different on the receiving end?

In the swirling, unpredictable ether of the Dream Realm, the usual laws of nature seemed like distant memories. Here, the line between the possible and the impossible blurred, casting doubt on the very aspect of my skills. The sheer potency of my Necrotic Flame was staggering – a stark reminder that in this realm, magic played by a different set of rules. Yet, a nagging suspicion lingered that once I stepped back into reality, my magic might dwindle to a mere shadow of its current glory.

We’ll have to test out ‘my skills’ once we get out of here.

Always ‘my’ skills, huh? How about a little team spirit here?

Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Nicola’s lifeless form lay before me, a stark and unsettling reminder of the Dream Realm’s surreal nature. His physical body was just a discarded vessel, yet his presence permeated the air, as if his soul was still very much part of this twisted dreamscape. Hidden amongst the dreams as a silent observer, his spirit intertwined with the very fabric of this realm, a ghost unable to move on from the past, ever watchful of the chaos that repeatedly unfolded around him. Those lifeless eyes of his corpse, dulled in death, seemed to hold an unspoken depth, a hint that he was more than just a spirit held within a whimsical realm.

You’re really laying it on thick, aren’t you?

Quiet, I’m setting the mood.

I inched toward Nicola’s unmoving silhouette, the corners of my mouth betraying a sly, impish grin. “Rise and shine, pipsqueak,” I murmured, barely louder than the rustling of leaves.

Screw waking him up, just whip out our thingy and let’s suck him up!

We’re not ‘whipping’ nothing out, especially not with him, and there will definitely be no sucking.

“You know what I meant!” slipped the defensive reply from our lips.

Both of my souls heaved a collective sigh as we—I—steered our thoughts toward something resembling a plan. “Okay, okay… But shouldn’t we try engaging him in conversation first? I’m eager to uncover why both Mother and Death think he’s important to us.”

Death? Umm… Don’t you mean Grandma?

“…”

How do we know Mother wanted us to find him? Maybe her test was just about meeting Death, and that’s already done.

“Good point, but I can’t shake this feeling about our little steampunk enthusiast,” we mused, eyeing Nicola’s lifeless form.

Yeah, something about him does seem... Important? Useful?

“Let’s just talk to him.”

And if dialogue fails, there’s always plan B!

“Plan B? Eww, Dream, he’s practically in diapers.”

What…? Ugh! Not the ‘oopsie’ morning-after type, you sicko! I’m talking about Plan B as in kidnapping! And get your facts straight—he’s not a toddler; he’s a gnome.

“Semantics.”

I hate you, you know that, right?

“We were a goth chick once, remember? Self-loathing was part of the aesthetic,” I chuckled darkly, my internal monologue doubling as a banter with... well, myself.

Easily enough, I slipped past the guards encircling the ethereal remains of the gnome, unnoticed as if I were part of the mist itself. It reminded me of my initial forays into the Dream Realm, where entities occasionally noticed me if I made the effort to interact, much like the merchant had—but I spared no effort on the guards.

My attention was entirely on the gnome, as I weighed the options: engage in conversation here. Or seize his soul for my new phylactery and ponder an exit strategy. It was a classic act-now-apologize-later scenario, except I had no intention of seeking anyone’s forgiveness. My typical approach had always been a simple one: act first, then deal with the fallout. Admittedly, that strategy had backfired more than once in my past life, particularly when my intrusive thoughts took the reins.

Classic psycho.

Zip it, skitzo!

“Come on pipsqueak, I know you can hear me,” we sighed as I stood over his lifeless corpse.

My irritation peaked when he failed to respond, not even the slightest twitch from his lifeless form. Being ignored was not on my list of tolerables, so, in a bout of annoyance, I gave him a hard nudge with my foot. To my surprise, gnome bodies are unexpectedly light; I had not anticipated him going sailing as far as he did, tumbling through a less ornate set of double doors.

Muttering under my breath, I trailed after his bouncing form.

Stepping into the adjacent room, I stopped dead in my tracks, awestruck by the scene. It was like stepping onto the set of an old-time shipyard from the late nineteenth century, minus any egress to open waters. Timber was strewn about, chains dangled from the ceiling, and an array of workbenches lined the walls, each cluttered with wooden constructs in varying stages of completion. But the centerpiece that snatched my breath was the colossal airship dominating the space of what could easily be three football fields laid side by side.

This airship deviated from the few designs I had encountered. Its shape resembled an arrowhead with four elongated appendages at its stern, positioned as if two were soaring above and two were plunging below the main fuselage—bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Star Trek vessel, what with those lengthy nacelles that seem to defy the bounds of traditional aeronautics. Admittedly, my nerd credentials were showing, though my Star Trek knowledge was admittedly rusty—I knew enough to be sure Skywalker wasn’t making a cameo here.

My mist, ever the dramatic follower, had seeped into the space as well, casting the ship in an even more mystical allure. Awestruck, yes, but there was business to attend to. With the gnome steadfast in his silence, a thought nudged at me—perhaps it was time to consider my phylactery. Yeah, I might just whip out my thingy—if that’s what it takes.

I bet we could give ourselves a thingy of our own, if we wanted.

The thought repulsed me. Absolutely not!

Yet, the mischief Dream in me couldn’t resist teasing. But what if Aurelia asked for it?

The contemplative Nightmare pause was telling. Well, in that case... perhaps there’d be room for negotiation.

Shaking off the intrusive and rather disconcerting thought, I turned my attention to the phylactery situation.

A slight hiccup presented itself: Death hadn’t actually handed one to me. Considering her formidable power, I decided to probe my dimensional storage. Even though Stellar Void had vanished from my skill roster, my instincts assured me of its accessibility. This revelation triggered a cascade of thoughts about the other skills I possessed innately, independent of any system assistance.

Stellar Void was there, naturally, as were Necrotic Flame and Silk Webbing. Blight, a personal favorite, still lurked unseen within my repertoire, along with the ever-so-flexible Polymorph, which I’d been exploiting reflexively. Mana Sight had become second nature, almost eclipsing Polymorph in its intuitiveness, while Spirit Vessel remained a handy companion for manipulating souls, particularly with phylacteries in play. Then there was Corrosive—more of a racial passive, though I pondered if it had been superseded by my Disintegration.

But what of Veil Polyglot? The absence of this passive translation skill from my list sent a fleeting wave of panic through me. It was the skill that enabled me to comprehend the diverse tongues of this new realm. Yet, inexplicably, I still understood everyone’s words without it.

“It’s probably the same as the other skills we’ve learned. Still there, just not on the skill list,” one of my two souls offered, providing a morsel of reassurance.

The distinction between my two souls often blurred; when we weren’t embroiled in sibling-like squabbles, it was difficult to discern which was taking the lead or offering insights at times. In those moments of union was when I often felt like my old self…and oh, how I loathed it.

Amid the mental torrent concerning my identity and our skills, I reflexively reached toward my chest, tearing at the Stellar Void with the same brutality one might use to rend flesh in a gruesome, open-heart surgery. This was my first penetration into the pocket dimension since my awakening in the Dream Realm. Delving within, my fingertips brushed against an orb pulsating with energy, unmistakably the Dungeon Core nestled inside me, the wellspring of my incessant rebirths. Death’s remark about discarding the artifact baffled me, but I dismissed her caution with nary a second glance, probing further into the abyss.

Then, something petite and circular, no larger than a coin and peculiarly hollow, rolled under my touch. Extracting it, I scrutinized what appeared to be a ring. A fleeting thought teased me—it could have been the fragmented remains of that dimensional cock ring that had catastrophically exploded within me, but no, a closer inspection debunked that assumption. With a nonchalant flick, I cast it back into the void, resuming my search.

Carefully, I fished out two phylacteries from my Stellar Void—though, in a stroke of clumsiness, one slipped and clattered to the ground. I peered at the chip it acquired from its sudden meeting with the ground, with an indifferent shrug, I tossed it back into the void. Not so secretly, I hoped that it was the one containing Olin’s soul that one. What? They looked identical to me.

Calling myself a necromancer would be a stretch. Juggling souls into phylacteries felt oddly similar to molding ambient mana—was I actually using the Spirit Vessel skill or just successfully bluffing my way through necromancy? It was hard to say. Whatever the case, it worked. That’s all that mattered.

“Here’s to hoping we don’t end up with a crowded house in one of these,” I muttered, feigning a concern that didn’t quite reach my eyes.

The thought of accidentally cramming two souls into a single phylactery brought a twisted smirk to my face. It would be just my luck to create an unintended spiritual roommate situation for Olin. Okay, the thought did make me laugh, just a little bit. What? I’m allowed a bit of fun with this, aren’t I? After all, Olin’s an utter dick.

Olin, my first real adversary in this realm had been a ghoul in a state of decay, a creature I had gruesomely consumed from the inside out—by infiltrating through an eyeball and, let’s say, aggressively repurposing his body for a nice meal. Afterwards, Aurelia, with a casual flick of her wrist, had extracted his soul and sent it into the shell of a young boy’s corpse. Later, I took the liberty of snatching that soul for myself, securing it within a phylactery, thus granting the ghoul the dubious honor of becoming a lich. That’s my version of charity for you. Subsequently, I placed it into the corpse of Vanya’s husband—whose neck had unfortunately met with a swift twist from my tentacles. Observing Olin attempt to fumble with his new floppy-head, had been a spectacle of my great amusement. Ah, good times!

Shrugging off the recollection of past antics, I extended my hand, channeling my will as I would to shape the mana around me. I felt something akin to a soul’s presence—presumably his. They were indistinct, these souls, virtually interchangeable in my perception. The once-present guards seemed now to be mere echoes, neither spirits for binding nor dreamers lost in the Dream Realm’s vast expanse. With a mental nod, I decided it was indeed the gnome’s essence. Gently coaxing it toward me, I unceremoniously bundled the gnome’s soul into the phylactery, as effortlessly as one might ram a brick through a pinhole—with sufficient brute force, of course.

There, all done!

Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here.

No kidding!

Turning around, I marched out of the little workshop, and into the wider dream world, only to find utter chaos!

The mist was a loyal shroud, trailing behind me as I stepped into the chaos of the streets. Its persistence was a curious comfort, a sliver of cold in the cacophony of screams. The city was an open wound, undead swarms feasting upon the panicked throngs. People were flung about like rag dolls, their limbs detaching with wet snaps and rips as the undead descended in ravenous delight. The air was rich with their cries, a symphony of despair that tinged my lips with a twisted smile—such was the beauty of this nightmarish dance.

I wandered, a silent spectator amidst the fog, where the crimson of blood melded with the grey, my gaze searching for the small bearer of pink, the little girl who held the key to my departure from this realm. Yet she remained elusive, a specter beyond reach. Instead, the air was pierced by chromatic bursts, spells cast by unseen magicians. Their incantations were vivid flares in the mist, a macabre light show that painted fleeting rainbows before snuffing out unlife with each iridescent explosion.

Despite their efforts, the undead tide swelled ever greater. And within that tide, amidst the sounds of the dying and the dead, I found a grotesque allure. The glow of magic, reflected in my personal gloom, was a beacon of artistry in destruction. The Dream Realm’s embrace was so complete that even the scent of decay seemed piquant, mingling with the iron tang of blood—a fragrance that coaxed a hungry anticipation from deep within me.

As I entered the building, the city’s walls had been a bulwark against the night’s horrors. Now, it seemed in mere moments—or an eternity masked as such—the horde had breached the barriers. I pondered the mechanics of this dream, the disjointed timeline that had spirited me from one scene to the next without a whisper of the chaos in between.

I emerged into the latter act of a tragedy already unfolding, a crescendo of destruction that held a certain grandeur. The undead, like a wave that had crested and broken too soon, now flooded the streets with relentless, savage beauty. This city, this dream, had become a theater of the macabre, and I had been granted a front-row seat to the apocalypse in progress. The walls that had stood proud were now nothing but a memory, and I, a mere observer, witnessed the ruination laid bare in the dream’s stark, brutal poetry.

Amidst the cacophony of despair, a perverse orchestra played just for me. The wails of the dying became my rhythm section, the clash of battle my drums. With each step, I danced a macabre waltz through the disarray, my movements mocking the grim reality around me.

I reached out, fingers intertwining with those of a decayed dead lizard woman, her scales flaking off like morbid confetti. And there, in the eye of the storm, we found synchrony. Her stiff limbs gained a grace they likely never knew in life, a marionette drawn into the dance by my will.

She pirouetted in my grasp, guided by an unseen choreographer, as I led her through the steps of a dance as old as death itself. The horrific and the divine blurred in these moments, as the symphony of screams crescendoed around us. There, in the heart of the nightmare, I reveled in the grotesque beauty of it all, the undead and I, partners in the danse of blood and despair.

The tumultuous waltz of horror halted abruptly, the veil of frenzy lifted as a singular presence pierced the fog. Red eyes, like embers in the mist, heralded an arrival that silenced the symphony of chaos. The undead in my embrace disappearing along with it.

Every scream, every clash, every groan of the restless dead seemed to fade into a hushed reverence, all for the figure that emerged from the shrouding mists. The world itself seemed to pause, the very air holding its breath as the silhouette materialized into form and substance.

And there she was—Aurelia. Words would falter to describe her; they’d crumble under the weight of her essence. She was beauty carved from midnight shadows, sorrow woven into the very fabric of her magnificence. Her presence was a paradox, inspiring awe and anguish with the same glance.

She stood before me, the incarnation of everything magnificent and mournful. In her gaze, I saw the reflection of all that was lost and all that could never be. She was a portrait of the sublime, painted with strokes of darkness and light, and for a moment, I was lost in the depth of what she represented.

Aurelia—this creature of the night, a vampire of resplendent dread—transcended any whimsical affection or possessive impulse. She was a craving I couldn’t escape, a being that the Goddess of Dreams and Nightmares, my ethereal mother, had explained to me about. Aurelia was mine in a way that defied simple bonds.

In the realm of fable, soulmates are often sung of, dreamt about, yearned for in the quiet of lonely nights. Yet here, in the visceral tapestry of my new reality, the concept was not only tangible—it was imperative. I learned that souls, at the dawn of their creation, could on rare occasions be cleaved in twain, each half seeking the other with an insatiable yearning that spanned eons and lifetimes.

Still a bit dramatic, but it fits the moment.

Thank you!

Nightmare and Dream, the dual entities that each formed a quarter of my—me, found their counterpart in her. Aurelia was the piece hewn from our titan whole, separated at the creation of our collective soul, drifting through the currents of countless past lives. This craving, this ancient hunger for unity, had spanned centuries, perhaps even millennia to eons.

As our gazes locked, an intense gravity that could destroy entire stars pulled us together. She initiated the contact; her hand was a whisper of frost against the warmth of my skin, tracing a shiver-inducing line down to my lips. Her fingers lingered there, and the world seemed to hush for a heartbeat, our shared longing hanging heavy in the air.

“I love you,” the confession barely left my throat, a whisper swallowed by the chaos yet heard with crystal clarity.

The cacophony of terror and destruction that surrounded had long faded to nothingness, and yet, ever present. Her lips met mine in an answer that needed no words, a kiss that spoke of lifetimes lost and found. The passion that had simmered through ages now bubbled over, our hands exploring with a fervor that bordered on desperation.

I was heedless of the garments that separated us, hands fervent in their quest to discard the barriers of cloth to revel in the touch of skin against skin. There, amid the despair and decay of the undead’s endless parade, we found an oasis in each other, within this dream, an impassioned embrace that stood as a testament to our eternal bond.

Her robes pooled on the cobblestones, dark with the city’s lifeblood, as my touch roamed her skin with a mix of delicacy and fervor. Our kisses were deep, exploring and claiming, as we became the eye of a storm wrought of our own making.

Her fingers danced a frenzied rhythm across my flesh, seeking the essence beneath the façade, and into our folds. And with her need vocalized, an eager whisper against the shell of my ear, “I want you,” she unleashed me from my own constraints.

Her hands, insistent and unrelenting, rent through the silken illusion I had woven about myself. As she stripped away the veneer, she revealed the truth of my form—dark, formless, and unbound. There, under the mask of the woman I presented to the all, was my true self: a Black Pudding, a being of eldritch ooze and darkness.

Yet, the shape I chose—a curvaceous figure, the epitome of the beauty I aspired to embody—remained, even as the guise was torn asunder. My passion, no longer contained, burst forth. Tentacles, extensions of my true form, unfurled like night-blooming flowers from my back, exploring her vampiric form with an intensity born of lost time.

Each tendril was guided by an ancient hunger, seeking out every hidden valley and peak of her body. Our communion was no longer bound by the physical alone; it transcended into a dance of darkness and night. The screams and the bloodshed became the distant backdrop to our own screams of ecstasy, a convergence, a symphony for our union as we lost ourselves in each other, amidst the chaos of a city succumbing to our nightmares.

“AH! Bowen! Bowen! How I’ve missed you!” Aurelia screamed.

Aurelia’s cries, fervent and filled with an ache of ages, pierced through the cacophony of the dying city. Her voice, woven with passion and the pain of separation, called out a name that hung between us, heavy with meaning yet alien to my ears.

I halted, my movements stilled, and our eyes—a dark abyss meeting burning embers—locked in a moment of raw confusion. Her name for me, Bowen, echoed in the air, a ghost of a memory I couldn’t grasp.

“Who?” I whispered back, a thread of uncertainty weaving through the tapestry of our union. The name felt like a puzzle piece from a different set, not fitting the image we were creating. The urgency in her gaze bore into me, seeking recognition, but in this maelstrom of desire and destruction, the name she called was not mine—or was it?

Her lips parted, the crimson of her eyes piercing into the very core of my being as she began to whisper, “Bowen was who—” The words dangled, an incomplete thought, a key poised to unlock the shackles of lost memories.

And then, with the abruptness of a candle snuffed by the wind, reality shifted. The vibrant tapestry of the Dream Realm receded, and I awoke to my true form, a shapeless mass upon the cold stone. Frantically, I stretched forth, reaching for the wisp of connection that had just moments before been as tangible as the stone beneath me.

But she was gone. Aurelia, the specter of beauty and yearning, had vanished, leaving me in a world of stark stone and silence. Desperation clawed at the edges of my consciousness, an echo of the loss that now gnawed at my essence. In the absence of her presence, the hollow feeling of being incomplete settled over me like a shroud, the realization that the search was not yet over, that the Dream Realm had been but a fleeting intersection of our fragmented souls.

I was alone—if not for the cacophony of hushed whispers that surrounded me.

~

With a heart still racing from the vivid embrace of the dream, Aurelia sat up, her bedchamber awash in the crimson glow of red eyes. The dream, a visage more potent than any before, lingered on her senses. Her fingers, now tracing her own lips as her other hand descended between her thighs, searching for the phantom warmth of her beloved, a touch that had seemed so real moments before. She had dreamt of Bowen, of Blake, her beloved reincarnated, through countless nights, across nearly two centuries, each dream a whisper, a shadow of a promise that had yet to fully manifest.

But this dream had been different; it had carried the weight of reality, a tactile presence that had never graced her nocturnal journeys before. She could still feel the pressure of Blake’s touch—a pressure that seemed to push through the veils of sleep into her waking world.

It wasn’t just the intensity of the touch, but the depth of connection, the piercing familiarity of it all that left her trembling. Her mind knew well the shape and form of dreams, their ebbing illusions, and deceptive echoes. But her heart, it knew something else—something true. This was no ordinary dream. It had been a confluence of souls, a meeting ordained by something far beyond the ordinary bounds of dreaming.

Aurelia rose, her feet touching the cold stone floor—a stark contrast to the warmth she had experienced in the embrace of her dream. She pondered, with the flickering candlelight casting dancing shadows across the room, mirroring the turmoil within her. Her gaze then fell upon her husband, shivering in the corner of her bedchamber, his intestines gradually healing after she had disemboweled him before sleep. Oh, how she yearned for her beloved to come, to finish off the man and claim her place beside her, united in love forever.