I was an intruder in a hostile mind. The Dreamscape of the elven assassin, was an endless, shifting labyrinth of sterile, silver corridors. It was a fortress of pure logic, designed to confuse and trap any who dared to enter.
Her dream-self, an ethereal figure made of shimmering silver light, appeared before me, her expression as cold as the corridors around us. She held two daggers made of solidified moonlight.
'I will ask you again, intruder,' her voice echoed in my mind, not as a sound, but as a direct, chilling thought. 'Who are you, and what are you doing in my mind?'
I tried to project a response, to explain my peaceful intentions, but I found that I couldn't. Here, in her domain, my normal abilities were suppressed. I was just a disembodied point of awareness, a ghost in her machine. The silver walls of the maze began to shift and press inwards, threatening to crush my consciousness into nothing.
Panic began to rise, but with it came a familiar sense of annoyance.
Fine, I thought. If I can't talk my way out of this, I'll just have to make myself comfortable.
I stopped trying to navigate the impossible maze. Instead, I focused my entire will on a single point around my consciousness. I began to project the one thing that was truly mine: the feeling of my dungeon. The feeling of the Aura of Sanctuary.
A small, circular bubble of warmth and peace began to form around me in the cold, silver labyrinth. Inside this bubble, the sterile floor softened and sprouted into a familiar patch of bright green, ridiculously fluffy moss.
Kaelen's dream-self paused her attack, her head tilting with curiosity. She was expecting a psychic battle, a struggle for control over her own mind. She was not expecting me to stop and have a picnic.
'What are you doing?' she demanded, her voice laced with confusion.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. But I could do more than just project a feeling. I could project a piece of my own mind, a memory made real. I reached into my own consciousness and pulled out my most advanced, most secret weapon.
A single, small Dust Bunny appeared on the moss patch.
It looked around with its big, curious button-eyes, wriggled its non-existent nose, and then hopped off the moss. It found a corner of Kaelen's perfectly clean, sterile, silver labyrinth and began to cheerfully tidy it, finding a tiny speck of psychic dust and gobbling it up.
Kaelen was completely thrown off guard. Her entire mental fortress was designed to identify and neutralize threats. A cute, harmless, cleaning-obsessed dust bunny was not a threat. It didn't compute.
'What is that creature?' she projected, her voice losing some of its cold edge.
I didn't answer. I just conjured another one. And then another. Soon, a small team of Dust Bunnies was happily tidying her entire corridor.
Then, I brought out the heavy artillery. A large Pillow Fiend flopped down onto the moss patch with a soft poof and immediately went to sleep. Then, a perfect image of Sloosh the slime waiter appeared, holding a single, steaming cup of 'Moment of Peace' tea, which he politely offered to her.
This was my grand assault: an overwhelming attack of pure, unfiltered, nonsensical coziness.
The elf's cold, logical mind had no defense against it. The sterile, silver walls of her labyrinth began to flicker and destabilize. Her focus, the very thing that held her mental fortress together, was being shattered by the sheer, baffling pleasantness of it all.
"Stop it!" she finally yelled, her voice now a real sound in the dream. Her composure was completely broken. "Stop making my mind so... cluttered and pleasant!"
Now that she was rattled, I found I could finally communicate. I couldn't speak, but I could write. I had one of the Dust Bunnies quickly arrange a few specks of psychic dust on the moss patch to form words.
The words read: WHY ARE YOU SO TIRED?
It wasn't the question she was expecting. She stared at the simple, gentle query. She looked at the sleeping Pillow Fiend, the offering of tea, the happily cleaning Dust Bunnies.
The silver labyrinth around us shattered like glass.
The sterile corridors vanished, revealing the true core of her dream. It wasn't a fortress of logic at all. It was a memory. A dark, terrifying chamber, the real throne room of the Blood Pit. And standing over her was the immense, menacing, shadowy form of her master, Lord Vorlag.
I had broken through her defenses, and what I found underneath wasn't anger. It was fear.