That evening, the first session of the "Comfy Corner Combat Simulation Program" was scheduled to begin. My first two students, Zazu and Pip, looked profoundly nervous. They settled into their napping alcoves under the watchful, deeply skeptical eye of Gilda.
"So, let me get this straight," she said, crossing her massive arms. "You're both going to take a nap, and the Core is going to teach you how to fight... in your heads?"
"That is the plan," Zazu said with a level of calm he clearly did not feel.
"I'm a little scared," Pip admitted.
'Do not worry,' I projected to them reassuringly as they drifted off to sleep. 'The training environment is perfectly safe.'
Then they go to sleep and I linked their minds, pulling their consciousnesses into the shared Dreamscape. They appeared on the now-familiar twilight beach, the gentle waves lapping at the sand.
'Welcome, gentlemen, to your first combat lesson,' my voice echoed around them from the dream itself. 'Today's objective is simple. You must face a fearsome opponent and subdue it.'
Zazu's dream-self immediately conjured a shimmering elven sword, his expression becoming focused and serious. Pip, trembling slightly, pulled two shadowy-looking daggers from his imaginary belt. They scanned the horizon, clearly expecting a dragon, a demon, or at the very least, a very large troll.
I summoned their opponent.
With a soft, almost comical poof, a creature appeared in a shower of feathers on the sand between them.
It was a goose.
A perfectly normal-looking, medium-sized white goose. It flapped its wings, stretched its long neck, and then its eyes glowed a furious, menacing red. It opened its beak, revealing a small, rusty dagger held within it.
Zazu and Pip stared.
'A goose?!' FaeLina's psychic voice shrieked in my mind with a burst of uncontrollable laughter. 'Mochi, you summoned a nightmare goose to train them?!'
I checked the system prompt, feeling very proud of my creation.
> [Training Simulation Activated]
> Enemy: 'The Goose of Unrelenting Annoyance' (Nightmare Construct)
> Threat Level: Mildly Traumatic
> Special Abilities: Terrifying Honk, Ankle Biting, Stealing Your Keys, Existential Dread.>
The goose let out a single, deafening, tearing battle honking cry and charged.
All of their real-world training vanished in a wave of pure, unadulterated panic.
"Shield!" Zazu yelled, trying to conjure a magical barrier. But his mind was so flustered by the sheer absurdity of the situation that instead of a shield, he accidentally conjured a large, perfectly round, fluffy pancake. The goose stopped, pecked at the pancake angrily, then honked again and resumed its charge.
Pip, the master rogue, tried to use his skills. He tried to imagine himself becoming invisible, to melt into the shadows. But in his panic, his subconscious mind fumbled the command. He didn't turn invisible. He turned a bright, un-missable, banana-yellow.
The goose saw the giant, terrified banana-man, and its tiny, hate-filled eyes lit up. It changed targets and began chasing Pip down the beach, honking with furious glee.
'Try to reason with it!' I offered as helpful advice. 'Offer it a snack! Have you considered giving it a nice hug?'
'This isn't training, it's a cartoon!' FaeLina howled with laughter in my mind. 'They're being defeated by breakfast and a waterfowl!'
The goose finally cornered the bright yellow Pip and viciously pecked him on the ankle. A notification popped up in Pip's dream-vision. [-1 HP (Psychic Ouchie)]. The "damage" wasn't real, but the feeling of utter failure and humiliation certainly was.
I decided that was enough for one lesson. The goose vanished in another puff of feathers.
Zazu and Pip were left panting on the sand, their conjured weapons having dissolved away. They had been completely and utterly defeated.
My voice returned, calm and teacher-like once more.
'Lesson one: Your greatest enemy in the Dreamscape is not the monster in front of you. It is the panic inside your own mind. If you cannot control your thoughts, you cannot control this world. Class dismissed.'
(The Comfy Corner)
Back in the real world, Zazu and Pip jolted awake, their faces pale. Gilda looked at them, concerned.
"How did it go?" she asked.
Zazu just shook his head, a look of deep, profound respect on his face. "We were... Defeated," he said, his voice quiet.
"By a goose," Pip added miserably.
A final notification appeared, just for me.
[Combat Training Module 1 Complete!]
[Adventurer Skill Progression: +5% Mental Fortitude (Zazu), +7% Panic Management (Pip).]
My first training session was a complete success.