Part 3
It took a while, but Kalthier finally decided that he was dreaming. It wasn't the fact that he was floating in what appeared to be space, orbiting some kind of grayish planet, nor was it the fact that he was at times a spaceship, in a spacesuit or butt naked. Surprisingly enough, neither were the calm, happy and painless hours he’d spent looking at the stars free from Eva end his teachers. No. What clued him on his current state of consciousness was a small translucent window that occupied the top-right corner of his vision, even when he saw himself as a spaceship from different perspectives.
At first, as he was floating from star to star across the darkness looking at creatures and plants that boggled his imagination, he didn't notice it. It was much later, when he was suddenly drawn towards that grey, inauspicious planet and began to orbit it that he noticed it. Then came a moment where his brain refused to acknowledge the window as anything but part of the scenery, until finally he was able to focus and identify the window as a system message from Royal Road.
From that moment it took a while to ascertain the fact the he was indeed dreaming, and once he did he felt disappointed by the fact that no matter how hard he tried he seemed to have no control over the dream, even when he was aware of it.
Looking once again towards the system message Kalthier couldn't help but feel enraged at his own stupidity. His litany of curses lost in the vast silence of space.
“Who ever thought of adding basic needs to a MMO, stupid 99% realism. How was I supposed to know I needed to sleep!”
Given the fact that Royal Road’s mechanics seemed to be present in his dream Kalthier did not hesitate to call out.
“System: Show messages concerning sleep in chronological order”
“GODS FUCKING DAMNED!!”
This time Kalthier’s scream reverberated through space in an endless echo, defying the laws of physics as only a dream can. As he heard his scream over and over again as it somehow started to orbit the same planet as he did Kalthier realized something. For the past days he’d been able to curse without that annoying
“What the….shit”
Kalthier didn’t even try to delete his new titles. Having experienced something similar in the past he accurately predicted that the AI, which seemed to have given him a title out of pure spite, would just deny him the opportunity. Instead he dedicated himself with filling the universe with endless echoes of varied and creative insults towards RoyalRoad’s developers, Eva and the obnoxious Versailles AI.
As was apparently his fate in Royal Road Kalthier’s plan backfired. Despite having enjoyed being able to scream, curse and vent out his emotions to his hearts content, he was now developing a headache, hundreds of echos from his own screams constantly blasting his eardrums. It slowly turned his floaty dream through space into a nightmare.
As if having been conjured by his thoughts things got a sudden turn for the worse and things turned into a true nightmare.
First the echoes all disappeared, making the sudden and profound silence more eerie and disturbing than the cacophony of voices everywhere. Then came what would define the beginning of his nightmares for years to come. A laugh, hearty and deep, full of joy and mischief. A laugh that sent chills of fear down Kalthier’s spine from the moment he heard it. Eva’s laugh.
Then, as the laughter slowly joined his echoes in that profound endless silence, a sudden pinch on his pinky finger made him look towards his hands. Look towards his bare beautiful , if scaly, fingers, where a single black ring slowly materialized as time went on. Not only that, but he could feel the planet’s attraction increase with every ring that appeared.
Soon he found himself plummeting towards it impossible speed, his screams of terror completely silent in the darkness. Then he reached the atmosphere, and dream or no dream he started to burn and feel every second of it. A disjointed part of his mind thinking how amazing it was not to have splattered or bounced of the atmosphere.
Next came the cold, chilling wind that at first he welcomed with relief as they put out his flames and then despised as the freezing gusts tore his charred flesh from his bones as he neared the surface.
Every nerve screaming in agony Kalthier looked upon the surface with loving anticipation only to be jarred to a sudden stop as someone grabbed is skeletical body out the air.
“There my child, you are safe now. Let’s get you somewhere warm and make you whole so that you can explain to me exactly how you ended up in the darkest parts of Dreamland with...“
The rest was lost to Kalthier as he snuggled into Vilkra‘s arms and welcomed blissful unconsciousness.
Part 3 End
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