Something knocked me off my feet faster than I could say the name.
"Ah ah ah!" Ezephyr sang, shaking his finger at me as he closed the distance between us. "I can't allow you to invite your dragon pet to my dreamscape."
Then he scooped me up by my collar using one of his abilities. A figure of just pure light holding me up into the sky. I was surprised by such strength, but then again, this was his dreamscape which I had lost control over the more I became influenced by its realism. Though the instability still caused the light figure to flicker and the cracks on his face to become deeper.
But something I've learned about dreamscapes is that they are influenced by the information the creator of such scapes retain. In other words, these scapes can be limited to their creator's imagination and information. Knowledge is power, and so is creativity and mental strength. So if I were to exhaust this fool, everything else should be easy sailing.
"I can't stress enough how much of a danger you pose to us all, Prince. That vile thing within you that the council has warned me about. The means our very destruction. Not everyone remembers the change that reshaped our world. And it's best that way."
So he kept saying.
"In other words, ridding of the root of our nightmares will bring everything back. All who dream won't have to suffer nightmares and fantasies anymore. Like how your parents fell for it, we all won't have to either. Don't you agree?"
"What did you say?"
"I rummaged through your memories, encountered that odd abomination in your head. Although I can't seem to retain many of them because of it, I can recall certain details that prove to be troublesome. And others to be a certain trigger. Useful, isn't it?"
"Dreams, huh? Let me tell you something I told the council of idiots-- As this world's nightmare, I'm going to make everyone wish that nightmares stayed as nightmares."
Then I used all my strength to break through his magic. Watching the light dissipate into a million tiny bulbs of light.
"No! Stay away!" Ezephyr growled, running away from me as soon as I jolted towards him.
Seems I couldn't convince him through force. So I had to try other means.
"I know how isolating one's mind can be, Ezephyr!" I said through my teeth, watching as the place around us curved and twisted into a hallway. A type of dark dungeon with twisted hallways that never seemed to end.
I stopped as soon as he did. Analyzing our surroundings and analyzing the stern expression on his face slowly shifting in and out. A sign for me to continue my speech.
"I hold anger. I hold contempt towards those who laid my kingdom to ruins. The lies that stirred my family and tainted my name as Prince. The string that once tied me and my sister, now severed by a flame of pure anguish and falsehood. I want revenge for those whose blood seeps deep in my soul."
I stopped to take a breath as he turned to face me.
I wasn't one to believe that just saying heartfelt speeches could change someone at that same moment very easily. And this moment almost led me to believe it to be true, but a change in the air rose this steamy tension.
"I have felt great pain, Arsin. Unlike any I have ever felt before." Ezephyr's voice echoed throughout the empty space as his body disappeared. Traveling around me like a lost ghost. "A harpist severing my heart like an angel. Grinning with such malice as I watched them from cracked my coffin. Silky dirt easy to bury the weak, but not enough to bury me. I won't let your lies get to me."
"Lies??! You rummaged through my memories and I remember the slaughter!!" I shouted into the air. "You just have seen it too!!"
Silence.
"You're right. But also wrong. While I investigated the council and the dreams of witnesses, I have found many details to be missing." He said. Suddenly appearing behind me to whisper into my ear, "If it's a lie, then where were you after slaughtering that city of light elves?"
Light elves. Their kingdom surrounded by riches and light. A civilization which thrived on magic, law, and medical advances. But most importantly the concealment and cultivation of forbidden magic.
"They were..." My voice drifted in the sea of my confusion.
I closed my eyes in an attempt to remember while Ezephyr whispered,
"Sometimes memories lie just as much dreams do. That's why many pursue ghosts without voices."
"Desire." I suspired in shock. "The bodies I saw weren't of my people..." And flashes of their ruined kingdom flashed before my eyes. The same one I saw before. Except the faces were more clear. Their pointed ears more refined and their marble white buildings more saturated in color.
I couldn't remember everything. But what Ezephyr said spoke truth. It was as if I had my memories and all the truth hidden from me behind an indestructible wall.
"Then what ghost have I been chasing?"
"You seemed just as confused as the human Sin roped into. Intoxicated by this lust for revenge." Ezephyr then appeared in front of me. "It is clear that you are far different from him. A new person with potential that could be led down a different path. Although the council wouldn't agree."
I knew he was going to use this moment to introduce a proposal, so I went ahead and made my move. "You're the first genuine being with great powers I've met so far, Ezephyr. But talk to me when you're actually here."
"And then followed deep silence before I found myself sitting in a dungeon with these magical runes and spells sealing my body." I then stop, twiddling my thumbs together with a quick chuckle. "I didn't expect for all of this to be like a dream within a dream. To find myself in a dungeon, awaken from what I thought was reality next to a stranger with stupid guards unable to mind their own business."
"I heard that!" A guard barks in the distance.
"Oi." The voice interrupts me. I then turn to the stranger with a sigh.
"What's wrong?"
"Half of what you've been telling me only comes out as static and gibberish. Like the words are forbidden. Is this the censoring your friend talked about?"
I nod. "Can't do much about it. If I try telling it a different way it'll only end up being more confusing."
"But it's still confusing either way." Another voice chimes in.
"What?" I turn to catch a guard standing before my cell with attentive eyes on me as he leans on his cane. Both the cane and the cracks of light on his face gives his identity away. "Ezephyr?"
"Yes. Sorry to say that what you had experienced wasn't real." He lies, then touches the cracks on his face with a sudden smirk. "That human you once were showed me that you and I can change the world."
Change the world.
The sentence echoes throughout the caverns of my mind. Screaming more loudly than all the others.
"Ezephyr, what do you think defines a villain?" I say as my mind grows dark. Watching him carefully as he attempts to register my words.
"Nothing does." He replies. "We all live in a world given meaning by people who are protagonists of their own story. Living life however they see fit with a mind full of ambition and pain. The two oftentimes becoming a blur."
"So you will do anything to bring change to the world?"
"Yes."
I smile in full agreement. "I expected no less from a Dream Master." I then peer over at the wall behind me. Analyzing the large magical runes attached to the sealing magic on me. "The council live as a force of good. Believe they give law and order to the people. Punish those that stray from their view of the good."
"They painted you a villain of their own world. A force of destruction." Ezephyr mutters, his eyes falling to the floor. A second of silence passed before he holds eye contact with me again. "I never believed in their philosophy. And I don't believe in yours entirely. But I'd rather not be stuck under their thumb in pursuit of you... I'd rather stick by someone without restrictions. I must get you out of here."
"Where is here exactly?" I ask, because obviously this was not his dreamscape with how refined and detailed the dungeon was. Full of a stench inimitable by one's mind alone.
The magical runes showed boundless years of experience and attention to detail. Qualities that screamed of someone from the council.
"Not my dreamscape. But I'll explain once I get you out."
He holds out a hand, other one gripping his staff tightly as he recites a spell. Eyes glowing strongly while lips sputtering nonstop. The more he spits out spells, the more light that also seeps from the cracks.
"Hey, Bud." The stranger beside me whispers. I nearly forgot about him.
"Yeah?"
"Can your friend also let me out of here?"
I feel the magic around my body loosen little by little. Allowing me to sense magic again.
"Can't say you weren't an attentive ear but you're nothing more than that, my friend. I'll let the fairy decide your fate."
The annoyed stranger exhales with a mix of a growl. "Sure, leave the mutt behind. Whatever."
"I wouldn't trust a werewolf." Ezephyr chimes in, opening the prison with just one light pull. "They obey no one but their master."
With his cane held out, he chants a spell that manifests a small orb of light. Ridding the darkness that enveloped the darkest corners of the dungeon. Eventually revealing the stranger's image.
Can't say I am surprised, but I am astounded by the sight of the black, anthropomorphic wolf with a snout covered in many scars and sharp blue eyes that would not break eye contact with me. His full black sideburns forming the fur that contained his pointy ears. And his fuzzy body wearing nothing but shaggy beige pants. But his chest homes an odd symbol I sense no magic from, but mischief.
The werewolf catches my wandering gaze and flashes me a toothy grin. "The Gods are cruel ones, Prince. But then again, so are humans. The only race capable of killing 'em and become 'em. An endless cycle of bloodshed. Be prepared to meet such a fate, Mad Star..."
His voice disappearing once Ezephyr and I vanish from the cells into a hallway with walls covered in vines and a roof riddled with smeared runes and cracks, to a hallway with purple drapes, chandeliers on the ceiling and red carpets. All stretching out far down the hallway as far as my sight could see, but disappeared everytime we turned a corner.
"Do you know where we're even going?" I ask Ezephyr, who mutters angrily under his breath as he peers to the left and right.
He remains deep in focus until I break it by poking his back.
"Ack!" He flinches at my touch and then turns to me with a frown. "Don't bother me. I need to focus. This dungeon is a maze, crafted by the legendary half-dwarf Dunskur Ferdinand and brought to life by a famous nature elf, Timoté D'Lont. Known for his intricate and sentient magic meant to keep anything inside, in."
"Unfortunately, I have never heard of them. Are they part of the council?" I ask and Ezephyr nods.
"In a way. They're moreso bound to a mutual contract. Nothing magically binding but still serious." He presses his palm against a wall and hums an unfamiliar tune. Running it across the Wall's surface, following a pattern I recognize to be the beginning of a teleportation spell. The other is unfamiliar. "Fortunately I saw the floor plans and mechanisms once in a dream."
The quick wink he gives me brings a smirk to my face. "Peeping Tom." I joke.
"It is obvious this maze of shifting hallways exists to break the minds of prisoners attempting to escape. The faded runes I caught in the corner of my eye held many truths of the dungeon's hidden mechanisms. I know you're new to magic but if you look closely, an experienced eye can see all the magical runes and symbols that make up the place."
Various truths and purposes hidden away from ordinary eyes, just by me focusing deeply I can see it all. The purpose of the dungeon written in its walls. Anyone else would just be running around in a frenzy, fighting the dungeon in an attempt to see the light again.
A warpy semi transparent rectangle then appears before us on the wall, which Ezephyr gestures at with a proud smile.
"We continue through these doors and it'll take us to the exit. Let's go."
And we journey through the warpy doors 7 times now. Coming across many different rooms and hallways. Some like that of an abandoned ballroom and others like a mossy cavern containing nothing but empty space and hoarse whispers from the wind.
But then as we come across a wooden hallway, a short figure appears before us dressed in dark leather with a grey fur coat over their shoulders, almost blending with his full grey beard.
"Not all is as it seems. And not one thing is presumed to result in other." The person mutters gruffly, holding out a shovel.
"Whatever do you mean, Dunskur?" Ezephyr grips his staff tightly. More than I have ever seen. I take this as a sign of a potential fight before he whispers to me, "Ready yourself for a fight."
I get into the position to get ready for the fight but with how many doors we've passed through and the warmth of this room, I feel no motivation to move. Just the incoming wave of sleepiness approaching, gripping my mind and eyes like hands.
And then darkness.
"Are you falling asleep?!" Ezephyr exclaims, snapping me awake.
"I was hit by a wave of sleepiness. I don't know what came over me." I groan, rubbing my eyes to see as clear as day that both Dunskur and Ezephyr were shooting me puzzled expressions.
"What did the council do to him, Dunskur?" Ezephyr turns to the dwarf with a balled fist.
"Giving him less of an opportunity to act." He replies harshly, idly swinging his shovel by his side. "You always did tell me to get out more often instead of daydreaming. So that's what I'm doing."
"This isn't good." Ezephyr mutters softly, glancing at me with a deep frown. "Dunskur is known to be quite lazy. Never really doing work itself. Just daydreaming. But I think the council convinced him in some way. Now he's serious, and serious Dunskur is no joke when he puts his mind to work."
Dunskur without hesitation throws his shovel at us at a whooping high speed. Something as fast as light. And I attempt to trick him, crossing my arms in front of myself. Acting as if I'm going to block his attack.
Seems he fell for it too, as he runs to my right side, attempting to slip behind me. Although Ezephyr takes a while to react, I seize the opportunity.
"Attor!" I shout without hesitation.
"Finally." A voice responds seconds after.