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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9063310" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 54: NIGHTMARE STAMPEDEPC Roster: Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 11             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 5             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 5/paladin 6             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 5             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 11Game Session Date: 1 July 2023 - - -The five dreamwalkers, having completed their initial training with Mogo for the night, had been given leave to spend the rest of their sleep shifts in "normal" dreaming - that is, letting their minds wander and allow the dreams to take them where they would, the same as any normal person who wasn't currently working for the Queen of Dreams while their bodies slept in the Mortal World.  As such, each was currently ensconced in their own private dreamscape, dreaming away....THURLOE PULVER'S NIGHTMAREThurloe dreamt he was back in the rooms he had rented back in Port Duralia, back when he had just completed his bastard sword training with Donegal Garabedian.  He was even in bed in his dreams, but he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't wearing anything, and he wasn't alone - for pinned beneath his body on the narrow mattress was a good-looking woman, a pillow held over her face to help smother the screams of delight Thurloe was providing her.  They both shuddered simultaneously as they finished up at the same time.  Then the woman tossed the pillow aside...and with surprise, chagrin, and burning shame Thurloe recognized the face of Charlotte Pulver, the woman who had raised him as a nephew but was, he had recently learned, actually his birth mother, not his aunt.Charlotte's eyes grew wide as well and at first Thurloe assumed it was because she, like he, had not realized exactly until that moment with whom she had been coupling.  But she grabbed the back of Thurloe's head and dragged his head into her chest, and it was only then that the spellsword felt the breeze of a bastard sword blade go whizzing over his head."Looks like history's repeating itself, isn't it, you little bastard?" said Fraser, the man who had first set a very young Thurloe onto the path of a wielder of the hand-and-a-half weapon.  "Only this time, I'll be taking off your head instead of my brother Malcolm's!"  Thurloe recognized the name of the man who had impregnated his mother; he'd even watched the decapitation through Charlotte's own eyes during a recent dreamscape with Mogo, his dreamwalker instructor.  Fraser had slain his brother for Charlotte's rape immediately after having discovered the tail end of the act; now it seemed Thurloe was reliving a version of that even with himself cast in the role of Malcolm.Thurloe rolled to the side, falling off his mother and landing on the floor beside the bed.  He was virtually naked, wearing only the torc of the titans around his neck and the anklet of translocation around one ankle; his clothes and armor were across the room on the top of his dresser (and on the floor before it), but fortunately his bastard sword Spellslicer was within reach, leaning against a chair in the nearest corner.  While Fraser pulled back his own bastard sword and readied to bring it swinging sideways into Thurloe's torso, the spellsword upped his odds of surviving the attack by casting a mirror image spell.  Suddenly there was not one but six different Thurloes for Fraser to choose from, each identical in appearance and moving in a simultaneous fashion, yet still gliding around and around the general vicinity, making it difficult to tell which was real and which were illusions.  While Fraser looked back and forth at the various selections, all six naked Thurloes reached back and suddenly each now wielded his own copy of Spellslicer.Charlotte gasped at the potential upcoming violence and pulled the covers up to her neck."Screw it!" snarled Fraser, swinging for all he was worth and trusting to blind luck to find the right one.  His blade cut right through Thurloe's midsection, but that one was just an illusion and it vanished upon the touch of the blade, much like Spellslicer did when touched to an illusion spell.  There were now five Thurloes in the room, one real one and four remaining mirror images.Activating his magic torc for an added boost of power, Thurloe brought his bastard sword in an overhead swing, bringing it crashing down upon Fraser.  Naturally, all four of the illusions did the exact same thing, and without being able to determine which way the real attack was coming from, Fraser had no way to block it.  Spellslicer cut through the top of his shoulder, slicing through bone like butter and piercing the rogue's lung and heart.  He died after taking a single strike, leaving Thurloe to tug his blade out of the man's corpse.  And as an added bonus, the vampiric touch he usually stored in his blade triggered upon impact, granting the naked spellsword a little bit of extra, stolen vitality from Fraser's now-cooling body.Looking back at the bed, Thurloe saw Charlotte now had the blanket completely over her head and seemed to be sobbing to herself.  Reminding himself this was only a dream and he had not in fact just had sex with his mother, he rapidly threw on his clothes and armor and opened the door leading outside from his rented room.  As expected, the door opened out into the Corridor of Dreams, a vast hallway of side-by-side doors, each of which opened to a separate dreamscape, but he was completely surprised by what he saw....ZANDER QUILSON'S NIGHTMAREZander lay quietly on his back, staring at a ceiling.  His thoughts seemed fuzzy and indistinct; it was hard to concentrate.  However, with a bit of a shock, he came to realize two things: he was laying not in a comfortable bed but upon some sort of hard surface, and he couldn't feel any part of his body below the waist.  His current level of muzzy-headedness made this last point a matter of confusion more so than panic."Ah, you're awake!" said a voice from somewhere behind the elf.  "I was worried you were out for good."  There was the sound of footsteps and then a half-orc stepped into Zander's field of vision.  The man wore an apron over his clothes and had a chef's hat on the top of his head.  "I don't know if you remember anything, but I found you on the side of the road, beaten half to death.  I brought you back here to heal up.  Here, see if you can eat something - it'll help you get better."  And the half-orc held a forkful of delicious-smelling meat - pork of some kind, Zander thought to himself - up to the sorcerer's mouth.Zander took a tentative bite, and found out the man was quite an excellent cook.  The first bite went down easily, and Zander opened his mouth for more; the half-orc was more than happy to feed his wounded patient.  But then a tendril extended from Zander's forearm and pointed itself toward his face, as the nibbish-riule stared at him in shock and surprise.  <What happened to your leg?> it telepathically demanded of its Material Plane host.  <Is it normal for people on this plane of existence to eat their own limbs?>Weakly lifting his head up as far as he could in his present condition, Zander saw his left leg ended just below the knee.  Where it had gone was no mystery, however, for it was right there on a platter held in the half-orc's hand, while the other was scooping up another slice of the shin-meat he'd been serving Zander.  He gave a sheepish, "Aw, you caught me!" grin and set the platter down on the table beside Zander, reaching over to a sideboard behind him and picking up a cleaver - very possibly the same weapon that had severed Zander's leg in the first place, given the recent bloodstains upon the blade.  "Guess the jig's up!" he said.  "Pity, too - I was gonna see how much of your leg I could get you to eat before you figured it out on your own!"Zander chose not to respond - at least not verbally; he let a scorching ray spell that went straight from his hands to the half-orc's face do his talking for him.  The chef cried out in pain and Zander took the opportunity to roll off the table, away from his tormentor.  Unfortunately, there was a chair on that side of the table and Zander crashed into it, tipping it backwards before he flopped onto the floor.  He tried to stand but still had no feeling below the waist, so he pulled himself up on his hands and started dragging himself away as best he could.With a roar of rage, the half-orc came running around the table and chased after Zander.  His cleaver came down, narrowly missing Zander's ear as he dodged away at the last moment.  The blade buried itself into the wooden floor with a "Thunk!" and then, rolling himself onto his back, the elven sorcerer cast another scorching ray up at the half-orc chef.  This one was enough to kill him outright, and he fell backwards, the front half of his body ablaze.Zander pulled himself around to the other side of the table again and reached up to grab what was left of his severed leg.  Realizing this was only a dream and weird things could happen in dreams, he tried holding the limb up to the stump below his knee - maybe it would just reattach?  No such luck.  He tried having the nibbish-riule stitch it together using his own tendril network that laced through the elf's body, but when it obediently gave it a try and Zander tried pulling himself to a standing position, his shin collapsed under his own weight.  Well, that didn't work, either, he thought to himself, giving serious consideration to just eating the rest of it - the few bites he'd had earlier were in fact quite delicious, and it wasn't as if the limb were serving any other useful purpose at the moment....Scooting himself on his butt, Zander found his equipment stashed on top of a sideboard and he gathered it all up.  Then he cast a gaseous form spell on himself, turning into a cloud of vapors that slowly drifted across the room to the one door out of the dining room.  He oozed underneath the door, finding himself in the Corridor of Dreams.  As a vaguely elf-shaped cloud of mist, he technically had no eyes at the moment to gape open in surprise, but what he saw in the corridor would have caused them to do so.  He immediately backtracked into his own dreamscape, sliding underneath the door, and resumed solid form once back fully inside.  Unfortunately, he took the form of a one-legged elf and fell unceremoniously onto the floor, with no sense of dignity at all.  This was bad, this was very, very bad....XANDRO SILVERSTRINGS' NIGHTMAREThe moon was out, the stars were shining, the air was crisp and clear.  It was a beautiful night and Xandro and Robin were making the best of it, playing their lutes side by side.  There was nobody around to appreciate their music but the two of them, but that was all right; Xandro figured they could do the equivalent of a packed tavern house's worth of appreciation, just the two of them.  He certainly appreciated the way Robin looked in the moonlight.Their song came to an end and Robin came to a decision.  "Give me the Dardolian Lute," she said.  "I've become a much better lute player than you ever were or ever will be, now that you hardly practice anymore.  And while we're at it, I'm tired of playing at being even the tiniest bit interested in you, as you're nothing more than a guttersnipe thief skulking about in the shadows!"Xandro's jaw clenched at this unexpected outburst, but he kept his tongue.  And Robin seemed to be reconsidering her words, in any case.  "Actually," she amended, "you are good for one thing: a source of warm blood!"  And she gave Xandro a big smile, one wide enough to reveal a pair of pearly white fangs in the moonlight.Instinct kicked in almost immediately.  While in the back of his mind Xandro knew this was just a dream, he had his Deathwhisper rapier out of its scabbard and its blade buried into the bard's belly in a flash.  Robin hissed in pain and lashed out at Xandro with her fist, connecting a solid blow that drained energy from his body and helped seal up the wound she'd just taken from his sword.  But despite his reduced vitality, he lashed out again with his blade, cutting her first on one side and then on the other.  She tried hitting him again with her fist but he easily dodged the blow, before striking his blade at her again and catching her in the torso, causing her to explode into a fine mist that started dissipating almost immediately.Xandro didn't waste any time trying to figure out how his bardic protege had become a vampire spawn - this was just a dreamscape and there should be a door around here somewhere.  It took a moment's concentration to find it, but having done so Xandro crossed over to it, opened it up, and saw the Corridor of Dreams on the other side.  Stepping through the doorway, he heard the sound of hooves: dozens of sets of pounding hooves.  Turning towards the sound, he saw a stampede of black horses, each with hooves and manes of flame, racing down the corridor in his direction.  A nightmare stampede running down the Corridor of Dreams?  That was certainly new, and nothing the bard/rogue wished to face on his own.  He stepped back into his dreamscape and closed the door behind him.But then no sooner had Xandro exited the corridor than Thurloe stepped into it.  He heard the pounding hooves, saw the approaching nightmare stampede, and ran across the corridor to open the door directly across from him.  Xandro was a bit surprised to see Thurloe suddenly enter his dreamscape, but if the spellsword was taken aback by the midnight landscape of Xandro's dreams he said nothing about it.  "Did you see the nightmares?" he asked Xandro.  "What should we do?"  He knew one thing he could do, however, and that was cast a new spell into his bastard sword - he chose lightning bolt, and then almost immediately regretted it - the spell could be used to shoot a whole line of targets normally, but when triggered by a sword-strike it would only affect the target hit by the sword. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.Xandro fell into his "pre-combat spellcasting" habits and cast a heroism spell on Thurloe.  "I'm going to go check out the next room over," the spellsword declared, and stepped back out into the Corridor of Dreams, only to open the next door in line on that side of the vast hallway.  The rampaging nightmares, he saw, were even closer now.  But he opened the door and ducked inside, surprised to see a one-legged Zander trying to lift himself up off the floor.  Thurloe helped lug him up onto his one good foot, explaining about the nightmares.  "Let me see for myself," the elf sorcerer demanded, and Thurloe helped him hop over to the door and back outside - where, they were both glad to see, Zander now had both of his legs again.  Apparently the chopped-off limb was only applicable inside his own personal dreamscape.The nightmares were almost upon them by this time.  Zander cast an invisible wall of force across the hallway, leaving a span half the width of a man over on the right side so he could still cast additional spells through the gap.  But Thurloe saw what the elf was up to and advanced to right behind the invisible barrier, holding his bastard sword in a defensive pose as if ready to swing it at the first nightmare to approach.  Another door opened behind him, and Xandro began the initial chords to his song of inspirational courage.  It looked like they could all do with a bit of magically-induced courage, for they looked about to be plowed over by over a dozen flame-maned nightmares snorting black smoke....ALEWYTH PUTTERPYE'S NIGHTMAREStanding in front of the mirror in the bedroom she grew up in back in her Underdark home of Stonehold, Alewyth Putterpye stood in her nightgown, ready to go to bed, when the sudden but inescapable fact that she had four breasts stared her in the face.  The brush in her hand frozen in mid-movement, she stared down at the evidence before her.Alewyth did not recall having four breasts.  She had no explanation as to why she suddenly had four breasts, but there they were right there, all lined up in a row -- no, wait, now there were only three.  Somehow, the two in the middle had merged together.  That was weird!  No, wait, now they were splitting apart and there were four again!  What was going on?It all started to make sense when a rather familiar-looking right hand came over to try to choke her.  She grabbed the right wrist of the offending limb with her own right hand, noting the identical beauty marks on each right forearm.  Pulling her duplicate hand from her throat, she looked to her right and saw her own face staring back at her, eyes burning with hatred.  "The world's not big enough for the two of us!" snarled the duplicate Alewyth splitting off from the dwarven priestess at the waist like some sort of dwarven amoeba.In a moment, the split was complete, and a pair of Alewyths, each wearing an identical nightgown, stared at each other, one in surprise and one with glaring evil.  Sjondra was sitting on the top of her dresser, where she'd put it when removing her armor and getting ready for bed - and it was on the other side of Alewyth's "evil twin."Both Alewyths started casting spells, but the evil one finished first, sending a harm spell crashing into the original.  Alewyth gasped as more pain than she'd ever felt before crashed through her body, and she fell to the floor, dead.  The clone cried out in exultation......and Alewyth awoke in her bedroom inside the extradimensional space of Hesperna's lamp.  There were no sounds of combat, merely the gentle snores of her adventuring companions in their own sleeping spaces on the other side of the wall.  Alewyth had no idea what had been going on in her dream, but she knew it was probably important that she re-enter the dreamscape as quickly as she could.  Therefore, without even getting out of bed to check on the others, she concentrated on slowing her heartbeat - she'd awakened with a start upon being "slain" in her dream - and slowing her breathing, conditioning herself as Mogo had taught them to fall back to sleep as quickly as she could....WAKUREN'S NIGHTMARE"It's a lovely day," observed Wakuren, as he walked beside the elven gemcutter Iriadorrista in a park beside a river.  There was a stone bridge just up ahead, and a bench off to the left where one could sit and watch the river.  On impulse, he reached over and grabbed the elf's delicate hand in his own.Iriadorrista's reaction was as sudden as it was vehement.  "Don't touch me, you half-breed mongrel!" she spat.  "You're no better than a filthy animal!  Your kind shouldn't be allowed to wander around among civilized people!"  As if alerted by her words, a pair of elven rangers up on the bridge each pulled an arrow from the quivers on their backs and started shooting them at the half-orc with their longbows.Raising his shield of Cal against the arrows, Wakuren decided he'd try some of the lucid dreaming tricks Mogo had taught them over the months.  First of all, he wanted to calm down Iriadorrista, and the quickest way Wakuren knew of to do so was to cast a charm person spell on her.  The fact he didn't have such a spell prepared at the moment was no great hindrance; this was a dream, after all - he'd just change the parameters of the dream so that he did have one at hand.  The words and gestures to the spell came suddenly to his mind and he cast the charm person spell at what had once been a friendly jeweler - in the Waking World, at least.  But the spell had no effect - Iriadorrista, instead of falling under the half-orc's spell, started berating him for trying to magically change her mind about his horrific appearance, his bestial manners, and his misguided belief that she could ever feel anything but disgust for such a worthless abomination.  Surprised at the continued verbal onslaught - Wakuren had felt as if the charm person spell should have worked - the cleric/paladin let his guard drop and took an arrow to his left calf.Deciding he'd best focus his attention on the rangers, Wakuren tried to cast another spell he didn't already have in his spell inventory: blindness/deafness, thinking a blind archer was hardly a threat at all.  But once again, although the half-orc had every reason to believe casting the spell had worked, it very obviously did not.  Somehow, he reasoned to himself, this dream has been locked down to prevent lucid dreaming from having any kind of effect.Okay, with that avenue of approach apparently off limits, Wakuren tried another.  Calling out to the heavens, he summoned forth Nimbus from the Elemental Plane of Air.  The cloud-steed formed over by the bridge, and lashed out immediately at the nearest archer with a hoof as hard as that of any terrestrial horse, despite apparently being made of nothing any more substantial than cloudstuff.  The ranger took a step back at this unexpected attack and fired an arrow at Nimbus at close range, while the other continued his attacks upon Wakuren.Deciding he'd make himself harder to hurt, Wakuren cast a gaseous cloud spell upon himself and drifted towards the bridge - on the other side of which, he could see, was the doorway to the dreamscape that would likely take him back to the Corridor of Dreams.  Nimbus attacked the ranger again, who dropped back further to continue shooting at the air-steed.  his partner, seeing the difficulty in shooting a floating cloud of mist that had once been Wakuren, sent his arrows in Nimbus's direction as well.Enough of this stupid dream, Wakuren thought to himself as he tried seeping underneath the door to the Corridor of Dreams.  But whereas Zander had done so earlier with no difficulty, Wakuren found his way blocked - apparently his dreamscape was "sealed" until he could finish off the conditions of the dream: he'd have to kill the two elven rangers even now shooting arrows into his air elemental warhorse.  Bummer!Wakuren resumed solid form and almost instantly activated his ring of invisibility.  "He's there at the end of the bridge!" screamed Iriadorrista.  "Kill him!"  By that time, the rangers had finished off Nimbus, whose cloudy form had been peppered with a half dozen or more arrows, all of which clattered to the stone bridge when the horse's form dissipated into the ether.  The rangers reloaded their longbows and sent a pair of arrows over by where the gemcutter was pointing, and one actually hit the half-orc despite his invisibility.  Scowling, Wakuren plucked out the arrow and tossed it aside, being careful to take a step to the side after having done so, so the archers would once again be unsure of his actual location.  Unfortunately, Wakuren's armor was heavy and noisy and the rangers, being elves, had exceptional hearing.  One accurately deduced his location and hit him with another arrow.This was getting ridiculous!  Wakuren cast a gust of wind spell across the bridge, halfway between him and the rangers.  Their next shots got that far before changing course and flying straight up, letting them know their arrows were now useless against the despicable half-orc monster.  Cursing in irritation, they each stowed their bows and pulled out a longsword.  Wakuren took the opportunity to cast a much-needed healing spell upon himself.  He idly wondered if the other dreamwalkers were undergoing attacks in their own dreams, and if so, how they were faring....ALEWYTH PUTTERPYE'S NIGHTMARE (resumed)On the Material Plane, Alewyth Putterpye was back asleep.In the Dreamlands, she was disappointed to see her dreamscape had not changed since the last time she dreamt - not only that, but the clock had continued running during her brief absence.  Her evil doppelganger had completed putting on her armor and now wielded Sjondra in her right hand.  Fortunately, Alewyth's reappearance into her old bedroom was completely silent and she got the drop on her evil twin.  "See how you like it!" she called as she cast a harm spell on her identical self.  The evil Alewyth jolted upon being hit by the spell, but unfortunately, she managed to survive the magical onslaught, resulting not in her instant death but merely a savaging of her current level of vigor.Spinning to face the real Alewyth - still clad only in her nightgown, with no weapons at hand - the evil fake cast another spell at her.  Alewyth likewise flinched in pain, but gutted it through the slay living spell and managed to come out slightly damaged but still alive.  Alewyth reciprocated with a slay living spell of her own, with the same results: some further damage to her twin but not the instant death for which she'd been hoping.The same thing played out in the same fashion with a pair of blindness/deafness spells, each Alewyth hoping to blind the other, but neither succeeding.  Finally, the evil Alewyth charged forward, swinging Sjondra at her hated foe - at least the real Alewyth couldn't reciprocate that attack!  The warhammer hit Alewyth in the side, likely cracking a rib or two, but she reciprocated with an inflict critical wounds spell on her doppelganger and that amount of damage, added onto the previous damage she'd taken from Alewyth's harm and slay living spells, put her over the edge - she dropped Sjondra, fell to her knees, and then collapsed on the bedroom floor.Her battle won, Alewyth dispassionately stripped the corpse of her armor and donned it herself.  Then, grabbing up her dwarven warhammer, she stepped out of her bedroom door and out into the Corridor of Dreams, where everything was a chaotic mix of charging bodies....The nightmares had been charging down the door-filled hallway two to a side.  As a result, the lead two crashed full-tilt into the invisible wall of force and rebounded before being slammed behind by the two charging behind them.  The third pair then crashed into the second pair, but by then the others behind them were able to avoid the pile-up by veering to either side, even though that meant going ethereally through the doors to other dreamscapes before returning to the central corridor.Zander cast a lightning bolt spell through the gap on the side of the wall of force he'd left for that very purpose, and the electrical blast killed three of the charging nightmares outright.  As each steed was slain, its body dissipated into mist.Alewyth found herself under attack by a nightmare passing through the side of the Corridor of Dreams to re-enter the hallway.  Others passed through the walls to line up behind Thurloe and Zander.  The spellsword struck out with his bastard sword, bringing a nightmare down by nearly severing its head from its neck.  (The fact that the sword-stroke triggered the lightning bolt spell stored within no doubt aided in the attack.)  It too exploded into mist upon being slain.Zander crossed to the other side of the corridor, called out, "Sorry, Alewyth!" and sent a cone of cold back towards the nightmares that had ended up there and were turning around to face the heroes on this side of the wall of force - there was no way to get them all without catching the dwarven priestess within its area of effect, but he was confident she was made of tougher stuff than any nightmare.  Seven nightmares were within the frigid blast, and only four of them survived the sorcerer's spell.But now the other nightmares behind the wall of force, including those involved in the pile-up, knew to go around and through the other dreamscapes.  Two more exited near Alewyth and attacked the dwarven priestess, kicking out with their flaming hooves.  Xandro brought one down one of them with Deathwhisper, causing it to become mist.  Finally, all of them had gathered together on the heroes' side of the wall of force and were aimed back at the adventurers, ready to stomp them underfoot.  But Zander's second cone of cold brought an end to that plan; none of the wounded nightmares survived his frigid spell.Thinking the fight was over, the four heroes were surprised when that entire section of the Corridor of Dreams exploded, walls and doors being blasted away in all directions.  Dreamscapes overlapped for a moment and then were whisked away, leaving the four heroes standing where they'd been, only now they stood upon a twisted battlefield.  Wakuren was there among them, surprised at the sudden dissolution of his own dreamscape of the park, the bridge, and the two elven rangers trying to kill him.  He was a bit disappointed that Iriadorrista was gone as well."Hey, guys!" he called to others.  "What's going on?"Tornado-level winds blew the last, broken remnants of shattered dreamscapes away, then dissolved.  The battlefield remaining before the heroes was level ground.  Across from the five dreamwalkers was a wedge-shaped formation of over a dozen nightmares, while flying overhead were eight nightgaunts, faceless gargoyles with glistening, ebony skin.  Standing behind the point of the wedge was a centaurian being wreathed completely in flames, holding a flaming longspear."THIS WILL NOT STAND," boomed a voice from above.  Looking up, the heroes saw the storm clouds overhead had taken on the form of the Queen of Dreams' angered face.  "MY AGENTS WILL DRIVE YOU BACK TO YOUR OWN TWISTED LANDS, NIGHTMARE KING," she declared.  "SEE THAT YOU DO NOT TRESPASS IN THIS FASHION AGAIN."  And with a thunderclap and a bolt of lightning that streaked across the sky, the Queen's visage disappeared.It was fairly obvious what was to happen next.  Upon a cry to attack by the Nightmare King in his flame-wreathed centaurian form, the nightmare wedge charged forward and the nightgaunts followed overhead, the fliers separating into two wings, one veering to the left and one to the right, about 30 feet above the ground.  The Nightmare King followed in the wake of his nightmare force.  Zander cast a haste spell on the assembled heroes, knowing they'd need every possible advantage to take on a force of this strength.Thurloe took the moment before the two forces crashed into each other to cast a protection from evil spell upon himself.  Zander moved up to one side of the wedge and cast a lightning bolt spell down one flank, dropping three nightmares and badly singeing the other four.  The slain nightmares dissipated into mist in the same fashion as those slain in the Corridor of Dreams.Xandro stayed in the back lines, playing his song of inspirational courage on his Dardolian Lute.  Alewyth activated her butterfly brooch and wobbled erratically into the air.  From there she activated her elemental gem and a water elemental twice the size of a human manifested beside Zander.  It slammed a watery fist at the nearest nightmare, but missed.Wakuren cast a protection from evil spell on himself - for his paladin senses told him all of their foes on the battlefield reeked of evil - and stepped forward to meet the oncoming stampede.  The nightmares advanced, five of them running right over the bodies of Thurloe, Zander, Wakuren, and Xandro; only Alewyth avoided being trampled underfoot by dint of her aerial vantage. Others attacked the water elemental and one lashed out at the downed Zander with a flaming hoof.  The sorcerer's robes started on fire as he picked himself up off the ground, but he seemed not to even notice.  Wakuren, Thurloe, and Xandro likewise rose to a standing position, ready to continue this fight.Thurloe killed a nightmare with Spellslicer, then moved up to take on another.  Zander cast another lightning bolt, killing a few nightmares and having his spell course through the flaming body of the centaurian Nightmare King as well.  Xandro stabbed Deathwhisper into the flank of another nightmare, drawing blood.  And Alewyth found herself the initial target of three of the approaching nightgaunts.  She fought them off with swings of her warhammer as below, her water elemental continued attacking with his watery fists.Wakuren ran to the side of the nightmares' formation, taking a few hits from flaming hooves as he did so, but he got into position to throw a javelin of lightning from his gauntlet of Cal through five nightmares conveniently lined up.  The electrical damage was enough to slay one of the more heavily-wounded nightmares.The other nightgaunts approached, four of them dropping down to grab at Zander.  The elf sorcerer knew full well the black, faceless gargoyles were each perfectly capable of carrying any of the heroes aloft, and if they got hold of him it would be simplicity itself for them to fly straight up and release him to fall to his death.  He evaded them as best as he could, but one got him in a death-grip and flexed its wings, ready to go airborne with its struggling prey.  But then something completely unexpected occurred: a square of ground behind the standing nightgaunt disappeared, a new square rising up from below to take its place.  And standing on this elevating platform were none other than Princess Caroline and Mr. Toad, the latter no longer wearing his top hat.  Mr. Toad opened his prodigious mouth and spat forth his sticky tongue, striking the nightgaunt holding Zander in the middle of his black shoulders.  The shock of the surprise attack loosened the nightgaunt's grip long enough for Zander to wriggle out of its embrace.Thurloe and Wakuren found themselves the targets of nightmare attacks, while the water elemental was slain by the hard-pounding hooves of other ink-black steeds.  Its body lost cohesion and splashed onto the battlefield ground, marking its death-spot with a batch of sloppy mud.Thurloe charged towards a pair of nightmares, but instead of attacking either of them he squeezed between them, activating his anklet of dislocation at the end of his run, teleporting right behind the Nightmare King.  The flaming centaur moved sideways, trying to peer between his nightmares to view his dreamwalker foes, and Thurloe took the opportunity to bring Spellslicer down upon his equine haunch.Zander ran from the nightgaunts and cast another lightning bolt spell through four nightmares and the Nightmare King.  Two of the nightmares exploded into mist from the attack.Xandro stabbed one of the remaining nightmares with his magic rapier while Alewyth continued striking the nightgaunts grabbing at her with Sjondra, taking an occasional hit herself from the faceless gargoyles' wicked claws.  Wakuren slammed his shield of Cal into another nightmare.  But the nightgaunts that had dropped to the ground to grab at Zander now focused their attention on Mr. Toad, to get him to release their captive fellow.  Their claws slashed out at the valiant amphibian, and he dropped from the attacks, unconscious.  Princess Caroline cried out in horror, trying to shoo off the "greedy grabbers" with her glowing light stick.  But two of them saw an opportunity and attacked Zander, knocking him out from behind when he thought his escape from the one had dropped him from their notice.  He fell heavily to the ground.Two of the remaining nightmares focused their attacks on Xandro and Wakuren.  But they didn't stick around for long, for Thurloe, activating his torc of the titans to put every possible ounce of strength behind his blows, swung Spellslicer into the Nightmare King multiple times in rapid succession.  The flames extinguished from the Nightmare King's frame and spear as he fell forward; when he landed on his hands and knees he was once again in his humanoid form.  Twisting his neck to look back at his slayer, the Nightmare King promised through a blood-spilling mouth, "This effrontery will not go unpunished!" before falling forward and exploding into a burst of rancid, black smoke that rapidly dissipated in the battlefield air.With the "death" of the Nightmare King - as much as death can be permanent in a dream - the remaining nightmares and nightgaunts opted not to stick around.  Alewyth and Wakuren cast healing spells upon Zander and Mr. Toad, bringing both back to consciousness.  Princess Caroline wrapped her six-year-old arms around her bestest friend's neck, thanked the heroes for saving Mr. Toad, and the two sank below the battlefield, the square tract of land they'd been standing upon being replaced after they had dropped out of sight.The heroes' five moogle guides showed up shortly thereafter.  "The Queen wants to see you, kupo," said Doc.  The moogles led the dreamwalkers through blackened and shattered sections of the Corridor of Dreams (eliciting hopes among the moogles that they didn't get put onto cleanup detail) over to the throne room.  There the Queen of Dreams sat, brooding."This is the last straw," she began.  "Thank you for driving away the Nightmare King; I see now that I must implement greater steps into seeing about his eventual downfall.  In the meantime, you have my gratitude.  I must explore several possible avenues of approach, but I hope to have some concrete suggestions about our next move soon."  She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then looked down at the heroes as if having momentarily forgotten their presence.  "You are dismissed for now," she said.  "Your dreamwalking lessons are on temporary hold; I have other tasks for Mogo to perform."  She then turned to the moogle guides, hovering about the heroes on their little batlike wings.  "See to it that these five receive whatever dreams they wish tonight.""As you command, Your Majesty kupo!" exclaimed the moogle guides as one, before escorting their charges from the throne room. - - -My son Logan has had some thoughts about the Nightmare King's plans, which I will neither confirm nor deny at this point.  His theory is this: dreamstones are Material Plane objects that can affect dreams, and the Nightmare King has developed hypnalis vipers in the Dreamlands, whose venom can affect victims on the Material Plane - what if he's trying to find a way to project himself, a product of the Dreamlands, into the Material World where he can take on a solid form and go rampaging around the countryside?  It's an interesting theory, which is all I'll say at this point. - - -T-shirt worn: My Einstein T-shirt where the smoke from his pipe takes the form of a galaxy.  I often use this shirt to represent the Dreamlands as a whole.</blockquote>

Verification