Somewhere in the Marmalade mountains north of the Vitalian peninsula, a man wearing the same checkered undergarments he used to go to sleep in, flew hundreds of meters above the trees and cliffs. He twirled through the mist clouds with his arms outstretched, giggling like a lunatic.

“SKAWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” the man crowed, chock full of pure joy.

As his mouth opened to shout again, he passed through a particularly dense cloud of fog. The moist air tasted citrusy and sweet, and he thought he recognized his favorite additive to toasted bread.

“Jelly?”

Suddenly, the mists surrounding him turned to a thick substance which enveloped him. He felt heavy and sluggish, unable to stay aloft. Promptly, he began to lose altitude, and plummeted headfirst toward the ground.

Fear and confusion gripped him as the rocky outcropping below got closer and closer at an alarming speed, and he realized he was going to die. He also realized, upon noticing the rocks were both orange in color and in the general shape and size of orange slices, that his initial assessment had been incorrect.

“NOOOO!!!! IT’S MAAAAARRRRRMMMMAAAALLLLAAAAADDDDEEE!”

The man both felt and heard his head go splat upon the orange-slice rocks, effectively turning his head to marmalade upon the Marmalade mountains while shouting “Marmalade.”

The man bolted awake, shouting a word he never thought to regard as anything more than his favorite breakfast food. He woke his wife, daughters, and neighborhood dogs. Naturally, none of them appreciated this, and did not hesitate to complain during the man’s enthusiastic ramblings about how real his dream had been, and how even after waking, he could still taste the marmalade. Everyone was quite annoyed. When the man finally settled down, they all went back to sleep.

The man in question had no idea he had just unwittingly entered the realm of dreams called Oneiros.

***

Oneiros was an unusual place, in that it was not a place at all. In fact, it did not exist in the truest sense of the word. Rather, it subsisted on the collective consciousness of every living thing on Erda. In many ways, it was nothing more than an echo. And yet, in other ways, it was more real than the real. Despite being an echo and having a fundamentally conditional existence, things that happened in the dreamscape felt more intensely.

Reality in Oneiros was literally subject to interpretation, and could mold itself according to the whimsy of the mind. The danger was small for most people (such as the marmalade-obsessed man), whose minds only occasionally touched upon Oneiros in the course of regular sleep. Such a person was known as an accidental traveler.

It was common for these traveler’s dreams and nightmares to spill into Oneiros, shaping reality through their enhanced emotions. In the dreamscape reality of Oneiros, their minds became lucid and experienced the full breadth of waking sensation, believing with their whole hearts and minds what was happening was real. Fortunately, any experience of extreme pleasure or pain was more likely to wake up the unsuspecting visitor than cause permanent psychic damage.

On the other hand, a traveler who entered Oneiros by choice, or who was drawn into the realm by force, was at much greater risk. Such minds were more heavily invested in the dreamscape’s virtual reality, and therefore, unless thoroughly trained, could become trapped by the will or whimsy of another.

All of Lola-Lolita Lorraine’s bonded servants, which included Sly and her fellow seductress sisters, had been well educated in how to safely navigate the dreamscape. It was part of their training in mental magic. Yes, it was another powerful arrow in a skilled seductress’s quiver, but it served a practical purpose as well.

By entering Oneiros, it was possible for one to cross great distances with little more than a thought.

For a traveler like Sly, a meeting in the dreamscape was simply a matter of falling asleep and knowing where to be. She was no Dreamweaver, one of those advanced travelers who could effectively wield dreams as weapons, but she was no novice.

It was frustrating, therefore, that something she had done hundreds of times and should have been easy, was taking this long. Entering Oneiros required that one achieve a meditative state between wakefulness and sleeping. From there, a traveler needed to consciously fall asleep, careful to retain the lucidity required to ease into the realm of dreams.

Falling asleep had taken longer than usual due to her restless state of mind. Now she was stuck in a semi-lucid nothing place. If she wasn’t careful, she was liable to fall into a proper sleep without the control needed to step out of it and into the realm of dreams. Oh, and she would miss her meeting.

Tonight’s meeting took place at the Bacchanalia, the name of her mistress’s private realm. It was the weekly gathering of the mistress’s harem. They were her eyes and ears throughout the continent.

Sly did not know whether all of them held the seductress class, or whether all of them were bonded familiars such as she was. She suspected many of them were, but among the women, secrecy was more than just a force of habit.

Shy’s own bonds forbade her from speaking openly of many of her mistress’s secrets and her own status as a familiar. She knew the others were likely to be held under similar constraints.

Infiltrators, assassins, all around gossip girls and spies, Lola-Lolita’s harem was an extension of her influence and power.

Not all her agents would be present at this Bacchanalia, however. Only those who had been called or had something to report would come. At least, that was the existing best practice.

Like all of her sisters, Sly was eager to win favor and attention from her mistress. What she wanted even more was for her voice to be heard. A seat at the table. Earning that meant she needed to cultivate a reputation of only speaking when having something meaningful to say.

For most of her career, it was unusual for Sly to attend the Bacchanalia more than once every few months unless she received a summons from her mistress in her regular dreams. She considered herself proactive, ambitious, and independent enough not to need a lot of direction.

Not everyone thought like Sly, however. There were certainly those who flouted the rules and showed up merely for the mind-blowing sex that typically went on before, during, and after the weekly meetings at the Bacchanalia.

This visit, however, was twice in as many weeks and with good reason. After her report on the conspiracy and intentions between the House Visconti and Lord Zarik Mudalal, she had received specific instructions, including to confirm her conclusions with her own eyes. Sly had been summoned tonight. It was important she be there, and catastrophic if she should miss it.

After finally settling down her thoughts, Sly finally slipped out from the restless nothing-space and fell into the realm of dreams.

At first, she appeared on her bed in the Mud Castle, exactly where her body in the waking world lay. Except, this was a more vivid version of reality, the walls seething with the hatred she get for them. If she was not in control, her environs could warp into a waking nightmare. If she hadn’t been familiar with the subtle differences between the waking and dreaming worlds, she might not realize this was Oneiros.

Feeling both relief at breaking through, and a sudden shock of anxiety for being late, she didn’t waste any more time.

Unlike most of the locations one might find in Oneiros, the Bacchanalia did not reflect an actual place in the waking world.

It was a construct built exclusively through an exercise of Lola-Lolita’s will upon the realm of dreams. As such, it was both a reflection of her nature, and a place where the succubus possessed absolute control. The only way to access it was by invitation, and so long as that invitation was held. She merely focused on picturing the totem that was her anchor in the dreamscape she wished to enter. Then she took a step and was there.

Sly appeared at the base of a five-meter-tall white marble statue of a woman on a pedestal. It was night time, but the ambient light coming from seemingly nowhere, made all the subtle shades of pink around her clearly visible, romantic and mysterious in the twilight.

The statue beside her was one of numerous structures that rose up from the soft pink-covered grass of the surreal cherry blossom forest around her. They made a kind of eclectic stone forest-within-a-forest, made up of pale columns and sculptures amid trees that were always in full bloom.

Hundreds of lifelike statues, plinths and columns were scattered throughout the cherry blossom forest. They mostly depicted a myriad of lewd and orgiastic scene. No two structures were the same, and only one of them belonged to Shy.

Out of habit, Sly placed her hand on the white marble and craned her neck to regard the woman on the pedestal.

Hers was the nude statue of a wild-haired, big chested woman clutching an adder above her head with one hand, and the body of the snake in the other. She looked to have been playing with a snake, when it suddenly decided to attack. The woman had deftly caught it by the neck at the last moment, and now stared at the open-mawed creature with defiant eyes and an alluring smile. The long body of the serpent coiled itself around her other arm and around her arched back, ending with its tail curled along her inner thigh. The general impression was one of a sensuous woman with dangerous appetites.

It was unique among the statues in that the woman represented was none other than a bustier, even more beautiful rendition of Sly. To her knowledge, no one else’s anchor in this realm depicted its owner’s likeness.

In the way that the entire Bacchanalia was a reflection of Lola-Lolita’s nature, the pillars here were a reflection of their owners. All the mistress’s seductresses had their own, and would always appear beside their pillars. They had been created automatically the first time their mistress brought them here, and even managed to change slightly over time. The first time Sly came here, the statue had been a meek little girl.

“We’re a far cry from that little girl now, aren’t we?” Sly told the statue.

Her chest was filled with a wry sense of pride. Her resolve and sense of self were strong, but whenever she looked at this statue and regarded the unconscious manifestation of her soul, it reminded her of who she had once been and what she had once treasured. The gap between then and now always made her oddly nostalgic and often angry.

There was no room in her heart for weakness.

Sly took a deep breath of sweet-smelling air and stepped toward the center of the Bacchanalia. If she had been early instead of late, Sly would have enjoyed a stroll through the forest, which she found extremely centering and relaxing. Instead, her step away from her statue instantly brought her to the fountain at the center of the plaza in the heart of the Bacchanalia.

It too, was built in the middle of the cherry blossom forest, but the trees here were sparse enough one could look upon the starlit night sky.

Sly looked up at the sky, even as she walked toward the crowd of two dozen or more robed women standing on the other side of the fountain. Said sky was covered with an impossible number of twinkling stars, accented by undulating waves of a rainbow aurora borealis. If one looked closely at the sky, as Sly often did when she was here, one would notice the constellations were never the same on any given night.

Tonight, Sly traced the outline of the brightest stars and realized that many of the heavenly bodies were distinctly phallus shaped, thrusting through cosmic space-rings or ejaculating shooting stars upon galactic-sized breasts. It was the most perverted expression of sex and heaven, and it made Sly smile. The world could be literally crumbling apart, but her mistress still had her head in the gutter. Not that Sly was all that different, really.

As Sly joined the crowd, she was approached by a familiar face. A blonde elf with tight braids and icy blue eyes.

“My, oh my, if isn’t Signorina Cagna Rugosa!” said the woman in a much too friendly lilt. “And aren’t you so unfashionably late?”

Sly detested this woman. Belladonna may have been her senior, but she was lazy and crass. At least, that was Sly’s opinion of the elf who thought she was better than anyone and seldom had anything meaningful to say, as far as she was concerned. Signorina Cagna Rugosa was a nickname she was single handedly trying to make popular among the harem. It meant Miss Wrinkly Bitch, and was a dig at Sly’s propensity for targeting older men.

“Good evening, senior sister Belladonna,” Sly replied evenly, ignoring the bait. “I’m surprised to see the Bacchanal hasn’t started.”

Even if she was an hour late, it wasn't possible for Sly to have missed it. These meetings always devolved into a writhing orgy early in the night. Meanwhile, their mistress drew the information she needed straight from their minds in a more advanced version of the magic Sly used to spy on Lord Zarik in the Mud Castle. By the time they were done, everyone was a sopping mess and incapable of looking as composed as everyone did now.

“Mistress Lorraine is in a rush to be done, and forbade us to play tonight,” Belladonna said, frowning down at her robes. “I just wish she didn’t have us all wear these prudish garments. I can’t stand them.”

Sly had been a little too preoccupied to pay them much mind, but upon entering the Bacchanalia, her clothes had been changed into flowing robes in a very Eastern style, with floral print. It covered more skin than she was used to here. Everyone wore similarly styled garb, with slight variations of color that complemented their features. Sly’s was green that brought out her eyes, while Belladona’s was a pale blue.

It was Lola-Lolita’s power that garbed them, and her will that prevented any of the women tonight from removing them.

“I’m sure she has her reasons,” Sly said, looking over to where her mistress was wrapping up a short ritual with a small group of girls. “Please excuse me, senior sister.”

She sauntered past the woman, who looked disappointed she hadn’t found a verbal sparring partner to take her frustrations out on.

Sly watched her mistress place her hands on each of the girl’s heads and hold them there for a few moments with her eyes closed before moving to the next. When she finished, she shooed the girls away and raised her shining pink-diamond eyes to meet Sly’s.

Lola-Lolita made for an imposing figure of glowing pink in her flowing white-fringed robes. Unlike the prudish version she made for her followers, her robes were open, exposing the strawberry-milk flesh of her ample chest down to her belly button, while still managing to conceal her nipples and look more modest than usual.

She stood a head taller than the tallest among them, her ram-like horns protruding from her bright pink head of hair making her seem even taller. Said hair billowed out and down to her ankles in a way that defied gravity, as if she was floating underwater.

This was the vision of their goddess, how she always appeared to them here in her realm and in their dreams. The world be damned if they considered her an evil demon.

Sly became aware of whispered conversations around her but ignored them. There seemed to be a consensus between the sisters present. They believed their mistress was angry with Sly, and many blamed her for the absence of play tonight.

This belief was abruptly made canon in the rumor mill when the mistress proceeded to dismiss everyone.

“Daughters, we will need to cut tonight’s meeting short,” Lola-Lolita said, her sultry voice carrying a slight edge that broke no argument. “You must all leave this dreamscape now.”

There were murmurs of discontent and a group of voluptuous gnomes went so far as to flick their chins and thrust their hands out at Sly in a crude insulting gesture that was typical of their subculture.

Everyone was gone before long and Sly stood alone and in silence before her mistress.

"Alright, Sylvestri, let's talk about what you've learned. Then, we will meet with Merlín. "