I watched over Lilian as she fell asleep, until now she had seemed peaceful, but she made distressed sounds and was tossing in her sleep.

Do you think she’ll call for me, Lubus? I asked, worried about the girl.

She might not need our help, all she needs to do is remember the flowers. If she smells them, it should make her realize that it’s all a dream. He answered sounding confident, although all I know about dream magic I have read in books, and that’s not very much. He then said, making me even more nervous. The flowers were laying beside her, right in front of her face, there wasn’t much more I could do to help her from out here. I wonder what she was dreaming about, from the way she was whimpering it could be nothing good. There was no telling what would happen if she were hurt in there. I shook her shoulder, trying to wake her up, but she only mumbled in her sleep.

“Lilian, you need to wake up, LILIAN!” I shook and shouted at her, but she just tossed and turned still stuck in her dream.

Something’s wrong, Lubus, I just know it, she won’t wake up. Isn’t there something we could do, maybe enter her dreams or help her out somehow? Please Lubus, look at her, what if she loses herself in there? I said, more desperate now, there was a pause before Lubus answered.

She’s a dream mage exploring her own world, only she can decide when she will wake up. There is something we could try, although it requires you to be asleep.

Yes, yes, I’ll do anything. Oh, this was such a bad idea. I said lying down close to Lilian and closing my eyes.

Don’t worry Eshanai, any danger she is in is from herself, although that is not inconsiderable. Either she will feel your dream around her and pull you to her or I will connect your two minds. Here, let me help you get to sleep, at those words I could feel Lulus’ magic flowing through me, and my thoughts grew foggy as I fell into a deep slumber.

Was that Lavender I was smelling? No matter, it was so nice laying here in this field with the sun shining down on me. Wasn’t there something important I was supposed to do? I couldn’t remember, it would probably come to me in time. Meanwhile, I would be here, just, relaxing. Then another smell hit me like something was burning, I sat bolt upright in the field and looked around. The field full of Lavender flowers, and some of them were burning I could now see in the distance, and then It hit me, what I was supposed to do. LILIAN! Was this her dream or my own? If it was hers I could understand why she hadn’t recognized it as a dream by the Lavender scent, it must have been incorporated into her dream somehow. The smell was slightly overpowering, it was everywhere, how were you supposed to realize this was a dream if what you were supposed to notice as odd was all around you and part of the dream itself?

“Lilian, are you there?” I called out and scented the air with my tongue, there was no answer, but I picked up Lilian's scent easily enough. So I must be in her dream or she in mine, it didn’t matter as I followed the scent past black still smoking patches in the field towards the fire in the distance. As I got closer I could hear Lilian shouting in panic, I doubled my pace, and as I crested the next hill, Lilian came barreling into me, nearly knocking me over in surprise. Words tumbled out of her as she clung to me with desperation.

“Eshanai, oh it’s really you. You’re here, I couldn’t find you, I looked, and I looked, but you weren’t there. Then the drake showed up, and I ran, but now I don’t know where I am.”

“Shh, it’s okay Lilian,” I said as I hugged her to my chest. “I see no drake anywhere, you need to remember that this is a dream. Think Lilian, does lavender normally grow together like this, in these numbers?” She looked up at me, her brow furrowed in confusion as my words seemed to sink in.

“No they don’t,” she said, but soon the panic was back in her eyes. “The drake is making another pass I just know it,” and sure enough as she said the words, a form appeared on the horizon. “See I told you so, we need to run right now,” she tugged at my arm to make me flee with her, but I held my ground.

You need to break her of this behavior as soon as possible, it will only create bad habits, Lubus said in my head, but Lilian stiffened at the words, she clearly heard them.

“Lubus, speaking in my head, but that would mean,” the world seemed to become fuzzy at the edges as the implications of Lubus speaking in our minds became clear. Then as she looked up to see the drake still approaching the world reasserted itself.

“You know deep down that none of this is real. Look around you,” I said, and she did, we were no longer standing in a field of flowers growing together. It was more like they grew in little thickets now, with much space in between. “The world changed when you noticed that the lavender was strange, think about it. The drake didn’t appear on the horizon until you mentioned it. You’re dreaming Lilian, and you need to start taking some control.” My words had an effect as the land around us rippled and turned into an endless white expanse. But the drake was still coming, and it was getting closer by the second. “Lilian,” I said, my voice wavering slightly, “it’s not real, remember.”

“I know, but it’s hard,” she said with eyes shut tight and her face screwed up in concentration. I summoned my shield and armor before I positioned my self between Lilian and the drake’s path. With my shield raised to protect the girl, I could no longer see the drake approaching. But I sure heard its roar as hot flame impacted my shield, I hunkered down behind it to protect as much of myself as possible. The metal shield quickly grew blisteringly hot, but I held on anyway. Just as I was about to scream out in pain the heat disappeared, the metal no longer too hot to hold. I dropped it to the ground and looked at my hands, they were blistered and burned and constantly hurting as I tried to flex them. I looked around at our new surroundings, it looked like we were in a cave with a fire burning in the middle.

“Where have you brought us, Lilian?” I asked, trying to hold my hands in front of me so they wouldn’t bump into anything.

“I think we are in the cave we sheltered from the storm in, well we’re not really here, it’s just a dream, I have to remember that.” She said as she looked around, Lilian seemed awed that she was the cause of this, then she saw my hands. “Oh no, your hands. This is all my fault,” she said as she rushed over to me, but stopped before she touched me unsure of what she should do.

“I can help with that,” a voice came not from my head, but from behind me. I turned around to see Lubus standing there, he was a bit slimmer than normal, but it was still him. I threw my arms around him trying to hug him, but immediately regretted and let go as my hands flared up in pain.

“I’m glad to see I have been missed,” he said chuckling and held out his hands, “place your hands in mine, and I shall heal them. I am still technically trapped in the gem, so this should be easy.” I placed my hands in his palms facing up, and I watched as my hands mended themselves. I could feel Lubus’ power flow through me until my hands were back to their original shape and he let go. I went in for another hug then, squeezing him tight one last time, I let him go and held him at arm's length just looking at him.

“It is so nice to have you back, but how is this possible, can you do this outside of the dream as well?” I asked in excitement, happiness surging through me.

“Just as you are able to manifest your body in Lilian's dream, I figured I would be able to do the same, and it worked. I even managed to make some improvements to myself with a little mental flexing,” he said and looked down at the ground, seeming a bit embarrassed. “Sadly to be able to do this on the outside would require a lot of mana,” he said as he kept looking at the ground, my mood soured at that, but there was something strange about him. Our bond was still in effect, and as strong as ever. The feelings coming from him were confusing, it was like he was hiding something from me. It didn’t feel malicious, so I let it go with a shrug, besides, it was his body we were talking about here. If he had a way to make one outside of this dream, he would tell me, right?

Lying to someone who had a direct link to your emotions was not an easy task, Eshanai looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment before she let it go, her usual smile back in place. I could, in fact, make a body for myself on the outside, the materials were all there, it would take a big chunk of mana, sure, but I had that in abundance now. The dungeon had changed me, my mind had expanded to the point that I found myself solving complex problems to myself that I previously would have struggled with. The biggest change was the mana and how it responded to me. I no longer required words or chants to cast spells, mana responded to my command as if it was a new muscle in my body. Healing Eshanai’s hands was almost trivial, especially as I was still in contact with her sleeping body.

As the dungeon had affected me I had effected the dungeon, it was not the normal murdering machines that normal dungeons were. It had a slowly developing personality, not influenced by dungeon instincts. It was very different from when it had first formed its bond with Eshanai, it was still obsessed with categorizing every living creature that entered its field of influence long enough. But it now seemed perfectly content to sit in Eshanai’s navel, actively communicating with her and even helping her. If I placed my consciousness outside the core in another body, it’s instincts would start to creep back in. That would probably not end well for the still frail personality within, at best it would grow insane from the voice continually telling it to kill people and to dig deep into the earth to form a dungeon full of monsters and traps.

So I waited and planned for how I would deal with the dungeon, I couldn’t tell Eshanai because it could read her mind. Anything I told her Red would know, the question was how though. I had toyed with the idea of suppressing Red until it no longer had any control, but that would require a lot of mana, and any mana that I pulled in would be at the dungeons disposal too. Perhaps I could cut away its instincts entirely, I would have to do some experiments with my newfound control of mana, but this seemed like the safer option. I could think about all this later, right now we were here to teach Lilian.

“So Lilian, what say you we look and see if you have imprinted any spells?” I asked, and Lilian nodded eagerly before she furrowed her brow in confusion.

“What do you mean imprinted spells?” She asked her eagerness slightly tame.

“Dream mages are different from others, I’m sure you’ve heard,” she nodded at this, and I continued. “Good, then you know that you learn spells from your dreams, you have already had some pretty powerful ones so it shouldn’t be a problem,” I said and smiled at the child trying to seem comforting. I proceeded to show her how to feel her mana and when I felt she was ready I told her to focus on her power and cast the first spell that came to her.

“What, in here, in the dream?” Lilian asked a bit uncertain.

“Yes, this is the perfect training ground don’t you think? Any damage you do won’t be real, except to yourself and to others,” I said as I backed up a fair distance from the newly awakened mage. “Dream magic is strange like that, almost as if it were real,” Eshanai looked at me with horrified eyes. “Oh relax, what damage can she do, besides, I can heal her if anything goes wrong,” Eshanai sighed at this and joined me by my side.

In the end, Lilian found three spells within herself that she named, the names would help her bring them out to the real world. They “Were spider shot,” “Defender,” and “Drake’s breath,” that last one cost a lot of mana and exhausted her quickly, but it would be good for her to work up to. We even had some time over for Eshanai to work on her own magic before they had to wake up.