Looking at the creature shimmering like a piece of the sky before him, Myles sighed and opened up its interface.

Name: Unnamed

Age: Stage 3

Sex: None

Race: Astral (Dream Ripper)

Patron: none

Primary Class:

Psionic Extractor

Adept

Brawn: 0

Dexterity: 0

Will: 30

Influence: 20

Soul Energy: 150/150

Mana: 0/300

Elemental Alignment:

Tier One: Shadow

Tier Two: Astral

Tier Three: Dream

Skills:

Memory Dive

Memory’s Strength

Memory’s Reflection

Traits:

Astral Being

Memory Adaption

Memory Attribute (4)

Soul Link: Myles Chase

The attributes of the dream ripper were interesting, to say the least, and Myles had to make a conscious effort to lower his eyebrows. It just didn’t make sense compared to what he already knew. Everything had at least one in each attribute, but the dream ripper had no Brawn or Dexterity. Brawn dictated how strong its body was, and that creature was not nothing. It was also fast, faster than something with a zero in Dexterity should be. The longer he puzzled the attributes out, the harder he sought answers. Well, if the attributes didn’t make sense, something had to be propping it up, right? Myles figured as much and began examining the creature’s Skills and Traits. He didn’t recognize any of them outside of his Soul LInk, but it wasn’t long before he found his answer.

Information Requested: Ability - Astral Being

Due to your taming of the Dream Ripper, additional information has been generated and added to the Dream Ripper lore entry.

Astral Being

Trait

Description: Astral Beings like spirits, projections, and figments have no physical form. As such, these creatures are weak in a physical confrontation but have superior magical attributes compared to other creatures of similar level. These creatures are nearly immune to non-magical, non-elemental attacks.

Studying the ability, Myles scratched his head as Squishy examined a nearby tree. Something didn’t add up. Squishy wasn’t magical... was it… was she? Kinetic Iron wasn’t inherently magical, but the kinetic damage it carried could be taken as elemental force maybe? He may have been a magician, but he still didn’t know as much as he should about the elemental attributes of everything.

Well, at least there was an easy way to solve that.

“Interface, Squishy.”

Squishy

Age: Stage 2 (+)

Sex: Female

Race: Slime

(Kinetic Iron Mimic)

Patron: Rani of the Moonkin

Primary Class:

Kinetic Iron Slime

Skilled

Secondary Class:

Mimicker

Novice

Brawn: 17

Dexterity: 10

Will: 7

Influence: 7

Soul Energy: 70/70

Mana: 20/20

Elemental Alignment:

Tier One: Earth

Tier Two: Iron

Skills:

Mimicry (Iron)

Mimicry (Form)

Kinetic Blast II

Kinetic Redirection

Density Shift

Traits:

Slime Regeneration

Core Soul

Symbiote

Hoard Guard

Soul Link: Myles Chase

Looking between his screen and the sprite of a girl climbing the bon-bon tree, Myles did his best to not transmit his surprise at the changes. Since he’d last checked, Squishy had become an entirely different entity as far as its attributes went. According to his lore Skill, slimes weren’t supposed to gain points in attributes between stages. The gender surprised him, but the way the slime presented herself in his dreams, another mystery he’d have to get to the bottom of, it might have been temporary. As far as he knew, the others didn’t have an assigned gender. He didn’t think slimes had a gender at this point, but the changes only got more surprising as Myles took it all in.

Squishy had a patron god she worshiped, a secondary Class, more Skills and Traits, and a second-tier alignment. The magic wasn’t as much of a surprise as the others. A kinetic iron sli-mimic should have iron elemental alignment after all. With the punches Ashra threw, the upgrade to Kinetic Blast made sense as well. Being bonded for so long, so completely to his other monster could explain the new form of mimicry and maybe the new class could be compensated in some way for that, too. That could even explain the gender identification for the formerly genderless slime, too. Sharing a body with someone would probably help shape its identity. It may have been a stretch, but it did make some kind of sense.

The only thing that didn’t make sense from the get-go was Squishy’s newest trait, Hoard Guard. So even from within the dream, Myles did what he did best.

Hoard Guard

Trait - Mimicker

Cool Down: 12 hours (11 Hours, 26 Minutes remaining)

Distance: Variable

Effect - Passive: Sense the quality and safety of your treasure.

Effect - Active: Quick travel to the nearest of your treasures at risk. This effect cannot be triggered if you are in combat, in immediate danger, or further than X from your treasures with X equal to half of your Dexterity attribute in miles.

It warmed his heart reading the explanation, but it just made things all the more confusing as Myles tried to figure out how exactly his slime had arrived here.

Speaking of here…

Myles checked his interface notifications again and sure enough, he’d gotten a milestone event for the second floor…

While he was sleeping…

Where he’d been attacked by a monster that had used his memories before taming it…

“Sket,” Myles said aloud before running a hand down his face.

That’s why they couldn’t enter the second floor. That’s why the dungeon had provided all of them with the same loot for sleeping as a world event reward. They all needed that loot because the second floor was in their dreams, within the astral realm, within the land of dreams.

The second floor of the grand dungeon this run wasn’t a physical place. They were fighting in the astral, the dream world, in Somniums.

In his world of baked goods and azure skies, Myles sat thinking cross-legged on the ground as Squishy used her newfound arms and legs to their fullest- climbing, then falling, then climbing the large tree again in a never-ending stream of happy, chaotic chimes.

His parents used to read him stories about Somniums, the land of dreams, and up until now, he’d taken them as just that, a story. Somniums was a realm of make-believe, of dreams and nightmares, and the brave Knights of the Dream that would protect sleeping children of all the races from the Lord of Nightmares, his dark desires, and his darker creations.

The more Myles thought about it, the stranger the situation seemed. Could that really be where they were when they slept here? If it was, that raised a whole lot of other questions like where the rest of the world was, but most importantly, was the Grand Dungeon really capable of controlling the realm of dreams too?

He didn’t have an answer to that right now, and if he were being honest with himself, he didn’t know if he wanted them. So, Myles did the only thing he could— continue to figure out what to do with his newest monster.

Returning his attention to the denizen of the astral, Myles examined it again. It hadn’t moved from where it still knelt. It hadn’t spoken or made any other indication it was alive except for shimmering like a foggy veil of stars, but Myles could feel his connection to it as much as he felt any of his early connections to his monsters. It was aware of him, and he was aware of it.

“Can you talk?” Myles asked.

The dream ripper didn’t respond for a moment. Myles felt as if the ripper was looking through him now despite being still as the grave. Finally, after Myles felt for his connection, he found only the briefest feelings of the negative came from the creature. If he had to call it anything, the feeling felt more like an instinct than a conscious reply, similar to the slimes and how they spoke to him. That seemed… wrong to him.

The creature had a Will attribute of thirty which was well above most sapient races that weren’t Runners or Delvers. It spoke to him before. It had been intelligent before, scarily so. It had known him, seen him, manipulated him. Had the bonding damaged the creature’s mind? Was it because it had seen him as prey before? Was all of that its abilities or a reflection of that Will? Myles hoped for the latter, so he searched for the reason in its interface.

Remembering what he’d seen during the bonding process, Myles began to examine the ripper’s abilities, focusing on the four most prime candidates: Memory Dive, Memory’s Reflection, Memory’s Strength, and Memory Adaption

Memory Dive

Skill Type - Active

Cost: 50 SE

Cast Time: None

Cool Down: None

Distance: 40 Feet

Success Determination: Willpower and Influence vs. Awareness and Willingness

Effect: View a random memory of the target based on the following attributes: Brawn, Dexterity, Will, and Influence. The stronger the correlation to an attribute, the more likely the memory is to appear.

Synergy: Dream Tier Alignment

Synergistic Effect: Dreams count as a memory for the requirements of Attribute Memory Slots.

Memory’s Reflection

Skill Type - Active

Cost: 50 Mana

Cast Time: None

Cool Down: None

Distance: 40 Feet

Success Determination: Willpower and Influence vs. Awareness and Willingness, Open Attribute Memory Slot.

Effect: Copy a memory associated with one of the following attributes: Brawn, Dexterity, Will, or Influence and store it in an Attribute Memory Slot.

Synergy: Dream Tier Alignment

Synergistic Effect: Dreams count as a memory for the requirements of Attribute Memory Slots.

Memory’s Strength

Skill Type - Active

Cost: 50 Mana

Cast Time: None

Cool Down: None

Distance: Self

Success Determination: None

Effect 1: Activate a memory associated with one of the following attributes: Brawn, Dexterity, Will, or Influence stored in an Attribute Memory Slot and gain bonuses to the related attribute. No more than one attribute memory may be triggered for each attribute at a time.

Synergy: Dream Tier Alignment

Synergistic Effect: Dreams count as a memory for the requirements of Attribute Memory Slots.

Memory Adaption

Trait

Cost: 100% Mana Regeneration

Cast Time: Varies

Cool Down: Varies

Distance: Self

Success Determination: Willpower vs. Status

Effect: Modify your body with Attributes, Skills, and Traits related to memories stored in an Attribute Memory Slot and gain additional bonuses to the related attribute. Each slot may be used for a single attribute-related change at a time, but changes can be made at will as long Willpower is equal to the challenge rating of the desired change.

As attributes are changed, prior Traits or Skills may become unusable.

Changes caused by Memory Adaption will remain for as long as your mana regeneration is set to zero and may revert when critical damage has been taken.

Synergy: Dream Tier Alignment

Synergistic Effect: Dreams count as a memory for the requirements of Attribute Memory Slots.

Warning: Memory Adaptation may cause physical or mental changes and result in reduced attributes for up to twelve hours when adaptations are removed.

Myles read over the skills two more times before realizing them for what they were. The skills were what gave the astral being substance. If he was reading it right, the dream ripper literally ripped his dreams from his sleeping mind to give itself its different abilities and appearances with a lot of overlap and flexibility in its skills.

Why had it chosen those though rather than pure power?

He was sure Shardking had been very present in his recent thoughts. That thing could have crushed him alone. Maybe the Trait had limits in size and strength? Maybe Shardking’s abilities cost mana rather than Soul Energy. Maybe it just wasn’t as strongly associated with one attribute as Myles thought.

As he wandered through the different applications of the ability, Squishy wandered back and sat down next to him. The metallic slime girl looked up at the shimmering shade curiously before reaching out and putting a hand through its incorporeal form as if it were nothing more than a fog bank. A feeling of annoyance radiated through the ripper, but it made no moves, no noises, and did nothing to stop her.

“Squishy,” Myles warned. “Don’t tease the scary fog.”

Squishy looked longingly at the space, shimmering with ethereal light before looking back to Myles and chiming soft compliance before sitting herself back down next to him.

“Thank you.”

Squishy gave him the warmest smile he’d ever felt and went back to the tree but didn’t climb. Her wide, black eyes kept themselves pinned on the two. Myles could feel them more than see him as he focused, but that was the life of a [Monster Tamer]. Speaking of, how was this going to work?

If the dream ripper only existed in the astral, in Somniums, could he use it in the real world? Would it even survive there without a body? In theory, a strong wind could rip it to shreds without a corporeal form to protect… whatever it was that made it alive.

As he thought, the creature simply shimmered there, waiting for Myles to decide what to do next. Looking through his abilities, an answer presented itself.

Apprentice’s Stasis Gem Creation

Skill Type: Active - Monster Tamer

Cost: 30 SE

Distance: Self

Casting Time: 30 Seconds

Success Determination: Once per day - Uninterrupted.

Effect: Forge a stasis gem from the ambient aether around you.

Apprentice’s Stasis Gem

Value: N/A

Monster Tamer Class Item

Description: An apprentice-quality gemstone created from stasis magic.

Use: This gemstone, when attuned to a willing creature, will hold the body of the attuned creature in an extraplanar space most suited for the situation, freezing them in time and condition while allowing their mind to sustain an Essence Bond to their tamer, imparting the Stasis effect. This effect can be ended with a mental command and the creature resummoned. Stasis gems must be formed especially for each creature and cannot be made before a bond is established.

Only five stasis gems may be in existence at any given time.

Myles grinned, realizing he may have found just the loophole he was looking for. If his skills worked here, why wouldn’t this one? When he used Stasis Gem Creation before, the gemstone was created and absorbed the monster on touch. If he got it to his barn and socketed it to his quickly-dwindling number of stables, his ripper would have a proper home in the real world.

Of course, that all hinged on the fact that this carried over to the real world. If the realm of Somniums was the second floor, it would make sense loot would drop, and there would have to be some way to bring it back, right? If he failed, it was only a cooldown wasted.

Looking at the dream ripper and its skills over again, Myles sighed. He had the feeling this wasn’t going to be a fun experience to be awake for. Well, at least he had a name for his newest creature.

“All right, Nod. Let’s do this.”

Name Accepted.

New Name: Nod

View the status of Nod?

Tamer: Yes/No

Myles took a deep breath and ignored the request. A moment later, he gave Nod the okay to probe his memories.

***

Myles awoke with a cry of distress from his nap as reality came crashing in around him.

Squishy was nowhere to be seen and Ashra was at his bedside once more, silently observing as she had done so many times before, but her worry was concerning as he got his breathing back under control. A quick check under the blankets showed Squishy still bonded with him like a skin-tight set of armor, and he easily sat back up.

“Are you all right?” Ashra asked, strangely use to the [Monster Tamer]’s new wake-up ritual.

For a long moment, Myles was silent as he shifted uncomfortably on his bed. When he did finally say something, the words meant little to the Monsterkin. “I am not doing that again.”

“Sleeping is an essential part of life, Myles.”

The [Monster Tamer] was about to reply with his own brand of snark before he felt a flash of amusement from Ashra. She really was growing. Besides, he had something a little more important to check on as he looked down at his still-clenched fist.

He felt a weight there as he brought it higher and opened it. In the center of his palm sat a gleaming, black opal.

Ashra noticed as well and looked into the stone. The stone seemed to drink in the light, appearing as a small void as he looked into it. For just a moment, he swore it starred back expectantly, almost curious.

“What is that?”

Myles grinned as he slipped the stone into his pocket and answered her. “A new ally.”