The Only Game In Town [Adventure]

Lillian had run for days after Susan had eaten Goo. Lillian had never even considered the possibility that her plans would fail and that she would lose her closest confidante in the Dream realm.

It took Goo's absence for her to realize how much she had been relying on the little guy. His small presence had left a very large hole in her heart once he was gone.

He knew things about this world that Lillian could only guess at. In her days of running, she had seen things that she couldn't comprehend. Air that was fire, places that made her bones turn to jelly, and small worlds that had different forms of living frolicking about.

Goo would have known of every place and told a long and boring history of who had dreamt it up and why it had stuck around in the dream realm for so long.

Lillian didn't know what was what and wished that Goo was there to explain it to her. However, she had noticed that there were two different types of places within the realm of Dream. There were the edifices of stone that housed dreamers. But there were also weird places where dreams had encroached out of the dreamer's mind.

These dreams had become part of the landscape rather than being relegated to a person's mind. They were either incredibly boring or the most insane thing Lillian had ever seen.

Lillian had only stopped running when she had come to an interesting realm. The realm had obviously been created out of someone's dreams centered around a test. They had some incredibly difficult exam to take, and it had created a realm where a test was around every corner.

This normally did not sound like Lillian's jam. However, this place created tests that were specifically just out of her range. The tests would cover random material. Sometimes she would be tested on the art of keeping a household clean, or on the finer points of cooking wild boar.

The tests were always on erratic and odd knowledge, but they were tailored to Lillian so that they were just out of her range.

The realm had given Lillian ample tests on her dream capabilities.

She had been forced to turn into animals that existed only in her mind. She had been tested on her ability to deny other people the ability to control the dreamscape. She had even been tested on her ability to teleport around the world.

Every question was just out of reach so that she failed her tests; but knowledge was exactly what she lacked right now. She needed practice and knowledge to be able to match her opponents. Creatures like Susan were years ahead of Lillian's capabilities right now, but she just needed to know those tricks that were keeping them ahead of her.

Lillian sat cross legged in the middle of a circle. Around her were various trees, each one was colored a slightly different shade of yellow. Some were sickly and others were radiant.

A single sheaf of paper fluttered down on an invisible breeze, floating into Lillian's lap. Lillian pulled a single pencil out of her pocket.

Had there been a pencil there? No. But Lillian had convinced herself that she simply always had a pencil in that pocket and so the dream world reacted to her conviction, and a pencil was there and had always been there.

The sheet was more of a signal than an actual test. A thrum resonated throughout the dream realm as Lillian stood up and felt the world around her.

Behind each yellowing tree was a small gremlin of a similar shade. They tittered to each other while staying out of her view, but that did not matter. Lillian was a part of the dream realm right now.

The ground beneath each gremlin's feet erupted and swallowed them whole. Each one wailed as they were pulped beneath the mass of moving dirt. With a flick of her wrist the earth returned to the state which is had always been.

The test was vague, but Lillian felt she was being test on her ability to connect with the dream realm and exercise the control she had with her imagination over the very fabric of this space.

A new set of trees sprouted from the places where the gremlins had been laid to rest. These were deep shades of red, just like the blood of the gremlins.

Behind these trees were similar gremlins still shaded like their corresponding tree, but this time they had glasses on. Lillian's senses tried to examine these creatures more closely, hoping to understand the differences between the yellow and red gremlins.

Her attempt was rebuffed. The red gremlins had a bubble of space around them that was impenetrable to Lillian's will. Their eyes glinted red, and they ran out from behind the trees and jumped towards Lillian.

Lillian's concentration broke from the world around her and she formed two giant swords in the air that flowed around the gremlins and cut all their heads off.

A red ooze flowed onto the ground and a new set of trees sprouted from the remains of the red gremlins. These trees were a vibrant set of greens.

Lillian took a deep breath and tried to regain her consciousness of the world around her. She once again took hold of the world and made it an extension of herself.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But the world was inaccessible around the trees. Instead of the small bubble that had existed around the red gremlins, there was now an all-encompassing bubble that was impenetrable to Lillian's will that covered each tree in its entirety.

Lillian was unsurprised to see a new set of green goblins step out from behind their respective trees. These ones wore official looking suits of a similar shade of green to their skin.

The goblins did not cackle or rush her. Instead, they circled like sharks. Slowly drawing closer and closer, trying to destroy Lillian's personal field of control with their impenetrable balls.

Lillian had been learning from these tests. They were not just meant to bludgeon her with tasks that were outside of her ability, instead they were specifically chosen to teach her a necessary skill that she did not have quite yet.

Lillian had learned that flashy displays of power were the weakest in the dream realm. Tasks that could be accomplished by Lillian creating a gargantuan monster could be completed in a hundred different and more boring ways.

But being boring was good in the dream realm. The more boring something was, the easier it was to create with mental willpower and the harder it was to dismiss with that same mental power.

Fighting someone in the dream realm was about imposing your reality upon them. But if that reality was implausible to them, then the easier it would be to dismiss that reality and replace it with something more reasonable.

Lillian struggled with creating reasonable things. Her dreams were always whimsical and magical in some ways and so it felt like she was breaking some inner part of her childhood to make something boring.

The green goblins advanced, and Lillian imagined a small sword that granted the wielder the abilities of a sword master. The sword was unembellished since true artistry with the blade was not showy, it was direct and powerful. And this sword was peak swordsmanship made into physical form.

She chose this new sword rather than the giant floating swords because it was more realistic. It was more grounded in reality. She had trained with a sword briefly and had seen Ian use his sword like an artist with a brush. She knew what it was all supposed to look like, so she could fake it into reality. On the other hand, floating swords weren't something people saw every day.

Thinking of Ian, Lillian felt something tickle the back of her mind. She had been fighting Ian before she woke up in the dream realm. Did that mean that Ian was the one who had nearly killed her? What had happened to her friends at that time?

It was futile thought, but Lillian still wished she could just wake up from this imprisonment like a regular dream.

Her moment of recollection had let the green goblins organize and so they pounced. Goblins flashed towards Lillian; spears that appeared in their hands were now reaching for her.

But the sword told Lillian what to do. It flashed in seven different strikes, each one slicing the head off a few spears. With her flowing movements, Lillian wandered around the battlefield, striking at the goblins who left themselves exposed to her attacks.

But the goblins were not that easy to vanquish. Once the first few goblins had perished beneath Lillian's blades the rest converged into a dense group. Lillian was not worried about this at first, but then the goblins started merging.

The green goblins fused into one giant goblin the color of mahogany. The goblin was twice the size of Lillian in all directions and was impeccably dressed. It seemed a tad dramatic, but it wore kingly attire. A crown of pure gold adorned its head and a scepter pointed directly at Lillian.

The brown goblin smiled and winked at Lillian before nightmarish creatures started crawling out of the shadows around Lillian and the green trees. They were amalgamations of crabs and horses, all chiton and hoof. They neighed and clacked their claws together.

This one seemed intelligent, but that confused Lillian since it had broken the cardinal rule of fighting in the dream realm. She had learned over many iterations of tests that the realm constructed that the less realistic the creations were, the easier they were to dispel.

Lillian focused on the nightmarish creatures and sharpened her will into a spear that she intended to strike through each of these unlikely creatures. But when she tried, she found her will being bounced off by the creatures. In her mind's eye, they were more real than she was.

What was happening? She should be able to banish these creatures of the realm instantly, why were they so real?

The goblin looked at her expectantly as the crab horses closed the distance to her. Lillian tried to envision herself with the same sword she had conjured earlier, but nothing appeared in her hand. The sword was not allowed to exist in this area.

This was unfair!

Lillian screamed as she charged at the crab horses, her teeth and nails sinking into the exposed flesh and avoiding the hard shells.

It was futile work though, she could barely do anything to the goblin's minions and when he realized that she had no more tricks left to offer he shrugged and walked away.

How dare he walk away? Lillian felt rage and bile building in her as she watched the back of this goblin walk away from her. His minions had receded into the earth as soon as he started walking away and she was left alone in a grove of multicolored trees.

She ran after the goblin and hit him as hard as she could. It didn't even make him flinch, but he turned to look at her with a gleam in his eye.

"Little child, do not strike your betters." His voice was a deep hiss that made Lillian feel like curling up into a ball. None of the creations of the tests had spoken to her like this before. And now that she was thinking about it, it seemed like the goblin was trying to leave the testing realm. That shouldn't be possible, he was just an extension of the realm.

"What are you?" Lillian said while backing away.

"I am God. And you are a bug."

Lillian felt her limbs slowly start to morph into insect-like legs, and the goblin started growing larger and larger in her vision, until he was the size of a mountain.

But that wasn't really true, Lillian was now much smaller than she had been. She buzzed upwards on her new wings, trying to look this being in the eyes.

The goblin, no, God grabbed her by her wings and brought her up to his now massive eye.

Lillian tried to bite the hand in front of her. If this being was God, then it was Dream, her arch nemesis and she had to defeat them so that she could be free of this eternal prison.

"I am not Dream, little bug." The goblin said, seemingly reading her mind. "I am more and less than Dream. Dream is everything around you, but I am different. Here in this realm belief is all that matters. And I was born to be God, and so I am God. There is nothing else I am capable of being."

What did that mean? How could something be God and not be Dream here? What was this creature?

"I will permit you to live, since your fumbling in this realm allowed my birth. But do not cross me, little one. Remember what it was like to be the bug."

With that, the massive goblin disappeared, and Lillian found herself with her normal body and her normal limbs again.

What was this power? Lillian was confused and hurting, but one thing was clear, there was power that Lillian had never seen or fathomed before, and she wanted it.

She was going to find that goblin and make him tell her his secrets.