Chapter Nine: Ascend

I woke up with my customary loud, lengthy yawn, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. I hopped out of bed and stretched, trudging over to my window. I looked out over the golden streets of Prospit's moon, where I lived in one of the four towers.

I picked up my Bowie knife…although I could see that it had been heavily altered. It was longer, and its grip had changed, making it resemble a slightly smaller version of a Roman gladius. When I squeezed the grip, the blade suddenly shined with a bright red radiance, and that was when I remembered how I'd gotten this strange weapon—I'd used the alchemy machines to combine the properties of my Bowie with a Roman gladius, and a red lightsaber.

I'd done it all in a dream, but apparently some things I did in my dreams could carry over to the waking world. Or rather, some things I did in the waking world could carry over to the dream world… For some reason, I found myself unsure of whether or not I was dreaming at this very moment. Every time I fell asleep in one world, I woke up in another, until I fell asleep again and went back.

I mean, yeah, I know that at any given time either my waking self or my dream self was sleeping…but if all my dreaming entailed was a transfer of consciousness from one body to another…was I ever really dreaming? I felt just as awake on Prospit as I did as my waking self. Once I finally started waking up on the golden moon, it was like leading two separate, simultaneous lives—the only difference between then and now was that I was actually starting to remember my actions on Prospit. They no longer grew fuzzy with the onset of the day, like a normal dream would. In some ways, I even feel more awake on Prospit than I do as my actual waking self. Talk about ironic.

That familiar feeling of jittery weightlessness filled me up, and I leaped out of my window, soaring up through the skies of the golden moon. I breathed in deep, allowing a grin to spread across my face. Sometimes I think that, had I the choice, I would opt to live on Prospit, with Earth being the place I go when I dream. I always felt so much more carefree, so…happier, when I was my dream self. I mean, I'm not depressed or angry, or anything…but I rarely ever felt those surges of happiness and excitement that I felt all the time while I was dreaming.

"Hey! Hey, over here, amigo!" a familiar voice called out to me.

I stopped in midair, twisting around to see Cruz flying towards me from his own tower. My friend looked even more blissful than me…which was pretty much normal—Cruz usually always had a smile on his face.

Cruz flew right into me, and we shared a quick embrace as his impact sent us both spinning out into space. Down below, groups of Prospitians on the golden streets were beginning to gather, watching us fly through the sky. Cruz and I let go of each other and got our bearings back, stopping our crazy, spinning descent, and righting ourselves back up.

"Dude, this is the first time we've been awake here together since when we first met, all those years ago!" Cruz exclaimed. "God damn, I've waited for you to wake up for too long! We need to get high and fly around the-"

"No, Cruz!" I cut my friend off. "No more getting high! You've smoked enough weed to put Jamaica out of business. Are you even awake here right now because you're asleep, or are you just stoned out of your mind?"

"Uh… Well, no, I'm not sleeping right now," Cruz replied as we started drifting downwards, flying slowly over the rooftops. "I'm kind of alternating between bodies right now, and it feels pretty weird."

"How are you not freaking the fuck out right now, dude?"

"I'm not what?" Cruz giggled.

"How are you not freaking the fuck right now?" I repeated myself.

Cruz just fixed me with his goofy smile and said, "No, I'm not."

"No, I'm asking you why—fuck it, never mind," I sighed, abandoning that latest attempt at a coherent conversation. "So where are we going?"

"Where are we going?"

"No, I'm asking you where we're going."

"Oh, we're going to the Citadel, bro," Cruz announced cheerily. "It's the headquarters of the Home Guard detachment stationed here on the moon. It's where the commander of the Home Guard, the White Guardian, lives with his men. Or…well, whatever the carapacian equivalent of men is."

"The White Guardian…" I murmured. "Is this guy taller than all the rest? Silver armor? One of those helmets that looks like it's from the 1500s?"

"Yeah, bro, that's what he wears! You met him already?"

"You could say that…" I muttered, rubbing a tender spot on my head. "It was yesterday, when I was unconscious in the hospital after the high school got obliterated, I found myself on Prospit, but I felt so much more awake, this time…"

"Your dream self is fully awakened when you face things you have never faced before," Cruz actually managed to sound like there was still an inkling of intelligent thought still flickering around his skull. "Downingtown East High School blowing the fuck up and having pretty much all of your classmates wiped out within a second…well, I don't think you've faced anything like that, before. I actually think that's what woke up Cass's dream self, come to think of it. She was with you."

"So anyway, I wake up here and head down to the streets, and all the nearby Prospitians start mobbing me like I'm some ridiculous movie star. Then this White Guardian guy shows up, spouts some bullshit about me needing to return to my waking self, and he fucking hits me over the head and knocks me out."

"Well you know why he did that, right?" Cruz glanced over at me. Before he could continue, we had to swerve around a particularly tall building to avoid smashing ourselves against it like flies on a windshield. "Knocking out your dream self forced you to wake back up in the hospital, which allowed you to make it back home in time to start the Sburb beta. You'd have never made it into the session alive, otherwise."

"…well, I guess…" I was somewhat reluctant to forgive that particular blow to the head…but I guess I couldn't really bitch about it, anymore.

"But yeah, the Queen's also visiting today, and she'll probably want to meet you!" Cruz finally got back to the original conversation. "We're kind of a big deal here, if you haven't noticed already."

Cruz and I continued to glide along, basking in Skaia's warmth, soaring across the rooftops of the city of the golden moon. I couldn't help but smile the rest of the way—every kid who's watched Peter Pan in their childhood has wanted to fly, and here I was…flying through a mystical city of gold. Cruz and I were both laughing once again by the time we reached the Citadel, right near the anchor of the Chain.

The Citadel looked like an old Russian castle, the kind with those weirdly-shaped, bulbous turrets. It stood atop a hill of golden grass with a commanding view of all the surrounding area. It was probably the tallest structure on the golden moon, apart from the four dream towers. A small yellow ship hung in the sky above the Citadel—the Queen's shuttle, I would assume.

Cruz and I landed on the large boulevard that ran up to the bottom of the Citadel's hill. There were many Prospitians gathered there, by now—some having already been on the boulevard at the time, many others having been following me from my dream tower.

More and more of the white carapacians poured out onto the boulevard as Cruz and I made our way towards the hill. They were all whispering to one another, always murmuring about knight and a sage. Remembering how the Prospitians had called me the Knight, last time I'd woken up here, I turned to Cruz and asked, "So you're the Sage?"

"Yeah, bro, I'm the Sage," Cruz nodded. "Sage of Space. That's me."

"What does that even mean?"

"It's what I am, bro! It's my role in this session. You have one, too!"

"Yeah, right, I'm the Knight, apparently," I nodded as we stepped through the gates and started climbing the hill of golden grass, making our way to the great front doors of the Citadel.

"Knight of what?" my friend asked me. "What's your Aspect?"

"My what?"

"Your Aspect, bro! Space is mine—Sage of Space, get it? And you are the Knight of…?"

When I saw that Cruz wanted me to finish his sentence, all I could give in reply was a shrug. "No fucking idea. Everyone is learning this shit from their sprites, dude, and my Sprite went psycho and tried to kill me, if you recall."

"Mm… Yeah, good point," Cruz hummed in agreement. "The only other ones who would probably know are your consorts, but I know you haven't reached your first gate."

My first gate…

A brief cascade of images jolted through my mind, but they were hazy and disjointed. Imps falling to my blade, winged basilisks divebombing me from above, and the stairs…I was always climbing, climbing towards a bright red light that hung in the sky overhead. A brief flash of beady eyes, tusks…a giant fist…

I turned back to my friend as we reached the entrance to the Citadel, stepping past the guards at the doors and into a wide, golden corridor adorned with Prospitian banners and giant windows. "Dude… Why did I wake up, here? I don't remember going to sleep…"

"Uh… You took a little hit to the face, bro," Cruz said to me. "I built your house the rest of the way up to your first gate, and…well, you ran into a little company."

"Wait, so am I just lying unconscious back in my house, which happens to be infested by monsters?"

"Be chill, dude, you're getting some help."

The Citadel was a large structure, full of almost countless halls and chambers. Cruz and I made our way to a main stair and ascended up to one of the higher levels. Cruz led me down another large hall and straight into what appeared to be a giant arboretum—a massive, open chamber filled with all kinds of trees and plantlife, with many small paths running through the space. We walked down these paths to the center of the arboretum, which was a large clearing with the adornments of a family room, or a den.

"The White Guardian comes to this place for relaxation, when he decides he needs some peace and quiet," Cruz explained to me. "I've only been here once before, the first time I woke up. I think I was five… Glad to see too much hasn't changed."

There were six carapacians currently in the center of the arboretum—four of them were standing, and they appeared to be guards of some sort. They wore silver armor and bore helmets that resembled those of the Spanish Conquistadors of ages past. The fifth, I recognized as the tall Prospitian whom I'd met during my last experience here, the one who'd put me to sleep by bashing me in the head with the hilt of a dagger. Like his subordinates, he was clad in silver armor, a large broadsword hanging from his hip. He was easily a head taller than all of the other guards, and his helmet bore a white plume.

As for the sixth… She was tall, slender, and obviously female…yet she looked quite different than all the other Prospitian females. There was an otherworldly beauty to her, as well as a radiance that made it almost difficult to look at her directly—it was as if her very flesh shined with Skaia's brilliance. Her eyes were dark as midnight, however…and I found that her eyes were very easy to gaze at, even though the rest of her was not.

"Is she the White Queen?" I asked Cruz as we stepped into the clearing.

"Yeah, bro, that's her."

The six Prospitians all turned toward us as we approached, and whatever conversation they'd been having fell silent. Cruz had been right—we were a big deal here. The White Queen turned her gaze onto us, giving us a respectful nod, spreading her arms in greeting. "Welcome, my Heroes," she said to us.

I raised my hand in a bit of an awkward wave. "Uh…hi," I mumbled, not entirely sure what to say.

"Greetings to you, Sage," the Queen nodded to Cruz, who returned the gesture with a well-aimed finger gun. The White Queen then turned to me, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And I have been looking forward to your awakening, my Knight. It gladdens me to meet you in the flesh."

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" I finally asked. I wanted answers, and I sensed an opportunity to seize a few. "I'm no knight. What I am is a B-average high school student."

"There is a difference between what you are, and what you think you are," the Queen smiled. "Soon, you will learn that difference. The Sage has graced me with many tales of your home. Earth, he calls it…such a strangely unimaginative name for a planet populated with Humans, who renown themselves for their creativity."

"Well, its real name is Terra, if you want to be technical," I offered my own meager contribution to the conversation.

The Queen's eyes twitched, which I think was her equivalent of raising her eyebrows, which she did not have. "Is it now?"

"Terra's just Latin for 'Earth', bro," Cruz chuckled.

"Dude, since when do you know Latin?"

"Quod sum deum, cunicule."

I frowned at that, recognizing those words from my Latin I class from last year. "Did you just call me a rabbit?"

"No."

Thoughts of Latin reminded me of how we'd first gotten onto the subject… Earth. I turned back to the White Queen, who'd been watching the two of us go back and forth with some measure of amusement. "Earth… When I got here, there were meteors pounding the entire world, and… Is…is there anything left? Are we the last of our race?"

"The planet remains," the Queen assured me, "but I am afraid that the same cannot be said for its inhabitants. Linger here for a moment; I would have words with the both of you privately." The Queen took a second to exchange a few murmured words with the White Guardian and his subordinates, eventually dismissing them. The White Guardian gave me a look as he strode past, but the other guards remained blank-faced. When the Guardian and company had left the clearing, heading towards the arboretum's exit, the White Queen turned her attention back to us.

"I know what has happened with your sprite, my Knight—self-prototyping rarely leads to favorable outcomes, and in your case you have lost your most valuable source of knowledge. Therefore, I will impart to you what little help I can give, so you may be better prepared to accept your role," the Queen explained, deciding to ignore Cruz's yawn. "Since my earliest memories, I have always known that war would inevitably break out between my kingdom and Derse, the kingdom of darkness, where the dream avatars of the other four heroes reside. I have always known that my King is destined to lose this fight," I thought I heard a slight quaver in her voice, but she quickly regained her composure. "The Black King will kill my husband, and he will begin the Reckoning."

"Why bother fighting, if you know you are destined to lose?" I asked.

The Queen fixed me with a sad grin. "Derse may defeat the Army of Light on the Battlefield, but theirs is not the final victory of the war. The final victory, or defeat, will belong to the eight heroes of legend—the Thane of Breath, the Witch of Light, the Prince of Mind, the Muse of Life, the Sylph of Death, the Knight of Force, the Sage of Space, and the Seer of Time. If we do not fight the Black King, he will destroy Skaia without resistance before the heroes are ready to seize their victory. And so, we will fight, and we will fail…for you. Do not waste our sacrifice."

I was silent for a few moments, digesting the White Queen's words. That was some pretty heavy shit to just get laid down on me on the first meeting. I wanted some answers, and I certainly got them. "Knight of Force…" I murmured. "I'm assuming that's me?"

The Queen nodded. "Indeed, you are the Knight."

"Okay, but… I mean, I know I keep asking this, but…" I stopped stalling and looked back up to the Queen, meeting her gaze. "What the hell does it mean to be a…to be a Knight of Force?"

The Queen's sad grin widened into a warm smile, and she laid a hand on my shoulder. There was something about her touch that was very warm and soothing—some part of me actually tried to shy away from it, but I stood my ground, blinking several times. "If I were to tell you that, child, what meaning would your journey have? No, this is something you must discover on your own."

"I don't even know where to start."

The White Queen withdrew her hand and took a step back. "Start with your first gate, my Knight. And do not be too hasty in finding the second. Your planet has native inhabitants—there is much to be learned from them. You will ascend much more quickly with a little patience than you will with reckless abandon."

"Always a pleasure, your majesty," Cruz gave a little bow, allowing himself to rise up a little bit, hovering a foot or so above the floor.

The White Queen held up a finger. "Linger a moment more, my Sage, I have words for you yet."

"My bad," Cruz settled back down to the floor.

"There is another piece of knowledge that was granted to me," the Queen continued. "This Incipisphere is borne of a flawed universe, and so the Incipisphere itself is flawed. You will discover this on your own, eventually. But know this: this Incipisphere is flawed, but not infertile. Skaia made you a Sage of Space, and you a Knight of Force for a reason—the same goes for your other six companions. Together, you will be able to make our Incipisphere whole once more."

"What do we need to do? How can we do something like that?"

"It will take an act of Gods," the Queen replied. "But have faith in yourself. I hope this knowledge aids you in your quest. I fear I must return to my affairs, presently, but I will leave you with my blessing. Pass what you have learned here on to your companions. And just know that when it seems like there are no more paths to take…you may still be able to forge your own," the Queen added with a little smirk.

I frowned, not quite seeing the source of the White Queen's amusement. The Queen noticed my look of confusion and gave me a dismissive wave of the hand. "Just an amusing little play on words," she chuckled. "Even a Queen of Prospit needs to lighten the mood, every once in a while."

Especially a Queen of Prospit… I thought to myself.

"Now go forth," the Queen bid us farewell. "Be the Heroes you are destined to be. Skaia awaits you."

Cruz and I took our leave. Rather than walk back out the door, we just flew up to one of the windows, pushed it open, and soared back out into the open sky over the golden moon. We flew away from the Citadel, leaving the great Golden Chain behind, basking in Skaia's warmth.

"Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Cruz asked me.

I glanced over at my friend. "Hm?"

"I mean, the Prospitians have that hard white carapace instead of skin, right?" Cruz explained himself.

"Yeah, so?"

"Kinda makes you wonder what her boobs feel like."

"…dude, go smoke another joint."

I could feel the pain all over my body even before I fully regained my senses. It was like a dull roar, at first, muffled by the veil of unconsciousness, gradually intensifying into waves of simmering pain, pain which exploded every time I tried to move.

There were sounds of a fight very close by. Grunts of exertion, animalistic growls and howls, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a blade passing through flesh and bone. I wasn't quite sure how I recognized that sound so easily—yeah, I've strifed with my Sis more times than I can count, but we've never actually maimed each other. I've never killed a single thing with my bladekind specibus until the underlings started attacking me after my arrival.

I cracked open my eyes, staring up into the sky of violet clouds, blinking as a drop of rain fell into my left eye. I moved to sit up, but quickly laid my head back down when the pain threatened to knock me back unconscious. I was lying on the ground…outside, obviously, for I felt grass underneath me. As I looked up into the sky, I saw the tops of tall trees to my left, and the towering structure of my mutated house rising up into the sky to my right. I was in my front yard…

It all came back to me in flashes—the top of my house, the two ogres…the giant blow I took to the face, sending me plummeting over the edge of the roof. That would certainly explain why I had my most recent dream on Prospit… I seemed to recall Cruz telling me that I'd taken a little hit to the face—he kind of left out the whole falling off the roof part.

It occurred to me that I'd just fallen easily a couple hundred feet, and I didn't even have a single broken bone. I remembered that pretty much the same thing had happened when I'd been thrown by the explosion of that meteor obliterating the high school—I'd landed hard, but no broken bones. Not even any fractures. This was unnatural.

I turned my head slowly to the left, trying to see where the sounds of fighting were coming from. As I did so, I noted that practically the entire front yard was covered with piles of grist. Dozens of underlings had died here, and dozens more were swarming across the yard, trying to get at me while I was down…but they were met by a winged figure composed of brilliant red energy, and sliced to pieces by a blade of red light.

It would seem that the Prodigal Sprite had returned. The sprite-i-fied version of me wielded a short blade of red light, and he moved like a whirlwind, cutting down any imp or basilisk that dared come too close to me or him. I noticed with some measure of bewilderment how the Sprite sometimes was able to send underlings flying without actually touching them, or how he would be able to conjure bursts of red flame from his free hand. Perks of being a sprite, I guess.

The Sprite glanced over at me, sensing movement. I suppressed the feeling of extreme discomfort that I always got when I saw the result of a combination between myself and an eagle. I mean, he had feathers sprouting from his shoulders, chest, back, and upper arms, not to mention the wings… It's a pretty fucked up thing just to have to look at—imagine having it screaming and slashing at you. Yeah, fucked up, indeed.

As I watched the Sprite, I noticed that he had retained the wounds of the body of the dead dream self with which he had been prototyped—his throat still looked like it had been slit. The wound was pretty discomforting to look at, but it didn't seem to affect the Sprite at all; he had no trouble breathing, and the wound was not even bleeding. Luckily, the Sprite did not give me enough time to dwell on his slit throat, which was starting to unsettle my stomach.

The Sprite finished off one last monster and turned back to me. "Get up," he commanded.

"I can barely move, you fucktard!" I shot back.

"You're a goddamn Knight," the Sprite snarled. "Knights can get sliced up within an inch of their lives, and they can still keep right on going. So get. The fuck. Up!"

Maybe it was what the Sprite said to me, maybe it was purely irritation at the manner in which he was speaking to me, or maybe it was something else altogether, something that I could not even explain… But whatever the cause, I felt a sudden surge of strength, or willpower—perhaps they are more closely linked than I thought—and I pulled myself into a sitting-up position, and then up to my feet. It still hurt like a motherfucker, don't get me wrong…but for some reason, the pain almost seemed to stay at arm's length, allowing me to stand up and start hobbling towards my front door without losing consciousness.

I limped inside, my Sprite hot on my heels, slamming the door shut behind me. The Sprite was next to me the whole time, screaming in my ear, spurring me onward. The stairs were the worst…and, unfortunately, stairs were the only way up to the very top of the tower-like superstructure that had once been my house. I climbed one staircase after another, quickly losing count of how many steps I ascended. My breath came in short, ragged gasps. I ran into a few imps on my way up, and I sometimes had to deal with winged basilisks when I was climbing stairs that were outside.

"I'm never…gonna complain…about slow elevators…ever again…" I gasped to myself as I stumbled up one of the last staircases. I emerged back outside and pulled myself up the last staircase, finally reaching the top of my house.

The two ogres had not gone anywhere—they were still up here, milling about the roof. Upon spotting me, however, they let out raw-throated growls and charged me. My Sprite gave a mighty flap of his wings and surged forward, barreling into the first ogre football-style, sending both of them tumbling over to the other side of the roof. I didn't even get the chance to watch their fight, though, because the second ogre came right at me, fists swinging.

I was incredibly wary of those fists, now—it had been those fists, after all, that had sent me plummeting to the earth the last time around. I dove to the side as the ogre brought its fists crashing down to the floor where I'd been standing, retrieving the Roman from my strife specibus, activating the blade's energy envelope.

I ducked another blow from the ogre, landing a hit on one of its legs as I recovered, cutting its hamstrings. Or, at least, whatever equivalent it had to hamstrings. The ogre gave a growl of pain, fell to one knee for a few moments, picked itself back up. It limped towards me and attacked once again, but I quickly sidestepped the next blow.

The ogre had been expecting me to dodge, however, and it brought its fists swinging around in the direction in which I was already moving. I had no time to react—one fist crashed right into the side of my chest, and I felt something snap under there. Fourth or fifth rib, it felt like… The second fist caught me right on the chin, and my head snapped back. I found myself lying back on the ground, staring up into the sky…only now I could see stars sparkling among the violet clouds.

The ogre grabbed me by the front of my shirt, lifted me off the ground, and threw me back down. I ended up skidding across the roof, coming to a stop just shy of the edge. My Roman Bowie went skittering out of my grip. I tasted blood in my mouth as I reached for my weapon, gasping painfully for breath.

The ogre seized me by the throat, this time, and held me aloft. I tried to break the ogre's grip, but I was barely capable of moving enough to put up a good struggle, let alone actually trying to free myself. My lungs started to burn, deprived of oxygen for too long. The seconds crawled past, and the burning in my lungs actually felt like it spread to my head, as if my entire body were actually crying out for air. My legs kicked uselessly in the air, and I really started to panic…but then something happened to me, inside me…

I'd felt something similar a couple hours ago, when I'd been retrieving cruxite dowels from the cruxtruder, which Cruz had dumped onto the roof of my then-normal-sized house. I'd been attacked by a basilisk, and I'd gotten so pissed off that something snapped within me and I somehow ended up slamming the underling down through the roof and into the attic. It had also happened when I'd gone to the bathroom to throw up, and ended up killing an imp there without even touching it.

My panic was swept away, replaced with an almost inhuman sense of determination. As if my body were on autopilot, my hands dropped from the ogre's grip and formed themselves into fists. I felt a humming sensation envelop me, as if I could feel the very atoms in the wind vibrating ever so subtly. And finally, with every last drop of strength still left in my body, I punched my fists forward…and nearly jumped in surprise as twin jets of flame roared forth from my fists.

The ogre had time only to give a warble of surprise before its head was obliterated by the concentrated bursts of fire. As I fell back to the ground, released from the dead ogre's stranglehold, the humming, vibrating sensation left me, and the fires died. A shower of grist rained down to the ground all around me for a moment, before it was whisked away into my grist cache.

I sucked down the sweet, sweet air as hungrily as a man would gulp down water after having been lost in the Sahara for a week. I saw my Sprite out of the corner of my eye, grabbing one of the first ogre's tusks and bringing his red blade across the underling's throat in a quick, savage stroke. The ogre gurgled on its own blood for a few moments before dissolving into a mountain of grist. My Sprite collected all the grist and gave his wings a light flap, hovering over to me.

"I can't believe I was really this incompetent against ogres…" the Sprite muttered.

I tried to reply, but I made only a few unintelligible rasping noises. I was borderline delirious, after the severe beating I'd just taken. The pain in my chest from the broken rib was starting to intensify; it had been pushed into a dark corner when I'd conjured that fire—yeah, how the fuck did that happen?—but now it was returning to the limelight.

"You obviously can't talk, right now, so I'll make this brief," the Sprite went on. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you back there… I'm just going through some really fucked up mental shit, after what Cass just did to me… Look, it's nothing personal, but I just can't be around you for a while. Here, I'm not supposed to give you this yet, but if you ever need a hand… Don't worry, though; if what I remember actually happened, you'll get along just fine without me. Just like everyone else…"

My vision was going blurry, and I could barely understand what the Sprite was saying to me. I felt him pick my head up off the floor and slip something down around my neck. I could see the first gate hanging in the air above me, maybe twelve feet off the ground. If I could find something to stand on, I would probably be able to jump to it…but standing up at all was out of the question.

I felt a strong grip haul me up from under my arms, dragging me across the roof toward the first gate. I glanced downward. The Sprite was no longer standing over me and talking to me…he was the one moving me. It was kind of strange to make physical contact with the Sprite—his body was composed of that strange, red, light-like energy. His lack of legs and faint translucence made him seem more like a ghost than anything else—not mentioning the fact that he'd effectively been brought back from the dead. And yet…here he was, grabbing me, picking me up, holding me…as solid as corporeal flesh.

I could feel the Sprite take a deep breath, heard the flapping of wings, felt the wind rushing against my face as we shot straight up towards the first gate. The Sprite pulled away at the last moment, but I kept right on moving, straight into the first gate.

There was a blinding flash of red light, and I found myself falling down…down…into my bed. Wait…what?

I looked around, blinking the weariness out of my eyes. I was back in bed, in my room at the top of my tower, dressed in golden pajamas.

I was back on Prospit.

"God damn it all…" I muttered to myself.