Vahl couldn’t move. He tried to spring into action but couldn’t. It was like the grotesque monster before him had locked his body in place with its stare.

  The creature looked like a massive gargoyle, carved out of gray stone. It was perched atop a small hill. One made out of human remains. Its long lizard tail wrapped around the white island, blocking the corridor entirely. It had batlike wings and small arms with long, sharp talons at the end. The face was a nightmarish combination of features that did not fit together. Four crocodile eyes and a second, smaller mouth instead of the nostrils. Dark horns grew out of the top of the head and split into smaller horns as they raised higher.

  The creature opened its grotesque lower mouth and spoke: “Play. Leave.”

  Then, after a pause, it gestured at something beyond Vahl’s vision, and its upper mouth opened: “Run. Die.”

  In that moment, the pressure emanating from the monster that was holding Vahl in place disappeared.

  He stumbled to the side, disregarding the creature's taunting.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here immediately!”

  The monster was far beyond what Vahl could manage. It was the size of a small rural dwelling, and its dangerous limbs spoke promises of terrible violence.

  But then Vahl noticed something behind the gargoyle. Suddenly, he understood what the monster was pointing at. And the realization deeply bothered him.

  Behind the monster was the exit. A black canvas filled with stars. It kept subtly shifting while the light changed color and intensity. That was the way back! Vahl was sure of it. After all, it was one of the only publicly available illustrations of the dreamscape, distributed to everyone regardless of class.

  Vahl hated what he was about to do, but perhaps it was the only chance… The only chance he had of getting out of this trial alive.

  What was the likelihood of finding another exit and surviving the nightmares that roamed the alabaster corridors?

  “What do you mean by play?”

  The Gargoyle laughed in a way that sounded more like gurgling. Its lower and upper mouth spread into a sinister smile: “Game. Riddle. Guess.”

  “What if I lose?”

  The gargoyle pointed at him and gurgled: “Lose. Die. Win. Survive.”

  And without giving him any time to change his mind, it began reciting a poem:

  "I follow you in the light, yet vanish in the dark. I loom in the night, leaving a mark. I have no voice, yet fill you with dread. What am I?"

  Vahl was befuddled by this turn of events. The challenge was not physical but instead a riddle. He had expected a chase, but now he had to use his mind and think of an answer. And he had to be proactive about it. Who knew how many attempts the monster allowed?

  ‘If something vanishes in the dark and it looms, then it is perhaps like a shadow. But a shadow would not loom in the night since shadows are invisible during the night,’ Vahl racked his brain to try to figure out the answer.

  It was, therefore, especially troubling when Vahl saw the gargoyle grab a bunch of human skulls and crush them in its grey palm. Then it rotated its hand by a few degrees so that the skull dust could fall out regularly, like in an hourglass.

  “Attempt. One,” the creature enunciated with its lower mouth. Its upper mouth spread into a revolting smile, and drops of a viscous black liquid trickled onto the floor, where an acidic sizzle could be heard.

  Vahl gulped. He was running out of time, and he was not much closer to a definitive answer. At least he hadn’t blindly guessed and wasted his single attempt.

  ‘It makes sense that a monster would loom in the night. Even more than a shadow. And monsters fill people with dread. But shadow is just such a convenient answer. The riddle explicitly states a lack of voice. Shadows have no voice, and they can be scary. But dread is not their inherent property…’

  “Can there be multiple correct answers?” Vahl asked.

  The creature simply gurgled, spilling even more corrosive saliva onto the floor.

  Vahl clenched his fists.

  ‘There was no objective solution to this riddle. One ultimately had to guess and hope that the answer satisfied the opponent. But then what was he being evaluated on? Luck?’

  As the final pieces of the crushed skulls slid out of the gargoyle’s palm, Vahl had an answer: “The object being described by the riddle is a shadowy monster.”

  Vahl smirked: ‘If there is no objective answer, then just merge all the most likely answers together. One could say that no matter whether the correct answer is shadow or monster, a shadowy monster fits under both definitions.’

  But to Vahl’s horror, the gargoyle immediately lunged at him and raised its talons. A sense of fury and malice emanated from the creature’s purplish eyes.

  Vahl stepped back, but he was too weak and slow to do anything. The monster was already upon him.

  Its claws slashed and stabbed deep into the gargoyle’s own head. A dark liquid sloshed out of the cracks when the monster tore out a part of its face. The creature loomed above Vahl, who was once again unable to take a step, and offered him its purple eye, stained with dark fluids and grey pieces of its facial structure.

  However, this time it was Vahl's own surprise that stopped him from moving. He looked at the gargoyle who was offering him its own eye as compensation. Its eye socket had a gaping scar that was leaking with fluids. It stared at Vahl with a deep hatred, and yet it was unable to harm him as if bound by some invisible rule.

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  Vahl crushed his hesitation, snatched the gleaming purple orb, and sprinted for the exit portal. He did not turn back out of the fear that he would be paralyzed on the spot and die at the claws of the grotesque monster.

  His fingertips touched the portal, and the world twisted and fell apart. He could feel a force rush into him and tear him apart, and yet he had no shape or felt any pain. He was like a stain on a blank canvas, dragged around by the artist to serve some grand vision he could not comprehend. Time ceased to exist, and Vahl could not tell whether minutes or years had passed. The only thing he was sure of was his identity. He was Vahl An Louviel. A noble aristocrat. The last member of his dynasty. And he was an “architect”. As Vahl focused on that novel and interesting fact, his shapeless form receded. Bubbles of information streamed into him and carved a cerulean symbol. It was then that his form started to return. At first, gradually in bubbles and then in waves. He could suddenly feel his body, and he could even mould it. It was like shaping a butter cube with a knife or a piece of clay with your fingers. He changed some minor aspects and removed certain things he perceived as faults.

  A wave composed of a cerulean blue shining liquid drowned him, and his body was now solid. The liquid surrounded him like a cocoon and formed time and space as it exploded outwards. He could feel something nested in his head. A comforting presence. A wondrous brightness. He reached into it.

  An endless white expanse drowned Vahl’s field of vision. A massive white plate with no horizon in sight.

  And yet the whiteness was not foreign. It felt like a part of his own body. Vahl felt his thoughts stir, and the whiteness arose and formed a quaint little garden with cobblestone pathways, flowers, trees, and a white gazebo constructed in the baroque style as the center. All paths originated from the gazebo and curved infinitely into the distance, cutting apart the trimmed grassy fields.

  Vahl waved with his hand and summoned a teacup and a table.

  “None for me?” a disappointed voice sounded from behind.

  Vahl turned around.

  Before him stood a scarecrow in a black blazer and ripped pants. His head was a bag filled to the brim with hay.

  Vahl responded without a moment's notice.

  He mobilised the whiteness to form sharp iron spikes that skewered the scarecrow through the chest and head.

  The scarecrow broke into blue bubbles of different sizes that floated into the air before merging again and reforming into the scarecrow.

  “There’s no need for this hostili-”

  Vahl summoned a tower of flames that engulfed the scarecrow, but when the tower disappeared, the scarecrow once again formed out of blue bubbles.

  “Please, stop with this. I am your dream guide. If you want me to go away, then ask me a question,” the scarecrow said cheerfully.

  “But you’re not a dragon. In my dad’s journal, it says that his dream guide was a dragon,” Vahl quipped back while secretly preparing another attack.

  “Well, the visage of the dream guide is different for every person. This is your inner world. You’re invincible here, so it is impossible for me to harm you,” the dream guide replied cheerfully despite his legs sinking into quicksand.

  Vahl paused for a moment as if to deliberate and then continued summoning more quicksand.

  “So you are indestructible as well?”

  “Yes. I am a part of your inner world and your destiny. Defeating a trial grants you the privilege of scrying. I am the medium through which you may ask your most perilous questions.”

  The quicksand was now reaching up to the scarecrow’s neck.

  “Is my inner world accessible at any time? What are the restrictions inside here?”

  Vahl knew the answer to these questions, and he realised his outburst was unwarranted, but the trial had put him under so much pressure that he hardly had the time to organise his thoughts.

  The scarecrow popped like a balloon and reformed above the ground.

  “You enter your inner world whenever you fall asleep, and the only limit is time. Not even the state of your body in the real world can affect your position here. Since your archetype is that of an architect, your inner world reflects that quality, and you can summon items and mould the world as you desire.”

  Vahl summoned his favorite drink: kelp soda. A glass bottle with a green sticker and a metal cap. The dark, bubbly liquid inside sloshed around as he observed it from all sides. Ultimately, he opened the bottle by flicking the cap with his finger and took a swig.

  “It feels quite realistic.”

  “Indeed. Your body and mind have been strengthened, and you can now use the spell orbs that you had acquired. An architect has the ability to shape the spells as he wills, but it is cognitively demanding to do so. You have four spell slots, so plan your spell usage carefully.”

  “I see. So you can only tell me basic information besides my one question,” Vahl said.

  The scarecrow simply nodded.

  “Then I want to use my question immediately.”

  Vahl already understood the basics of being an arcanist. After all, he had access to a trove of ancestral knowledge that was comparable to what some established arcanists had.

  The scarecrow stepped back in understanding and swiped with his empty sleeve, which summoned three bubbles.

  “Past. Present. Future. Choose your time and theme wisely.”

  Vahl replied with conviction: “Past. Death.”

  The dream guide sighed as if he had expected this question. He popped the bubbles that represented the future and the present. Then he added the concept of death to the remaining bubble. The wavy and translucent round object became darker and lost its glassy features. The bubble shrank into a small cerulean bead that emitted a soft glow.

  Without warning, he extended his hand and pushed the information orb into Vahl’s mouth.

  Vahl’s eyes opened wide in shock as he tried to cough up the orb, but it was already too late. The orb had immediately melted in his mouth as a small piece of sugar would.

  A pungent taste spread throughout Vahl's mouth, and a vision intruded into his mind’s eye. The inner world shook as a scene played before Vahl’s eyes.

  A man dressed in a white shirt with simple flourishes and black dress pants was standing on a chair. The background was blurred, but Vahl could make out the outlines of his father’s study. The oversized mahogany desk, darkwood bookshelves, a family painting, small cabinets with metal trinkets, an inkwell…

  The man’s eyes were pitch black, and he carried an empty gaze. As if what he was looking at wasn’t there at all. His pants fluttered as he tied a noose to the ceiling chandelier.

  Suddenly, a multitude of visions materialised in the room. A woman in a purple dress, raining flowers, a duel, cheerful laughing faces that twisted in mockery…

  A sudden snapping sound stopped the visions, and Vahl found himself sitting on the grass beside the gazebo he constructed earlier.

  “Your parents did not die due to a human conspiracy. The mindflayer was truly the one responsible for the tragedy,” the scarecrow’s voice echoed in Vahl’s head.

  Vahl absentmindedly looked around. The dream guide was now gone, along with the vision.

  Vahl stood up and dusted his trousers. It was time to wake up.