Oozing out of her pastel pink bathrobe, Mrs. Gunhild greeted Felix with a pinched frown. A new set of wrinkles surrounded her dark, puffy eyes. Wine stains and crumbs decorated her stunningly sweaty bodice—the stench of her musk nearly knocked Felix out.

Felix pinched his nose as inconspicuous as he could. “Mrs. Gunhild, I was wondering—”

Mrs. Gunhild huffed, and interrupted in her sharp dismissive voice, “Excellent timing. Step inside. I need someone to talk to. You will suffice.”

“Ookay. Thank you, Mrs. Gunhild.”

A dimly lit hallway decorated in guild-style designer furniture yawned before Felix. Oh Byss have mercy. Three pairs of feline eyes stalked in the shadows, growling, meowing. The smell, however.

Oh Byss have mercy, the smell. Garbage bags rotted on top of luxurious furniture. Everything reeked of catpiss and booze.

Felix treaded forth bravely, trying to avoid breathing through his nose. He had to hurry this up and create an opportunity to ask to use her chip extractor, or vomit might start coming out. “What a lovely apartment you have, Mrs. Gunhild.”

“That’s right. You were never invited to our afterwork get-togethers, were you?” Mrs. Gunhild closed the door and waddled into a spacious lounge with two-storey windows, a monstrously ugly designer chandelier, a bookshelf, an expensive radio, and a denizen trapped within an ornate glass cage. The critter resembled a small woman made out of mis-matched furniture parts. A copper needle pierced its head.

Mrs. Gunhild opened a latch on the cage and dropped in a handful of chips. “Two sofas. Putty leather. Chop-chop.”

Like a starved animal, the denizen gobbled the chips. It then began sketching furiously on the walls of its cage, drawing furniture with its pen-tipped nails. Outlines of two luxurious recliners appeared in the room. Outlines turned into hardwood. Support beams, springs, cushions, and skin-toned leather filled them. In seconds, two sofas had appeared.

“Quit staring at it like some boor and have a seat.” The recliner let out an agonized groan as Mrs. Gunhild’s weight settled on it. “Gosh, it doesn’t make them like it used to. I really should have a relicwright take a look and figure out what’s broken.”

“Yeah. Good plan.” Felix eased down into the seat’s embrace and groaned. It was perfect, as if he had spent all his life in the wrong angles. Even lying down on a bed couldn’t compare!

A stunted tuxedo-wearing denizen with a face obscured by a gray beard brought Mrs. Gunhild a pair of glasses and a wine bottle larger than himself. Mrs. Gunhild picked up the glasses and poured.

“Import from New Swedstad.” She handed him a topped glass.

Felix gestured he was fine. “Oh, no. I have a fever. I shouldn’t be drinking.”

“Nonsense, this conversation requires wine.” She pushed it towards him. “Take the glass. It’s rude to let a lady drink alone.”

And it’s not rude to force alcohol on me?

Begrudgingly, Felix accepted the glass. “Thank you...”

Mrs. Gunhild swished her glass, breathed in the scents, and took a big sip. “Mmmh. Delectable. You can taste the warmth of New Swedstad’s weather. Can you not?”

The only thing Felix tasted with his cautious sip was tangy, yucky bitterness. He kept on smiling. “Mm-mm! Yummy.”

“Isn’t that right? Pays off to listen to the wise.” Mrs. Gunhild tapped her temple smugly. “That’s why I collect the big chips, and you pick them from my grounds.”

“Just. So. Mrs. Gunhild.” Felix’s face twitched. He battled simultaneous urges to jump through the window and throw her through it.

She continued sampling her wine, sighing wistfully. “Let’s pick the rabbit out of the Byss. I know you came here to beg for your old job back. I know your future depends on this, and I have a big heart, sometimes too big for my own good. Aimless young men like yourself don’t have that many opportunities, and if this job helps you from becoming like Erik…” She paused on his name and took another swig. “Then, as a responsible employer, I should look beyond your faults and give you the opportunity. Provided you apologize and meet me half-way with your own effort.”

She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right. Either way, getting his job back was probably the easiest way to get access to the chip extractor. Felix couldn’t believe he would ever be dipping into Erik’s advice on how to handle Mrs. Gunhild.

“You are right, this is my last chance,” he said, appearing as genuine as he could. “I’m terribly sorry about my earlier behaviour. Spoilering the ending of that novel, attempted theft, and my lazy conduct. I thought about it a lot, and regretted my unprofessional behaviour. Apologizing won’t fix what’s been done, so I can only trust in your good nature.“

Yuck. Wine wasn’t half as bitter as the taste of groveling lies.

“Ah-ah. We have time for apologies later.” Mrs. Gunhild raised her finger. “As for the spoiler. Rather than angry, I’m disappointed you never brought up your interest in romantic fantasy.”

“Uh…” He wasn’t. Felix had heard the plot rundown from Linda. “It never came up.”

“Is that so?” Mrs. Gunhild lifted a brow, finished her glass, and had the denizen top it up. “Tell me, though I can take an educated guess. You’ve never had much in terms of romantic relationships, have you?”

Felix balked. Where the heck did that come from? “Well…”

There was this one girl. They had been best friends, then more than that, then awkward strangers once more. A hard spot ached in Felix’s chest at the thought of Saga’s apologetic smile.

“...no, not really,” he said, eyes on the carpet.

“I knew it. Lucky you.” She drank that wine like it was water. “It’s easy to guess these things from the way a person carries themselves, though even I have occasionally been wrong.” Mrs. Gunhild shook her head, finishing her second glass. “I still can’t believe an honest young man like Erik would associate with such hooligans. I failed him. As an employer. As a woman…”

Byss take me. Please don’t go there. Pleasepleaseplease.

“...it was my responsibility to fix him. Do you think he would have reacted differently, if I...”

Three hours. Three agonizing hours, Felix sat through Mrs. Gunhild bleeding out her heart’s woes. The more she drank, the more she kept rewording her earlier points, only with an increasing slur in her speech and more unnecessarily gross details about her infatuation with Erik. His handsome chin, his boyish charm, his deep voice, his Byss damned ass.

Urgh! Felix would’ve felt less like puking if he had spent the hours licking Mrs. Gunhidl’s floor as an apology.

In the end, he did manage to keep the barfs in and did get the keys to her ranch. The disgust faded soon after the chip extractor’s fifteen minute timer chimed, and Felix retrieved his two new perfectly lacquered relics.

Later, Felix, Linda, and Bii wore their thickest clothes, oven mittens, pot-helmets, and all possible safety gear they could scrounge up from the house. Two vaguely humanoid relics rested in the corner, separated from the rest of his room by a bed and a thick drawer. Felix held the fragment of the Dreaming Abyss with a pair of tongs. Sweat gathered on his brow.

“Shouldn’t you wait for Hannes?” Linda asked.

“Negative. All the books say that the side effects of domain transformation is at most negligible reality warping. We’ve followed the recommended safety steps.”

“Three books said that. What if there’s a fourth that disagrees?”

“Then that’d still give us odds of three out of four. I’m gonna do it. Are you in, or are you out?” Felix lifted a scarf over his mouth and pulled a sieve over his eyes.

Linda put on mom’s old sunglasses. “I’m in. Duh!”

“Bibi-bii!” Bii rattled the bucket atop his head.

“Okay. Here goes!” Felix leaned over the barricade, and carefully dropped the domain fragment down where it touched both relics.

For a briefest of doubts, nothing happened.

Then, in the blink of an eye, a storm of sensations exploded around the corner of the room. Sounds of snoozing, shifting sheets, and puffing pillows. Smells of cotton, cool night, and stagnant bedrooms. Taste of dry tongue and unspoken wishes. Sensation of silken sheets, the itch of hay mattress, and weight of blankets. World warped under the colors of gray-and-white. Brick-wall waxed, its grooves and texture rising into flashes of alien imagery, and Felix’s own forgotten dreams—among them a vision of himself standing beside a tall gray man.

Colors flashed back into the world. The reality warping dissipated, leaving behind a small corner of the domain fragment, and two transformed relics.

Icewood had turned chalky-white, and the grain of the wood had warped into spirals, some resembling closed eyes. Dark spiraling veins had appeared on the absorbshroom’s limbs, and its gray shade had darkened ever so slightly.

Felix held his breath, leaning forward. “They’re moving.”

Gently, the spindly dolls rose off the ground until they were upright. Then, in smooth flowing movements, the pair began a strangely lethargic dance around each other. Though Felix heard no music, his brain suddenly hummed the tune of a nameless lullaby.

“Whoaaa!” Linda gasped. “Come on, bind them! See what abilities they have now. Hurry. Hurry.”

Felix reached for his relics and pulled them towards his soul. They dove straight into him, back into the dark corner they’d inhabited before as a single relic. Like a spanking new shoe, they were the right fit, if a little stiff and unfamiliar.

He shed off the protective gear and manifested the new relics. They responded slowly, requiring him to grip tight on the mental image, and keep tugging for several seconds, before they gave in.

A rush of weightlessness coursed through his veins, lifting a weight off of Felix. His muscles relaxed as the braided relic merged with his body, leaving Felix with a sense of emptiness reminiscent of how they felt after expending all absorbed strength. Reminiscent, but different. And through his bones vibrated a dreamlike sensation, which soon faded into a constant awareness of a lack of awareness, as if the relic at once heightened and dulled a sense of… something Felix failed to grasp.

Felix hopped gently on his heels and lifted off. He descended slowly, hair floating around him. “Ho-ho-hohoo!”

“How does it feel?” Linda asked.

He moved a hand through the air, stunned at the ethereal grace of such mundane motion. Everything felt light, as if he was made out of dreams. “Incredible.”

Excitement shook through Felix’s chest, bursting into a squeal. He grabbed the notes with a list of abilities granted by Dreaming Domain and bolted for the door. “Linda, come, I need someone to test this with.”

“Weren’t you supposed to do that when Hannes comes back?” She and Bii hurried to keep up. “He said he’d be back before nine.”

Felix slowed down, realizing he had already climbed half-way up the stairs, almost as if he had floated through the room. This had to be the floating water. It must’ve had amazing synergy with the Dreaming Abyss, considering how floating dancing water was already conceptually similar to dream-like movements.

“Can’t wait. Won’t wait. I have to see what the bones and muscles do!”