“Oh my,” said the horrifying apparition, “aren’t you a clever boy!”

  Gone was the deep, soul-rattling cataclysm of the void-woman’s voice. Now she had the tone of a kindly old woman, though he couldn’t help but notice that the psychotic imagery of her dream avatar remained as disturbing as before.

  “Of course I recognize you.” Tyr bowed his head with appropriate respect to his elder. “Your legend is still spoken of to this day.”

  Her arms struggled against the straitjacket of lavender energy, as if she was attempting to break free in order to pinch his cheeks. “A flatterer! WHAT HAVE THEY TOLD YOU?”

  Ah, there was that sinister tone once more.

  Tyr tried to remain casual. As if this was within his expectations. In truth, despite the few hushed mentions he had heard of her in the past, he hadn’t expected her to invade his dreams and send a Lesser Mindfiend to test his mettle. Really, he hadn't known it was possible to even communicate with her anymore.

  That did sort of track with her reputed behavior, though. If anyone thought such a trial was appropriate, it would be her.

  She was the hereditary source of his connection to Dream and Moon, and Dream was his second-highest affinity at 64. When a mysterious, overly-dramatic figure utilized her mastery of those elements to create a mental playground for his benefit, it wasn’t too much of a leap to unmask the culprit: Leon’s infamous Mother.

  Or, as she was currently known, Lady Dementia.

  “I’ve heard good things,” Tyr lied shamelessly. “Though I’m surprised you were able to find me in my dreams! I heard you were imprisoned within the Moon, or something silly like that.”

  GranGran scoffed and adjusted her bound torso slightly. “My stay at the Horasin Orazon is not by choice, so I suppose you could call it ‘imprisonment.’ It is more of an assisted living care facility, as if I am too elderly to mind my own business. I am a Legendary Saintess. I raised two ungrateful boys and tamed multiple layers of Astral Instances over the past millennium. And my own children shipped me off to the Moon!”

  That was one interpretation of the stories Tyr had overheard, at least. He was pretty sure the closest translation for Horasin Orazon was something like ‘Lunatic Asylum’.

  Well, maybe this world didn’t have such a negative connotation associated with the term, like people had developed back on Earth after learning what horrors transpired within those facilities. Some people just needed a closer eye kept on them, so they were buried within celestial objects millions of miles from everyone else.

  As far as he could tell, his grandma didn’t seem to be too criminally insane. Though the Mindfiend was a bit of a red flag.

  “Yes, well, apparently people are really sensitive about Psychic Types nowadays.” Tyr shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve heard you’re really good at forcing nightmares on your enemies and driving them insane. I guess that makes people a little jumpy.”

  She shook her head. “PATHETIC. I expect no less from this generation. Back in my day, if you couldn’t protect your mind, you wouldn’t last long. Doze off for a bit and you wake up possessed by an Abyssal Mindeater. That was if you were lucky. One of my brothers—there were fifteen of us, guess how many are left?—one of my brothers, he caught an Astral Soul Virus and, well, you know what happened next. That area had to be purged from existence afterwards. Messy, messy.”

  Tyr scratched his chin. “Of course. Well, it’s been a lot of fun—”

  She continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “After I tamed the Astral Instance, six, seven layers deep now, people lost that fear of the unknown. Of the eldritch. They started to consider my powers unholy, instead of a necessary evil. They stuck me on the Moon like I’m some sort of Effigy Ward. Keep me sedated, locked in constant war against the encroaching Void. They think this arrangement is more than a stopgap. That the peace they have been handed will last forever.”

  “Well, you’re doing a great job so far, GranGran.” Tyr gave her a thumbs up. “Screw whoever ‘they’ are, really.”

  “A great job? I’m doing a great job? What have I done but delay, delay, delay? They are fortunate that I sensed your unlocked potential and have chosen to take you as my Astral Apprentice. Only you can fight off the horrifying, mind-shredding abominations that claw at the boundaries of existence.”

  “Oh, me?” Tyr pointed at himself. “Are you sure? I have a lot of studying and homework to catch up on. Plus, possession by an Abyssal Mindeater sounds kind of—”

  “Of course it has to be YOU.” GranGran’s floating void-hair expanded, creeping outward to devour sections of the cosmic tunnel that had brought Tyr before her. “Who else could do it but you, Leon, my dear boy?”

  Tyr grimaced and tugged at his collar. “I’m Tyr. Leon’s son. Your grandson. I really doubt he looked like me when he was young.” He curled a strand of golden hair around his finger in demonstration.

  Her own hair continued to billow outward, shredding the world around them. “Now is not the time for your pranks, Leon. Will you really waste your talents like this?”

  “Okay,” said Tyr. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop annihilating reality while I’m here. I’m three years old and don’t have much of a grasp of this Dream Realm stuff yet. It’d be a shame if I floated away into oblivion or whatever and never found my way back to my body.”

  “There is only a moderate risk of that—”

  “Anyways, we should do this again sometime.” Tyr glanced back over his shoulder. “I think I hear my parents calling my name, back in the real world.”

  GranGran cackled. It was a sound like asteroids grinding together, echoing throughout the Dream Realm. “How fascinating. You are in such a hurry to leave this conversation, after you were the one who summoned me here in the first place.”

  Tyr’s head snapped back toward her. “I think you may be a bit confused.”

  “The wards that keep me trapped on the Horasin Orazon would not fail so easily. Perhaps you do not trust this fractured mind. I know what they say of me, what they call me. The Mad Witch. Mother of Nightmares. Then you know that their containment measures would be perfect.” Lady Dementia threw back her head and laughed. Streams of lavender and pale silver spewed from her maw, staining the surroundings.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Tyr let her have her moment. When she finally calmed down, he sighed. “Okay, then why am I allowed to summon you?”

  “It is not like I’m restricted from having visitation hours with my family.” The theatrics drained from her voice, leaving the sad, confused whisper of an elderly woman. “It is simply that no one has bothered to contact me until now.”

  Tyr fought down a sudden wave of sympathy. In the realm of thoughts and dreams, the boundary between minds was thin. Though he wasn’t certain how much he could trust her, he could sense the truth of her despair.

  Likely it was an intentional form of manipulation. In fact, he didn’t doubt for a moment that it was.

  But the reality of her psyche was laid bare before him. It surrounded him. The desolation, the hints of color struggling to persist within the void, the fact that her own version of Dream mana was Broken. On top of that, the straitjacket and blindfold were her own creations; she had bound herself intentionally, either for this specific encounter, or to restrain her true nature in general.

  Tyr leaned his head against her hip. “I hate seeing my family like this. I hate not knowing what to do. Not being able to help. I thought I could just buckle down and study and become strong, but is that the right path? Is power everything?”

  “I see, Le—Tyr. My grandson. Your heart and your mind have been recently tested. Good. The answer is, yes, power is everything. If you were all-knowing and all-powerful, you could teleport to the Moon and crack it open for me. Any problem before you, you could crush with a clench of your fist.” She smiled. “Maybe one day I shall let you rescue me. But I see that you have another problem, for now.”

  GranGran turned to face the Moon and Broken Dream Mana she had spewed into the environment. It had gathered into a backdrop, a blank canvas. Upon it appeared a scene in black and white: the park back in Valorwood; Tyr sitting there, watching as Caeden was beaten to the ground.

  “Ah, these petty childhood squabbles.” GranGran cackled. “I remember how important all of this used to seem to me. Once upon a time.” Her twisted mouth settled into a thoughtful grin, as if she was reminiscing about the good old days. “But, for you, it is a matter that is best treated seriously. This should be a formative moment. Some upstart Merchant’s son and a couple musclehead children? Crush them utterly, of course.”

  “How?” Tyr resisted the urge to spit. “I’m three.”

  “Well, there are quite a few methods of putting naughty children in their place. The only one that your age restricts you from is beating them physically. That gap is too large for the moment. And it would be quite a waste for a Pacifist. There is an innocence to your aura that shows you still have not yet resorted to violence.”

  Tyr kicked at the ground. The cosmic tunnel quivered slightly. “My parents want me to remain a Pacifist. Personally, I think it’s dumb.”

  “I am also a Pacifist,” said GranGran. “Never underestimate stacking percentage buffs.”

  Tyr pushed himself away from her and looked up at her face. The shadowy contours of her head revealed nothing. “You can’t be serious. Didn’t you say that you battle some civilization-ending horrors and cleared layers of…whatever an Instance is?”

  “Pacifism is quite a funny little Achievement.”

  GranGran tilted her chin at the silver and lavender backdrop. The scene of Caeden’s ill-fated charge faded away with a ripple. In its place came a couple lines of text:

  Unbroken Pacifism. You have never intentionally attacked another member of your species, or any sentient species at all, through physical or magical means.

  “Seem familiar?” said GranGran.

  Tyr squinted at the words and compared them to his own Achievement. After a moment, he nodded. “More or less.”

  “This is the foundational text of the base Achievement. Quite restrictive. You can never be too forceful with basically any sort of thinking animal. ‘Sentient’ is much broader than ‘sapient.’ However, this restriction is counterbalanced by the final phrase: through physical or magical means.”

  Tyr rubbed his chin. “Well, I guess the important question is, how does the System define ‘magical means?’”

  “An unbelievable amount of research has been conducted to determine the limits of these parameters. How much can we toe the line before the System triggers its backlash? You should know this, Leon; you did quite a bit of it yourself. Though, why do you look so young? What a strange choice of dream avatar.”

  Tyr patted GranGran on the knee and sighed. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to treat a broken mind like hers. Play along with the delusion? Calmly explain to her that her perception of reality was off-kilter? In the end, he decided to simply nudge her back on track. “So, what? I can socially destroy the bullies. I could financially destroy them. Uh…”

  “There is one option that is most obvious of all. You are too innocent of heart to say it out loud, I suppose.” GranGran tilted her head back, a wicked grin stretching across her face. “Destroy them mentally. Shatter their egos. Flood their sleeping hours with horrors that stain their soul. That is what was done to me, at least.”

  Tyr’s heart clenched at her openness, her vulnerability. “Someone flooded your rest with horrors? Wait, how is that not considered a magical attack?”

  “The same reason that it is not considered one when I do it to others.” GranGran knelt down until she was eye level with Tyr. He could sense the faintest hint of what lay beneath her blindfold: nebulae of swirling madness, barely restrained behind a flimsy gauze of Broken Dream Mana. “A Fae Curse, passed on to me from my tormentor. My unmasked presence induces insanity and feverish nightmares upon any who witness me. I simply enter another’s dream and exist. This is considered a violation of their mental sovereignty, but not a magical attack.”

  Tyr grimaced and looked away. Couldn’t have warned me before we had a staring contest?

  “Not sure I'm buying that,” he said. “How is intentionally spreading a curse of madness on people not a magical attack? That’s, like, the definition of a magical attack. You’re attacking them with magic.”

  “My Curse is essentially a contagious mental disease. The Mental Realms are distinct from Physical and Magical, as long as you are not casting an offensive spell with Mind Mana. That blurs the lines a bit. On top of that, if a person with a common cold visits someone, are they physically attacking them with their presence? Based on experiments about that exact scenario, the System does not seem to think so.”

  “Not sure about that, but okay, moving on. It’s not like I could use that against those scumbags. I can’t really send you after them to drive them insane, and me attempting to personally enter their dreams doesn’t sound like a good idea. Even if I could, I don’t want to.”

  GranGran straightened to her full height and sniffed. “Well, that is not the point. The point is—-the point. Ah, yes. You use whatever means you have at your disposal to shatter the ego of your enemy. In this case, financially ruining his entire Merchant House and ending the future profession of his lackeys seems rather appropriate. Though, may I suggest a much funnier alternative?”

  Tyr narrowed his eyes at the Mother of Nightmares. “What’s that, GranGran?”

  “Continue your current course of action. Become my apprentice and grow stronger within the Dream Realm while you rest. Once a week, I am allowed to visit you for an hour. The rest of the time, improve yourself. Study. Learn. But do so with intention. With a purpose.”

  Okay, I’ll bite. Maybe not the apprentice thing, but what’s her funny idea?

  “You were ultimately a bystander in this fight,” she continued. “This was not your battle, not your humiliation, even if you want to make it about yourself. No, this is Caeden’s war to wage. Those fools thought they could get away with mocking a Hollan? One of my grandsons? We must strip them of their delusions.”

  A smile began to creep across Tyr’s face. “I think I see where you’re going with this. We’ll shatter their egos through Caeden. A rematch. What breaks a bully’s spirit faster than having their ass kicked by their victim?”

  GranGran nodded slowly in approval. “Learn to empower your allies. Use them as your fist, while you serve as the velvet glove.”

  Tyr steepled his fingers together wickedly.

  Cousin Caeden, it’s time for our training arc.