PART III: AFTER THE UNSEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 26: Twilight Perion

• As the Alliance attempted to address the nightmares plaguing Maple World, tensions continued rising between the Cygnus Knights and the Resistance, who bickered endlessly over their differences. Nevertheless, Athena Pierce attempted to keep the peace as the Alliance began their investigation into the nightmares.

• Thanks to the Alliance member’s discovery, the Alliance had helped curb mass hysteria by warning Maple World that their nightmares of the future were only an illusion. However, the Alliance member was sent to speak with the residents of Perion, who were suffering from a completely different nightmare of a ruined Perion.

• At the request of Dances with Balrog, the Alliance member traveled to Twilight Perion and learned that its residents were being enslaved by the Resistance, which had betrayed the Alliance early into its formation and sided with the Black Mage.

• Back in Maple World, Grendel the Really Old reported that the people of Maple World were beginning to confuse dreams with reality as a result of their unending nightmares, causing them to be brainwashed into truly believing that the Cygnus Knights and the Resistance would betray them.

• In order to find a cure, the Alliance member began investigating the dream itself, allowing them to enter the memories of the Dream Master woven into the dream. They learned that the Dream Master was a little girl who had accidentally encountered the Black Mage, and that she had been enticed into following him by his grand promises.

• Hoping to find a weakness in the dream, the Alliance member traveled into the only other accessible part of the illusion - Future Sleepywood - which was a fragmented, barebones construction of Sleepywood. There, they learned from the Rememberer that the Dream Master was not powerful enough to create an entire world, which was why they had crafted a small replica from the subconsciousness of Maple World’s residents.

• In order to break the hold between the dream world and reality, the Alliance member traveled to the Temple of Time and obtained the Fog of Oblivion - a special substance that could wash away memories, just as dreams became nothing more than foggy memories upon waking up. By spreading the Fog of Oblivion across the Gate to the Future, the people of Maple World were able to forget their nightmares, breaking the Dream Master’s hold over their minds.

• With their first real crisis resolved, the Alliance grew stronger as the Cygnus Knights and the Resistance slowly began to move past their differences. However, the Alliance remained vigilant, realizing that the Dream Master was a new Commander of the Black Mage.