bridgescribble | It's that one where you have to give a speech to a crowd of bears and wasps again

You're having a nightmare, and you aren't alone. Someone is here with you in tonight's strange, dark dreamscape--for better or for worse.

Chased: Bears, tentacly monsters, giant vengeful wasps. You need to escape from it but you can't find a way.
Trapped: Elevator, sinking ship, cave. You're in and you can't get out.
Performance: It's often quoted that people fear public speaking more than they fear death. You don't know the script, you've never seen this Powerpoint, the teleprompter is blurry as hell... forget falling, you're about to die on stage.
Hated: You know those dreams where everyone you know accuses you of something terrible and they all hate you now? Yeah. It's that one tonight.
Disaster! You're on an island and a volcano erupts! You're next to a river and it floods! Never mind how geologically, climatologically, or physically likely it would be in this location in real life, it's happening now.
Haunting past: Your bad memories are just waiting for you to let your guard down, and what's more unguarded than sleep?
Wildcard: There are infinite nightmares in infinite combinations... why not put together your own?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ At first, Link thinks it's one of his nightmares. His faint memories are given new and twisted depths. Burning villages, deadly automatons scorching everything, people reaching out and screaming, always screaming: Hero, where are you?

But this isn't his nightmare. The buildings are too varied, the people too detailed to be the ink-smudged people in his memory.

So he does what he always does. Link runs toward the heart of the fire. ]

[ It's easy to tell where the fire is the most severe. Getting there is another matter. The city streets are full of people, frantic and panicking, some trying to move through the rubble with carts of belongings, hauling boxes, bags, leading animals, some with children, some alone, some barely able to stay on their feet, some shoving those around them aside to clear a path for themselves. A flood of humanity, filling every open space in their rush to get away from the center of town.

They cling to the hero, screaming, crying, begging. Help! They're so tired, they're injured, they're frightened. They have money. They have children. Please. Please help them flee the monster. ]

[ Link has never seen so many people in one place, let alone humans. He's swept away with the crowd for a moment, unable to overcome wave after wave of people. But then hands grab at him, begging for help, and he really does try. He lifts children into their parents' arms, pushes broken carts out of the way, hands out a precious potion or two. But the begging and crying only gets worse as he's surrounded by more and more desperate people.

He can't save them. But Link knows how to fight monsters.

So he pulls away as people cry and scream and beg and curse him. Link uses his relatively small size to squeeze his way through the crowd. It's slow, and he's swept up again several times, but he keeps going. It's all he can do. It's all he's good for in times like these. ]

[ And if he's able to close his ears and harden his heart enough, eventually he'll escape the crowd and approach what used to be the city center. The buildings here were taller, broader -- in some versions, there were trees, fountains, open spaces.

Now there's nothing but the dragon.

A whirlwind of flame, tail lashing like a crack of thunder, the dragon howls its rage, spewing white hot flame from its mouth that causes the stone bricks of the crumpled buildings to explode into shrapel. The shape of the beast shifts as the city shifts -- sometimes it's a great salamander, its skin molten lava. Sometimes it's scaled in iron, dripping liquid flame from its claws. Sometimes it's a man, his hair on fire, lightning shooting from his hands, his roar terrible. ]

[ A monstrous dragon is entirely within Link's realm of experience, though there's no Malice to destroy. But when it changes shape, he realizes its true power. This isn't just a creature-- it's nearly a force of nature.

It's also a person.

But Link is never one to run from a fight, not when there's something bigger than him at stake. He ducks behind broken rubble and tries to find a blind spot. He's going to need the element of surprise to stand a chance, and hopes he hasn't blown it by hesitating. ]

[ For all the destruction the beast is wreaking on the town, it doesn't seem to be hunting through the rubble. In fact, it's more accurate to say that it's in distress. The scaly hide sways back and forth as though in pain, and the roars that shake the distant brickwork, this close can be seen to be grunts and groans. The great lizard shakes its head, trying to put out the flames, but the movement just gives breath to the fire and it surges even brighter.

The hero better be sure-footed around a creature like this. One misstep, one crunch of glass beneath an incautious shoe and the dragon will turn, screaming out a blistering warning. ]

[ Link has his hand on his sword's hilt when he notices the unusual movement patterns of the dragon. It's not hunting. It's not even trying to chase the people who have fled. It's like it's confused or in pain. His mind goes to Naydra, a dragon that had been infected by Ganon's Malice. This isn't the same but...

He grips the hilt tighter as he wonders what Zelda would say.

Help it, her voice says, but be careful.

Link lets go of the hilt. The Master Sword waits in her scabbard.

Instead, he circles the dragon as slowly as he dares, ducking behind rubble as he goes. He doesn't have much time, he thinks, but there has to be something. ]

[ Earthquakes rock the city as the dragon slams itself against one of the few structures still standing. In the far corner of the city there's a deep dull boom, then a fireball rises above the cityline as the screams take on a more desperate tone. Confused and in pain it may be, but it's still causing horrific damage. Who knows how many bodies lie in the rubble, how many more will perish in the wastelands between cities, picked off by bandits or simply wasted away by the twin suns overhead?

The dragon howls again, smashing its head like a battering ram against the broad central column of the wall, and sending the entire structure collapsing down into a cloud of dust and cinders. Without the barrier of the wall, there's nothing stopping the dragon from stumbling forward, into what might have once been a residential area of town.

Is there any way to stop a beast like this other than killing it, hero? ]

It's that one where you have to give a speech to a crowd of bears and wasps again

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