The master spy or Puss in the boot adventures

Lyra, the Goddess of Dreams part 12, Part 142

At the center of the maelstrom, the Lady of Dreams confronted the towering Shadow Titan, her aura flaring like a newborn star. The great abomination loosed a deafening roar of challenge and charged forward, its gargantuan feet pulverizing stone and its many grasping appendages lashing the air in anticipation. But the Lady simply smiled a knowing smile and raised her hand, palm outward in a gesture of warding and peace.

"Remember, Lyra," called Lady of Dreams, her words thrumming with power and compassion. "Remember the sunlit fields of your childhood, where you frolicked with the lambs and braided garlands of wildflowers to adorn your hair. Remember the love of your parents, the comradeship of your friends, the simple joys of a life lived in harmony with the gentle rhythms of the natural world."

As the Shadow Titan bore down on her, she released a pulse of pure, undiluted dream-essence that washed over the nightmare hulk like a tidal wave of shimmering mist.

A burly dream-guardian with arms like ancient tree trunks swung a hammer forged from the solidified hopes of a thousand generations. Each thunderous blow shook the very foundations of the nightmare citadel, sending cracks racing across the pulsing ebon stone. Shapes of primal dread were smashed into oblivion against that adamantine head, bursting into showers of dull red sparks that drifted mournfully toward the roiling sky.

Through it all strode the Lady, her arm outstretched toward the faltering Dreamweaver. The un-light of the Dreamshard sputtered fitfully in the shadow-sorceress's hand, its aura of palpable madness dimming before the Lady's blazing luminance. With each step, the Lady's voice rang out anew, cutting through the cacophony of the battle like a crystal chime.

One guardian, clad in armor of shimmering silver that rippled like quicksilver, wielded a long crystalline spear that thrummed with hypnotic vibrations. With each graceful thrust and parry, the spear emitted pulses of prismatic energy that shattered the misshapen forms of the encroaching nightmares, reducing them to motes of shadow that dissipated like mist in the wind.

Another, draped in robes of deepest blue shot through with twinkling points of light like a starry firmament, held aloft an orb that swirled with a miniature galaxy of impossible colors. Bolts of pure, incandescent dream-stuff lanced out from the orb, piercing the ranks of the Neverborn and leaving gaping holes ringed with coruscating flame that spread and consumed the howling horrors from within.

A third guardian, lithe and quicksilver-fast, darted among the seething shadows with a pair of shining daggers that moved almost too swiftly for the eye to follow. Trailing ribbons of argent light, the daggers sliced through tentacles and gouged ichor-weeping rents in chitinous hides, sending the stricken abominations reeling and thrashing in agonized fury.

Even the lesser horrors, the nameless night terrors and scuttling dream-leeches, quailed before the onslaught of the Dreamlands' champions. They skittered and gibbered as they sought to escape, scurrying back towards the cracks and crevices of the nightmare citadel. But the dream-warriors were relentless in their pursuit, their blades and bolts of mystic force scything through the fleeing abominations like a farmer's sickle through ripe wheat.

The Dreamweaver shook her head like a maddened beast, black ichor streaming from her eyes and frothing from her lips. But it was clear her resistance was crumbling, the insidious whispers of the Neverborn drowned out by the rising tide of Lyra's reawakening humanity. The Dreamshard trembled violently in her grasp, hairline fractures spreading across its ebon surface.

"You are not this twisted thing of shadow and spite, not this puppet dancing to the discordant tune of the Neverborn. You are Lyra, the gentle shepherdess, the dreamer of sweet dreams. Let the memory of who you truly are be the light that guides you back from this abyss of madness."

The Dreamweaver screamed in rage and redoubled her efforts, lashing out with all the fearsome might of the nightmare shard embedded in her being. Inky tendrils of corrupt dream-stuff whipped and coiled, seeking to ensnare the Lady and her champions. Geysers of hissing vitriol spewed forth from rents in the earth, and the very ground heaved and bucked like the deck of a storm-tossed ship.

But the Lady would not be deterred. Eyes blazing with righteous determination, she strode through the chaos unscathed, her radiant aura turning aside the most devastating attacks like a shield of shimmering gossamer. With each step, the ground beneath her feet transformed, nightmarish flesh-scape giving way to fields of starlit crystal and singing flowers.

All the while, she continued to call out to the lost and tortured soul trapped within the Dreamweaver's corrupted form. Memories of Lyra's life poured from the Lady's lips in a ceaseless litany - sun-drenched days spent wandering quiet hills with her friends and family...

"Release your hold on this innocent dreamer, spawn of the abyss!" the Lady commanded, her voice echoing with the weight of aeons. "You have no power here that is not stolen, no strength that is not a hollow mockery of true might. Begone, and trouble the Dreamlands no more!"

The Dreamweaver let out a hissing screech of defiance, but it was clear that her strength was failing. The shadows that cloaked her form were tattered and frayed now, wisps of darkness sloughing away to reveal pale, trembling flesh beneath...