Work Text:
Still reeling from their last battle, the player wanders inside the cozy Roadtown Inn for some rest. After finding an available room, they plop down on the comfy bed.
Before they know it, they awaken in an almost surreal winter-themed town. It looks similar to Roadtown, but the lighting is warm and inviting, and the entire location is framed from a top-down perspective.
Curious, the player does some exploring and finds a narrow scaffolding that looks like it can be climbed. Using their shrinking ability, they climb up and discover a secret area with a few collectibles to aid in their journey.
Just as they’re about to leave, something catches their attention. A small wooden hut with what appears to be three taxidermy animals beneath it. A bear, cat, and dog.
Out of morbid curiosity, they try touching one of the animals while in their shrunken form and end up accidentally clipping between them and falling out of bounds. They’re met with a seemingly endless dark void, as expected.
They think that it’s another hidden area at first, but they just keep falling and falling for what feels like minutes.
They open the menu and prepare to fast travel back to a previous spawn point, but just before they can, they land on solid ground with a painful thud.
…
Coming to, they find themselves in a pitch black fog with only a small distance around them being visible. The ground beneath them is covered in snow, and they see a speck of it slowly fall in front of them. Gazing up above, they note that it’s night time, seeing as there are stars illuminating the sky.
The feeling of bitter cold sends shivers through their body, but they continue.
The field is eerily silent, with the only sounds being their footsteps against the thick snow and a nearly imperceptible breeze passing by. It’s surrounded by a forest of several towering pine trees, dozens of meters tall from the looks of it.
After some exploring, they eventually reach what appears to be an abandoned town. All of the houses are coated in a thin layer of snow, and there are gaping holes where windows and doors once were. The place looks like it hasn’t been populated in decades.
One of the buildings they come across is an igloo, seemingly in good condition compared to everything else. Intrigued, they enter inside and are met with a familiar sight. More of the strange taxidermy animals they saw before were lined up on a podium of sorts. A sign hung above them with words that were too faded to be legible.
With no other points of interest left, they look for a way out of the bleak settlement.
Out of nowhere, a deafeningly loud screech echoes through the forest ahead and makes them freeze.
Something has seen them.
Within seconds, the sound grows louder as the darkness closes in around them.
…
The player is back at the inn, health fully restored.
“You wake up with your heart hammering inside your chest.” A dialog box reads.
Everything they collected in the dream realm is no longer in their inventory, and they are left with a lingering feeling of unease.
The player leaves the inn and continues on their quest for the Icedagger, but as they travel, they can’t help but wonder…
What did any of that mean?