As deep as the horror had been in her, the sudden change to peace left her reeling. She blinked, standing in the middle of the torture chamber, just as she remembered it from years ago, and watched it fade. She stood in blackness alone for a few moments, then a new scene began to form. She was lucid enough to find this odd... how can a place just fade away, then reform into something else.<br/><br/>"Dreams..." she muttered, "I'm dreaming... I don't remember going to sleep. What happened? The traveler... and... walking... and.... ngh!..." she tried to think clearly, to remember, "I was... walking. I-..." a groan escaped her lips as the memory of the aura spell returned to her, along with the expression on his face that had confirmed her deepest fears, "By the stars... what happened to me. Why can't I wake up? I remember eating... I felt so strange. Dizzy, and-... Poison! I was poisoned! Does that mean I'm dead? I couldn't be. This is not the eternal torment I'm to expect. I must be nearly dead. The bandits must have me for sure. The would have been close by, waiting."<br/><br/>A single tear escaped her eye to run down her cheek.<br/><br/>"Then he found me at last. After all these years, all that work... I failed." she threw back her head and screamed as a new dream, one more pleasant and wonderful than she could bear, began to form, "WAKE UP!!!!!!"<br/><br/>*****<br/><br/>She sat up with a cry, arms flailing as if to fend off an attacker, then swayed. Squinting her eyes to block out the sun, she put a hand out behind her to keep herself upright, even if just a little. When she opened her eyes again, the world slowly came into focus around her. She was in the woods. This area looked a lot like the clearing she and-<br/><br/>She gasped as the prone, half-conscious figure of the mage came into sight. Hopping up at once, she crouched over his body, sitting on her heels, knife in hand, ready for anything. The area seemed empty, but she could never be sure. She felt clammy, weak, ill... all she wanted was a warm bed, and a week to sleep in it, but she knew there was danger near. Why else would he be just lying there like that? They must have caught him too. She'd left him alone to spare him that.<br/><br/>Regret caused her to wilt slightly, and she sank to her knees beside him. "I'm sorry... this is all my fault..." she didn't expect him to hear him. Her hands rose to cover her eyes, knife still held in one of them, and she wept.