There are various obstacles to getting to the Bridge, but Dragon and Father have gotten used to that by now, and now that a game has been made of it, Child has been only too eager to help overcome the challenges, supposing it all just another fun contest. At length, the three of them make it to the Bridge, and Child is able to open the door before any obstacles can come into play to block off the door.

As one, Playmate turns from her console and Mother turns in her command chair to regard the three arrivals. "Well," says Mother, "I hope that was fun."

Child squeals as she crosses the threshold, and bounces up and down, wings flapping and arms held high. "I'm first, I'm first! I WIN! YAYYYYY!"

"I can't say I like the redecorating you've done," Dragon comments as she sees the cable-covered stations. "I hope this doesn't make it too difficult to control things. Mother, we need to go after Morpheus immediately. Probe needs to locate the chamber we glimpsed him in, Child can monitor communications for any sounds of ritual chanting, and Playmate can get the fire control systems and weapons ready."

Child squeals, "I can do that!" She bounds over to her station, squeezing in despite some of the cables that are in the way.

Mother frowns. "Fire control systems? Weapons? Just why do we need to go after Morpheus, and what do weapons have to do with it?"

Playmate, however, gets a nasty grin on her face, and bounds over to fire control, giggling to herself.

"It looked to me as if the Babelite Dream Mages were performing a ritual, possibly the final ritual – with Morpheus laid out as the sacrifice," Dragon explains. "That ritual has to be stopped, and I don't think we have the time to waste trying to find a way into the chamber. If we can blow open an entrance, that should make things much easier."

Mother raises an eyebrow. "Really. And you're certain that blowing open an entrance to the chamber isn't going to do any harm to dear Morpheus?"

"No, I don't," Dragon says. "I didn't design this vessel, so I don't know what her weapons can do. But I like to be prepared, nonetheless. There are other things we can take potshots at to keep Playmate and Child amused, after all."

Mother muses, "How utterly careless and irresponsible. Very well then. What do you propose?"

Playmate pounds on some controls, and the ship vibrates, as a shrill roar can be heard echoing somewhere elsewhere. A viewscreen shows a floating crystal castle, then a circle forms around it, and a beam of piercing light strikes it. It shatters. Playmate giggles impishly. When the blinding flash subsides, there's naught left of it.

Dragon and Father move closer to the main viewscreen. "I think we should let Probe do what she does best, and hope she can locate the chamber," Dragon says, then asks, "Unless you know where it might be, Mother? I see that Playmate has the weapons ready… "

"Why spoil the fun for Probe?" Mother says, indifferently. There's not a bit of movement within Probe's pile of cables, but the view through the main screen shifts and tracks, until it focuses on the Crossroads, then seems to pass through it, showing the chamber seen in an earlier vision. The large silhouette of Morpheus can be picked out through the distortion of the crystal, and large shapes ringing around it.

"Playmate, can you hit something near the Crossroads?" Dragon asks sweetly. "I want to see if it gets their attention."

Playmate nods, then pounds on the controls. The viewscreen tracks back to the Crossroads, and the ship vibrates again. The screen flashes white. When the view returns again, there is a smoking crater to one side of the Crossroads. "Tee hee!" giggles Playmate.

"Show us the chamber again, Probe," Dragon asks, eyes narrowing to gauge how many blasts like that it might take to get through to the chamber.

The viewscreen goes down to the Crossroads, again. As Dragon watches, the "camera" seems to zoom in on the Crossroads … then, it seems to flip perspective, as if looking back up, and then, voila, there is the crystal chamber. It defies the spatial concepts Dragon's eyes report, and it grates on her sense of logic, though she's not pained like she has sometimes been when faced with other bizarre contradictions within the Dream Realm.

"Are you able hear anything from the chamber, Child?" Dragon asks.

Child looks up and shakes her head. "There's no noise in there. It's all quiet. Except for those tinkletinkletinkle noises." She raises her voice to chime when she makes the tinkle noises.

Dragon rubs her chin, and watches the screen to see if any of the figures even noticed the blast near the Crossroads.

The figures seem not to have moved in the slightest. They seem only blurs through the crystals in the way, but there are exactly four of them, irregularly spaced around the chamber, but equidistant from the prone figure in the center.

"Playmate, can you actually target one of those standing figures?" Dragon asks, then says to Mother, "Do you think you could get us into that chamber somehow? You were able to open a portal to Gorphat's realm from within Paradise before."

Mother muses, "Perhaps I could. Who would be 'us', in that case?"

"You and me, I think," Dragon says. "I don't want to live the girls alone with the weapons, so Father should probably stay… "

Mother smiles faintly. "Oh, and pry me away from the Bridge? Plotting something naughty, are we, Dragon?"

Dragon blinks and looks innocent. "Really Mother, I just thought you'd like to meet Morpheus."

"Well, if you're going to go rescue him, you could simply bring him back here, I'm sure. In any case, no, I am not leaving the Bridge," Mother states.

"Just me then, I suppose," Dragon says. "Unless Child wants to come see Uncle Morpheus with me?" she adds, looking back towards the communications station.

Child bounces. "Sure!"

Dragon grins, "Okay, the two of us then. Can you do that, Mother? And bring us back when we call?"

"Certainly." Mother strokes a command console. "Just head down to the conveyor room, and we'll have you down there in no time."

Dragon turns towards the bridge exit, then pauses and asks, "No tricks, right Mother? And I bet Playmate could have lots of fun blowing up Rephath's copy of Babel."

The mists swirl about, and then there is a whining, flickering effect, as a thin line of light appears in the center of the archways, then splits, forming a hole. It widens, revealing Dragon and Child, then closes behind them and vanishes.

The faint tinkle of chimes rings in the distance, and a lonely wind blows through the archways.

Child squeal and bounces. "Here we are again!" She looks about. "Ewwww. What a wreck!"

Dragon takes a look around the area, smiling at the ruins of Gorphat's arch and frowning at the apparent growth of Zakaro's. "Yes, we're here… but not where we want to be. Child, do you think you could find the way into that chamber we saw? It wasn't the sort of path I can find myself."

Child is in the process of clambering her way up the gate barring Rephath's archway, and dangling off of it like a monkey, when she looks up. "Oh! There it is!" She points up.

Looking up, Dragon remembers the other mountain she saw once from the Avatar, the one that seemed to cover the Crossroads.

As Dragon looks up … she finds herself looking down. Within the broken ring formed by the archways surrounding the stone circle is a view to another place … she's looking down upon a vast chamber, though it's so full of shimmering light refracted through crystals that it's hard to make out the exact contents from here. It's obvious that it's the place … though Dragon is compelled to wrench her eyes away lest she look too long. The wrongness of the scene does horrible things to her sense of logic and order.

The dragon stares at the figure of Zakaro for a few moments to reorient herself. "Can you get to it, Child? This place is like a being inside of a mirror… "

The statue of Zakaro smiles, coy, back at Dragon. Dragon can hear Child call back, "Easy!" and then a flutter of wings that abruptly goes silent.

Closing her eyes, Dragon decides to try flying straight up, since that's the only direction she can think of Child going in.

Dragon's path takes her up … up … then down. In a split second, her sense of direction is inverted, and she hears Child cry out, "Look OUT!"

Opening her eyes now, Dragon twists around trying to find her balance.

Dragon avoids crashing into the giant statue of Morpheus, but the full extent of his gruesome wound is plainly visible now. It looks as if the whole of Dragon and Child could squeeze within the cavity in his chest. The golden dragoness manages to control her dive, swooping down, landing fairly gracefully next to Child despite the awkwardness of her entrance.

"This… this doesn't look good, Child," Dragon says, her eyes quickly drawn to the statue of Inala, and the heart she holds in her hand.

Child's lower lip quivers, as she follows Dragon's line of sight. "N-no … it doesn't." Three other statues of goddesses can be seen: Zakaro, Sunala, Blakat. Where Rephath should be, there is an empty space, with no trace of any statue ever being there, save for the conspicuous gap. Gorphat's and Barada's statues lie in broken ruin.

Dragon makes her way across the body of Morpheus to where he is bound to Blakat's statue, and reaches out to feel the cord.

The "cord" is more aptly called a cable. It's easily as thick as Dragon's trunk, and while it looks leathery and has features on it as if made of hundreds or more of stretched out Eeee skins, it feels as solid as steel.

Sighing, Dragon sits down and beckons Child over to her, offering a spot on her lap.

Child dashes over and hops up into Dragon's lap, cuddling up against her and hugging her arms about the dragon, sniffling. "It's real bad, isn't it?"

Dragon nods, and hugs the little Aeolun. "Yes. And it's partly our fault, for letting Inala trick us. But we know that the goddesses' holds can be broken if we kill them. I don't know why Rephath isn't here though."

Tears well up in Child's eyes. "I'm … I'm sorry. I … I … I thought she was f-fun!"

Smiling, Dragon rubs the back of Child's neck. "It's okay, I don't blame you. But we have to do something about it. As much as I'd like to keep the Avatar and use it to attack the other Sisters, I think it is more critical that we get rid of Mother and Playmate. Do you think you'll be able to help me and Father with that?"

Child looks up to Envoy. "D-does that mean … we have to hurt them?"

"Maybe, but hopefully it won't come to that," Dragon says. "I think if we just… show that we don't like them, and don't want them to be there, then they might go away. I know you have fun with Playmate, but is there anything you honestly like about her? Is she someone you'd really want to have as your friend?"

Child lets out a long and dramatic sigh, as she contemplates this. "Wellllll… "

Meanwhile, a wind stirs about the chamber, whipping between the statues, making a keen like a low moan. Child's ears shoot up at this, and she grips Dragon tightly. "Eep!"

"If it helps, think of your other friends," Dragon suggests. "How do you think Playmate would treat Rory, or Emerald-Eyes?" She then looks up and tries to follow the course of the moaning wind.

Dragon's eyes catch the inverted view of the Crossroads, giving her a distinct sense of vertigo, as if she might plummet upward toward … downward … Involuntarily, she finds herself averting her eyes again, and unable to find any sensible source for the wind. The chamber seems to lack any obvious entrances or exits aside from the passage up/down to the Crossroads.

"Morpheus, is that you?" Dragon asks the wind as she wipes tears from her eyes.

The wind howls again, tousling Dragon's mane.

"I'm sorry, Morpheus," Dragon whispers. "I didn't understand your message, and I let Inala win. If I get rid of her, will your heart heal?"

The wind seems to respond to Dragon, and she can catch the faintest hint of a whisper, but it is no more understandable just what the wind is trying to say – if, indeed, it is trying to say anything – than before. Still, there's a hint of an intelligence behind the wind … a life … and not some mere echo, some mere phenomenon of the dream realm.

At the fringe of Dragon's vision, she can see mists swirling about far above, at the top of the chamber. Something in her head corrects that, though, warning her that the mists at the "top of the chamber" are really back there in the Crossroads.

"I think we'd better return now, Child, something is happening," Dragon says to the little Aeolun, and wondering if their presence has been detected here.

Child reluctantly lets go of Dragon. "All right." She crawls off of the dragoness's lap and stands up, rubbing at her eyes and sniffling. "Bye bye, Morpheus. I hope you get better soon!"

A gentle breeze tousles Child's mane, and brushes against her cheeks.

Dragon smiles to Child, and then leaps up towards the top of the chamber… this time prepared for the inversion effect though.

Child wings after Dragon, and the predictable inversion happens … but Dragon pretty much repeats the stunt she did before. As she lands, Child alighting beside her, she catches a glimpse, through the gateway of Zakaro, of a grayish silhouette vanishing into the mists.

Dragon runs up to the rune-covered statue's archway, and calls out, "Hello! Who goes there?"

The silhouette seems to shift in response, but vanishes in an instant. However, Dragon is able to pick out that the silhouette belonged to something fox'taurish in outline before it vanished.

Suppressing a growl, Dragon returns to the center of the Crossroads, and calls out, "Mother, we're ready for pickup!"

A couple of eye-blinks later, a thin white line appears in the heart of the circle, and splits open to envelop Dragon and Child. It swells around them, then closes … and winks out, leaving no trace of their presence.

The door to the Bridge convulses open, letting Dragon and a dejected-looking Child back in. Mother turns around in her chair. "So, do report?"

Dragon makes her way to the main viewscreen, and says to Mother, "Can you just bring up what we saw from Envoy's memory? It would be so much easier then."

Mother raises an eyebrow, then spins around. "Very well then." She caresses a control set, and the viewscreen plays back Dragon's and Child's journey to the surface, to Morpheus' Prison, then back to the Crossroads, and back to the ship. Once it starts showing them heading through the ship toward the Bridge, Mother flicks it off, impatiently. "Well, I suppose we shan't be having Morpheus over after all, then. Pity."

"Do you still think Inala is independent of Morpheus' power, Mother?" Dragon asks, watching the Aspect closely.

Mother doesn't turn to face Dragon. "Of course. What would cause you to question that?"

"Well, the little scene we just saw suggests that Morpheus is bound by the Sisters… the one's still left that need him anyway," Dragon says. "You probably noticed Rephath's absence. She's probably strong enough after the New Year's Eve stunt that she doesn't need Morpheus anymore. But Inala was still bound to him. If she really doesn't need the God of Dreams, she should be able to break that bond. Why hasn't she?"

"You presume much," Mother says. "And, no doubt, this is part of your tiresome argument that Inala is not a Goddess. I might as well argue to you that you are human. In any case, it's obvious that Morpheus has been offered up as a sacrifice by the Royal Mages."

"A sacrifice to whom though?" Dragon asks. "Inala is the one holding his heart."

"A sacrifice to Inala, of course," Mother replies, waving her hand.

"Refuse it then," Dragon says. "Return the heart, if you can. I challenge you to do so."

Mother frowns, and turns around in her chair to face Dragon. "A challenge? And why should I do so?"

"To prove that you can," Dragon says, simply. "Don't you want to convince me that Inala isn't a puppet of the Mages?"

Mother looks at Dragon, and her eyes narrow. "Puppet? A puppet, you say? Well!" At this, she raises her hand up into the air, and begins to dance her fingers around. Dragon finds herself … dancing, her limbs jerking about as if she were a marionette controlled by unseen strings. "Let me show you what it means to be a puppet." Dragon's limbs are jerked around some more. "See the difference? No one does that to Inala."

Playmate giggles and claps her hands together. Child at first doesn't seem to get just what's going on, and gets caught up in the moment, too, squealing and bouncing in place, momentarily forgetting the business about Morpheus.

"You will only get Dragon angry by doing that, Mother," Father says.

Mother lets her hand fall limp, and Dragon collapses on the floor in a heap. "Oh dear. We simply can't have that, now can we? But … who says Dragon has to be angry?"

Child stops bouncing, when she sees Dragon collapse, though Playmate continues to giggle. Child looks over to Father, and then rushes over to Dragon, trying to help her up.

Father also reaches down to help Dragon up. "No, I don't have to be angry," Dragon says. "That will only distract me."

Mother looks as if she's in the middle of another gesture, and for a fleeting moment, Dragon herself feels a burst of artificial euphoria that quickly fades. Mother waves it off. "Good. Then I needn't demonstrate further."

Once back on her feet, Dragon gestures to the plethora of cables that have been added to the bridge. "I suppose you don't even need us anymore. It looks like you have things wired up so that Probe can run the entire ship by herself."

"It pleases Inala," Mother replies, "to have you here. It would be unwise to persuade Her to reconsider whether keeping you here would continue to please her."

"It no longer pleases us," Dragon says, and looks to Child as well, "for you to be here though, Mother. I ask now that you and Playmate leave us, and seek out another Avatar."

Mother raises her eyebrows. "Oh! And is this unanimous?" She looks over toward the heap of cables that Probe is buried in. "Probe, do tell us if you'd rather we leave. Mmm. Well, no protest from Probe. I think she rather enjoys it this way. And I think you know her well enough to realize that this is true enough."

Dragon frowns, and calls out to Probe, "Do you have full access to the Avatar's systems now, Probe?"

Not a word of response from Probe.

"I suppose it might be more a matter of … who has access to whom?" Mother purrs.

Child's lower lip quivers. "Let her go!"

Dragon steps over to Probe's station, and tries to find the Aspect through the nest of cables. "Probe? Probe, answer me."

The cables are up to Dragon's calves as she wades through them, trying to dig her way through to find more of Probe than just her poor wings poking out from the pile. The cables resist her efforts to pull them aside, but not so much that she cannot still make some headway. At last, she pulls apart another cluster, and finds a ghastly sight … Probe's face, pale and gaunt as ever, but with cables running into her ears, her nostrils, filling her mouth … and her eye sockets.

Hissing now, Dragon tugs at the tube leading into Probe's mouth, and calls back, "Child, have Playmate show you if we are armed with any bombs."

Child covers her face at the spectacle, peeking out between her fingers, then quietly nods and rushes over to Playmate. The tube leading into Probe's mouth stubbornly holds, and Probe's face jerks. It feels as if the tube goes deep down Probe's gullet, anchored deep inside her.

Father jerks his head away from the gruesome spectacle, looking toward the blank viewscreen. "Something is happening. Outside."

Dragon gives up on tugging, and tries to chew through the cable with her teeth, grumbling, "Whu 'ping?"

Mother gives Father an annoyed look, but then shrugs. "Nothing to concern you greatly. We're traveling."

Child wrestles with Playmate, and soon they're tumbling over the consoles, pulling manes, ears and wings. "Ow!" "Stop that!" "No biting!" "NO FAIR!"

"Where to?" Dragon asks, letting go of the cable and waving to Father, who goes to try and separate the fighting children.

Mother shrugs as if trying to be nonchalant, but there's the barest flicker of something in her eyes. She doesn't know.

In short order, Father has Child and Playmate dangling from his powerful grasp, held separated by arms' length.

Leaving Probe for the moment, Dragon heads towards the weapons console and takes a look through the main viewscreen on the way.

The viewscreen now shows a scene … a deck of an airship. There are many bats on board the ship, and evidence of battle. Several crewmen of the ship are on their knees, hands clasped to their heads, as if trying to keep something out. Others, wounded or otherwise exhausted, just seem to be caught in a euphoric haze. Wynona is held by a couple of Eeee warriors, in the process of binding her up. Mother looks to the screen, her eyes burning brightly, and as she speaks, the viewscreen reports Envoy's own melodic voice speaking as well. "Do not harm her," the voices say, "Take her with us." A female Eeee, as close to being perfectly sculpted as any mortal could be, and adorned in gauzy, bejeweled robes, bows within sight of the viewscreen. A Yodhinala. "As you wish," she says, and dismisses the warriors with their captive.

"That's IT!" Dragon yells, and turns to the weapons station, looking for some way to detonate whatever remains of the Avatar's arsenal.

Mother spins about, her eyes burning with light, such that her pupils cannot be made out. "You fool! Do you even know what you are doing?"

There's fear in that voice, though. As buried as it is under the insistence of this dream that Mother is always assured, always certain, there's still that underlying truth that can't be wholly hidden, because it's something simply too powerful for it to be otherwise.

Mother is too late, though. Dragon manages to find the controls amidst the tangle, and arm the bombs – or whatever it is that they really are, as represented in this dream construct.

"I won't let you carry out whatever you plan for Wynona, or enslave us any longer," Dragon snarls, and stabs at the detonator.

Mother seems to realize all too well what Dragon is attempting to do. "You would kill yourself just to spite – "

"Of course! DRAGONS DON'T SURRENDER! is Dragon's only reply.

The deck of the ship is strewn with bodies of crewmen and raiders, not all of them necessarily dead or wounded in any visible sense. The air is heavy with the residue of expended magicks. A Yodhinala sneers, kicking at one of the cringing guards. "Fool. It's so funny, these 'noble' types. So afraid to be overcome by feelings of lust that they'll simply curl up, trying to shut the sensations out. Oh, congratulations. You're just as useless – " Her gloating speech is cut off, as an underling cries out, "Mistress! The Avatar!"

The white and golden Aeolun falls to the deck, shaken by convulsions, eyes rolled back into her head, blood staining the wood underneath her, wings snapping painfully.

"Do something!" the Yodhinala shrieks to a number of pretty but evidently clueless bats nearby, and what exactly she intends for them to do, she doesn't elaborate upon herself. After a few agonizing seconds, the Aeolun stops moving. One of the underlings timidly walks over, reaching out to touch her.

Wynona wrestles in the grasp of the warriors holding her, and turns, eyes widening at the spectacle. "No … no … ENVOYYYYYYYYY!" she shrieks, until she's shut off by a crack from a chitin-backed gauntlet against the side of her head. She slumps limp in their grasp, as she's dragged off to the other vessel, a Babelite air barge.