Right. I had gone to bed. I had closed my eyes. I had opened my eyes and now I see a floating box with quite a load of text. Obviously, I've been playing too much again. Nothing like dreaming in quest, although, this dream certainly felt much different than usual. Perhaps, I am having a lucid dream? Yeah, must be.

  I don't often have lucid dreams, but I've had them before, suddenly realizing you are in a dream, not liking what happened and then rewinding it to do it again, only to make changes as you go.... trippy, but cool as heck.

  Anyway, the floating box. Ok, yeah, I'm a dungeon core, sure, sounds cool. It hadn't gone away yet. I read the text again and proceeded to snort, in my mind that is. My dream brain must think my sleeping brain is an idiot. Might as well start with, "hello moron, welcome to our trap..."

  "Sorry, I don't take candy from strangers," I said or tried to say. It was like there was a very faint echo rattling in my head where I heard the words, but it wasn't like I spoke with vocal cords and heard the sound with my ears. It was an odd sensation to me, oh right, I'm a rock. Wow, My dream brain is way more creative than my awake brain.

  I waited a minute, hummed a little under my non-existent breath, tried to look around, but the stupid visual box was right in my face. If I had a foot, I'd be tapping it about now.

  "Ok, dream brain, this is boring now. What time is it anyway?" I asked.

  I heard a little ping noise and to the upper left, in fairly small text appeared a clock.

  The seconds ticked by while I watched, which for about 5 seconds was helpful and then I realized that watching the seconds was incredibly annoying.

  "Ugh, I don't accept your stupid offer," I told the text, but nothing happened. If I had hands, I'd touch it. But I didn't. I did try, if I had a face, I'd probably have looked like I needed to be in the restroom while I tried to squeeze invisible muscles to lift an invisible arm to smack the very visible and annoying window. It didn't work. I then tried the force, but I seemed to lack the force as well.

  "Go away you crappy box!" I yelled. I heard myself much more clearly now. Hey, maybe I'm talking in my sleep. I should just wake myself up... how exactly do I do that? Hey?! Me?! Wake up!

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "Ahhhhh, Help, Help! I'm in a nightmare, a nightmare of boredom, boooreee-"

  Oh yeah, help system. "How do I get out of here?" My previous rant had been interrupted, but I quickly jumped on the chance, as weird as it was, to ask what I could.

  "What? Relocation? No, I don't want to relocate, I want to wake up. How do I wake up?"

  I sighed. I counted to five. I sighed again. "How do I close the text window in front of me?"

  In one blink, the window that had been tormenting me suddenly winked out of existence and I heard the word compensation. I grinned. Mmmmm, presents.

  Yes! hahaha I had no idea what it would give me. But who doesn't love free stuff and at this point, it had to be better than the help system. While I was only moderately aware of my surroundings, I really couldn't see anything. It was dark. Apparently, I was glowing a little because there seemed to be some light coming off me, otherwise, there was a crystal off to the side, which was glowing as well, that must have been the mana crystal. And for some reason, I wanted to get closer to it and touch it, maybe lick it. Which, given that it was tied to some god of carnage, meant I needed to continue ignoring it.

  After a moment a new glow appeared in the darkness, it seemed to be spinning like a wheel and shifting colors. It made me think of a prize wheel and I wondered at the "random" bit of the token I had received. Just not a slime, or a rat, or anything gross, or slimy....

  The light swirled, collapsing into a pinprick of light before bursting out and resolving into an all-too-familiar shape.

  oh. my. god. It was beyond too cute. A majestic cat, long fur, streaks of silver and black on the back, with a white chest, a face with similar markings looked at me, while long whiskers twitched. Immediately, I thought of the Main Coon I'd had in my youth. If only I had arms to pet this giant pile of fluff.

  "Muhahahah! I shall name you Snookums! Oh yes, Snookums you shall be!" I tried my best to cackle and gazed at my new weird dream pet.

  Its unblinking emerald eyes returned my look.

  "I don't think so."