>>5905180"Your goal is noble, and I DO understand it,” you plead. “The only difference is where we focus our efforts: you wish to grow a lush forest of paradise spreading across the world, but that doesn’t leave any room for… For Man, or for many of the other people and animals which currently call Earth home. Instead… I just want to tend a small garden and give shade to people who need it. An oasis, without disrupting what’s already there or forcing everyone and everything towards a single vision.”
You wait for a response, hopefully, but none comes. Nym and Devi look between you and Princess Yllarquin, appearing anxious. Ha! They should feel what it’s like to be in YOUR shoes right now. THEN they’d know true anxiety.
"I ask for passage,” you say, in spite of your fear.
>1Still… No answer. You wait what seems an eternity, and eventually you begin to wonder if this is Princess Yllarquin’s surrender… if she cannot bring herself to voice permission to you, but is signalling that she understands your position and will permit your departure. You take a step towards the pedestal.
It is no closer.
You blink in confusion. You take another step. And then another. And another and another. Soon you are running, panic in your chest.
The pedestal draws no closer. Your friends do not come any closer. The pure white moon-desert and black, star-spangled sky stretch out forever in all directions, it feels like… And yet the pedestal is still in sight, and the Goddess and eladrin upon and beside it, but no matter how long you run—to the point of exhaustion—you come no closer to reaching them.
“Illusion,” you realize aloud, between huffs and puffs as you regain your flagging stamina. “I’m in my own head… You didn’t throw me physically, you pushed me out of my body and into some kind of… Of unconscious space.”
“Yes,” Princess Yllarquin confirms, “I did. I told you, Ezreal Mious Van Houtzmann, that this was not a conversation. You are not on trial. Your character is not in doubt. Our hard work is seen, and appreciated.”
“But I may not leave,” you finish the thought.
“That’s right,” the goddess agrees.
>1: Critical failure; the goddess uses your delay in action to trap you in a mental prison 