Sleeper Agent
The face in your dream you’ve never seen in real life.
The voice that says your name, waking you in the night.
The bloodstained words you find painted on the wall.
Or in the corner of your eye, a silhouette black and tall.
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Have you ever wondered who that is?
Have you ever wondered where it’s coming from?
Beings that penetrate your subconscious.
They seek to make you puppets they can enthrall.
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Beware these beings called Dream Lords.
They twist your thoughts and words.
What you thought you said
Isn’t what the others heard.
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But if you can’t trust your own mind,
Can you trust anyone at all
If you have no assurance that your eyes
Aren’t the Dream Lords’ scrying ball?
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Be content to live, since you’re a pawn.
Anything you do or say, my might be puppet strung.
So allow yourself to be relieved of responsibility
For the consequences of your actions, since reality
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Is dominated by beings that you only see in your dreams.
Be honest, haven’t you found those dreams bizarre?
It’s totally random, but some logic remains.
Someone else controls your body and leads it to spar
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Against monsters that you’re glad don’t really exist.
As you fight against vampires that turn into mist.
You’re like the player character from a video game,
But you’re not in control. Who pulls the strings?
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Dream Lords. Must I say it again?
It’s obvious who subtly guides your hand.
But “Which Dream Lords?” is the real question.
I’ll list a few, but there are more than ten thousand.
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Leagues under the sea, beneath the waves of Nyptkeen.
Beware those with Thalassophobia, they are under his thrall.
You feel your bed floating like a raft under your back;
In your sleep, you feel that you can’t breathe, that you’re drowning.
The ceiling melts away to the rain on your face from the ocean squall.
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Nyptkeen lays siege to every cliff on the beach.
The more rocks and trees, the more effort he brings.
Though windmills and lighthouses guard the retreats,
Nyptkeen follows you inland and drags you out to the sea.
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I once went to church, but the parking lot was flooded.
The car began to sink in the rippling surface filling with rain.
I swam to the sidewalk, blind in the dark. The noon day smothered.
I climbed up the steps having escaped Nytpkeen again.
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But it was not time to celebrate, for my sisters were present.
And where my sisters are, Ryst is close by.
I lost track of those younglings, and I’m lost in this labyrinth.
Too young to defend themselves. To the zombies, they’ll die.
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In the darkness I wander, I follow voices of children.
Ryst is taunting me, she mimics those little girls.
I find a toy fire truck that speaks like my relative.
But it’s so loud it draws zombies to corner me when it wails.
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I break through and escape
In the darkness opaque.
But each turn, left or right, makes no difference.
I’ve given up on finding my family, I’ve lost my patience.
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So I find the exit and head towards the glass door.
But behind me Ryst’s mocking laughter makes me wait a bit more.
I curse my weakness. This hesitation is going to get me killed.
I would have long since left if only I were more strong-willed.
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Nyptkeen is bound to the water. And Ryst mimics your sisters.
But neither of those explain zombies, or buildings with maze-like corridors.
Zombies are purely the domain of Dread Yuphel.
The undead amass in holy places like the church and the temple.
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And mapping out the spaces is Chorlipth.
He makes familiar places from your life.
But with far too many twists and turns.
How’d you get lost if you’ve lived here since birth?
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Even worse Templognathus.
Twisting turns are bad, try a tornado on for size.
We were in a car when a twister drilled past us.
As I zoom down the road, I forget how to drive.
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And then there is Calliphon the literate.
When you blink, you expect the words to be different.
But Calliphon wants to get his message across,
So for a change of pace, his phrase won’t change at all.
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I actually had to make up their names.
I don’t know their titles since they refrain
From speaking to me so directly
Except for the Dark Dragon, unfortunately.
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The Dark Dragon, he’s the king of ravens.
He showed me his view from an outsider’s perspective.
And how those dreams were worlds in different dimensions,
I didn’t quite understand at first, but now I’ve got the message.
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Bestowed upon me a feather to make me his servant.
I accepted because I didn’t know better.
Then I followed his orders and turned against mankind.
Then I realized my mistakes and tried to mend my crimes.
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But the wounds won’t heal.
My dark magic prevents it.
So now Anphoman’s injured,
And I’ve been indentured.
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He told me straight out that his name was Dark Dragon.
No other Dream Lord had been so heavy handed.
So I can only guess who they were meant to be.
Don’t be offended if I get wrong, Dream Lords. I’m sorry.
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Slinwey, the lure of fairyland.
Perhaps as a little girl or a butterfly.
Though I be a ghost, she takes my hand
And carts me away to be a slave til I die.
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Jugyl, the hated mind control.
It spews radiation that will take your soul.
Your eyes will transform into worms that hook to the ceiling
And swing you around like puppets on a string.
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Whether he possesses a box of crayons
Or an eldritch rune painted on a canvas,
Jugyl’s very presence will scramble your mind
Until your eyes betray you, leaving you blind.
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The only way I escaped his servants
Was by abusing their dependence on their hearing sense.
I eventually cured them, I eventually cured them, I eventually cured them,
Ripped out their eye worms and went back in time,
Before they’d been corrupted; but they were still blind.
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Another Dream Lord I’ve met in-person
Is the Vampire Lord, what was his name again?
It doesn’t really matter, I was his son-in-law or something
Because I was his heir, though I still don’t understand.
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Why did he give his precious heirloom to me, a human?
Why did I take his hatchet with me, but barely did use it?
Why did I mistake that molten sphere for a monster?
Why did I go face-to-face with Nyptkeen’s tsunami?
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How many times have I fallen in love with insects?
Whether they are humanoid girls or swarms or maggots.
How often have I been a little girl myself?
But also a monster, like Ryst’s personnel?
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The true fear I have is that these Dream Lords shape our dreams.
Hiding in them values and ideals, and other subtle things.
To prepare us for when they are ready
To set us at war, with their real-life enemies.
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Imagine if you will, you are fighting zombies.
Perhaps this is the work of Dread Yuphel and his laddies.
But what happens if zombies break out in real-life?
Don’t you see? Dread Yuphel has readied our minds.
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But what intentions do the Dream Lords hold?
I feel like a puppet, my future is told.
A sleeper agent, they pull the strings.
When I am awakened, I’ll do as they please.