We rush back to Wayrest only to find King Emeric has indeed fallen into Quagmire, Vaermina’s insidious realm of eternal nightmares.

It is said that our nightmares are the shadows of our very souls.  Indeed, Emeric’s nightmares seem to consist of his deepest fears realized.  He has lost Stormhaven to the Supernal Dreamers, everyone he held close has betrayed him, and his own perceived weaknesses stand naked and exposed for all to see.

This Quagmire is a realm of blur, murk, shadow and screams.  When we awaken we oft forget the particulars of our nightmares, not because we can’t remember the details, but because, like paintings or music, a nightmare is a language all on its own, and we cannot express it in words.  So instead we suppress it to the deepest depths of our core, in the vain hope it might become lost or forgot.  But in reality, we carry them around inside us our whole lives.

Sometimes however our nightmares escape and become reality, and the monsters that dwell in them become real also.  The only way to defeat them is with a bigger, badder monster…

And that’s why I’m here.

S.K