Stewart:
You find yourself in a vast cavern; the only borders you can see are the floor under your feet and the ceiling, maybe twenty feet above you. The place is silent, dry, and dead. A few pillars, stalactites, and stalagmites remain intact, but most of the cave has been smashed, like some giant went through it with a sledgehammer. Even the few bits of rock still in place bear scars; claw marks at least two inches deep into the stone.
Due to your extensive experience with the plane of dreams, you can tell that this is almost but not quite a normal dream - something is imparting direction to it, but you are in no more danger than you would be in dreamless sleep.
Of course, knowing that you're in no danger, and actually believing it are two entirely separate things - for an emaciated, almost skeletal, displacer beast with burning red eyes appears out of the shadows.
"Greetings, mortal." He pauses a moment, and seems to be staring through you, "No, don't bother to reply - this is... a sort of a message in a bottle. Anything more direct would probably end in your death, and that simply would not do." He starts pacing in circles clockwise around you (or around where you were, if you move...) "So. Why am I talking to you? Because Luma won't listen - not that I can blame her. Had there been any other way... But there wasn't. Isn't. I ask, then, that you help her; protect her; show her the kindness I cannot. My old enemies will move against you soon - they know well enough that..."
He breaks off, and the scene from back in the gully near the Circle of Daria fades in, superimposed over the cave. You and Luma stand, somehow below you, and you can see the zombie hyenas coming in from the north.
"Minions of Surl already? Does she really think those will accomplish anything? Still," the scene fades, leaving you back in the cave as you were, "There will be stronger attacks to come. Speak my name again, and I will provide what aid I can." He pauses, and you realize that he looks more feral now than when he started talking; more dangerous; more... hungry... and a second pair of red eyes is visible in the far-off shadows, slowly stalking; and now a third...
"Enough." His voice echoes oddly, as if it was coming from several different places around you. "I am... near my limit. Someday..." His voice wavers, and fades out as the entire cave seems to dissolve around you.
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