The Ring
Begin: I was with a woman companion, about my age (33), and another couple reminiscent of my friends Tom and Peggy, but definitely not them. We were in a highly eroded badlands kind of area, climbing around the bottom of some ruined stone buildings. While these ruins were very extensive, they consisted mostly of piles of rubble with just the stubs of walls visible through them. These had been built of stone blocks about a foot on a side or smaller. The other three persons were exploring freely, but I had some nagging misgivings about this place.
Somewhere under some rubble I found a very small box, which, when opened proved to contain a ring and a small folding knife with a leaf shaped blade. The ring was of dull gray metal with no stone and only a simple design. I carried the knife in my left hand, blade folded out, as my only defense in face of my uneasiness. The ring I felt was a magical device, but I did not put it on because I did not know what kind of power it represented. I feared it might be a device of enslavement or possession. I carried it tightly clasped in the same hand as the knife.
The other couple wandered away, and my companion and I continued to explore. We came to a small room, still intact, set in a corner of the ruin. It was about the size of an elevator, and may have contained one. My companion started to enter, but I felt strange about it after almost entering it myself. I held her arm and talked her out of it by convincing her it might fall. My feeling was that it was a trap for taking people somewhere. I told her there must be stairs somewhere near and we would look for them.
We found the stairs, and the other couple had also found them. At the top was a portion of the building that was not yet in ruins at all, but well maintained and occupied. There were a few large rooms decorated in somewhat Victorian style, one opening widely on a small terrace at the top of the stairs. An attractive woman graciously invited we four to have a little luncheon at a small round table just inside from the terrace. She brought us food and drinks and made light conversation which I do not remember. A swarthy faced man was also in the room, but did not come to the table.
My companions seemed quite content, but I was still uneasy, so much so I decided to risk trying the ring. I put it on the third finger of my left hand, then moved it to the second. There was no dramatic effect, but I did find I had a little more insight into what was going on. The woman was standing at the table to my left, and, still not knowing what I really had, I held up my hand and asked her, "Do you recognize this?" She paled and stepped back, looking around as though for help. I could now just make out that these rooms were actually ruins like the rest of the building, that the food was only straw, and the drinks were only well water. Everything else was an illusion.
The man had started across toward us, but I did not feel endangered by either he or the woman. I thought of them as probably people previously caught by the trap. I told them I was going to break the illusion and stood up, making a tremendous mental effort. Little pieces started to fall away in places where I looked, but they tended to fill in again when my attention moved elsewhere. My companions were startled and the hosts seemed confused about what to do. Finally, with a great straining of my mental powers, the illusion began to collapse, leaving great areas of the ruin exposed. The effort eased somewhat as it fell apart.
End.
As I woke up I wondered:
1. If my dream self would be able to finish the job all right,
or if the illusion would be able to heal itself now.
2. Whether I had been sent back to this world by the makers of
the illusion to save it.
3. Whether the dream would actually continue at all without my
conscious presence, or if my presence had any effect at all.
4. Whether any of the above mattered at all, or if the whole
thing was only an illusion or play of some kind.