A confusing alternate universe dream condensing several of the worst and/or most embarrassing years of his life had been one thing; falling asleep to yet another interfering night vision was just pushing it. But Jack didn't come to the conclusion so quickly. After all, given how often he thought about the legacies, for better or for worse (usually the latter, as his head was apparently a playground for several now), it wasn't an uncommon thing to dream something broken about them. Better choking vines or the blue-white fire of Caliburn than remembering the desert, or revisiting other dark times of his past. Like ******** high school.

Doors certainly had been popping up more often than usual, though not so uniformly as this. The corridor didn't seem familiar, though the dilapidated look of it made it harder to discern if he was conjuring something up or was somewhere he should have recognized. As far as Jack knew, the only things that caught his attention were the faded paint jobs on the doors: black, blue, red, purple, white, and gold. He grew on edge as he wandered the halls, though how long he wandered was up for debate. At some point he realized he hadn't tried a particular turn and found himself facing the single green door, which he gazed at with apprehension.

Now was when he realized it could be more trickery. Seriously, ******** the legacies. Wasn't it enough to get possessed twice in a short period of time? But what could he do while he was still dreaming? Despite his best attempts, Jack knew he wasn't in control of his surroundings: merely its fragments. (He could still hear faint noises just beyond those broken doors, corresponding images and sounds to colors. He tried to look forward, but his mind would sometimes fall into obsessive patterns, categorizing them even in dreams it seemed to try and make sense of it all.)

At length, he scoffed at himself and turned the knob, bracing for more brain-bleeding authority to overrule him. Or perhaps this time he would only get mentally scarred, if he was lucky.

Instead he was met with another long hallway. For a moment Jack thought he was traversing some conglomeration of knight memories, given that the place had an archaic feeling to it. But the further down he went, the less familiar it became--the more modern. A computer room lied at the end of the walk, with vines networked in rather than wires and notes that read absolute jibberish of different symbols each time he glanced at one. After a moment's hesitation, waiting just in case something triggered, Jack investigated.

It was as he brushed his hand along the desk that something made itself out to him amongst the thorns and flowers: small, metallic, and just the slightest bit warm, as if it had been left in the sun for a moment too long. When he examined it closer, the blurry object became a ring, which complicated matters somewhat to him. Was it still a legacy-induced s**t show, or was his own inner conflicts deciding to break up the monotony that was being reminded he was only a pawn? But then, this didn't look anything like the ring he had bought, and he had inspected that sucker from top to bottom...

The computer near him whirred to life, nearly startling him out of his introspection. Glancing at it, he watched as text began to crawl across the screen.

Hello. I've been waiting for you.

He sighed through his nose as he typed back, lazy and one-handed. Perhaps he should have been more on guard, but at this point he was bored out of his mind and trapped in his own dream; might as well interact with whatever was forcing him to do this so he could hopefully move on.

Of course you have. Get on with it.

- - -

It didn't hit him for a few moments when he woke up that he was still gripping something. One quick squeeze was all it took to confirm his suspicions.

He almost wanted to throw that ring against the wall, but even that was a being a little too dramatic a little too early for him.

What was it supposed to mean? A token of attempting to give a s**t about wayward civilians? A consolation prize for getting puppeted? Certainly it wasn't a reward for doing well on that last damn mission. Add it to the pile of s**t he had to think about, he supposed. What else was new? It was probably cursed or some s**t, knowing his luck.

The worst part, though, Jack figured, was that he would probably end up talking to Chel about this stupid thing before he got to the real deal. And she'd never let him hear the end of it.