Arieg stood for a moment, staring at the suits, the 'individuals', and contemplating the 'voice' that continued to assail them all. Was this all just his sub conscious screwing with him? Or was the voice right? Was he part of some bigger... awareness.

The Nepleslian opted to follow the directions and head the warnings.. for now.. putting his own suit on as he eyed the other 'participants' with a weary eye.

"Or you can just memorize my net-adress. You seem clever enough for that." Jordan said with tease in her voice. She also bopped the scientist guy into his shoulder friendly. "It's JJPUNCH@Francia.nep so it is easy to remember isn't it? Just send me message when we wake up." She said and smiled again.

Then the echo came, first in professors voice then in Jordan own voice. Jordan looked around for the source, but could not see anything. "Creepy." She then said.

"I'd hardly call it creepy." Albert retorted, already commiting the rather simple address to memory. "Sensory phenomenon are not uncommon in dreamscapes, and the lucid dreamscape theoretically would allow us to create similar acoustic disturbances."

Albert tilted his head for a moment, and soon enough, loud jovial laughter filled the air around them. The new voice bellowed, "My, I wasn't even sure this would work! Fascinating!"

"The real question is," The good doctor continued, "Which one of us thought up that particular echo? Maybe Elena would know... or perhaps the one who thought it."

Doctor Weiss scanned the room with a look of false suspicion plastered across his face.

"... Curious... One of the participants seems unable to intergrate theirselves into the formed reality... Unexpected, but this will not be an issue... "

"And Sir Weiss, very well done, however, may I advice you to be careful for now. Such experimental behaviour may disturb the others, something neither of us would want I hope?"

"Now, we are almost complete and almost completely dressed up." Her voice centered towards Venicus "Please get dressed too, as we are about to enter the first phase of training. After everyone has concluded conversations and our last participant has solidified."

Meanwhile ELENA's voice went on to Tweak's mind, only heard by her. Filling it with words first, then pictures, then complete videos, containing information and knowledge about dreams, physical appearance, math, physics and more. All at a hard to follow speed for any normal human.
This all was meant to hopefully aid Tweak to become more aware of what was going on and to give her a body, an existance, within the realm.

After the short silence for the rest in the time it took ELENA to bring Tweak up to speed, she spoke to the rest of the group again.
"Our last participant will slowly be joining you swiftly. Let us begin with your first objective... Reach the green location marker"
As she mentioned the green location marker, at a short distance of about 50 metres away from the group, an upside down, lightly glowing, green, 4-sided pyramid appeared hovering above the ground, gently bobbing up and down as equally green circles rippled out on the floor below it in the same bobbing rythm.

"Good luck, Lucid Walkers"

Venicus shook his head as he dressed himself, figuring it was best not to question things. However, he did start chuckling at ELENA's oxymoron. "As a computer, you should be aware that something can't happen slowly and swiftly at the same time. Silly wiring." When the indicator appeared Venicus looked around, wondering if this was a joke, and then casually walked over to the green pyramid.

Normally, the transmission would have been blocked by the firewalls that were native to the NH-7 series' minds. In fact, ELENA couldn't transmit anything directly to Tweak at all, since the neko's physical being was well outside any broadcast range. However, Tweak's dream self was right there with everyone else, so no transmissions were necessary. If ELENA was smart, and it seemed she was intelligent, she would find other ways of providing information to the disembodied projection.

The mind had temporally segregated itself from the others. Perceived time -- of course it wasn't actual time, that was impossible -- shifted like a recording, more often than not toward the slower end of the spectrum while never quite stopping. ELENA, after determining what the neko was doing and how, could adjust her delivery method to compensate and take the most advantage of it.

Some of the information proffered by ELENA was gathered, but the rest was refused, discarded, ignored as the neko's mind processed the essentials: Language, self-awareness, and different forms and images that were potentially able to be used. Math had no meaning to it, nor did anatomy, physics, or whatever that junk was about "dreams". All of that contradicted what it had already seen for itself concerning what people looked like, what physics did, and (as far as it was concerned) math itself was a fluid concept here.

Without the neko's computerized brain, Tweak's thoughts worked at the same speed as any human's. The difference here was in the flexibility of those thoughts: Instead of working on a preconception that it had a limit to its speed, the neko's mind was incredibly adept at making what it thought was "needed", at doing or being where it perceived it "needed" to do or be. And, right now, it "needed" to interact.

As it re-considered the other dreamers in the 'room', the image from earlier reappeared. Instead of being ghost-like, it solidified...mostly. The image still flickered like a medium-framerate animation on the edge of proper film quality as it blended the physical features of the others in various ways. As a result, the being that was depicted was shown as constantly changing, but eventually certain aspects were settled. It was shown at a height that was an average of all of them, an unsettling skin color that was also the average of all of them, but everything else remained in flux. However, as Venicus donned his suit, a similar suit appeared on the shape. This one, though, constantly adapted to the changes in the body's features. As a result, there was no clear race or species to the new, sixth member of this strange assembly of dreamwalkers, and the gender seemed to constantly shift between male, female, and something that wasn't distinctly either of the two. And, unknown to all except perhaps ELENA, the neko's mind was still separate from the body, using it like a puppet or a suit.


The new arrival's head slowly turned from side to side, "looking" at the others. The neko's mind's eye went into it, getting a first-person view of what it now controlled...and controlled without effort, simply by thinking what it wanted the body to do. Now it wanted to speak. The voice that emerged was singular, but somewhat garbled as the pitch and tone shifted slowly between each of the other five's voices as it spoke.

"Name me?"

Jordan watched what happened around. She was almost ready to go when 'that' appeared near Venicus. It was some strange creature, not man, not woman. It was not even clear what race it was with it strangely coloured skin and ever-changing hairstyle.

"Well Proffesor," she said Looking at Albert. "Now that is creepy! Someone had to get stoned as shit before he went to bed." Jordan commented. She then noticed her heart-rate went up a little. That thing had to get to her so Jordan just shook her head, turned around and started walking towards the pyramid.

"Walk to the marker?" Danny looked at it in the distance. Fifty metres away on a smooth, flat surface wasn't far enough, or challenging enough to warrant running. Instead, he just walked alongside Jordan.

However, watching Tweak scintillate and shift as she tried to make sense of the world around her and ground herself in the dream world, "Whoa. Uh. Uhm," He tried to think of a name while trying to ignore how his voice somehow got caught up in the garble, "I'll... I'll just call you Shapeshifter, for now."

Shapeshifter, because it shifted its shape constantly. Danny looked down at his rolled up sleeve and noticed his heart rate increase, probably due to the discomfort of watching 'Shapeshifter' undulate.

Once he got to the green pyramid, he leaned against it and found that it pushed him as it was rotating - fixed absolutely in space through some unseen force, it seemed. Instead, he just decided to stand next to it and watch it spin curiously.

"Indeed." The professor replied to Jordan, ignoring the floating objective for the moment and pacing towards their newest compatriot.

"So, you're the trouble-maker, are you?" He said softly, and with a tender smile, "My, yes. What an exciting turn of events here so far."

He paced past the shapeshifter and started pacing around in a wide circle, with his hands tucked underneath the back of his labcoat.

"Do you like the moniker 'Shapeshifter' given to you by our friend Daniel? It refers to your state of flux. How does that make you feel?"

'How does that make you feel?' Always seems to be such a loaded question from men in labcoats.

As some neared the location marker a slow rumble could be heard in the distance.

Nothing particularly startling at first, but the sound seemed to come from all around them and was approaching too!

"Careful Lucid Walkers, please stay focused as it is of importance to the stability of the realm." ELENA added in her ever monotonous voice.

But before the distracted Arieg could even respond to ELENA or the approaching rumble, the ground tore away beneath him into small footwide cubes, as did the ground in an enclosing circle around the marker.
"QUICKLY!" ELENA exclaimed as Arieg tumbled down into a blackblue nothingness.

---
Elsewhere Arieg would find himself waking up with a sudden gasp "Duty! Duty... of course! ..." And his sudden wakening left him without a single trace of the weird dream he had.
---

As everyone else's attention was caught the disintergration of the floor beneath the others continued at a slower pace.

"Move to the green location marker" ELENA repeated dryly.