Shpongle has a minion!

Prometheus the Arctic Chirrup

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Here is a place that is not exactly solid. Everything seems real enough. If you want, you could even reach out and touch it all, and it would be there under your fingertips. But you can't always trust your senses. Sometimes, when you're not looking, the world is shifting around you.

Here, too, is something--someone?--reptilian. He holds a mask in front of his face, but you can see the glint of his eyes behind it.

He lowers the mask and beckons you in, curling his clawed fingers invitingly. He grins, and although his grin contains more teeth than you might normally prefer to see, it is not a threatening expression at all.

He makes a pass with one sharply taloned hand, and you realize he's not holding a mask after all, but a flute.

Strange. Flutes don't look anything like masks. What an odd mistake to make.

But it's so clearly a flute. He raises it to his lips and plays a brief, lilting melody. It's lovely and stirring, yet when he stops, you can't remember how it went. The music is as illusory as the surroundings.

"I am a shaman," he says. "A magician. My illusions are lies, of course. But they're also true. What matters is the substance."

He pauses and closes his eyes, bobbing his head to a beat that only he can hear. Only... you realize that you can hear it, too. It was always there. You just never noticed it before.

"You can see so much more with your eyes closed. Come, close your eyes. Wake yourself from these dreams. The mind has a thousand eyes."

The flute is gone, if it was ever real. He's holding the mask, which he lifts to his face.

"I don't know everything," he says, and the owl-like creature at his side chirrups to itself. Was it always there, or was that just a shimmer in the corner of your eye?

"But I can show you everything, if you're willing to stay and listen."

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