He plummeted through the darkness and slammed onto a hardwood floor. He was in a cozy, sun-drenched townhouse. The décor was expensive, the vibe was domestic, and the air smelled of... burnt toast?

The illusion dropped Liam into a townhouse that smelled of burnt toast, which was the first sign something was deeply wrong, because Liam did not burn toast.

Elizabeth was at the dining table in a messy bun and one of his oversized shirts, which fit her the way oversized shirts fit people who are significantly smaller than the person they belong to. Liam clocked in approximately half a second before he clocked the fake version of himself sitting across from her, burning a pancake.

"It’s perfect, Liam," Ellie whispered. She reached across the table, sliding her small hand into Fake Liam’s. "Let’s never leave. Just you, me. No more monsters."

Fake Liam was smiling vacantly and holding her hand, and the pancake on the plate between them was black on both sides.

Liam looked at the pancake for a long moment.

"She thinks I’d serve that," he said, to nobody. "Dream on."

"Elizabeth, wake up. This food is an insult to my profession."

He walked over, grabbed Elizabeth by the shoulder, pulled a fistful of Hearth-Chestnuts from his inventory and crushed them under her nose. The sharp roasted smell cut through the illusion like a blade through wet paper, and Elizabeth blinked, looked at Fake Liam’s hand in hers, felt the difference between that and the calloused burn-scarred weight of the real one on her shoulder, and lunged backward into his chest with a gasp that she would later describe as a tactical repositioning.

The townhouse dissolved around them before she had time to be embarrassed about it, which was the one mercy the Kitsune had accidentally provided.

They landed in a neon-drenched street that smelled like the 90s, where a significantly younger Mirra was leaning against a brick wall, looking carefree and twenty and completely unbothered by anything, laughing at something while Rogue’s real-world counterpart watched her with the specific expression of a man who had decided not to say what he was thinking.

"No kids, no ex-husbands," Dream-Mirra laughed, her voice doing something warm and uncomplicated that her actual voice almost never did. "Just us."

Liam walked into the middle of it like a tank entering a flower shop.

"MIRRA! SARAH! WHOEVER YOU ARE! WAKE UP! YOUR STEP-KIDS COULD BE TORCHING THE HOUSE! NONE OF THIS IS REAL! PROBABLY ILLEGAL!"

Mirra spun around, eyes blazing, and hit him across the faceplate with a frost-covered hand. The clang was loud enough to shatter the neon sky.

She stood rubbing her hand. "One good moment," she said, with the exhausted dignity of a woman who had asked for very little and received less. "That’s all I wanted."

"You were about to date Rogue," Liam said.

Mirra looked at where Dream-Rogue had been standing. Looked back at Liam. "Fair point," she said. "Let’s go."

The neon dissolved into a throne room that looked like it had been designed by someone with an unlimited budget and no taste, gold and diamonds everywhere and Rogue sitting at the top of it, approximately six-foot-seven, with his legs dangling off the throne like a man who had achieved everything he had ever wanted.

"I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD," Rogue announced to a line of kneeling NPCs. "I have ninety-nine Agility, and I am officially one inch taller than Liam. Bring me Mountain Dew and the finest ramen in the land."

The three of them stood in the hall staring up at him.

"He’s dreaming about being one inch taller than me," Liam said.

"It’s his personal final boss," Mirra said.

Liam walked to the throne, reached up, grabbed Rogue by the boot, and pulled. The throne shattered. The dream was shattered. Reality reassembled itself in pieces around them, and Rogue hit the dirt and looked immediately at his own feet and then at Liam’s and made the sound of a man who had been to the mountaintop and come back.

"I was a god," Rogue said, from the ground. "I was a literal giant."

"You were six-seven in a hallucination," Liam said, drawing his sword.

The Kitsune Matriarch was waiting in the centre of the clearing with the energy of something that had expected this to work and was reassessing. She was enormous, snow-white, nine tails fanning behind her like a threat display, each one the size of a redwood branch tipped with violet foxfire that pulsed in time with a heartbeat that was clearly in no hurry. Her eyes were the swirling violet of something that had been doing this for a very long time and was used to winning.

Liam stepped forward, the [Weightless Forge] making his heavy plates move with the silent lethality of a ghost. He didn’t just see a boss; he saw a rare drop. "I’ve always wondered," Liam muttered, his red eyes locking onto the fox. "What does a nine-tailed spirit taste like when it’s slow-roasted?"

[BobaLady]: THE FOX LADY.

[SimpKing99]: I WOULD LIKE TO SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY.

[Draco]: ROGUE DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE TAILS.

[FootLover]: TOO LATE.

"Rogue," Liam said, "stop looking at her tails."

"I’m not," Rogue said, looking at her tails.

"Mirra, Blizzard on my mark. Elizabeth, right flank. Rogue, if you’re done grieving your height, try not to die." Liam’s eyes were on the Matriarch’s chest, where the core of a Rare Spawn pulsed with nine levels’ worth of accumulated essence and whatever a nine-tailed fox spirit tasted like, which he had been thinking about since the notification appeared. "She’s got three times the HP of the Shadow-Stalker and ten times the ego. She’ll try the mist again if we let her channel. Don’t let her channel."

The Matriarch opened her mouth, and the sound that came out was half woman and half something that had never been a woman. All nine tails slammed into the ground where the party had stood mere moments before, shattering the earth in an explosion of dirt and violet fire that scorched the icy air.

Rogue was already in the shadows. Mirra’s staff was already up. Elizabeth’s rapier was already drawn, her cape catching the foxfire light as she moved right, her platinum armour doing what platinum armour does when violet fire hits it, which was look extremely good.

Liam stepped forward into the space where the tails had landed and looked up at the Matriarch, who was looking down at him with the dawning understanding that the thing she had tried to trap in an illusion was now standing in the crater her own attack had made, entirely unbothered, with a sword and a hunger problem.

Nine tails, he thought, red eyes steady. I wonder if they all taste different.

[TOOL TIP: THE "CANNON EVENT" CANCELLATION]

Status: Professional Vibe-Slayer / Destroyer of Delusions.

Mirra’s Reality Check: Liam woke her up by yelling that her step-kids were burning the house down, proving that the only thing scarier than a Level 30 Boss is real-world domestic responsibility.

Rogue’s Final Boss: Rogue’s ultimate fantasy wasn’t infinite gold or world peace—it was being exactly one inch taller than Liam.

The Matriarch’s Mistake: She fanned out nine tails like a threat display, but Liam just looked at them and wondered if they had different flavour profiles, effectively turning a Boss Battle into a 9-course tasting menu.

"I was a god! I was a literal giant!" "You were five-six in a hallucination, Rogue. Drink your juice box and get in formation."