Alchemist of The Boiling Isles [Adopted]

Episode 22: Rapunzeltopia

A little moodboard from my lovely Girlfriend, @SabrinaCiper.

After the top-of-time disaster, the gang couldn't find a way out of the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow. As nightfall hit, Rapunzel volunteered to take the first watch in case something else happened. Cass wasn't too sure about the idea but Rapunzel insisted, plus she wanted to write in her journal about what happened. As Rapunzel began to write in her journal, Pascal sat on her shoulder to give her some company while the others were sound asleep. But a couple of hours later, an unsettling feeling had woken Luz up from her slumber. Sitting up, she glanced around in the dark, seeing the others were still asleep.

That was when she spotted Rapunzel currently striding up the stairs. She whispered out Rapunzel's name but she didn't respond. Feeling worried, she shook Varian and Hunter awake and told them that something was off with Rapunzel. Curious, the three of them plus Sapphire and Flapjack followed Rapunzel. From their view, it looked like she was in a trance of some kind. After winding around a few hallways, Rapunzel eventually comes to a strange door that has an image of a horned creature on it and there is an eerie green glow shining from underneath. To their horror, Rapunzel enters the room and the door slams shut.

Flapjack and Sapphire tweeted in panic, trying to get the three of them away from the door. "Flap, calm down. What's gotten into you?" Hunter asked.

"Uh, guys..." Luz started to say, pointing to the door.

The door opened again and this time, green glowing vines stretched out from inside the room. The vines grabbed Luz, Sapphire, and Flapjack then pulled them inside. The vines put Flapjack and Sapphire in a small cage with Pascal. Luz was pinned to the wall by the vines; she saw Rapunzel lying down on a stone slab, asleep with vines wrapping around her. Varian and Hunter peeked through the door. "Rapunzel!" Luz shouted.

"Nobody is going anywhere," a familiar voice says from inside the room, it was Matthews.

Matthews was wearing a long robe, a strange headdress, and holding a staff. "Matthews! I've been skeptical of you from the beginning!" Luz shouted, grinning her teeth.

"Oh-ho. You have good instincts," Matthews says with a humorless chuckle. "For you see, Matthews is merely the form I took on."

Matthews transformed right in front of them. He was now a floating green spirit with glowing white eyes. "I am Tromus," he announced. "And my master, Zhan Tiri, had a great need for this little sundrop. Once these vines wrap around her completely, she'll have surrendered to the dream world, and the sundrop's limitless power will belong to Zhan Tiri!"

Hunter remembered reading about this kind of spell back on the Isles, a dream spell. The spell puts the victim into a dream world where everything is perfect and forces them to forget about the real world. If Rapunzel accepts the dream world then she'll be stuck in there forever. The only way for her to escape the dream was if she woke herself up. Varian was about to go inside to enter Rapunzel's dream but Hunter stopped him. He didn't want to risk Matthews getting his hands on Varian. Varian luckily had a little alchemy solution to help them. He created a solution that would turn him and Hunter invisible just like Luz's glyphs.

With that, he sprinkled it over himself and Hunter so they could slip inside and enter Rapunzel's dream. Hunter pointed to the vines that were connected to Rapunzel. The two of them grabbed the vine and then focused enough to enter the dreamworld in Rapunzel's mind. When they arrived, they were in a dream world that looked precisely like Corona. When Varian looked at himself and Hunter, he saw that they were wearing black cloaks. They were inside the castle hallway but no one could see them. "Where are we?" Hunter asked.