The fearsome visage of Thalios stood defiant but alone in the center of a vast, unending chamber of darkness, the pit at the bottom of some bottomless chasm.  After his challenge pierced the gloom, the only sounds resonating through the pitch were the faint laps and burbles of his tempestuous mantle.  Ultimately Thalios did not have long to wait, though, for a slow and steady slap of feet upon ebony heralded the approach of the consumer.  Though the ethereal, mad emanations from Thalios could not have been light, they cast a wavering luminescence onto the face of the skinless walker as it came close.  Every inch of the nightmare god's impressive height turned useless as he was forced to look upward to see the grotesque, indelible grin of the Great One who now invaded his dreamscape.

[i]I am who I am.[/i]

No uncanny noise slithered from between those jagged, angled teeth.  Aforgomon uttered nothing, but still Thalios knew the macabre abomination's response.  In the space of a preternatural moment, the nightmare god knew also that this dimensional emissary held no responsibility for the creation of the nightmare in which he found himself snared.  [i]You remind me of the grave lord.  You cried out in despair, and I, only I, answered your call.[/i]  Doubtlessly Thalios understood how bizarre that this blind phantom, rather than all of his supposed allies of the Merged pantheon, would be the sole being to sympathize with the terrors that assailed him.

[i]Your nightmare, while insightful, is pungent.  Though it plagues you, it has outlived itself, and grows stale like oats.  The chaos wanes, its only legacy a thankless void.  No eternity recalls a dreamless slumber.  Where even gods ignore you, I deign to tread, and to turn you loose.[/i]

All this Thalios could swear Aforgomon said, if only a single word actually fled its jagged maw.  Around them the dark loomed, oppressive, but a dream loses its sting when the dreamer becomes aware.  The dimensional shambler traced a perfect curve through the Stygian blackness with an outstretched, loathsome finger, and the shadows tore apart to bleed light.  Through this brilliant, nonsensical rip in space, Thalios could escape its torment.  Aforgomon itself disappeared like a memory, its last fleeting glimpse its bald skull and an unspoken urge: [i]be free from the night.[/i]