Stephen Strange is a lucid dreamer with experience slipping between dimensions; his abilities in Thedas still in need of practice, but he has been honing and sharpening them as each of these dreams folds in on themselves. Becoming aware the first time was difficult, like clawing his way out of tar and molasses. Each subsequent time is a little easier, a little faster to spot the seams and start to unpick them, ripping and unraveling the illusion as he goes even as it fights him harder. (It is starting to be very annoying for the dream.)

This time, he walks right into the bucolic farming scene: a quiet sunny rural day, a bustling market with benignly friendly villagers, sheep rustling down the lane with the incessant clanging of bells. The scent of fresh produce and tilled earth and manure, a familiar tapestry like his childhood in Nebraska.

“—Oh, absolutely not,” Strange says, and turns around.

The world blurs, flickers and jolts like a skip in the record; and when next someone looks in this direction, the lane is empty once more and the sorcerer gone, moving on to the next dream.