Lucid Dream Pillow

The Lucid Dream Pillow is a limited-use magic pillow that Caitlin gives In-gong for his birthday, allowing its owner to design exceptionally vivid dreams and use them for rest, reflection, or realistic training.

History

Caitlin's Birthday Gift

Caitlin finds the large, purple-cloth pillow among relics in a Takar shop whose owner does not understand its full performance, then gives it to In-gong as a birthday present. Its revealed instructions promise a chosen dream once every three days and no more than ten activations, while warning that its strong mental effect can blur the boundary between dream and reality. In-gong initially uses one activation during the repeated pursuit marches for a good night's sleep, then keeps the relic in his inventory. This makes him its recipient and user; Caitlin is the purchaser and giver rather than a continuing custodian. (Chapters 125 and 130–132)

Dream Training and Retained Experience

Before sparring with Vandal, In-gong uses the pillow as a configurable simulator. He creates separate saved dream settings, reproduces opponents from memory, adjusts their abilities, and tests possible allocations of his own strength. The dream grants neither experience points nor skill-level increases, but the remembered practice remains useful: after suffering thirty-two simulated deaths, he changes his real attribute investment, practices concentrated aura defense, and endures the decisive blow in the actual spar. The pillow also lets the Ainkel fragment within his own consciousness speak, but Ainkel emphasizes that the dream is built from In-gong and cannot provide knowledge unrelated to what he already holds. (Chapters 131–134)

Later Uses and Uncertain Reserve

Carack recognizes signs that In-gong has continued using the Lucid Dream Pillow and later notices that the use indicator on its surface has changed again. The narrative does not state the new number, identify every intervening dream, or say that all ten charges have been consumed. The pillow therefore remains with In-gong when last shown, but its exact remaining reserve and any final postwar use are unknown. (Chapters 185–186)

Abilities and properties

• The pillow permits its owner to choose a dream once every three days, with a lifetime limit of ten uses. The user can design the background and characters rather than merely selecting a general subject. (Chapter 125)
• It produces unusually vivid dreams and also gives restorative sleep. Because the experience can feel more real than reality, Felicia calls it a mental drug and warns that repeated use can make dreams and waking life difficult to distinguish. (Chapters 125 and 132)
• A configured dream normally lasts eight hours. The user cannot wake early unless something exceptional occurs, such as a strong outside impact, a forceful request by the user, or real-world damage to the pillow. (Chapter 132)
• The dream supports paused settings and separate save-like slots, allowing repeated scenarios and controlled opponent simulations. It cannot award real experience or directly increase skill levels, but the user can retain understanding, strategic conclusions, and practice-derived decisions after waking. (Chapters 132–134)
• The pillow can expose memories or personality fragments already buried in its user's consciousness. Ainkel's fragment uses it to speak and help recover a location from In-gong's existing memory, while explicitly stating that the tool cannot supply unrelated knowledge he does not possess. The fragment belongs to In-gong, not to the pillow. (Chapter 132)

Ownership and custody