dream fragment

I was in a spirit realm (another plane of existence on Earth) where I met a woman (a human spirit) who was distraught over the loss of her loyal animal companion. We were standing outside the gates of a temple that was buried in moss and other plants, causing it to be almost completely hidden in the forest against a mountain.

"My poor baby is trapped inside, being held prisoner by the malevolent Earth spirit. He's the one this temple was originally made for." the woman told me worriedly as she looked at the temple. "Nobody has worshipped him in thousands of years... They've forgotten his name. He's grown resentful towards humans..." she said as she wiped tears from her eyes. Maybe that was why he stole her companion.

"I believe I can help you retrieve your companion." I offered, believing the woman (and her companion) shouldn't be punished for the Earth spirit's emotions. I took a moment to tap into the presence of the Earth spirit and realized he wasn't anywhere near the temple. I could see him in my vision gliding through the trees miles away. He looked almost like an ape, capable of climbing through the tops of the forest with ease. For now, he was tending to his duties—whatever those were, I wasn't sure what he was doing exactly, but he was far away from the temple right now.
"His presence isn't here at the moment, so we could sneak into the temple and get your companion back without him noticing. I sense there won't be much time left before he returns, though, so we have to make it quick." I told her.

She looked at me with urgent anticipation, nodding at the plan, and smiled at the prospect of getting her companion back.
But just when she looked like she wanted to do this, she shook her head. "You can't come with me. I have to go alone." she insisted, turning to the temple as if to go on inside.

I followed her with concern and a bit of confusion. "Huh? I can't come with you? Why's that?"

She stopped on the path just outside the temple entrance, facing away from me as she collected her bearings, preparing go inside. "Because... He knows he can overpower a human like me... My presence won't be a threat to him if he catches me." she said with fear in her voice. She looked worried and shook her head again. "If he sees you helping me, he'll feel threatened by you. It might send him into a rage and he might hurt my companion to punish me for bringing you into his temple." she told me as she prepared to go into the temple alone, willing to risk herself for any chance of saving her companion.

I stopped and nodded. "I understand... He might become angry if he sees me in his temple. But... if he catches you alone, you could be imprisoned or destroyed, and both you and your companion will be devastated. I think you should let me help you so I can prevent that from happening." I said gently with concern, not wanting her to risk herself like this.
"I specialize in invisibility, so it's not likely he'll see me."

I then looked inside the temple with my mind and realized that it wasn't destroyed on the inside (only the outside). The entrance acted as a portal, leading to the interior of the temple as it once stood in its original glory. Though there was no one inside. Inside, I could see two doors facing opposite from each other, each leading into separate halves of the temple.
I could tell the Earth spirit had intentionally cloaked which path was the correct one because I couldn't tell which door led to her companion, something I would otherwise be able to sense.
"...There's two different passageways we need to search. We can cover more ground together. You won't have enough time by yourself." I informed her after looking.

Hearing this, she came around and agreed, looking more hopeful.
Without anymore time to waste, we went ahead inside and I phased into my dragon's form upon passing through the portal/doorway.
My dragon is also a spirit that has its own thoughts and feelings, so we share a body and mind in this form. As soon as I transform into it, I can feel its aloofness and strength becoming part of me. It gives me access to more effective invisibility and other abilities, which I knew I'd need for this task.

So I took the left door while the woman took the right.

There were various obstacles in the corridors that I had to maneuver around, starting with security. The walls had paintings and statues that could see anyone who walked passed their line of sight, even someone who's invisible like I was. So I used my dragon's enhanced perception to see their sight paths and carefully flew under and above them to avoid their eyes. My dragon doesn't have wings, but flies telepathically in smooth motion, so this part was easy.

The first room had servitors I had to dismantle. Unfortunately I can't remember much detail, but basically proceeded to continue sliding past security (sometimes breaking the statues), fighting guards, and going through all sorts of obstacles as I searched through the temple for the woman's companion.

I eventually found the animal companion, which was a friendly dog spirit that was trapped and corrupted by a harness that made it loyal to the Earth spirit. It attacked me at first, but I managed to remove the corruption and the dog became incredibly happy to see me. I communicated my intentions to reunite the two of them and it followed me as I guided it back towards the entrance, hoping the Earth spirit wouldn't show up, but I could feel his presence returning to the temple... Shit.

He appeared in an ape-like form, growling as he sensed someone had entered his temple.
I tried to stay invisible, which worked. He couldn't see me. However, he saw the dog spirit running loose through his temple and quickly ran after it.
Invisible, I was trying to guide the dog to the exit without being seen by the Earth spirit following close behind. There were a few close calls where the Earth spirit almost touched me, which would break my invisibility in an instant if he did. But I managed to slip by.

Not for long though. The Earth spirit realized the dog was seeing something he couldn't (me) and followed the dog's line of sight, looking straight at me. He focused his sights on me, allowing him to see through my invisibility.
I was caught and suddenly filled with worry that he would kill the dog in an outrage like the woman said he would.
I quickly communicated to him my intentions, apologizing for intruding in his temple, and trying not to anger him further.

But then he stopped being angry. He communicated back to me that his anger towards humanity had slowly eroded over time, and his anger gradually faded.

He let me take the dog. I brought it outside and the woman came out, too, hugging her companion. She was surprised and relieved that the Earth spirit freed her companion.
We both looked at the temple, which had been eroded by time, broken down into ruins that had been already consumed by the Earth.

The dream ended and I laid asleep in bed with dreamless sleep for a while, enjoying the quiet.

Lost the dream journal to this, going off memory.

---

I traveled to a post apocalyptic version of earth. The few people still surviving didn’t know what happened, so I was just there to tell them what caused the world to end—so that history can be recorded and they don’t repeat the same mistake.

I then traveled back to before the apocalypse wiped everyone out (still in the distant future from our modern time), and I noticed Arthur was still on the air.

So, I turned on an episode and… it was bad.

It was unbelievably bad... Instead of having a round head, Arthur had a chipmunk shaped head. Instead of human eyes, the characters all had animal eyes, but they were enlarged to fit the cartoon animal face. Absolutely horrifying. Picture large beady black orbs slightly jutting out of the face with flimsy tacked-on human eyebrows. But they had human mouths…. And teeth. It was hyper realistic, but 2D not 3D. You could see every hair, but smooth areas like the teeth had no detail.

No that's not what started the apocalypse, but dang thank goodness the apocalypse ended it.