Elsa's Nightmares

Elsa's Nightmares (EN) is a visual short story set in the Elsaverse. Divided into six chapters, the first one came out as a surprise on December 8, 2019, and represented a milestone in Tora Productions' work, as it is their first title ever released in the Ren'Py game engine, and it also meant Tlaero's return to writing after her unexpected retirement earlier that year. With a better balanced personal life, the official reason for her comeback was to offer some financial support to the team's artist, Mortze, by releasing an episodic story as a monthly perk for patrons while he was working on his solo project, SWe1: The Warrior's Heart (2020), which was totally unrelated to the Elsaverse. Elsa's Nightmares was designed to tell an important story for the most iconic character in the saga, Elsa, by using a sequence of sex scenes that would pique the interest of Tora Productions' followers and maybe even attract some broader audiences: as those sex scenes are actually dreaming scenes, the team was able to explore some unseen fetishes in other Elsaverse's titles. But, even though EN is way more sex-focused than other titles in the saga, the underlying conflict still takes precedence and sets the first stone of Elsaverse's second story arc.

Technically, Elsa's Nightmares is the first title in the Elsaverse originally created with the Ren'Py game engine. Until then, games and visual short stories were made with Tlaero's software, called Adventure Creator, and released in HTML format. In 2019, however, Ren'Py was broadly accepted by the main public as a standard in the indie gaming scene, and Mortze had already released The Science of Lust beta using this new engine and was also developing his side project in Ren'Py, so the engine change was a logical choice. Although the first 4 installments were initially released monthly as a Patreon perk for $10 donors, the developers decided to release both the fifth and sixth chapters for free, during the 2020 pandemic crisis. Every release included the previous chapters too, and readers can select which chapter they want to start with. The sixth and last chapter, and, therefore, the full story, was publicly released on June 17, 2020.

Premise
As a Dream Master, dreamland is Elsa's domain... until she can't control what happens in there anymore. A series of weird, erotic, and frightening dreams, especially for her loving partner, Jason, will reveal a part of herself that none of them knew she had in her. With a little help from her friends, Elsa will try to find out what's actually going on in her dreams, and then she'll have to make a crucial decision: what she's going to do with her life?

Ep1: "Things That Go Bump In The Night"
The story starts with Elsa and Jason making love on a bed, showing that their relationship is as romantic and passionate as ever. However, Elsa suddenly stops when she hears a weird sound, as if there's someone downstairs. Calmly, Jason asks her to not scare him, as they are actually in one of their shared dreams, where Elsa has total control of all of its elements. This time, though, Elsa isn't aware of being dreaming, and she swears she's not creating that stepping sound, which can be heard closer and closer, nor even the dream itself. Now scared, she waves her hand, and both disappear, waking up. Then, the door of the bedroom where they were just a second before starts to open, and a mysterious figure comes in: it's like an evil version of Elsa, dressed in a sexy, black leather outfit, and with glowing red eyes.

Ep2: "Bound By Dreams"
In the morning, Elsa wakes up alone in her room, because Jason is away on a business trip. Strangely for her, she barely remembers the weird dream from last night. When Jason arrives from his trip, they make love in the real world and then go to sleep. But, the next morning, Jason seems uneasy and asks her to talk about what happened after they fell asleep. Much to Elsa's surprise, Jason tells her that she showed up in his dreams, dressed as a dominatrix, and ordered him to be her sex slave. He obeyed, as he thought it was just Elsa wanting to try some light BDSM in the safe space of their dreams, but things went out of hand: she tried to suffocate him while forcing him to perform oral sex on her and then broke his finger as a punishment for him reaching orgasm sooner than expected; now that they are awake, Jason still feels the pain in his finger. In the scene Jason is narrating, Elsa is depicted with glowing red eyes. Stunned as she swears she didn't do any of that, Elsa tries to comfort her boyfriend, and then he makes her remember the scary dream from two nights ago. Elsa finally realizes that there must be something going on that she can't control in what was supposed to be her domain.

Ep3: "Chain Gang"
Furious, Elsa walks into "El Rey Casino" ready to accuse Chloe Reyes of being manipulating her dreams again, as she already did back in Dreaming with Elsa (2015). Back then, Elsa forbade Chloe to use her knowledge of dream spells ever again; even though they became friends later on, that prohibition still stands. Chloe, who now runs the casino in a more relaxed way than her father, Morland, did, is the only person Elsa knows that could be invading her dreams, but, after a brief talk, she quickly dismisses the idea of Chloe being the culprit she's looking for. Elsa tells her about her problem, and Chloe suggests that the only person capable of causing her those nightmares is Elsa herself. That night, Elsa is visited in her dreams by her friend's boyfriends, Marc, Lucas, and Paul, and Jason implies they are there to make true one of Elsa's darkest fantasies: performing a gang-bang with them. Even though that's an actual fantasy of hers, she's not aware of having ever told Jason about it, and tries to wake up; however, she just can't and, eventually, she takes the chance to experience that fantasy, which she enjoys immensely. While she's making love just with Jason after the group session, the evil figure of Elsa is depicted watching them from a corner, clearly frustrated, and it's hinted that she is the one controlling that dream.

Ep4: "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"
The morning after the dream orgy, Elsa wakes up early and goes out feeling guilty about what happened, even though she didn't consciously bring her male friends to her dream. Aimlessly walking around Sangrive, she arrives at Jessica Springfield's apartment and decides to confess to her friend, because she thinks she has just had dream sex with Jessica's boyfriend, Marc. However, Jessica reassures her, as last night Marc was actually awake when Elsa's dream happened: the whole Mayhem band, their respective partners, and a couple of groupies were enjoying a real orgy at Jessica's apartment. This means that the Marc Elsa was having sex with in her dream was just a facsimile she created, and not the actual Marc, who is not aware of having starred in that dream.

Ep5: "The Raven"
Elsa spends the rest of the day out, trying to put some order in her thoughts. Near dinner time, Jason phones her a bit worried; after telling her he doesn't remember any dream from last night, he suggests that Elsa should visit Miranda, as their friend has the power to find solutions to problems. Elsa goes to Miranda's and, after confirming that the real Lucas wasn't actually in her dream either, she tells her about her nightmares. Miranda, who can't sleep properly, tells Elsa that she appreciates her enormously for being there as a protective raven when Miranda took the sedative that allowed her to sleep at last, in the Saving Chloe (2016) post-credits scene; however, Elsa is not aware of having helped her. After confessing that the sedative is losing its effects and she is experiencing some sleep deprivation issues again, Miranda teaches Elsa some meditation techniques to let her mind wander freely and rest without actually sleeping, at least for one night. During that meditation session, Miranda tells Elsa that she had red eyes and wore black leather clothes when she protected her, and Elsa is depicted as being transformed into her evil figure, who is called Raven by Miranda. But then Elsa starts to fantasize about having sex with Miranda, and her mysterious doppelganger just goes away, apparently furious due to the distraction. Elsa gives in to the temptation and experiences a lengthy loving session with Miranda, who at a certain moment even grows a penis to keep fulfilling Elsa's fantasies.

Ep6: "Battlefield Dream Land"
When the meditation is over, the real Miranda states that she was having an entirely different experience and that Elsa looked like her usual self when she was protecting her as a raven in her sleep; she then says that Elsa should go to dreamland again and face whatever is doing that to her. With Jason awake to protect her as he did during the final battle in Saving Chloe when she had to fall asleep to wake Xara up, Elsa goes to sleep and enters dreamland, showing up exactly at that battle. This time, however, she's watching the fight between Xara and Crow that took place inside Morland's mansion after waking Xara up, a scene that nobody else saw back then. But, when the blind woman defeats her opponent, her dream twists the actual story and makes Chloe appear again in that room, even though she was actually chasing Morland through the dungeons. In Elsa's dream, Chloe and Xara make love passionately as a goodbye; at a certain point, though, Elsa senses another presence in the room and finds her doppelganger, Raven, who asks her to stop squandering her power. At first, Elsa thinks Raven is an enemy working for Morland's side, but she finally realizes Raven is actually a part of her inner self that is trying to make her change and use her power for a greater good, instead of using it just to explore her sexuality. Raven apologizes for abusing Jason in her attempt of drawing Elsa's attention, and Elsa eventually accepts she is right and agrees to start doing greater things: her first mission will be to link the dreams of the most prominent neurologists to help Miranda with her sleep deprivations issues.