Sixth Session: When in Rome Second Post: To sleep, perchance
Metellus, Heilyn, Marcus, and Llyr, meanwhile, head to Metellus's parents house on the somewhat more elite neighborhood of the Aventine Hill. They greet his father, Metellus Major, a renowned war hero, former governor, [and now active senator, who offers his son a gruff embrace and hospitality to his son's retainers, and Metellus's mother, Valeria Maxima, a beautiful if not terribly brilliant woman, who is 1st cousin once removed to the Emperor. She has gotten very involved in the worship of Isis, and babbles about it over dinner; she also suggests throwing a "British party" to welcome their son home, which Metellus Major firmly puts his foot down on.
After dinner at the respective villas, all of the humans retired early to sleep, after their long journey. And as they slept, they dreamt:
[N.B.: The characters do not all know the contents of all of these dreams in game, as some players shared more than others.]
Dreams
Marcus:
You fall into your usual light soldier’s sleep, gaining needed energy but ready to awake at the slightest hint of danger. Slowly, your mind relaxes into unconsciousness. Then, you begin to see images flickering in front of your eyes, almost as if you had stared at the sun too long on a hot day. A triangle, pointed to the left, bright yellow in color. A solid red rectangle with a black border. Another rectangle, black, with two long red lines attached at the upper and bottom right hand corners. Again, the yellow triangle. The red rectangle. The black rectangle, growing brighter and more intense. The yellow triangle. The yellow triangle. The yellow triangle. The black rectangle... You wake up, your eyes hurting, feeling exhausted. You are unsure how many times the shapes repeated before your eyes, but their images are burned into your memory.
Metellus:
You sleep, glad to be back in your own comfortable bed for the first time in over a year, even counting strange time lapses in the Isle of Mona. Ah, Rome. You fall easily into sleep, and dream. You dream of a triumph. But it is not Cimbrus being feted in the victor’s chariot, but you. You ride along in your scarlet robe, the Legions behind you, all cheering wildly. Yellow triangular flags line your route, announcing your many victories. Until...an old woman steps forward from the crowd and shrieks. “He isn’t really a hero! He’s a coward. He heard the dog at the cave of the Druids and stood there in terror, waiting for his flunkies to face the dangers for him. He ran from the ghosts on the Isle of Mona. He’s not worthy of being a real Roman.” As the crowd begins to hiss and boo, some throwing rotten fish at you and your chariot, the face of the old woman changes. It is the face of Hadriana – of Cornelia – finally, of Aeduana. The old woman changes into a giant tiger and leaps for you.....you wake up, repressing a scream lest the slaves or Llyr hear you.
Cornelia:
You sleep. It is strange to be back in a real bed after all these months, and in a house that is both familiar and utterly foreign. But after some restless tossing and turning, and listening to the soft snores of Shast the monkey, you fall asleep, and dream...It is your wedding day. Nanna Alma has carefully laid the flame-colored veil on your seven-tiered wool headdress, and you are walking out to meet your groom. The household slaves throw candied almonds as you pass, and you smile with delight as you cross the threshold. You grasp your groom’s firm arm as you walk towards the temple, smiling at the vague trembling in his hands. And then....the flesh begins to melt away from his bones, and you look up at his face for the first time to see only a grinning skull, that then morphs slowly into Aeduana’s face, horribly scarred with acidic burns as it was the last time you saw her. She speaks: “Did you ever really think you would be free of me, Cornelia?” and reaches one long, clawed hand for your face. You wake up, gasping for breath.
Llyr: You sleep. In truth, the bed is a bit soft for your tastes, but you have learned to make do with whatever circumstances present. You quickly fall into the light sleep of a Legionary, and dream. You dream of riding with your cousins, of chariot racing between you, Kynton, Arnath, and Brendan, dashing between narrowly placed oaks in attempts to drive a course the others could not match. The path to follow is marked by yellow triangles painted on the trees. As usual, Kynton is ahead, but he doesn’t know yet of the tripwire you’ve placed between the seventh set of....oh, there he goes! There’s a chance for you yet....and then, the dream shifts. You are tied to an oak, watching, once again, as Aeduana, smiling slowly, uses a sharpened stone scythe to cut Arnath’s heart out as he screams, bitterly, for your help, or the intervention of the gods. He calls on Lugh and on Epona, and no one answers. You struggle against the thin black chains wrapping you tightly around the tree, but can do nothing but watch as his life’s blood spills out on the ground of the sacred grove. You wake, sweating, determined not to scream.
Heilyn: The Romans certainly know how to make soft beds, although this round pillow idea seems rather foreign and uncomfortable to you. Still, you soon drift off to sleep, and dream. In your dream, you are on the peak of a stony mountain, climbing upwards. It seems that you climb for a very long time, before finally reaching the entrance to a cave framed by stalactites and stalagmites that curve inwards like a gaping mouth. You hesitate, and then thread your way between them, walking down into the cave tunnel, which is lit only by small glowing pieces of moss. Eventually, you come to a perfectly round room of stone. The walls pulse gently, and green tendrils grow out of them from all sides, reaching towards your head, wrists, and ankles. Before you can blink, you are suspended in a web of tendrils, curling around your armor and tugging on your moustache. For a second, they seem like a net of fine black chains, tying you to the wall. You ask them to put you down, and the wall pulses again, as the tendrils fade.
“I do not mean it to harm,” a booming, gravelly, familiar voice says. “I am here for the first part of the debt. I will teach you how to persuade the spirits of stone to be kind to you.”
A stone pillar grows out of the rock of the chamber, perhaps three feet high. You concentrate with your spirit sight and can see that there is a slow, quiet small spirit buried deep within the pillar. “This is how you speak to the stone,” the gravelly voice says. And you learn, slowly but painstakingly. By the end of the night, you can persuade the pillar to curve to the right or the left, or grow thinner and taller or wider and shorter, although the process is slow, and the Spirit of Earth keeps criticizing your accent. You wake, tired, with your vision somewhat blurry.
Wena: You can sleep anywhere, and a well-stuffed couch with a round bolster is only another variation for you. You fall into a light sleep, and dream. You dream of standing in mud up to your neck. It is dark, and the darkness is lit only by the occasional flickering torch in the distance, and the gruff shouts in Latin. You ask where your mother is, and the woman besides you holds a hand firmly across your mouth and hisses at you to be quiet. You do not understand why you were swept up in the middle of the night and dragged off to the swamp, nor where your mother is. Suddenly, the Romans come upon your pitiful little group, and throw a net made of thin, black chains over you. As you struggle in the chains, beginning to drown in the mud because of your small size, you see that the net is attached to a long black chain that stretches far out into the distance. You begin choking on mud – and wake up, gasping for breath.
Meloch: You curl up across Cornelia’s threshold, glad that you have managed to filch a soft rug for you and Shast to wrap yourselves in. You fall asleep, hoping that there will be no disturbance tonight, and you dream. You are a young child, playing Jump-the-Alligator with your friends. You are determined – today, you will make it all the way across the river. You land on the first crocodile’s snout, and bounce off before he notices your weight. The second makes a grab for you with his jaws, but you kick off and make it to the third, still rousing, and the fourth, and are on the opposite bank. You do the dance of joy, until suddenly three Tall Ones dash out of the swamp rushes and throw a net of black chains over you. You scream for help as they drag you away, but your companions are dashing away in terror. You wake up, crying silently, trying not to disturb your mistress.
Verix: You sleep soundly, glad to be back in your own bed, and tired from your travel. You dream – You are searching for the perfect pearl. Suddenly, you are certain that the river Tiber is an untapped resource for pearls – everyone knows that the empress Messalina’s jewelry was lost in it and never found. With your diving skills, surely you can find her famed necklace. You should dive for it – look in the sewers, if necessary – if you stay under for long enough, you’re certain you can find it. You dream of searching through the muddy depths, and right before you wake you think you see the shining gleam of the most beautiful necklace you have ever beheld. Your eyes blink open, the image of the pearls hovering briefly before them.
