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Sagiro's Story Hour Returns (new thread started on 5/18/08)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
Hmmm, now that PC has dropped that hint, perhaps we should go back through and post all the little bits of prophecy to see what he might be talking about...
MavrickWeirdo
First Post
Piratecat said:Just a quick thank you to StephenAC for his wonderful pdf version of this story hour (linked from the first post on the first page). I had to find fiddly bits of prophecy, and his pdfs made it MUCH easier.
Now, all we have to do is decipher 'em.
The "fiddly bits" are always the best part.
KidCthulhu
First Post
We're really just The Company now. We were Ozalinch's Company, but Arvavis sucked the Arch Magi-ness out of the Arch Magi we kind of went on our own. We still report to the Spire, of course. When we're in the same time line as they are...
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 240
Dream a Little Dream
For the remainder of the day the Company wanders across a charming landscape, past wide meadows of wildflowers and through small deciduous forests teeming with birds and squirrels. Morningstar comments offhandedly that maybe the Lord of the Roses has set up individual heavens for people, and that’s why he is reluctant for the Slices to be broken apart. No one really believes that, though, not even Morningstar.
As the oversized sun starts to set they spot the expected glimmer of blue light on a barren hilltop. A close investigation suggests that nothing has gone through this Way, in either direction, for a long, long time, if ever. Dranko volunteers to be the scout; he ties the rope around his waist and jumps through.
His first sensation (upon arrival) is that he’s floating, but not falling. In the distance he hears the faint sounds of a great battle, swords clanking and voices shouting battle-cries. Around him swirls a thick mist, but almost immediately an image starts to coalesce in front of him. The image becomes solid. It’s a row of close-set vertical bars like those of a prison cell. A human face appears at the bars, hands grab them, and the man shouts at Dranko: “Let me out!”
Before Dranko can respond, the others pull him back.
“Well, that’s unusual,” he says, before describing his experience to the others. When he finishes, he realizes that there was something familiar about that place. And it comes to him: it felt like Ava Dormo!
That obviously intrigues Morningstar, enough so that she wants to scout it out herself. Dranko ties the rope around her waist, and in she goes.
Her experience is slightly different than Dranko’s. Like him she finds herself floating in mist, but it’s much less thick. (Or, maybe, she just has an easier time seeing through it.) It feels like Ava Dormo, but sharper, more intense than normal. The sound of distant battle rings clearly from somewhere out of sight.
A small child looms in the mist and walks by, a handful of balloons dragging behind him. The child notices Morningstar and smiles at her.
“Hello!” says the child.
“Hello,” replies Morningstar, nodding.
“You’re not part of my dream,” says the child solemnly.
“No,” agrees Morningstar. “I’m part of my own dream.”
“Would you like a balloon?” asks the child.
“Sure,” answers Morningstar. And taking the balloon, she thanks him.
“You’re welcome... no! Wait! Don’t wake me up yet!”
The child vanishes. His balloons start to fade almost immediately, including the one Morningstar is holding. Instinctively she concentrates on it, willing it to stay solid. Such a manipulation of the Dream is easy for her, and the feeling of manifesting that power has a kind of clarity in her mind that Ava Dormo usually lacks.
Another image swims in front of her. It’s a being like a huge praying mantis, larger than a person. It looks as though it’s slapping at an invisible enclosure, like a mime. Before she can address it, the others pull her out.
“I wonder if that’s a slice of Dream,” she muses, after describing her experience to the others. And if that were true, then she was in Ava Dormo in her actual, waking body!
“Let’s go back!” she says excitedly.
“We’ll have to cross it one way or another,” says Grey Wolf, shrugging his shoulders.
But the general consensus is that the trip will better wait until the next morning. They make camp and Ernie prepares dinner. Over a relaxing meal, talk turns to light topics like planar theory and the makeup of the cosmos. Aravis tries to remember anything he leaned about Ava Dormo in his apprenticeship, but only recalls the general prevailing theory that it's one of the Coterminous Planes, similar to the Astral and Ethereal. There are obvious differences, of course, such as how one gets there...
Dranko lies on his back looking up at the stars, listening to Aravis dredge up memories. During a lull, he says, “Remember back at the Eye of the Storm, when Medina said the stars were really giant balls of flaming gas? What kind of crap was that, anyhow?”
“I thought it was a fascinating theory,” says Morningstar lying next to him and holding his hand.
“Yeah, if you want to make up stupid stuff,” guffaws Dranko.
“It’s as possible as anything else,” says Morningstar patiently.
“No it’s not!” pipes up Flicker. “Look at how tiny they are!”
“When we’re flying high up,” says Morningstar, “and you look down at demons, they look really small, right?”
“Yeah, but...” says Flicker lamely. “...er, how big are we talking here? And how far away?”
“Pretty far,” says Morningstar.
Flicker does some quick mental calculations and voices his conclusion: “There isn’t that far!”
“Wait a minute,” says Aravis. “If the stars are giant balls of gas very far away, and this Slice is only a few miles on a side, how do we see stars at all? Or suns, for that matter?”
That’s a head-scratcher and no mistake. One by one the Company falls asleep pondering that mystery, most just chalking it up to the wonders of Wild Magic. The only sounds as they sleep are the chirping of crickets and the rustle of a night breeze.
It sure beats demons.
* *
The next morning it’s owl’s wisdoms for everyone, in anticipation of going into Ava Dormo. A typical battery of buffs follows, and without further ado the Company hops through the Way.
They find themselves standing on cobblestone pavement, stretching away into the mists as far as they can see in every direction. Architecturally impossible buildings are scattered haphazardly around them. Flitting around and through the buildings are glimpses of creatures, though none with enough substance or duration to observe with any satisfaction.
“I’ve been in a city in a bottle, and I’ve been in the Abyss, and I’ve been in someone else’s dreams,” says Dranko. “And my grandfather said I’d never amount to anything.”
Everyone hears the faint sounds of a great battle, maybe a quarter mile off.
A large pit opens up almost directly in front of them, and from its depths they hear a voice calling, “Help! Help!” (No one is sure of the language, but everyone can understand it.) Peering down into the pit they see a small goblinoid creature with green skin and wild eyes. Its fingers scrabble uselessly on the walls.
It notices the facies looking down upon it, and cries “I can’t get out! I’ve been stuck down here for so long!”
“You just appeared, just now,” says Ernie confusedly.
“You’re dreaming,” says Morningstar.
“No, you don’t understand!” shouts the goblin. “I’ve been...”
“You’re dreaming,” repeats Morningstar firmly. “Wake up!”
“You mean I...” says the goblin, and then it disappears.
“If anyone attacks me, I know what I’m telling ‘em,” says Dranko.
He starts to say more, but stops when he sees the rest of the party staring upward. A small globe of yellow light glides downward toward them, and from it speaks a pleasant voice of indeterminate gender.
“What’s going on here!” exclaims the voice. “Who is... oh! Excuse me!”
The ball of light extends and grows into a glowing humanoid shape. It turns to Morningstar and bows low.
“We don’t get solid visitors very often,” it says.
“What are you?” asks Dranko.
“I am Dream Essence,” it answers. “And you, you are waking people! You must be very far from home. How did you get here?”
Dranko points to the blue Way behind them.
“That’s a portal to the waking world,” he says.
“I sometimes visit Ava Dormo from there, back in my own world,” says Morningstar.
“Of course you do,” says the Dream Essence. “You’re a Dreamwalker. I can see that.”
“And you are the essence of dream?” asks Morningstar.
“I’m one of them,” it replies.
“Are you a good dream, or a bad dream?” asks Ernie.
“Both, I suppose,” it answers. “It is out of my essence that all dreams are spun.”
“Tell me,” asks Dranko, “is there another one of these blue portals, elsewhere in Dream?”
“Yes, there is.” The Dream Essence points into the mist.
“Would you lead us there?” asks Morningstar.
“I’d be honored,” it answers.
Kibi asks, “What is that sound of battle that we hear?
“That is what we do in this part of the Dream,” says the Essence. “Here is where there are dreams of battles fought. Exultations of battles won. Nightmares of battles lost. Would you like to take part?”
“Is it dangerous for my companions?” asks Morningstar.
“It might be,” concedes the Essence.
“I don’t think it’s worth it, then,” says Aravis, and the others are inclined to agree.
A hallway appears. A halfling-sized creature is running through it frantically, bouncing off the walls as if he’s looking desperately for something. He doesn’t see the party though he passes quite close before fading away into the mists.
“Where are these minds coming from?” asks Morningstar. “Is there a waking world associated with this part of the Dream?”
“There must be,” says the Essence, “but there shouldn’t be. We are in a part of the Dreaming far from any waking minds. We are far adrift. We are where dream battles are fought. But yes, there are minds ending up here, though we don’t know where they come from.”
“There has been a terrible experiment that has scrambled many planes,” says Morningstar.
“Perhaps that is why no new combatants have come for so long,” says the Essence.
“The minds you see here,” says Morningstar . “Are they the same minds, over and over?”
“There are some we see recurring, but there is constant influx of new dreamers. There is a common theme among the dreams of these dreamers, though. They are all trapped, and wish to get out, but out of what, I don’t know.
“They’re the dreams of all the people who are trapped in Het Branoi,” says Dranko, and the others nod in agreement.
“People have been trapped in small bits of their waking worlds, some of them for many years,” explains Morningstar.
“And this is where they come to dream,” says Aravis. “It may be the only part of Dream they can find.”
“Do you see many creatures that look like large spiders?” asks Morningstar curiously, thinking of the Vree.
The Essence nods.
“I’ll bet the Vree have been dreaming a lot about tentacles recently,” says Dranko.
“How did you know?” asks the Essence.
“We were there for the incident that caused them to have those dreams,” says Dranko with a shudder.
“Whatever is happening, you should stop it,” says the Essence. “It’s not the way things should work here.”
“If we succeed, it should restore your bit of Dream to the whole,” says Dranko. “You’ll get new dreamers again.”
“If I go into the Dream connected to my Prime, and traveled far enough, would I reach here?” asks Morningstar, growing more intrigued all the time.
“You would have to travel a very, very long way,” says the Essence. “I don’t understand the waking world very well. I believe there are places you can go that are very far from your... Prime. Out in misty reaches where nothing is real and solid. Even those places have a dreaming, and this is one of those places.”
“Do you ever see Dreamwalkers?” asks Morningstar.
“From time to time, they do travel far enough, and we see them here. Once in a century, maybe?”
“Are they Ellish?” asks Morningstar.
“Ellish? None that I have seen,” says the Essence.
“Any in red armor?” asks Ernie.
“There was a group of dreamers from some battle, and they were wearing red armor,” says the Essence. “They were shorter than you, of a race that called themselves “kobolds.” They wore reddish leather armor, that they painted with the blood of their enemies.”
In other words, no.
“So, your role is to create the battles that the dreamers come to fight?” asks Morningstar.
“When people are in battles, their dreams are very strong, and echoes of those dreams come here. We are like a magnet.”
Morningstar describes the battle that she and her fellow Dreamwalkers fought against Octesian, and asks the Essence if it sounds familiar.
“Yes, I’ve seen one like that,” the Essence replies. “It still goes on, in another part of the Dreaming. That battle made a strong impression on many dreamers.”
“Let’s go find Octesian and kick his butt again!” says Ernie.
“The Dream you talk about, and the events that created it, are long over,” says the Essence. “But I will take you there, if you wish.”
The Company follows the Dream Essence, trying to will themselves forward to go faster. They have differing success, though it’s clearly (and unsurprisingly) Flicker and Snokas who slow them down.
“Think faster!” urges Morningstar.
Eventually a battle comes into view, but it’s not their battle. As they look down upon it from a high vantage point, it resembles a contest between an army of giants and an army of huge fireflies. The giants are firing stones from enormous catapults, and the projectiles are blinking in and out. The fireflies attack with energy rays as they fly above the giants.
“Those are dreams, not dreamers,” clarifies the Essence. “As I said, we usually don’t see dreamers here; just the echoes of dreams of war. The terrain here is the terrain of many battles, that people have dreamed on which they fought.”
“So this is history... a record of battles,” says Morningstar. “Which means that somewhere is a record of every battle that has been fought. We could use this place to research a battle fought a long time ago.”
“Yes,” agrees the Essence. “If you could find the battle you wanted, you could watch it unfold, from the collective dreams of the beings involved.”
They continue to travel, led by the Dream Essence, toward the exiting Way, stopping only to wake up some trapped dreamers. Most of the dreams are similar – beings of all different races, trapped in prisons from which they cannot escape. The sounds of battles never go away.
“Is there a Dream Essence in my part of Ava Dormo?” asks Morningstar as they travel. “Like you?”
“It would not have consciousness, but it’s there. It has to be.”
“Do you have a unique identity? A name?” asks Dranko.
The Essence shakes its head.
“Well, thank you for all your help,” says Morningstar.
“It is my honor,” says the Essence.
They reach the Way after some mentally-draining hours. Before them is a glowing door, all too familiar. Aravis volunteers to be the scout and wills himself through.
After the black void, he finds himself standing in what was probably a library. There are stacks, desks, and shelves, but they have been emptied of their books and scrolls. Only a few scraps of paper remain. The walls are of the blue-diamond pattern that they’ve seen three times before – the bedroom, cloakroom and storage room. Torches imbued with continual flame shine from wall-brackets.
Behind him is the blue Way through which he came, and about sixty feet away, straight ahead of him down a wide aisle, is a second Way.
It’s not blue, and it’s not gray. It glows a deep red, the color of a rose in full flower.
...to be continued...
Dream a Little Dream
For the remainder of the day the Company wanders across a charming landscape, past wide meadows of wildflowers and through small deciduous forests teeming with birds and squirrels. Morningstar comments offhandedly that maybe the Lord of the Roses has set up individual heavens for people, and that’s why he is reluctant for the Slices to be broken apart. No one really believes that, though, not even Morningstar.
As the oversized sun starts to set they spot the expected glimmer of blue light on a barren hilltop. A close investigation suggests that nothing has gone through this Way, in either direction, for a long, long time, if ever. Dranko volunteers to be the scout; he ties the rope around his waist and jumps through.
His first sensation (upon arrival) is that he’s floating, but not falling. In the distance he hears the faint sounds of a great battle, swords clanking and voices shouting battle-cries. Around him swirls a thick mist, but almost immediately an image starts to coalesce in front of him. The image becomes solid. It’s a row of close-set vertical bars like those of a prison cell. A human face appears at the bars, hands grab them, and the man shouts at Dranko: “Let me out!”
Before Dranko can respond, the others pull him back.
“Well, that’s unusual,” he says, before describing his experience to the others. When he finishes, he realizes that there was something familiar about that place. And it comes to him: it felt like Ava Dormo!
That obviously intrigues Morningstar, enough so that she wants to scout it out herself. Dranko ties the rope around her waist, and in she goes.
Her experience is slightly different than Dranko’s. Like him she finds herself floating in mist, but it’s much less thick. (Or, maybe, she just has an easier time seeing through it.) It feels like Ava Dormo, but sharper, more intense than normal. The sound of distant battle rings clearly from somewhere out of sight.
A small child looms in the mist and walks by, a handful of balloons dragging behind him. The child notices Morningstar and smiles at her.
“Hello!” says the child.
“Hello,” replies Morningstar, nodding.
“You’re not part of my dream,” says the child solemnly.
“No,” agrees Morningstar. “I’m part of my own dream.”
“Would you like a balloon?” asks the child.
“Sure,” answers Morningstar. And taking the balloon, she thanks him.
“You’re welcome... no! Wait! Don’t wake me up yet!”
The child vanishes. His balloons start to fade almost immediately, including the one Morningstar is holding. Instinctively she concentrates on it, willing it to stay solid. Such a manipulation of the Dream is easy for her, and the feeling of manifesting that power has a kind of clarity in her mind that Ava Dormo usually lacks.
Another image swims in front of her. It’s a being like a huge praying mantis, larger than a person. It looks as though it’s slapping at an invisible enclosure, like a mime. Before she can address it, the others pull her out.
“I wonder if that’s a slice of Dream,” she muses, after describing her experience to the others. And if that were true, then she was in Ava Dormo in her actual, waking body!
“Let’s go back!” she says excitedly.
“We’ll have to cross it one way or another,” says Grey Wolf, shrugging his shoulders.
But the general consensus is that the trip will better wait until the next morning. They make camp and Ernie prepares dinner. Over a relaxing meal, talk turns to light topics like planar theory and the makeup of the cosmos. Aravis tries to remember anything he leaned about Ava Dormo in his apprenticeship, but only recalls the general prevailing theory that it's one of the Coterminous Planes, similar to the Astral and Ethereal. There are obvious differences, of course, such as how one gets there...
Dranko lies on his back looking up at the stars, listening to Aravis dredge up memories. During a lull, he says, “Remember back at the Eye of the Storm, when Medina said the stars were really giant balls of flaming gas? What kind of crap was that, anyhow?”
“I thought it was a fascinating theory,” says Morningstar lying next to him and holding his hand.
“Yeah, if you want to make up stupid stuff,” guffaws Dranko.
“It’s as possible as anything else,” says Morningstar patiently.
“No it’s not!” pipes up Flicker. “Look at how tiny they are!”
“When we’re flying high up,” says Morningstar, “and you look down at demons, they look really small, right?”
“Yeah, but...” says Flicker lamely. “...er, how big are we talking here? And how far away?”
“Pretty far,” says Morningstar.
Flicker does some quick mental calculations and voices his conclusion: “There isn’t that far!”
“Wait a minute,” says Aravis. “If the stars are giant balls of gas very far away, and this Slice is only a few miles on a side, how do we see stars at all? Or suns, for that matter?”
That’s a head-scratcher and no mistake. One by one the Company falls asleep pondering that mystery, most just chalking it up to the wonders of Wild Magic. The only sounds as they sleep are the chirping of crickets and the rustle of a night breeze.
It sure beats demons.
* *
The next morning it’s owl’s wisdoms for everyone, in anticipation of going into Ava Dormo. A typical battery of buffs follows, and without further ado the Company hops through the Way.
They find themselves standing on cobblestone pavement, stretching away into the mists as far as they can see in every direction. Architecturally impossible buildings are scattered haphazardly around them. Flitting around and through the buildings are glimpses of creatures, though none with enough substance or duration to observe with any satisfaction.
“I’ve been in a city in a bottle, and I’ve been in the Abyss, and I’ve been in someone else’s dreams,” says Dranko. “And my grandfather said I’d never amount to anything.”
Everyone hears the faint sounds of a great battle, maybe a quarter mile off.
A large pit opens up almost directly in front of them, and from its depths they hear a voice calling, “Help! Help!” (No one is sure of the language, but everyone can understand it.) Peering down into the pit they see a small goblinoid creature with green skin and wild eyes. Its fingers scrabble uselessly on the walls.
It notices the facies looking down upon it, and cries “I can’t get out! I’ve been stuck down here for so long!”
“You just appeared, just now,” says Ernie confusedly.
“You’re dreaming,” says Morningstar.
“No, you don’t understand!” shouts the goblin. “I’ve been...”
“You’re dreaming,” repeats Morningstar firmly. “Wake up!”
“You mean I...” says the goblin, and then it disappears.
“If anyone attacks me, I know what I’m telling ‘em,” says Dranko.
He starts to say more, but stops when he sees the rest of the party staring upward. A small globe of yellow light glides downward toward them, and from it speaks a pleasant voice of indeterminate gender.
“What’s going on here!” exclaims the voice. “Who is... oh! Excuse me!”
The ball of light extends and grows into a glowing humanoid shape. It turns to Morningstar and bows low.
“We don’t get solid visitors very often,” it says.
“What are you?” asks Dranko.
“I am Dream Essence,” it answers. “And you, you are waking people! You must be very far from home. How did you get here?”
Dranko points to the blue Way behind them.
“That’s a portal to the waking world,” he says.
“I sometimes visit Ava Dormo from there, back in my own world,” says Morningstar.
“Of course you do,” says the Dream Essence. “You’re a Dreamwalker. I can see that.”
“And you are the essence of dream?” asks Morningstar.
“I’m one of them,” it replies.
“Are you a good dream, or a bad dream?” asks Ernie.
“Both, I suppose,” it answers. “It is out of my essence that all dreams are spun.”
“Tell me,” asks Dranko, “is there another one of these blue portals, elsewhere in Dream?”
“Yes, there is.” The Dream Essence points into the mist.
“Would you lead us there?” asks Morningstar.
“I’d be honored,” it answers.
Kibi asks, “What is that sound of battle that we hear?
“That is what we do in this part of the Dream,” says the Essence. “Here is where there are dreams of battles fought. Exultations of battles won. Nightmares of battles lost. Would you like to take part?”
“Is it dangerous for my companions?” asks Morningstar.
“It might be,” concedes the Essence.
“I don’t think it’s worth it, then,” says Aravis, and the others are inclined to agree.
A hallway appears. A halfling-sized creature is running through it frantically, bouncing off the walls as if he’s looking desperately for something. He doesn’t see the party though he passes quite close before fading away into the mists.
“Where are these minds coming from?” asks Morningstar. “Is there a waking world associated with this part of the Dream?”
“There must be,” says the Essence, “but there shouldn’t be. We are in a part of the Dreaming far from any waking minds. We are far adrift. We are where dream battles are fought. But yes, there are minds ending up here, though we don’t know where they come from.”
“There has been a terrible experiment that has scrambled many planes,” says Morningstar.
“Perhaps that is why no new combatants have come for so long,” says the Essence.
“The minds you see here,” says Morningstar . “Are they the same minds, over and over?”
“There are some we see recurring, but there is constant influx of new dreamers. There is a common theme among the dreams of these dreamers, though. They are all trapped, and wish to get out, but out of what, I don’t know.
“They’re the dreams of all the people who are trapped in Het Branoi,” says Dranko, and the others nod in agreement.
“People have been trapped in small bits of their waking worlds, some of them for many years,” explains Morningstar.
“And this is where they come to dream,” says Aravis. “It may be the only part of Dream they can find.”
“Do you see many creatures that look like large spiders?” asks Morningstar curiously, thinking of the Vree.
The Essence nods.
“I’ll bet the Vree have been dreaming a lot about tentacles recently,” says Dranko.
“How did you know?” asks the Essence.
“We were there for the incident that caused them to have those dreams,” says Dranko with a shudder.
“Whatever is happening, you should stop it,” says the Essence. “It’s not the way things should work here.”
“If we succeed, it should restore your bit of Dream to the whole,” says Dranko. “You’ll get new dreamers again.”
“If I go into the Dream connected to my Prime, and traveled far enough, would I reach here?” asks Morningstar, growing more intrigued all the time.
“You would have to travel a very, very long way,” says the Essence. “I don’t understand the waking world very well. I believe there are places you can go that are very far from your... Prime. Out in misty reaches where nothing is real and solid. Even those places have a dreaming, and this is one of those places.”
“Do you ever see Dreamwalkers?” asks Morningstar.
“From time to time, they do travel far enough, and we see them here. Once in a century, maybe?”
“Are they Ellish?” asks Morningstar.
“Ellish? None that I have seen,” says the Essence.
“Any in red armor?” asks Ernie.
“There was a group of dreamers from some battle, and they were wearing red armor,” says the Essence. “They were shorter than you, of a race that called themselves “kobolds.” They wore reddish leather armor, that they painted with the blood of their enemies.”
In other words, no.
“So, your role is to create the battles that the dreamers come to fight?” asks Morningstar.
“When people are in battles, their dreams are very strong, and echoes of those dreams come here. We are like a magnet.”
Morningstar describes the battle that she and her fellow Dreamwalkers fought against Octesian, and asks the Essence if it sounds familiar.
“Yes, I’ve seen one like that,” the Essence replies. “It still goes on, in another part of the Dreaming. That battle made a strong impression on many dreamers.”
“Let’s go find Octesian and kick his butt again!” says Ernie.
“The Dream you talk about, and the events that created it, are long over,” says the Essence. “But I will take you there, if you wish.”
The Company follows the Dream Essence, trying to will themselves forward to go faster. They have differing success, though it’s clearly (and unsurprisingly) Flicker and Snokas who slow them down.
“Think faster!” urges Morningstar.
Eventually a battle comes into view, but it’s not their battle. As they look down upon it from a high vantage point, it resembles a contest between an army of giants and an army of huge fireflies. The giants are firing stones from enormous catapults, and the projectiles are blinking in and out. The fireflies attack with energy rays as they fly above the giants.
“Those are dreams, not dreamers,” clarifies the Essence. “As I said, we usually don’t see dreamers here; just the echoes of dreams of war. The terrain here is the terrain of many battles, that people have dreamed on which they fought.”
“So this is history... a record of battles,” says Morningstar. “Which means that somewhere is a record of every battle that has been fought. We could use this place to research a battle fought a long time ago.”
“Yes,” agrees the Essence. “If you could find the battle you wanted, you could watch it unfold, from the collective dreams of the beings involved.”
They continue to travel, led by the Dream Essence, toward the exiting Way, stopping only to wake up some trapped dreamers. Most of the dreams are similar – beings of all different races, trapped in prisons from which they cannot escape. The sounds of battles never go away.
“Is there a Dream Essence in my part of Ava Dormo?” asks Morningstar as they travel. “Like you?”
“It would not have consciousness, but it’s there. It has to be.”
“Do you have a unique identity? A name?” asks Dranko.
The Essence shakes its head.
“Well, thank you for all your help,” says Morningstar.
“It is my honor,” says the Essence.
They reach the Way after some mentally-draining hours. Before them is a glowing door, all too familiar. Aravis volunteers to be the scout and wills himself through.
After the black void, he finds himself standing in what was probably a library. There are stacks, desks, and shelves, but they have been emptied of their books and scrolls. Only a few scraps of paper remain. The walls are of the blue-diamond pattern that they’ve seen three times before – the bedroom, cloakroom and storage room. Torches imbued with continual flame shine from wall-brackets.
Behind him is the blue Way through which he came, and about sixty feet away, straight ahead of him down a wide aisle, is a second Way.
It’s not blue, and it’s not gray. It glows a deep red, the color of a rose in full flower.
...to be continued...
Dawn
First Post
<“Are you a good dream, or a bad dream?” asks Ernie.>
Ala The Wizard of Oz!
I've been following this SH since many moons ago and I just can't help but be constantly amazed at the vastness of this world! So many things to encounter and so many different things to interact with.
Just (another) kudo to both Sagiro and the Company for an enjoyable SH.
Ala The Wizard of Oz!
I've been following this SH since many moons ago and I just can't help but be constantly amazed at the vastness of this world! So many things to encounter and so many different things to interact with.
Just (another) kudo to both Sagiro and the Company for an enjoyable SH.
KidCthulhu
First Post
Piratecat said:
Yeah, who knew Sagiro would sic a bear on us.
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