Dreamer's Throne

The dream was quiet when Garrett opened his eyes, but in his mind he could see the activity of hundreds of people getting started for the night. There were people entering Dreamer’s Rest, others just laying down to sleep, and still others who were not yet done with their day. Of particular interest to him were the six awakened dreamers who were preparing for their second excursion out into the dream. The excitement they all felt was palpable, and Garrett understood why. No one in the city seemed to really understand how awakened soul sparks worked, so finding a way to strengthen them, no matter how slow, was like discovering a gold mine.

Despite the danger of the dream all of them had entered Dreamer’s Rest as soon as they could, gathering together to talk about the mission they would undertake tonight. Standing up from the Dreamer’s Throne, Garrett took a moment to admire the rainbow blooms of the dream flowers and then passed through the door into Dreamer’s Rest, his clothing changing into his Geller costume. There was something fun about getting to play different characters, and Geller, the owner of Dreamer’s Rest, was one of Garrett’s favorite. Walking straight over to the table where the awakened were sitting, he made sure his mask was in place before saying hello.

“Geller! No free drinks tonight?” Kinsley asked, a sly grin on his face.

“Not tonight, and probably not ever,” Garrett replied, amusement filling his voice. “But I have to say, I was impressed with your work last night. I wasn’t sure if all of you would be able to stomach the excitement of the dream, but you did well.”

“Those nightmares are creepy,” Pax said, shivering. “But at least our blades can cut them.”

Waving his hand over the table, Garrett spent twelve experience points, bringing him down from ninety-eight to eighty-six. In front of each of the awakened, a simple white mask appeared, made from smooth white material. Each mask had a different flower motif on it, though all of them had the five petaled dream flower. As the awakened around the table picked them up, Garrett reached up and tapped his own mask, explaining what they were.

“These are the Dreamer’s Masks. Wearing them will mark you as a dreamer of Dreamer’s Rest. It will guarantee your arrival in Dreamer’s Rest each night, and allow you to enter the dream wherever the concentration of dream flowers is high enough. It will also give you some protection against the mental attacks of the nightmares. But most importantly, it will allow you to leave Dreamer’s Rest and enter the dream. Without these masks, the door will not open for you. The dream is a dark and dangerous place, and only those who are truly committed should walk its fog covered streets. Taking the mask will mark you as one committed to serving in this way.”

“What if we don’t want to?” Estel asked, looking at the mask in front of her with a frown.

“Simply give me the mask and you will wake up tomorrow morning, all of this nothing but a dream,” Garrett said, waving his hand lightly.

“You aren’t actually thinking of giving up this chance, are you?” Pax asked Estel from across the table.

Leveling a withering stare at the large woman, Estel didn’t bother answering as she put the mask on her face. Smiling under his own mask as the rest of the party followed suit, Garrett carefully checked his connection with the dream flowers that each of the dreamers carried. While the masks did have all of the functions that he had mentioned, the more important function was in strengthening the connection that he had with the beautiful flowers that bloomed in their minds.

“Today’s mission is simple. Clear more fog and kill any nightmares you find,” Garrett said, looking around the table at the masked team. “As you clear the area around Dreamer’s Rest, you will be able to plant more dream flowers, ensuring the fog does not creep back in. To plant a flower, simply focus your attention and wait patiently. The reward for the mission is whatever you earn from slaying the nightmares and planting the dream flowers. If you find any dream artifacts, bring them to me before using them and I’ll buy them from you.”

“Can we keep the things we find?” Asher asked.

Nodding slowly, Garrett turned to look at the adventurer with a gaze that seemed to pass straight through him.

“You can, but if you do, you will no longer be allowed in the inn until you have been cleared of any potential corruption.”

Sitting up straight, Maron looked back and forth between Asher and Geller, his voice nervous.

“Corruption? What is that? What do you mean by corruption?”

Waving his hand, Garrett formed a scene in the middle of the table, showing a man walking along a foggy street. Out of the shadows of one of the alleyways came a small nightmare, its body hunched and withered, stalking the unaware man. Coming up behind him, the nightmare pounced, landing on the man’s back and latching its long fingers onto his head as its needle filled mouth bit down on the back of his neck. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, the man didn’t react at all, instead continuing to walk down the street. Slowly, his shoulders began to droop, and his steady gait turned into a shuffle as the nightmare began to sink into his body, as if it were melding with him.

“Both nightmares and dream artifacts leave imprints on those who come into contact with them,” Garrett said, gesturing to the man in the image. “That imprint becomes a sort of corruption that stains the victim, transforming them and putting them under control of the nightmare or artifact.”

Seeing Maron’s hand rise, Garrett paused his explanation and nodded at him.

“Yes?”

“Does that mean that these dream artifacts have their own intelligence? If they can control people who use them, does that make them intelligent?”

“In a limited way, yes,” Garrett replied, sensing the unease that ran through the group. “But no, not in the way that you are thinking. Nightmares have intelligence, though most are no better than the monsters that roam outside the city. Dream artifacts have what you might call will. They have a drive to achieve their function. Take the masks you just put on. Each is a dream artifact that will grow in strength over time, and its primary function is to protect you with a secondary function of allowing you access to the dream. It will only ever try to exert its will to achieve those functions.

“However, let’s say that you ran across a dream artifact whose primary function was to destroy. Say, a weapon of some sort. Its will would constantly pressure you to use it for its function. If you held it long enough, you would begin to be corrupted by its will, and slowly, your own will would erode, replaced by whatever will the dream artifact held. The stronger the artifact, the more powerful this corruption will be, so the more dangerous it becomes to use it. You can simply bring it to me, however, and I will grant you a commensurate reward.”

This time, it was Pax who raised her hand, causing Garrett to pause.

“Yes? Do you have a question, Pax?”

“Um, what does com… com… what does that word mean?”

“Commensurate? It means I’ll give you an equal reward.”

“Oh, equal? Great.”

Looking around at the group, Garrett waited for a moment, but no one else had any questions so he stepped back.

“I’ll leave you to it. Remember, do not stray too deep into the dream for now.”

With that final warning, he left the table and retreated to the bar, allowing the team to decide what they wanted to do. There were dozens of mortals from the blocks around the inn who had become carriers for the flowers and were now chatting casually with each other, so Garrett spent a bit of time listening to their conversations while he waited for the adventurers to leave their table. Under his watchful gaze, the team headed for the door and passed through it, leaving the safety of Dreamer’s Rest and slipping out into the fog filled dream.

After they left, Garrett headed back to his own room, taking a seat in the Dreamer’s Throne. From the body language of the dreamers as they left Dreamer’s Rest, Garrett could tell that they were nervous, and he found himself in the same position. He was banking on being able to allow the team to operate autonomously, but the dream was both dangerous and unpredictable, and Garrett was concerned that he had just ordered them to their deaths. Thankfully, he had the ability to ride along since they were carrying dream flowers.

Observe the Dream

Activating his ability, Garrett felt his vision change, transforming into a top down view of the inn and everyone in it. He could feel his personal dream space overlayed on top of the inn, and could even see the patrons of Dreamer’s Rest chatting in the bar, but now his vision extended beyond that to all of the places outside of the inn that he or others had been. The masked dreamers were standing outside the inn, talking together in quiet voices and Garrett zoomed in on them, finding to his delight that he could easily center his vision on each of them thanks to the flowers they carried.

Viper was the easiest, of course, since he held the highest number of flowers, and Pax was the second easiest, but the others could serve as Garrett’s anchor just as easily, reassuring him that he would be able to influence the area around them as they explored. After a brief discussion, the group of six split up into three teams of two and began to explore the area right around the inn, retracing some of the ground they had covered the night before.

While keeping the group together was by far the safest option, they had already cleared everything right around the inn the previous night and this was just to make sure that nothing had crept in. There were a couple small nightmares that scampered away when they saw the dreamers, but nothing else out of the ordinary. Viper, who was paired up with Maron, stopped at a street corner once they had covered their area and pointed toward the center of the street.

“What do you think about planting a flower there?”

Viper’s voice was hoarse and hearing his silent companion finally speak caused Maron to jump in shock. He knew that the blade wielding Viper was a powerful awakened, and that both thrilled and frightened him, so hearing Viper ask him a question left him speechless for a moment.

“Uh, yeah, I mean, I think that would be fine. How do we even do that?”

“Concentrate on that spot and think of planting a flower,” Viper said, relaying the instructions that Garrett was feeding him. “I’ll guard you while you do it.”

Giving Viper a dubious look, Maron still nodded and tried to follow the vague directions. He focused his mind, thinking about planting a flower in the middle of the street, while also keeping half an eye on Viper, who had put his hand on his sword and was scanning the still foggy streets nearby. Back on his throne, Garrett felt the slight tug on his mental strength as the mask that Maron wore kicked in, informing Garrett of Maron’s desire. Garrett responded by feeding a bit of energy into the connection and allowing the mask to activate one of his abilities.

[Dream Seed]

It had taken Garrett a while to understand how to make a connection between the dream artifacts and his abilities, but he was immensely pleased with how it had turned out when he felt the energy slip out of his control and stream through the mask that Maron wore. The dreamer, standing in the middle of the street felt that energy as an invigorating tingle that bathed his mind and soul, sending a shiver through him. Using Maron as a conduit, Garrett’s energy coalesced into a dream seed that drifted out of Maron and landed on the street in front of him. With a shake, the seed burrowed into the ground and began to draw Maron’s own energy out, using the dreamer’s mental energy to nurture the first bloom.

A faint sense of panic set in as Maron discovered that his mental energy was being pulled out of him by the flower seed that he had just planted, but before he could break off the connection, he felt another trickle of energy from Garrett drifting through him. With a gasp, he fell to one knee, unable to handle the conflicting feelings of having his mental strength drained by the dream seed while it was also being refilled by Garrett. By the time it finished, the rest of the team had gathered up and was watching him warily. The dream flower slowly bloomed, creating a beautiful blossom that cast rainbow light all across the street. Once it was done growing, Maron, who was nearly drained, stood up, his eyes shining with a conflicted light as he stared at the flower that had sprung forth from his energy.

“Are you okay, Maron?” Estel asked, looking at him closely.

It was a moment before the dreamer replied, but when he did, it was with a wide smile.

“A bit tired, but that’s it. I could feel the mask drawing power somewhere, which helped. Heh, actually, it more than helped. It would have sucked me dry if not for the mask. But more importantly, it was that same feeling as when I killed that nightmare last night. I am tired, but I can feel that my spark has been reinforced somehow. It’s an amazing feeling. Almost half a month’s worth of meditation in only a few minutes.”

“That must have been what Geller meant when he said that the reward of the mission was whatever we got from killing nightmares and planting dream flowers,” Kinsley mused, walking closer to the dream flower. “If we can grow stronger from planting these flowers, getting to enter the dream is tantamount to having unlimited access to growth.”

Shaking his head, Maron pointed at the flower.

“Not unlimited. I don’t think I could do that again even if I wanted to. I don’t have the energy.”

“Curious,” Kinsley replied, turning to look at Maron. “So it takes your energy, but also uses energy from the mask?”

“Yes. Or, at least, that’s what it felt like,” Maron said with a shrug.

“We should find out,” Asher said, his eyes gleaming behind his mask. “Our mission was to secure the area right around the inn so why don’t we try planting flowers all around it? This one is repelling the fog naturally, so I bet we will be able to create a fog free zone if we plant more flowers.”

“That’s a good idea,” Viper said, drawing his sword and pointing it at the fog, “but first, let's clear out some of those nightmares.”

Looking in the direction he was pointing, the team saw a few lesser nightmares creeping out of the fog toward the gleaming flower.