Dreamer's Throne

Just like the other two paths, the path of the Watcher granted two skills, and as he focused on the information, the details of each skill flooded his mind. Whisper of the Dream was a simple skill that allowed its user to project thoughts into the minds of others, while Observe the Dream allowed its user the ability to see the surrounding area clearly. Both skills appeared to be weak compared to the skills granted by the other two paths, or at least less impactful, but that suited Garrett just fine.

He had already died once—at least, if his memories from Earth were to be believed—and the experience, though a surprise, hadn’t managed to shake his detached personality one bit. So it was with some casualness that he mentally selected the path of the Watcher and watched as the world warped around him. Blinking through his new eyes, he looked down at his hands that rested on the ornate chair’s armrests.

This is my body from Earth. How is it here? And why did it only appear after I selected my path?

With nearly no information, there was no way for Garrett to figure out what was going on, so he gave up and began to examine his surroundings. The room had lost much of its haze, and the details continued to grow clearer as he stood up from his chair. To Garrett it felt as if he stood in the real world, but there was a faint fluctuation at the corner of his vision that helped him understand that the room he stood in was part of the Dream. Checking over his body, he was happy to see he was in perfect shape.

His death on Earth had completely destroyed his body, but here he stood, as if the horrific damage his limbs had suffered had never happened. Suddenly struck with curiosity, he squatted down and did a few push-ups. Though he could feel his body going through the motions, no feeling of muscle fatigue accompanied the effort. Rather, he found himself growing sleepy as he expended his mental energy. Stopping, he stood again, his brow furrowing slightly. Garrett, or rather, Paul, had always been hypersensitive to the changes of his mind, and his small test seemed to confirm what he had suspected.

This world he’d entered wasn’t a world of physical ability like the world where his body currently fought off the remnants of the fever that had plagued him for the last four days. Instead, it was a world of the mind, where his strength was measured by how clear his mind was. Shaking his head to clear away the many questions swarming him, Garrett walked over to the single doorway, trying the doorknob. Feeling it turn easily, he suddenly paused as a bunch of floating text appeared in his vision.

You are about to exit the safe zone and enter the Dream. Once you leave, your choice of path will be locked and the other paths will no longer be available.

Selected Path: Watcher

Stay/Leave

It only took him a moment to review his choice, and with a small smile he decisively opened the door leading out of the room. The hallway outside the door was long and dark, with only a hazy light that filtered through the window at the other end of the hall. There were two rooms off the hall and a set of stairs that led up and down, but Garrett was much more interested in walking down to the end of the hall to peer out the window. To his disappointment, the only thing he saw was thick fog that shone with a phosphorescent glow. Unable to make out a single detail outside the window, he retraced his steps and stopped by the first of the doors, trying the doorknob.

Just like the door to the room he’d started in, this one was unlocked as well, and he was able to open it up, revealing a haze-filled room that looked like an office. About to walk into the office, he suddenly realized there were other people in the room, causing him to freeze in the doorway.

“Ah, excuse me,” Garrett said, his eyes darting between the three people in the room.

When none of them responded, he frowned and took a step into the room. Getting a better look at them, Garrett realized the three men weren’t moving but appeared to be held in place by the haze covering the room. Their bodies were slightly translucent, given both color and form by a light that shone from their heads. The strongest of the lights was in the head of the man who was sitting behind the desk, and as Garrett got closer he found that he recognized him as the burly man who’d threatened to throw them out of the inn.

Standing across the desk from him were two other muscular men whose lights were slightly weaker, who Garrett had never seen them before. As curious as he was about the lights radiating out of the three men, Garrett restrained his desire to reach out and touch them and instead focused on the rest of the room. It only took him a moment to realize he could focus on an object, allowing it to jump into sharp relief as the haze that covered the room peeled back, but doing so caused his mental strength to drain at a noticeable rate.

Blinking his eyes to shake the sudden mental fatigue he had accumulated, Garrett thought for a moment and then began to focus his attention on the desk, searching for something useful. There was a single open book and what appeared to be a letter on the desk, and as he scanned over them he realized he was looking at a financial ledger. At first the letters and numbers were strange to him, but after a moment the education he had received as Garrett kicked in and he was able to make sense of what he was looking at. Numbers had always been of interest to him back on earth, so he continued to look down the page, noting that the book was using a simple credit and debit system with a running total at the bottom of the page.

A faint scratching sound suddenly intruded on his hearing and his head snapped up as a faint worry crept into his mind. Unsure where the worry was coming from, he looked around, his eye catching the window. Just like the window at the end of the hallway, this one was completely blocked by the glowing fog, but as Garrett looked up he seemed to feel a creeping claw scratching lightly across it. Like a nail being dragged across glass, the sound caused his spine to vibrate, and with growing horror he saw a pale hand with six-inch nails appear on the window.

Garrett had seen more than his fair share of corpses on earth and instantly identified the hand as that of a dead body, but even as he watched the fingers of the hand flexed, causing its long, sharp nails to rap against the window, shaking the glass. The feeling of horror that had been growing in Garrett’s mind suddenly spiked and he threw himself behind the desk, pulling his arms and legs in as he tried to get out of sight.

His heart pounded as the icy terror gripping him continued to grow stronger, threatening to freeze the air in his lungs as it constricted his chest. Unable to see the window from where he was, Garrett thought he heard a cackling whisper but was unable to pin it down. As terrified as he was, he also wanted to peer around the corner of the desk to take a look at what was outside the window. The urge to see began to grow in strength, and suddenly his vision shook and Garrett found himself watching the room from above. He could see himself hiding behind the desk, his body curled up as small as he could make it.

This must be Observe the Dream.

The three men remained where they had been and the rest of the room was the same as well, proving that he was looking at a top-down view of the room. Touching his head, he saw his figure do the same, and as he blinked his vision returned to normal. It took a couple tries for Garrett to figure out how to activate his ability, and once he did he realized he could also control the remote view, moving his vision around as if it were a floating camera. As he played with the camera, the fear that gripped him began to fade and Garrett activated Observe the Dream, turning it toward the window, trying to see if the figure was still there. When he found nothing but the fog, he let out a small sigh of relief and moved his vision closer, trying to see if he could peer out the window.

As his view drifted closer to the glass, he suddenly saw the fog parting as if something was forcing its way through to the glass. The horror that had first seized him returned in a wave that smashed into his mind, causing his vision to go dark, but right before he faded out he saw a cloaked figure with a single crimson eye that sat vertically in its face, running from its chin all the way up to its forehead. Unblinking, the eye stared into the room, sweeping this way and that as it tried to find him. With a jerk, Garrett woke up, his heart pounding and his face slick with sweat. A dull pain in his mind and a simple blue window floating in front of his face were all that remained of his encounter with the strange eye.

You have discovered a new location: Dreamer’s Throne. You have gained 1 EXP.

You have observed a dreamer for the first time. You have gained 1 EXP.

You have observed a Seeking Wraith, one of the low-ranked nightmares of the Dream. You have gained 1 EXP.

EXP: 3/10

Waving the window away, Garrett groped for the mug of water in the darkness. The room he was in had a small window set high up in the wall, and from the lack of light he could only assume it was early in the morning hours. Finding the mug, he lifted it to his lips, drinking down the water it contained. The sound woke up Ryn, who was curled up near him, and in the sliver of light that entered the room from the crack under the door, he could see her looking toward him. Faint sounds of shouting and laughter drifted from beyond the door, but Garrett couldn’t make out what was being said.

“You bought us time.”

His statement was loud in the dark room even though he whispered, and Ryn responded with an angry curse.

“I did. That greedy rat Henrick took my whole silver. Two days. That’s how long he gave us.”

“A silver. Worth fifty copper. Fifty to a gold. Simple enough.”

Cocking her head to the side as she heard Garrett’s nonsensical muttering, Ryn’s eyes narrowed. She could barely see Garrett’s thin body in the light from the hall, but somehow, as she stared at him, she suddenly got the feeling she was looking at a complete stranger she’d never seen before. Before she could pin the feeling down it vanished, like a fleeting dream forgotten upon waking.

“Two days is better than I hoped. Thank you. I need more water and my body is exhausted. I’ll sleep now.”

Almost instantly Garrett was asleep again, leaving Ryn staring at him in fuming anger. Her patience had just about worn thin, but she had already invested so much in him that she couldn’t bear to walk away, and after a fierce internal struggle she finally grabbed the mug and slipped out of the room to get more water. This time Garrett’s sleep was dreamless, and he woke to the morning light slipping through the high window.

Pushing the rags that covered him aside, he tried to sit up, only to find he couldn’t leverage himself upright. After some consideration, he realized his legs didn’t respond to anything he did, leaving him with the sinking realization that he wasn’t going to be able to get himself around. Lying still, he closed his eyes and took stock of his situation. On top of his right arm, that appeared to have been cut off from the middle of his forearm, he had no strength from below his waist. It only took a moment for him to recall just how he’d arrived at this position, but doing so sent him on a rabbit trail of memories that curled through his mind.

The body he’d merged with had grown up in the palace of Insomnium, the city he was in, serving as the study aid to the then-prince. Less than a week ago the prince’s family had been slaughtered by his uncle in a bid to seize control and Garrett had been grievously wounded and thrown into the river as he tried to help the prince’s younger sister escape. After drifting to shore, his body had been stripped of anything valuable and he’d been left for dead, only to be picked up by Ryn and brought to the inn, where he was currently staying.

He had no idea how or why his memories from Earth had mixed with the memories of the seventeen-year-old young man, but it no longer mattered. Garret could feel that his two personalities had melded inseparably. The ice-cold, analytical, survive-at-all-costs attitude he had brought from Earth, and the passionate, idealistic, and social persona developed from his life on this world had combined together to form the strange mix of rational analysis and creativity that now carried his thoughts forward.

With a sigh, he turned his attention to the matter at hand: figuring out how to secure himself and avoid getting thrown out on his ear. A dozen ideas were considered and rejected, leaving only three possible options. Jorra, the world Garrett found himself in, was much like a fantasy world from one of the stories on Earth. The level of technology was low, reminding Garrett of a feudal society from the Middle Ages. Unlike Earth, however, this world was inhabited by fierce monsters that could rip a human apart with no effort.

Memories of dangerous beasts lurking outside of the walled city and rumors of prowling undead in the sewer system filled Garrett’s thoughts, and for a few minutes he was lost in recalling just how dangerous a world he had landed in. Yet monsters weren’t the only danger. Equally dangerous were those who carried a soul spark. Called Awakened, they possessed souls that took on specific shapes, granting them supernatural powers allowing them to go toe to toe with the vicious monsters that crept through the shadows. Though rare, it was these Awakened who both protected and ruled the human strongholds that remained in this world, their words enforced by their powerful fists.

Hearing the creak of a floorboard, Garret looked up as the door opened, seeing Ryn clutching half a loaf of coarse brown bread. Before she could unleash the mouthful of angry words she was holding, he did his best to push himself up and spoke calmly.

“We need to speak to Henrick. Please set up a meeting.”