Dream Interludes experienced by each character of
the course of multiple nights:
**********
A land of eternal twilight; you walk along a wide stone path that is
surrounded on both sides by a dark dense forest, with trees that rise up so
much higher than any normal tree should.
From one side you can hear the singing of children’s rhymes, feral cries
and howls are uttered from the other side.
Occasionally eyes are visible, staring out at you from the dark
treeline. Different sizes, different
colours and different in number, they watch you forge on ahead.
Leaving the cries and singing that are still ringing out from the forest
behind you, the path you followed winds steeply up a rock mesa and at the top
of it is a large lake with a castle of jagged spires at its centre. The castle can be reached by a long stone
causeway that connects its island to the mesa’s edge. On the other side of the lake is an engulf of
stars and blackness. A large black rook of
incredible size is perched on the castle you are approaching and watches you
intently.
**********
Crossing over the bridge you notice a pair of burning eyes glaring up at
you from deep within the bottomless lake.
Walking under the gatehouse, you pass beneath the colossal black rook
that sits atop one of the towers that flanks the entranceway. It screeches at you, its red eyes burning
into your soul as it starts to morph into a reptilian form and then suddenly lunges
forward with a single beat of its black dragon wings, attempting to tear out
your innards, causing you to flee into the castle courtyard. All around hundreds of windows stare out of
the castle and stone angels hang from every gable, watching your passing as the
rook-dragon manoeuvres around the knife-like crenulations and spear-topped
towers trying to get at you, before you finally stumble through a pair of
ethereal elven servants as they open up the doors of an entry hall.
**********
A long hallways stretches ahead for many miles and as you navigate it,
time seems to bend and shift, aging the walls, reducing portraits to dust and causing
plants to grow and wilt. You encounter a
young troll called Hargulka with a toy crown upon its head who informs you that
he is looking for the queen and suggests that you should come along too. Behind you red worms start falling from the
ceiling and crawling out of nearby tapestries, coalescing into a humanoid form
that threatens to engulf you. The troll
child distracts the worm-man so that you can run ahead until you see a large door-less
archway.
**********
With trepidation you approach the archway, suddenly gravity and
directions switch around and you find yourself falling downwards into the
archway below you which has now taken on the form of a giant set of jaws. Falling into the stone maw you land in a
sturdy chair within a chamber that reminds you of a waiting room whilst a
ticket with a number is pressed into your hand.
Looking around you find yourself sitting next to a stag drinking liquor
from a bottle and sporting a hat that looks like a man’s face, a rather large
owlbear with half-moon glasses that is reading a fairy-tale book called
‘Zuddiger’s Picnic’, a small troll child with a toy iron crown on his head and
a large skeleton draped in finery that only has one eye socket which is
currently empty.
**********
A number is called out, but it is not the one printed on the ticket you
hold. The eyeless skeleton next to you
asks if you can check his ticket and you find that it matches the number just
called out, so you swap his ticket with yours and move towards a swirling
portal that opens up on the other side of the room. A handsome man that you know to be a younger
version of King Irovetti of Pitax stumbles out of the portal in front of you,
clutching a sheathed sword hidden beneath his cloak as the portal opens up and
engulfs you.
**********
You find yourself in a large circular chamber filled with portals, but
your gaze is immediately drawn to the small green fey girl in front of
you. Her arms are crossed in front of
her and she gives you a petulant look whilst stamping her foot in both anger
and impatience. “It’s mine!” she sulks
“And I can take it whenever I want” She
gives a cruel smile “I don’t need you. I
don’t need anyone.” and then with a wave of her arm you are flung across the
room into an awaiting portal.
Falling through a portal you land on the steps of Wyvernshore
castle. There is a sound like rushing
water, followed by a painful increase in pressure from all around you. The world you know blurs into indistinct
colours and images that swirl upwards into the sky like a reversal of water
being sucked down a drain, disappearing upward into the night sky. All that is left in the surrounding landscape
is scorching sunlight bearing down on barren sand and ruined remains of the
streets and roads of Wyvernshore, cracked apart and half covered in sand, aged
beyond years. You realise that the
surround sands are actually tiny fragments of bone, all that remain of the
kingdom’s citizens and all those that you know and loved.
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