Dreamer's Throne

Late that night, Garrett listened to Ryn’s soft breathing, his mind running through the day. It had always been his habit to spend a few moments at the end of his day examining the choices he’d made, and as he reviewed his day, he was once again struck by the absurdity of his situation. It was fruitless to dwell on the strangeness of his situation, however, and he soon turned his attention to a more profitable question. The soul spark he carried was shining once again, almost as brightly as it had been when he’d first noticed it.

When I move around in the safe zone there’s no change to my soul spark, but it clearly depletes as I move outside of the safe zone. There must be something in that haze that’s depleting it. If I think of it as a battery, then it’s clear that moving around outside my room takes power, while being still recharges it.

Letting his mind sink into the soul spark, Garrett entered the Dream, appearing in the glowing chair once again. The first thing he did was check the room he was in. The table was exactly as he had left it, with the two account books sitting side by side and the inkpot he was using in between them. He had left the quill he’d been given laying across the two books, its edge precisely aligned with the square bottom of the inkpot. Seeing it, an idea struck him.

Reaching out, he picked it up, watching as it turned from the dull gray that enveloped everything in the room into its familiar pale-brown color. Running his finger along the soft edge of the feather, he examined it, marveling at how real it felt. As soon as he touched it, he felt his soul spark starting to dim, but the glow from the throne seemed to sink into him, replacing the energy his soul spark was losing. Carefully placing the quill down next to the new account book, he turned his attention to Ryn, who was sleeping in the bed across the room. He could faintly see her laying in the bed, covered by the sheets, but she was dim and dark, looking more like a wax doll than a real person.

Curious, he walked over and tried to touch her, but before he could his hand encountered a firm obstruction and a window popped up in front of his face.

You have not yet unlocked the ability to enter other people’s dreams. Advance to level one to unlock this ability.

EXP: 3/10

Frowning, Garrett closed his eyes and thought for a moment. Remembering he had another skill he hadn’t used yet, he activated Whisper of the Dream, his ability that was supposed to let him communicate with other people mentally. Yet just like before nothing happened apart from another window popping up.

This ability can currently only be used with those who are Awakened. Improve your skill level with this ability to pass messages to mortals.

This again. Does this mean I could have sent a message to Gorn or Obe, but not Ryn? And why is it using the term ‘mortal’? How do I increase my level? Wait, if there are personal levels and skill levels, do I have something like a character sheet? Hmm. How would I access something like that?

Letting his hand fall back to his side, Garrett tried to figure out how to get the system to respond, but no matter what he did, it remained entirely silent. He’d only heard the mechanical voice that announced the system once, so it was possible there wasn’t a way to interact with it directly apart from the windows that popped up on occasion. After wasting nearly twenty-five minutes on it, he finally put the issue aside for the moment and moved to the door to go out into the hall.

He had been out of the door twice now but had never tried to come back in, instead finding himself forcefully ejected when his soul spark ran out of power. For his entire life on Earth he had moved cautiously, but now Garrett found that the memories of living for seventeen years in this fantastical world and the emotions of being seventeen had mixed together, causing him to have a strong desire to explore everything he could. Thankfully, the countless years of obsessive checking and double-checking he’d done throughout his life on Earth had built enough muscle memory that he didn’t just rush out to explore.

Stepping out of the safe zone, he turned around and tried the door, feeling quite relieved when it opened up for him. While testing entering and exiting a few times, he paid close attention to the amount of glow his soul spark lost each time, soon realizing it was only reduced when he moved through spaces he hadn’t been before. The more he walked in the passage, the clearer it became, transforming from a hazy, dream-like state into a completely solid hallway. Emboldened by this realization, Garrett opened the door to the office next to his room and walked in. Just like before, he could see the layout of the room, though the items on the desk had changed.

Even before he walked in, he could see the path he had walked previously marked out by a lack of haze. Everywhere he’d already stepped the Dream appeared more real, especially around the desk. There was no one in the office at this time of night, so he was able to explore it freely, but he still focused his attention on the desk, both because it would require less energy, since he had been there before, and because that’s where the important documents seemed to be. When he’d been carried into the office earlier in the day, he had looked around to try and figure out where the most valuable items were and had spotted a number of papers stacked to one side of the desk.

Garrett had no qualms about the position he was in. Even with his Awakening and the strange new world he found himself able to enter, there was absolutely no way he could compete with Henrick or either of the goons who followed him around. It wasn’t simply a lack of confidence either. While his young, noble self had studied swordsmanship with the prince growing up, he’d never even drawn the blood of an animal, let alone the blood of a human. On top of that, all his fights had been with guards who held a vested interest in letting him win. While his earthling memories were filled with bloodshed, close-range physical violence wasn’t something he was proficient in.

At first Garrett had considered trying to meld the two sets of memories together to try and come up with some sort of fighting proficiency, but he soon gave that up when he realized just how strong Obe and Gorn were and how powerless he was. Maybe he would have had a chance to protect himself if he’d chosen the path of the Blade, but since he’d already chosen the path of the Watcher, he was going to focus on his strengths. He was hoping the papers would give him information he could use to keep himself, and Ryn, safe.

He had no idea if the papers were worth the effort, but he still reached out for them, feeling energy drain out of him as his fingers closed around them. Pulling items from the real world into the dream world took considerable energy, and actually picking up the papers left him nearly empty, so he quickly put them back down and returned to his room. He was feeling a headache starting to form as he reached the door to his room, but as soon as he opened the door and felt the light emanating from the glowing throne, the pain eased and he found himself able to breathe easy again.

It took nearly half an hour for him to recharge his soul spark, but once he had he returned to the office, intending to examine the papers he’d accessed earlier. To his surprise, the glow on the papers had faded slightly and a grayish tint had covered them. Realizing the haze of the dream was starting to seep back into them, he picked up the stack of papers, sighing as about a quarter of his energy faded. Leafing through the papers, he found the corners of his lips slowly rising in a smile.

The papers detailed many things, but the one he found most interesting was a list of contacts with notes listed by them, identifying what sorts of goods they would buy and their levels of trustworthiness. In his past life, Garrett had hung out with enough thieves to recognize he was looking at a fence’s contact book, and he took a moment to study it. While he currently had no goods to move, it was always a good idea to know who was dealing on the dark side just in case there was a chance to use them later.

Besides, according to his memories from his time in the palace, there were plenty of ways to get goods in this world, especially with a gang’s help. The rest of the papers were receipts and order forms from the docks listing a number of goods being moved from one warehouse to another. Without more information there was nothing Garrett could do with the forms, and other than the list of contacts there was nothing much of interest in the pile, so he put the papers back on the desk.

He had just placed it down on the table when a chill raced up his spine and he spun around to face the window, yelping in shock as he saw the strange robed figure with the giant crimson eye in the middle of its face staring at him. The chill that took hold of him grew deeper, causing his legs to shake as the monster pressed itself against the glass. He had only caught a glimpse of the monster from the side before, and now that he was staring directly at it he couldn’t help but shudder.

Looking like a hunched old man with wrinkled skin, the monster’s vertical eye that covered its entire face glared at Garrett, a strange power making it impossible for him to look away. Desperate to blink and tear his eyes away from the terrifying sight, Garrett could feel the energy in his soul spark being drained away as he resisted the monster’s gaze. This infuriated the monster, which suddenly screeched, causing its large eye to begin splitting down the middle, almost as if another eye was opening up in the middle of its pupil.

A trickle of blood ran down the window as its eye was ripped apart, an even stronger crimson eye appearing inside of it. Dreadful whispers started to swirl around Garrett, and with supreme effort he tore himself away, falling to the ground as he bumped into the desk. Papers scattered across the floor in his haste, but he didn’t care one bit. Scrambling along the floor, he thought about hiding behind the desk, but as he caught sight of his hand on the wooden floor, terror raced through him. On the back of his hand he could see a strange bulging, as if something was pressing against his skin from the inside. A thin red line appeared in the center of the bulge and his skin started to rip apart, revealing a crimson eyeball underneath.

Fear like he’d never felt raced through him and he lunged for the door. Pulling the door shut behind him, he crawled for the door to his room, doing his best not to look at bulges that were beginning to form on his arms. Pain coursed through his arms as the eyes that were beginning to open up stared wildly around, each trying to catch his gaze. With each crimson eye that appeared, he could sense himself losing control of his body, and soon a terrible pain struck his face, causing it to feel like it was about to split open. Blood dripped down from his chin as he got his hand on the doorknob to his room, splashing against the aged wooden floorboards.

Feeling the strength slipping from his fingers, he twisted the knob and pushed the door open, falling into the small opening. His body was still behind the door, but as he flopped forward his face fell into the room and the warm light of the throne washed over him. A faint sizzle covered him as the bulging in his face subsided, burnt away by the light. Yet even as the eye vanished from his face, the eyes on his arms blinked, glowing with crimson light. Completely outside his control, his hands gripped the floor of the hallway and tried to pull his body backward, away from the light of the throne. With a desperation that bordered on insanity, he opened his mouth and bit down on the edge of the door, preventing himself from being pulled back out into the hallway.

A vicious tug of war began as his possessed limbs tried to pry him loose and he tried to pull himself forward with just his teeth. Thanks to the light seeping into his head, his soul spark that was nearly completely inert started to glimmer again, and with excruciating slowness he began to regain some control of his body. Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Garret gathered his energy and lunged forward, getting his torso into the room. Wiggling to the side, he bent himself around the open door before he could be pulled back out and the light of the throne began to burn away the eyes that had opened on his arms and hands.

It took him nearly an hour before all the eyes had vanished, an hour of a tortuous burning feeling as the presence of the monster that had possessed his body was peeled away. Even after the influence of the monster was gone, Garrett still didn’t get up from the floor. His breath came in big gasps as he tried to calm his wildly beating heart. The only frame of reference he had for what had just happened was the horror movies he’d watched back on Earth, but even those could never have prepared him for what he’d just gone through. The only consolation he had was the window that floated in the air in front of his eyes.

You have survived an encounter with a Seeking Wraith, one of the low-ranked nightmares of the Dream. You have gained 3 EXP for avoiding complete possession.

EXP: 6/10

He had only gotten a single experience point for seeing the Seeking Wraith, but now after a direct encounter his experience had gone up by three points at once. The words avoiding possession gave him a chill just reading them, and the reality of the world he was in settled on him like a weight. Sure, his life on Earth had often been dangerous and he’d been forced to scramble for his life, but this was an entirely different matter. It was one thing to contend with physical enemies, but another thing entirely to face down bizarre creatures that seemed more myth than reality. What had the system called it?

A nightmare.

Gasping for breath on the floor of his room, Garrett was convinced that truer words had never been spoken.