The Dream lord returns

[dream-daniel.livejournal.com]

Time: May 1st 2003, shortly before Dawn
Place: Ground floor
Status: Public
Summary: The Dream lord returns to fix the dreaming

Daniel strode across the fields towards the manor as he had a couple of months earlier when his investigations had first led him here. This time though he wasn't in the dark about what was happening. He knew what the threat to the dreaming was and thanks to his latest information he would be able to deal with it.

Up until now the dreaming in this small area had been cut off from him. He could have knocked down the barriers that kept him out as if they were paper but the dreaming was also the minds of men and he would be punching through their minds as well as through the shields.

Now though his enemy had made a mistake. He had found out that the barriers between the world of dreams and the physical world had been destroyed. His siblings would no doubt show some interest if the mess wasn't cleared up but this was the opportunity he needed.

Once past the barriers he felt confident that he would be able to deal with the problem swiftly and decisively. And now he could simply walk around the barriers. Where once they had stood as an impenetrable, now there was a large opening into the real world and there was nothing to stop him from just walking through the fields of Lower Tadfield and to the Manor which seemed to be the heart of the problem.

He felt it as he passed the threshold - a faint blurring of reality as the world gave way to dreams and illusion. This wasn't quite his dreaming but that didn't matter because he was the lord of dreams, he was Dream of the Endless.

He passed a farmhouse where he heard a scream. Inside he felt two people, awake but at the same time dreaming. He could also feel their dreams and knew at once that they were nightmares. The couple’s fears came to life - zombies pounding on their bedroom door and on the floor of their room snakes and spiders, while buzzing in the air were creepy crawlies causing the woman to scream every time one landed on her skin.

Daniel appeared next to them, conjuring light in their darkness to illuminate the room around him. He waved his hands and in a moment the creatures filling the room disappeared in an ephemeral mist. He opened the door, to the horror of the man who had been trying to barricade it. The zombies outside lunged forward unaware of who they now faced.

Daniel held up his hand and the undead nightmares stopped sharply as if they’d run into an invisible wall. “Come with me. I may need your help.” He closed his hand and as he did so the zombies were disappeared.

The couple stood staring open mouthed. “It is just a dream. Go back to sleep.” Daniel told them.

Almost as mindlessly as the zombies that had been attacking the couple got back into their beds and as Daniel left fell into a dreamless sleep.

“Time to get to the heart of this problem,” Daniel said as he stepped out of the house and onto the outskirts of the manor grounds.

Whatever controlled this place was stronger here. His control of the dreaming was opposed and he couldn’t quite do as he willed. He walked the last short distance. Passing features he knew well that had become slightly distorted in his dreamlike state. The pond outside had gone from being a few feet deep to a bottomless well that went down into a darkness that felt further away than the depth of the water would suggest.

He stepped into the foyer of the hotel, to look for his enemy or somebody that could provide a clue to where he was.

Comments

[safehouse-guest.livejournal.com]

Primoris was just about to return to the two angels on the third floor when he sensed a new arrival. Someone he hadn't seen in... a very long time.

Dream.

There was a gust of wind, and black smoke began to trickle into the foyer, coalescing into a humanoid form just behind Dream.

Strange. He was... different. This wasn't Morpheus. Still, it was Dream, and the almost tangible fear rolling off everyone in the Manor had strengthened Primoris; he felt even more powerful then ever. And he'd looked forward to this confrontation for so long.

"Hello, Dream."

Parallel thread.

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

He had gathered the other two to the pond. Standing this close to it, Trilby could feel a deep sense of vertigo. How far did it go? Where did it end?

He had instructed Raphael and Baraq to stand at the east and west sides of the pond respectively, with Trilby at the south. The living tree (an ash, he noted absently) was at the north end. That seemed right. Trilby had a feeling neither of the two would have followed him half a step if they knew how much he was making up on the spot.

There was something happening at the entrance of the manor, but he ignored it. No more distractions. Aut vincere aut mori.

"In this place of deceptions and trickery," he said, "we come to this place, presided by the tree of life, Yggdrasill's shadow.

"We who have been wronged, who have suffered injuries to the body, loss to the soul, trauma to our minds, we have come here. This is a place of renewal, reflection, purification." He pointed the stave at the center of the pond. "Motion."

Feeling the ache in his head spread with every word, Trilby began the incantation.

He spoke of a place beyond the worlds, beyond any path any sane creature would walk; a place as far away as could be imagined; a place where all the roads turned in on themselves and you could hunt for a way out until mountains crumbled and still you would run in riddles for the rest of time. It was anywhere you never wanted to be.

Feeling as if the words were being dragged out of his throat with fishhooks, he spoke the final words of sending, and then,

"End this madness, so that we might heal! Be gone, Primoris!"