SLEEPING BEAUTIES: DREAM LOG

[yourkeepers]

Bewitched by the thorn's touch, you have been ensnared in the deepest of sleep. Fortunately for you, the world of Faerie doesn't end with the waking.

The world of your dreams is brighter now, more clear than you've ever witnessed it. You've been it before, you think, there fragments of yourself become reality. But now you are somehow more lucid in its presence, and it's more real - something you can reach out and touch.

You find yourself in this world, and you are not alone. Your dreams and those of other join at the edges, pulling into each other along similar threads.

And you are watched by something even greater.

Comments

[peafowl]

The twins peer around the corner and see the redhead. The pink peacock begins to wave and her twin grabs her arm and yanks her back behind cover, out of the redhead's line of sight. After a brief second and an indignant squawk, the pink peacock reappears around the corner, dragging her twin behind her. She waves at the redhead.

"Just us! We ain't dangerous, promise!"

She notices the cathedral in the distance behind the redhead and a small spark of hope appears for her. Maybe there's a way out of the spirit-ridden San Dimitrius, after all.

The blue peacock, meanwhile, harbours no such optimism. A part of him wants to yell at the redhead to run, before the spirits arrive.

[magewarden]

"The vines?" Realisation dawns and he frowns, searching his memories quickly as he forms an answer. "Yes, they were all over the house. I was looking for something to drive them back, for somewhere to barricade myself but there was nowhere and... I think they did catch me."

He looks down at his hands, head tilting in confusion. The thorns, he remembers them catching at his skin.

"How is this possible?" he asks, as much to himself as to the person in front of him.

[subtleserenity]

She shakes her head, resting her rifle on her shoulder as she addresses him. Her eyes are still alert, but there doesn't appear to be an imminent threat around them... however much it feels like there's something lurking. on the metal walkways and in the open hold below them. "Not sure. Some kinda magic the Keeper's got on us? Or somethin' in those vines. Think they might've come from whoever was attackin' the house."

It's a moment before Brimstone realizes this one probably has no idea what she's talking about. "Had a walkabout in the house. Found a note sayin' somethin' 'bout a thief payin' for takin' what wasn't his. Recon the Keeper's the crook. Might be someone was lookin' to steal us from him while he's out."

[creased]

She raises an eyebrow at him, unconcerned by the hostility. "Something wrong? Finally realized the food isn't real?" Curious now, she grabs an apple off the table and bites into it. And immediately spits the bite out. "Ugh, took you long enough."

[magewarden]

His eyes widen at that, eyebrows going up in surprise.

"You think The Keeper has stolen something?" His head tilts, considering this. "Yet how are we to know if the note is to be trusted? Or, even, what such a thing might be? I suppose it is no business of ours, in truth, although..."

Glancing around he winces at the surroundings, rather self aware.

"It has been rather made our business, if the attack is as related as you say. Perhaps we might ask Mason?"

[nosentimentalist]

"I find it interesting that all these dreams seem familiar, in some way, despite us never being there before...isn't that strange?" He says, as if to himself, walking up to the machine to give it an appraising look.

"What's this thing do?"

[nosentimentalist]

"Maybe that's his job. Scaring people. I'm sure there's a profession for that."

And ah. The weight set. He picks one up, hefting it in his hand- not too heavy to lift, yet dense enough to do some damage if used. Not bad at all. He'll nod at her, as thanks for the suggestion.

"Thanks for the idea. I guess we'll see what I can do with this against our intruder, wherever he is."

[nosentimentalist]

Don't worry. This typewriter condescends to everyone, it's pretty much part of his nature. He'll nod, his expression turning more thoughtful.

"Memories? Makes sense, in a way. Actually, sounds more like some version of purgatory than say, heaven or hell. Did you remember how you died, or were you just there without any explanation?"

[subtleserenity]

"Stole us," she replies with a slight shrug, feeling herself go on edge just a bit at his suggestion it's none of their business. "Wouldn't trust him to stop at that." At least she thinks it must have been thievery. She wouldn't have left whatever this place is willingly, would she? The sense she gets in this place is too strong for her to have done that.

At the suggestion they ask Mason, she eyes the man with skepticism. "You tried talking to Mason? Only time I did, he didn't much seem in a sharin' mood."

[virulentvexation]

Promising, if for no other reason than there being no other leads to, well, anything. The dead woman, still a mystery...

The dead woman.

She parts her lips to speak, to ask the woman with the blue tattoos if she knows anything about a dead harpy, but the words have little chance to leave her mouth before she is abruptly swept away from the scene- the dream- a clean cut, just as she had been put under cleanly.

Someone has broken the sleeping enchantment.

[magewarden]

"Stole us?"

He squints at that, trying to process the concept. Where would he have been stolen from? He is a servant of The Keeper, it is his job to be a companion and keep the peace!

Yet --

Yet some part of him fishes up the dream he had. Dream? Vision? Memory?

They're not going to kill you, Jowan.

He struggles against it, blinks slightly as he fights an internal war.

"I have spoken to Mason," he says -- voice cool and calm despite the struggle making his expression twitch. "He did not have the most even of tempers, it is true, but surely Mason wants what is best for this place if he is keeping it for The Keeper's return. If there is a threat, Mason would want to know. If someone wishes to steal... something... or someone..."

[subtleserenity]

Brimstone suspects it's a profession that ends in rather a lot of mortality depending on the audience. She wouldn't be averse to shooting whatever it is they're after at the moment. "Make sure you aim for the head," she offers as further advice. "'Less you think you mighta played shot-put."

Another scream turns her attention fully back to the task at hand, and she moves forward quickly and quietly, gun at the ready. She trusts Specs to follow.

There are sliding doors in this corridor, something she doesn't particularly like. Too much of a chance for someone hiding. She steps lightly toward the first and pauses, listening intently. On to the next on, and that next. Then, at the fourth door, she hears it. The shuffling footsteps again. She steps back and to the opposite side of the corridor before looking over at the typewriter and jerking her head toward the door. She tries to convey the message silently. 'Open the door. I'll shoot.'

[subtleserenity]

The confusion in his voice is enough to put her off the subject for the time being. He isn't being obnoxious about his loyalty to the Keeper like the peacocks, or overly forceful like Stripe. He just sounds honestly perplexed, like he can't even fathom the possibility. She suspects he hasn't had the right memory yet. Or he's ignoring the ones he has.

His logic about the house is decent, as well. For all the fuss, if Mason's gotten caught up in the mess of vines, too, he might have a better idea than the rest of them who might have sent them. Still... "Don't seem the sort to ask questions, but it don't hurt none to try." She glances upward, then looks back down at the man. "You remember anything 'bout how you walked into here? Anything you were thinkin' before it happened? Anything you touched? We wanna walk out, expect we'll have to find a way. Not sure what those vines're doin' to us."

[seerchlight]

"Some kind of psychic blast, I think," he says, a little more subdued in mentioning it. "I just...was so loud in my head, like all these people screaming. I was bleeding out of my face and all over. Just as I was about to get out it all got worse and I died."

[armedanddangerous]

The birdman pauses as if about to make some other flippant comment, but then the room starts to ooze around him again, and before he can speak he's somewhere else entirely, (probably much to the poor librarian's relief).

[armedanddangerous]

"Nah." He downs his mug of cider and turns pointedly away from the woman.

[magewarden]

He nods slightly, accepting her assessment, then frowns at the questions. What was he thinking about, before? What did he touch? His eyes drop away, expression pinching as he tries to spin his memories backwards.

"I... remember only the vines, taking over everything. I had been trying to find a place to barricade myself, as I said, somewhere to be free of them but they seemed to fill every room. Seemed to follow me, in fact, enough that I felt they were aware of what they were doing."

[subtleserenity]

It takes a lot not to roll her eyes or wish a curse on him, but she manages it. "Suit yourself." And with that, she turns away down one of the rich corridors to find something and someone that doesn't make her feel sick.

[subtleserenity]

She nods. "Got that feelin', too. Seemed to know they could get at me on my wood seein' as they weren't havin' luck with the metal." It's a very brief moment, but she does wonder if the vines might not have been some sort of changeling like them. Perhaps one that can't control itself? That's unlikely, though. The vines seem much too combative for unknown powers running rampant.

"So you wound up here first, Porcelain?" she asks. "First man I met was runnin' 'round in his own dream afore mine."

[magewarden]

'Porcelain'? An interesting nickname, but he supposes she could have thought of something a lot worse. He shakes his head after a moment, though.

"No, it was as you say this other man experienced -- I was... I suppose this must be a dream, must it not? In which case it must have been my own dream, yes, in so far as I saw nobody else there. Only long, dark tunnels. I heard voices, but... I saw nobody. It was... strange."

[subtleserenity]

Voices, but no bodies. That, at least, sounds familiar. "I been huntin' for someone in here who don't seem to be anything but a ghost. Whispers and footsteps." And screams, but that hadn't been the one she was looking for. The person those screams had belonged to had seemed to fit here, even if the screams themselves hadn't. "Voices you were hearin' mention anything useful?"

She suspects the answer is no, but it can't hurt to ask.

[magewarden]

Useful?

First day they come and catch everyone.

He shivers, brow furrowing in thought. That was a voice that would haunt him in the darkness for a long time to come.

"I... no. No, I would not say so. If anything I would say the person sounded a little... unbalanced."

[justbeclaws]

"Nice to meet you too! But hurrrry!" She pulled him along faster, not noticing - it was hard to notice things under this sun. Back under the trees, she smiled and stopped as the shade let her skin cool to a comfortable temperature. But she didn't let go of his hand. It was nice, holding hands, she discovered, with someone she might or might not know. Warm, not like the sun but like - her lusus purring on dark season days, white fur soft around her, keeping her oh-so-safe -

She rocked back on her heels and clenched his hand tightly for a stunned heartbeat. "...Oh. That was the word I was looking for!"

[justbeclaws]

She regards the trees with the dubious eye of someone who knows nothing about art in a fine museum. "Do you think so? How can you tell?" She knows they're old, that this one is the kind that grows into comfortable forks for resting in, that another one has nuts, that these others tend to have brittle branches, but she doesn't know about anything like power.

[subtleserenity]

"Lot of unbalanced folk around here," Brimston says, no malice in the words, only detached observation. "Comes of havin' memories put in your head that don't make no sense. And hearin' things..."

Her ears pick up the faint scuffle of movement from down the corridor that she'd come. "Got a feelin' we ain't alone." She turns in the direction of the sound, rifle at the ready to follow it. It's a pointless endeavor, she knows, but she can't not go after it. There's someone watching. Whether they're real or not, she can feel it."