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Finally! Johan didn't care that he landed roughly, he was on solid ground again! He hurriedly got to his feet and brushed himself off.

As he was regaining what remained of his dignity, and unbidden vision filled his senses.

Johan sat at his desk and stared at the palm of his hand. He flexed it again and again, and finally curled it into a fist. He looked up, out the window to the gray October sky.

Suddenly, he was running across a bridge toward a span of buildings that floated in the air. Sky surrounded the bridge on all sides, a bed of clouds far below. A City in the sky! He ran, and behind him came a swarm of winged goats, bleating at him. In the middle of the buildings, Johan took a seat at a grand piano, and prepared to play. He froze in horror when he remembered that he hadn't practiced for this! The goats were now a giant parade marching right towards him! He was swept up in the tide of instruments, he and the piano floating on them like a boat on the ocean. He played a few notes on the piano and the parade changed directions. He played a few more, and now they were headed for the edge of the island! Johan played frantically, trying to turn them around, but he couldn't find the right keys. The parade marched right of the edge, colorful fanfare never faltering, and Johan fell with them!

[String HP: FREEEEEEDOM!!!]

Quillan wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd been having a rather pleasant dream when he found himself walking down a long hallway with a door and two figures waiting at the end. He didn't know who the figures were or who the "she" they were referring to was, but the door opened and he saw a petite girl with blonde hair and blue apron. Confused by why the girl was being so clingy, Quillan tried to back out of the room, but found he couldn't move because very fine strings held him in place.

[ string hp : 10 / 10 ]

Quillan managed to manipulate a small amount of ink on his arm to solidify and slice one of the strings. Now his wrist was free, but with the strands constricting his arm, it was difficult to summon any more.

[ string hp : 9 / 10 ]

Chel awoke in the strange dream land and immediately nope'd right into space.

The last thing she remembered was being nearly killed fighting the O hunters- wait, had that happened yet? Time was a very strange thing and it seemed to not be moving nor halting in his strange, darkened land.

There were two figures talking next to a door, in which Chel did not give a single s**t. "Alright, alright, more omniscient scary voices giving a monologue. I get it." She clapped her hands and said, "Let me at her."

[ Strings: 10/10 ]

By accidentally changing his orientation so that his feet were now dangling above his head, Quillan somehow used gravity (as if gravity existed in dreams) to his advantage. As soon as he got out, he would love to ask the girl some questions like why she didn't have a face and how she had so much control over his non-dream existence.

[ string hp : 3 / 10 ]

Soren was slowly starting to realize that things were not right, and the figures at the door had confirmed it. Walking it, seeing Alice. Listening to Alice. It helped. Helped him realize that she was whiny, not deserving of his time, and, most importantly, he had probably been eating dream apples all week. That was just an inexcusable offense, and he wasn't pleased with it at all.

He had to break free of her control, and if it was these flimsy strings holding him back, he wouldn't let them stand in his way for long. With an annoyed scowl he yanked his arm, hard, freeing it from the strings holding it before summoning his weapon, ready to take on the ones that still remained.

Strings: 5/10

The world seemed too much somehow; somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that, he understood it even if he didn’t want to. That part of your mind that just knows when you are sleeping was starting to speak loud enough to make everything feel just a touch disquieted, just a touch… not right.
He’d gone to his room to think though he couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten there. He stumbled as he walked, unsure why he felt so…odd. Everything would be so normal one moment, then he’d be distracted and things would sort of slide towards an odd perfection, or something scarier. He touched the place where he’d pushed the black dagger into his own chest, he kept remembering it, and then seeing that dagger laying before him as though it were waiting to be picked up once more. Like it was telling him that he had not ‘done it correctly’, that he had failed to be a proper sacrifice, or defense for the people who had traveled with him.

A few times… he’d reached for it, but even in the moments when he felt the weight of it in his hand, or the sharp p***k of the tip against his skin he’d blink, and realize there was nothing there, he held nothing and not even a small p***k marred the skin and scales that covered his chest.

Other moments he dreamed of home, just something simple like a thought turned into opening a door, or walking through the woods and suddenly it was a jungle, or suddenly the door led out into one of the plateaued temples. Once he’d tried to step out onto the dais…it hadn’t been real, though it had felt terribly so.

Now… now his room seemed to grow foggy, as though he were simply too tired to continue, unable to focus or properly. He simply needed to rest, perhaps this time he could dream and it would not seem like a wonderful, or even terrifying continuation of reality.



He dreamed, he dreamed and it was a new dream, familiar like an echo of a half forgotten sound but it was all the same a new dream. Had he been able to think things through he might have considered it patched together from previous dreams, because there were hallways, and there were doors.
There were figures, and they felt… old. Ancient, more ancient even than the oldest stories of his people, older than the ancients. He was unsure if he should stand, or bow, for surely something sol old must be powerful, but they could all too easily be terrible as well… to submit to such a thing, what cost would that have?

He looked at the door, and felt it was terribly, terrible serious that it was there. He was not sure why… but it was ‘The’ Door, or he rather thought it likely was, the door to the room with the tremendous table and the smoking eerie bottle. The unsettling room of bright colors and white keys, he knew it was locked, he knew it was locked because that was the method of dreams… but by that same force he tried the door all the same.

It was then they spoke, the violet-cloaked figure first.
"This is your doing, and it must be your undoing," the violet-cloaked figure begins first. "Your idle desires have called out to her, given her more purpose than she originally was."

He felt…terribly guilty about that scrap of information, and ducked his head in according chagrin. “I’m sorry… I didn’t…” He started to say, but what good did an apology do, he had assumed he was utterly unimportant, and perhaps he was, surely he was not the only one dreaming, there were likely other dreamers, more vivid dreamers who did not doubt themselves quite so much.

It didn’t matter what he might have said, regardless of his intents or feelings because they continued with their message.

"Which is where the problem lies," says the paler, almost skeleton-like figure, "Everything must be done in moderation. You have gotten too dependent to her, and she has gotten, for the most part, too dependent to you. She is at your beck and call, always waiting and giving you the dreams-"


-"And nightmares-"


-"That you wish or do not wish to see. She wants to be remembered, but you are giving her so much, she has forgotten what her original purpose really was. She is creating entire dreams out of your reality and forcing you to look away from the truth, further and further away from what is actually happening as she continues to spin fantasies catering to you."

"An obstruction in power is dangerous, especially for us. The only way to stop it is for you to relinquish your control. You need to ground yourself and remember which parts are real. If you don't, the next time you will asleep and not wake up again."

"And most importantly," said both figures in unison, "you have to send her back to sleep."

”"She'll be fine," the skeletal one says, "that is where she belongs. Not in the waking world, but just in the world of dreams and nightmares. Only then can they truly stop being dangerous."
“



Somehow, the man with the staff, when he said ‘nightmares’, he felt the knife sliding through his ribs again, the terrible finality of it, nightmares, that one would haunt him with a mix of pride and guild, and shame because he’d been so afraid.

The door open, and he did his best to pretend he wasn’t afraid even now, wasn’t confused and lost, and in some part wishing he had not returned, yet somehow knowing that perhaps one day, perhaps…someday, it would be important to someone that he had.


---


Inside the door she stands, the stingless puppet, the Doll who may, or may not be broken, the doll that dreamed, Alice, sweet, terrible, dangerous and caring Alice.


She shrinks back from him, as though she sees in his own visage the terrible creatures of shadow that had haunted Wonderland, as though she sees his face in some twisted shadow visage that reveals her own weaknesses, flaws, and fears. It makes this moment worse. It makes the fact that she is… alive, and real, and awake somehow more tragic.

"I know why you're here, but I don't want to. I don't want you to leave me. I want you with me at all times. I learned so much in Wonderland and I can help you, I can help you change things, I can give you everything you want. All you have to do is sleep and never wake up, all you have to do is sleep and stay with me."

As she spoke the words he realized just how tired he was, just how…wonderful it would be to lay down, let the fading focus fall from his eyes. But even as these thoughts crossed his mind he saw …more. Strange shadows, echos of terrible shadows like a mockery of puppet strings reached out from her, reached for him in a terrible moment, a terrible embrace bound him, arms, and legs and somehow he knew they must go deeper.

She did not wish to let him go, she would dance with him forever in a shadow box, a puppets play. She was… lonely he thought, and he understood that, but with them the strings bring terror, He can’t breathe, he can see again the coffins that contain his ultimate, inescapable death, and more. He sees the inevitable loss of his friends, new and old. He sees Amnityville destroyed and burning, he sees the Avatars of DreadPirate and his Lady friend lying broken and destroyed. He sees the white queen

He sees a hungry crown that has consumed a queen.


He sees the dagger.


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((Rolls and dream vision part one next post))