TDM #1 - What Dreams May Come

[perchancetodreammods]

What Dreams May Come

Dream On

Welcome to the Dreamscape. A beautiful, endless dream where you and a bunch of other unique and interesting minds from across the multiverse have been gathered to connect, commiserate, and make the impossible... possible! There are many fantastical realms to explore and even more to come, and you are given your very own Nimbus Cloud to serve as your home. This puffy pink cloud will host a pocket dimension just for you where the only limit to what you can create is your own imagination. Missing personal items or locations from the waking world? No problem--- the only thing you have to do in order to earn feathers, the local currency, is make meaningful connections with others. In fact, making these meaningful connections seems to be the only task assigned to you by your mysterious host, the Outsider.

The only catch? You can't wake up until the Outsider wakes you. And it's not clear when that will be--- if ever.

Make your way in this ever-changing dream realm, find friends and allies to earn Feathers, and navigate strange and fantastical Dreamscape-wide events as you and your new neighbors try to unravel the mystery of what exactly the Outsider wants, and what it will take to escape the never-ending dream. The Outsider isn't just an NPC, either--- they're joining you on your adventures!

WHAT

The grand opening of Perchance to Dream!

WHEN

9/13/2022

QUICK NAV

Locations

Feather Info

The Outsider

I'm Only Sleeping

♫♪♩♬

When you go to sleep that night, it is like any other night. After a long day of living your life in the waking world, you dress down for the night, lie your weary head down, close your eyes, and begin to drift off, as you normally do. However, just as you are about to fall asleep, there is a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that something has changed.

But you drift off nonetheless.

When you rise, you find yourself still in the same bed you went to sleep in, but that bed has been… transported, somehow, to a broad and otherwise empty room. Your feet hit the black marble floor, but even if they are bare, they don’t feel cold. Around you are tall arches, beyond which is a rich, pink, sunset sky, and fluffy clouds drifting lazily by, sometimes close enough that parts of them intrude on the room.

On one side of the room, there is a door. Tall and austere, it looms overhead, bearing a carving of a strange blue eye. You feel awake, yet you know you are dreaming. Never in your life have you had a dream like this, so breathtakingly lucid. You feel foreign here, but welcome, like a guest. It’s an odd feeling, but perhaps it is familiar.

At the foot of your bed, there is a note on a small black slip of paper, written in lavender ink. It’s addressed to you by name.

“If you want answers, come find me at the Torn Oak. Otherwise, make yourself at home. Welcome to the Dreamscape.

-The Outsider”

The only way out is through the door. When you exit it, it slams behind you, and is gone if you turn around. You begin to get the sense that you’re going to be here for a while.

The Dreaming Tree

♫♪♩♬

The first area that you come into contact with is a sprawling field of stark white vegetation under a deep purple sky. At the base of the hill upon which you stand, you can see a tree that is particularly large, that seems to be standing perfectly upright despite being torn completely in half just above the stump. A blue wooden door with a silver handle stands in the gap between the body of the three and the stump below. It seems this place has an interesting penchant for disembodied doors. Still, this is probably the “Torn Oak” referenced in the note from the room before.

Should you go in, you’ll find before you a fantastical structure that looks almost like a shrine--- four shimmering crystal pillars, a glass chandelier, and a pedestal with a glowing sphere swirling with light. And beside that, there stands a strange figure. A person with periwinkle skin and a long, slender body, draped in a cloak with golden eyes that moved and blinked. On their head, a pair of horns and a golden halo, and a pointed tail flicked around their ankles. They had three eyes, one seated up on their brow, all of which were that strange, eerie blue that the one carved into that large black door had been.

“Hello there!” They greet you cheerfully. “I’ve been expecting you. I’m sure you have questions!”

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

♫♪♩♬

The Outsider, your host, is more than happy to explain the purpose of this place. You are in the Dreamscape, a special pocket of the collective unconscious of the entire omniverse, and they’ve plucked the dreaming minds of a hand-picked selection of people out of their own dreams, to be here in this mystical place. They cannot tell you why, exactly, but they want you to make meaningful emotional, mental, and physical connections with other dreamers, particularly those who you do not know, and they’re willing to reward you for doing so.

Perhaps you want to get started on collecting right away. The Outsider has kindly informed you that the best way to do this is to go and make some new friends. The likelihood that you’ll find another dreamer or two walking around the grassy knoll outside the Torn Oak or heading up or down the colossal escalator leading up into the sky itself is pretty high. Perhaps you’ll even find someone who wants to walk with you over to the Glass Lake, where the water’s surface can be walked on to get a better view of the Rainbow Koi. For some reason, no matter how many people go there or how inviting it seems, no one else besides you and the person or people you went with ever seems to be anywhere around, making it surprisingly private.

Sleepwalking

♫♪♩♬

If the immediate area doesn’t strike your fancy and you’re looking for some other options, you might consider heading to the Barren Freeway. The long stretch of paved road is oppressively isolating and terribly eerie, but it can lead to so many other places, be they strange, temporary locations from the corners of your mind that disappear when you leave, or the Twisted City itself.

Bustling and full of life, there is always something to do or see in the Twisted City. Restaurants, shops, night life, libraries, parks--- and it almost looks like a normal town, if you can ignore the bubbles in the sky, uncanny structures in the street, and the fact that nothing ever seems to stay in the same spot. Though if you get lost and need to get back to the Freeway, the Submarineway has a stop right by there. Maybe in the process of finding your way, you can find a friend.

Comments

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"Thank you," she said, going inside. The restaurant inside appeared to serve predominantly seafood, and the smell inside reflected that. Byleth took a seat at a table against the wall. "My name is Byleth, by the way. Byleth Eisner. Yourself?"

[crystalmaster]

Radley was alright with seafood, so this didn't faze him.

"I'm Radley," he smiled. "Just Radley will do."

He sat down too.

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"Pleased to meet you," she said, nodding. "...This is such a strange place. An environment that shifts this much... in retrospect, is pretty normal for dreams, but this place hardly feels like a dream, does it? I feel awake."

[crystalmaster]

"Same here," he smiled.

He nodded slowly at these thoughts. "It has to be a dream, but ... you're right that it doesn't feel so dreamlike. I've been trying to convince myself that it does, but I don't feel like I'm in a fog like I usually do in dreams."

That worried him some. He knew information was being kept from them. What if it wasn't a dream? What if they had been pulled out of their bodies to go to some other plane of existence?

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"...I know that I had blacked out just before this," she confessed. "With a dream this realistic, I wonder if I, at least, am comatose."

[crystalmaster]

Radley frowns. "I just went to sleep normally and then I was here. Maybe it's different for each person?"

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"...Hm. You may be right," Byleth mused. "Well, the Outsider said that we came from different worlds. What is yours like?"

[crystalmaster]

"It's very technology-oriented," Radley said, idly rolling his finger across the edge of the table. "And people are pretty obsessed with a card game called Duel Monsters. Some daring souls play the game while riding motorcycles. I run a mine that supplies a mineral used to make the motorcycles."

[allowmetodemonstrate]

Byleth frowned and tilted her head in confusion. "What... what is a motorcycle?" Unfortunately, Fódlan wasn't even technologically advanced enough to have bikes yet, much less motorcycles.

[crystalmaster]

"Uh ..." Radley pondered how to explain. "It's a kind of transportation that goes really fast. Do you know bicycles?"

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"...No, I don't." She frowned. "Is it something you ride on top of like a horse? Or inside of like a wagon or carriage?"

[crystalmaster]

"You ride on top of it and there's pedals you push with your feet to make the wheels turn," Radley said. "A motorcycle can power itself instead of you having to make the power. Here, maybe I can draw them."

He took a paper napkin in the hopes of sketching on it.

[allowmetodemonstrate]

Byleth leaned over the napkin, eager to see what he was drawing. She couldn't help but be fascinated--- some of the worlds that her new neighbors were coming from were so technologically advanced. It seemed many of them traded magic for technology--- an interesting thought.

[crystalmaster]

Radley did some fairly passable sketches of both vehicles.

"This one's the bicycle," he said, pointing to the top one. "And this one's the motorcycle."

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"I see," she said, inspecting the sketches and nodding. "That's fascinating. And this second one, it propels itself?"

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah, we have a lot of vehicles that do that," Radley said. "Some of our advanced motorcycles and cars can completely drive themselves without any need for a human to steer them."

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"That's quite impressive. Where I come from, transportation is limited to horses and carriages for most, though some have access to flying mounts such as pegasi or wyverns."

[crystalmaster]

"Flying mounts are pretty impressive too. So those animals are generally tame?"

Scotch would be all over the thought of riding pegasi and wyverns.

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"Not always. Pegasi are fairly simple to tame, but wyverns... they take some work. They can be quite stubborn. Both require special training in order to ride them effectively, especially in combat," Byleth explained. "I'm a combat professor at a military academy, so I work with these creatures often, but it is certainly not something the average person does often."

A silent waiter with ambiguous features abruptly comes to their table, delivering food and drinks that the two of them definitely did not order but definitely would have wanted. In Byleth's case, this was a hearty piece of baked salmon, beautifully seasoned, and served with scalloped potatoes and mixed vegetables, as well as a thick slice of rosemary garlic bread and a cup of sweet black tea.

"Oh. That's quite convenient. Thank you."

[crystalmaster]

Radley nodded thoughtfully. "I would think wyverns might be pretty difficult," he agreed. "You train them? That's really cool. Do you ever have trouble with them seriously acting out?" He doubted it was a job he would ever want.

He stared at the food. Fish and rice with squeezed lemon, steamed and seasoned potatoes, and delicious white bread with cheese. "How did you ... oh nevermind. Thanks."

It was a dream world, right? This all made sense ... somehow.

He took up his fork, wondering if he'd really taste the food.

[allowmetodemonstrate]

Byleth seemed to taste hers just fine, at least. Most sensations were fairly real, although hunger didn't appear to be a factor. It seemed that dreamers could eat whatever they wanted, or not at all, and never be affected, as if eating here were just for fun. Byleth certainly wouldn't complain about that, given her proclivity for eating either in great quantities all at once or hardly at all for days at a time in her normal life.

"As far as wyvern behavior, I haven't experienced a serious incident personally, but that is because the ones at our academy are already domesticated. I hear wild ones can be quite the handful. Pegasi are not too much different in mannerism from normal horses, so it depends more on the animal's personality," she continued, starting in on her fish.

[crystalmaster]

Radley was happy to be able to taste the food. He started to eat, listening to Byleth thoughtfully.

"That's good that they're already domesticated. I wouldn't wanna meet a wild one. I have a friend back home who'd love to ride wyverns or pegasi. Or both."

He chuckled, thinking of Scotch.

[allowmetodemonstrate]

"Is that so?" Byleth breathed a laugh. "I'd offer to point him in the direction of one of my classes, but I don't think we can meet each other in our own worlds. Only this one. It's a strange notion."

[crystalmaster]

"That's probably just as well," Radley said. "He can be pretty reckless. He scares me half to death a lot."

[allowmetodemonstrate]

She chuckled again. "I have a few students like that," she mused, working her way through her food. "Reckless energy, when channeled productively, can be a force to be reckoned with."