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

[dethroned_prince]

"Yugi?!" Well there was a name he hadn't expected to hear anyone mention. Giving the other male a once over with his eyes it was swiftly determined that this wasn't someone Atem had previously met before. "Have you seen him? Here?"

Taking one step back he surveyed the general vicinity as if he might catch sight of his lookalike from the future.

[crystalmaster]

Radley was surprised by the reaction, and fascinated. Who was this? Clearly he knew Yugi, but Radley didn't remember ever hearing of Yugi having a brother....

"I haven't seen him here," he said. "I watched a lot of videos of him back home."

[dethroned_prince]

The answers to those questions were not something this 'Yugi' offered up readily, not that he was intentionally withholding said information.

"Videos?" Nothing bad, he hoped. There were some unsavory sorts in Domino that had targeted Yugi before, but Atem thought he'd put a stop to that. Best not to jump to conclusions.

[crystalmaster]

Radley nodded. "Tournament videos. Duelist Kingdom, Battle City, Grand Championship...."

[dethroned_prince]

That made the prince ease up a bit, though he hadn't realized that he'd been tensing. "Why am I not surprised that somehow Pegasus managed to record what transpired on his island?" Not that he'd seen the cameras.

As for those other tournaments, he wasn't familiar with them beyond the earlier conversation with Kaiba. So this man was also from the other timeline. ".. So you've never met him in person?"

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah, he's a slick one, that's for sure," Radley said. And a lot of other things too.

"I haven't, but I'd like to." He paused. "I'm from about thirty years after those tournaments took place."

[dethroned_prince]

That was putting it mildly, but Atem didn't make the correction and he suspected it didn't need to be made.

"Thirty years!?" There was no masking his shock. Sure, in terms of time differences that was a rather small one but just what was happening here? Why was the Outsider pulling them from these seemingly random time periods? He wanted to ask if much had changed in that time but he didn't know where this guy was from exactly so he'd have to narrow the scope of his query. ".. And Duel Monsters is still popular?"

[crystalmaster]

"It sure is," Radley said. "Maybe even more popular. Some daring people actually duel riding motorcycles, and Domino's highways have been completely restructured to allow it. Just as one example. Dueling is pretty ingrained in everybody's minds."

[dethroned_prince]

"... Wouldn't that delay traffic?" Maybe he should have questioned more about the logistics of it all, like how someone managed to steer and duel at the same time, or how they prevented themselves from losing their cards in the process but nope. Motorcycles he only had a vague recollection of from his time spent in Yugi's era.

" Do you duel?"

[crystalmaster]

"They rope off specific lanes for dueling," Radley said. He still wondered about some of the logistics himself. There was Auto Pilot, true, but one had to duel without the Auto Pilot to even get the operator's license. Too daring for him.

"Yes, the old-fashioned way," he smiled. "We just stand still to duel in my town."

[dethroned_prince]

"Ah, of course." Still, it seemed extravagant when there were other means of dueling. Though the added adrenaline rush that must come with it was admittedly somewhat appealing to the young prince. Not that he had a motorcycle or license.

To that next line he couldn't refrain from smiling knowingly. The old fashioned way, he highly doubted it. At least, he'd never seen anyone summon a real monster in the modern era before. That too could have changed. "We have a designated area for dueling where I'm from but people from all walks of life engage in the game."

[crystalmaster]

Radley definitely wasn't thinking about the original version of the game, although he might believe it was real about the monsters after some of the things he'd seen in town.

"Yeah? You mean like an arena?" He smiled too. "It's pretty popular with all kinds of people here too."

[dethroned_prince]

"Yes, something like that." Although the old dueling grounds had been destroyed, the people had constructed a new area for it in the ruins.

"At least that endures." He supposed, as did his own love for the game. Looking down the road at some of the shops then back to his current companion. "Perhaps, we can discuss this more later but I really should keep looking for my friends." ... Even though they might not even be here. Atem could have asked the other along, but that would have felt too much like an imposition.

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah. The more things change, the more they stay the same," Radley said.

He nodded in agreement. "Sure." He hoped they were there, but it was hard to say. "I've got nothing to really do. I could help, if you want?"

[dethroned_prince]

So far there hadn't been any indication that they were here, but he had to make the effort. Atem hesitated a moment at the offer, but ultimately he gave in. It would be easier to search this bizarre changing landscape with two sets of eyes.

"Yes, I would like that, if it's not too much trouble." Though he supposed that his new friend here would need a better description. "You've seen Yugi in videos, but did you ever see his friends with him?" Stay with him this is leading up to something. "If you remember seeing a Joey Wheeler or Téa Gardner... they look a lot like the friends I was looking for. Joey looks like Jono, and Téa looks like Teana... though really I would be relieved to find any of them."

[crystalmaster]

"Yeah, I have," Radley said. "Joey's a really good duelist in his own right." He had gone pro by Radley's time.

He had to raise an eyebrow at this, though. "... Hmm, is there anyone who doesn't have a double?"

[dethroned_prince]

"Great!" That would make this a LOT easier. To hear about Joey's success drew a smile to his lips. How his friend must have improved, and how he longed to see it for himself even though technically Joey was more Yugi's friend than his.

" ... Mokuba doesn't... nor Tristan." He answered before he thought about it but one look at Radley's face and he chuckled nervously before placing one hand to the back of his neck. " They.... say everyone has one, right? Isn't that a saying...?"

[crystalmaster]

Radley was about to quip Why were they left out until Atem continued. "They do say that, true," he mused. But it was starting to sound like a cartoon.

[dethroned_prince]

It was about this point where the prince started thinking about how much information is too much? Granted, his life and the people he knew were in the past so how could this guy alter the outcome? This probably wasn't an issue.

"So... heh.. let's get started." You know what he should have asked for a lot earlier? A name. " I'm Atem by the way, you are?"

[crystalmaster]

"Radley," he said. He smiled and held out a hand.

[dethroned_prince]

With a nod, he extended his hand shook Radley's firmly. "It's always nice to meet another duelist."

"Is there anyone you're looking for?"

[crystalmaster]

"It sure is," Radley agreed with a smile.

He sighed. "There's a lot of people I'd like to find here, but they're probably not here. I wonder how people are chosen for this program. Is it completely random? Or are we observed for some time before they decide we're perfect?"

[dethroned_prince]

After a moment passed, Atem retracted his hand.

"It's too early to give up hope, yet." Hadn't he met Seto Kaiba here, already? He almost said as much but thought better of it. The successful businessman could have a polarizing effect, and he wasn't sure whether Radley was a fan or not. "I wonder that myself. It does seem random."

"....Tell me, is the Kaiba corporation still fairly prominent?"

[crystalmaster]

"It's more that I wondered if the Outsider would have told me if my friends are here," Radley said. "But maybe they don't know or maybe that's something they wouldn't say."

He nodded. "It is. The building looks completely different, but it's the same place."

[dethroned_prince]

"Did you get a chance to ask them that?" He looked up questioningly at the other.

"... And how do people see it? Do they think about it favorably?" More specifically, do you think of it favorably? Probably should have phrased it that way.