53.2 Buying Time
General Summary
Day 1080
The group of us are ready to dive into the dreamscape to wake the Osyr. Thalien joins us momentarily in the waking world where I can actually hug him for a moment before we slip into the next plane together.
Liliales will send us all in via the Dream Spike, and he and Black Tourmaline warn us to be cautious around people with powerful wills who might draw us into their own independent dreams. We will tackle the most challenging of them as a group, towards the end, if need be.
The dreamscape is a shattered, ancient vision of Deldrin beneath the acid rain, which pours into the lake just as it must have when Canopy was controlling the weather. Parts of the city flicker in and out, almost drifting through time and giving us glimpses of a pre-war Deldrin. Academic debates, games, lively chatter and conversation pop up in time periods both where the Imperial flag is flying, and where it is not.
When my feet hit the ground, it is just me and Ausha present in a quiet, peacefully evacuated area. Around us are a few ‘real’ Osyr as well as dream figments that are just an extension of some dreamer’s mind - Osyr, dwarves, elves. Here, it is mostly the figments, with just two active dreamers.
One is a short, armoured, battle-scarred man watching over a handful of civilians desperately trying to learn battle skills. His expression is proud, but etched with worry, and I post up beside him to watch as well. His hands drop to weapons as he sees our wings, but eases when I push my Imperial presence out and greet him as a friend.
He talks about the trolls pushing past the lake, storming the city. He gestures at his charges and tells me he wishes they’d managed to escape before the bridges were taken out. He says it feels like he has been here forever, but it has probably only been a month. The training he’s giving them will not save their lives, but it might help them take down one more troll along with them.
Death comes regardless. The Empress would be proud of these ones.
He is like many others I’ve met on this side of the Barrier — resigned. And like with so many others, I urge him towards a different path, exerting my will on the dream. His students turn as one and face the border of the city.
It’s time to go. If there is a path back to the Empress, it is time for you to follow it.
He chuckles and nods, dismissing the class.
The other dreamer is a painter sitting nearby, creating violent, dramatic works of battle. And at this, she wanders over. She’s been painting from memory, and she tells the battle-scarred warrior that they have already remembered this part a hundred times.
It should have been me buying time for them.
His scars split open, fresh with blood, and she takes one of his hands.
They bought time because you showed them how. And when you fell, they refused to back down. I remember them; you remember them; other people will remember them if we tell their story.
I let the shadows darken around us as I push my own life force out into his blood to heal his wounds. The painter unbuckles his swords from his belt, pushing him to let go, let the battle flow out of him. Ausha pushes the two of them together and joins their hands - she sees that they should be together.
With the painter’s help, I push through the dream space that the two of them are sustaining to show them something new: The old facades of the painter’s memory with the new architecture from the modern day, humans, fae, elves, dwarves together. Ausha adds children, a familiar tea shop. The painter looks curiously at the humans, and Ausha tells her that they will have to wake up if they want to meet these people.
Wake?
Slowly, it dawns on them that they are not really awake here. They remember Black Tourmaline guiding them into the water and sheltering them, everything going cold and dark. But now it is different - warmer, quieter. The gnawing, nibbling things are gone.
The mood dissolves into something far more hopeful as they question me - did the Empress make it? Is the Empire still alive? Why do I carry her spirit? And once I have addressed their questions, they are eager to help wake the others.
So they bound off, while Ausha and I head to the magic quarter to find another cluster of dreamers. This time, there are about a dozen Osyr children who have conjured up their own teacher who is teaching absolute nonsense directly from the minds of these kids. It is a small delight to interrupt their professor full-on and send them outside to play now that the rain has cleared and it is safe. After several minutes of watching them play, to make sure that their collective minds are conjuring the right things, I summon them back together and send them off to find their parents. Ausha hands each of them a bracelet to give to their parents - and each bracelet speaks in Kaide’s voice - “wake up,” in a very Imperial tone.
We keep going and waking up small groups of dreamers, sending them on their way to wake others.
Eventually a good portion of the city is awake and gathered at the modern day council chambers, where they have collectively imagined Kaide’s presence so effectively that I can feel her active shadows manifesting. Together, Lyssa and I take to the sky to do battle with the malevolent storm cloud that still takes up the collective Osyr’s imagination. Back on the ground, my own shadow merges with Kaide’s and the Osyr kneel, with Liliales moving amongst them and gently sending each one back to the waking world using the Dream Spike.
