33 - Sweet Dreams

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: A mysterious plague of dreams is sweeping through gods and shinki alike.
When: Jan 30 & 31
Where: Wherever the dreamers go...
Summary: A strange sleepiness is spreading through the Heavens. Those who succumb to sleep find themselves dreaming vividly, and even wandering into each other's dreams. Will they be able to escape the seductive power of their dream worlds and return to reality?






Waking World

Everyone in the Heavens, gods and shinki, new and old, seems to be vulnerable to this sleeping contagion. For those who remain among the waking, it's a frightening experience: people can be found slumped by the side of roads, white-robed shinki doze at their duty posts, and some people even fall face-down into their dinner plates or drift off in the bath and need to be rescued. If you're still awake, you'll need to help them out! Are you up for the challenge? Or is this a time to flee the Heavens before the sleeping bug bites you too?

Be careful -- touching the sleepers makes it much harder to stay awake. You might be dragged into their dream even if you've woken up once already. At least it'll be easier to realize it's just a dream the second time around....

Sweet Dreams

Some dreams are hard to wake up from, and some of the dreams that come with this mysterious sleep are especially hard to abandon. Friends and family, happy times, achieving your heart's desire, or maybe your best dream is living in a world entirely made out of giant ice-cream sundaes!

It's possible to wander into others' dreams whether you understand that you're dreaming or not; those who wander in not realizing that it's a dream will find themselves swept up into the dream logic in whatever manner suits their own subconscious. Those who know it's only a dream will have the unenviable task of convincing the dreamer that their ice-cream sundae world isn't real after all, freeing them to either travel into other dreams to save their lost dreamers or return to the waking world as they choose.

Shinki characters may have dreams that involve memories that they have not regained. However, when they wake from those dreams, they will not be able to remember any detail that hints at their past-- and although other characters who witnessed the dream may, any thought of telling the shinki what they learned from the dream will freeze them with a sense of impending doom.

Nightmare

Not every dream is a happy one. Those who find themselves lost in nightmares might be trapped in painful memories, pursued by terrible monsters, falling from a great height, or just called on to write the answer on the blackboard when they're not wearing pants. Whatever your nightmare is, this, too, has to be overcome before you can escape to the waking world, and while it's easier to accept that a nightmare isn't real life, it might be much harder to fight your way through it.

Those nightmare monsters might just be a dream, but any injuries that they inflict are real. And you know what they say: if you die in a dream, you die in real life.

Mystery Dreamscapes

It's possible for more than one person to wander into the dreams of a third, and among the many dreamscapes that a sleeper may travel, some strange ones appear.


• A vast, shining building of many rooms is hung everywhere with wooden plaques that rattle like dry bones in the breeze. Each one has an urgent and desperate prayer written on it, and they keep falling from the walls, only to catch fire and be reduced to ash as soon as they hit the floor. The sound of hurrying footsteps is audible, but the dream's owner never quite comes into view.



• The street is crowded, packed shoulder to shoulder with strangers who shove rudely and refuse to move out of the way. Their voices make it almost impossible to hear, and the crowding makes it almost impossible to move. Despite this, anyone who enters this dream will have the irrational conviction that there's someone or something at the other end of the street they have to reach. As they push through the crowd, though, the people around them grow angrier and angrier, and might even start to fight back.



• A giant crystal glows blue in the middle of a room, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of tiny straw dolls in intricate traditional clothing from all over the world. A middle-aged man is crafting small dolls on the far side of the room, muttering under his breath, "This one, this one." He can't be roused or distracted from his task, except if the room's door is opened, in which case he screams and flees outside into what appears to be an endless, dense, ancient forest full of strange shadows and ominous sounds.



• A huge lecture hall is filled with students sitting in folding seats. At the front, a vast man, easily eight feet tall and wearing a tweed suit with patched elbows and a traditional demon mask, is pointing out students in turn and forcing them to come to the board to answer increasingly bizarre, arcane or deeply personal questions. He turns to point at the newest arrival.



• A beautiful springtime meadow filled with fallen twigs spreads out around the visitor, who innately knows that picking up one stick in each hand will allow them to fly. Above, other dreamers circle and swoop in the blue sky. As they rise to join them, though, flocks of giant crows almost as big as people swoop in and begin attacking the fliers, trying to knock the twigs out of their hands and force them to plummet to their deaths.

In Summary:

• Help out the sleepers
• Have a good dream
• ...or a nightmare
• Explore others' dreams
• Have fun~

Comments

[rockthemonkey]

Your face looked so-

[ Just pretend the next word was "beautiful" or "intelligent" because it probably wasn't. Luckily, Goku's cut off by a snowball to the face. ]

Ah- Nia! It got in my mouth!

[ That's what you get for laughing in a snowball fight, Goku. He scoops some snow into his arms and starts throwing small clumps of it in Nia's direction. He's still grinning like an idiot. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[She's going to assume he was going to say 'funny', which torques her off even more! (Although hearing his complaints is pretty uplifting.) Snow pelts her and she doesn't even bother trying to defend herself, letting it splat off her as she lobs all the snow she can back, barely even shaping it in her hurry to pummel him with it.]

[rockthemonkey]

[ The snow around them is perfect for a snowball fight. Fluffy and deep and on soft, level ground beneath them. It's the kind of snow little kids dream about when they go to bed after praying for a snow day.

So when Goku drops the snow in his hands and rushes at Nia, it's really only logical that he should tackle her into a snow drift. ]

Gotcha!

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Nia can only let out a yipe, flinging her arms up to try to ward him off. When she thuds into the snow, her hands are pressed against his chest, and she can't even manage a solid glare because she's so surprised as she looks up at him.]

[rockthemonkey]

[ Maybe it's a ridiculous thing to do but Goku's so happy to be out of the cave, he's giddy. He's starting to catch on to the idea that things aren't what they seem right now, that he's probably not awake... But he's still happy. Nia's here and she helped him leave the cave again. ]

Hey, Nia? [ He smiles down at her, arms wrapped around her while they both just lay in the snow. ] Thanks. I mean it.

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Getting too much further into whats and whys is going to set off that innate fear. More conscious now herself than before, Nia doesn't properly remember that lesson she'd articulated to him so coherently. She's forgotten her family, her friends, the people she cares about once again.]

[But she just manages to look totally nonplussed -- at this situation, at him atop her and holding her, about how it doesn't feel quite as irritating and infuriating as she expects it to.]

Hey, shut up. We're friends.

[rockthemonkey]

[ It's not a lesson Goku really needs, not now that's he's grown again and reminded of his own journey and loves ones. He already learned that a long time ago. But it's nice to be reminded. ]

Yeah, I know. [ He should probably be embarrassed by their current position, but in dream logic it all seems perfectly reasonable. They're friends.] That's why I can do this!

[ The moment is ruined by Goku shoving some snow down the back of Nia's collar. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Nia's scream is loud and piercing right there next to him. She can handle her legs and upper arms being a little chilled, but her back was so warm and now it's SO COLD AND WET!]

[So speaking of that, those hands pressed against his chest? Are now blasting water point-blank against him.]

[rockthemonkey]

[ Goku's laughter turns into a shriek when he's suddenly propelled backwards by the water blasting him. He's knocked off Nia and several feet back before crashing back into the snow, laughing once again and covering his chest protectively.]

Okay, that time your face looked super funny! Ow...

[sassywelshcatgirl]

I'll give you super-funny, you little -- [Grabbing some snow, Nia scrambles to her feet, then soaks it through to make it the wettest, sloppiest slush anyone could ask for. Then she wings that straight for his chest!]

[rockthemonkey]

You already did- ack! [ The slush lands on his chest and hands and he accidentally sends it flying up onto his face as well. ] Gross!

[ Goku quickly gets up to his feet as well, slipping slightly on the ice, and runs straight towards Nia. Bent over at the waist, he just puts an arm around her and hoists her up over his shoulder. ]

I'm gonna throw you off the mountain! [ He's not going to throw her off the mountain. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[She's light, the task's easy. Even though she's a little more solid than she looks, she's still not exactly huge and hulking.]

[But she's QUITE a handful, her legs kicking furiously. If she'd actually been trying to plant one of those excessive heels in his face, or one of the inexplicable giant spikes on the top of his feet anywhere in him, this wouldn't go well for him at all, but in actuality she's taking care not to. His biggest danger is if he turns his head and takes a thigh to the face.]

Put me down, you bleathering gomeril! I'll shove water so far up your arse your eyeballs pop out!

[rockthemonkey]

[ Goku's of a similar body type. Though he's never really had trouble lifting anyone, even people bigger than him, it's kind of fun to be able to throw Nia around like she's a feather. He doesn't even understand half the insults she's shouting at him.]

Aw, come on- [ He dodges the heels, but does get a thigh to the face. That probably throws him off more than the heels actually would have, simply from the blushing it causes. He's going to just try to ignore that. ]

Don't worry, I'm just gonna help ya- [ Goku swings Nia around and then drops her into a large mound of snow. ] chill out!

[ He's very clever. ]

[sassywelshcatgirl]

[Whump. Into the snow Nia goes, letting out a loud and vehement yowl as the cold sinks into her clothes and her skin. She thrashes even more wildly, scrambling to her feet like a snow geyser erupting, and just hurling whatever she can get her hands on at Goku. Eat snow in quantity, monkey!]