redshift: tdm #5

[modblob]

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.

a. don't be a sap.

Good morning, October 25th! Whether you're a confused new arrival or a current resident, you probably had some plans for today, right? Grab breakfast, visit a friend, pick some fruit, explore a new part of the massive city.

Well. Too bad. Because, as every single bot in the city will be telling you the moment you show your face, it's GOOP FESTIVAL DAY! What? You've never heard of it? Preposterous, everyone knows about the Goop Festival, it's one of the most anticipated holidays in Anchor! Haven't you been preparing for this for a week now?

The Goop Festival is a harvest celebration, in particular, a celebration of the sap-producing trees that grow wild in the Park, thick around the edges of the south side of the lake. The bots have been hard at work setting up the festival grounds in the shade of the trees in the balmy fall temperatures. There are spiles tapped into trees with buckets placed underneath that are already half-full of a thick, viscous, amber-colored sap. The bots have also set up troughs of shaved ice with long sticks nearby, with which they will demonstrate for excited residents (you are excited, right?) how to cool the sap in the ice and wrap it around the stick to make it a sort of taffy candy. That's not the only sweet surprise waiting, either.

A long table set up in the grass is loaded down with all sorts of delicious sap-related goodies, ranging from cupcakes with thick globs of sap-flavored frosting to sap-flavored jerky to sap sugar candies, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a wide variety of offerings that would taste good coated, flavored, or glazed with the sap, which tastes sort of like a caramelized toffee. Another table is laid out that has row upon row of cups, each half-full of the sap, heated lightly to a thinner consistency and served similarly to hot chocolate - at least, if hot chocolate gave you a floaty, happy, hazy sort of feeling. Everything made with this sap does, actually, with the cups of pure sap having a stronger effect and items with less sap content having barely any effect at all.

Does this not sound like your cup of weird tree sap? Too bad. This is the GOOP FESTIVAL, and everything is shut down for this lovely paid vacation day. Spa? Locked down. Kitchens? Locked. Bar? Nope, totally shut down and the server bots are all down at the park. VR Gaming? Too bad, the computers are all shut down. Even roaming the halls and trying to stay out of the way won't help much...be prepared to be dragged down to the park to participate in this mandatory festival! Isn't it exciting?

b. familiar ground.

Every year in Anchor near the end of October, there's a very strange interaction between the protective dome over the city and seasonal radiation surges that happen in the wastelands. Some complicated combination of refraction and reflection means that for the last few days of the month, residents will experience some of the more benign effects of the red shift inside the city.

Did we say benign? Because while there may not be any dangerous radiation to melt your skin off, there are some mind-bending dangers. Characters experiencing the shift will find the world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate; they are enveloped in auditory and visual hallucinations, and can become so disoriented that they can't even recognize people they've known for years. And characters will find that the citywide shift brings in slivers of other universes, little slices of places characters have never seen before...or places so familiar they make the heart beat hard with joy or fear.

And just like in the wastelands, the things that show up in these shifts are all too real. Characters may find themselves walking through a door into a scene straight from home, or from someone else's home. Whether it's a favorite place to share with a new friend, or the nightmare landscape you almost died in, complete with the monster that almost killed you, be careful. Everything you experience here is real, and if you die in the shift, you die for real.

Of course, the city has its own safety measures in place - residents experiencing the hallucinations and appearances of items and places from other worlds may find themselves locked down in the room they're in, trapped with the otherworldly effects of the shift.

c. the virus.

A few weeks ago, people in Anchor started getting a case of the sniffles. While some of the earliest cases might be clearing up, there are still a few people suffering, or people freshly infected by those who were sick earlier, including some of the new arrivals who may not even be feeling it yet.

Which may make the cause of some unexpected 'glitches' around the city a little unclear. Residents who are feeling the effects of the illness, or who are infected but not showing symptoms yet (or anymore) will find that their access to certain parts of the city are restricted. Suddenly, automatic doors aren't opening for them, as if they were ghosts, particularly when they try to access anything that may facilitate transmission of the virus. Suddenly, only some of the residents of the city will find they can't get into half of the MedBay, or the spa, the kitchens, the VR or games rooms, the bar...anywhere people gather or eat or sit close together.

Residents may put together that it's related to the illness some of them have been experiencing over the past few weeks, but it might take a while, since these safety and security measures are affecting people who are showing no symptoms yet. Be prepared for a few days of paranoia while seemingly perfectly healthy people are locked out of common areas. What does the computer know that residents don't? Are these people security risks? Is it a system glitch? What could be going on?

c. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to warn a friend not to leave their apartment unless they want to be forcibly press-ganged into the Goop Festival? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.

Mod Note: The "familiar ground" prompt will be active between October 29th and October 31st; "the virus" prompt will be active until the next introductory mingle, which will be kicking off the second part of the illness plot.

Navigation.

Comments

Carlisle Longinmouth | Original | In-Game

[abheirrant]

Goop Festival

Unfortunately, a festival focused around sugary delights made from tree sap has little to offer an undead man with little left in terms of his sense of taste, rendering him unable to enjoy said delights. He's mostly at the festival because everywhere else he was hoping to visit today is seemingly closed, and all the constructs in the hallways kept urging him toward the park. While no longer outright terrified of them, Carlisle wasn't interested in upsetting the constructs and giving them a reason to terrify him, so to the lower levels of Anchor he went.

He has to admit that now that he's here, the festival does merit a visit. Though he can't eat the candies or cupcakes or any of the other sap-coated confections (not that the constructs don't keep trying to get him to do so), he can certainly smell the sickeningly sweet aroma given off by the trees, rising from the steaming cups, and generally flooding the air all around him. More importantly, he can see how the sap affects other people, and his observations give him ideas.

Suffering from normal nightmares, agonizing guilt over even minor transgressions, and a worsening condition that left his limbs stiffer and colder with every passing day, Carlisle always had trouble sleeping when he was alive. Most often, he turned to liquor to quiet his thoughts; however, on some nights when the frailty of his body was more than he could bear, he'd enchant himself some specialized tea. Between the drink itself and the steam that rose from it, he could ease the aches of his muscles and the woes of his mind long enough to find relief. Now, his problem is that he can't manage to fall asleep at all, and with no paw plants to brew and the enchantment not strong enough to work on an undead on its own, he hasn't managed to sleep since he awakened as an undead.

And while it has occurred to him that the undead don't need to sleep, he prefers to think of himself as a person, and people need to sleep, so he should too. It not only gives him a break from his relentless anxiety, but it makes him feel just a little more human - a little more alive. He needs that routine, that structure - he needs this to feel more like himself.

And so, he wonders if the tea might be strong enough if he has a replacement for the paw plant, something that seems to have a similar effect overall. Now that well worth his time at this festival. Ducking behind one of the spiled trees, he waits for a moment when the constructs aren't looking, aiming to grab one of those half-full barrels for himself. He's going to need plenty of sap if he wants to experiment.

Wildcard

[Feel free to hit him up around Anchor, or shoot me a PM here, at grimmhooke, or on Discord to plot something else!]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Pratt loves coffee and he loves sweets. Back home his coffee order was basically sugar syrup with caramel sauce that might have once been in the same room with coffee to flavor it. So he should be all over this. But he's really leery of eating anything that he doesn't know what it is, and the more the robots try to force it on him the more resistant he becomes.

He has a steaming thermos of coffee that he managed to get away from one of the robots before the addition of any of the goop. Fortunately since none of the other robots know his drink isn't tainted they're leaving him alone since he seems to be participating.

If Carlisle is trying to be stealthy, it's apparently not working as Pratt strolls right up to him, taking a sip of his coffee, "You're not going to eat that are you?"

[abheirrant]

Carlisle was indeed trying to be stealthy, and as such nearly jumps out of his skin (what's left of it) when Pratt addresses him from the side. He puts a finger to his lips as though to shush him, hoping not to draw any further attention to himself.

"No no, I- you think that's even possible?" Don't answer that, Pratt. "I'm getting some for an experiment, that's all."

[theweakhavepurpose]

Pratt shrugs, Carlisle is the first undead person he's known so he has no idea if he eats or not.

"What even is this goop stuff? They seem really adamant we all eat it, which is creepy." Anyone pushing food on him is immediately suspect. "Need any help?"

[abheirrant]

"It appears to be tree sap," Carlisle explains, "though from what I've gathered watching the people here, it has some kind of intoxicating properties. I am not about to test those properties here, in front of everyone, but in the privacy of my own room..."

The constructs closest to the tree meander away, and Carlisle sees his opportunity. "You look fairly strong. You think you can carry that?" He gestures toward the half-full bucket next to the tree, the sap within forming a thick pool within.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"I look strong?" There's a weird look on Pratt's face for a second before he shakes his head and seems to come back to himself. "Yeah I can get that."

Probably. He hefts the bucket, it's surprisingly heavy, but Pratt had forgotten that he's not a scrawny traitor starving to death in a chair. He's been eating and sleeping and tending to the farm so he looks like a normal person again, one who might be capable of doing manual tasks.

He carries it easily, following Carlisle to wherever his room is, "It doesn't smell alcoholic. It smells like it's pure sugar."

[abheirrant]

He certainly looks more capable of carrying a half-filled bucket of sap than Carlisle, who is literally skin and bones in some places. He looks around the park, finding the route with the least constructs, and motions for Pratt to follow him.

"That's what I thought, as I cannot imagine these trees produce their own liquor. However, we are in another world, and I cannot say for certain what properties the sap here may have, hence some of my interest." He beelines for the nearest ramp, wanting to get to the barracks level quickly and quietly. "I am hoping to make tea from it."

[theweakhavepurpose]

He follows along, the smell of the sap sickly sweet and making him both hungry and a little nauseous in the same breath. "Like the stuff you used to make before?"

Pratt didn't recall what had been in the tea, but he'd said something about it calming nerves. Either way it had been welcome when they were both messes that couldn't relax for more than two seconds. "Can you uh... can you drink it?"

[abheirrant]

"Have I—?" He cuts himself off, knowing what Pratt is alluding to. "Right, Hadriel. Probably." He's trying to make tea here, so it makes sense he'd have thought to do the same there. Perhaps he needed to find ways to soothe his nerves in that world, as well, and tea was just the easiest one to get a hold of.

He moves onto the second question, darting diagonally across the ramp toward one of the corridors. "I can, though I probably shouldn't." Much like eating. "If nothing else, the steam should affect me, given the proper enchantment."

[theweakhavepurpose]

"The steam?" Pratt pauses, thinking about that for a second because he might just have the best, or worst, idea. "So if you can't eat or drink, but you can smell the smoke.. we need to find you a vape. Put this syrup in the cartridge and then you'll have all the potentially alcoholic smoke you want."

Maybe Qubit could make one.

[abheirrant]

"I am not sure what a vape is," Carlisle returns, despite the fact Pratt just explained it to him, "but it sound promising, should you find one here. Do you believe it will work with an enchantment?"

Up the ramp and to the right, into the corridor leading to the barracks. He heads for the quads, picking up the pace just a bit to beat Pratt to the door so he can open it.

[theweakhavepurpose]

"I'd guess so? I don't know how enchantments work. A vape is like.." Saying an electric cigarette is just going to confuse someone who isn't familiar with electricity. How to explain this... "Do people smoke where you come from? Cigarettes? Pipes? It's like that but it produces a whole lot of smoke, more than you would if you were smoking normally."

He doesn't get the science behind it, he'd tried it but he hadn't really been a fan, mostly because it was sort of awkward to smoke while driving and cigarettes were far easier to hold. Not that he smoked anymore. One good thing to come out of all that trauma.

"I'll see what I can do about finding one."

[abheirrant]

"I will have to take your word for it on what a vape does until then," Carlisle replies, pushing his door open. "But I appreciate you keeping your eyes open."

For a man who has been in Anchor for barely two months, Carlisle's quarters are remarkably cluttered. Three of the four beds are occupied in some way: one has been stripped of its bedding and turned into a shelf where he seems to be massing a pile of glyph-covered papers, as well as some with runes he copied from Reynir; another has what appears to be the beginnings of a makeshift shrine, much like the one he had in his cottage in Hadriel, albeit made of materials from the agricultural area and the park rather than his garden; the third seems to actually be his bed, the sheets neatly folded, but still obviously disturbed. Maybe he simply hasn't gotten to the fourth one yet.

His desk is equally busy: atop it is an open journal, as well as the final annuls of Bear Den's chronicler. The latter is closed -- he hasn't managed to get very far in that one without losing his nerve. One of the other desks has been cleared for this experiment, save for some papers with glyphs tucked off to the side and a few mugs awaiting whatever concoctions he will make. He motions for Pratt to bring the bucket over and set it on the chair.

"We do have pipes, though. How primitive do you believe we are?"

Dream time

[braidmage]

[ Reynir doesn't stumble on the place by accident, or find it on his own. As soon as he falls asleep that night - without realizing it is the first night in a long time that Carlisle is also sleeping deeply - his fylgja appears. The creature is as cryptic as always, but Reynir has learned that it is best to just follow where it leads. This time, it doesn't lead him to an ancient temple, or to Onni or Lalli, but to a place he has never been before.

There is a forest, initially, and then a tall wall made of well-laid bricks, sturdy and regular, well-maintained. Reynir follows after the fluffy sheepdog until it brings him up to a door leading into the garden. It then trots off to do whatever it does when it's not delivering cryptic messages or leading him on baffling expeditions. Reynir walks in the garden a few minutes, admiring the neat little gravel paths, the variety of flowers - in such rich colors, types he has never seen before. He is clearly enraptured by the plants and doesn't notice until he is a few feet away that there is another person, here. A man, kneeling in the dirt and tending to the plants. ]

Oh! Hello. I didn't realize anyone was here. I don't mean to intrude, I was just-

[ Then his words stop. At first, he hadn't recognized him. He looks... different in the dream. Healthier, maybe even younger. And after all, Reynir isn't used to seeing very much of his face, at all. But the eyes are the same, and the brows and forehead and after those first few sentences he knew. ]

Carlisle? Is that you...

[ Reynir remembers in a rush their conversation about dreaming. So Carlisle does have an area, after all, and this is it... but this is no time for 'I told you so'. Gasping in sudden realization, Reynir claps his hands over his eyes, squeezing them shut at the same time, blurting out: ]

Oh no, I- you- you haven't got your mask on, you probably didn't expect anyone to come here, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to look!

Since I'm logged into this account anyway, might as well take advantage of living!Carlisle icons

[tongueamok]

[The man turns upon being addressed, and Reynir is right: it is Carlisle, albeit fresher, fuller, healthier. His eyes don't have the glow they normally do, but they still carry the bags of exhaustion beneath them; his hair is more of a chestnut than the faded brown it usually is, but his hairlines is exactly the same, right down to the shorn sides. His brow, his glasses, the uncertain look about him -- this is undeniably Carlisle Longinmouth. All that's missing aside from his attire are the dark marks usually trailing from his eyes, skin stained from the effects of his affliction.

His brow knits as this stranger to his garden addresses him, then covers his eyes, yelling something about a mask. The interruption aside, it's peaceful here, familiar -- so much so that Carlisle doesn't even realize anything is wrong, and that he's not actually back home among the comforting trappings that surrounded him his whole life. It doesn't feel like a dream, given how detailed everything around him is, how precisely recreated his plants are. He lived among them for years, recorded their natures in his journals, took better care of them than he did himself. He could walk through the pathways between them with his eyes closed, and easily. It all feels so real.

Slight recognition crosses him. He... knows this fellow, doesn't he? Have they met? He cannot recall his name, much to Carlisle's embarrassment. He dusts off his hands, clasping his gloved fingers in that nervous habit he has exhibited before Reynir multiple times.]

Er, no, I was not expecting anyone today, and certainly not here. Do you- do you need something?

[Even his voice sounds better, less rasping than it is in the waking world.]

a baby!

[braidmage]

[ Reynir hadn't expected the change to even Carlisle's voice. But then, it is a dream. People don't always appear the same way in the dreamspace that they do in the real world. Anne had appeared as she was before she died; a kindly older lady, instead of a huge and mutated troll. And sometimes, in the dream, Onni takes on the form of his luonto and appears to be a talking owl. So it wouldn't be all that unusual, for Carlisle to appear as perhaps a slightly younger version of himself.

He resists the urge to peek, wanting to be respectful. It's clear that Carlisle is disoriented or confused. He doesn't seem distressed that Reynir had seen his face. But he might just need a moment to remember himself. When Reynir had realized he was in a dream the first time, he'd been pretty damn confused himself.

But he drops his hands, opening his eyes and looking at the ground near to Carlisle's knees. A furrow has formed between his brows and he says, coaxing and gentle: ]

Do you know where you are?

[ And Reynir is curious is this is someplace Carlisle had worked once, or visited, or maybe even his home. But no way is he going to get answers to questions like that until Carlisle realizes what's happening right now. ]

This is someplace familiar to you, where you feel safe. But you're not really in that place. You're dreaming right now, Carlisle. It's like I told you. You are a mage, and we're both asleep. The dog led me to you.

[ And Reynir gestures to where his fylgja is sniffing its way through the garden, fluffy and brightly-colored but somehow, undeniably, not quite a normal sheepdog. ]

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle gives Reynir a questioning look, one of growing confusion and trepidation; his eyes trail to the dog, its color strangely vibrant in the dull light of the mountain morning. Once he's given the pup a scrutinizing glare, his attention returns to Reynir, his look more on the incredulous side.]

Er... right.

[Being clergy means that on occasion, he has to listen to the unhinged ramblings of desperate sinners looking for salvation, but even they tend to make more sense than "I followed this magical dog into your dreams." Perhaps he is a traveler who got lost in the mountains and is too embarrassed to admit it; perhaps this is a dream and he's a wayward seer, someone whose divination has gotten the better of them to the point where he's now entered someone else's mind. Or maybe he's the product of a lonely fellow's hallucination, and the best company his imagination could come up with is a lanky, confused lad and his dog.

Whatever the reason, Carlisle seems utterly done with this whole situation already, his brow furrowing.]

This is my garden. [He gestures to the house behind him, large and looming.] My estate. And you know my name, so I assume you know who owns these lands.

[braidmage]

Oh, dear.

[ Reynir rubs at his neck, a feeling of awkwardness settling in as he realizes just how lost Carlisle is. How is he going to be able to help and guide him, share this space with him, if Carlisle doesn't even remember who he is? Carlisle sounds really annoyed, and Reynir cannot help a quick glance at him. Perhaps it's because he's used to seeing only a tiny portion of Carlisle's face, but he looks particularly grumpy. ]

You ... don't remember me? It's me. It's Reynir. I'm the mage from Iceland? I made you tea...?

[ He almost says 'I saved you from some robots at a spa' but that might sound like he's bragging about that and he's not trying to get things off on the wrong foot, here. Just as he's chewing the inside of his cheek and worrying about how he can help snap his friend out of his apparent amnesia, the sheepdog approaches Carlisle. It sits, neat and prim, just in front of him, looking him in the face with its oddly human demeanor.

And then, it speaks: ]

Know yourself, Blight Heir.

[ There is something of a command, in the words. Reynir isn't sure why it sends a shiver down his spine. Blight Heir? Is that some kind of title? It definitely... sounds ominous, but he second-guesses his instincts, thinks perhaps it is some cultural thing he doesn't understand... ]

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle never thought too much of dogs. He's afraid of the larger beasts in the woods, the kalugras and the bears; he's on good terms with the Forest Folk, who are more like ascended animals than people in a lot of ways. He has met approximately two cats and was not terribly fond of them. Dogs, though? There's one in town. It's a dog, and not much more.

This dog is nott one of those dogs. As it speaks to him, he feels a chill run down his spine, and suddenly, finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from the hound before him. His pupils lighten and fade, taking on the look of the dead before they are flooded with light, overtaken by it, representative of the energy coursing through him. The garden around them shifts, completely changing in the span of a heartbeat, becoming as wild and unrestrained as the furious magic alight in the clergyman's gaze.

For a brief moment, the foliage turns dark, brown and mottled and utterly overgrown. The vines of the coilers twist in every direction, writhing as they reach toward any and all sources of movement; the curved claws of his paw plants elongate into vicious talons in desperate need of a clipping. The sun fades, and in response, the flowers wither and decay, their leaves curling, choked by the hedges as they transform into arboreal aberrations, alive and threatening in their own right.

And then it is gone, and in the blink of an eye, the garden is back. The plants are less clear then they were before, the outer walls of the sanctuary blurry, blotted like a rough painting. Carlisle remains his unmasked, living self, but his eyes are illuminated, their light focused once more. His gaze is still affixed on the dog as he finally finds his voice.]

Don't call me that.

[braidmage]

[ Reynir has seen something like this happen in a dream vision, before. And it had also happened when the entity who he was talking with experienced a moment of emotional turmoil. Clearly, his fylgja calling Carlisle that - Blight Heir? What does that mean? - had upset him deeply. And then for just a moment, the space around him had changed. Flickered into another version of itself.

He can't help thinking of Anne, of the slivers of memories he had seen of her church filled with the groans of the dying, all those people desperate and ill in the first days of the Illness's spread. That had happened when they'd asked too many questions and upset her. And she, he just remembers, had had some difficulty remembering certain details as well. Perhaps Carlisle's amnesia can be explained the same way - as can the change in the foliage around him.

Reynir hasn't forgotten what Carlisle told him - that he has no home left to return to. That necromancy had taken it and left the place nothing more than a shell, filled with abominations, ruined and terrible. So he assumes this is just glimpses of that - not being produced by Carlisle, except insofar as he is remembering it this way.

The dog seems completely unintimidated, staring down Carlisle, but Reynir is apologetic, saying: ]

Sorry. The dog can be very rude.

[ And without further ado he scoops up the sheepdog, which doesn't resist, and walks it a few feet away before setting it down and patting its butt, shooing it in the opposite direction with a murmured: ]

Don't bully him!

[ He turns back towards Carlisle, uncertain what he should do, if he should try to remind him of who he is and where he is, or leave, or stop interacting with him but hang out here in case there's some danger he is supposed to be here protecting Carlisle from... ]

Are you... okay?

[tongueamok]

[Reynir scoops up the dog and hauls it away, but his eyes remain frozen on the ground, right where the animal was standing. He blinks, clamping his eyes shut as he presses against them with his palms; they remain unchanged, his pupils still consumed entirely by the light of magic. This makes them look as Reynir has seen them before, but Carlisle knows that's not how they ought to be. He can feel that they are wrong.

But no amount of fidgeting fixes them. He pulls his hands back, turning them over as though seeing them for the first time. How delicate they once were -- and covered in skin. How covered in skin they were so long ago, far longer than it feels. He missed so much as—

No, that's not his name. He doesn't want to hear it again, even in his own head.]

I'm... fine. I'm fine, Reynir.

[Right, that's the lad's name. It comes back to him as he looks around, recognizing the garden, but wary of how unfocused the plants on his periphery are.]

This isn't real, is it?

[braidmage]

[ Reynir can tell that Carlisle is definitely not fine but he doesn't argue, just sighing with relief, shoulders slumping as he says: ]

Oh, good, you remember me.

[ Maybe he had been too hasty, and it had just taken a few moments for the disorientation to fade. Or maybe Carlisle had been snapped into awareness by the dog's rudeness. Reynir would have liked it if had used a method that was a little kinder, but it's still nice to know where he stands a bit more. He wonders how he can help Carlisle if he won't admit to being upset.

Answering his question might be a start. ]

Guess that depends on how you define real.

[ While Reynir has good instincts for the practical components of being a mage, talking about how it all works, the theory of it, is something he struggles with. Onni is so much better. But he should at least try. ]

This is a dream, but we are really speaking to one another. The things that happen to us here can really affect us, back where our bodies are asleep. But this garden isn't in the waking world, no. If we walked out that gate and through the woods a little, you would come to a flat ocean. It's sort of... a blank place, in between other areas.

[ After a moment's hesitation, Reynir offers: ]

I can show you, if you want?

[tongueamok]

[Carlisle is lost in thought as Reynir explains, only catching about half of what he says. No, this garden isn't in the waking world, is it? Not like this, not anymore. He brushes his fingers against his paw plants, feeling for the sharp tines of their prickly claws -- and he's so sure he can feel them at first, so certain his fingers would bleed if he gripped them too tightly. He wants to try, but finds himself too scared to do so, too afraid of how he will feel if nothing happens. He's already so demoralized from his general existence that it's hard to let go of what fleeting moments of hope he has.

Pulling his hand back, he finally manages to look Reynir's way once more, catching the tail end of his offer. He's not entirely sure he wants to see more of this dreamscape, but he doesn't necessarily want to linger in a facsimile of his beloved garden, either. It makes him homesick for a place that no longer exists.]

What other areas are there? More gardens? More fragments of lives now rendered unattainable?

[braidmage]

[ Reynir can't deny the sinking disappointment he feels, at Carlisle's continued pessimism. He knows it is unfair; when they had discussed mage's dreams before, Carlisle had said he wouldn't like to experience them, and not to go looking for him. Reynir should've had more realistic expectations for how he would react to finding himself here. Still... he loves this place. Not this area of the dream specifically, since he'd never seen it before, but the dreamspace in general. He feels like he belongs, here. Like he is connected, to his own magic, to the world, to other people even across vast distances. So Carlisle's self-pitying and dismal view of it stings, just a little.

But Reynir, who really is more mature than people give him credit for, sets that feeling aside. Quiet and coaxing, he explains: ]

This place is made from your memories, because you feel safe here, and it's close to your heart. This garden might not exist any longer but... it's here for you in your dreams, whenever you want to be in it. You can come back, sit here. It's yours.

[ Doesn't he see what a gift that is? Doesn't he understand how lucky they both are, that they can experience this?

But perhaps he just needs to make it clearer, how all this works. He is forgetting, perhaps, how confusing it all was to him at first. So he goes on: ]

There's a place that reminds me of my home. The same hills, the same plants, even a flock of sheep like on my parents' farm. There are other things to see, too. Visions of things past and things to come. Spirits, strange forgotten runes... I've only just started to explore it all.

[tongueamok]

[This garden may be here in his dreams, there when ever he sleeps, but that's a fact that brings him little comfort. It's not natural for an undead to sleep -- he had to use an alchemical concoction to get there in the first place, a mixture of brew and enchantment to give his mind some rest. For a brief, wonderful moment, he'd felt as though nothing was wrong; it was just him and his garden, both of them alive and well.

And now he knows better. This garden is a cruel illusion, and he's no more alive and human than he was before. None of it is real. Reynir may be disappointed in Carlisle's self-pitying, but he does not realize how such a revelation crushes a man who has already lost so much to a life where he often struggled with the border of reality and hallucination. It's not as though Carlisle has been terribly honest with him regarding his history.

He shakes his head, his nose wrinkling.]

I do not want to be here. I would rather see some place that brings you comfort than remain in a place that gives me false hope.