Vaemyr (prime)/stories/Of Dreams and Nightmares part1

Opening Notes

This story relates to the up-coming Four-Winds Isle storyline, "What Dreams May Come"

This was also prompted by events that were discussed in a player meetup at the Stumbling Pebble Bar II.

Story

No luck at all.

It'd been three days now of wandering around, talking with townsfolk, asking about their troubles, and looking for this bulbous one-eyed monster.

Most of the harbor showed signs of sleep deprivation, but no one seemed to be able to explain more. In fact after questioning several shopkeepers, they insisted it was probably just stress. But he could see it in their eyes, their motions, something wasn't right.

No one seemed to really mention nightmares or bad dreams either, so he was a bit at a loss. If he couldn't find someone experiencing the nightmares, then any attempt to investigate deeper would be meaningless.

He sat against a small tree near the lighthouse, looking out over the water and just thought for a bit staring into the distance.

Suddenly he felt a THUMP! against his side and winced slightly. Waking up from his daydream he looked down to see a ball laying beside him, and looked over to see a young boy running up.

"I'm sorry mister, you alright? The throw went a little wild" a young boy pleaded out.

He chuckled slightly, picking up the ball, "Oh I'll be alright I think, pretty good throw, that from your friend overthere?" He waved at another boy a bit further away.

"Yeah, he can really throw! Although sometimes not too accurate hehe" the boy giggled in response.

The Sylvan lightly tossed the ball back to the boy and then thought to himself "Well I've asked everyone else, maybe the kids know something?"

"Hey, ummm mind if I ask you a question or two? Maybe your friend as well?" he asked the boy.

"Uhh ok," the boy responded as he yelled out to his friend, "Hey come over here a minute!"

A few minutes later he found himself talking a bit with the kids about who all they played ball with, and he mentioned to them where they could find some nice folks around town who always had some extra sweets to hand out.

Finally he asked, "So, I was kinda wondering, have either of you been having any nightmares lately?"

One look at their expressions was all it took to answer him before they ever opened their mouths. The faces lost the happy cheer, and one went almost pale white for a moment. Finally, the first boy responded, "Ummm... well yeah kinda, I think all of us have been having them." The second boy nodded slowly in agreement. The sylvan spent some more time talking with the kids about what they, and some of the other children had experienced. From what he could tell, all had nightmares of some sort, although neither of the boys mentioned anything about the monster he had heard about. From what he could tell this didn't seem natural, there were some similarities in the children's dreams, but... not anything to really go on for further leads.

He thanked the kids, and watched them go on their way.

"So, whatever is happening here, the children are able to observe it much more than the adults, or at least it has a distinctly different affect depending on the age of the person, or perhaps depending on the mind."

He had an idea of a bit of an experiment to try. He'd already fallen asleep here in the harbor the past few nights to see if whatever was happening would affect him to little success, but perhaps if he applied some alchemy and magic he could put himself in a more susceptible state. He'd come across a drug before, that when brewed and ingested could bring back vivid memories of childhood, and seemingly revert a persons mind to the state of a child for a time. If he combined that with... He mused over the plan, "Yes, this just might work."