The View From Here

[Brian]

"Imagination," Kyle says.  "Will against will.  A dragon might be a dream, or it might be a landmark.  An old Dream that doesn't belong to a person, but an aspect of cultural or racial memory.  Many cultures revere them, so it could be dangerous, and it could effectively be an illusion."

"They're usually harmless as long as you don't try and pick a fight with them, either way," Phae notes from her own seat.  "What's this one doing?"

From his seat, Tom can peek out the APCs rather small window to try and see what's going on.  When he looks outside, he can see a large black dragon with forelimbs, hindlimbs, wings, spikes all over its head, and fire pouring from its mouth.  It's currently engaged in mortal combat with that creepy Charrel guy from earlier, and staff-boy appears to be kicking ass and taking names.  Acidic green blood spatters wherever Charrel hits the dragon, and steel-hard scales crack beneath the blows.

[Carthrat]

"Getting hammered by that Charrel guy from just then," replies Tom, shrugging. "By the looks of things, if it wasn't harmless before, it will be after he's done with it."

[Halbarad]

"Keep moving for now, then, I guess," Tim offers. "We're not looking for trouble, so if they're occupied, might as well leave them to whatever they're doing."

[Brian]

Wallace shakes his head.  "Freaky," he mumbles, as the APC lurches into motion once more.  After a while, it stops again, and by Tom's point of view, the road ran out, revealing a rather long looking stone staircase.

"Good," Kyle says, visibly relaxing, and knuckling back a yawn.  "We're in Pandora's domain."  Turning to Tim, he says, "That dragon was probably a link to this place, which is why your path lead here.  I'm not sure what that dark person would want with a dragon, but it's either a stroke of luck, or more ... coincidence."  He smiles darkly at that, and opens up the door to the APC.

"Charming kid," Sterling mutters.

[Halbarad]

Tim clambers out of the APC, waiting for the rest of his companions to follow suit and get onto the stairs before allowing his concentration in holding both road and vehicle in existence.

[Brian]

Everyone piles out of the APC in short order.  The mountain with the staircase is jutting out from a featureless expanse of desert that leads off into forever.  The APCs tire-tracks appear to stretch back that far, but no one really remembers trundling across the desert for the hours it should have taken.  Which is probably just as well.

The APC doesn't exactly vanish, but it does seem to just blend into the surroundings, and swiftly it's not a gleaming, new, very well maintained APC, and is instead some run-down old relic that's been here for ages.  After a few eyeblinks, it's been gutted, and is just a shell.  Then only a frame.  Then a collection of rusty parts an an oilstain.

There's not really any remnant of the road itself.  The desert probably swallowed it ages ago.  Despite the fact that the desert can apparently eat APCs and time-compressing roads, it doesn't seem that uncomfortable.  Dreams are odd things....

The mountains themselves are vast, rising up into clouds that hang overhead.  The stairway doesn't rise to the level of the clouds, it just finds a pass leading deeper into the mountain before it vanishes from sight.

"I'm guessing this is where we're headed?" Jim asks, shading one eye from the light (where is the sun, anyway?) and peering at the staircase.

[Halbarad]

"Looks like it," Tim confirms. "This looks like the area where I met Pandora before; she'll be at the end of these stairs, most likely."

[Ebiris]

"It's a long walk," Daniel nods, shouldering his bag - and hoping it's not just some dream placeholder bag while his real one was left behind in that trailer - and starting the long hike up the stairs.

[Brian]

Bigfire stretches a bit, and begins the long march.  Tim is constrained to mortal paces this time around, at least, for now.  It's not tiring climbing up the mountain, merely boring.

After a bit, the top of the pass is reached, and the staircase turns into a level pass wedged between two sheer cliff faces, stone walls rising into the clouds above.  In the distance, it looks like the path leads to another staircase, this one descending.

After traversing the pass, which is only a half-dozen meters wide, this is exactly the case.  This new staircase leads down a short distance, into a valley sparsely populated with small trees and bushes.  There's a tiny stream nearby, and the base of the stairs leads to a path that goes some distance into the valley.  From here, multiple mountain peaks can be seen, above and around.

"I'm guessing Pandora doesn't get a lot of visitors," Carlos comments.

Kyle merely nods at this.

[Halbarad]

Tim pauses for a moment, looking around at the mountaintops to see if anything looks - or feels - familiar. Appearances may not do much here, since everything is so changeable, but some idea of which way to go would definitely help.

[Brian]

Nothing really leaps out to Tim as familiar.  Some of the mountains look like they support switchbacks and other routes to their peaks, but layers of cloud keep the peaks themselves invisible.

However, the path appears to lead to a crossroads up ahead.  There seems to be a signpost there, though it's too distant to be read from here.

[Halbarad]

Tim shakes his head a bit. "There's a crossroads a little ways ahead, might be able to figure out where to go a little better from there." So saying, he heads down the path for the crossroads, inspecting the signpost there as he arrives.

[Brian]

The sign is made from several wooden boards, both of which have been nailed to two old posts.  One of them looks like it's nearly rotted through.  The sign itself isn't painted or drawn, and as weathered as the sign looks, that's probably a good thing.

Carved into the boards is a rather cryptic message: "She who opened the box retains hope."  Beneath that, there's a line reading, "East of the sun, West of the moon."

[Ebiris]

"Would it kill her to just say 'that way'?" Daniel asks irritably, pointing off in a random direction. "Can we even assume the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, here?" he then asks, looking up in the sky, "Since I don't really know any other way to figure out directions without a compass."

[Halbarad]

"No..." Tim has a faraway look on his face. "It's not that. It's like... trying to describe a direction you can't really name. Think about it - even in the waking world, what could be 'east of the sun and west of the moon'? Those directions don't apply to them." He thinks for a moment, then looks over at Kyle. "Is it possible to shape the Dream even in a place like this, where things already exist?"