Please Wake Me Up

[Ginrai]

Ginrai speaks up. "I have a question... it's been bugging me ever since I heard those on Bigfire mention it. They said something about one of our old friends having to be a sacrifice so as to get us all together. Do you know anything about this?"

[Brian]

"Alan ... well, no.  Pandora, really, told me something about that," Relm clarifies.  "I'm not clear on the specifics.  Essentially, someone who you all associated with died to set this in motion.  It's because of your closeness to this person that you all got involved ... and why it took years to catch up with you, while those who knew him in reality were caught up in it from the begining."

[Ginrai]

"I see... did Pandora mention anything about why Brian was chosen? Also, anything on when this choice was made?"

[Brian]

Relm frowns, and looks thoughtful.  "I'll need to ask Pandora what she knows about that," she finally admits.  "Or you may want to go ask her yourself; I won't be able to for a few days."

[Halbarad]

"We can probably do that while we're with the Brotherhood, if she's not busy herself. Anything else you need from her or from the Brotherhood while we're there?

[Brian]

Relm shakes her head.  "Not at the moment," she replies.  "I've got my work cut out for me.  Any last questions before I get to it?"

[Carthrat]

"I don't think so," mumbles Tom, fidgeting somewhat.

[Dracos]

Dracos shrugged, having been pretty quiet during the conversation.

Dracos

[Halbarad]

"I think I'm set for now," Tim replied.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai shakes his head. "That's all I needed to know for the time being. Thanks for information!"

[Bjorn]

Bjorn indicates that no new questions have come to his head.  He manages to accomplish this feat without words by expedient of staring off into the sky, apparently oblivious of what's going on around him.

[Brian]

"Well," Relm says, suddenly business-like. "Time for me and Pinkie to get to work then."  She shoots Nathan a grin, and then everyone wakes up.

Almost.

Everyone finds themselves quickly reverting from wakefulness to sleep once more.  Except for Tim, who finds himself in his dream-office.

Tim now moves to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

Everyone else dreams.

[Bjorn]

Bjorn's Dream is, as it always has been since the Earth Dream, filled with nothing but endless mist and the floating statues that represent the anchors.  Clearing his mind, he resumes his experiments.

As far as his theories go, what he is currently surrounded by is nothing but the basic element of the Dream, stripped of the expectations and beliefs that try to shape it.  That means that it should be nothing but a pure extension of his conciousness.  And since the conciousness is linked to the body...

His perception splits.  Simultaneously, he is aware of the pure mist and the floating anchors, as well as the world around himself.  This isn't a novel experience by itself; but what is new is that the view of the world is another layer of the Dream.

Now the real test.  Bjorn wakes up, and the Dream-reflection of reality wavers for a moment, but finally stabilizes.

It takes a while before Bjorn can so much as make himself sit up; a triple awareness is rather disconcerting.  All the more so because while his Dream-senses and his real senses are virtually indistinguishable, the Dream-senses don't seem to be temporally coherent.  A first attempt to get out of bed leads to him falling on his face as the Dream-senses drag behind, and standing up to go to the bathroom almost leads to a broken ankle when time in the Dream suddenly accelerates, shifting his Dream-perceptions to the mirror while he was still on his hands and knees.

Adaption is rapid, however -- or perhaps it takes a long time, but only within the Dream.  The lack of temporal discontinuity in the Dream-senses is only cue as to what information comes from where, but that's more than enough to make it possible to move around.  The door to the bathroom provides a few more problems, simultaneously open, closed, and not yet existent, but even before that problem is solved, Bjorn can already see his eyes in the mirror -- or rather, what were his eyes, before they became replaced by globes of slowly coiling mist.

[Dracos]

Dracos...doesn't really...waking up soon, early in the morning and heading out to curse the daystar.

Dracos

[Brian]

Tom starts to wake up, turns over in his sleep, and then gets pulled into another dream entirely....

Tom now goes to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.