trans_9 | Can You Pull Down the Dawn? [Closed to Magical People]

The Manor of Sleep smelled of old wood and decay, snow floated down in thick clumps, swirling in sudden breezes and landing in thick drifts. Brightly candles flickered at the walkways and at the corners of random rooms, simulating warmth that had been missing from the shrine for over a century. Everywhere, she could hear the clink-clink of a mallet beating a stake into the ground, sometimes soft, sometimes loud, but always there. Miku had been doing as best as she was able, but it was appearing more and more like Reika was just playing a tricky game of Cat and Mouse with her. Miku was, after all, the last remaining Dreamer in Reika’s nightmare. Still, Miku hadn’t just been fleeing in fear mindlessly; she’d worked too.

She’d searched over and around the rooms for ages now, avoiding ghosts where she could, snatching up Purifying Lights, herbal medicines and sacred waters where she found them. There was no safe haven in the Miasma-covered rooms without one. Still, even with those items, it was becoming more and more apparent that she would be running out of film sooner than later.

There were books she’d read and read again, looking for clues, and though she knew that putting the priestess through the ritual again was the incorrect thing to do, it was beginning to look like she’d have to. Or at least purify her, somehow. Miku shifted on her feet and stood before the doors to the Chamber.

Outside, in the real world, the machine tracking Miku’s heart rate slowly began to beep more frequently. Miku turned onto her side and moaned low, heedless of how it sounded, her brow furrowed in pain. She’d been asleep for over a day and a half now, and while she’d whimpered or sighed, or even moaned a name, it’d all been very hushed. Miku held no one’s hand, or even acknowledged them.

“Please…” she said in her dream and in reality. “Please let this be… the last time.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A lucid dreamer who apparently isn't in control? Another worrying sign indeed.

"I am Dream Weaver of Apex City," Dream Weaver said. It wasn't in her habits to use her real name in the dream plane. "Here to help with any and all dream problems."

Even if she didn't know how to deal with the magical kind, but hey, experience is how one learns.

Miku straightened, and smiled at them, though it seemed to hurt her. "It's very nice to meet you, I look forward to working together." She didn't want a protection that would certainly end up hurting them. The blue flame on her candle flickered slightly. "But we should hurry; I don't know how much longer this candle will burn... and time is so funny here."

She pushed the door the rest of the way open and beckoned them to follow her. "I was going to... go down to the Abyss, to the Chamber of Thorns. I'm going to stop her." Miku explained quietly and shone her light over the temple complex behind the door. A large, torii gate dominated the temple grounds. To the right, Miku's light caught a collection of grave stones. before them, just ahead, two large, wood-and-plaster buildings.

As the last person of their party stepped through, the door closed with a click of finality. By itself.

"'Her'?" Roxie asks, glancing back at the door. Spooky, but it doesn't bother her much. "What is the Chamber of Thorns?" Her cloak ripples around her in the throes of a wind that isn't there at all.

Selene followed along, focusing on the candle, testing her own abilities as she focused to not let the candle burn out. An illusion to keep the wick from becoming too burnt that it'd go out and to keep the candle from melting too low.

"Have you stopped her before, in your dreams?" Selene asked. First off, to see if she could remember her other dreams. Second, to see if it might actually be worthwhile to go through the story or not, that there was a point in stopping 'her' specifically.

"Reika," Miku answered absently, walking off the path to pick something up by the gravestones. More film. Good, she'd need that. It was stowed away in a pocket on her skirt, and she turned to look at the other two.

"It's the place they impale the priestesses of this temple. You know..." Miku sighed and looked off towards the torii gate and the buildings in the distance, "It would have been so much better if the folk beliefs didn't say that a person needed to sacrificed for everything." There was a sad twinge in her voice, that she shook off. "I haven't beaten her before, no. If I had, we wouldn't be here."

She started walking again, briskly. There wasn't much time, was there? Miku passed the gate and paused before the big doors of the building. Mafuyu beckoned to her from beyond the door, she could feel his spirit - warm and gentle - waiting for her to see him. "We'll have to be very quick through the temple, and then down into the chamber."

"Sacrifice holds power, but there are generally usable alternatives," Roxie says. Film? She wonders why such a thing would be scattered like that. Perhaps put there by that little ghost that seemed to want to help. It still seems strange, inconsistent with the pseudoreality warped in on itself. Could it have been an aspect pulled in with Miku?

"Everytime I hear about sacrifices, it usually results in evil spirits. Or pissed off relatives," Dream Weaver commented thoughtfully.

"But I hardly think a sacrifice can be allowed in this sort of situation," she said, putting a hand on Miku's shoulder. "We'll help you win."

Miku nodded. "Come on; it's this way." And into the temple they went. There was still an odd thickness to the air here, something the candle Miku carried couldn't totally push away.

There were voices, soft ones, pleading or cursing them as they passed the ruined walls, and rotten wood, avoiding holes in the flooring. Occasionally, Miku would stop and watch something go past, then lift her camera to take a photo of it. Bright blue orbs came shooting back at her, entering the camera's lens. She pushed open another set of doors, where a cage hung just beyond a platform.

A young woman inside looked up. Her skin was pale and translucent where there weren't indigo tattoos covering it. She looked tired and in pain, just as Miku often did in the waking world. She looked at once hopeful for them and pleadingly reached a hand out for them.

Miku lifted her camera out of instinct and took a shot. The girl vanished, and the cage dropped into the darkness below.

"Down, I guess." Miku murmured.

"Down," Roxie repeats, and moves forward to look down into the darkness, her knife at the ready.

Dream Weaver moved to the edge to look down the hole the cage had dropped. "Down it is," she said, looking all around. She didn't want to be caught off guard.

It was a two way street. She was stronger in dreams, but she was also more vulnerable.

Can You Pull Down the Dawn? [Closed to Magical People]

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