Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

[daemonomicon.livejournal.com]

Nighttime.

Or, at least, what passed for nighttime on the meatship.

A time when most of the crew was already fast asleep, dreaming away pleasantly throughout the night.

...Or, perhaps not. For you see, tonight, something particularly strange is happening.

Now it is not all that unusual for someone to have a nightmare, especially not on the ship.

Yet tonight, no one will sleep easily, for the Nightmare King deems it so.

Everyone's dreams will have a tinge of horror to them. Nothing so out of the ordinary to rouse one's suspicions, but at the same time, no one is left out.

Pleasant nightmares, meatship.

[ooc: And thus begins the start of the Nightmare King's spree of insanity. He's starting out subtle, of course. The nightmares won't be anything more than your run of the mill bad dream, but he is giving them to everyone. Posting in isn't mandatory, but if you want to have fun with your character's nightmare, go right ahead.]

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[governorkang]

He was back in the village he and his regiment had built, in the valley between Mount Celebund and Mount Dashinak. The dwarves were raiding again; he could hear orders being shouted by the other officers, insults thrown back and forth in Common, and the occasional spell chanted by a bozak.

Kang slammed the hilt of his sword down on the back of the neck of the dwarf he was facing, knocking the hairy little bastard unconscious and taking the short breather to look around. Gloth had apparently been knocked out, slumped against a wall, and he watched as another dwarf, a runty, uglier-than-usual one, ran by laughing gleefully, clutching something it its hands. Squinting, he realized that something was his holy symbol, and growling, he chased after, shouting curses. "By the gods, Selquist, I'll have you gutted for this!"

Selquist merely laughed, dodging draconians as he headed for the village gate, "Only if you can catch me, lizard-brains!"

"Fulkth, close the damn gate!" Kang yelled, nearly tripping over another draco's tail. Instead of the usual wooden door being pulled shut, however, a rickety and rusty portcullis slammed down, and several sivaks, wearing the tabards of the Queen's Own, appeared outside. The medallion in Selquist's hand grew larger, encasing the dwarf's body in black armor decorated with symbols of death as his features shifted to that of a redheaded woman, laughing as she taunted the sivaks with her sword through the portcullis.

"Huzzad!" Kang stopped where he was, his heart practically in his throat, as she turned her head to look back at him and grin. The sivaks backed away, and he watched, paralyzed as one of them pointed a crossbow straight at his friend.

The crossbow twanged as it was fired.

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

There is the thok of impact—

—and a human girl in a red cloak stands, one arm outstretched, the bolt caught neatly with that hand.

[governorkang]

The sivaks disappeared, but the battle with the dwarves continued in the background as both Kang and Huzzad stared at the girl, dumbfounded. The redhead frowned, pointing her sword at the girl's throat, "Who the hell are you? I'm supposed to die."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

Roxie drops the bolt, and reaches up to nudge the sword away with a hand. Her skin stays miraculously uncut despite touching the blade directly. "I am Roxana, the Red Evening Before Gentle Dawn," she says, with a strange formality in her voice. "I interrupted this nightmare because it wasn't supposed to happen in the first place."

[governorkang]

"What are you talking about?" Kang asked, striding forward to stand next to Huzzad as the knight sheathed her sword and crossed her arms over her chest. "She died four years ago. I was there. I was holding her hand."

He hadn't made the connection that Roxana might have been talking about the nightmare itself, not his friend's death.

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"The nightmare," the girl says, her tone almost painfully blunt about the correction. She folds her arms over her chest as well, though her small size makes it a much less imposing gesture.

[governorkang]

Kang's tongue lolled out of his mouth for a moment, before he sucked it back in, earning him a quirked eyebrow from Huzzad. "The nightmare? I'm confused." In the background, a dwarf ran by, carrying one of the lambs on its shoulders, being chased by a baaz.

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"You're asleep," Roxie says quietly, looking between Kang and Huzzad. "Didn't you notice?"

[governorkang]

"I knew I was asleep, but this isn't the first time I've dreamed of her death," Kang's wings rustled uneasily. "It's just been a couple of years. I thought it was this Ohm situation that brought it about again."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

Roxie shakes her head slightly. "The influence of the being imprisoned in the ship's city level is inducing nightmares amongst most of the crew today. I have only been able to safely interfere in a few of these."

[governorkang]

In the distance, a sheep bleated plaintively. Huzzad rolled her eyes, pulling her sword back out of its sheathe and heading for the sound, "Damn dwarves. I'll go get it back."

Kang blinked at her, then nodded as he turned to look at Roxana again. "The one I heard about from the Magic Department. I thank you, then, for showing up."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"You are welcome." Roxie offers Kang a small nod, though there's a questioning element in her expression as she sees how self-ordering the draconian's dream-world seems to be. "However, this is very unlikely to be the first such incident."

[governorkang]

"I'll keep that in mind," Kang glanced around, stepping out of the way of another draconian as he ran by. The dwarves were on the retreat.

"I'll make sure to warn others, as well, just in case."

[toariversodeep.livejournal.com]

"Thank you." Roxie glances to the side, staring off at nothing in particular. "I should go."

[governorkang]

Kang nodded in understanding, and then the village was replaced with the wall of the room he'd claimed as he woke up. Somehow, while he'd been dreaming, one of his wings had ended up draped over the side of the bed, and after he pulled it back in, he lay there for well over an hour, deep in thought.