When the Dreamwalker first arrived in RhyDin, it took him a full month just to learn how to get around the city. In a place where just about anything was possible, streets, buildings, even entire districts were mutable things. One day, a boulevard in the Marketplace would be easy to find, located right off of a main road passing through the heart of RhyDin City. The next, that road would require him to walk down several dark, damp, dirty alleyways to access. To some people, this might have been disorienting. To him, though, it was familiar territory. It was almost exactly like journeying through dreams.
His goal during these walks through the city soon shifted, from constructing a coherent map of RhyDin to finding out which pathways and structures were more consistently present. Luckily for him, his current residence, at the Red Dragon Inn, happened to be one of those constants. Even though the number of doors and number of rooms in the Inn seemed to fluctuate constantly, there were always plenty of them to open and enter, safe upstairs from the prying eyes of those who might discover who (or what) he was. There were other places, too, that seemed more or less anchored safely to the realm. The Great Hall, near the Inn itself, which didn't have as many passageways but was also not as busy as the Inn. The Library, full of scholars during the day but empty, quiet, and dark during the evening, save for the countless tomes packed end to end in the stacks. Even with these places in mind as safe havens for his voyages, it took the Dreamwalker a month to screw up the courage to step inside others' psyches again.
The worlds that Rhydinians conjured up when they slumbered were every bit as amazing as the realm of Rhydin itself. It was only years of training, and disillusionment from the countless dreams that he had walked through before, that kept the Dreamwalker from stopping and staring at the fantastic images that lurked in the minds of the city's citizens, though he couldn't help but slow his pace through many of them. He saw elves, living high above the forest floor in trees whose trunks were wider than six men trying to wrap their arms around them, chattering to each other in an utterly foreign yet completely beautiful language. He walked into another dream, and now he was swimming, deep below the surface of an ocean completely unlike any he'd ever seen, watching a mermaid family frolic and play with something that looked like a cross between a narwhal and a orca. He shifted again, and now he was underground, the world pitch black save for the holy light shining off of his baseball bat, watching a group of short, stout, and heavily bearded men fight a futile battle against chittering, black-scaled demons who spat green, foul-smelling, acidic saliva at the unfortunate dwarves.
That was the first lesson the Dreamwalker learned about RhyDin. There was great good here, to be sure, but the capacity for evil was equally great. He learned quickly of those whose sleep brought malevolent, dark thoughts to the surface of their minds, and left those areas quickly, lest he be detected and disposed of. He also learned of those who had suffered great losses, horrific tragedies, far beyond what he thought any person capable of enduring, and he escaped those nightmares as fast as he could as well. There were some things that he was unwilling to endure, without a good reason for doing so.
He also learned quickly that there were others with powers in this realm: some big, some small, and on both sides of the good vs. evil fence. He had only run into a few people in waking life whose dreams he had traveled through, but from the small sample size he had, it seemed that many were open about their abilities. Then again, the ability to fly or summon objects out of thin air was...well, it was cool. At the very least, he imagined it would come in handy at parties. His skill set, though, was a bit more...invasive. Who would be impressed with the fact that he could see and know their deepest thoughts, their most repressed fears, their hidden desires? No one. Which was one of the reasons why the Dreamwalker hadn't made too many friends, or acquaintances even, in his short time in the realm.
He hadn't made too many enemies either, though he hadn't been a stranger to combat. As disturbing as some of the nightmares he'd seen had been, he had only come across a handful of the usual suspects for bad dreams. He had fought night hags on two separate occasions, easy foes once you knew how they operated. And he did. He left the dream as fast as he could, knocked the demon off the sleeper's chest, and beat it to death with his bat before the would-be victim could wake up or his sleep-travel induced migraines could set in. Even after these victories, though, the Dreamwalker couldn't help but feel powerless. There was something big happening here, and he hadn't figured out what it was, or what he was supposed to do. At least, he hoped something big was happening. It was too hard for him to imagine why else they would have sent him to this land.
His goal during these walks through the city soon shifted, from constructing a coherent map of RhyDin to finding out which pathways and structures were more consistently present. Luckily for him, his current residence, at the Red Dragon Inn, happened to be one of those constants. Even though the number of doors and number of rooms in the Inn seemed to fluctuate constantly, there were always plenty of them to open and enter, safe upstairs from the prying eyes of those who might discover who (or what) he was. There were other places, too, that seemed more or less anchored safely to the realm. The Great Hall, near the Inn itself, which didn't have as many passageways but was also not as busy as the Inn. The Library, full of scholars during the day but empty, quiet, and dark during the evening, save for the countless tomes packed end to end in the stacks. Even with these places in mind as safe havens for his voyages, it took the Dreamwalker a month to screw up the courage to step inside others' psyches again.
The worlds that Rhydinians conjured up when they slumbered were every bit as amazing as the realm of Rhydin itself. It was only years of training, and disillusionment from the countless dreams that he had walked through before, that kept the Dreamwalker from stopping and staring at the fantastic images that lurked in the minds of the city's citizens, though he couldn't help but slow his pace through many of them. He saw elves, living high above the forest floor in trees whose trunks were wider than six men trying to wrap their arms around them, chattering to each other in an utterly foreign yet completely beautiful language. He walked into another dream, and now he was swimming, deep below the surface of an ocean completely unlike any he'd ever seen, watching a mermaid family frolic and play with something that looked like a cross between a narwhal and a orca. He shifted again, and now he was underground, the world pitch black save for the holy light shining off of his baseball bat, watching a group of short, stout, and heavily bearded men fight a futile battle against chittering, black-scaled demons who spat green, foul-smelling, acidic saliva at the unfortunate dwarves.
That was the first lesson the Dreamwalker learned about RhyDin. There was great good here, to be sure, but the capacity for evil was equally great. He learned quickly of those whose sleep brought malevolent, dark thoughts to the surface of their minds, and left those areas quickly, lest he be detected and disposed of. He also learned of those who had suffered great losses, horrific tragedies, far beyond what he thought any person capable of enduring, and he escaped those nightmares as fast as he could as well. There were some things that he was unwilling to endure, without a good reason for doing so.
He also learned quickly that there were others with powers in this realm: some big, some small, and on both sides of the good vs. evil fence. He had only run into a few people in waking life whose dreams he had traveled through, but from the small sample size he had, it seemed that many were open about their abilities. Then again, the ability to fly or summon objects out of thin air was...well, it was cool. At the very least, he imagined it would come in handy at parties. His skill set, though, was a bit more...invasive. Who would be impressed with the fact that he could see and know their deepest thoughts, their most repressed fears, their hidden desires? No one. Which was one of the reasons why the Dreamwalker hadn't made too many friends, or acquaintances even, in his short time in the realm.
He hadn't made too many enemies either, though he hadn't been a stranger to combat. As disturbing as some of the nightmares he'd seen had been, he had only come across a handful of the usual suspects for bad dreams. He had fought night hags on two separate occasions, easy foes once you knew how they operated. And he did. He left the dream as fast as he could, knocked the demon off the sleeper's chest, and beat it to death with his bat before the would-be victim could wake up or his sleep-travel induced migraines could set in. Even after these victories, though, the Dreamwalker couldn't help but feel powerless. There was something big happening here, and he hadn't figured out what it was, or what he was supposed to do. At least, he hoped something big was happening. It was too hard for him to imagine why else they would have sent him to this land.