View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
There is a mystery that's currently unsolved. It's in Avedan's head. It's not like he's going insane (he's quite sure that he's not) but lately his sleep's been pretty eventful. He'd always had dreams (didn't everyone?) but lately, they've been getting more vivid. More lifelike. And, most interestingly of all, more internally consistent.
It's really, really confusing. Avedan is somewhere between wanting to learn more about the internal history present in the dreams, and wanting to understand why they're being so - insistent. He suspects it has something to do with malfunctioning servants, but all of his are working just fine. He checked. Twice. So - maybe someone else's aren't working properly? Or something? He doesn't know, there's zero precedent for eerily vivid and consistent dreams. Avedan tries talking to someone about it, exactly once. They immediately think he's having reoccurring nightmares.
But they're not nightmares. Well. Okay, some of them are, one of the more memorable ones included desperately clutching a woman's hand, begging her to stay with him, just keep breathing, to stay alive. She didn't. If it'd been with someone he knew, he might have thought it was just a simple nightmare. But, no. He's never seen her before in his life. Only his dreams, and not all that often, either. Because there are others, with - happier memories attached to them.
He's started to notice patterns. In - consistent people, consistent places, and most interestingly, consistent personalities. He's pretty sure it's not his subconscious being uncreative (if it were that, he would be naked at work or something) but the bizarre internal consistency his dreams are exhibiting.
It's hard, to figure out if there's a timeline to it all. But there is one thing that's consistent: a city. He does a quick bit of research, finds the city's name (Lapis), and after a bit more research is confronted with the dream's reasonable level of fidelity. As in, it's nearly the same, with exception to what he suspects is construction. And he's never been to Lapis in his life. Just what is going on? He can only think of one way to find out, and that way involves packing up his bags, handing them off to a well-maintained servant, and then heading off to Lapis.
+ Show First Post
do_over
do_over
"I haven't had any of the ones where I've died yet," says Avedan softly. "Or any of the others besides Aly's. I don't look forward to those."
if_at_first
"Well, you get to skip Lu and Kib dying, at least, you were off somewhere being a child in a new incarnation when those happened."
if_at_first
"Well, I've done it before, right? And came through well-adjusted enough to leave myself suggestive little notes. On net this is good news. And most of the memories won't be like that, people spend proportionally little of their time dying."
if_at_first
"Yeah. Sucks for everyone else, though... if they really aren't reincarnating. And this notebook says as far as any of us know Aly didn't have past-life dreams, it just - she was first."
do_over
"I hope they are and just - never mention the dreams. Or are mysteriously missing them."
if_at_first
"But I mean - if Aly didn't have the dreams, then people start somewhere. And if most people don't have the dreams, then they're - starting, and not going on."
do_over
"Yeah," sighs Avedan. "I need to - look into reincarnation, as a side project, I think."
if_at_first
"Yeah. But not immediately, I think, won't that be easier when you've accumulated more memories?"
if_at_first
"What do you do when you aren't making a pilgrimage to Lapis to be attacked by parrots, anyway?"
do_over
"I was looking into a way to automate the creation of golems with other golems and automata. I'd need to still do something, but if most of the work can be done by a system already in place, it can save an absurd amount of time."
if_at_first
"Huh, that's almost like what I was doing with shines. I've gotten as far as proving that big shines can read little ones if the little ones are arranged in an instructionlike way."
if_at_first
"I haven't gotten any farther than that with the theory, I've been working on apparatus to give me enough shines to test complicated questions with because it takes a lot of miniscule ones in various colors to assemble into anything much even if the big shine is window-sized. Lenses to shrink and project program sets and resize a light source into however big I need it for what kind of shine I want. I'm pretty sure that you can't get shines to obey instructions that don't all fit on them, no 'go slide over this entire giant list of things and remember it all'."
if_at_first
"I don't know. I've been able to get them much too small to read and have them still work as normal. I think shines can 'see' better than we can."
do_over
"That makes sense, considering. Hmm. Could be good for communication, give them little spaces to travel underground or something and let them pass tiny messages around in hollow tubes - that'd be safer than flying messengers, and rely less on good weather conditions. Or ground messengers, those have to deal with things in the way."
if_at_first
"Shines could also travel aboveground without worrying about weather or interception, although then if the method gets too popular all inhabited areas get very shiny."
do_over
"Then it would be the fashion to switch to shades and the world would be at war with little dots of light and little dots of shadow."
if_at_first
Sylvi snorts. "Shines are easier to have in charming alternate colors, though."
do_over
"So the shines would always be winning, but every now and then there would be someone who roots for the shade underdogs."