radiantmemories451

…”When you’re ready, you should check out the quest board downstairs! I’ll see you later oh great champion hero champion justice of light and the dream realm!” With those final words, the Princess disappears out the door, leaving Jhaya alone for the first time in what will be her home-away-from home for the next while. Jhaya laughs softly, amused by the abundance of praise being heaped upon her, then turns her attention to her room. On closer inspection, it seems just as nice as it had at first glance: airy and clean, comfortably worn but well-cared for wood floors, and warm furs on the bed and floor. The level of detail is incredible. If she didn’t know better, Jhaya would have thought she was in an actual Nightmare world, instead of experiencing a digitally created one through her fully immersive Virtual Nightmare-2 machine. The bed is, to her great regret, almost entirely taken up by the save crystal, preventing her from climbing on top of it. As a creature of Nightmare that

When Syretia steps through the door, the first thing that stands out to her about her new surroundings are the trees. “Neon plants, how fascinating!” “Welcome to T?lg?ey W??ds!” she hears a chorus of voices chime, and the sound of music fills the air. “Please make yourself at home, we’re so happy to have you!” “Thank you,” Syretia responds, meaning the words. She’s truly excited to be here, exploring and finding new things. T?lg?ey W??ds, the voices had said. She wonders if that’s the name of the Nightmare or just this section of it. She’ll likely find out in due time. She looks around and sees that the neon trees appear to be part of a vast forest of them that continues beyond her sight. Attached to the trees are a variety of signs. The majority of them are at least vaguely arrow-shaped, but the arrows point in crazy, contradictory directions, there are multiple ones on every tree, and the symbols and letters on the arrows make no logical sense. At the trees’ base, a neon pink path

“Whatever I was expecting, this definitely isn’t it,” Tuhina says to herself as she stares in wonder at the scene surrounding her. A massive waterfall encircles the area she’s standing in. It thunders down from far above her to vanish somewhere out of sight below. She can see the sun above the waterfall, shining brightly down from overhead, but despite this, half of the area remains hidden in shadow, as if the twilight shrouding it is too deep for the light to affect. Here, the waterfall is darker than midnight, with bits of broken, jagged rock jutting out of it. In contrast, the other half of the area seems to almost glow with light. Everything is bathed in the bright glow of the sun overhead, and the part of the waterfall on that side is clear of rocks and sparkles with reflected light. Ahead of her, winding back and forth between the areas of light and shadow, Tuhina can see narrow rocks paths decorated with arches set with a crystal. Only air guards their edges, leaving nothing

“Until then, this is your announcer, Bolt, signing out! BYE-BYE!” The TV screen changes to stripes of colors with the words Please Stand By in the upper left corner, signaling the end of the broadcast. As it does so, Tuhina lets out a long sigh of relief. She’s made it through the entire broadcast without accidentally breaking the TV! Now all that’s left is to turn it off. She carefully reaches for the remote and presses the power button, causing the screen to go blank. Success! She takes a moment to savor her victory. Now what next? She should probably save energy for the colosseum tomorrow, so perhaps something quieter would be nice… As Tuhina is thinking, a strange sensation starts to wash over her, as if reality is fading out of focus. She’s… passing out!? What’s going on? As Tuhina’s eyes drift closed, she catches a glimpse of strange text flickering on the supposedly turned off TV before her. Oh no! Had she broken it again? Was this the TV’s fault? She knew the idea of her

“Whew, as fun as that was, I’m exhausted!” Tuhina flops into her favorite chair, having just gotten back from another long, exciting day at the colosseum. It’s been a week since the events of the strange nightmare where she’d gotten trapped inside a creepy research facility, and everything has been normal since then. At first, there had been an uproar as all of the other Stygians who had had a similar experience tried to figure out what was going on, but as the week continued uneventfully, most Stygians had forgotten about it and moved on to other things. They were used to strange, inexplicable events happening in the Nightmare World sometimes: nightmares were a type of dream after all, and dreams were often nonsensical. For her part, Tuhina wasn’t sure that the nightmare was meaningless, but the memory of it had been driven from her mind by all of the far more exciting things going on! She had been going to the colosseum every day, and each time she went she encountered new sights

BOOK NAME (name of book): The Taste of Dreams: A Scientific Study BOOK LORE: It is a well-known fact that different types of Nightmares taste different from each other. Just ask any Stygian if all Nightmares taste the same, or if they try to change Nightmares before they eat them, or if they have a favorite type of Nightmare to eat, and the truth of this fact will quickly be evident. However, this general knowledge is the limit of what is known about this phenomenon. As a scientist, this did not sit right with me, so I set out to investigate both Nightmares, and the larger category to which they belong, dreams. After much trial and error, I was able to find not only the reason that different types of dreams taste different from each other, but also the specific mechanics by which these differences are created. Consider the concept of human food; it is made up of many different ingredients, each with their own unique taste, and the combination of those ingredients and their tastes