Dreamscape
Time: Mid-afternoon
An expansive plains stretched out far beyond what I could adequately call the end of the biome, with a forest of extraordinarily large trees blocking the view of the horizon, sat to the immediate right of an impressively large mountain range. Spinning slowly left, a small grove of pines sat in the middle of the grassy terrain, providing shade to whatever creatures required shelter from the elements. Past that, the plains continued on into the distance, inconceivable by human eyes till they dropped off into an ocean I just knew was that direction.
Keeping my gradually leftward motion, a forest of smaller poplar trees barely peeked out from a veil of grey fog, foreboding anyone from entering into that silently promised hellhole.
The bright green grass of the plains rolled downwards from where I stood at arms, my M1903A4 rifle slung over my shoulder loaded and ready for the hunt. The hill I apparently stood on continued to roll downwards towards that eerie forest a ways before levelling off, with the grass broken by a dirt road path that lead back towards the ocean.
Following that road with my eyes, I took in the sight of an absolutely magnificent sight: a city built around a hill, glowing as though it had captured a star and used it to cast never-ending sunlight from its peaks. While I couldn’t quite make out the specific details, I could make out the small blotches of black on the otherwise white background of the city and its landscape, denoting the creatures coming and going to and from the city regarding whatever business they may have.
Looking up to the skies, blocking out the direct feed of light from the two suns above, I gazed up in incredulity at the massive galaxy-scape that was splayed out in all it’s magnificent splendour. Planets of various colours dotted the sky in full brilliance, not just a little dot but close enough that I'm sure astronomers could visit the neighbouring planets with telescopes and radio signals and receive replies in a matter of minutes. How those planets weren’t interfering with this planet’s orbit or gravity was beyond me, but it was astounding all the same.
Checking myself out, I found myself not dressed in the typical skin tight clothing of the EVA suits or even the clothing that I had brought with me from Earth. Instead, I was decked out in a forest green flecktarn camouflage outfit of cargo-pants with a remarkable number of pockets and a similarly coloured shirt sleeves with a tan chest portion of the shirt made of some kind of very light material that still somehow kept me warm. Checking out my hands, they were gloved in a simple black leather shooting glove pair, with the first two fingers cut away for trigger manipulation or what have I. What had me more curious was a strange tattoo on my right forearm, starting near to the wrist and taking up the entirety of my forearm to the crook of my elbow. It wasn’t anything specific, nothing I could identify anyways, it was just a bunch of geometric shapes all aligned together to look something like a strange torch.
With a facial shrug, I examined the more immediate surroundings around me and found what looked like a pack of wolves gradually growing nearer to the city. They’d still have a couple days to go at the slow pace they were at, but they’d still pose a threat to anything trying to reach the city and something in my mind told me I wanted to hunt them and harvest them for their pelts and other bits.
Kneeling down on the grass, I pulled my rifle from my shoulder and raised it up to look through the scope. In my eye, and surprisingly unsurprisingly, a small circle began to appear, showing me where to put my crosshairs in order to make a shot of some kind. It didn’t show me where I'd hit the animal, but it gave me a pretty good idea.
Hitting the safety, I guessed at my chances to actually hit anything and decided I’d have better luck laying down completely. Doing so, I lined up the crosshairs with one of the little red circles and began to slow my breathing.
Before I could psyche myself out, I pulled the trigger and reloaded as quickly as I could to set up for the next shot. A wolf that I had managed to successfully shoot dropped with a yelp while the others all turned towards the gunshot but their limited eyesight put me at a temporary advantage.
Putting down thirteen rounds downrange took out the remaining nine wolves and emptied out a leg pocket of spare magazines. Rising to my knee, I shouldered the rifle again and evaluated the terrain for anything that may be trying to sneak up on me. With nothing in the immediate vicinity, I cautiously approached the corpses while pulling a bowie knife from its sheath on my lower back to admire the sheen of the blade as it glowed in the sunlight.
Setting to the task, I began the long and arduous task of skinning the wolves while collecting a good number of their teeth that remained in good condition. Apparently some people had uses for these so I might as well grab a handful.
“What are you doing?” The lovely voice of Luna perked my ears as I sat crouched over the last of my kills working the fur off as cleanly as I could.
“Hunting.” I replied simply, still crouched over with the blood of my enemies coating my hands. “These wolves were approaching the city and would have terrorized people as they tried to leave or enter.” I explained and sat back once I pulled the pelt off entirely, leaving the rest of the body where it lay for the time being. “I get the pelts that I can turn into armour and sell, the city guard don’t have to do the job and I get paid. It benefits all.”
“Except for the wolves, they didn’t get a chance, did they?” Luna frowned at me before looking up to examine the surroundings. “I tried pulling you out, did you not feel me?”
“Nope. But it seems that you can instead enter into my dream.” I stood and stretched out my back as best I could. “And for the record, these wolves are feral. They can’t be given a second chance or anything.”
“Is that the same to be said for every creature here?” Luna inquired as she actively avoided the bloody mess I left behind. I instead stepped out of the mess and cleaned my hands off on a rag found in my left back pocket.
“Probably.” I shrugged back and draped an arm over Luna’s neck. “So, a couple questions. One, how do we understand each other without the Rosetta Stone Translation?”
“It’s a dream, anything is possible.” Luna shrugged back and nuzzled me. “I have a question of my own: is this Earth? It’s absolutely beautiful!”
“Earth? Nah. This is actually a setting for a novel I wrote back during my time at Keen Academy. When I was leaving I was actually debating letting a major video game company turn it into a VRMMORPG. Don’t know what happened to that offer…” I explained and threw a leg over Luna’s back, making her gasp at the action.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting it to be that kind of dream.” Luna teased but took off at a light walk towards the city regardless. “We could wake up and spend some time together if you wanted to ride me.”
I gave a hearty chortle and gave Luna a pat on the back of the neck before stroking the solid blue hairs. “Way to blow this out of proportion.”
“What, I’m serious.”
“I wouldn’t even begin to know what to do. The incompatibilities in our physiology alone would make it… interesting enough…” I replied while scratching the back of my neck and ensuring that the pelts hanging from my shoulder didn’t get any blood on Luna’s hide.
“Didn’t you have more questions?” Luna looked back at me before turning forwards again and spreading her wings to take flight.
“I did, but I completely forgot them.” I admitted and sighed, leaning back to take in the mid-afternoon suns’ rays. Even if this was only a dream, I could still faintly feel the effects of the sunlight on my face and arms and it was just as relaxing as resting with Luna back in reality.
“If I might say, this world you’ve created is just marvellous!” Luna let her words flow out with a heavy breath before she stopped completely and just stood in place to feel the gentle breeze on her face. “I don’t think even our planet has any kind of terrain or landscapes quite like this.”
“Try looking further north. Past Blackwater Forest and Cale Sevadus, that’s the name of the mountains next to the forest, is a crystal tundra. There’s a small stretch of land where the trees are crystallized as it meets the new terrain biome.” I grinned and pictured the area in my mind, imagining the towering spires of crystal Blackwater trees that rose into the sky for kilometres before the foliage even began.
“That must be wondrous to see!” Luna agreed and laid herself down in the grass before letting me roll off and take a seat against her barrel. “You’ll have to show me one of these nights.”
“Perhaps.” I conceded and stared out over the landscape in silence while Luna surveyed the rest of the area. “I know we literally just sat down, but we should head into town to finish this contract.” I sighed, knowing that both Luna and I had just stopped and were quite comfortable. Luna whined in protest and remained seated while I stood up again, placing a hand on her side to help myself up.
“You go, I'll stay.” Luna sighed and flopped over onto her side to get comfortable.
“You’re more likely to get shot by hunters thinking your a rare monster.” I remarked and started off across the plains towards the road. Luna quickly got to her hooves and caught up, looking nervous.
“They wouldn't really attack me, would they?” Luna frowned at this, hoping I was kidding. I shook my head and dropped her hopes.
“There was no creature in this story like you before and since you’re not bipedal, other hunters will think you’re a mob; a monster.” I explained and placed a hand on her back. “As long as you stick with me, you’ll be fine.”
“With an explanation like that, who can resist?” Luna joked back and lowered a wing to let me hop up onto her back once more. “Anything else I should know?”
“You can very nearly expect people to try and buy you off me. They’ll take one look at you and think your a rare mount.” I announced after a moment of considerations.
“But you wouldn't actually do that, right?”
“Hell no! I’m the only one who gets to ride you!” I grinned back and tousled the lowest portion of her mane. The pair of us chuckled at this announcement before Luna spread her wings and took off into the air.
In that instant, we found ourselves in the city and landed before the Goods Trading centre staring up at the remarkably muddy looking wooden building. All around us were the same kind of muddy wooden buildings, often mixed in between buildings that were made of nothing but mud bricks or were even just a signpost sitting over a carpet of products.
“Dream travelling for the win.” I smirked and disembarked from Luna’s back with the pelts over my shoulder. “You wait here, I'm going to sell these furs then we’ll go turn in the contract.”
“I’ll be here.” Luna agreed and moved off the side of the massive road that ran the circumference of the ring city. I stepped into the building and almost immediately stepped back out with heavier pockets and a pair of hunters crowding Luna who looked completely distressed.
“Is there a problem?” I stepped forward to the group and held Luna to my body.
“Nah, no problem, just wanna know how much to buy it off ya!” one male remarked casually, fists on his hips. “I’ll pay good money for it!”
“I am not for sale!” Luna shrieked and stamped her hoof down, narrowly missing crushing the poor guy’s armoured foot under her own. “Leave me be!”
“She’s not for sale.” I announced and threw a leg over Luna’s back. “There is no offer you can make to change my mind.”
The second male seemed to be less cordial. “We could just take her if you don’t.” he grinned and pulled a pair of sabres from his back. A flash of light and a pair of black steel knives were held at the throats of both men.
“You could try, yes. You’d die, but you could try.” I agreed and waited patiently.
“Oh put ‘em away. I’m sure if she’s that rare a mount, then she wouldn’t be able to be traded or stolen anyways.” The first guy sighed in defeat and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. The second guy sighed and complied, putting his sabres away and stepped back. With a smile I sheathed my own blades and directed Luna away from the two men.
“Well, that was frightening.” Luna announced, her voice still slightly shaking. “Could you have successfully fought them off?”
“Absolutely. My dream, my win.” I grinned back and as a show to help calm the mare, changed my appearance to more of a battle armour armed with a railgun sniper rifle. “They wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“Then why run around in that earlier get-up?” she asked as I switched back to said get-up.
“‘Cuz I like camouflage and historic weapons.” I shrugged back and let Luna do the walking. “So, what do you wanna do?”
“I am unfamiliar with this world, I do not know what is available for entertainment here.” So came my response with a valid point. “What was the original story’s plot for this world?”
“Without going into long and drawn out details, basically the main character and his brother meet up with a bunch of people from around the galaxy -the idea behind the story is that the human race isn't part of the Galactic Community yet- to fight a precursor race that’ll invade the galaxy to wipe out all advanced sentient life. He doesn’t tell his friends until after his supposed death when the enemy appears as a final boss.”
“Seems like a bit of a rude character if he doesn’t tell his friends or family about the impending doom.”
“Well, how would you go about telling the world that a race of super advanced aliens are coming to destroy intelligent life in the galaxy?” I asked genuinely but I think I may have laid in a tinge of sarcasm by accident. Adding as a second thought, “Without magic.”
“I… I am royalty, my subjects would have to believe me. Surely there has to be some way to prove that the end of all life was coming?” Luna looked back at me with a raised eyebrow in confusion. Or skepticism.
“Nope. The characters are all regular people in their own rights and hold no influence over the rest of their kinds. All that the main character has to go on would be a prophecy about the arrival of him and his friends. Nothing more than children’s stories.”
“I… understand your point of view, and I’ll accept your premise.” Luna sighed but conceded as we briefly passed by the guard tower and through the realm of possibilities provided by a dream, the contract was turned in and three more were accepted. “Was the story any good after you wrote it?”
“Apparently if a video game company wanted to turn it into a game… Dunno how it turned out but I think we might be able to find out when we wake up and I can build another antenna. If not then, then after we’re back in registered space.” I chuckled at the thought. “To be honest, I hadn’t even planned to publish it. A friend of mine who was editing for me at the time sent a link to the document to a publisher for me, talking me up. Some weeks later and I get an email from some big publishing firm asking what I was going to do with the project.”
“And you had no idea what you were going to do?”
“Nope. Didn’t even know If was going to actually finish the project.” I shook my head in reply and shifted around on Luna’s back a bit. “Anyways, I finally get it done and re-submit it. A week later I get an email offering to publish the project in return for a good portion of the royalties from whatever sold. At that time, I also got an offer from the video game company.”
“So, how’d the book do?”
“Books, apparently. I sighed the publishing deal a couple days before I shipped off planet and left the video game deal to my family to deal with.”
“So you don’t know how it’s done over the last three hundred years?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if no one even heard of the story, let alone if the game failed miserably and faded into oblivion.” I admitted, mostly due to the lack of self-esteem in my writing capabilities. I did have to give myself credit where credit was due: it was published by a large company and I was offered a video game deal so maybe it did pretty good and I had millions waiting for me when I got back to Earth.
“Oh I’m sure it’s done just fine.” Luna offered supportively and used her wings to console me despite the awkward way of doing it. “So, you’re a writer outside of being an Engineer. What other kinds of worlds can you create?”
“What, in this dreamscape?” I raised an eyebrow and smirked. Luna nodded back and my smirk turned into a full on grin. “Oh, Luna, baby. Just you wait.”
“Why wait?” Luna stopped once we were clear of the city walls and sat down on a grassy knoll nearby to the road.
“Because I think I'm waking up already.” I announced as I felt the pull of wakefulness.
“But we haven’t even done anything interesting…” Luna whined and fired up her horn into it’s glow. I began to feel the pulling less and less until it finally disappeared altogether. “There, back to sleep.”
“Works for me.” I grinned and gave the alicorn a hug around the neck. “Come on, let’s try Blackwater Cavern together. It’s the first dungeon the main characters go through early on.”
“Would I be of any help like I am?” I slid off Luna’s back at this question and rounded ahead of her to crouch down before her face and placed a hand on her chest.
“So, all we would have to do is make you bipedal.” I announced and sat back on my hands and feet. Luna’s eyes expanded at the idea and closed her eyes, her tongue sticking out at the side of her mouth while she concentrated.
A quick flash of light and Luna’s pony body was transformed into a fully human version of herself, with a flowing dark blue dress of two colours with small silver pauldrons on her shoulders held in place by a blue collar reminiscent of her pony version. Her crown remained the same and surprisingly her horn and even wings -which were now absolutely massive in size- remained in place on her head and back.
“Well, that was completely disorienting.” Luna complained with crossed eyes once she’d opened them. Her eyes met the sight of my mouth hanging open in shock as I examined the new details of her body. Lithe in nature with ample breasts, flat stomach into wide hips. Higher up, above the chin, her jaw seemed to have been chiselled perfectly with an adorably small mouth and nose. Her blue eyes were accentuated by bright blue glittering shadow and rimmed by thick black eyeliner flared at the ends of her eyes. Her hair swept over her forehead in gentle waves, with the rest of it falling behind her shoulders.
Noticing me staring, Luna frowned slightly, “What’s wrong?”
Slowly, to emphasize my point, “Hot damn are you gorgeous!” I declared since that was the only thing I could come up with at the moment. That, and I had to shift around where I sat to get comfortable again.
“Really? I just kind of… thought of it.” Luna silently gasped and began to check herself out. I stood and helped her up with a hand, letting her dust off the skirt of her dress with her hands. “I don’t think it’ll be very conductive to combat, however. Especially if the dungeon is, I’m guessing, in Blackwater Forest?”
“You would be correct, yes. The cavern itself is actually underwater, so we’ll be going for a swim.” I shook my head clear of inception and did my best to return to the task at hand. I held my hand up, making Luna look at it curiously before she lifted hers up to meet mine.
Intertwining fingers had the both of us smiling before I began to imagine the black armour of a Dark Knight at a mid-grade level on her body. Changing it’s colour scheme to that of Luna’s preference, her dress was replaced by medium weight adamantine armour with a massive kite shield on her back. Leaving the weapons up to her, I stepped back and let my girlfriend view herself yet again. Certainly wasn’t as slimming as the dress, but it still somehow looked amazing on her.
“What’s all this then?” Luna checked herself out, swinging her torso around to check out her behind.
“Dark Knight armour, approximately level one-twenty. Only mid-level armour but it’ll get the job done for Blackwater. I’ve left the weapons you want to use up to you, in case you have a personal preference.” I explained and dreamt up the same level of armour for my sniper class, costuming myself in body tight body armour in gold, crimson red and silver. “I will warn you, however, that the dungeons scale up to your approximate level which is totalled by your weapons, armours, magic skills and who you’re with.”
“So, it’ll be harder for us than it was for your main characters?” Luna turned back to me to pull the shield from her back to check it out. It was primarily black, with a dark blue edging and the boss designed to look like her royal seal. Attaching it to her left arm, Luna reached to her hip and drew a massive great-sword with her right -apparently she had the strength to wield something my size with one hand- and gave it a twirl in the air. “What kinds of abilities do I have?”
“At your level, I have no idea. The information will come to you as you use your skills and magic abilities but I know it has something to do with greatly impeding your enemies abilities through blindness, deafness or even controlling the minds of your enemies to go berserk on their friends.” I explained and swapped out my historic weapon for the more modern Railgun rifle and accompanying sidearm which sat on my thigh.
“I suppose such things would be possible to one called a ‘Dark Knight’. Still, could be worse.” Luna sighed and set her weapons away on her hip and back. “Shall we set off?”
“We could, or we could just dream ourselves there.” I grinned and took Luna’s gauntleted hand before the scenery around us shifted to the starting chamber of the dungeon. Stalactites and stalagmites littered the area around the pair of us, with a small makeshift camp’s remains having been left from whoever may have last attempted the dungeon. Gone was the bright blue skies and bright green grasses, instead replaced by glittering rock illuminated by an unknown source coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
At one end of the room, a pool of water that we would have come up through had we trekked the distance ourselves and opted to swim rather than dream. At the other end an opening in the wall, perfectly round in nature sat ready to accept the new pair of challengers who’d come to plunder the dungeons riches.
“So, shall we?” I asked, offering an arm like that of a gentleman should to a lady or girlfriend. Luna smiled and placed a hand on my own once she stood alongside me, staring into the depths of the cavern before us.
Turning to me with anticipation, “Lead on, o’ brave warrior!”