Dreamwalk
You are on a trip with a few of your acquaintances, camping in a forest. In the morning you wake up in your tent to the happy sound of birds chirping outside. Morning sun shines unnaturally brightly through the fabric of the tent, illuminating what remains from your yesterday's snacks. You lift a half eaten cracker only to realize it is covered in some weird type of fungus. Not understanding what has happened you open the front of your tent to throw the spoiled food out, only to realize that all of your friend's tents are gone.
Wondering what the hell is going on you put on shoes and crawl out of your tent. Not finding any signs of yesterday's camp or the rest of the group nearby, you venture farther into the lush forest. After a while you begin to hear human voices nearby so you steer into their direction. You reach a small clearing with a lone girl gathering mushrooms into a willow basket.
“No, I already told you, you cannot eat mushrooms raw,” she seems to be talking to someone hidden away by the trees.
“Oh come on, what's the harm? It's not like I'm gonna die,” another girly voice answers her in a way suggesting a wicked grin wandering on the speaker's mouth.
“Well…” She stops for a moment to think. “Well, maybe you would not die, but your stomach can still hurt. Besides, they can have…”
“Wait,” the hidden girl stops her suddenly in a serious tone, walking into the clearing. “Hey there, the perv hiding between the trees,” she yells, clearly in your direction. She appears unnaturally attractive which is accentuated by the fact that her clothes barely cover her skin.
You walk out to clear out the misunderstandings. The girls seem to understand the situation right away and pardon you from their previous accusation. They introduce themselves as two spirit guardians of the bedroom — you did not find it productive to dwell on this statement, besides, one of them had horns and a tail so you just decided to ignore it for now.
The girl who called you a pervert is called, quite fittingly in your opinion, Malice. Her younger Sister Alice starts to explain what has happened to you. “From your perspective we are inside a dream right now. Based on what you told us you are still sleeping in a tent in your camp. This probably feels much more real than any dream you have had, even a lucid one. The reason is you have become a dreamwalker.”
“Exacto,” Malice interrupts her, chewing on a mushroom from Alice's basket. “It's not often we stumble upon fresh dreamwalkers so you can consider yourself lucky. Dreamwalking is pretty cool, you know? Dontcha worry, we'll teach you how it works. I'll break it down into points so you can comprehend everything.”
- You are always fully aware, feel and think normally in your dreams.
- Your dreams always begin the moment you fall asleep and end when you wake up.
- You cannot enter the same dream after waking up from it. The dreams tied to specific tasks on the third page are an exception.
- In your dreams you become a better version of yourself. Any areas of your physicality you consider to be below average become at least average. Any of your deformities, chronic pains, illnesses, etc. do not appear there.
- Dying in a dream simply wakes you up.
“That basically covers it, am I right?” Malice looks to Alice for confirmation.
“My sister simplified it a lot, but it is probably for the best. One thing I would add is that you can receive a multitude of powers as a dreamwalker. Your own power only allows you to take five powers, but you can gain more by doing tasks for various…”
“I can help with that!” Malice exclaims happily raising her hand like a schoolgirl. When you look at Alice she does not seem too bothered with being cut of by her sister. “I know some… people, for a lack of better word. They will gladly share their powers with an innocent, fresh walker in exchange for their… well, innocence?” She looks unsure of her word choice. “Well, fuck this. I'm not one for fancy words. They want sex and various perverted things.”
You glance at Alice again but she seems used to her sister's behavior.
“I'll give you more details later. For now focus on what you can receive. Alice, would you like to?”
sleep powers
Asleep at will
You fall asleep and wake up at will. Any emergencies or alarms you set up will still wake you up.
It is possible to sleep for any arbitrary amount of time using this power as long as your body is not in danger. This also allows you to freely switch between dreams.
Increased Willpower
You do not get distracted easily in your dreams and pursue your goals with full power. You automatically get into a flow state the moment you start doing anything you find interesting.
Time Reballance
Time spent inside a dream flows twice as fast giving you twice as much time relative to Earth. Can be bought up to three times, effects are multiplicative. You can have dreams inside other dreams, but the Time Rebalance is not cumulative.
“What do you mean, can you dream inside a dream?” Malice asks, her sister's basket now resting in her lap. “Of course you can silly, how else would you be able to dream back in your world?” She looks at you in puzzlement, but then laughs right away. “Sorry, sorry, I know I wasn't supposed to butt in, I'm shutting up now,” she says, bowing jokingly to Alice.
“Yes, it is as my sister said, you can have dreams inside other dreams but sadly there is not much utility to this. What might interest you is that when using Time Reballance you will still age only as much as your body normally would in…” Alice says but she gets self conscious and trails of near the end. “Sorry. I just heard that it is something mortals pay great attention to, your lifespan being…” she speaks the last words too quietly to be heard.
“Well yea, we are immortal, what about it?” Malice stops eating mushrooms to answer another of your questions. “What? You? Immortal?” she asks in disbelief and then throws her head back in sudden laughter, “Hahaha! That's a good one, a good one I give you that.” She looks in your direction with a cute grin. “Wait, you're serious…” She takes a moment to compose herself. “Pfffft! Haahahaha! Let me…” She bangs her fist on the ground, tears of laughter filling her eyes. “Let me laugh even harder!” She continues to laugh for a while longer leaving you and Alice waiting awkwardly.
“Uhhh, I haven't had a laugh like this since forever, and that's a pretty long time, you know, considering that I am, you know, IMMORTAL! Haaaahaha!” Malice wheezes not being able to take a breath, breaking into a cough at the end which seems to finally calm her down.
“Well,” Alice starts quietly, using the moment of relative silence. “Of course my sister is right that mortals practically never become immortals. But technically you could awaken to eternal life.”
“Technically, my ass,” Malice butts in. “Technically I could become the queen of all Hellscape. But there are a few practical obstacles to that. Obstacles that are immortal, prideful and way more powerful than I will ever be,” she says, her mood suddenly serious. “It's good to have dreams but don't give him false hope. Hey, listen.” She gets closer and turns her gaze into you.
She does not pause speaking for more than half a second but you get so lost in a sudden realization of her otherworldly beauty, it seems like you are spending an entire lifetime locked in her gaze. You are studying the shape of her lips in awe, admiring the color of her eyes, puzzling over the cute, perky tip of her nose and taking in and engraving in your soul the entirety of her being. Your imagination is feeding you, against your will, a vivid vision of her warm, naked body in your bed, entirely on your mercy. It feels like even if you did use all of your mortal life just locked in this moment it would be a life well spent.
“You would have to study things your weak mortal brain filters out as background noise just to protect itself,” she says breaking the spell you found yourself under, but you know you will spend many hours thinking about what just happened. “Study them for a time longer than you can even imagine to live. To become eternal, you would have to be born eternal, even doubly so. I'm sorry my child, but it's just not to be ,” she said and she looked genuinely sad.
“Lets keep going shall we?” Malice asked cheerfully after a few breaths, her somber mood gone like it never happened.
Stranger's Dreams
You can enter the dreams of anyone you saw since the last time you have slept or anyone you have entered a dream of before. To them it will still seem as a normal dream. You keep all of your abilities, plus you can just watch their dreams without being seen.
Together
You can invite anyone who sleeps within 5 meters of you to join you in your dreams. You are the one who makes any choices from the dream control section.