03-22-2010, 06:50 PM
There was silence in the golden forest -- so named because of its gold-barked trees that had the color of sunset always on them. Beams of sunlight filtered down through the canopy above, which, despite the rest of the plants with their golden stems and trunks, was as healthily green as could be expected of a place without pollution, without toxins and poisons. The green became caught in the bars of light to fall gently upon the ground, which glowed with warmth from the combination of green and gold around and above it. Even in silence, the earth here seemed to be breathing, like a sleeping giant. No creature or wind stirred to disturb the giant's slumber.
Just as silently, a figure appeared out of the air, flickering and wavering as if interfered with by other unseen radio waves. For a moment, the figure, a middle-aged man, stood staring straight ahead of him, before his form became steady, though still opaque, and he began to interact with the elements of a dream only he could perceive. He spoke and gestured and walked around, at first pleasant, then confused, then pleasant once more as if the confusion had been settled. All of this was watched by a pair of deep indigo eyes peering intently from beside one of the golden trees. As the eyes watched, more of the wavering, flickering ghosts appeared, each one oblivious to the other, each one acting as central star in a movie only they were privy to. Sometimes they ran, sometimes they stumbled in fear, sometimes they crossed each other, moving right through the body of another dreaming ghost without flinching or caring or noticing. And still, the eyes watched, gazing out from a pale round face shadowed by a vibrant green silk hood. The fabric hid not only the creature's face, but the rest of its tiny body as well, including the hands and feet. When it moved, finally grown bored or too envious to stay and watch any longer, its hidden feet gave the appearance of a poisonous phantom floating over the warm, breathing earth, until it disappeared behind shafts of green-infused golden light.
Left in its wake were the ghosts of consciousness, those astral projections carrying out their night lives, having grand adventures or else fighting for survival. None of them could see the forest or the trees, none of them could see each other, certainly none of them had seen the creature with its watchful eyes. And none of them saw the six dark shadows on the ground, the traps the creature had set to catch six dreamers and pull them into its world.
One by one, the ghostly figures stepped into the darkened circles, frozen immediately by the contact. Slowly, from the ground up, a protective shell of milky white light solidified around each captured dreamer, infusing the projections with substance, with form, with solidity. When the creature returned, they would be ready to hatch -- her newborn dreamers, ready to create and build with powers the gods would envy.
There is a belief that says that when we dream, our souls leave our bodies to visit the astral planes, the planes of unconsciousness. The magnificent places we visit and impossible things we do and create in our dreams, according to this belief, are not simply fiction -- they are fact, existing of and belonging to another world. But what if this place was not visited by our dreaming souls because it was there, but was there because our dreaming souls needed a place to roam while we rested? Our souls, restless and ever-moving, our minds, always working, created this place, and gave it its power, its brilliance, its shine. What if a being so powerful it had the ability to capture those roaming souls were created by the minds and souls themselves? Capture, not out of maleficence or ill-will towards those individuals, but out of loneliness and fear. What if this being said you could stay in your dreams forever, so long as all you provided was companionship?
In this RP, your characters are the six captured souls, born out of a dream and into this place. As your characters stay longer in this place, they discover more about their abilities to create and control the elements and aspects of this world. Literally anything that can be dreamed can be made real here.
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