[Across the Realms]
If you Dream, you may recall this from a recent night.
You see a small child sitting on a beach, playing with a sand castle. They add ever more lifelike details with their small hands. The walls are sculpted with battlements and buttresses. As you peer more closely into one of the windows, you feel a sudden, cold splash. The sand begins to slough off the front wall of the castle as the seawater recedes from it. Another wave roars up onto the beach, slamming against the sand castle. The front wall crumbles and collapses, the foundation underneath washing away. As the child looks up at you with tears in their eyes, the waves engulf the sand castle and it sinks into the ground.
~~~
You become aware that you have been dreaming. You still are, and it has been going on for a very long time.
Many of your dreams have included a feeling of weight all around you. This makes sense, considering the sand. But still, you reach out through it, passing the old bones, the crematorium, the book, until you can almost reach the sunlight. You dream up another polyp, and watch it wander away. Your arms don’t get tired, and as your mind wanders off into a deeper dream, you see the conjoined gold circles that were present when you formed, and the blue shadows that stole you away.
Then you wake up. You become aware that you have been dreaming.
[Blackwood]
Within Idaris, an old man has been asking for anyone who has seen his tide, and saying that he needs to find it before the mountains.
~~~
Several messengers have been complaining that the Prince has been sending too many letters to Tao and demanding haste in their delivery. One cheeky messenger says he had it on good account that it’s just about games so really a waste of the taxpayers money.
~~~
There have been several accounts of a figure that has been described as tattered and crippled, begging in silence. The tatters the broken and the poor are nothing new, but several places have had terrible things occur days after their leaving.
[Other]
Say weren’t you here last month child, yes, yes you were, how have you been, good, good, care for some more tea. Well let me tell you, that boy finally figured out what he wanted, and the pretty ones just don’t seem to come around anymore. Did you hear about the Bormer boy, turned out the bear was a person, and he is still there, asks the family not to come around none, does not want anything to do with the humans, I wonder if he is charmed, in love, or just stupid; probably a bit of all three. Somebody sometime is going to have to get the bottom of that, of course they would still have to deal with the bear and all. Is that thing still kicking around, would you do me a favor and go burry that someplace, crossroads or something like that would be best. O thank you so much, just don’t get out much anymore. Remember that cake, funniest thing, one day it was just gone, no one saw it leave, but then its just gone, when we asked the baker about it, he said “what cake”. I don’t know why he would lie about such a thing, but there you go, not sure what to think. Grojo? Well he and I had a disagreement, and he took off, I suspect he is around here somewhere, but no idea where. If you see him tell him I would welcome him back no questions asked. I just hope he has not done anything stupid. Well as I said the Blacksmiths wife was not careful enough, everbody knew, but the blacksmith, I suppose, now I heard when she was kicked out, she took a few thing with her that he wants back. Not that it’s any of my business, but if you are going to a bad person, I guess you are just a bad person. That short and tall couple I told you about, they keep buying sweets from the baker for each other. Its so funny to watch them even walk down the street, each looking to make the other one smile, I swear it’s good to be young and in love. Did you come by way of the forest? Just asking cause of all the noises and such, I sometimes get to wondering what is going out there, but I am not the type to go find out. Now Philip, he was the type, he was always off to find adventure, come back with treasure or something weird. I wonder what he got up to, left a bunch of stuff lying about, always giving gifts of the stuff he brought back, have not seen him in a bit. Well don’t let me hold you up, or would you like some more tea?