Troubled Minds (Closed)

[Christoph]

I: Curiosity

“To inquire is to be truly alive. Curiosity, even in the face of madness, sets Humanity apart from beasts, and through it we grasp at divinity.”

--Silas Rotero, a Coronian philosopher


*

The library Ankhas, holy ground for the world’s scholars and arcanists, stood in the heart of Ettermire. Its striking baroque halls clashed with the stark black spires, smog, and industry of Alerar’s capital city. A gilded flower in a field of steel. Elijah knew he would visit this fabled repository of occult knowledge; his curiosity would have drawn him there if his current project, a specialized study of dreams, occult lore, and metaphysics, had not. It was the obvious destination for someone like him, a traveling sorcerer with a thirst for knowledge.

Yet, despite all he had heard of Ankhas, he could not have anticipated its sheer scale. Dozens of shelves filled the main halls, stuffed with tomes and towering to the vaulted ceiling. Thousands of books, and he had only scratched the surface. Corridors branched off from the main halls in the four cardinal directions, until they too branched off, linking with other passages to form a parchment-choked labyrinth. The dark, dry archives and stacks filled the three lower levels, and contained far more accumulated knowledge than the rest of the library. Ankhas contained surely contained all the information Elijah would need. The problem was finding it.

The library’s organization was at best hopelessly eclectic, as though several different systems had been devised but only partially implemented over the years. Furthermore, he did not even fully know what he needed to find, and asking for assistance from the library’s staff did not appeal to him. How could he explain his research without it sounding… wrong?

Elijah was unique in that he experienced incredibly lucid dreams, but sometimes they were not his own. For reasons beyond his comprehension, he possessed the innate ability to enter others’ dreams, entering their unconscious minds and experiencing their infinitely varied dreamscapes almost as though they were real. Worst of all, he could not control it, which resulted in many perilous metaphysical journeys, delving unwillingly into truly unwelcoming or deranged minds. Elijah Belov, one of the mightiest, though most unknown, sorcerers in the known world came to the Ankhas today to put an end to the one thing he hated most: powerlessness.

Wandering more aimlessly than a walking corpse though the maze of shelves and corridors, he felt as powerless as ever. Hours passed.

“‘Exploring a Stranger’s Dreams’, by Professor Marcus Salinger of Radasanth,” he said, plucking yet another old leather-bound book from a shelf. He paged through it, still muttering to himself. “He sounds reputable enough. More than that Spook M. Littleton fellow who wrote ‘The Virgin Mind’.” He shook his head and opened up the first remotely promising prospect in hours.

He scanned the Table of Contents, skipped over the Forward, Prelude, Author’s Notes, Author’s Introduction, Acknowledgments, and Prologue, and finally began to read Chapter One, ‘Commanding Dreams’, on page 187.


“Before you can begin traveling beyond your own subconscious mindscapes, you must first master the secrets of lucid dreaming, so to better command your own dreams. A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. When the dreamer is lucid, he or she can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment.”

“Good so far, but I already know this.” He skimmed over the next few chapters, looking for something more useful, or at least interesting. He partially succeeded.


“The goal is to stand at the edge of the other person’s mind, so you can peer through the window into her dream whilst remaining undetected. There, you can spy her hidden secrets. Use your dream spyglass to stalk her secret thoughts and desires. Keep a parchment and quill at your bedside to conveniently record everything when you wake. You can use these secrets to further your link to the target’s subconscious, allowing you more and more access and control, until you can actually shape her nocturnal fantasies.”

“Wait, what?” Elijah shut the book and scanned the cover warily. In faded silver letters beneath the title, he found the subtext ‘A Guide to Dream Voyeurism and Seduction.’ He grimaced. “And Professor Salinger sounded so… respectable.” He would have laughed were he not so tired and frustrated. For the first time in several trying years, he had the opportunity to just sit down and study, enjoying access to the world’s greatest library, but progress eluded him. He hated to admit it, but he was in over his head.

[Ataraxis]

Lillian gasped awake at the sound of thumping books, head peeking above a surrounding bulwark of encyclopedias and almanacs much like a groundhog from its winter burrow. She squinted at the sight of a clumsy scholar standing two tables over in the study alcove, but let it go when he bowed in apology to his neighbors and restacked his haul in smaller, more manageable piles. Grumpily, she rubbed her cheek, feeling on it the snaky print of the table’s coarse grain as well as thin, drying line of drool. The girl wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist in a surge of self-consciousness, tackling next the lukewarm pool on the rosewood with a flap of the wool blanket that was resting on her shoulders.

It was some time before she cleared her mind of its waking fog, and only then did she stop to wonder where the cloth had come from. The teenager looked around the marble alcove sheepishly, until she caught the frail wave of a hand from the deep end of the study area. It was Felix Creighton, an old man with a felt beret and a beard of salt and pepper; he seemed so fragile even as he smiled, doing his best to hide what a struggle it was to keep his arm aloft. She waved back, mouthing an honest ‘thank you’ as she wrapped the blanket tightly around her small frame. He nodded along cheerfully, happy to have been of help, before eventually returning to his papers.

Despite being a world-renowned astronomer, on a trip to witness the passing of a millennial comet that could only be seen from Alerar, he acted no different than a doting grandfather to the girl. He had initially been fascinated by her grasp of astrophysics, ever since their light discussion on the shortcomings of using Cepheid variables as standard candles for the measurement of distances beyond the solar system, due to the effect of their metal content on apparent luminosity. That being said, Lillian knew the main reason he had become so fond of her was because she reminded him so much of his grand-daughter Aniece, whom he had left in Radasanth to pursue his work here in Ettermire. When their many conversations eventually moved from the stars and down to earth, he began speaking of her, of how much he missed her, and how often he thought of leaving everything behind just to see her again.

Lillian understood his sorrow, all too well. Just as she reminded him of someone he cared for, so had he reminded her of her mentor. He was an old librarian who had set up shop in the Outlander’s Quarters of Fallien, and he had taken her in when she was eight, just another homeless waif among the hundreds of orphans that wandered the dusty streets. He had cared for her when no one else could, and he had nurtured her love of books for the eight years that followed. Being here in Ankhas always made her think of him and his cozy little bookstore... and it always made her worry. She wanted to know if he were eating well, if he kept himself in shape despite his advanced age. It broke her heart that she would never know; after all, exiles like her were not allowed mailing privileges in Fallien.

Felix and his grand-daughter, however, were not deprived of this human connection. They wrote to one another every week, and he would read her letters to Lillian whenever they met in Ankhas. She did not mind: the girl thoroughly enjoyed hearing of Aniece’s day to day life… of the new friends she made, of her parents’ antics at the farmers’ market, and of that boy who would shyly beam at her in class and comment on the scribbles in her notebook. ‘So this is how normal sixteen-year-old girls live’, she would often think to herself, not without a wistful smile. Lillian hated to admit it, but she could not help but feel a smidgeon of jealousy.

‘But enough of that,’ she chided herself, trawling her sinking heart from the seas of brooding. Lillian hated feeling sorry for herself, wishing in vain for a life she had long ago forsaken. Quietly, she inched her chair backward and drew to her feet, stretching out and shaking off the numbness from her knotted limbs. A deep breath brought the familiar scent of leather bindings to her lungs, and she exhaled all her worries with it. Much like Felix, she had work of her own to attend to, and her little nap had already put her far behind schedule. Rather than folding the blanket, however, she chose to wear it as a shawl – today was an unusually chilly day for Ettermire.

In her amble through a vast marbled aisle, she stared in wonder at rows upon rows of knowledge-laden shelves, witnessing the black, burgundy and sunburnt spines glow under a nigh-ethereal light – something only true scholars could distinguish when roving through the wondrous corridors of Ankhas. This was where the magic of book-keeping truly shone, for here were displayed ancient tomes fraught with most of the world's arcane lore, worthy of a more-than-regal exposition to the public's awe, to nobles and paupers alike whence the four corners of the realm. Angling her gaze to the lofty heights of these varnished bookcases, Lillian could barely see the summit where ended the wood and black marble began, and this was only one walkway amongst many, many others. She had come so many times over the last few months, but the library’s sheer scale and the endless wonders it harbored never ceased to amaze her.

Her promenade through the spoke-like corridors of Ankhas eventually brought her to a section where the bookshelves were labeled with the class number ‘130’. According to this decimal system, which was only one of the various other systems that somehow coexisted in the Library of Ettermire, this division housed all books on paranormal phenomena, excluding the exoteric disciplines of and formalist approaches to magic. In layman’s terms, this was where all widely-discredited theories usually came to die. If something were disproven, or by its very nature could not be tested, then it was likely to be found here: ghosts and apparitions, unidentified sightings of flying objects or mysterious animals, seemingly formulaic dream analyses, physiognomy, phrenology, even tantric sex rites.

“Not going anywhere near that,” she whispered with a tone of mortification, edging away from a whole shelf laden with the latter. It was a while later before she noticed someone else had been browsing the esoteric in sub-section ‘135’. It was a man in his early twenties, sporting a clean-shaven look save for the early afternoon shadow. He wore a simple but well-tailored attire that consisted of black slacks and a loose grey shirt, a style of casual wear that was gaining popularity in Ettermire. He had been leafing through one of the books there, but shut it soon afterwards, muttering to himself in tired frustration.

“135... Dreams and Mysteries,” she spoke out loud without realizing. The man turned a piercing set of umber eyes toward her, and she suddenly felt very exposed. Hoping to salvage this impromptu ice-breaker, she assimilated as much as she could from his mannerism, his carriage and his facial expressions while extrapolating from the context of his presence here – a process that took at most a fraction of a second.

“You… seem lost,” were the only three words she had managed to utter, unfortunately enough, from the literal thousands that still jumbled inside her mind.

“Yeah,” she heard him answer back, much to her surprise. He did seem to have considered whether or not her statement had been worthy of a reply, but if anything, she was glad he had not outright snubbed her for it. “Although, I think everyone looks lost in here.”

“Ha, I guess that’s true.” She chuckled nervously, until she mustered up the strength to say what she had initially meant to convey. “I don’t want you to think I’m being nosy, but I know my way around the… intricacies of this place. Maybe I could help you with…” she leaned sideways to take a peek at his book’s title, only to be struck with a severe case of the heebee jeebees.

‘A Guide to Dream Voyeurism and Seduction’?

“Oh.” She blinked. Twice. “Doing some… light reading before turning in for the night?”

The man gave her a sideways squint, knitting his brows in momentary confusion. “What? I don’t… oh!” At once, he followed her gaze to the incriminating subtext. Realizing the awkwardness, he did his best to mask his grimace with a wan, uneasy smile. “Wow, well. This is not at all like the last time I needed to say this isn’t what it looks like.”

“And that last time, if you don’t mind me asking… was it exactly what it looked like?” Lillian held her arms crossed in doubt, a light hook in her brow as she waited to hear his answer. Still, from what little she had garnered of the man, he did not seem to be the voyeuristic type. That, however, did not make him look any less suspicious.

“No, well… yes, in a sense,” he corrected himself, rolling his eyes up in consideration. “It was a lot blood, I admit, but it wasn’t human or anything.”

“Ah,” Lillian drawled in a sarcastic tone, tilting her head to the side. It was obvious by now that he was trying to diffuse the misunderstanding by making it worse on purpose, and humorously so. With a mischievous grin, she went along with it. “Because that makes it better.”

“Well it probably wasn’t murder,” he added, scratching his chin in deep thought. A moment later, however, he shrugged dismissively; apparently, a moral review of his actions was not worth his time. “Anyway, about this book… I missed that part of the title, until I reached a paragraph about ‘dream spyscopes’. That’s more or less when realized I’d chosen poorly.”

After nodding along his explanation, Lillian chuckled. She took a step closer, pinching the book with her thumb and index before relieving him of the questionable material. “Let’s just put this back, then,” she said as she slid it back onto the dusty shelf, right between another pair of shady tomes. “These books are here for a reason– nobody is supposed to take them seriously. All of this section is basically dedicated to discarded theories.”

The stranger sighed wearily, rubbing his forehead in frustration. “This research is much harder than I thought. There must be nine different, often conflicting systems of organization in this place.”

Lillian smiled as she passed a finger over the numbered brass plate affixed to the shelf, a gleam of sympathy in her eyes. “Twelve, actually.”

He groaned at that. “How do people find anything in here?”

“Exploration and asking questions,” she answered simply, her tone apologetic in anticipation of his dismay. “Much like in any other strange and foreign land, really.”

“I’ve got the exploring part down, sort of, but not so much the asking questions.” The man seemed to hesitate then, and that had piqued her curiosity. She looked back to him, her eyes inquiring. “My purposes here would sound very… peculiar, at best.”

“I figured as much,” Lillian said in a tone of understanding. She turned to the western end of the large marble corridor where they stood, pointing to dark archway that led to a set of descending stairs. “What you’re looking for is likely in the underground vaults: that’s where they keep the original texts that deal with magic and/or the preternatural. That is, the ones that matter and that are worth reading, mind you.”

Lillian had noticed him stare glumly at the distant entrance to the vaults, as if in apprehension of the daunting task that awaited him there. She lightly tapped him on the shoulder, drawing his gaze of futility back to her with a comforting smile. “I can help, if you’re okay with it. Although, I could probably assist you better if I knew a bit more about your research.” Though relieved to hear the offer, the man seemed rather hesitant to take her up on it. Lillian frowned.

“What? I swear, I won’t judge.”

[Christoph]

“I suppose you’re trustworthy enough as far as perfect strangers go,” said Elijah to his new acquaintance, who had introduced herself Lillian while they walked. The two navigated through rows of shelves and down the hallways leading to the underground archive vaults. In truth, Lillian did most of the navigating, while Elijah tried his best to keep up. “But how to put this…” He walked a little closer and lowered his voice. “I… sometimes wander when I dream, and end up appearing in someone else’s.”

The girl reached the entryway to the main archives and stopped, turning to face him. She wasn’t quite a girl, the sorcerer realized as he met her appraising gaze. He saw the eyes of a young woman, not a child, and he felt a fleeting sense of something more about her, something beyond a young library scholar. She said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I don’t know the cause. I dream others’ dreams. More than that, really. I enter the products of their subconscious.” He sighed wearily. “Could you imagine practically living someone else’s nightmares? It’s been happening for quite a while, now. Years, and I could never control it. I traveled a great distance just to come here, to find some answers.” He gave a subtle grimace. It sounded even crazier when spoken aloud. "That's about it."

“That does sound rather troublesome,” she replied at last. She sounded concerned, but also genuinely curious. True to her word, she did not judge.

That caught Eli off guard. “You actually believe me?”

“The phenomenon has actually been documented in the past,” she explained. She seemed lively, in her element when describing obscure occult sciences. “It even has its own field of study called ‘Arcane Oneironautics’. Although, I’ve never met anyone who could do it.”

“Wow. That makes it sound much more glamorous than it really is,” said Elijah.

“You’re probably right. All in all, though, it sounds as if you’d need a formulaic reintroduction to the practice itself.” She led him into the vaults. Small glowing orbs lined the stone walls, casting dim illumination throughout the vast network of vaults. The air was dry and smelled of musty parchment and old leather. “It sounds like the ability is innate to you, so it’s only logical that you’re not aware of the crucial basics. That should be easy to remedy; there are a few respectable works on the subject designed to help people like you.”

He stopped. “Wait, how do you know all this?”

The question seemed to make her a little uncomfortable. “Oh, I… I read. A lot.”

“So it seems.” Elijah smiled softly. “Thank you for taking me seriously.”

“I’ve seen stranger things,” she stated humorlessly, and left it at that.

They entered what passed for an underground lobby, where Lillian greeted the Dark Elf woman at the desk by name and returned with a key and a pair of glowing crystals. Elijah nodded at the wary librarian as they passed under a sign displaying a stern, threatening warning against open flames and continued down the winding corridors.

“Normally, you would need to be assigned a reference librarian to assist and watch you." She handed him one of the crystals. “Which could take as long as two hours, depending on how busy they are. Fortunately, she knows me and trusts that I can keep an eye on you. So please, don’t break anything.”

They stopped at one of countless identical doors, and Lillian led him into a dry, dark, and dusty vault crammed with shelves full of tomes, memoirs, and carefully boxed scrolls. She vanished into the gloom with her light and returned shortly with a tattered book.

“This should get you started,” she said, carefully handing it over. She directed him to the table in the corner. “It’s Kasper Tomczyk’s ‘The Laws of Dream Walkers’, and deals with the subject in a simple but highly didactic manner. I’ll also fetch ‘The Nuances of Oneirism and Oneironautics’ by Lamar Solomon. It offers a much more focused view on the details and advanced mechanics of the whole practice... which is precisely what you'll need once you get the basics down, right?”

Bemused, Elijah stared at her receding light as she disappeared into the shelves again. She possessed a level of familiarity with the subject that clearly went beyond random, casual reading. He wondered why, but then decided to turn his curiosity toward his research. If he tried to analyze every strange person he met, he would never have time for anything else. With a shrug, he opened ‘The Laws of Dream Walkers’ and flipped through the first few pages, pleased to find only a Forward this time.

“The great storytellers write of dreams that are omens and prophecies, portent warnings of things to come. To many scholars of psychology, they are slashes of the sleeper’s inner desires and desperate nocturnal wish-fulfillment. For holy men, dreams are often seen as messages from the gods. Those few who fully experience dreams know that they are far more complex and magnificent, but even these lucid dreamers only see part of the picture, limited as they are to seeing their own dreams from the inside.

Only the rarest of dreamers are capable of fully understanding the nature of dreams. Known as ‘dream-walkers’ by many ancient cultures, these extraordinary individuals can escape their subconscious constructs and wander into the dreams of others. This book is a study of dream-walker phenomena, combining recorded occurrences throughout history with contemporary arcane and metaphysical understanding.”Lillian returned soon with a much larger and less tattered tome and a few old journals. She placed them on the table and settled in across from him, producing some quills and parchment, and began scanning pages and jotting notes. Elijah continued pursuing his book, and they worked quietly for a time.

“This book doesn’t make use of the term ‘Oneironautics’,” said Eli, looking up from his reading to rest his eyes. “But it’s also rather old, so Tomczyk must have written it before more contemporary scholars coined the term.”

She nodded. “That’s right. He died about four hundred years ago, but his was the first reputable study on the subject.” She tapped the massive book she had returned with. “Lamar Solomon came two centuries later, after the Radasanth Guild of Metapsychology approved Oneironautics as a legitimate field of study.”

“And then other scholarly guilds followed their lead, lending a surprising degree of standardization for such an obscure subject.”

“Exactly.” She leaned over the table to catch a glimpse of Eli’s current page. “It’s an old book, but still very good.”
“Contrary to what the layman might initially believe, even though it answers not to the physical laws that bind us bodily, the realm of our dreams is certainly not one of chaos. Dreams are not without laws, and those with the power to wander these subconscious landscapes would do well to remember this. In dreams, imagination becomes matter, knowledge becomes structure, and willpower becomes force. Only by the honing of this trifecta can Dream Walkers hope to influence the realms that they visit and to defend the integrity of their own minds against the two dangers that come with their metaphysical craft. These hazards will be henceforth known as the miasma and the eidolons, and are discussed in Chapter VII, Dreaming Perils.”He hummed curiously and skipped ahead to chapter seven. “The chapter on dreaming perils sounds interesting,” he mused aloud. “Let’s see… ‘Eidolons are direct manifestations of the symbols in a host dreamer’s psyche, made into physical and sometimes sentient features of his subconscious environments. They come in two categories, hazardous and benign, but are universally defined as any parts of a dream aside from the host’s core consciousness that directly interacts with the dream-walker on their own accord.’ Huh. So that's what they call them. I guess even ancient academic scholars needed silly official names for everything.”

“Eh, better than ‘Ego-Conscious Oneiric Apparitions’,” said Lillian without glancing up from Lamar Solomon’s book.

“Eash, that is very true. Regardless, I wish I had access to this knowledge years ago.” He turned the page and continued reading. “‘Miasma is far more subtle. It is the very essence of the dream, derived from the host dreamer’s core character and personality. Unlike Eidolons, which are actual mental constructions able to present direct dangers to the dream-walker’s astral form, Miasma, the host dreamer’s essence, can infiltrate the intruder’s mind, and sometimes influence the conscious self of the weak-willed or careless. Normally, this metaphysical osmosis is too slow and slight to affect a dream-walker.

“‘Sometimes, however, a strong malignant personality…’” He paused nervously and leaned closer to the page. “…can pass the taint of his psychosis onto the dream-walker, notably impacting his personality.” He took a shallow break and stared unblinking at the passage. “‘In these instances, a walker must rely on both strong will and constant vigilance, as well as a strong sense of identity.’” His voice had dropped to a faint whisper as he thought of the many horrific dreams he had entered. He shuddered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lillian, glancing up from her reading, concerned.

What could he say? That he might have to reanalyze every decision he’d made in the past five years. Should he describe the fields of bone and glass, the air that churned with malignant hate? How much had he been influenced over the years? Part of him wanted to tell her that; it might have eased this sudden existential dread.

Instead, he suppressed it all, shook his head casually, and lied, “Nothing. It’s just… interesting.” She raised an eyebrow, but did not press the issue. He was grateful for that. They continued in silence for a while. Eventually, Elijah set aside Tomczyk’s book to peruse one of the journals. It had been penned by a Raiaeran anthropologist and wizard on a trip to distant Dheathain two centuries ago.

“This journal’s author uses the terms Oneirism and Oneironautics interchangeably,” he said after reading through the entries that analyzed ancient Draconian tribal seers and mysticism. “What’s the difference, exactly? Is there one?”

As a response, Lillian flipped to a much earlier page in Lamar Solomon’s tome and began to read aloud. “‘Many mistake Oneirists with Oneironauts and vice-versa, but a clear distinction must be made. Oneirism is the arcane study of dreams, whereas oneironautics is the arcane discipline that actually applies techniques derived from the theory and laws governing dreams.

“‘Oneirists either do not or cannot project their astral selves into another’s dreams, but they may observe and manipulate them from the outside with the adequate tools and techniques. Oneironauts, conversely, are the rare experts capable of entering, and thus influencing and being influenced by, dreams and their dreamers. While the focus and applications of their studies mainly differ, they share common roots that allow professionals of both fields to work together toward the same goal: the arcane exploration of the sentient psyche via the most intimate channel discovered to this day.’”

“Helpful.” He mulled over the passage for a moment. “I would be classified as an Oneironaut, ideally. I’ve never spent a lot of time studying dreams from the outside. I’m the one who goes in and gets his metaphysical hands dirty.”

“Hopefully it’s just your hands getting dirty, mister voyeur,” Lillian teased.

Eli groaned. “Can we please just forget about Professor Salinger and his dream spyscopes?” The young scholar smiled and laughed soundlessly. The mischievous spark in her eyes seemed almost out of place. “I guess that’s a ‘no’.”