"The Realms were built atop law, broken by song, and reborn in silence. But the Dream is older still."—An inscription found etched in the teeth of a sleeping colossus beneath the Graven Shore
Location: The Hollow Realms (Unwritten Sector, 8th Fold)
It started with a breath.
Not Lucien's.
The world itself.
He felt it as he stepped across the fractured ridges of the Dream-Tear—an enormous rift cut across the continent's deepest leyline. The sky overhead churned in colorless swirls. Physics twisted at the edges of vision.
And in the distance: the Sleeping City—half-formed towers, roads that ended mid-thought, windows gazing into past lives.
Lucien knew what it was.
A gateway into the Original Dream.
Where nothing had ever been written.Where everything could be imagined.
And it had begun to wake.
Days earlier…
Reports reached the Vaelthorn Encampment. Villages fading overnight—not destroyed, simply erased, as if they'd never existed.
Memories rewrote themselves.
Maps redrew. Names of towns were replaced with blank space.
Those who resisted it?
They were pulled into a trance—dreaming realities so complete, they forgot they were ever awake.
Lucien called them "Dreamwalkers."
Except now… they weren't staying asleep.
They were returning.
Changed.
Present.
Lucien stood at the edge of the first Dream-Field, accompanied by Sovael and Lyrenna.
The wind blew backward.
Time hiccupped.
Then they saw it.
A figure, floating just above the surface. Skin pale with luminous veins. No eyes. No voice. Only a smile filled with unknown memories.
It landed softly.
Then spoke.
"Lucien Vaelthorn," it whispered."We dreamed of you before you were born."
Lucien's grip tightened on the hilt of Veyrion, though he didn't draw it.
"You were a villager in Eldreth once," he said."Your name was Saela."
"I have no name now," she replied."Names are for those who remain within the Script."
"You're not Saela anymore?"
"I am many Saelas. And none."
Sovael whispered, "They're merging."
"Merging with what?"
"The Dream," Lyrenna answered quietly. "And the Dream is merging back."
Lucien stepped forward, slowly.
"Why come back?" he asked. "Why return to the Realms?"
Saela smiled wider.
"Because the Realms are dreaming now, too.And some dreams… dream back."
Suddenly, hundreds of voices echoed through the valley. Dreamwalkers emerged—dozens, hundreds—each warped subtly, like sketches redrawn over and over.
Some wept.
Some floated.
Some cracked as they walked.
"We seek the Dreamheart," they chanted."We seek the First One who dreamed us all."
That night.
Lucien lit no fire.
He stared into the horizon, where the Dreamwalkers had settled into a temporary camp—yet made no sound, no movement. Just watching.
They weren't hostile.
They weren't truly alive, either.
Sovael joined him.
"I've seen echoes, revenants, gods—but never this."
"What do we do?" Lucien asked.
"Not sure. But we'll need to enter soon."
"The Dream?"
"No," Sovael said. "The Dreamer."
The next day, in the depths of the Dream-Tear.
Lucien, Lyrenna, and Sovael descended.
As they stepped across memory-sand and floating text-fragments, their thoughts began to bleed out into the world.
Lucien's regrets hovered beside him like wounded birds.
Lyrenna's past lives whispered through the stones.
Sovael's flames flickered with voices of the Choir he once burned.
Then the landscape solidified.
They had entered a mind.
One larger than any individual. A collective imagination, alive.
And it had a center.
A core.
The Dreamheart.
At its center stood a throne, but not like the one of swords beneath the Cathedral.
This was a throne made of concepts:
Time before cause
Emotion without memory
Kingdoms that had never been imagined yet mourned
Seated on it was a figure wrapped in twilight threads, a body constantly shifting form.
The First Dreamer.
Lucien stepped forward.
"Did you create this world?" he asked.
The Dreamer opened a thousand eyes.
"No," it said."I merely imagined it before it knew how to be real."
"Then why now?" Lucien asked."Why wake?"
"Because the Manuscript is gone.The Choir is silenced.The chaos has passed.And now, in the silence, stories return to me."
It leaned forward.
"Including yours."
Suddenly, Lucien's mind filled with every possible version of himself.
A tyrant emperor.
A peasant poet.
A god slayer.
A child who never picked up a blade.
"You have walked far," the Dreamer said."But your final path lies within."
Lucien looked around.
"Why show me this?"
"Because even dreams must choose."
"Choose what?"
"Who will guide the Realms now that they are unbound."
And with a wave of its hand, the Dreamer revealed a new tear—
A Dreamgate.
Through it, a realm untouched by all previous wars. A realm where stories had never been spoken.
"A new Realmspring," it said."Will you shape it?"
Lucien stared.
"You're offering me godhood."
The Dreamer smiled sadly.
"No. I'm offering you authorship."