Thane's brain child, Dreamscape, was born when he was just a master. His mastery over illusions allowed for him to recreate a reflection of the world and its rules. Combined with the Dreamscape pods, it was essentially virtual reality with the added abilities of Aspects.
His brain child garnered him fame and an endless fountain of wealth. However, even as a mere awakened, he couldn't care less about the money and adoration. He just wanted to set a legacy of helping people train for the dangers of the Spell, that was the original goal of his Dreamscape after all.
As a Saint, his mastery over illusions grew, and his Dreamscape was able to be integrated even without the pods. Thank goodness for that, as the waking world was set to be devoured by the Dream Realm. Staying in the waking world as a mundane, or even an awakened was a death trap. Traditional technology would not work in the Dream Realm so alternatives must be pursued.
So when Lady Changing Star requested his services, he was obliged to help. To recreate his baby once again. The new Dream Tournament, or the Dreamscape Open as she called it, would be a recruiting project for her new personal army. It would be a wonderful event to keep everyone entertained and to scout new talent stemming from the Chain of Nightmares and the migration of humanity to the Dream Realm.
This would now lead to the fateful meeting between Thane and a certain man. He was a short young man with flawless porcelain skin. His hair was raven black, two onyx gemstones in place of his eyes. His posture exuded confidence, yet his eyes hinted at mischievousness. As he talked, the shadows surrounding him seemed to dance in rejoice.
"There's going to be portals at the major human populations. Bastion, Ravenheart, the Night Garden. There will be a couple portals at the smaller gatherings as well. I'll have some of my people prepare the locations. And I'm going to need to borrow a private section of your Dreamscape for some quick experiments. Nothing crazy, just messing around with divine memories from daemons and whatnot. You following me?" Sunny fired off many details as Thane just nodded.
"Yep, portals, Night Garden, daemons, got it."
"Perfect. Also, just out of curiosity, will there be the same anonymity like the previous Dreamscape?" The man named Sunless had a strange look of anticipation on his face as he inquired.
"Most likely. You can show your face and identity if you'd like, but there is a toggle for keeping yourself hidden. Only I would be able to check for identities, but I wouldn't have a reason to really check."
"I see…"
"Also, because of high demand, broadcasting the DSO will be a necessity. Everyone really loved talking and typing about it at previous events. I have a third party setting up that infrastructure right now."
"Oh?" Sunless had a look of surprise, "In the Dream Realm?"
"Oh yes, Chief Bethany is hard at work integrating cross realm technology, and broadcasting and broadcast forums and chat logs are being developed as we speak. I imagine the population will be very surprised." Thane replied
"How… wonderful. Well, I should get going. Nephis is waiting on me to finish the portals. Goodbye Saint Thane." The man bowed, then melted into the shadows and disappeared.
"Huh. He's eccentric, a bit like me. Maybe we all are." And that was how Saint Thane's first meeting with Sunless went.
Thane would end up naming the live broadcasting site as a reference to an old live-streaming website before the Dark Times. He had read about its downfall due to human greed and scantily clad women dominating the front page.
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A few days later…
Sunny made his way back to his cottage, the Marvelous Mimic, where Rain had made herself at home. He had the Mimic create another room for her whenever she would stop by. She would either stay at her adopted parent's home in Ravenheart or stay in the stocked cottage.
He grabbed Rain to her surprise. "What the-?! Oh it's you. Damnation you scared the shit out of me!"
"Sorry, forgot you aren't used to that yet. You ready to do some testing? We only have a day to do this."
"Okay okay, just give me a minute. Also, why can't we stretch out the testing over a couple days? Doesn't that give us more time to try stuff out? What's the rush for?" Rain asked.
"Uh, things happened to come up, and Saint Thane is a busy man. Can't keep him tied up to us now can we?" Sunny hurriedly replied.
"Okay…?" Rain was a little skeptical of Sunny's slightly rushed answer and slight nervous edge. Her eyebrows rose by a tad as turned away to get ready for departure.
Eventually, the pair were shadow stepped away to an open square in Bastion. For some reason, there was no one around, only the two of them.
Rain asked, "Why are there no people around? We're in the middle of Bastion."
Sunny replied, "Nephis had called a gathering at the Bastion castle to announce Effie's official reign of the Citadel. The people love Effie as a government Saint, they'll obviously all come to commemorate her."
"I see. I remember Saint Athena from a while ago. I got to know her when she was an awakened!" Rain excitedly exclaimed.
"She was a glutton back then yeah?"
Rain nodded.
Soon, in the center of the open square, Sunny placed a circular white coin on the ground. He infused his essence into the coin and said, "Step back, Rain."
She obliged as Sunny also took a couple steps back. The coin expanded outwards into a large, curved saucer with a radius of 10 meters. Inside, a pool of purple mist covered the bottom.
"Once you step in, you will be sent to the Dreamscape realm. When you leave the realm, you will be sent back to wherever you've been before."
Rain nodded. Sunny pulled out from thin air a wide set of white stairs and placed it right before the saucer. It was then when the pair climbed up the small set of stairs, and stepped in.