"Wait! Please wait for us!!"
A pair of voices screamed as they ran along the streets, tripping up every few steps in the darkness. But at last, they stood before Riley.
"Thank you for not leaving yet. Is it possible to come with you three? I promise we won't burden you, we both have combat aspects."
Riley breathed in deeply through his nose, his face furrowed as if deep in thought. It was an act though, he was hoping two more people join his party, and they showed up so he didn't have to go searching. But he would look far better in front of his existing teammates if he took time to consider their safety.
"And what are your names?"
The young man looked at his companion and they both smiled.
"My name is Dari, my first memory is a sword, it should be enough to slay any nightmare creatures of the dormant rank."
"Ah- and my name is Yara. I uhm, I have an axe that I can throw and retrieve."
Riley was both excited and a little concerned. While their memories were indeed not bad, the issue lied directly in their skill.
Did Yara know enough about axe throwing? And was Dari a competent sword fighter?
Riley knew he himself wasn't a competent fighter. Sure, he had done a couple of months in judo, but trying to hip throw a nightmare creature simply spelled death. It was always nice to have fodder, but he felt bad throwing people at his problems.
'Ah well, I could at least teach them the basic katas, and then they'll figure out the rest themselves.'
"Very well, let's go then, before nightfall- actually it's perpetually night here so…forget I said anything."
The small cohort of dreamers wandered down the steps of the city, walking along the edge of the vast ocean of blackened water. Groans of deep creatures filled the air as tense battles caused turbulent ripples to splash against them.
Riley had turned the memory off. Light would only attract nightmare creatures, and the less they had to fight, the better.
Occasionally, along the way, they would light the lantern up, to gauge the distance they had travelled. But as they grew farther from the dark city, even distance lost its use in being kept.
"Maybe we could tell some stories? What were you all doing before being brought here?"
Richard was the first to break the silence. Everyone else had been on edge, Riley included. But at least it had been filling up his dread core steadily.
"Myself and Yara were working for a newspaper agency. We started dating close to two years ago, funnily enough our anniversary is coming up in a month."
Lucy jumped forward and looked at the young couple.
"That's like, so cute! I hope we can escape here soon as possible so you guys can celebrate your anniversary!"
She turned back to Riley and tugged on his shirt.
"We'll do our best right? Right?"
"Haha. Where is this energy coming from, you were terrified when we were in the safe city. Now in this dangerous environment you are chirping like a canary."
Riley could not hold back his laughter, she really did remind him of his little sister. In the best way possible. Not in the way that she used to throw her dirty socks at him just to force him to buy her ice cream.
"I might have a way. Anyway, Lucy, its your turn to share something."
The young girl stopped for a second, thinking about what she could share.
"Oh! Oh! I was studying at school when all of a sudden my classmates starting falling asleep one by one. I think they kept secret about having been infected by the spell. Well I did too…but that's beside the point!"
She furrowed her eyebrows. Her aspect made sense kind of now, at least Riley thought it did.
"Well then, its my turn I guess. Let's see. I don't have anything crazy to say, just a regular office worker, had my first nightmare. Then woke up in the bright castle."
Short and sweet, completely glossing over the fact he was an avid reader of Shadow Slave and knew everything that would happen down the line. Also, the fact he was now the heir of a demon.
"You were an office worker? But you are so handsome Riley! No girlfriend? Well…it would hard to be with someone who mumbles to themselves…"
"I didn't quite catch the last part, mind repeating?"
Lucy shook her head frantically and they all laughed.
"Now its my turn? I haven't gotten up to much in my retirement. But a gate opened up near my nursing home and then I fell asleep."
'I guess after the mass gate spawning in Antarctica, people of any age can be infected now. It sure is strange to find an older dreamer in person.'
But there was something else Riley wanted from this exchange. Information. Reading the Shadow Slave novel had provided him with plenty of lore, but that was all mostly from the perspective of Sunny. And there were many corners of the dream realm he hadn't gone to.
"I am asking this just to satiate my curiosity, but what first nightmares did you guys face? I love learning about different parts of the dream realm's history."
That was yet another truth, muddled in with some not so pure intentions. Every morsel of information would be used to reach higher echelons of power.
"My old bones were struggling to pull a cart along a town selling fruits and vegetables. And then a colossal beast showed up and destroyed everything in sight. And lastly, it absorbed everything around it. Even thinking about it sends shivers down my spine."
'So he had to face a younger version of condemnation? That is interesting, this is shaping up to be invaluable information. Well, not toward battles, but to write a nice paper about.'
Yara was the next to speak up, apparently she seemed excited to share her experience.
"So get this, I woke up on a massive pirate ship. The captain had been sailing across Storm Sea while trying to escape the fury of storm god. It was rather epic, we barely managed to survive because I threw the actual target overboard!"
'Scary, I hope not to get on her bad side…'
Dari chimed in next, happily recounting the memories he had of the nightmare.
"I woke up in a deep forest, a lush jungle of sorts with amazing buildings, but the sunlight couldn't quite reach down. There was a huntress that was killing our people, eventually even finding me. I only survived because of one of the guards though."
He didn't seem particularly mad about it. Being alive and bitter was better than being dead.
"Finally, it's my turn! I was in a military camp, as a maiden of war. Oh gosh so many people died by my hands, it was absolutely thrilling!!"
Riley was growing to fear his teammates already. Running from a god, facing condemnation, and surviving the lush jungles of godgrave. And the scariest of all was the little girl named Lucy.
'Maybe she has a lot more in common with my actual sister than I thought…'