JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

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Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

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You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

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There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

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I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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[sacral]

[ Beneath the veil Sleep shackles him to this dream with, Subaru's skin runs somewhat hot, flushing with the innate knowledge of what someone's killing intent feels like. His tablemate cannot be blamed; all around them, people are pulled from their plates and chalices, prone to obeying the spiritual and temporal strings that some unseen master holds. And the quickest way out would be to sever them, of course, even when they tangle, when they all lead to one another.

Subaru is used to Dreamseers, to "fate". He knows that it could very well be by design. ]

I don't know. [ The honesty of his statement is the bone of the situation. Next, the marrow: ] The barrier was mine, once. But I no longer have the ability to create it.

[ He chances a long look up at the other man's eyes. The tail remains in his peripheral, a signal for already waning patience. ]

It may be a memory.

[obsidien]

[Sidurgu rubs the furrow between his brows, down to the patch of scales on the bridge of his nose, a signal of an impending headache more than of a fraying temper.]

Then gain control of it. No longer having the ability... what bloody bollocks that is. [Because how can you just lose an ability unless you choose to forget! It goes against all logic of any sort of magic, which already has tenuous logic in itself. He should know, he's a mentor in a discipline.

Then he takes a deep breath-- he reminds himself he's not a boy anymore, he's a damned mentor. He needs to have a level head about this.]

What do you even need for it to happen?

[sacral]

[ Such is the fate of Sumeragi Subaru, his natural talents being a thorn in many a lion's paw. He doesn't shy from the man's displeasure despite the scent of raw steel and magic on him, shadowy with his growing distaste. Even beyond the waking world's reach, his signature pulses strong in Subaru's awareness.

Stowing the possibility of a threat by simply believing there is none, Subaru finally stands from his chair, posture unyielding despite his diminutive height. ]

...to establish a kekkai, the user needs to have something they wish to protect.

[ He hovers on the precipice of his explanation, but decides not to let it go unspoken. ]

I lost mine. So, I also lost the ability to create one.

[obsidien]

[The desire to protect someone? Sidurgu feels a chill run down his spine-- why does that sound so familiar?

... Oh. He remembers why. He's in a similar rut with his own magicks and motivations, and every time he's reminded of it, he wants to crawl out of his skin and scales. He puts both of his hands on his face and begins rubbing his temples, tail flailing with renewed vigour.]of bloody course. Nothing is ever so simple in any bloody life. So thanks to you, we're stuck here forever.

[sacral]

No, not forever. [ His answer walks the line between comfort and confidence, his natural attunement towards both interwoven in the explanation he offers. It is... pragmatic, all things considered. ] This barrier is in tune with the fabric of nature. Even if this is just my memory of it, it should react similarly.

[ Of course, what he thinks will happen and what's he's actually capable of aren't guaranteed outcomes. He rounds the other man's chair, minding the lashing of his impressive tail. ]

Even though this isn't my dream to change.

[obsidien]

[Layers upon layers of complications. Once again, Sidurgu has to rub his temples.]

Perhaps I should now say: I do not need to know how this works, how you would do it if it were outside of the confines of this dream. We do not need discussion of theories, but them put into action.

You may have lost your motivations for anything, but I have not.

[sacral]

I disagree. [ Subaru intones smooth and soft, lifting a hand. His fingers compose themselves into the delicate weave of a mudra, ink and energy, Sleep and Sumeragi running riot in the magic conduit of his veins. A whisper follows the line his fingertips draw as they turn to the table. ] Theory is the basis of truth.

[ What follows is the silence of an inhalation before the collapse of a star. The infinite table groans, wood bursting, and then upends itself in a violent heave as if bludgeoned with an invisible axe. Its tablecloth cracks in the air, felling candles and shattering plates. All manner of mess follows: liquors thrown, cream, berry, and meat smeared viscera-colored across the wound he's made of this homecoming banquet.

He considers the consequences of this hybrid magic in the twinkling of glass and thin tendrils of extinguished candle smoke. ]

[obsidien]

[Really? Really?]

I would love nothing more than to wring your scrawny little neck. [Would killing him be more efficient than talking and waiting for an idiot to start working? Perhaps. But Sidurgu still keeps to the tenets of the dark knight, and doesn't kill without reason.

No matter how much he would like to make his temper his reason.

He leans over the man, just so they can see eye to eye. He's not that impressed by the show of power, when he's looking for something a little... more.]

I reconsidered it, but I'm losing patience and I may think about it again. Theory is not theory without results, and I have doubts that a man without motivation can produce them.

[sacral]

[ It's an impressive lean that Subaru doesn't flinch from, the fog and raw emerald of his gaze steady. A sensitivity of spirit is what makes his delicate capillaries flush in moonlit warning colors — this man's silver and brimstone promising the teeth of his temper. He's quiet in the midst of the settling wreckage, the twinkle of crushed glass and the drip, dripping cordial, bruising the tablecloth bloody. His neutrality is ill-suited to him, but he maintains it.

For his heart, if nothing else. ]

Then you might think of it as self-satisfaction.

[ A tragedy, that he has leaned to love in the way of his enemy. Subaru brings his hands up between them, fragile fingers cupped. Around them, the barrier recedes, its sheer walls pulling inward. In its wake, the table stands as it was: unbroken and infinite, still laden with dark, dreamlike food, drink, and patrons. They carry on, unwise to the mended moment in time that just transpired.

It is his kekkai. It hovers in his hand now, a microcosm no bigger than the pit of a fruit. ]

You had it right. Killing me would've dissolved it.

[ So why? ]

[obsidien]

[So why? Sidurgu can hear the unspoken question-- it's just that obvious, so even someone as obtuse as himself can pick up on it.

He straightens up, back to his full height, and crosses his arms over his chest. Now that the scene has disappeared and they've returned to the shared dream, he no longer has a reason to hold onto his rage.]

I have been stating my reasons this entire time-- I have motivations, and none of them are about killing those who are undeserving. I am a knight, and I take my creed seriously.

[sacral]

[ Considering the slow seep of his fury back into the pool from which it was so quickly tapped, Subaru extinguishes the tiny star in his hands in a silent inhalation of magic. Maybe it stands to reason that it would be restored, though it brings him more questions than comfort. Another time, perhaps.

He inclines his head slightly, a passing gesture that marks his return to his seat. The bitten fruit in front of him, however, gets picked up and pointedly moved from his table placement. Even he's not eager for a repeat offense. ]

Then it seems I owe your creed a "thank you".

[obsidien]

What is the point of that? [He gives a big, exaggerated shrug-- he knows what the man means, and he knows that this is exactly how he would like to respond to it. Sidurgu chooses to simmer down now that the immediate threat is over.]

The vows one makes are just that-- vows. They are not living entities that give a god's damn about you or myself. They are merely personal codes of ethics.

It's better to just express gratitude to me, who follows them so strictly.

[sacral]

Thank you, for choosing not to end my life. [ The words come easily when bidden for, a likewise well-tap from some deeper reservoir of feeling that comes more naturally to him than standoffishness does. Besides, he's clearly no physical match without his ancestral magic. ] Because this is the work of some other dreamer...

[ He traces his fingertips, still coated with the fruit's stardust silver, on a napkin. ] I can't say what'd happen upon waking.

[obsidien]

It's not just some random dreamer. [Then Sidurgu tilts his head, towards the unmoving forms on the pedestals, ever silent and yet somehow they seem as if they're constantly watching, waiting.

Judging, even.

He crosses his arms, just so he doesn't reach out for any of the offerings on the table, in case he becomes possessed by something like temporary insanity.]

Do not ask me to tell you which one of them exactly is the one to watch out for, I haven't the faintest.

[sacral]

[ Subaru follows the man's indication towards the pedestals that circle the hall in somber vigil, the opalescent hum of their gazes stifling. They don't seem alive, but neither do they seem entirely dormant, entirely unseeing. Quietly, his gaze cuts to the tallest pedestal, the distinct burgeoning of its presence.

His attention to it seems to make the flowered boughs overhead peer downwards in accusation, petals fluttering in what sounds like an inhalation. He averts his eyes, finally. ]

It's not likely that any we see here are responsible for the welcoming we received. That whispering came from somewhere else.

[obsidien]

[To that, Sidurgu shrugs. For his part, he's clearly not about to bin the possibility that the head of these dreams is physically among those on pedestals, especially when dream logic is barely logical. In his opinion.

Then again, this place hasn't even started to disprove any of his thoughts.]

They wouldn't be there without reason-- I doubt they're mere decorations when they could be accomplishing anything else.

[sacral]

I feel the eyes of one. [ An observer — a watchdog. Do they merit safekeeping? Subaru doesn't know. ] But it's only that. You're probably right about the rest.

[ Quietly, his shoulders square against the back of his seat as he crosses his arms, knuckles a petaled white where they fit into the crooks of his arms. He would consider the length of the table but finds its stretch into dreamy perpetuity unpleasant to look at. So his gaze rises to the other man instead. ]

Are you familiar with Dreamseers?

[obsidien]

[Sidurgu doesn't require much time to think about the question, and he doesn't even think it's shameful to not know. He's always been well aware that the world (or worlds, in this case) is much bigger than what he knows, so of course there's a lot beyond his grasp.]

I've never heard the term, so no. I cannot even begin to imagine what the term means. [Then he gazes down at the man, one pale, thin eyebrow raised-- he's clearly expecting some explanation here.]

[sacral]

[ Not knowing is knowledge in itself; how far do the occupants of this dream diverge from one another? Subaru wonders. ]

They're similar to soothsayers. Their dreams hold prophecies for the waking world. I thought this might be the work of one, even if it's rare to walk another's dream while still alive...

[ His attention turns to the space immediately in front of him, the cloying scent of untouched meat and burnt berry sugar thick in the back of his throat. The food is another puzzle he's also in no hurry to continue to pick apart, even if it might be the simpler of all the mysteries. The star fruit's effect aside. ]

But a Dreamseer's dream is a vision. It can't be changed. I can't speak for you, but my magic isn't the same. If I reached out to touch you, that would also cause a change, however small. I assume you might be experiencing something similar.

[obsidien]

[The scent of blood lingering around Sidurgu becomes heavier-- and not just that. His magicks are rising in him on command, enough that there are wisps of indigo and crimson floating around him. He's giving a little warning...

Don't actually touch him.

He's peaceful, as long as he's not touched and whatever this man implies may happen does not happen. Of course, the best way to assure that is to not touch him.]

I wouldn't know about what you're saying. Dreams a re not an explored form of... study. Scholars barely sleep, after all.

[sacral]

[ He heeds the warning, feeling the curl of it weighted against his insides. His fingertips darken in inky swaths, veins racing with some unknowable language, but the reaction seems entirely latent. ]

An understandable lapse then, given the circumstances. They're not my area of study either, though I have some familiarity with them.