I Walk in Dreams -- An Esoteric Journey Quest

While you take some time to think about it, ultimately, your curiosity gets the best of you -- perhaps unsurprisingly, given that your curiosity is a large part of what motivates your time in this realm to begin with. There are some things you're interested in seeing, and there are some things you're interested in avoiding, and the sirens can help you, if you appeal to them properly, which you think you can.

You switch from looking for paths higher up the land to your right to looking for paths further out on the sea to your left. After a bit more walking, you espy a rocky shoal that looks promising. You walk out as far as it goes, then take off your shoes and walk a bit father. The water is calf-deep, but the waves reach your thighs. It's uncomfortable, but better to be uncomfortable than to be rude. You cup your hands around your mouth and call out: "Sirens of the Silver Sea! I, an aspirant on my Ascent, seek your wisdom!"

Out in the deeper water, the forms you see pause briefly, then as one turn and begin to swim towards you. Your hindbrain registers a severe objection to seeing multiple large fins headed your way and suggests you run the hell away; you thank it for its contribution but inform it that you'll be sticking with the original plan. You don't have long to feel dread, though, because the sirens swim swiftly and soon they are there, right in front of you, upper bodies breaking above the surface of the water. There are four of them, each of them uniquely and impossibly beautiful, like four masterful statues in marble or bronze or basalt. You do your best not to stare; showing weakness here would be unwise.

"And why should we sing truth-songs to you, little dreamer?" one asks. "Why should we not return to our sport, and let you fumble along the Ascent guided only by the nothing-song that haunts your steps?"

"And even if we sing for you," another continues, "why should we not simply sing you a luring-song?" She doesn't state what would happen after that; she doesn't need to.

You swallow, your mouth very dry, and answer. You're no Frank, but you do your best to match their diction. "Fair sirens, my ambitions are great. Though only a wise-dreamer for a few months, I embarked upon my Ascent in the hopes of unraveling the truths underlying the dreaming-realm. All my life I have sought to gain and keep control over my own fate, and knowledge is the best way I know of to accomplish that. So I come to you, for foreknowledge of what lies in my path if I continue as I have been, so that my will might more truly guide my steps." You pause, thinking about how to phrase this next. "Recently, I encountered another dreamer. He was doing something dangerous, for good or for ill reasons I knew not. So I did not act, because without knowledge I couldn't discern whether his will was worth help or hindrance, and so let him be, according to his own will."

"Prettily spoken," a mermaid says. Her tail twitches idly in the water, reminding you uncomfortably of Hana's.

"Entertaining, if nothing else," muses the last. "A knowledge-seeker, and one who reaches high. Tell us, dreamer, what is it you hope for, from our prophecies?"

You'll take the openings you can get. "I am hoping to seek out greater entities of the dream, for I have never met one and I am curious." You figure being straightforwardly honest is probably a good policy, here. "And I hope to avoid distractions of the sort that would take active effort to drive away, for I do not wish to spend the effort."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"What a humble aspirant we have found today."

"Bold, too, to seek out the Great Ones."

"We shall oblige you, fair-speaker." Her smile is unsettlingly toothy. "May you gain much joy of it." Before you have the chance to feel properly apprehensive about that, the sirens tip their heads back and began to sing in unison, and you are transported-

The song is lovely, lovely beyond your imagination, and grows lovelier by the moment, and it is only the fact that you don't feel more of your body enter the water that lets you dimly recognize that this isn't a luring-song, though surely it could be if they wanted-

And through some combination of words and music and magic you feel like you can actually see what it is they prophesy: there is a great dense wood, the song shows you, not far from here, and a path that leads up to it, and within that wood dwells Mother Ancient, who is their mother and your mother and everyone's mother-

(And something inside you hears that and trembles, but you have sought to meet with a greater dreaming-entity and here one is...)

And of what shall come from meeting with Mother Ancient they will not sing, but after a descant the song turns merry and bright, telling you of a clearing in which lurks an Amanuensis, who will find you a dreamer of interest and seek to follow you and not be easily stymied from doing so, but it is the simplest thing in the world to choose a different path and avoid it-

And then the song is over, leaving you gasping and disorientedly falling backwards, landing on your hands and rear in the shallow water. You eye the mermaids in the water around you from your new vantage point, but they seem disinclined to rush in and devour you, so after a moment to collect yourself you rise to your feet with all the dignity you can muster, and then bow deeply. "Thank you for your aid."

They make no response but to laugh, their voices harmonizing like a set of fine knives, and then swim away.

You take a deep breath, turning towards the shore, and begin the slow process of wading back.

---

III THE EMPRESS

This is the forest primeval.

If you did not know what lay within it, you would on no accounts have stepped into it. It is ancient, trackless, and eerily quiet. Even the faint traces of the Tragoudion go silent, and all you can hear is your own breathing and the blood pounding in your ears when you exert yourself. But there does not seem to be any actual danger in it, so you do your best to recollect the images the sirens' song put into your mind and find your way.

And then, suddenly, the trees open up before you, and you are in a clearing, and you behold her, and she speaks to you, for of course she knew you were coming (how could she not be mindful of her children?).

"Oh, poor thing. My poor thing. Do you remember what it is to be little?"

Mother Ancient is huge and primordial: something like a woman, and something like an ape, and something like a kind of animal for which you have no name. She is all long-furred swells of softness. Her vast arms could enfold you like a baby. You can see, from how her enormous hands rest cupped on the soil, that she yearns to do just that, but she stays seated where she is.

She smells of honeysuckle and dew. All around her seat, the creepers grow thick and wild.

"In the beginning, it is all so simple. Desire always takes the same shape. You want to be warm. You want a belly full of sweet milk. You want someone infinitely strong, and infinitely gentle, to hold you and rock you to sleep. What else could you want? What else could there be?

"But the world is cruel, and sometimes warmth or milk or mother isn't there. So you grow, to meet the lack. You develop plans and powers. You learn to explore. And in the learning, and the exploring -- you hook your mind onto strange things. You find new desires.

"It's all vanity. It's all just a way to cope with being cold and hungry and scared and alone. People try so hard, they spend their lives in such strivings, and what difference does it make in the end, which satisfaction-game you decided to play, and whether you won or lost?

"You haven't been a baby in a long time. There is so little I can do for you now, my poor thing. But if you want: I can hold you close, and rock you, and you can let it all drift away for a bit. For a little while, everything will be all right. And in the morning, everything you carried with you will still be there."

There is a large part of you that wants very very much to say yes to this. There is a large part of you that wants to run screaming and crying from this place. You suppress the latter impulse ruthlessly: no matter how badly this strikes at your heart, outright offending one of the mighty spirits of the dream is deeply unwise. But you need not let her mother you. You need not let anyone.

How do you choose to interact with Mother Ancient?

[] Spend 1 Willpower, talking to Mother Ancient about comfort and memory without letting her hold you: Add this card to your Pneuma.
[] Spend 1 Willpower, letting Mother Ancient rock you to sleep: Add this card to your Pneuma. Immediately end the Night without discarding your Auras; they will return to play as Auras at the start of the next Night.

[][ASCENT] Keep exploring.
[][ASCENT] Wake up, ending the Night.

---

Decks and Resources: Character Sheet
Night-specific information: 5/max 6 Explorations, Wands Aura

• Congratulations on meeting your first Major Arcanum, that was pretty fast.
• Obviously the Ascent vote is only relevant if you pick the first option on the Empress itself; if you pick to be rocked to sleep, the Night ends regardless of the outcome of the Ascent vote.
• You see now another part of why I don't put Auras into Lost until they're actually used up.
• One day I swear I will learn how to shut the fuck up but until that distant day you get a thousand words about how sirens are beautiful and terrifying.

You take one step forward, then another. Mother Ancient does not stir; she remains seated where you found her. Bit by bit, you walk towards her, until you're in arm's reach.

(Your arms, not hers. You were within her reach a while before that. But she did not assert it.)

You reach out a hand and rest it on her knee, looking up at her. She is warm and yielding, and her fur is incredibly soft. It's hard to judge size while she's sitting -- her proportions are not quite human -- but you'd estimate her standing height at between fifteen and twenty feet tall. Probably closer to twenty than fifteen. You've never seen a giraffe up close, but you think she could look one in the eye, were she standing; but, of course, they are all slender awkward construction, whereas Mother Ancient's immensity never had to be evolved, or hold any respect for the square-cube law. She simply is, and has been for a very long time.

You break the silence. "I have... difficulty with this."

"I know," she says. Her voice is no louder than before, but up close its power is tremendous, and with your hand on her knee you can feel the vibrations.

"My mother," you say, "is an incredibly controlling woman, to whom appearances are everything, who fills her life with lies, and whose children are accessories for her own aggrandizement and weapons to be wielded at... whoever, really. Sometimes my father, sometimes each other." You had meant to keep your voice even. You were not successful.

"I know," she says. "But there were times, when you were very small, when none of those wounds had yet been dealt, and all you knew of her was the supreme source of comfort, and she held you close for as long as you needed, and then for as long as she needed beyond that."

Your head snaps up to look her in the face as you spit out, "Like any of that can possibly justify or make up for fucking years of-"

"No, no, no," she interrupts. Her voice is lower now. Gentler. Soothing. Despite everything, you find yourself soothed, and quiet down. "You misunderstand me, child. I am not trying to tell you what your mother is. I am trying to tell you what I am."

You consider that. But- "I am not a child."

"Part of you is," she says, and you cannot really argue the point. "There is no shame, in letting that part have what it wants. There are no witnesses in my forest, who might perceive as weakness the desire to be comforted. I do not permit them. I want as few barriers between me and my children's sincere desires as possible."

Well. When she puts it like that. Hesitantly, you close the last gap between the two of you, and place your other hand on her knee. With a small effort you hoist yourself up, until you are resting on her thigh, and then pause, unsure of how to proceed. Mother Ancient solves your dilemma: now those great hands move, scooping you up with practiced grace and drawing you close to rest against her body, cradled in her enormous arms. It is the coziest and most comfortable you can ever recall being.

Everything from the night crashes in on you at once -- the visions in the Vaults of Innocence, the boy trying to bind a terrible power, the disappointment of the Shrine, the terror of facing down the sirens, the vulnerability of meeting Mother Ancient -- and you are terribly, terribly exhausted. You can't keep your eyes open, nor can you resist snuggling in closer to her, the way you have snuggled into so many luxurious hotel beds after draining days. You feel more than hear her saying, "Shhh. That's right. Rest. I've got you."

---

You wake up slowly, comfortably, like walking up a gently-sloping grassy hill until you finally reach the top and feel the sunshine on your skin and the wind in your hair. You feel great. It is the best night's sleep you can remember ever having in your life.

And, to top it all off, Hana is lying on your stomach, purring. You reach down to pet her, moving slowly and carefully to not startle her, as behooves a large being trying to be kind to a smaller one. Your fingers make contact with her fur, and then your palm does, and you stroke her gently. "Hey there," you say quietly. "How are you doing?"

In response, she pushes her head against your hand, basically petting herself on you. OK, well, apparently you are a buffoon who can't be trusted with the all-important task of giving her pets and so she has to handle everything herself, but this is fine. You let yourself be a petting implement while your mind wanders, chewing over the events of the night. You went on an expedition and found yourself proven delightfully wrong. You passed up the opportunity to meet another occultist because you did not want to interfere in his path. You have met your first greater dreaming-entity, and all she wanted was to cuddle you.

OK, no, that's not fair. It's easy to cast Mother Ancient in dismissive terms. But she loomed. Not just physically, but spiritually. The other beings you met were all entities out of stories or myths or bestiaries: the sorts of things that you'd pack in, dozens to the volume, to catalog and discuss and record as things of interest. Mother Ancient felt like something out of the depths of your own soul: you can't imagine an occult text dispassionately listing her next to others of her kind. She deserves a book of her own, or books.

Are all of the Great Ones, as the sirens called them, like that? If so, you can see why it is that the grimoires you've read touch extremely lightly on them. They're... weighty. You don't feel like you'd be able to talk about Mother Ancient in any but the crudest terms without being uncomfortably self-revealing.

Your musing on the nature of the dreaming-realm is interrupted by Hana suddenly pressing down harder on your stomach and then leaping off. Enough petting for now, it seemed. Judging by the direction she was headed and the sounds that ensue, time for breakfast.

"You said it, girl," you mutter, climbing out of bed and padding kitchenwards.

---

You don't head out into the city today. You consider doing so, but your mind keeps wandering back to the dreamwalk of the night prior, which is unusually vivid in your memory. Even the Shrine, which you had expected to fade away with the other paths not taken, burns clear and bright in your mind's eye, lit by a hundred hundred candles. Rather than return entirely from your journey, you feel as if one of your feet is still in the dreaming-realm, like if you just closed your eyes you might step there easily.

You know, or at least strongly suspect, that this is an effect of the Ancient Mother. You suppose you're grateful that the memories have not disappeared like mundane dreams; there is power in the dream, even when you don't claim it and make it yours. But nonetheless... you're not entirely confident that the effect will not pop like a soap bubble when confronted with too much reality. So you'll stay inside today, and read, and play with your cat, and maybe find some light entertainment online, and then dream again tonight before whatever she's done loses its power.

So you do that. It's an advantage of not having to answer to anyone, be it domestic partner or workplace boss, that you can just stay in all day if it suits you to do so. One day you'll have to get another job (assuming you're still living in the world then, you can't help but think), but for now you are still wholly your own master.

Well. Not wholly. There is, after all, a cat.

In between fending off attempts from her to hunt your toes (it was cute once, and then the claws and teeth came out and nope), you keep up with your correspondence. Nothing new from Idra, but Jagoda has responded to your guestbook message of the other day. She updated her website and wants to make sure you see it: there's some new art, including a piece that is incredibly obviously of the two of you under the cloud of butterflies, and a poem about meeting a wise mage who showed her the Gates of Horn and Ivory, through which true dreams and false dreams pass.

Her mom liked them a lot, she mentions. You have complicated feelings about that.

The day seems simultaneously to crawl by like a caterpillar and to disappear in great swathes of lost time. Finally/suddenly, it is time to sleep again.

You have met your first greater power of the dream. You know it won't be your last. You wonder what marks the next one will leave on your soul.

Night after night, you climb higher; night after night, you approach the greater powers of the dream. You may or may not be ready for them, but they draw closer, regardless...
Cards added to the Ascent Deck: The Eight of Swords, the Eight of Wands, the Eight of Pentacles, the Eight of Cups, II The High Priestess, XV The Devil, XIX The Sun

[] No change to Aspiration
[] Write-in a new Aspiration, which must begin with "I aspire to" and include the Aspiration's suit in parentheses

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Happy one month to the quest. In one month we have done twenty updates, for a schedule of approximately two days in three. That's honestly way better than I was expecting going into this, and I hope folks like the pace.

Let's see how far you go in another month.