[Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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Batly listened to them all discuss the matter, then let out a little laugh as three of her helpers tried to plug the sources by dancing away the bad dreams. It wasn't something she'd ever tried much, but it had a possibility of working, and three of the Batly's went along with it. They were able to change the clothes of the zombies and the soldiers with relative ease by flapping their wings at them, clothes changing in a gust of wind. Of course, that didn't accomplish much by itself, so it was up to the dancers to make it feel like a dance party. None of them were particularly great at dancing, but none of them were terrible either. Unfortunately, due to the changes, they mostly just looked like stuffed animals playing about. Granted, they looked like they were having a lot of fun, but they weren't getting people to dance themselves. They were, however proving to be quite the distraction from the original dream of the battlefield and soldiers started laughing as they watched the three.

Breen's ability to consume negative feelings was also helping, though there were a lot of negative feelings and he was just one sad stuffed puppy dog. Breen's ability was certainly helping to lighten the mood, however, though it alone wouldn't be enough to break out of anyone's dreams. While all this was happening, the Batly's that were accompanying the group watched the gestalt as a whole to see how it was being affected. It was slowly lightening, as the brightening dreams affected the Gestalt, which in turn fed back into individual dreams. "It's working, but slowly still. I don't think anyone's really recognizing what you're doing as dancing, though. I think it's because we all look like animals." she said, her tone apologetic for that last bit, since it was her fault. "They seem to think you're playing, and they're enjoying that though, so perhaps we can work that angle." she said, flapping their wings at the dreamers again, changing them into more casual clothes that were fit for watching animals play.

While the trio were doing their thing, a fourth Batly accompanied Faith deeper into the battlefield. "I'm sorry, I know this is difficult. You were the one connected to this particularly gestalt. I can't really ever identify the connection if they aren't part of it, but each of you is tied to at least one of the gestalt dreams in some way. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to pull you into them." she said, her tone sincere. For now, she watched Faith work, trying to transform the miasma into butterflies that rained positivity.

This attempt sort of worked, as while she didn't change the miasma itself, she did create positivity butterflies that flew out of it. Batly tapped one wing claw against where her chin would be if she weren't a stuffed bat. "I think that could work, but we're looking at it the wrong way, maybe? Perhaps we could try changing what the miasma manifests as and let the dreamers do the work of assigning purpose to it. This is Rharne, after all, we could try changing it so it looks like beer or ale? If we let the dreamers see it, they'll likely fill in the gap and assign a purpose to it." she said, her tone calm. If Faith were willing, Batly would work together with her to try it.

Then, from the center of the battle, there was a roar and some of the butterflies in the area just vanished. "That's a whole different issue." all the Batly's said, looking towards the center of the battle. "I'll investigate it, remember I sent one of me off alone earlier. I don't know what that is and none of you are as trained to deal with Emean threats as I am." she said, her tone calm and focused. Apparently, roaring things in gestalt dreams was not as much a surprise to Batly as it might have been to the others.
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]DISCLAIMER: Batly's therapy is magic dream therapy and is, quite intentionally, neither analogous nor representative of any IRL therapy techniques. Do not equate it to any IRL therapy methods or presume it will have any effect IRL.

My next post will be Saturday the 5th of November. Please get your post in by midnight on Friday the 4th, and let me know if you need an extension as I need to post early in the day. For this post, you can try to refine your dream treatments or ignore Batly and go see what's roaring in the middle of the battlefield. Big thanks to Pigs for the fuzzy snakes template! Hope you're all having fun!
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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury





























. . . . Gennadiya Lyosha . . . .

Dreams of War and Fury
90th of Zi'da


Gennadiya watched the attempts at dancing and saw Batly working to change the clothing of the people in question. Genna also walked through dancing and swishing her tail in front of people in an effort to make their apparel change. Well there was laughter around where they were dancing and working. So a change was occurring. Genna watched as Faith went to try something else. The young healer felt sympathy for her friend. She had been at the heart of this conflict and Genna new it was hard for her. She turned back and looked at the others wondering what was the next step they could take. The dancing idea was only particularly working. There shapes weren’t much help on this endevor as it looked like animals playing.

“Nayeli.” Genna said to her spirit who was also trying to change apparel and do a squid dance. “Everyone maybe we need move to the next step and look to the setting immediately around us. Just like we change the cloths, adjust to something different.” Genna said. “Any ideas?”

She also had a though oh how to start including the others in dancing. Popping up on her hind paws in front of one of the soldiers she plopped her paws on his shoulders and started to sway side to side like she was dancing. She hope that such a direct act would help inspire the dream people. Nayeli flopped around shifting between changing clothing, and flopping with all oh her legs on the ground to try and change it from a dismal battlefield to what ever the group decided to change it to.

Genna paused as they heard the roar but she continued to try and convince the solder to dance before moving on to another. She wasn’t sure if that was a sign of success, but she wasn’t about to hide in a corner because of it.


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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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90th of Zi'da




Seira noticed the butterflies flying about as she continued to leap into the air in an attempt to dance in her new form. After a while, Batly told them that it was working, but only slowly. And she explained her thoughts as to why; their attempts at dancing looked more like stuffed animals playing around due to their current forms. She also suggested that they try to work that angle, and began putting dreamers into relaxing clothes that were more suitable for watching animals play.

Gennadiya continued to dance, this time trying to make it more obvious that she was dancing by putting her front paws up on one of the dreamers to encourage them to dance with her. Seira considered doing the same thing, but she also thought about Batly's suggestion. And since she wasn't confident that she could convince dreamers that she was actually dancing in her current form, she decided to go with the animals' playing angle. Being owned by a number of cats gave her plenty of time to watch them play, so she felt she had a good chance at mimicking their actions.

With that thought in mind, she began playing in a way she had seen Ryu act when she had a catnip toy to play with. In an attempt to keep the dreamers interested in watching her play, she alternated this with leaping into the air in an "attempt" to catch some of the butterflies she saw flying around. But when she was doing this, she made sure to miss the butterflies just in case catching one would damage their attempt to help.

Every once in a while, she would approach one of the dreamers purring loudly, and rub up against their legs. As she did this, Seira would try to change their clothes into something more suitable for watching animals play as she had seen Batly doing earlier. After a while, Gennadiya suggested that they change their immediate surroundings in the same way that they were changing the clothes of the dreamers and the zombies.

Seira thought about this for several trills. What would feel peaceful and safe? There were a lot of things that would, but safety meant different things to different people. And Seira wasn't sure how much change they could make to the gestalt dream so she figured that it would be best to keep things simple if possible. Seira also felt that they needed something that would reinforce the amusing sight of animals playing since they had already had some success with that. As she was trying to come up with an idea, she saw one of the butterflies flying past her.

"Could we try to turn the battlefield into a meadow? We already have butterflies flying around, and a meadow might reinforce the idea of animals playing." she suggested.

When Seira heard the roar, she glanced in the direction that it came from. Batly had said that the gestalt dream would try and fight back...was whatever made that sound an attempt to stop them? Seira didn't like the sound of that roar, and she didn't think that she would be any use in a fight. Especially in her current form. So since Batly seemed calm and told them that she would investigate it, Seira went back to her attempts at amusing the soldiers that were watching her.





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Last edited by Seira Shiryu on Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:32 am, edited 2 times in total. word count: 571
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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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......Twit......


"It's more than alright," Faith said to Batly. "I know that I couldn't commit wholeheartedly to what they're doing and I know Emea well enough to know that all-in is what's best. So, better that I'm here, helping in a different way." The very last thing she wanted to be was a hindrance, Faith thought, and so she felt that had made the correct decision.

Being a stuffed owl was surprisingly debilitating, though, and it was impacting her ability to show her feelings in her face. She felt like she smiled, but she imagined that her beak didn't do that. Anyhow, she couldn't allow herself to be distracted and she listened to what Batly said. Nodding, she waited until the bat had finished and then she too spoke. "That makes sense. Alright, yes, lets turn that around. Beer and ale it is!" She fluffed her wings, shook her fluffy body and - for reasons that she couldn't have easily explained - Faith gave a little wiggle of her now-feathery behind. Then, hopping up and down on her spindly little owl-legs, she concentrated on making the miasma into beer.

It seemed to be working, she thought, but then something entirely else happened.

There was a roar and then there were splatting of butterflies and Batly spoke. Faith shook her head, firmly. "While I understand entirely that you have more experience, you shouldn't be alone," she said, her beak and big eyes determined. " If I promise to do only and exactly what you ask, then please at least let me come with you. We need to be not alone," she firmly believed that.

So, unless Batly told her unequivocally no, Faith would go with the flapping one. If, however, Batly was insistent, Faith would stay and keep trying to turn the miasma into booze.

Her life, she considered, was sometimes rather odd.
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There were butterfllies, and all kinds of other dream-like imagery and constructs present. Appleswatched happily as Gennadiya and his apprentice frolicked amidst the Dreamscape. When Apples saw the butterflies, his mouth began to water quite profusely with droplets of honey that appeared like venom. It seemed the efforts to turn the miasma into a alcoholic beverage was working. Apples watched as rivulets of wine began coursing through the air. He turned the ends of his plushy legs, each of them, into cups to catch the alcoholic miasma. He tasted it, sampling, and frowned. "It's a bit bitter." He said, then dropped some of his venom honey into each of the four cups he held. "That should be better." And then he busied himself handing out cups to everyone around.

Eventually, however, as happened sometimes in lucid dreams, things appeared to go sideways. There was a loud roar. Batly confessed that she'd sent a dream double in that direction. Another red flag. Apples didn't want to be left stranded in this strange, shared dreamscape, and so went off to follow as Faith made to accompany Batly. If necessary, he'd use his spoder-like agility to hop and jump and keep up. Arachnids could be quite fleet of foot.

"Let me come too! I'm a master dreamwalker, and bear Kuvarakh's effigy. I don't fear anything." He flexed his front legs as he scuttled alongside them. "While it may be true you are more experienced, it's best to stay together."
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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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Gennadiya and Seira kept working on changing the bad dreams that people were having, and they were making much more solid progress now. The dreamers clothes were changing to suit the more playful mood that they were trying to create and that combined with the playing animals was definitely helping. Their next plan to help was to turn the battlefield into a pleasant meadow. Batly nodded at the idea, then crouched down to examine the ground beneath them. Given that she was, well, a bat, it looked a little odd, and it didn't look any less odd when she absentmindedly turned a dream zombie into a pleasant breeze when it nearly ran her over. "The problem with gestalt dreams is that everything multiplies because a lot of people are dreaming of the same thing. Makes it harder to work when there's nightmares underfoot all the time." she said, sounding more distracted than anything as she examined the ground.

"Oh yeah, the meadow idea will work. From the look of things, this used to be an open, grassy field before it got all torn up by the battle. That means the dreamers here will remember the meadow, so it will be easier to make it a reality. Or, well, a dream. You know what I mean." she said, nodding to herself as she stood back up. "Changing the landscape will be easy enough, given that the field is not dreaming. You'll still need to interact with it, and how you want to do that is entirely up to you." she said, as she dropped her wings so that the tip of them was trailing along the ground. From the tip of her wings, meadow started to grow, or perhaps grow back, in an area radiating from the stuffed bat.

Meanwhile, Batly nodded at Faith. "You've got a good grasp on the rules of Emea. It's even more important in these gestalts, since they're formed from combined dreams or nightmares." she said, smiling slightly. She saw that Faith tried to smile, but the bat wasn't quite sure anyone else would have recognized it, since most people probably weren't used to stuffed animal body language or expressions. Then it was time to make miasma into beer and Batly nodded. Compared to Faith's little wiggle, Batly was more reserved, as she closed her eyes to concentrate. However, if Faith were to look at Batly, she'd find bubbles coming out of the stuffed bat as she focused.

The plan worked, the miasma taking on the form of beer, and Batly nodded, before flapping her wings, sending bubbles out across the battlefield that was now turning into a meadow. "That'll give the dreamers a glimpse of our beer river." she said. Apples took advantage of this to start passing out cups of honeyed beer to dreamers, and the Batly with him smiled at the sight. "Good idea, passing around the beer. That should help it anchor as such in the dreamers mind." she said, as she made some cups of her own to join in passing around the alcohol. Plenty of dreamers were willing to take some now that the gestalt was becoming less threatening, and the atmosphere began to improve considerably. Not necessarily in a way that was less rowdy, but it was approaching more of a party than a battle.

Then there was roar. Faith and Apples both chose not to leave the matter to Batly and she nodded as the two chose to accompany her. They made their way to the center where three Batly's merged back into one, though there were still two accompanying Genna and Seira. The center of the gestalt would look familiar to Faith, as it was the brief skirmish that had ended the War of Death and Souls. In fact, it appeared to be the end of that skirmish. Ellasin was already defeated, her Spark ejected from her body. The differences started there, however, as this time, no one appeared to collect the Spark. Instead, it appeared to be trying to force its way back into Ellasin's body.

It was also the source of the roaring, as the butterflies tried to make more cheerful, only got splatted by the dream-spark. It did not, however, appear to be aware of the trio of stuffed animals. "That is a Nightmare. Not just a bad dream, but rather an Emean creature born from a bad dream. Something of a counterpoint to Jesnine's fairies, in a way. It can't see us, because we aren't actually part of the gestalt. The butterflies and river of ale are, however. If we physically interact with it, though, we'll bring it into our level of the gestalt, where it can affect things the way we can." she said, before frowning. "Ellasin Dathlande is dead, who's Nightmare is this?" she pondered, before shaking her head. "Unfortunately, Nightmares like this can't really be changed from here." she said, raising her wings and encasing the dream-spark and Ellasin's body in a massive shimmering bubble.

The dream-spark had been a massive source of the miasma, even resisting the attempt to change the miasma into alcohol. Once encased, however, the miasma coming from that particular Nightmare stopped spreading to the rest of the gestalt dream. "Something like that, that forms a proper Nightmare, can't be changed from Emea like this. We'd need to go into that specific dream, and that was a dangerous proposition even for Jesnine, since it creates an opening for the Nightmare to infect other people. Lucid dreamers are actually at greater risk than non-lucid, since Nightmares can physically harm or kill us. Jesnine theorized that they could even use our Dreamwalking to escape into Idalos, or even steal our bodies if they kill our minds." she said, her voice notably wearied. She even sagged a bit, as she spoke.

"Sorry, that takes...that takes a lot. Anyway, nightmares like that are best dealt with more conventional treatment methods, since they can't counter actions done on Idalos proper while constrained to Emea. We'll worry about that in the waking world, however." she said, shaking herself. "Right, with that sealed so it can't affect the gestalt, we should be able to finish our work here much more easily." she said, her tone calm.
 ! Message from: Basilisk
DISCLAIMER: Batly's therapy is magic dream therapy and is, quite intentionally, neither analogous nor representative of any IRL therapy techniques. Do not equate it to any IRL therapy methods or presume it will have any effect IRL.

My next post will be Saturday the 12th of November. Please get your post in by midnight on Friday the 11th, and let me know if you need an extension as I need to post early in the day. For this post, you can try to refine your dream treatments or ignore Batly and go see what's roaring in the middle of the battlefield. Big thanks to Pigs for the fuzzy snakes template! Hope you're all having fun!
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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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90th Zi'da, 722




As Seira continued to work, she noticed that they were making more progress now. Apples left with one of the Batlys', but Gennadiya remained working with her. Batly told her and Gennadiya that gestalt dreams were difficult to work with because everything in the dream multiplies since many dreamers were dreaming of the same thing and that it was difficult to work with a lot of nightmares around. Seira paid close attention to what the stuffed bat had told her. It made a lot of sense to her, so she made a mental note of it so she would remember it if she ever found herself having to try to change a gestault dream by herself. It didn't seem very likely that she would...or that she could even if she needed to, but it was something to keep in mind all the same.

Batly also told them that the meadow idea that Seira had thought of would work and that since the landscape used to be a grassy field in reality before it got torn up by the battle that this gestalt dream was taking the form of it would be easier to do than something else would be. She also explained that this was because of two things. Since it had originally been a field in reality, the dreamers would remember it as such, making it easier to make the change. And since the field itself wasn't dreaming, it would be easier to change it than it would be to change one of the dreamers. Finally she told them that they would still need to interact with the ground in order to change it.

Seira wasn't quite sure how to go about this, but when she saw the meadow starting to grow in a radius around Batly as she trailed her wings along the ground she got an idea. Still keeping with the theme of animals playing, Seira dropped to the ground and rolled around, much the way a real cat would if it was rolling in catnip. As she did so, she thought hard about what she wanted to happen. Hopefully that would be enough for it to work.




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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury





























. . . . Gennadiya Lyosha . . . .

Dreams of War and Fury
90th of Zi'da


Genna could see the changes occurring in the costumes and the general levity of the situation. Seira suggested a field and Batly agreed with that assessment. Genna nodded at the explanation even as she did fox danced with one of the dreamers. Changing a torn up field into a flowery field was an excellent idea. They where similar so again not a drastic change. “Good idea Seira.” As if to support that Genna saw a beer river form and Batly handing out cups of the stuff Genna nodded her head. Yes the changes were coming, but they needed more.

Genna to wanted to see what the sound was, but she also knew that something like this was like surgery once started you couldn’t stop with out making it worse. So Genna trusted Faith and Apple to handle it as they went towards the sound. Genna trusted Faith completely so she didn’t worry about much about that being taken care of.

The changes were occurring but they needed to keep it moving and possible speed up the momentum. Bately started touching the ground and the changes spread, Seira was rolling around. Genna dropped down from her dancing, and spreading her nine tails out behind her she did one of the things foxes did best she ran. There was no rhyme or reason to her running, the only thing she made sure of was that her tails were on the ground, and she ran among the knights.

She did this so that were her tails touched would begin to change, but in addition she was looking among the knights and any she recognized and knew played music she would pause to flip her tail in front of them and change there weapon into their instruments. While doing this another idea came to Genna. She frolicked/ran to a spot close but clear of anyone and sat down and spread her tail out and thought so that on that specific spot after she moved her tail would be a picnic blanket. Then walking over to a rock she swiped her tail again trying to change it into a picnic basket, that she would then bring to the blanket, if any of that worked.

Genna would keep running and frolicking around changing the field, costumes, weapons, and inserting a picnic blanket every once and a while. She knew that the pass of such a thing was important and worked to help the progression.


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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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Apples looked on with worry at the apparition of a woman getting the spark of magic torn out of her. Woe had some experience and background in removing sparks, having done so himself once, and having it done for him by Famula. However this was more violent, more painful for the person involved.

He remembered that Seira’s uncertainty had birthed a minor Nightmare in her own dreamscape, and what’d helped with that, to banish the Nightmare, was to remove the fear from Seira, thus banishing the source of the Nightmare’s power. If Apples could get close enough to the woman whose spark was being ripped out, he could banish the Nightmare!

“Batly, I can remove her fear, if that is a dreamer we’re seeing.” Apples pointed at Ellasin, who he didn’t know. “I just need to get close enough to her to touch, and then her fears will subside.”

So saying, Apples didn’t wait for permission, but scuttled and jumped and did acrobatic leaps around the various undead apparitions blocking the way to the woman at the center of it all. He jumped up and snagged her with one of his forelegs, suffusing her with a sense of
Fearless
ness, so that the Nightmare would no longer trouble her.

“Begone Little Beast!” Apples growled, and spat honey venom at the thing. He stood strong on the shoulders of the woman, “I will protect you from this trifling creature!”

It must be said, at this point the whimsy of the dream had taken its toll on Apple’s thought processes, and he thought more like Apples, and less like Woe. Thus he was feeling more protective and bold than he’d ordinarily be.


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Re: [Event] Dreams of War and Fury

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......T'wooooooooooo......


While Faith was glad that she'd accompanied Batly - and would never have done anything else - it was entirely true that she was not needed. Batly effectively dealt with everything, taking care of the Nightmare. The very useful Bat explained what was happening and Faith considered it from all angles. Why did it matter whose dream it was? Who had created this gestalt dream, come to that? Faith knew exactly whose dream it was and why they were feeling what they did, but she saw no reason to share that with anyone here. It was no one's business and she wasn't prepared to speak another person's truth.

Besides, Faith understood very well indeed that silence was sometimes the most effective way to know more and she had no intention of showing her hand in this particular game.

As Apples helpfully jumped up and aided what might well be Ellasin, Faith had a thought. It wasn't a good thought, or a particularly happy one but she considered it carefully.

What was happening in their Dreamscapes? This was - if it was meant as such - an excellent way to get a specific bunch of do-gooders out of the way and out of their own Dreamscapes. That was tricky - at least two of them were connected and were also well-known. With suddenly empty Dreamscapes. Faith thought that she recognised Batly from Jesnine's funeral but she wasn't entirely sure ~ she certainly hadn't looked like a bat, after all. And, come to that, being at the funeral meant only that she'd been at the funeral. For all they knew, Batly had been there not for Jesnine, but for her twin.

If this was a means of getting people out of their Dreamscapes, this was a good one. It was a way to leave Dreamscapes - and thus, Dreamers - vulnerable. All the while they'd be busy fighting "gestalt" dreams. Faith was a dreamwalker of a lot of experience, and she'd never heard of this. Batly could do things that no one else could do, things like splitting herself into several smaller pieces.

And somehow, apparently, all these "gestalt" dreams would belong to the people here? None of this was anything like the Dreamwalking Faith knew and had studied. She'd studied it and initiated Padraig into it so that they could ascertain the nature of dreaming behind the Barriers.

"What, exactly, is going on here?" She asked Batly. "I am suddenly acutely aware that you are telling us things which are totally new information; I've studied Dreamwalking quite a lot and I have quite a lot of experience at it." She didn't know who Apples was, but maybe Apples did, too. "You can do things none of us can and, come to that, just how safe are our Dreamscapes right now?" Looking at Batly squarely, Faith stopped focusing on everyone else, on all the dreamers and the oh-so-useful suggestions from the can-do-everything-don't-need-us-actually bat.

Instead, she focused on the bat. On seeing that dreamer, for a dreamer she was. On seeing where they actually were. Essentially, Faith focused on finding out the truth.


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