dream_station | Dream Station TDM

You dozed off. Or passed out. Or perhaps you were experiencing a more... permanent 'sleep'. Whatever the case, your eyes were shut and now they're not as you awaken sitting on a train. Around you, others in similar situations. At your feet sits luggage. It has a name tag on it with your name. Inside are some of your clothes and small personal belongings.

Out the window you see that the train is rolling into a sration. Cherry blossoms line the track leading up to it. A beautiful, scenic town lay beyond those gates.

Welcome to Dream Station.

Home Sweet Home:

As the train rumbles into the station and stops you step out onto a platform. A perfectly normal looking station, all things considered. There are people waiting. Guides here to help the latest batch of residents. People who live in this world. Either due to being born here or having been brought here sometime before and agreeing to help newcomers.

The guides explain to you the situation you are in. You otherworlders are common here in the city of Dream. Your guide reassures you that it's fine. They have accommodation for newcomers. And you are brought to the Sleep Tight Apartments. While outside it looks a little small, it's actually quite expansive inside. Must be magic of some kind.

Your apartment will be a one bedroom with a kitchen, living area and bathroom. But don't worry. There will be ways to expand later.

For now you are given a cellphone with an app installed on it for the local social media, Sleepr. As well as a Nightmare Tracker that will alert you when Nightmares crop up. And finally a little banking app where you will find you already have an account that has a decent amount of money for you to spend for the month. Don't worry about rent or bills. That's all covered in return for you helping with those Nightmares.

If you refuse to help... well. Best find your own accommodation and a job, friend. They can't help anyone unwilling to help in return.

There's a lot of new faces so maybe you should get to know your neighbors or get a walk around your new neighborhood.

This Is A Beach Episode:

The Dream Beach is open for business! Come lay out a towel and get some sun. Or go splash in the waves! Seashells are a plenty and there are designated fishing spots. Just don't swim too far out.

Hungry? Thirsty? The boardwalk has plenty of delicious options from icecream to fries to ice cold lemonade.

For those seeking something fun to do, there are paddle and pedal boats available for rent. And some diving to see the beautiful coral reefs. As well as a boat that will take you on a little trip out to an island resort!

The Resort:

I mean, you're basically all on vacation from your regular lives already in the wonderful world of Dream! That said, who doesn't love to spend a little time with their feet up in a nice resort?

Come out and stay in an ocean front room with complimentary continental breakfast and free room service. There are lots of little souvenir shops to check out, run by some bipedal frogs? They don't accept money here. But they'll glady trade their wares for any seashells collected on the beach. Lots of fun tropical themed goodies and swim gear galore!

For the adventurous sort, there is plenty to explore including a forest with hiking trails and a supposedly haunted cave. Legend says some tourists got lost in there and never came back out. They were looking for a treasure apparently. But... maybe don't follow their example and get lost in there?

The Nightmare Fuel:

So remember you were told about Nightmares? Seems they're cropping up throughout the city. Some are taking the form of shadowy crabs about four feet tall that are stealing from people and carrying them off in their little crabby claws. Give them a beat down or just trick them into dropping their stolen goods.

Others look like reverse mermaids. Fishy heads atop human legs. These ones are causing problems for the local restaurants and shops by slipping on in and stinking up the place. You can fight them if you want, but they'll be just as easily dispersed by herding them to the beach where they will return to the waters. They don't seem very threatening, just confused.

However while those two aren't very dangerous, there are some very aggressive bipedal seacreatures with the heads of crocodiles and some very sharp claws that have taken to lurking around the island out in the woods. These ones won't leave peacefully. You'll have to fight them or run away from them. Watch out they don't catch you. Those teeth and claws aren't just for show!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Flavor One - Vanilla and Chocolate

This Nita has been here for quite some time - you won't meet her on the train, but instead working in the (or a) local bookshop, ready to help you find whatever you need. Or out in the gardens, or even helping care for the trees those cherry blossoms come from.

When it comes to the Nightmares, she's quite resigned to their presence - but if you stand up to (or help) the odd or violent creatures, she will be quick to lend a hand.

She's a helpful sort, with kindness in her heart - but there's a sadness as well, one she doesn't seem to really even acknowledge as there anymore. Might not be fair to ask too much...

Flavor Two - Neapolitan

Prelude - On the Train

Nita? Wherever we are, we've arrived.
/Mmm - Voidtrecker? Where are we?/

Only the second voice is audible, as the wizard who'd been asleep in one of the seats stirs, wondering why her head feels so fuzzy.

Mentally, she reaches out for the train - only to find it completely unfamiliar to her. Sitting straight up, her heart rising in her throat, a blush begins to color her cheeks.

She doesn't speak out loud again, and she may be a little slow to respond to any even-more-confused fellow passengers.

Arrival

It's not every day Nita finds herself a gawking tourist, but it's also been quite a long few months since she last pulled into a station that wasn't a liminal space in the void, or a world in deadly danger, so there's definitely that going for this place.

It's not long before she's standing next to the trees, drinking in the at once too-real and homesickness-inducing feel of a home.

Maybe it's because the last world she'd visited hadn't actually had normal trees.

Settling In

The apartments are one of the few things that help anchor her - a space bigger on the inside than out? Not needing to pay in money, so long as you're willing to help people? It is, in several ways besides, like home, and wizardry - though being a Voidtrekker had come close quite a bit of the time in and of itself.

So she acquires some toiletries, some groceries, and a yoga mat, all in short order, and starts building a routine.

Seeing where she's needed, drinking in the sights, the skies (especially at night), and any books she can get her hands on. Typical Nita things.

Nightmares? If You Insist.

This, too, Nita takes to with very little question - stopping the gremlin-y crabs in the street (and sometimes lecturing them), escorting lost mers back to the sea, and forcing the more violent creatures to back off from the innocent city-dwellers.

She could use a hand now and then, sure, but the work itself she doesn't mind.

No, she doesn't mind at all.

Edited Date: 2023-05-18 12:49 am (UTC)

From:

fillmoominvalleywithcrime

This place surely isn't Moomin Valley. It's a lot busier and louder. So Snufkin was just trying to get some peaceful fishing done in one of the fishing spots when the crab creatures started popping up and stealing things.

This falls under things that are not his business. Having not met any crabs in person before he just assumes that's what crabs do. They haven't tried to take his fishing pole yet so it's not affecting him. And he leaves it at that.

He's watching this stranger lecture them and take things back though. Maybe that's their job. To lecture the crabs and heard them around and reclaim the taken items.

"About how often do they go around taking things?" He asks, assuming her knowledgeable about the whole affair. He sure hopes not terribly often...

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita shrugs, once the crab has made its escape and the goods it had seized subsequently returned.

"It's my first week here; for all I know it's crabs one month, and canines the next. Or they're stealing this week and the next it'll be something else entirely..."

Not reassuring, she knows, but it doesn't do her any more good to be dishonest about this.

"They seem to come after everyone all the same, rather than just focusing on those who are new, if that helps."

From:

fillmoominvalleywithcrime

"Ahhh. So you're new here too then. That makes sense, I suppose. There were a lot of people on that thing that I woke up on." The train, he means. But he has no idea what to call it. He's never seen one before. There are a great many things here he's never seen before.

"I suppose it does help to know, yes. They haven't bothered me yet. But who can say. I've never met a crab before. I just assumed they were like that."

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita's smile is fairly somber, as,

"I've been on more packed trains before, but not as many with so many confused passengers," she says, trying to relate.

"I think they're more than crabs, with the way they're shaped. If I meet smaller crabs, I'll ask if they're related."

Assuming there both were any on the beach and that they wished to talk to someone who spoke in a language meant to be more easily understood than English.

From:

weatherforecast

Once Pepa calmed down about the whole uprooted from her life again and separated from her family again she realized she was going to have to pick herself up and venture out.

Who knows? Maybe her family or some other familiar face will be here in this strange city too?

One of the first places she checks out is a book shop. Reading material. That'll keep her occupied once she turns in for the evening...

She's perusing when she reaches for a book at the same time as another.

"Oh. No, please. You take it." She insists. "I already have so many." She gestures with her basket full of books. Maybe she went overboard?

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita's eyebrows go up, but it's just out of surprise, not anything more harsh.

"Kind of surprised there's only one of this one; I can ask if they have spares in the back...?"

Because how would you know if you liked something if you didn't try it? She could respect Pepa's massive-sampler tactic.

From:

spacetogrow

Ilphyl tends to keep nocturnal hours, if local custom permits, but it also means they keep an eye out for other night owls to actually have some social interaction. So noticing that a human has been repeatedly hanging around the neighborhood for newcomers, looking at the stars, means a chance to at least say hello.

Neighbors are a novelty to a traveling adventurer. A bit intimidating, to be honest, since you can't just move on to the next town.

"Good evening. Nice weather we're having?"

Look at Ilphyl, trying to do small talk as if they read it in a book somewhere, or observed other people doing it, but haven't actually tried it themselves.

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita is briefly surprised at being so directly addressed, but she's quick to calm down once she sees who is speaking.

"/Dai Stiho,/" she greets.

"... And the climate's been pretty nice so far, yeah."

Even small talk can be useful!

"I wonder if it snows here?" Not that she expects someone else in the apartments to know, necessarily, but it will probably mean she learns something about her new conversation partner too.

From:

spacetogrow

Ilphyl considers the question. "We could probably tell from the plants and animals that live here. But I've mostly been walking around the city, so those might not be native plants."

So much for small talk. On the other hand, Ilphyl generally found plants and animals better company than people, so it was suddenly a sincere interest to learn this.

(Yes, they could look it up, but that's not the point.)

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita nods. "That's a good point."

That she's spent time in a city where everywhere got snow, even with four disparate climates going, has slightly altered her expectations, but not that much.

"I haven't gotten to find out how old this place is, yet, either; everything could have been imported."

And from many different places, at that.

As for finding plants and animals good company... Nita could second that sentiment.

"What sorts of plants are you used to seeing?"

Edited Date: 2023-05-31 08:42 pm (UTC)

From:

spacetogrow

"Most recently? Temperate forests -- oaks, birches, elms. Pine and spruce farther north. Some open grasslands. I suppose if I say 'the Sword Coast between Waterdeep and Neverwinter', that doesn't mean much." Ilphyl said. They had grasped the idea of many worlds, and certainly were used to the idea that 'normal' was subjective. Ilphyl had been born in a place where 'plants' -- at least the sort that grew by sunlight -- weren't the base of a ecosystem, after all. Or seasons for that matter.

"I also know a lot about subterranean ecosystems." This was a feeler; back home, that would probably be like a sea elf or triton admitting to knowing about kelp forests or reefs, assumed to be the default. But Ilphyl had seen relatively few elves of any sort, so they were curious about what first impression they were making.

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita shakes her head, to indicate that their instinct is right.

"And New York's not a place you'd have heard of either, I'll take it."

But moreover, their next mention gets a quite interested look. "You'd know more about geothermal-based cycles than I do, I'll bet; most of the ones I work with back home are photosynthesis-based."

From:

spacetogrow

"Honestly, it's more based on remnant magical energy," Ilphyl said. "It's said that it dates back to the formation of the Underdark -- the caverns under the surface of much of the world. But there are regions more dominated by geothermal activity, or just decomposition from the world above."

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita thought briefly, though not unkindly, of the creatures rescued from the continent known as Atlantis on her Earth.

"So it's a mix, then. That's fair." Nothing was ever truly uncomplicated, once you started digging in to specifics and all.

"Have you had a chance to look for... any like ecology here? Though all I've heard of that might lead that way are caves, out by a beachside hotel."

Which she hadn't particularly been intent on visiting.

From:

spacetogrow

Ilphyl shook their head. "I jsut arrived, so I'm making sure I have food and shelter first."

From:

unfavorableinstigation

"Fair."

Nita paused, then brought out of her pocket the phone she'd been given upon picking her own apartment.

"We all seem to get starter funds, though most affairs here look more based on barter. How would you rank that in terms of navigation?"

From:

spacetogrow

"I know how to barter things, and how to use money, if that's what you're asking?"

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita nods, looking slightly chagrined.

"Basically, yeah. So long as you're good with those, it should work out, y'know?"

She can understand being anxious even when it's not warranted, though, so she doesn't want to just be dismissive...

From:

spacetogrow

If it helped Ilphyl didn't sound annoyed or anything, just making sure they understood correctly. "Good. I'm Ilphyl, by the way."

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita nodded.

"Well met, Ilphyl; I'm Nita."

She frowned briefly.

"Did we come in on the same train? I, uh, might have been distracted..."

And she'd forgotten to ask how often it had picked people up, too. Whoops?

From:

spacetogrow

"We could have? I wasn't paying too much attention either."

From:

unfavorableinstigation

"... That's fair."

Nita's pretty sure they weren't distracted for the exact same reasons, but she's not going to explain that one in-depth.

"I could ask if the train has timetables, for how often they go searching for people?"

It wouldn't answer her question decisively, but it'd be good information to have.

From:

spacetogrow

"Is that a normal thing?"

Look, trains aren't exactly a feature in their world.

From:

unfavorableinstigation

Nita nodded, biting at the inside of her cheek.

"Where I'm from, yeah. There's timetables saying what the general route is, when they're expected to set out and return..."

But while there'd been trees and people, she hadn't seen any billboards listing that sort of information. Huh.