Dreamweaving

“I don’t know who your Conductor was when you first came here or how much they told you, but you know about the special items we carry right?” Sylvia asked.

“Yeah…” I mumbled, wincing as I remembered how unhelpful Izan was in describing the relation between our most cherished items and the ability to Dreamwave.

“We sometimes call it our ‘Yumeyori’ for short, and it allows us to conjure our Dreamweaving powers. I’m assuming that the sketchbook you keep carrying around is your Yumeyori right?”

I nodded.

Yumeyori… I thought for a moment, finally a word that sounds somewhat familiar. Assuming it’s using Japanese etymology, it would mean something like ‘that which dreams rely upon’.

Hearing a familiar word for the first time amongst the sea of weird ones really helped lighten the memory load on my brain.

I took a look at Sylvia, trying to figure out what her Yumeyori was.

It couldn’t be that ridiculously long coat could it?

“What?” she asked, “curious what my Yumeyori is? It’s conveniently stored away in my pocket dimension right now, but if you’re wondering, it's my brewing set that I use to create my potions.”

“Oh,” I blurted, thinking that it should’ve been obvious that she had it stored away, “that makes sense.”

“Ah, that reminds me of the first time I came here… My entire brewing set came along with me and was sprawled all over the table. It looked like a mess.”

So that’s why the tables were so big, I thought, to hold ridiculously large Yumeyoris…

“When the Nightmares first spawned from all the chaos and confusion, they almost broke pieces of my set, but luckily, my desire to preserve the items helped me unlock my Dreamweaving powers early on. Afterwards, that pretentious Conductor Izan saved us after making a dramatic appearance.”

Izan?

“Wait, your Conductor was Izan too?” I asked.

“Oh, so you also had the misfortune of getting him I see,” she sighed, “from what I heard he’s the worst of the bunch. He’s way too flamboyant for the lack of things he tells us about this world, and if we try to say anything bad about him, he gets really defensive.”

I nodded in our shared pain, but realizing it now, she just mentioned that Izan was the one who saved her group. Perhaps he was a lot stronger than I had originally thought.

“Izan was the one who saved you?” I asked, “He didn't really do much in our group, and some other Conductor named Drascus torched the Nightmares for us.”

“Woah you saw Drascus?!” she shouts as if saying the name of a celebrity, “The big dragon dude?! The cool one!?”

“Y…yeah…?” I said nervously, not realizing how much of an impact the simple mention of his name had.

“Ahh you’re so lucky!” she said, fangirling, but after a few seconds a disgusted look forms on her face, “but yeah about that prick Izan, I’m not really sure myself what his powers were, but he just snapped his fingers and all the Nightmares around us exploded in an instant.”

Exploded? In an instant? All of them?

It felt surreal hearing how much power Izan had. You would think someone as pretentious as he was would be excited to show off his powers like that, but he had decided to hold back for some reason.

“All the Conductors must be pretty strong then,” I remarked.

“Yeah?” she said somewhat sarcastically, “they’re the strongest out of all of us. It isn’t easy being crowned the Conductor title, but I didn’t take you for someone so interested in power levels.”

“I’m not,” I said, “I was just surprised to hear that Izan was as strong as he was. I didn’t expect someone who did literally nothing during our orientation to turn out to be so strong.”

She chuckled.

“So what is it you’re interested in then?”

My mind paused for a moment, as if some PTSD was triggered from my past life. The question sounded so similar to the ‘what are your xxxx?” questions on the job applications, that I couldn’t stop myself from reeling back even if the question itself was asked with innocent intent.

She’s not trying to gauge your qualifications, I remind myself, she only wants to know more about you.

“Drawing,” I answered, pushing past that boundary, “it’s what I care about the most in the world. My dream was to publish my characters in a story so that the world could see them… but unfortunately that sort of thing isn’t so easy in my world.”

Sylvia smiled a soft smile—one that seemed to be filled with a sorrowful understanding.

“I get that,” she said solemnly, the timid personality coming back for a split second, “wanting your ideas realized for the world to see. I suppose we’re the same in that regard.”

I also smile a saddened smile. I didn’t know what her story was, nor did I intend to press her about it, but what I knew was that everyone in the Aurum Reve was here for a similar reason, and although our stories differ behind those reasons, they weren’t bound to be ones filled with joy.

“But anyway,” she continued, “I’m assuming that that giant fox you summoned was one of the characters you created for your stories.”

I blinked twice in confusion, surprised at how she figured that out.

“She is, yes.” I replied.

“...She?”

“Yeah… the fox is a girl. Her name is Aoki.”

“Huh… oops,” she nervously smiled recalling how she had called her a good boy.

“But how did you know she was one of the characters I made?”

“Just a guess based on what you told me so far and from what I know about how Dreamweaving works,” she answered, “our powers are the results of our dreams and desires. They reflect what we want the most. For example, my dream is to create and brew as many potions as possible, with the intent on discovering them all. My power, which grants me access to an infinite and portable pocket dimension, allows me to accomplish that dream by allowing me to store my brewing stations, potions, and any ingredients I collect on the way. Whereas I’m assuming your power is to be able to project your characters into life, since your dream is to show your characters to the world.”

I gave her a surprised stare. Even I didn’t know exactly what my powers were yet, and here she probably had it fully figured out. Probably. I didn’t know if she was right yet or not, but if what she was saying about the magic system was true, the logic definitely checked out.

“What?” she asked, “surprised? It’s not too hard to figure out someone’s power after having a conversation with them. As long as you can tell what their dreams are, and can see their Yumeyori, you can make a pretty good guess about it.”

“I see… I still don’t know how I summoned her though…”

Sylvia shrugged.

“I’m not sure either. How people harness their powers is where the lines really start to blur.”

I recalled Izan’s words, and how he had something similar to that. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t explain to us how to use this world’s magic. It really did vary that much per person.

“Your best bet would be to remember how you felt when you were first able to use your powers,” she continued, “for me, it was my desire to protect my Yumeyori that allowed me to first access the pocket dimension. Later on, after being dropped off on this island and feeling the urge to brew potions, it was my desire to access my brewing stations that then allowed me to tap into my pocket dimension and pull them out. From that, I figured out that in order for me to use my pocket dimension, I just needed to feel the need to store or retrieve something.”

How I felt when I first used my powers? I wondered, I remember feeling… afraid. An overwhelming desire to live.

I looked towards Sylvia who passively just stared at me and waved her arms around as if patiently waiting for me to figure this out myself. She would say it was for the love of the scientific process.

Scientific process… I repeated that thought, then there’s only one way to really test this theory is there?

“Sylvia,” I finally said, “I want you to throw one of your unfinished potions at me.”

Her eyes lit up.

“What? Really? Hoho, you really are proving to be a good test subject,” she excitedly says, rummaging beneath her coat for something, “let’s see, where is it…? Ah! This one!”

She pulls out a potion filled with a strange pink substance.

“This one’s a gender bending potion that turns you into the opposite gender for an hour when consumed,” she says, “side effects may include being set on fire.”

Without another word, she tosses the potion towards me at a speed intended to splash the substance over me.

Feeling an overwhelming fear at being genderswaped, I flinch but don’t move, expecting something to happen. Suddenly, the same golden aura enveloped me again, and Aoki jumped out to block my body from the attack.

The potion splashed onto her, staining her fur, and I ran over to hug her, feeling bad for making her take the hit.

Seeing how she wasn’t on fire, it could only mean one thing: the potion worked.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered my apology, “you should be back to normal in an hour.”

Sylvia let out a soft giggle before bursting into an uncontrollable laugh.

“Hahaha, you really are bad at paying attention to details,” she says as if it was something she had always assumed about me, “I said you had to consume the potion in order for it to take effect. If it splashes on you, it does nothing.”

She walked over to Aoki and gave her fur a few rough scratches.

“Besides, I wouldn’t dare harm this adorable little thing. The potion itself doesn’t even work. Swapping someone’s gender is a lot harder than it sounds. I wouldn’t even know where to start with making a genderbend potion anyway.”

Come to think of it, since she hasn’t been on any other island than this one, it would be weird that this one would contain all the ingredients for a genderswap potion.

“You knew I would summon her?” I asked, ignoring my lack of pre-emptive critical thinking.

“More or less. I assumed you had figured it out through your pondering, and decided to trust you on it. You may be slower than the average person but you aren’t someone I would consider stupid. It seems the conclusion is that you’re able to summon Aoki through fear, which I gotta say, is not a bad condition given that she’ll only be useful in combat.”

I thought for a moment.

Yeah but why is it only Aoki that gets summoned? What about Kuzo and his other summons? What about my other characters? How would I summon them? Is projecting characters into the real world really my power?

“Is something the matter?” Slyvia asked, seeing my perplexed expression.

“No… I’m just curious about the details,” I said.

“Hmm…” she thinks for a moment, “well given that your ability is combat oriented, the only way to figure out the details now is fighting more Nightmares.”

She was right. If fear was my trigger condition, asking her to lob another potion at me wasn’t going to cut it. I wouldn’t fall for her potion duds a third time after all.

I looked towards the stars in the sky that still remained even as the sun was rising.

We’ll just have to wait until nightfall.