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First chapter of Alice: Dreamstride

also on AOOO: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67117984/chapters/173308411

The world called her mad. The Madgod agreed.

But behind Alice’s madness lies a dreaming only the priests of Vaermina could understand. From under the shadow of the White-Gold Tower to the very depths of Quagmire, she will walk the winding corridors of the mind—and find herself hunted, courted, and claimed by the Weaver of the Panoply.

VAERMINA ALTADOON CHIM GHARTOK

Prologue: Voices in the Dark

Chapter Text

“The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.” -Edgar Allen Poe “The mind is a labyrinth, ladies and gentlemen, a puzzle. And while the paths of the brain are plainly visible, its ways deceptively apparent, its destinations are unknown. It is the lure of the labyrinth that draws us to our chosen field to unlock those secrets. Others have been here before us and have left us signs, but we, as explorers of the mind, must devote our lives and energies to going further to tread the unknown corridors. We have to see, we have to know…” -Dr Phillip Channard.

~o00~

From encrypted letters found among the grave goods of the tomb of demi-Baroness Violette de Cauchemar of Alcaire, recovered by the Adelmar Expedition in 4e 375. All text copied from the original texts kept in the Imperial Library by the generous permission of the Imperial Archaeological Society. Decrypted via mnemospheric anti-logos enchantments. Letters date back to the late Third Era.

~o0o~

To the Learned and Most Esteemed Lady Violette de Cauchemar [1], Ascended Oneirocant and Keeper of the Dreamer’s Heart, most reverential greetings.

I pray that Our Lady’s veil continues to shield you from the eyes of our foes, most esteemed Madame, and that this humble missive finds you in both good health and spirits! Permit me to, with all due reverence, place said missive in your wise hands, in the hope that the information contained herein may serve the cause of both you and Our Dread Lady, may She guide our dreams, and that the opportunity presented by certain happenings and discoveries that have befallen me since our last communique might serve to advance us both in the eyes of the Order.

Firstly, however, permit me to digress by making my monthly report. In short, the Asylum’s finances remain stable as the pennypinchers of the Elder Council have, praise be to the Weaver, finally bowed to the Emperor’s wishes in regards to the budget of the Imperial College of Healers, [2] rather than continue their obstreperous defiance in the service of Ambassador Hrotwulf’s cry of ‘tax relief for the outer provinces!’ Pah. As though the damned Nords can’t spare a few piffling spare Septims to ensure the funding of a proper secular healthcare system, separate from the superstitious mumblings of the temples of the Divines. With the way they’re milking the gold mines of the Reach, they can certainly spare the change- why, I’d be willing to wager my own gold that if they bleed those mines any harder, they’ll run dry in the next half-century! And then how will the Nords of the Reach bleed the locals dry? The silver mines are also vast, but they’d need to bleed the poor devils a dozen times harder.

Well, hmmm. Perhaps Hrotwulf had a point there, now that I think on it. Ah, well, regardless- our funding is secured, and that’s what lies within my hands, and I will spare you further rambling.

[3] …and thus I can finally assure you of our solvency for the next five years. I can only pray the Emperor stays firm in his dedication to funding a semi-functional secular healthcare system. Perhaps now I can finally begin a serious attempt at modernizing this asylum. [4] Some of the techniques utilized here previously, oh I shudder to think of them. Why, I had to order an entire case of trepanation tools melted down just the other day. Can Your Ladyship credit it? Trepanation! As though we were in the First Era!

Secondly, I must thank Your Ladyship for your most generous donation to our libraries, both public and… otherwise. The first edition Commentaries of the Dreams of Pelagius III is in exquisite condition, and will aid marvelously in certain experimental treatments I’ve been considering involving talk therapy and hypnotic regression. As to the private library, the Seven Keys of Slumber has indeed unlocked deeper and deeper mysteries of Our Lady and Her dark wonders for both myself, and a trusted acolyte or two whom I judged worthy of initiation into the deeper mysteries.

The eyes of the servants of the Divines are as blind as ever to the presence of our order among the healers of the Imperial City, and I credit both their own stupidity and complacency, and also our own wisdom in balancing our studies of the nature of the mind with genuine care for our patients, with said blindness. Were we a collection of cack-handed malevolent bumblers like the deluded cultists of Molag Bal or the imbecile Dagon, no doubt we would have been uprooted and sent to the headsman’s block years ago. Fortunately, as Your Ladyship knows, the Empire declines to pry too harshly into the private religious practices of those whose existence benefits rather than harms the Empire. I have, however, caught wind of certain murmurings from the Temple of Stendaar. The followers of the god of 'mercy’ are agitating for harsher crackdowns on the followers of all the Princes, regardless of which Prince might be followed, or whether said followers are degenerate criminals or good law-abiding citizens. Praise Vaermina they will get nowhere with it. Both the Emperor and the Elder Council remain committed to their principles of religious freedom as ever., and although they would never dream of permitting the worship of the Princes of Oblivion to be practiced in the light of day, the scars of the Longhouse Emperors still running deep it would seem, they are content to allow us to pursue Our Lady’s Great Work in the shadows. Which, naturally, is where such works are best done.

And finally, it is with the gravest consideration and scholarly interest that I lay before you a matter of peculiar delicacy. Your Ladyship [5] may recollect that four years ago, a dreadful fire broke out in the Talos Plaza District, claiming ten or eleven homes and twenty five lives, before the Watch was able to rouse Mages Guild members to quench the- apparently magical- blaze. A terrible tragedy, the Black Horse Courier positively had a field day with the matter, alleging all manner of dark conspiracy and official incompetence, before the official report put it down to a lamp being knocked over by a pet cat of all things setting an alchemical laboratory alight.

What Your Ladyship may not recollect is that there was a survivor of the house that started the fire, one Alice Liddell, the daughter of a Master Wizard of the Mages Guild who taught Alchemy at the Arcane University. The poor girl was terribly burned, and even the Restoration Master who examined her was dubious that she would regain full use of her hands. Even after treatment, the poor girl was catatonic, and lacking any surviving relatives, was remanded into my care. The past four years have been understandably difficult for the child, and for the first two years she only rarely rose to consciousness, waking at times to rave about such strange things as ‘Jabberwocks,’ and ‘Red Queens’ and ‘Dwemeric Hatters,’ among more mundane ramblings about the fire and teatime. I had been studying her for insight into the unique oneiroscapes that surely must result from the extended dreaming of catatonia, when much to my astonishment, I overheard several of the nurses complaining of terrible nightmares featuring fires, tyrannical queens in red, and a draconic monstrosity they described variably as ‘frumious,’ ‘beamish,’ and ‘astonishingly ugly.’ Such nonsensical terms were familiar to me, as Alice had used them herself during her periods of wakefulness, but I thought nothing of it at the time. In addition, during one of her clearer waking moments, she looked me right in the eye and said, “She’s a thirst ye could paint, and she pays for it with sticky fingers in yer till,” in a heavy Reachfolk accent that was an almost pitch-perfect imitation of one of my nurses, Nurse Witless. She then clarified, ”She dreams about it,” in her normal voice. Indeed, I later caught Nurse Witless stealing loose change from the coat pockets of some of her fellow nurses as they hung on the lobby coat rack, and was forced to sack her.

It was, however, only after she had begun to wake more frequently and speak more comprehensibly that I began to suspect something deeper was afoot. The oneiroscape she described in our talks, which she called Wonderland, was far too comprehensive and stable for it to be an oneiroscape of the common sort, being utterly lacking in the shifting details and constant contradictions of the dreams of the common sort. Oh, it had its fair share of dream logic, rabbits and hares that spoke, mechanical teapot-spiders, a city of ramshackle giant doll houses connected by bridges of twine and quill pens like an infant's view of Bravil; but internally consistent and unchanging dream logic, painting a picture of a vibrant, living realm, almost an entire plane of Oblivion contained entirely within the confines of her own skull.

I finally put two and two together and realized that, far from being merely a victim of a terrible fate, the girl is a Dreamwalker, and given her oneiroscape actively impinged on (one might even say invaded) the oneiroscapes of others during her coma, a phenomenally potent one.

Naturally, I considered the possibility of utilizing Vaermina’s Torpor to enter her oneiroscape in order to study it in person, and possibly ameliorate some of the worst of her madness’ symptoms, but my lack of experience with unsupervised dreamwalks combined with the apparently dangerous nature of her mind, riven by madness and apparently filled with various nonsensical and potentially lethal foes dissuaded me.

And, yes, although conscious and able to hold lucid conversations, she is tragically still quite mad. She speaks to hallucinatory cats, argues loudly with imaginary queens, and battles with nonexistent dragons. Unfortunately, the dream logic of her Wonderland only ensures its internal consistency, not its clear separation from the waking world. At this point, the girl dwells more within the Madgod’s Asylum more than mine. She would be a danger to herself and others if released into a common home.

Not, of course, that we could do any such thing. Such natural talent makes the girl a diamond in the rough, far too precious to be cast before the swine of orphanages and adoption. With proper guidance and training, the girl will become one of the finest scalpels in the hands of Lady Vaermina, the Hypnagogic Order, and of course, yourself.

I most humbly remain, oh learned one,

Yours,

Director Hieronymus Q. Volarius, Oneiric Scribe of the Hypnagogic Order.

~o00~

To Director Hieronymus Q. Volarius,

Director, you have certainly succeeded in providing me with a distraction from the endless tedium of managing my own budget, and for that at least I can unreservedly congratulate you. Accept also my congratulations on prying a sufficiency of my tax money back from the tightfisted grasp of the Elder Council. Given the poor quality of the armor and the dwindling numbers of the Legionnaires I see in Alcaire, one must wonder what they spend it all on. Some days, it seems they can scarcely afford polish to scour the rust from their cuirasses, much less the coin to field soldiers in sufficient number. The Emperor's robes surely cannot cost so much.

I am also delighted to hear of your attempts to modernize your facilities, although one wonders why exactly they were not begun some time ago; for that matter, one wonders why even now they remain mere ‘attempts.’ The fault of your predecessors, I’m sure. The Council of Healers are not known for their competence; it hardly surprises that they struggle to appoint competent Director’s without our firm hand on the tiller.

The Seven Keys are a fundamental text, and one that is utterly mandatory for one of your rank. I expect you to perform a thorough analysis of each Key, and be prepared to display your comprehension of them to an Oneirocant at a later date. I needn’t instruct you to display caution in the performance of the Keys; the Third alone has devoured acolytes before, so I am gratified you still remain ambulatory.

And sane.

As to the Stendaarites, the Crusaders have long demanded greater radicalism from their more pacifistic brethren, and the healers and charity organizers have long denied them. Let them mutter into their beards about crusades in Stendaars name. It would take no less than a miracle from their little god for the rest of their Temple to beat their begging bowls into shields and soup ladles into swords. They are no threat to us, and worthy of no further thought.

Young Alice, on the other hand, is a matter of great interest to me. The internal consistency of her oneiroscape is not so rare as you seem to be under the impression it is- certainly, the default is more a series of jumbled snippets and even images more than it is a properly-developed plane with its own geography and dramatis personae, but such is hardly unheard of. Typically, it can be found in lucid dreamers and natural Dreamwalkers, and indeed she appears to be the latter. Given her catatonia has all but severed her from the waking world, it is only reasonable her dreaming world has increased in complexity to compensate. I suggest, going forward, you review prior case studies before declaring a phenomenon unprecedented, yes?

Still, the incursion of her dreaming into the mental architectures of others is vanishingly rare. That does merit attention. The apparent mutual permeability between the oneiroscapes of your staff and her own Wonderland is… well, somewhere between ‘troubling’ and ‘thrilling.’ For natural Dreamwalkers, such requires training and experience. To achieve such at eleven is a sign of great things.

Naturally, there are dangers, to her and to others. The Temples of the Divines must receive no word of this, not even a whisper of her powers must leave your asylum. Reinforce the wards with the proper Oneiric formulae if you haven’t already, and I must regrettably order you to isolate Alice from the other patients, and ideally from your staff as well. Yes, you’ll probably have to lower yourself to cleaning a chamber pot and making a bed for a time. Do strive to endure this little nightmare with something approximating grace. The promise you indicate is sufficient to render any hardships as nothing compared to the gain.

And I will confess, I am not blind to the human element at work here. Our forebears in the Supernal Dreamers understood the Mundus to be a wound, and it was to this end they sought to tear down the Liminal Barrier and enact the Edict of Dreams. Their means were flawed—but their purpose was just. A child like Alice, scorched by fire and madness both, reminds us why the work must go on.

A child deserves a home. I shall give her one. Prepare Alice for adoption. I will consult with the Ten, but I anticipate no dissent. She will be raised in our ways, in the safety of the Order.

You needn’t concern yourself with her danger. I am no natural Dreamwalker, but I am skilled. The Torpor will allow me to enter her Wonderland in time, and I shall pull her from the Madgod’s claws myself.

With appropriate esteem,

V. de Cauchemar

Ascended Oneirocant, Keeper of the Dreamer’s Heart

Post script: Keep her away from soul gems, yarn balls, lettuce, or cheese- you know why. Let’s not give the capering fool in the Isles more of a foothold in her broken psyche than he already has. If she starts wearing parti-colored clothing and aping a Reacher accent, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame.

Post post script: And for Vaermina’s sake, stop erasing your mistakes with magicka. You’ve worn the parchment to a ghost of itself. The Order can afford stationery.

~o00~

[1] Demi-Baroness Violette de Cauchemar was, according to all accepted historical record, a Breton woman and an unlanded lesser noble of the kingdom of Wayrest in the late 3rd Era, who kept an elegant manor house in the countryside outside Alcaire, invested her family fortunes wisely in the East India Company, and donated to several charitable organizations ranging from public libraries to what were at the time still commonly known as ‘madhouses’. Contemporary documents show no sign of the Vaerminic cultist and ambitious occultist these letters show. Closer investigation, however, reveals several interesting facts.

Firstly, the de Cauchemar family seems to descend from Francois de Cauchemar, a wealthy merchant prince of Alcaire who was a minor member of a Vaerminic cult known as the Supernal Dreamers, who attempted to drag the entire region of Stormhaven into Vaermina’s realm of Quagmire in 2e 582. Descent from criminals is, of course, not illegal at all, as Imperial law explicitly forbids the imposition of Corruption of Blood, and has since the second century of the Second Era. It is, however, an interesting datapoint to keep in mind.

Secondly, no reasonings for Demi-baroness de Cauchemar’s elevation to the ranks of (admittedly, unlanded) nobility have survived, despite laws requiring the public declaration of such prior to legal ennoblement having been enshrined in Wayrest’s legal code since its inception.

Thirdly, after her death at the impressive age of 128 (doubtless due to her possessing great skill with Restoration magicks), the demi-Baroness’s home and possessions passed not into the hands of her adopted ward, who had by this point long since vanished from any records which I have been able to examine, but rather was willed to an occult order calling itself The Institute For Oneiric Studies.

As an interesting sidenote, the name Cauchemar? Brettonic for ‘Nightmare.’

[2] This section of text was removed from the page, judging from the distinctive wear on the parchment likely by judicious uses of the spell Dratham’s Intense Ink-Scrub, and was recovered by tonal reconstruction.

[3] Visible text resumes here.

[4] More deleted text.

[5] Technically, demi-Baroness is such a petty rank that it calls for no such form of address, but perhaps that is the proper form of address for an ‘Ascended Oneirocant.’ Unfortunately, the technicalities of the Hypnogogic Order’s internal ranking system are utterly unknown to us. Conversely, Volarius could simply be a bit of a lickspittle.

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