He stood, as usual, floating in midair. A skill never usable in the realm of reality, but it worked fine here in the realm of nightmares. He strides across the air as if on flat ground, surveying the realm around him carefully. A king could never look so haughty, so prideful and knowing, as this strange man. This strange man who had about him the aura of destruction, and who could have surely made a king of even the highest resolve break down and confess everything by just being in the same room as him.
The man's hair was shoulder length and a grayish blue color. His shirt was almost skin tight and a brilliant scarlet while his pants were also skin tight, but of a deeper, more crimson color. A cloak of gray falls down his back in waves. The only change from the gray of the cloak is a V of scarlet that starts at his shoulders and ends at about the small of his back. His boots are of the same crimson as his pants, soft leather that makes no sound when he moves.
His skin, what can be seen of it, is a dark grayish black, and looks as smooth as silk. Muscles ripple under his skin as he moves, graceful as a cat. His face is hansom, all of the features combining to make him look even more kingly. His eyes are slightly slanted, with bright scarlet irises slashed through with black streaks that all seem to extend out of his pupils, making his eyes look like a black starburst on a scarlet background. His eyes are cold and hard, merciless and unforgiving.
He grins suddenly, exposing teeth that a wolf would be proud of, and then lashes out with a hand and scoops up a bright spark out of the air. Bringing the spark close to him, he stares into it. The spark flickers, trying to get away, but he cages it with his hands.
As he stares into it, a nightmare starts forming within the spark, horrible creatures chasing the human, chasing and cornering. The spark starts flickering even more quickly, and then, suddenly, it dissipates into a mist and vanishes.
The man growls, he was Daem! Master of the Night and Bringer of Nightmares! It was impossible for someone to escape his grasp! But that hadn't been the first human to somehow find a way to escape him in his own realm of nightmares, indeed, it had been the fifth creature. Never before had this happened to him, maybe he was growing soft in his own way. Although it was hard to imagine Daem soft, with his merciless eyes and the aura of destruction around him, it seems that he is the ultimate in hardness.
Daem brings his hands up to his face, looking at them closely. His nails shine like black diamonds and, indeed, are as hard as black diamonds. There was nothing amiss that he could see, not even a single chip in a nail. But yet that human had escaped, had woken up before he had released him.
Daem mutters darkly to himself and the ever-changing terrain changes to suit his mood. This realm held everything that any creature had ever dreamed about in fear and the positioning of everything changed randomly according to what souls where floating around at the time. This time, though, it had reacted to his mood instead of the fears of the souls that floated around.
He looks around, baring his teeth in amusement at the nightmare setups that were in his sight. Raging infernos, different tortures, avalanches, rockslides, diseases, and almost everything that gives a slow, horrible death were there around him. All had souls trapped in their constraints, and none of them escaped before the nightmares had run their course.
The realm was strange, nightmares floating through a pure blackness that was impossible to pierce even for the sharpest of eyes. Sometimes nightmares would mingle, blend into each other, and share their horrors to others. Personal nightmares float off to one side, but they, too, share their horrors with other nightmares. All nightmares have undefined edges where everything grows hazy and incomplete. But despite that, it was almost impossible for one to escape a well-firmed nightmare that reflects the fears of the person, even if they do know that it is only a dream.
Watching the nightmares with only slight interest, Daem continues his prowl around his realm. He had seen these nightmares played out again and again, for centuries of human time, and it was getting a bit wearying. There wasn't much he could change about it, though, the creatures themselves created the nightmares, it was hard to force a nightmare upon them.
This realm was called Taialdian, he hadn't given it its name, instead he had sensed the name floating through the space it occupied. He wasn't entirely of this realm either. If he thought back far enough, he felt the faint, echoing memories of life as a human. Who he had been, he didn't know, but he if he tried, he could hear the chirping of birds and feel the sunlight on his skin. Faintly, of course, but then everything was faint, even the general feeling of companionship with another creature.
Brushing aside those memories as trivial compared to the life he has now, Daem reaches out and snags something out the air and steps into it, another power over nightmares that he had now, a nightmare couldn't be forced on a soul, but it could be changed to be even more gruesome, more terrible than it already was.
He smiles, looking around at the personally created nightmare, memorizing everything. A nightmare is, of course, something that the mind comes up with. But Taialdian was a literal treasure house of nightmares, and very few were actually original. But the occasional nightmare was truly original.
This one was odder than most, but he felt himself agreeing with whoever had dreamed this up, this was truly a nightmare. It was a battle, and, truthfully, Daem had seen many dreams about battles, all slightly different. Some had had dragons in them, some had had skeletons, necromancers, people that killed with a look, he had seen it all, or thought he had, now he wasn't quite sure. Nothing had ever been like this. The people fought with strange flowers of all different colors, every color did something different. There were so many different colors, some almost identical, that it was hard to tell what to avoid, although avoiding everything would have been the best.
The ground was covered in flowers as well, along with dead men. In truth, there was no blood being spilled, but the men were dead all the same. Dead of horrible things like creatures exploding from their bodies, or their bodies turning on themselves. It was enough to shake the resolve of anyone, even the Bringer of Nightmares himself.
There was a feeling of horror coming from one end of the battle. Daem looks and sees a man standing on top of a hill, observing the battle as if he has to force himself too. Daem grabs something and moves himself next to the man, who doesn't seem startled to see him at all.
"They fight with the Flowers of Aahria," the man remarks sadly.
Daem feels an answering sorrow within himself, even though he has no clue what the Flowers of Aahria are, "Why do they fight?"
"They fight over the land. High Prince Rashan has vanished, perhaps died." The man shivers as he watches man after man fall and die. Some die quickly, exploding violently. Others die slowly, withering away with painful slowness into dry husks then crumbling apart and falling as dust on the ground. Still others die as creatures rip them apart. There are many ways to die down on that field, more ways than Daem had ever seen.
The man writhes suddenly, falling on the ground, his body slowly forcing itself to turn inside out. A man dressed in gold stands over him, holding a golden flower. The man's eyes shine crimson in the light, a crimson slashed through with black. Smiling ruthlessly, he watches. Daem's eyes widen in shock and terror then he rips the dream apart, escaping it.
He lays in the emptiness of Taialdian, gasping and shivering, drenched in his own sweat. Growling, he collects himself, making the sweat disappear as he rises back up. His eyes shine ruthlessly, like the second man's eyes in the dream. There had been no resemblance between him and the man in the dream besides the eyes, and it wasn't him that had killed the man. He had just been caught by surprise, that was all.
Daem starts prowling around the realm again, looking at the different nightmares. This time he doesn't enter any of them, but instead he watches for a time outside of the nightmares then adds a new twist to some of the oldest ones imaginable. That was why he was there, after all. Taialdian could survive without a master, but after a time there wouldn't be many souls there. All creatures, with time, lose their fear of things if they don't change. He was there to provide the changes to keep all creatures afraid.
He stops and shoves his human, or whatever creature he was before, memories back again. Grumbling under his breath, he continues walking. His gray cloak swirls around his feet and he projects such anger that two armies would disengage and run rather than face him.
He looks up as he feels the realm shift and change around him. Instead of the gigantic blackness studded with nightmares, he now stands in a blackened world. Smiling grimly, he takes in everything. The sun is only barely seen through the layer of dark, brooding clouds that cover the entire sky. Flakes of black ash cover the ground completely while trees stand tall with obsidian leaves covering their jet-black branches.
This was a nightmare that quite a few people had, for some reason, and each had left his or her mark on the nightmare. Off to the right a volcano erupted, sending more gases and material into the atmosphere while covering the ground with liquid rock that was as alive as any person. The lava forms itself into a whip and snaps out to grab a passing soul, dragging it into its molten embrace before the soul has more than a chance to scream.
Water filled with ash turns into a freezing, muddy mass just as alive as the lava, except that this water was cunning. It pulls the ash down to its bottom, leaving about a foot of crystal clear water on the surface. That deceptively clear water was death to anyone who drank it. As a creature would kneel down to pull the water into its mouth, the mud at the bottom would rise and pull the creature into it, headfirst.
That wasn't the full list of terrors, though. There were creatures that had a definite interest in blood, others that would just mutilate the bodies, there were even some trees that would very slowly strangle and absorb a person. This nightmare was a dangerous one, and contained many souls at the same time. Several times there had been groups of people that had met up and joined together. A few of those groups had even survived until the members all woke up.
Daem smiles, his good temper revived at the sight of his personal favorite nightmare. He had joined up with many of those groups, and had even lead two of them. This may be a nightmare, but not all of the souls within it were there on accident. True, they were all scared of the place, but the ones that did form groups reveled in the difficulties, the hardships of a place where everything was against them. Many even returned with their own ideas of what would make the place even scarier and formed up groups again. It was a game to them, a game that was truth, where they would feel the pain of their death.
Many people would say that those who returned willingly were crazy, but they laughed it off. They were hard men and women who flourish only with hardship and fear. It also taught them, in a strange way, to respect people from other places with different cultures.
Daem whirls around, his left hand striking out as a Dez leaps at him. His hard, sharp nails bite into the creature's throat and rips it out as he jumps aside. The Dez had gold hide swirled with black and was about five feet long. In many respects it resembles a wolf, but sharp spines protrude all over its body and its neck is long and serpentine. Those groups of adventurers had named every creature they had ever killed, even setting up a trophy area to display the creatures, kind of like a museum. This Dez was larger than any Daem had seen displayed, so he grabs a leg of the beast and pictures the strange museum-like area that was an offshoot of the adventuremare, what a nightmare that had begun to be used as a place for adventurers to be born was called. Without moving, the landscape changes in the blink of an eye.
Daem walks down the hallways, looking up at monstrous creatures that had taken the entire group to slay down to the tiny, vicious creatures that could kill with a single bite but had been killed with just one blow. All of them had plaques that told what the name of the species was and then who killed that specimen. Very few of them had Daem's name on them, but that didn't matter to him, he helped when it was necessary and gained the trust of everyone that had been in any of the groups that he was in.
With a heave, Daem places the Dez on an empty platform that stands near a cluster of other Dez's that had been killed, ranging from the tiniest of babies to the largest of adults. When he lets go of the creature, it changes so that the missing throat is replaced. Without any noise, the body is lifted up and held in place by wires that seem to appear out of nowhere. The plaque on the platform changes, words appearing on it that state the creature's species, length, height, weight, gender, how it was killed, and who killed it.
Daem starts wandering through the rest of the museum, into a part that was special, where the true badge of honor laid for all those who thought that it was an adventure that could be beaten. He enters the room and looks around. This was what made the place a true adventuremare. This room was like a hall of fame for a game in the realm of reality where the dreamers came from, except instead of just names, it held 3D bodies of the ones who had escaped alive, dressed in whatever they had worn when they were in the land, most with weapons, but a few with just their hands raised. Spellcasters, even ones that weren't spellcasters in their realities, were deadly within this realm. The hall was endless, of course, so any number of people could become part of it, but there were only the twenty-eight people that he knew there. All of them stood in battle poises, fear, determination, and excitement within their eyes.
The bodies stood on platforms much like the ones that the trophies were on, but the plaques on these held different statistics, race, gender, name, number of kills, group name(s), number of deaths, longest amount of time survived, and number of visits. Twenty-eight people out of thousands had made it to this hall of fame. Twenty-eight people out of the hundreds who had formed groups had survived until they woke up. All it took to make it to this hall of fame was to survive just once, and then they were here for eternity.
In truth, this nightmare was one of only three that had become adventuremares, but it was the one most often visited. Daem grins, filled with pride at what his realm of nightmares had produced, Silian, the Mistress of the Night and Giver of Peace, had nothing comparable to offer in her realm of peaceful slumber and pleasant dreams.
He feels a swirl of something and turns, grabbing at the swirl and pulling himself towards it. To his amazement, he comes out into a world of reality, quite apart from his realm of nightmares and adventuremares. He feels something tugging at him, though, and he turns around. His eyes widen in surprise when he sees the cluster of eggs guarded by a dragon. Feeling within himself, he finds his link to the world of nightmares and starts to go back to it, but stops. One of those eggs continues to tug at him, keeping him from leaving.
Daem sighs then bows courteously to the dragon, silently accepting the egg's tugging, even though he can't figure out which one calls to him yet. Inside himself he prepares to stay until the egg allows him to return, even though he yearns towards his adventure- and night- mares.