Let us speak of dreams.
How solid they feel. How tangible. The way they imprint themselves on us, soft and subtle at first, luring us away from the real world with their sweetness, making us feel calm and safe as we slip into their folds and drift deeper and deeper beneath their surface.
And then all too late we are trapped as they thrust themselves upon us, spilling down with violence, thick tendrils coiling around our brains and throats and hearts. And they squeeze. And we choke into a curved and alien universe.
Our safety is gone. And we are scared.
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Our dreams are a mountain, so we mine them, ripping ore from dark veins. Carts carry chunks of hewn thought to a refinery, where the black and ochre mineral is carved up, separated, and processed by brooding cephaloids, slaves of the painted men.
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| Painted Man |
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| A brooding cephaloid. |
Some is liquefied and poured into the Lake of Sisters, where the salamogs bathe. This keeps the lizardmen pacified, their minds held in dream infused stasis. Without this, the salamogs would kill and eat the painted men.
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| A salamog. |
Some is crushed into powder and gemstones and traded with the blue wizards, the creators and former masters of the painted men. Their magic is strong, but they have retreated from the world into floating glass cities to pursue strange experiments in secrecy.
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| A blue wizard. |
The rest is carved into slabs, and the slabs are laid like bricks and stacked together, like crude towers. The pink earth sours in their shadow, forming boils that swell and throb. Soon these cysts burst, birthing phasic worms that crawl slow yet hungry to the layered slabs, their massive jaws chattering with anticipation. They devour the towers, and in their place excrete ornamental slime that hardens into tall and curved and hollow shapes.
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| A phasic worm. |
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| Phasic worm excrement. |
And so the city grows, strange and new and in all directions.
