Industrial Strength Magic - Chapter 225: The Bridge of Dreams

Perry’s toes tapped against the concrete floor of his workshop, humming along with the hits of the last decade, playing the mixtape he’d made for Ex’bergazzat.

He was stitching together a high-concept battery that stored dreams. For some reason, the more he worked on it, the more it was taking the shape of a pillow.

Every stitch had to be perfect, because he was working with the idea of a pillow. The very concept, and such things had to match the idealized concept as closely as possible.

Hopefully this will do what I need it to do, Perry thought, stuffing the wriggling fingers back into the pillowcase where they were trying to slip through the unstitched portions.

He glanced over at the clock.

Is that three AM, or eight? Perry wondered to himself, squinting at the blurry numbers as the pillow in front of him began to crawl away while his gaze was turned.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Perry muttered, grabbing the wriggling thing, which fought him with the ferocity of a greased pig.

It took on the hairy exterior and the harsh squeals of a pig as it struggled to get away from him, and for some reason, Perry just couldn’t keep it under control, the pillow slipping from his grasp and sprinting off into the distance, darting out a wobbly door that seemed to only exist for one of Perry’s eyes.

“Bah,” Perry grunted, waving the ungrateful pillow away, picking up his blueprint and consulting it. Some facet of the production process was making these things incredibly difficult to nail down, like a dream.

Was it some bleedover between reality and what the battery was designed to store that made them so elusive?

Perry reviewed the blueprint again, the lines, labels and numbers shifting and rearranging themselves every time his eye moved to a new place. The words were blurred and jumbled, almost like…

Perry asserted control over himself.

First things first: He relaxed. The sudden knowledge that you are lucid dreaming can lead to excitement, which can wake you up.

Don’t get excited. Don’t move too fast. Do everything slowly, with a touch of grace, like you’re suspended in honey. Give the fluid dreamstate time to accommodate your actions.

Perry set the blueprint down, taking a step back from the desk and lying down on the floor.

Perry sunk into the floor a bit, soft and warm, like a bed.

Which, it likely was.

Once Perry was pretty confident his physical body matched his sleep body, he went to the next stage of tonight’s journey.

Perol’s Sleep Puppetry.exe

Perol’s sleep puppetry flushed out the body’s paralysis chemical without waking them. Induced sleepwalking, basically.

Perry sank further into the bed until it enveloped him, correcting his posture as he sank through it. As soon as he was completely engulfed by the floor, he fell gently from the ceiling of his workshop, his body position matching that of his physical body.

Perry reached out – Slowly, like he was suspended in honey – and felt the invisible bedpost with his knuckles. From that one data point, Perry figured out where the rest of the room was, and more specifically, the box with the Dream rope and Lurker Fishhook.

While dreaming, Attach the lurker fishhook to the dream rope, then hold in your off-hand. If released, the two will cease to be connected.

Perry slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, maintaining the image of his workshop as he reached out for the invisible boxes.

His forearm brushed past Nat’s skin as he reached.

Judging by the feel…

Perry located her head and kissed it before retrieving the box and setting it in his lap.

He couldn’t see it of course, but once he opened it…

The invisible lid swung away to reveal the dream rope in all it’s hairy glory.

Literal hair, woven from Dream Sirens. It only existed in dreams and if the box was ever opened by a waking figure, it would evaporate upon exposure to their conscious gaze. Like a dream.

One of the easiest magical essences to con people with. After all, if the only time you could confirm the rope’s presence was while you slept…when would you ever get that chance?

Perry always considered himself lucky that Dave was a straight shooter. Or perhaps the unicorn had realized that a good reputation is more important than a quick scam. In any case, there was Perry’s rope.

Now the hook.

Perry reached into the box, his fingers finding the invisible fishhook, sized for Prawn.

He looped the dream rope through the fishhook, which took on the local superreality of his dream, becoming visible as it was aided by the stabilizing effect of the rope.

Now he had a dream grappling hook.

Now he had to find the general’s dream, then use the lodestone to hoist himself over there, find the edge of his own dream, and grapple the General’s dream, pulling the two together and swing over with his cutlass in his teeth like a pirate in ye olde days, raiding the dream for treasure.

Yar.

Perry opened the box with the cloud giant’s eye and found…A pirate eyepatch.

Hah.

Perry donned the eyepatch, and his covered eye revealed the edge of his dream.

Perry was surrounded by a shallow bubble that moved with him. Everything that existed in his dream was inside this bubble, and its distance from him was more a matter of perception than reality. After all, he couldn’t directly interact with anything past the tips of his fingers. Why would a dream bubble need to be any bigger?

Well this looks familiar.

Outside the tiny oil-bubble were myriad other bubbles, showing a myopic view of occupants in the middle of whatever their dreams were about, with only the direct surroundings visible to Perry as the edges of their bubble seemed to warp space like an event horizon.

Beyond them was the starry Abyss of Attunement.

Some people were running, some people floating, flying, fighting, reuniting with lost ones, etc. Some people’s dreams were more exciting than others. Some people seemed to be reliving their boring day at work, while others…

Perry glanced over at Nat’s dream, his brows climbing on their own.

It was hard to get an exact read on the context of exactly what she was doing with the way the edges of the dream bubble were warped, but Perry could tell she was…busy.

Perry shook his head with a chuckle, resolving to visit her dreams someday before he turned toward the west, where he knew the general was hanging.

He held the grappling hook loosely in his fingers while clutching the lodestone in his palm, his other hand carrying the bone doll, complete with a tuft of his hair sticking out of the top.

That was how you moved yourself, after all.

Perry lined his shoulders up with San Francisco and brought the lodestone together before pulling the two apart. There was a metaphysical strain that made it feel as though his limbs were burning with exertion as he drew the two objects apart, his dream flickering through the dark ether, dreams of every variety whizzing past him.

Finding the person he was looking for wound up being very difficult, as there were no mileposts or addresses in the dreamscape.

After what felt like hours of searching, Perry managed to find a land-Mark.

His name was Mark.

Mark Edwards was dreaming about playing soccer way back in grade school.

Perry knew the man’s address, having seen it before on some of the mail casually left on his desk.

So if he were asleep, he’d be at home (probably) and the meant the labs were that way.

Perry carefully rowed his way towards the labs.

Nobody was asleep there, which made it damn difficult to figure out if he’d arrived at all, seeing as the landscape was a black void of nothingness.

He knew he’d arrived when he found a spherical bubble of warped space: The lab’s magical protection, faintly visible in the dream-scape.

Okay, judging by the size of this sphere, the general should be…right…there.

Perry slipped through the barrier with the faintest resistance, crossing his fingers that it didn’t detect his intrusion and cry foul. The only thing that gave him the confidence to do so was the fact that everything that was happening was purely hypothetical.

It would all fade except Perry’s memory of it.

Seems Tyrannus hasn’t warded against dream intrusion.

And why would he? There was generally no one sleeping at the institute. Not to mention, Agorant’s Bridge of Dreams was a very rare spell, and not many people had it, nor would those rare few find anything of value inside the labs.

Except the General.

Once inside the shield, Perry couldn’t see anything. Can undead even sleep? Does it matter? Perry wondered to himself as he wandered the empy void, searching for any hint of the general’s presence.

Hes at the highest point of the underground portion, so he’s probably near the center of the lab’s shielding.

Perry almost missed him.

The general’s dream wasn’t a bright, animated scene with stretched, bright white, bubble-like edges.

The general’s dream was black-on-black. A dark wisp that nearly vanished into the abyss. It was a dark, twisted, and mean looking thing.

Perry parked himself up close to it, and eyeballed the distance, giving the grappling hook a quick whirl and releasing it.

The hook caught on the general’s dream, and in a matter of seconds, Perry watched as the hair rope morphed into a gangplank, connecting their two vessels.

Symbolism.

Perry set his hat and eyepatch.

“Yar.”

Oh right.

At this point, dismiss Perol’s Sleep Puppetry, lest you walk off the balcony of your tower, like Barghest the Foolish.

Perry canceled Perol’s sleep puppetry, his body falling back into bed while his mind strode forward into a tormented soul’s dream.

The gangplank morphed into a concrete hallway, lit by flickering florescent bulbs as Perry made the transition from his own mind to the general’s.

Perry walked up to a pair of double doors, made of rolled steel and painted with a veneer of wood to lend it just a touch of class. He pushed them open.

In front of him, the general was seated at a desk, his uniform looking crisp and freshly pressed, despite the sweat matting his hair and the scotch by his side.

“Whaddya want?” The general barked, not even glancing up at him as he rifled through papers, smoking like a chimney

“Goddamn eyes must be going,” Abrams muttered around the cigar, blinking and unblinking as he flipped through the papers, pulling a pair of glasses up to his face to no avail.

“Cheap commie garbage,” Abrams scowled, tossing aside the glasses before peering up at Perry. “Who the hell are you? You look like you just got done sucking your momma’s tit.”

Perry weighed his options. He could try to be clever and try to trick the general out of the information he needed…which would most likely blow up in his face if the man figured it out…or he could try leveling with the tormented soul…which might also blow up in his face.

Whatever.

“General Abrams?” Perry asked.

“The hell did you think you were talking to?” the general grunted pointing at the nameplate on his desk.

“Did you realize that you are dead? Undead specifically.”

“Fuck are you on about?” General Abrams asked, scowling magnificently around his cigar.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them to the best of your ability. In exchange, I’ll put you out of your misery.” Perry said, taking a seat in front of the general without asking permission.

“Who the hell do you think you are you little shit? Get outta here before I shove my boot so far up your ass you can taste the polish.”

“Make me.” Perry said, folding his hands over each other in a relaxed posture.

General Abrams went red with undisguised rage and picked up the landline on his desk. “Carol, Get the M.P.s in here, there’s a little piece of afterbirth here that needs an attitude adjustment.”

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“I don’t think the M.P.s are coming.” Perry said.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it myself,” General Abrams said, standing up.

“When was the last time you ate?” Perry asked.

He stopped, mid-stride “What?”

“When was the last time you slept? Left this office? Took a shit?” Perry asked.

Perry could see the gears moving behind the general’s eyes. A modestly above-average intellect honed to a suspicious edge by a lifetime of warfare and political backstabbing. He could tell something was wrong.

“Who the hell are you?” General Abrams asked.

“I’m Paradox.”