A Rain of Dreams – Part 2
Everything seems to be slotting into place.
The move to KC continues to reap benefits, and the hot mess of my wife’s first day at school not withstanding, we are in a really great spot.
My microphone is up and running, I got the second web cam, and I’m going to start making a few extra dollars with streaming. The hope is that not only will this allow for the flow of money while the job search continues, but will also double as a chance for new readers. I kind of have a demographic that is very much tied to gaming. Go figure.
As far as writing goes, I should have the novella of Anrachea done this month or early next. I have a plan as far as releases go. I want to do a short story every month, a novella every three, and a book a year. I think that would be my best bet, especially until I have a steady stream of revenue from either books or streaming. At that stage I can reassess. For now, however, I need to make sure I leave time open to take care of everything the wife can’t. She has shouldered a lot of the burdens placed on us by my firing, and it behooves me to make sure I make them as light as I can.
Update: Enormous setbacks today. Can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong with various things on my stream. Died on my hardcore character for PoE (whom I am using to stream). So I’m going to have to start that guy all over again. Ugh. Not good times.
The only way I will taste success is by wading through an ocean of failure. I have no idea if I can make it. Odds are I’ll drown in the attempt. Nothing for it.
A Rain of Dreams – Part 2
Dreams have power.
That was the mantra of the Somnomancer, their one and only litany.
Dreams have power.
So when the true motives of the Somnomancers were revealed, we had nothing to fight back with. They had quietly and generously accumulated all the power for themselves. They hadn’t even had to hide what they were doing. Their actions were hidden in plain site, veiled behind a thin veneer of humble servitude.
Deep within the bowels of their humble home, the magicians had created a secret cathedral. There, trusted only to their most senior ranks, they had prepared. Drifters, orphans, runaways, all had been taken down to this cathedral. There, the Somnomancers had kept them drugged on magic. They were forced into permanent slumber, and their nightmares were unspeakable horror and carnage. The Somnomancers slowly siphoned off the strength of these dreams. They were dreams of a home they longed to visit upon earth.
August 24th, 2021 at exactly 12:05 PM, the Somnomancers made their move. Hundreds of thousands of treated, plus the hundreds secluded in the basement, all let out a soul-wrenching scream in unison. Their tortured agony, screams full of unfathomable torment, drove people near them mad. For five minutes, their piteous cries rent the heavens. They never stopped for breath. Then, again as one, they exploded.
Not an explosion you would see in a movie. There was no concussive blast, no destruction of property. Their whole body burst out in every direction, blood spattering from each of them in a ring that extended for hundreds of yards. And where there blood touched, Hell itself sprang forth.
Hell is something that humans used to think of as a place where you went when you died. You had to be really bad, and it was a really bad place for really bad people. Yet it was constrained to the dead, reserved for those who have passed beyond mortal existence.
August 24th, humanity learned that Hell was real. And it was hungry. The Somnomancers had tapped the power of dreams, but in reality Hell had tapped the Somnomancers. Every member that joined their ranks, every one of them which had been called to the power of dreams, had been enslaved to the bidding of Another. A demon so foul that His name had been removed from the world in the purifying flames at Alexandria.
It was a masterstroke for Heaven, almost the equal of their triumph in sealing Him at the dawn of creation. Hell itself was built upon his prison, Satan was His unwitting pawn, filled with pride and drawn to fall to serve as His eyes and ears in the world of Men. Only Men could undo the shackles of Heaven. Only men, with their freedom to choose, could set Him free.
On August 24th, humanity began fighting for the right to exist. If Heaven hadn’t interceded, all of humanity would have been destroyed that day. However, rule under Heaven was not without price.
To be continued…
Hellfully,
Justin
