where no dreams reach errand nanowrimo

setting

The Dreamlands are the space where the minds of men wander. It is the place of our collective consciousness, where our values and fantasy blend to create a world. It is a vast rolling space, divided into four areas: The North, South, East, and West. Within these regions there are of course kingdoms and city states, but the Dreamlands as a whole are generally peaceable, beyond the threat of monsters. The thing that must be understood about the Dreamlands is that reality is in a constant state of ‘glitch’. The logic of the world is the logic of dreams, foregoing normal laws of physics and common sense.

Before I continue further, I must explain something about the context for this worldbuilding. The Dreamlands are derived from the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, a long series of semi-connected short stories exploring this world. What I am trying to write is something in the vein of the The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson that takes the large sandbox that is this world and use it to explore broader things and investigate the underlying logic and prejudices inherent in Lovecraft’s work. Specifically, what makes the Dreamlands of this story different from the Dreamlands of the original stories is that it is the Dreamlands at the point of upheaval.  A place made of dreams is in constant flux, but as we shift into a world built on industrialization and rationalization, where the fantasy becomes less and less a part of the structure of how we conceive of things, what happens then? That is what this setting seeks to investigate.

At the moment of the story, we find the Dreamlands in a point of upheaval, the reality of the world reshaping as the way that people in the ‘real’ world conceive of their reality shifts. The aesthetics and reality of the world are disrupted. Where once you had a world of fantasy, marked by rolling hills, hulking cliffs, dense forests, and wind-tossed oceans, marred by the occasional patchwork down, now the world is marked by this change. Buttresses of concrete raise from the ground, perfectly paved roads appear overnight, and villagers will come home to find that their home, once made of soft, organic materials, with irregular shapes, has been replaced by a perfect inorganic building, made of hard edges. What is even more disturbing in this moment is that the logic of the world is changing. Where reality once skipped, now it runs smooth, a perfect crystalline categorization of everything that has ever happened, recorded in memory like carvings on a stone wall. Things that once happened because they presented wild untamed purpose are no longer possible as the potential of imagination alters.

We must now return to the inhabitants of this world. For what is a world without its people? Culture cannot exist outside of them, and so the broader mindset of the population must be understood. There are two kinds of people who exist within the Dreamlands: there are those who have always lived there, who view the Dreamlands as the only reality they know, and then there are the dreamers, those from our world who possess the fortitude to enter the Dreamlands as they sleep and wander it. The residents of the Dreamlands only know the reality of the world and the logic of the world as what is real. To exist as them is to exist with a permeable layer of dream upon one’s existence, as reality is in the constant threat of upheaval and change that they have no agency around. And yet they continue. They build up lives and towns, develop academic careers, go sailing. The world is their world, and the constant glitches are akin to bad traffic or a heavy storm: an unavoidable fact of life.

The point of origin in the story is the town of Ulthar, one of the largest settlements of the Dreamlands. It is a town that is situated near the River Skai, a thick winding river that cuts through the Dreamlands heading towards the Southern Sea. It is a city that presents the platonic ideal of an idyllic English village: thatched roofs, thick public gardens, cheerful gathering spots at the local pubs, golden lights that twinkle through the night. There is one thing that distinguishes Ulthar from many other places: the cardinal rule of the city is that one cannot harm a cat. It is a place that manifests the change more than some areas, as a result of being such a conglomeration of people and ideas.

Government in the Dreamlands is loose, derived from conglomerations of city states and the various religions to old gods of dreams that drift in linger. The one constant are the Dreamers, those from our world that can walk through the Dreamlands, fully aware of where they are and gifted with the ability to manipulate reality slightly. While Dreamers normally return home, there are always those that seek to stay in the Dreamlands and obtain power for themselves in the process, becoming kings and rulers.

The brunt of this story’s action will most likely take place in the West, the area of the Dreamlands containing the most cities and population, and also the point of entry for Dreamers into the Dreamlands. However, I do need to address that H.P. Lovecraft had his limits with imaging a world of dreams, and as part of the purpose of this book is to poke at and investigate them, the way that the cities manifest will be more multifaceted, reflecting the fact that this is a land constructed by all dreams, and not only the dreams of a select Western audience that he felt had ideological control. On the flipside of this though is the fact that those ideologies are beginning to dominate the consciousness of the Dreamlands as this story begins, a side effect of globalization, industrialization, and rationalization.

The guiding question of this setting is questioning if it is possible to hold back change, to create a world that is resistant to new ideology, but still allowed to grow? How malleable is the human mind? If it is possible to ‘prevent’ change? Do we want that? Can we ever make a decision for all of a world in this manner? Should we?

Word Count: 1052

insp 

"What might a just history look like?" - Austin Walker

"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." - Antonio Gramsci

“Emancipatory politics must always destroy the appearance of a ‘natural order’, must reveal what is presented as necessary and inevitable to be a mere contingency, just as it must make what was previously deemed to be impossible seem attainable.” - Mark Fisher

“All peoples are driven to the point of eating their gods after a time: it’s the old greed for a plateful of outer space, that craving for darkness, the lust to feel what it does to you when your teeth meet in divinity, in the flesh, when you swallow it down and you can see with its own cold eyes, look out through murder.” -  Margaret Atwood

“If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.” - Terry Pratchett

protagonist

If you were to encounter her, you wouldn’t think much. Just a girl, nineteen at most, quiet, but with a force of will that churns inside, an iron resolute thing. The most distinguishing thing about her would be her mane of wild red curls, but even those are the color of red clay dug fresh from the earth, rather than a traditional flame. And in your encounter with this girl, you were to talk to her more, you would find that her conversation is not the stuff of legends either. No, her mind, while prone to skips and starts, a side effect of living in the Dreamlands, is hardy, practical. Her words and actions are solid and resolute, meant to find the root of the problem and dig it up, enacting a controlled burn until it has been erased. The girl’s name is Eve’s Hollow. Eve’s (or Ev to most people, who despair at the strangeness of the possessive) was named after the town in which she was born, a small spattering of houses on the outskirts of Ulthar. Her mother, a dreamer (the rare one who was a woman), had had her and left, not wanting to leave any trace of her identity behind, ergo, stealing the name of the town for her child. Ev’s father followed soon after, seeking the hidden paths to the ‘real’ world. So Ev grew up in Eve’s Hollow, a place not marked by the curse of the cats of Ulthar and yet one still holding close the importance of never harming a cat.

Ev grew up with her aunt, a weaver, who instilled in the girl the importance of clothing. You can learn everything about someone by how they dress, by what they accessorise with and without, what they emphasize, what they don’t. Ev took that lesson to heart, eventually apprenticing under her aunt at the age of thirteen, an act of making the informal formal, as she had been helping around the house for as long as she could remember. There was a certain joy for her in the act of working with fiber. It wasn’t just the weaving, the delicate precision and planning needed to make certain outfits, but the whole process, starting with the combing of the fiber, and going on to the spinning and dyeing. With fiber, she felt, you had control of the whole process, could make something where you knew the whole story.

Despite the fact that Ev knew the importance of fashion, she never outwardly appeared it. Her day-to-day outfits were simple and hardy, meant for chill nights and warm mornings. Blue was her favorite color, and with the agency only bestowed by having far too much free reign as a child, she made her entire wardrobe shades of it. Now, closer to full adulthood she has begun to diversify more, but blue remains the dominant hue. If we were in our world, we’d say that her favorite color matches the sky, but the skies of the Dreamlands are never that piercing clear blue we are so accustomed to. Instead they are yellow and golden most of the time, the delicate glow of potential, the hue of the sky as the sun sets or rises. She likes the contrast. Ev is, if nothing else, a bit self occupied. Not vain, no, but assured of herself and her ability. She is not fraught with internal fears, but instead filled to the brim with a deep belief in her own ability and capability to fix problems, even if she is unable to.

She is also a bit of a know-it-all. She’ll lecture for hours on her favorite topics if given the opportunity, even if she does not know quite all that much on the topic. She is afraid of losing face, of appearing dumb in front of others and so she overcompensates, becomes haughty and aloof. But all in all, Ev is normal, or as normal as one can get in the Dreamlands. At least she is at the start of the story.

Her story does not begin in some mythic way, no wizard on the doorstep, no letter in the post. She is simply irritated, annoyed at the cost of dye in the Ulthar market one day, as a result of the Changes occuring. So she sets out, intending to give the dye sellers a piece of her mind, and comes across a murder of crows instead. They have been dislodged from their ancestral tree by the Changes. The crows beg her to figure out what was happening - after all she was the first person to talk to them. Ev cannot refuse. She knows the logic of stories too well, after all the Dreamlands are a world built on them - to turn down an animal asking for aid will only lead to ruin. So she accepts, setting out to find the root cause reluctantly, now garbed in a cloak of crow feathers, the single reward offered. She is not on this quest out of personal need, she could continue on and exist in a world beset by Changes alright, but she is on it now because it is right, because she has an obligation to it.

As the story continues, Ev experiences a shifting of her personal reality. Despite her know-it-all nature, she has been sequestered away from the brunt of the world. As she voyages across the wastelands of mind and memory, she begins to understand more of the people and the world of the Dreamlands. It is not enough to simply understand her town and its desires. Instead, she begins to understand the scope of the world in which she resides and the conflicting desires of those within it, challenging her assumptions of how the world should work and instead developing a desire within her to learn how the world could work.

Her focus on clothing allows her to do this in many ways. She fixates on it in any setting she enters, allows her to be consumed by the way clothing fits upon others and reveals important details about them. In her understanding the physical objects, she can begin to understand the people around her, even if she often gets off on the wrong foot in her travels.

Ev is, in essence, someone trying to put together a multi-dimension puzzle, a reluctant hero, but one who will not stop now.

Word Count: 1069

main plot

At the start of the story, we find the Dreamlands in a moment of change. The Changes are wreaking chaos across them, producing strange structures and incursions into the land, flattening the world in a way. Most people do not care about them however, Ev included. She is at home, happy with her life. It is only when she goes to buy dye for her aunt and the prices are raised because the sellers cannot reach the dye in an easy manner anymore as a result of the Changes that she begins to realize their impact upon her life.

So she sets out, intending to give the dye sellers a piece of her mind, and comes across a murder of crows instead. They have been dislodged from their ancestral tree by the Changes. The crows beg her to figure out what was happening - after all she was the first person to talk to them. Ev cannot refuse. She knows the logic of stories too well, after all the Dreamlands are a world built on them - to turn down an animal asking for aid will only lead to ruin. So she accepts, setting out to find the root cause reluctantly, now garbed in a cloak of crow feathers, the single reward offered.

Ev does not believe the source is at home, for how can it creep into her home if it is from it. Instead, she decides that  it must be the fault of the Gods, for the gods lie beyond dreams and influence them; they are outside of the world and must be the ones to blame.So she sets out for the Moon, where it is easier to meet the Gods, setting sail from the port of Dylath-Leen (side note: forgot to mention this in worldbuilding, but you can just sail to the Moon in this world - it is the realm of dreams after all). At the port, she encounters a young boy named Thero, who views the Changes as something to be embraced and their interactions are marked by constant debate over what they view as the norm.

The ship crashes on the moon as a result of the changes and Ev is captured by moon-beasts and separated from Thero. In the camp of the moon-beasts she meets Nyarlathotep, a God of chaos and change. Ev is skeptical of him, partially because he wears what we would consider a standard business suit, an outfit that seems alien to her.  The God is torn between the Changes, unsure if he wants them, enamored of progress inherent in them but scared of his loss of power in the process, even if he is, in the end, a force of destruction.
In the end, he demands that she find the root of the changes. from the moon she sets off, in the company of a moon-beast named Ylrack, a strange creature that gasps and shrieks their words, but one that she finds common ground with in their discussion of jewelry. From the Moon, they are unsure of where to go and return to Ulthar, to consult with the high priest The priest states that they must find the root of the world, to find the root of the changes and have control over them. Ev interprets this as the Underworld; after all, that is where the bottom of the world rests, right? Under everything?

In the Underworld, bad things happen. They encounter ghouls, those half alive denizens of the dark, and  the moon-beast abandons Ev to save themself from the ghouls. Ev is alone once again. She is cold, shivering, having lost hope of ever uncovering the cause of the Changes, feeling as if she is cursed to wander the Dreamlands forever, in search of something that she did not even want to do. She was happy with her life after all. It was the gift of complacency, to live at home in peace.

It is here, in the gloom and the tombs, that she meets a wanderer - a Dreamer, a real one. He guides her out, chattering idly about televisions and cars, the way that the dream is just like a story from home.  He talks of nothing and everything as they make the cold desolate climb up. Ev soaks it in like a rag, becoming enamoured of the waking world.

The two travel to Celaphasis, the city meant to celebrate Dreamers. There, she begins to understand what the root of the world is. It is the metaphorical root, the waking world. Dreams and reality are linked and intertwined, and as one changes, so does the other. Also in Celaphasis, she reunites with Thero, who had his own set of adventures - which the audience is aware of, but not her. He believes the world is great and wonderful, after seeing much of it. the two have swapped perspectives, her for the Changes, as they bring the Dreamlands closer to the wonder of the waking world, him against. But still, her obligation to the quest continues.

To fulfill her quest, she calls upon Nyarlathotep, asks him if there is a way to halt the influence. Based on what she tells him, he believes there is, but that it would require separating the worlds. The waking world would become more solid as a result, the dreaming world more intangible, more floating. The waking realm would become where no dreams reach, a place lost and fragmented, boxed in by cement and rationality. Ev is not sure that she can agree to this, can allow it to happen, but she made a promise and a promise she must keep. She calls upon the crows, demanding that they aid her in becoming a knife to split worlds.


In the end, Ev fails. She attempts to be a conduit, to be a linchpin between worlds. After all, she is the daughter of both worlds, she rationalizes, the child of a Dreamer and a resident of Dreamland. But it is not enough. She is still a single person. Her attempts to peel apart the world falter and fade, and no wishing can hold them apart. (Note to self: I can use this section to engage in some truly ridiculous description).

Instead, she and the crows become shades, flickering between realms, existing in both and neither at the same time. She exists in the world and the root of the world - and both Dreamland and the waking realm can claim both of those titles. Neither realm has absolute influence on the other, both feed into each other, transforming the other - everyone had only assumed that the Dreamlands were dependent upon the waking realm. But it is also true that no person can change the world alone, and Ev is unable to. All she can do is her small part in her liminal space to create new wonder.  She becomes a myth, a fable, a reminder of the magic of the world, which holds back the changes, at least a little. It is better than nothing, she believes, paging through a fashion magazine in a waiting room in the waking realm as she smiles as a child, her teeth too sharp and her eyes too golden, a thing of nightmares and dreams alike. This is where the story ends.

Word Count: 1217

subplot one: Ev trying to befriend a cat

The first subplot is Ev trying to befriend a cat that has decided to tag along with her along the story. No, don’t laugh, this is very important. The sub-plot serves the purpose of demonstrating Ev trying to break out of her know it all nature and snootiness, by attempting to contend with a creature that is even worse than in her in this regard. Cats matter in this world, as sacred and to be kept safe, and so Ev is aware that she must care for it over the course of the journey, since it has decided to wander with her. The cat is an ally of sorts, but snooty and aloof in the way cats tend to be, a mystery and enigma on four paws.

The first sign that this will be hard is that the cat refuses a name. It does not want to be defined by her, and so she despairs over ever understanding it. Over the course of the story she seeks its trust, offering it food at any moment, speaking to it in a cruel tone, a  calm one, in whatever tone that might elicit a reaction. Nothing. The cat simply does not care for her. She is desperate after a point, wishing that it would care for her. After all, cats are aligned with dreamers and wanderers, so she must be liked by it, in order to prove her worth as an adventurer.

This subplot deals with her conflicted feelings over adventure as well, the cat a manifestation of her internal conflict over both wanting the title and despising it. It is only in Celaphasis, where she reaches a point of self realization over what she must do, that the cat allows her to name it, since through the course of the story she suggests various names for it constantly, and it pointedly ignores her. She picks the name Autumn, to signify the point of change, the death of the world so that it may be made anew. The cat seems content with this, allowing her to pet it and riding on her shoulder as she begins the ritual that will spell her undoing. In the aftermath, the cat - Autumn - chooses to wander between worlds (a trait possessed by all cats) and follow Ev in her flickering, again being an actor of magic and change, and a reminder to Ev of what has and has left behind.

subplot two: adventures of Thero

Upon the crashing of the ship, Thero falls from it, alighting upon a moonbeam, a bridge that drifts between the sea and sky. From there, he is picked up by a trade ship, piloted by a Dreamer who has taken up living in this realm permanently. The ship is staffed by people from across all the lands, people who feel adrift in the Dreamlands. The ship is headed for the Southern lands, and takes on Thero as a ship’s hand in exchange for passage.

They pass by the land of Zar, the place where the beautiful dreams of men rest. It is where he first begins to realize the beauty of the world he resides in, along with the danger of it. Thero is a child of the city, of the bustling ugly port and sea breeze, and here, alongside beauty, he is no longer quite sure what he will base his identity on now. Zar is resplendent, in a way where it does not quite realize or understand its wonder.

They also speed past the city of demons, making port only for moment to shuffle goods on and off the boat. The city is hewn entirely out of stone, as if there was once a mountain there that had been hollowed out, leaving a mass of twining stone in the aftermath. Legends say that those that enter the city will never escape, but that is a half-truth. The truth is that one needs permission to enter, and those who enter without it vanish. Few know this though, and the city of demons is still a place to be avoided. Even the laws of the Dreamlands do not hold there, and one should not stay long. Again, Thero is reminded of the wonder of his world - not only the beautiful, but also the dangerous.

Finally, they read Oriab, the southern continent, the true and final destination of the ship Thero had fallen upon. Over his travels, he had come to care for the sailors, and is loathe to leave them, but the adventurous spirit sparked in him drives him to explore Oriab while he is there. Baharna is the city they dock at, a port city flanked by two great lighthouses. It is here that Thero makes his home for a while.

Baharna, beyond just being a port city, is known for its poetry, and so, as a way of surviving and making money, Thero takes up a position as a singer in the local pub, turning the words of poets into tunes. Amidst the culture of the city and this new land he has entered, one that is a different sort of fantasy than he is used to, Thero finds himself  constantly comparing it to Dylath-Leen where he grew up. The two are both ports, both major cities in a strange land, and yet the culture seems so different, the attitudes towards the past opposed.

Oriab cannot ever escape the past, living in the shadow of Ngranek, were the Gods once lived. Thero - and the residents - cannot ever escape the reminder that in many ways, their lives are not their own, and so they create. There is also the ruins beyond the Lake Yath. These ruins are slowly infiltrated by the Changes, the once beautiful becoming consumed. It is the future obscuring the past, erasing it. The citizens of Oriab are not pleased by this, for even if they are not fond of those that once lived in the ruins, it does not do to forget the past. But all in all, Thero is happy to be there and chat with the residents.

But the ruins and the mountain are a reminder of the quest he agreed to undertake with Ev. So he feels called back to the main continent, and if he is unable to find Ev, he will still be able to appreciate the world and explore it fully now. He finds a ship towards Celaphasis, a city he always wished to visit and boards it, reflecting on how much he loves his world as it is, and does not want something from outside to alter it.

Total Word Count: 1099

other characters

Thero Winters

Thero grew up in Dylath-Leen, the son of two merchants who made clay goods to sell to the traders who came into the port. Raised in a bustling, industry based city, he believes that optimization and efficiency is the key to existence. Sohe is for the Changes, at least at the beginning, not only in how they make travel and the world more structured, but also how they seem to be changing thought. He is bright and curious, sporting a mop of sandy hair and freckles, and while he dresses practically, he is almost always put together well.

Thero thinks that appearance matters, that being collected and well suited is a key to success, and ‘success’ as an arbitrary concept is something that he craves. He wants to be someone who will be  respected by others, which is why he tags along with Ev’s quest initially. He believes that if he can find the ‘root’ of the Changes, even if he does not half them, he can harness them to his own ends.

His voyages carry him out of this attitude, forcing him to undertake new forms of labor and creativity, which loosens his laces somewhat. Facing the sublime shakes a person and Thero is no exception to this. In addition, upon facing the impact of the Changes his attitude towards them shifts as well - he abandons the idea of progress, opting for preservation as the ideal which envelops his life.

Finally, his relationship with Ev is in a constant state of being a foil. They begin on opposite sides of the Changes, him for them, her against. At the end of the story though, they have flipped, her for them, him against. Despite the antagonism latent in their dynamic, they do care for each other, in the way that reluctant travel companions must. Both are fascinated by the experiences of the other, and both covet the other’s knowledge and so they are bound together.

Word Count: 325

Ylrack

Ylrack is a moon-beast. Moon-beasts are strange frog-like creatures, whose voices sound like the screech of distant birds on the beach, or voices carried along a gust of wind. They are treated with suspicion, due to the world they live upon and the master they serve/worship (Nyarlathotep). Moon-beasts are creators - focused on industry and innovation, how to make the best thing most quickly, as their master believes electricity is a potent form of corruption.

Ylrack in particular is a moon-beast of higher standing, holding a position of power in their village, and is the one who finds Ev. The pair’s relationship is founded on suspicion, her terrified of them, them viewing her as an interloper in their world. They do not care for the Changes, for while they are focused on progress, their idea of progress is not a world where individuation and personal choices are lost. Instead, it is a world in which all can create as they wish, producing and inventing that which drives their fancy, rather than what society requires.

They are quieter than many of their kind, prone to moments of reflection and consideration, but still driven by instincts, having a healthy level of fight or flight. These tendencies are what lead them to hold a leadership position in many ways. Their particular area of interest industry-wise is the crafting of jewelry. They are fascinated by the intricate, delicate nature of the craft - the fact that something so small takes so long to make.

The reason that they are on Ev’s quest in the first place is that they were forced to. They would rather not leave their home and their family, but they believe in loyalty and devotion and so do what they must. This reluctance is what makes them so susceptible to the need to flee later on, why they leave Ev in the dark and the damp. It is sad and cruel, but their devotion to their own life and the lives of those that depend upon them at home was a powerful motivator.

Word Count: 342