Wandering Dreams By Cody Barr

Instruments: Deck of Cards, 1d6

Game Description 

Game Content Warnings 

These are content warnings that are from the game prompts and are present in all playthroughs.

Playthrough Content Warnings 

These are content warnings specific to this playthrough only.

Game Playthrough

Word Count: 1,854      Played: Nov 9, 2020

I dream of a fantastic place and impossible tasks. Detailed below are the waking remembrances of each encounter.

Character: Wizard, just ended training

Starting items: Old staff, Large Hat, Signet Ring

Dream Journal

Event Card: 2 

Card Roll: 1 Visual

Difficulty Roll: 1, Difficult to overcome

Results: Stacked boxes difficult to overcome 

I stood in the old tower surrounded by my mentor’s old things. They were stacked in tall boxes, all unlabeled. I would need to spend months sorting through every last item before any of it could be of use to me. He had taught me everything when I first came to the dream and had left me everything when he was gone. 

Location Card: 7 

Card Roll: 6

Result: Holding Cells,

The guards came in soon after I had opened the first box. They seized me and took my staff. They had finally found my old mentor. He was dead, his body had been scorched and electrified  with magic and I was the prime suspect. My hands were barred with magic rope and I was tossed into one of the oubliettes in the Outer City. 

Beings Card: Jack 

Card Roll: 6

Hostility roll: 5 Friendly

Result: A friendly, demonic Mollusc (eg a snail)

I sat in the oubliette wondering if I should force myself to wake when a tapping came from one of the wall’s stones. I scraped away the dirt surrounding it and pulled it free. Inside was a tiny snail, the size of my pinky toe’s nail. It turned its eyestalks to me and spoke in a whispered voice. It offered me my freedom in exchange for one of the items in my mentor’s collection. I knew this deal was a terrible idea but I had no way out of the situation other than to rot in the cell. I agreed and it slithered on to my hand and in an instant we were back inside the tower.

When we arrived I set the snail down and let it claim its reward, a small feather from the swans-feather cape my mentor used to wear. I opened the nearest box hoping to find something useful before I fled. 

Item Roll: 2: Nothing is found

The box contained nothing but straw and fancy shoes. I had no time to search the others so I rushed out the door and into the streets. 

Event Card: 3 

Card Roll: 2

Difficulty Roll: Chests, 3 the event happens suddenly 

Result: You find a chest suddenly 

Or at least I thought I had taken the door to the street, but before me was a new room, one I hadn’t seen before. There was a small chest on a desk in the center of the circular room.

Item Roll: 2 Nothing is found

I opened it but inside I found nothing but dust. I snapped it shut then proceeded to find the correct exit to the street. 

Being Card: 6 

Card Roll: 3

Hostility Roll: 3 Neutral

Result: A mad attendant to the old

A woman stood directly in the tower’s door and I almost knocked her over in my haste. She stared dead-eyed past me but spoke directly to me.

“Where is it? The snail, it can smell it… it can smell it!!!” 

When I told her it was inside she knocked me aside and tore through the tower, trying to find it. I had no time to stop her and I hurried out into the streets. 

Location Card: Jack

Card Roll: 3

Results: Pulsing obelisk of a forbidden castle. 

I took one step onto the cobblestone before I slammed into an invisible wall. 

“You will not leave me,” the snail whispered into my mind. 

I rubbed my head and looked back to the tower. There was no getting past the barrier without my staff so I headed back inside to fend off the mad-woman. She was screeching and tearing apart boxes. I saw inside the contents of one as she ravaged another. 

Item Roll: 6 2 items!

Item: Ace , 1

A poison vial

Item: Jack, 1

Healing Bandages

It had been medical supplies. I quickly grabbed a set of healing bandages and the nearest vial. I took a glance at it as I stepped into the other room. It was poison, and perhaps there was a use for it later. 

The snail was hidden in the cloak of feathers. I had no time to search for it so I took the cloak for myself and fastened it around my shoulders. Once I had done so we were no longer in the tower. 

The air was thin and everything sounded as though it was underwater. Before me stood a large obelisk in the center of an enormous castle. This is where the snail had taken us. 

Event Card: 10

Roll: 5

Difficulty Roll: 2 V Difficult

Result: A wall collapses

The ground shook in a violent earthquake. I was thrown on my face and I could feel the wall behind me shake then collapse onto me. I was pinned under the rubble from my waist down. I didn’t feel any of my bones break, but I couldn’t move.

The snail crawled out of the cloak and whispered in my ear, “Give me something and I can help.”

“I have nothing,” I squeaked.

Being Card: 4

Card Roll: 6

Hostility Roll: 6 friendly

Result: Demonic walking insanity, that’s friendly

To my left there was, what I could call in the real world, a glitch. Something that was there, then wasn’t. It reached out a distorted hand. The snail said nothing as I took it and it pulled me out through the rubble. 

I stood and turned to thank it but it was gone. 

“There was a price,” the snail whispered and I looked down at my legs.

The robes looked fine but as I pulled them up to look at my legs I saw that they were now as distorted as the glitch. I screamed and started to pull out the bandages. 

“Those will do nothing,” the snail whispered and laughed. 

I put them away and seeing as how I could still walk, I decided to ignore the problem and continue into the castle. I opened the first door that I could find. 

Location Card: 2

Roll: 1

Result: Orphanage in a hidden city

Inside were, what my dream knowledge told me, small children of different entities. Some were human and humanoid, others were species I had never heard of. I saw through the window there was an old city with walls that covered the entire sky. 

Being Card: Queen

Roll: 2

Hostility Roll: 3, neutral

I turned back to the children and they had parted to let a strange figure through. They were covered in a single robe from head to food. I could see no face other than a pair of solid blue eyes. It held in it’s hand a staff. 

“I have need of you, dreamer,” they said. 

The snail slithered up over my temple and into my hair but remained silent. The figure held out their hand.

Item Roll: 2 Nothing 

I reached out my hand to take theirs and the snail finally spoke, “It will also take from you.” 

I recoiled and searched around for an exit. 

Location: 5

Roll: 6 

Result: A hole in the wall

“Do not listen to the demon,” the cloaked figure bellowed, but I had spotted a hole small enough for me to crawl thorough and dove head first into it. 

The cloaked figure tried to snatch my legs as I made my way deeper, but their fingers passed through my glitched and non-existent skin. I scrambled and crawled until I could see an exit. 

Location: 8

Roll: 1

Result: An old City Workshop in the abandoned city

I crawled out and into the streets and ran as fast as I could until I found another building. Inside I saw tools of all sorts lining the walls and a great long bench with wood, metals and other materials strewn across it. 

Event: 6

Roll: 6

Difficulty: 2 Very Hard

Result:  Fears Removed, 

An older human-looking woman came through the door and started to say something to me right as the door behind me exploded. The cloaked figure was in the doorway and stood with their arm out. 

The older woman reached into a pouch on her waist and blew a stream of white powder into the figure. They froze in place before the robe fell to the floor and vanished. 

She shook her head and offered me a seat. 

“You must be the dreamer then?” She questioned me.

I nodded and she sighed. 

“Don’t give up anymore of yourself,” she looked me dead in the eyes then up to the snail. “Listen to it, but don’t take any more bargains.”

She let me rest for a while and when I was done I thanked her and left through the door.

Location: 6

Roll: 1

Hidden City, Gathering Plaza

I cautiously wandered out into the city. There was not one person in the city. I could see the obelisk from here but it was no longer pulsing.  Eventually I heard the cries of people coming from a plaza. 

I peeked my head around a corner to see a large gathering of people. In the center, on a podium, another figure in a floor length cloak stood. They were giving a speech to the citizens, all of whom were enraptured. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but it didn’t matter since the snail did. 

“They are looking for you,” it chided. “They will find you if you stay.”

“They will find us if I stay,” I reminded it. 

The snail slithered across my forehead to my other ear and whispered, “Then let us go.” 

Beside me a thin black line appeared, then widened into a wizard’s portal. I had only seen my mentor do this one at a great cost to themselves.

I stepped through it. 

Location: Ace

Roll: 2

Result: The caves below a nightmare city

I couldn’t see the place we entered, I couldn’t even see my hand before my face. Magic was dangerous without my staff, but I had no choice. I lifted my hand before me and managed to make a small flame. 

I could see that I was in a vast cave. No light shone from above or anywhere else in the pitch black.

“Where are we?” I asked.

The snail was silent. 

I asked again and was also met with silence. 

I reached for my hair where the snail had been and a small, empty shell dropped into my hand. It was gone and I was alone with nothing but the useless bandages and the vial of poison.

End

Legacy! 

-Tools revered for their uniqueness and connection within the Dream

Snail Shell

Roll 3: Roll again and choose an additional item!

Roll: 2 Cursed item!!!

Cursed: A snail shell that will bring you to the wrong location. 

Empty Vial

Roll: 6, Blessed

A vial that nullifies all the liquid put inside it. 

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