Town of Dreams

Town of Dreams is the second chapter of Citadel of the Unseen Sun, which took place over five sessions. The story followed the Olvidados de la Luz. which included the following characters:

**Mateo Delgado**: A young philosophy student from the Academy of Nueva Ostrolla, Mateo is a student of Old Ostrolla, and is devoted to uncovering it's ancient past, even at the cost of his own health. Now dead, and in an afterlife unlike what he has known through the stories and the legends, Mateo seeks clarity, and also a chance to jump on the secrets lost to time...

**Hannibal DeCastro:** One of two twins born to the elite DeCastro family, Hannibal has done everything in the shadow of his sister Elissa. Having disappeared, it is Hannibal's desire to ensure her safety, or survival. Tied at the hip to this stranger, Sorin Markov, and enchanted by promises of a City above, Hannibal must remember his past, lest it become his doom..

**Rowan Blackthorn:** A hunter of spirits, demons and monsters with a shrouded past, Rowan is willing to do anything for a job. But what happens when the sins of his past catch up with him? Having grown closer to the Dretchers and the Sorcerer Coragnir, Rowan finds himself trapped in a land where the monsters around him where the faces of those whom he has sworn to protect...

**Azima**: A simple warrior who is dedicated to protecting her younger sister, Azima has led an uncomplicated and relatively untroubled life. Yet, that seems to change, as more and more of her ancestry comes into focus. With Gilly by her side, Azima struggles with what path they must go down now, and how that path will get the still living Gilly back home to fufill her life.

**Gilly:** A child born with an innate ability to sense and feel the emotions of others; Gilly was spirited away from her home and trained in the art of the Feywild by her benefactor, Baba Yaga. Though she doesn't know it, Gilly has an important destiny. After reuniting with Babushka, Gilly sees the suffering in the face of the vampire Sorin Markov? Will she be able to heal his broken heart? Or lose innocence in the darkness of Innistrad?

**Aster:** The last of his people, Aster's home in the Grove of Rest has been afflicted by a being known as Vetra, sapping their strength and minds slowly but surely. Having set out to find a cure or solution, will Aster be able to reconcile the fate of the many, or the few. Now knowing what has befallen his village, and those who tried to stop it, Aster must take a destiny that was never supposed to be his, lest it be the end of all those who step into the Stillborn Forest.

## Chapter Summary

Rowan, Hannibal, Gilly, Azima, Aster and Mateo arrive in the rolling hills and fields of a sunny village. Though the party and their Drecher companions are taken in by the views and wish to lie down amongst the foliage, they quickly deduce that the grass holds some hypnotic properties after Mateo and Gilly fall asleep amongst the grass. The party and their companions hike down the road towards the village. There, they find a deserted and empty village, devoid of all life apart from one other man wandering through the empty streets. Confronting the man, the party realize that it is the individual who saved them earlier. Confronting him for answers about where they are and what happened to them, the man reveals that his name is Sorin Markov, and that he is unfamiliar with the party with the exception of Hannibal. When Hannibal wonders where him and Sorin had met before, Sorin replies only that the answers he seeks lies in the city above. Before he leaves, Sorin asks Mateo to read an epigraph written on the fountain within the plaza, written in Common Ostrollan before leaving.

When Sorin leaves, the plaza comes alive with grandiose celebrating and wonder, as the party is introduced to Octavian Dreamwalker, the Mayor of Pueblo de Suenos (The Town of Dreams), who welcomed the party to his town with a feast. When Octavian and the party sat down in order to discuss business that he needed from them. He informed the party that he could get them up into the next layer of the Phylactery, and get them out of Cazamir's soul prison through a boat, as long as they helped the town deal with dream terrors. Three denizens of the town were suffering from afflictions brought on by the maleficent influence of Sorin Markov. The denizens were;

**Anatol**: A guardsman who had a past working as a Matador, during the days of Old Ostrolla

**Skip**: A young orphan girl who was the adopted daughter of Octavian himself

**Ser Tristan**: A Hedge Knight from Southwest Ostrolla.

Understanding what they had to do, the party was given special masks to enter the dreams of these individuals in order to free them from the corrosive influences of Sorin. Formulating a plan in order to try and speak to Ser Tristan first; Hannibal, Aster, Mateo, Azima and Rowan all go to try and speak to the former Knight. However, Gilly sneaks away from the rest of the party, and using a cape that Octavian gave her infused with the power of Pueblo de Suenos to visit her Babushkha, Baba Yaga. Seeing Gilly gone, Azima goes into a panic and rushes off after her sister, finding Baba Yaga's hut on the edge of town, Gilly and Azima sit down with the witch, who tells them that Sorin Markov is a man with much pain and anguish in his heart, and that there is more to him than meets the eye. When Hannibal and the others catch up, Baba Yaga dissapears, leaving the party to reconvene and decide what to do about Ser Tristan. Deciding that Octavian was suspicious in his control of the people of Pueblo de Suenos, the party resolved to try and break Sir Tristan and the others free of Octavian's control and determine what was truly going on within the town.

Visiting him in his home, the party realizes that something is wrong with Ser Tristan's farm. Fruits and Vegetables are growing on completely wrong places and locations, often getting reversed. When the party goes to speak to Ser Tristan, his speech is interrupted by cryptic warnings and vague assertions of being controlled, and a being by the name of "Vetra". Recognizing the name, Aster helps Ser Tristan go to sleep using the grass-based tea before the party enters his dreams. Inside Ser Tristan's dream, they enter an altered memory of his time near Aster's home grove, where he set out on a quest in order to slay the parasitic organism known as Vetra and save the creatures of the forest from extinction. After being told that they had to "follow the Way of the Sword" by an inscription in a nearby tree trunk, the party set off on an exploration of the woods to find Ser Tristan, meeting his bardic companion known as Ellyn. However, the party continued to find themselves lost, and starting in the beginning grove where they began their journey as the forest dilapidated around them. Realizing that the "Path of the Sword" referred to following the shadow of the Sword etched into the nearby tree trunk, Rowan managed to guide the party to a remnant of Sorin Markov's anger, a pure unadulterated spirit of rage that mindlessly attacked the party. Putting down the spirit, the party continued onwards, realizing that Ser Tristan himself was processed by the woodland parasite known as Vetra, suffering the same fate that had fallen Aster's people. Finding Ser Tristan and Vetra in a woodland clearing, the party banded together in order to free Ser Tristan. Wounded, Ser Tristan insisted that he fight Vetra on his own, even if he met his end as that was the duty of a Hedge Knight. Hannibal however, argued that would achieve nothing, and that standing together and accepting the help of others, would they all be able to overcome Vetra. Ser Tristan was convinced, and together the group managed to bring down Vetra, bringing Ser Tristan's dream to a close with the belief that he became a great hero after all.

Ser Tristan awoke with the rest of the party, his mind cleared and in a far happier state. The mess and confusing detail of the farm outside was returned to it's normal state as well, however the party was shocked to learn that the bonds that held Ser Tristan closer to Octavian were strengthened now. As the party was stumped as to how that could be the case, Lemnor offered to watch over the Knight, having developed feelings for the strong and nature minded man. The party saw no issues with such flirtatiousness and left to try and figure out what they had done wrong, and try a new tactic on Octavian's daughter Skip. They found the girl with the assistance of Yejin in Cat Alley, a notable alley filled with hundreds of cats. Skip was attempting to try and find a cat known as Heirophant, which belonged to a woman by the name of "Gatto" which sounded familiar to Hannibal, but he was unable to put a face or memory to the name. After convincing Skip to drink the tea, and having her fall asleep, Yejin became confrontational towards the party, questioning their judgement and becoming protective of Skip. He too was given tea to drink, and after passing out himself, the party entered Skip's dream. In the dream, Hannibal directly confronted Skip's dream psyche and informed her that she was not real and was in a dream. However, this empowered Sorin's Regrets, which was the spirit that lingered inside of Skip, and forcefully expelled the party from the dream, threatening to overwhelm Skip and turn her into a nightmare.

With the assistance of Aster's medical and magical knowledge, the party managed to come together again, and tried to come to a solution as to what was the best path moving forward. Realizing that Tristan, Lemnor, Skip and Yejin were all being enthralled under Octavian's sway, Hannibal began to try and trap Sorin's Regret, as the party ventured back into the dream. With the help of Aster, Hannibal managed to contain Sorin's Regret in the deeper parts of Skip's dream state, in order to try and get the thief to fight back against it herself before reentering the dreamscape. In the dream, the party found themselves as members of Skip's crew in Ostrolla's deep past, right after the Liberation War. Hannibal took the guise of his great grandfather, the Patriarch, and Mateo as his brother, with the rest of the party being servants. The target of the heist was the Aquanos, a magical water reservoir on the southwestern most part of Ostrolla. After dealing with dancers, angry merchants and mischievous children who had stolen from poor gardeners, the Party was able to make it into the inner hedge maze where Sorin's Regret resided. After confronting Skip and the rest of the party over their innevitable failures and the apathy of which the world exists, that they would never be able to save anyone, Gilly stepped forward. She explained to the Regret that hope was stronger than anything, and that with friends and a hope for the future, that people could be helped, even those as dark and forgotten as Sorin. Gilly gave the regret a flower bracelet, causing it to wonder why Gilly would do such a thing for someone who did not deserve her help, of which she said that all people deserved it.

The party elected to listen to Skip after Sorin's regret was defeated, and leave the Aquanos without any bounty or prize. To which Skip realized that through self improvement, and working day by day to help the people of her home town who were sick and starving, that things would be okay. The woman in front of them changed to be a far older and mature person, who went by the name of Rosaline, and thanked the party for all their help. But right before the dream lapsed, Mateo stabbed the dream Rosaline, believing that his was a horrible mistake and that she would end up in the clutches of Octavian. In the waking world, the rest of the party subdued Mateo, horrified and angered at his actions, before Aster realized that Mateo was, in fact correct. Yejin had come to see Rosaline as a lover, and he too had fallen under Octavian's sway. Frustrated that more and more of their friends were falling to this strange affliction, Octavian himself, empowered by the control that the party had given him, appeared before the group.

He explained to Aster that he was not from Ostrolla, that he was from a planet known as Roshai, far far away from the world of Innistrad, and that his true form was that of a moth, roaming the Galaxy searching for dreams to sustain himself. He was drawn to Ostrolla long, long ago and enraptured by the dreams of the planet, and made a deal with the Lich Cazamir to rule over a small portion of his phylactery, where he could forever sustain himself on the dreams of the souls trapped within. Octavian agreed, but soon realized that he had made a mistake, that the dreams were so stale and stagnant for such a long time, and not many new dreams came in to liven up Pueblo de Suenos. He was trapped. Octavian swore to Aster, that he would stand with the party at the end of their battle with Cazamir, and that he would come to support them from the Lich's phylactery itself. Left with little choice, given their failures in stopping Octavian previously, the party agreed to Octavian's alliance. The Dreamwalker then gave the party leave from Pueblo de Suenos, a boat for them to head to the city known as the Lochs.

Yet, before they left, Gilly spoke one last time to her Babushka, Baba Yaga, of which she found Sorin Markov to be there as well. She offered Sorin the flower bracelet that had changed the heart of his Regret, and yet he rejected it, claiming to be below such emotions. Baba Yaga told Gilly not to despair in her fear, and that through overcoming challenge, the brightest hope would emerge. Mateo at this time also swore to never let any harm fall before Gilly or Azima, which unknowingly created a Fey Pact between Mateo and Baba Yaga, along with the alliance between the party and Octavian. Secure in the knowledge that Octavian wouldn't betray them, the party left on Octavian's ship, in order to venture further upwards through the Phylactery....

## Behind the Curtain

* The earliest foreshadowing of the Sorin is Vik reveal came in this chapter; where in Sorin asked Mateo to read a sign in Ostrollan. Though he was able to speak the language due to a Fey enchantment; Vik was unable to read the Ostrollan language, thus needing the assistance of Mateo in order to do so for him.
* The planet Roshai is first mentioned in this chapter, though the original name of it was Roshar. This was changed after Nikita informed me that Roshar was the name of a planet in a different, much more popular fantasy series.
	+ The Dream Moths, the Roshain is the official name of the race. The planet sits on the Material nexus of the Elemental Plane of Dreams, which gives Octavian and many other denizens of the planet, such a strange and unique digestive system.
* Though the party did not get to it in this chapter; there was a dream that was unique to Anatol as well. In it, the party would have gone through a murder mystery during the fall of the Old Empire, amongst a contingent of Matadors. There, one of them would have been killed by a Vampire, of which the party would have had to determine whom it would have been, before realizing that it was a vampiric Anatol.
	+ His fate originally was execution by his fellow Matadors for his conversion, but the party could have "changed" his fate and put him further under Octavian's dream spell like they did with Ser Tristan and Skip.