Dreamscape
A setting challenge from worldofscribble.
The hedges to either side, grown from plants which seemed not just tightly packed, but actually intertwined with each other, were at least a foot taller than he was, their multitude of leaves and wickedly hooked thorns woven into countless impenetrable layers. Underfoot--he wasn't wearing shoes--was hard packed dirt, occasionally punctuated with a broken paving stone. Above, a cloudless sky shone faultless blue, the noonday sun blazing down relentlessly.
Carefully, he moved to the center of the walkway between the hedgerows, and examined the double line of vegetation stretching away from him into the distance. There were, as expected, periodic gaps in the walls of thorns to both the left and the right, and although he couldn't be absolutely certain, the openings appeared to be evenly spaced. Turning, he surveyed the path and its merciless boundaries in the opposite direction, but it was a mirror image of what he had already observed.
How long? The evaluation of his surroundings had taken perhaps ten to fifteen seconds at the most. As tempting as it was, he couldn't stay where he was. If he didn't move soon, some action would be taken against him, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would be unpleasant.
Still…
He bent to within a few inches from the ground, and made a close examination of both it and the mass of plants to either side. He grinned, an involuntary response he suppressed almost instantly, and straightened back up.
The most important rule of the test was that you couldn't alter the setting in which you found yourself. Whatever happened, whatever challenge they might throw at you, it was expected that the apprentice would make do with the materials at hand. There wasn't much here, but as long as the threat, whatever it might be, came soon, he should be all right.
Since the direction he traveled in appeared to be meaningless, he simply began walking forward, cautiously picking his way through the irregular and jagged stones scattered around his feet. Their placement down there was a clear warning, "Run, and you'll rip your feet to shreds." Obviously, they were going to try and make him run away from something, but when?
The heat around him was a palpable thing, rivulets of sweat rolling down his back, and inching steadily down his forehead until they finally plopped unceremoniously into his stinging eyes. It was the heat he feared, not the attack from unknown sources he hoped would be hurled at him soon. If they delayed for very long, sought to wear him down by forcing him to hike endlessly through this sweltering Hell… Were they that subtle?
He arrived at the first opening in the hedgerows, this one to his right, and because it didn't really matter whether he turned or not, continued walking forward with only a momentary glance down the alternative pathway.
When it came, the bestial roar from behind him was such an anticlimax that he almost laughed. Yeah, they hadn't liked his casual disregard of that opening from a few seconds before. What, did they honestly think he was going to stop, scratch his head, and ponder the non-existent benefit of one identical pathway over another?
He turned, and his humor from a few moments before evaporated.
"Panthera tigris," he whispered, watching the blur of reddish-orange fur flying towards him down the previously empty pathway.
He had read somewhere that the biggest tigers could grow to lengths approaching eleven feet, and were known to sometimes weigh as much as six hundred and seventy pounds. Given the speed it was moving, he couldn't be certain, but this one looked much larger than that. The terrifying creature seemed to have no difficulty avoiding the erratically spaced paving stones underfoot, but then it also appeared to spend most of its time in the air, gliding with stunning speed over the intervening distance between them.
The urge to turn and run was almost irresistible, but he managed it, crouching on his knees instead, gritting his teeth, and planting his feet on the solid packed dirt beneath him. If this was going to work, he couldn't lose his nerve, and he only had a few seconds.
The dreamscapes most people traveled through were turbulent affairs, transforming themselves into new realities at the least provocation. One stray thought, one ill-considered word, and your reality might fragment into a hundred varying and totally unpredictable possibilities. Even here, where the dream masters maintained a tight control over the surrounding environment for the purposes of the test, reality could still be manipulated somewhat.
When he had bent to examine the ground, paving stones, and bottom of the hedge, the weakness he had spotted was that the stones weren't immovable. Why should they be? The dream masters had wanted his footing to bee unstable and perilous, so the more the stones moved around, the better.
He concentrated, ignoring the trembling ground under his feet that signaled the feline's deadly approach, and imagined the loose stones rising from the ground around him, forming into an encircling barricade. It wouldn't be enough to stop the beast of course, at least he didn't think so, but that wasn't his main objective anyway.
Disregarding the sound of scrabbling claws nearby, he once again focused his attention, and began to sculpt the dreamscape around him. Loose stones, pathway upon pathway of loose stones, rising, drifting through air, pulled inexorably and with increasing speed to the tiger's location. Hundreds, and then thousands of projectiles, drawn like guided missiles to the awesome predator which had been sent to kill him.
Huddled behind his makeshift barricade, listening to the cannonade of stones he had summoned pounding the beautiful creature he had seen into a lump of dead meat, the triumph he had expected to feel was somehow transformed into powdery ashes of dismay instead.
A dream, it was only a dream, and yet… Had there been some other way to win?
The hedges to either side, grown from plants which seemed not just tightly packed, but actually intertwined with each other, were at least a foot taller than he was, their multitude of leaves and wickedly hooked thorns woven into countless impenetrable layers. Underfoot--he wasn't wearing shoes--was hard packed dirt, occasionally punctuated with a broken paving stone. Above, a cloudless sky shone faultless blue, the noonday sun blazing down relentlessly.
Carefully, he moved to the center of the walkway between the hedgerows, and examined the double line of vegetation stretching away from him into the distance. There were, as expected, periodic gaps in the walls of thorns to both the left and the right, and although he couldn't be absolutely certain, the openings appeared to be evenly spaced. Turning, he surveyed the path and its merciless boundaries in the opposite direction, but it was a mirror image of what he had already observed.
How long? The evaluation of his surroundings had taken perhaps ten to fifteen seconds at the most. As tempting as it was, he couldn't stay where he was. If he didn't move soon, some action would be taken against him, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would be unpleasant.
Still…
He bent to within a few inches from the ground, and made a close examination of both it and the mass of plants to either side. He grinned, an involuntary response he suppressed almost instantly, and straightened back up.
The most important rule of the test was that you couldn't alter the setting in which you found yourself. Whatever happened, whatever challenge they might throw at you, it was expected that the apprentice would make do with the materials at hand. There wasn't much here, but as long as the threat, whatever it might be, came soon, he should be all right.
Since the direction he traveled in appeared to be meaningless, he simply began walking forward, cautiously picking his way through the irregular and jagged stones scattered around his feet. Their placement down there was a clear warning, "Run, and you'll rip your feet to shreds." Obviously, they were going to try and make him run away from something, but when?
The heat around him was a palpable thing, rivulets of sweat rolling down his back, and inching steadily down his forehead until they finally plopped unceremoniously into his stinging eyes. It was the heat he feared, not the attack from unknown sources he hoped would be hurled at him soon. If they delayed for very long, sought to wear him down by forcing him to hike endlessly through this sweltering Hell… Were they that subtle?
He arrived at the first opening in the hedgerows, this one to his right, and because it didn't really matter whether he turned or not, continued walking forward with only a momentary glance down the alternative pathway.
When it came, the bestial roar from behind him was such an anticlimax that he almost laughed. Yeah, they hadn't liked his casual disregard of that opening from a few seconds before. What, did they honestly think he was going to stop, scratch his head, and ponder the non-existent benefit of one identical pathway over another?
He turned, and his humor from a few moments before evaporated.
"Panthera tigris," he whispered, watching the blur of reddish-orange fur flying towards him down the previously empty pathway.
He had read somewhere that the biggest tigers could grow to lengths approaching eleven feet, and were known to sometimes weigh as much as six hundred and seventy pounds. Given the speed it was moving, he couldn't be certain, but this one looked much larger than that. The terrifying creature seemed to have no difficulty avoiding the erratically spaced paving stones underfoot, but then it also appeared to spend most of its time in the air, gliding with stunning speed over the intervening distance between them.
The urge to turn and run was almost irresistible, but he managed it, crouching on his knees instead, gritting his teeth, and planting his feet on the solid packed dirt beneath him. If this was going to work, he couldn't lose his nerve, and he only had a few seconds.
The dreamscapes most people traveled through were turbulent affairs, transforming themselves into new realities at the least provocation. One stray thought, one ill-considered word, and your reality might fragment into a hundred varying and totally unpredictable possibilities. Even here, where the dream masters maintained a tight control over the surrounding environment for the purposes of the test, reality could still be manipulated somewhat.
When he had bent to examine the ground, paving stones, and bottom of the hedge, the weakness he had spotted was that the stones weren't immovable. Why should they be? The dream masters had wanted his footing to bee unstable and perilous, so the more the stones moved around, the better.
He concentrated, ignoring the trembling ground under his feet that signaled the feline's deadly approach, and imagined the loose stones rising from the ground around him, forming into an encircling barricade. It wouldn't be enough to stop the beast of course, at least he didn't think so, but that wasn't his main objective anyway.
Disregarding the sound of scrabbling claws nearby, he once again focused his attention, and began to sculpt the dreamscape around him. Loose stones, pathway upon pathway of loose stones, rising, drifting through air, pulled inexorably and with increasing speed to the tiger's location. Hundreds, and then thousands of projectiles, drawn like guided missiles to the awesome predator which had been sent to kill him.
Huddled behind his makeshift barricade, listening to the cannonade of stones he had summoned pounding the beautiful creature he had seen into a lump of dead meat, the triumph he had expected to feel was somehow transformed into powdery ashes of dismay instead.
A dream, it was only a dream, and yet… Had there been some other way to win?