11 Skepticism (2/2)
Alma realized where I was before I realized where she was.
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It took me some time to finally stumble across Alma herself, but when I did I found her seated on a naturalistic looking bench deep in the heart of the forest. She was looking at me when I laid my eyes on her wizen form. While looking at her I realized that my earlier assessment about tremorsense was incorrect. The truth was that my tremorsense power actually didn't work while I was here, and the place was abandoned, not one or the other.
The elderly woman had a peaceful expression on her face, and stared at me thoughtfully. For a while we stared at each other in silence, sizing each other up. Eventually, she spoke to me.
”Why hello there,” She said, greeting me with an expression as kindly sounding as she looked. She stretched one hand out towards me and motioned for me to come closer. I stayed still, finding her behavior pleasantly surprising and shocking for a moment.
”Must you be so timid? I know dream-things are scared, but you seem so much more vivid than the things I normally dream up. I'd like to see what you have to say. Or perhaps to do.” She said to me, grinning openly. Her open-mouth grin revealed a mouth that was missing some teeth. I chuckled and moved over to her. Reaching her took a quarter of a minute, and upon doing so I began to speak to her.
”Hello Alma. My name is Cosecha.” I told her, speaking in a low voice meant to make her envision me as a potent elemental being, and not as a random creation of her dreams. She kept smiling at me, admiring me as a grandparent would a grandchild.
”Hello Cosecha. Are you a creation of my wonder?” She asked, curiously. I shook my head at the kindly figure.
”I am a spirit. A spirit of the harvest.” I said to her, staying in character as Cosecha and using her to begin to gain an understanding of how a mortal may react to the sight of what I hoped to use as a way to gather worshipers.
Alma looked at me skeptically but did so in the way that a parent might patiently admonish her child. She sighed and began to speak. ”I am growing more creative in my old age. It must be something to do with the free time I have to myself and to me reading the old stories.” She said, grinning as she dismissed me out of hand.
I froze up at this and looked at her in surprise. I didn't expect such a flat and blatant dismissal of my existence. She saw this and her smile got wider.
”Do you truly believe you exist independent of my dreams?” She asked, sounding a bit surprised at that.
”Do things normally automatically believe you when you tell them that they are imaginary?” I asked, at least as surprised as she felt. She looked at me thoughtfully as I asked her that.
”Well... In fairness about half of the things in my dreams attack me, only to be soothed after I tell them about their status as dream monsters.” She confessed, looking at me with some curiosity.
[Althos she's a lucid dreamer.] The system told me, as if that ought to mean something to me. Instead of waiting for my companion to tell me what that was I went ahead and skipped a forward by asking her if that was accurate.
”Do you happen to be a lucid dreamer?” I asked her, curiosity filling my ethereal eyes. When I said that to her her eyes widened as I asked her something that caught her off guard for the first time. And then she began to laugh.
”A 'lucid dreamer'? That's a term I haven't heard in a long time.” She said, smiling as if the term had some meaning to her.
[Lucid dreamers are people who are aware of when they dream natively. Sometimes such folks can influence the landscape of their dreams with the force of their wills and can affect the contents of their dreams. They always remember their dreams.] The system explained to me.
”I suppose that is but one title people give to people like me.” She told me, calmly suggesting that others have called her other things as well. I studied her and sighed.
”You don't believe I'm a real spirit do you?” I asked. She looked at me and shook her to indicate that she didn't.
”Honestly? That's fair. It makes sense to not believe that I am a real spirit.” I confessed, well aware of the full truth which I doubted she could even begin to imagine. I also wasn't done talking.
”That said, I am real.” I told her, lying. ”I can also prove that I actually exist.” I said to the woman, well aware of my own ability to prove wrong anyone who insisted that I wasn't real.
”Oh? Do you care to share this proof?” She said, a small glimmer of curiosity visible in her eyes. I smiled at her. And then I created an apple using magic. I called it into being in the palm of my liquid palm.
I moved the strange appendage and showed her the apple. And then I tossed it to her. She moved fluidly and caught the apple, before looking at it and studying it in detail. It was another golden apple.
”Oh, this is a pretty thing.” She told me, gazing into the gold-like fruit.
”When you wake up pray to me. Just mutter an introductory message, even in your mind, and mentally will it to be heard by Cosecha, the spirit of the harvest. When you do I'll give you more of those. Real ones.” I told her, offering her a chance to prove to herself that I actually existed.
”If you want to see the truth, this is a surefire way to do so. Once you do I'll prove to you that I'm real. If you want the truth that is. If not... we can definitely chat tomorrow night. Same time?” I told her, grinning. I was also leaving this up to her. I was in no rush, I could take my time.
”I see... you wish for prayers do you?” She asked me, smiling. I nodded at her, admitting that that was what I wanted.
”I do want prayers. I gain strength from having followers. I seek to convince the world I am real, but I have difficulty manifesting outside of the dreams of mortals.” I explained, telling her an additional lie. She considered my words, but had a look of clear skepticism etched on her face.
There was a part of me that admired that she looked for evidence and didn't believe what I was saying. I was, after all, lying to her. That said, I looked at the elderly woman in the idyllic dream and began to turn away from her, facing the forest path I had moved through to get here.
”If you have any pains you wish healed or any conditions in need of alleviation, consider my prayer. What do you have to lose?” I asked her, confidently. She was silent as I began to move away.
As I moved away I hoped she'd consider the prayer. Once I was out of eyeshot of her, a healthy distance away, I willed myself out of her realm of dreams. As I did so, I received a surprising notification.
[Alert: Do you wish for Alma to remember her dream? If you do it will be etched onto her mind. If not, she won't remember it.] The notification read. I immediately informed it that I wished for her to remember this dream, but I was somewhat happy that if I wanted to erase a bad dream from a mortal's memory I could.
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As I returned to the waking world I immediately target my goblin friend with my dream power and toggled it so that it would make his dreams restorative and positive.
And then I sat down on my bed and began to think about my approach to interacting with mortals. I didn't want to go wandering around in dreams haphazardly, I wanted to do so intelligently. I decided not to visit another dream tonight and instead decide on an approach for future visits to dreaming mortals.
I was in silent, patient contemplation until the first rays of dawn began to shine on the Silver Xana, although I didn't know that because my room lacked any windows. It just so happened that when I felt ready to tackle the next day, the next day was dawning.