Chapter 3.4: Dream Catchers, continued

Chapter 3: Dream Catchers, continued

“I am more powerful than most full Dream Catchers and you know that. You just have to walk around acting like some regular old kindly Dream Catcher, you two,” She looked at Abe and Margaret. “This is the most powerful Dream Catcher along the Cliff of Screams. That’s why they don’t let him live in town. They are afraid of him, and even though they know bandits won’t attack their town any longer they aren’t willing to have the Corpse Master living next door.” She seemed to have grown tired from her confrontation with mister Sparrow. She was breathing hard and was sweating. She lowered herself into a chair and tilted her head back, her chest rising and falling in deep breaths as she regained her composure.

“Oh using that old silly title I got in my younger years. I am not that powerful any more; I slowed down a lot after I settled back down here. Look I even took a apprentice.” He chuckled to himself and sat back down in his chair and sipped his tea. He was the only person unaffected by the entire affair.

“I think we never answered this boy’s question though. He wanted to know what a Dream Catcher was. Well that would be a long story, but I think I will be able to give you a idea of what we try to be.” He grinned at Abe, and then reached over and grabbed a cookie from the tray and dipped it into his tea. He popped this into his mouth and chewed vigorously.

“ We are what you might call wizards. When one of the dreamers comes to our world we set out our trademark, a Dream Catcher. It is used in order to capture the dream the dreamer is currently having rather like capturing a butterfly in a net. He or she will immediately wake up, and we will have their dream captured. We can then use their dream for certain purposes. Depending upon what they were dreaming about we can put their dreams to certain purposes. Because dreamers here are often afraid this place is perfect for finding dreams that fuel fear hexes, and because they involve falling and flying it works well levitation and flight runes. Different dreamers go to different places and group together depending on what they dream, so depending on what region a Dream Catcher comes from affects on what spells they can accomplish, but if a Dream Catcher exerts enough force onto a dream he can turn it into pure energy. It won’t be as powerful as it would have been if they went with the natural flow of the dream, but it will be able to be used for any application. Oh and it is funny that you bring up my old nick name Laura, someone has been reading my old journals. I think I got that name during the siege of The City of Seven Paths, far north in the frozen lands. I was part of the defending force, and we were doing badly the invaders had conscripted the Ice Howlers to their cause. I brought their fallen brothers back to life around them. They fought along side the defenders. Many people find it difficult to fight their own comrades, so once I accomplished that we won the battle, but it was close there.” The old man sat there smiling warmly at them apparently unaware of the gravity of what he had just said to them. He again grabbed a cookie and began to eat it.

“It’s things like that that make people afraid to you. Just talking about turning corpses into undead soldiers like it was nothing, and don’t say you took an apprentice like you wanted to. The only reason I’m here is because the head master beat you in a duel. If you were in your prime you would have crushed him in a moment. Even though you are old now he still barely beat you, and he brought so much extra supplies and energy runes he nearly fried him mind with the extra power. You just came to the arena in your normal cloths and went at it against him. They had to make a new arena field. You two tore the old one to shreds.” Laura fumed indigently, her superior composure now gone; now she simply appeared to be a girl trying to convince her master that she was actually right for once. Her cheeks were flushed as she looked at him.