matcha-royaltea

[QUEST: G-006 WORDS: 1,003] What a wonderful day to do literally anything else than garden! While Rico adored every aspect of the Fishbowl and how it twisted nature into new and improved shapes, she couldn't say hoof on heart that the tide pools were her favorite place to be. I mean, they existed. And you could grow stuff in them. Very boring stuff most of the time, though, unless there was something exciting going on like the potential erasure of yourself across the multiverse. Sigh. As the queen of the Fishbowl, DJ Ricochet was first and foremost loyal to her citizens (better known as every single daydream that wandered in and got adopted by her). Their crops, however? Nahhhh. They could jolly well grow their own food! Wasn't even that hard - and besides, it's not like they didn't help themselves every so often. Chasing off pesky emperor crows and floresce just waiting to take a nibble out of her carrots had become so routine it was now boring. And Rico LOVED chasing daydreams!!

[QUEST: D-002 WORDS: 1,967] "Wooooooooow. This place really did become a dump since we were away, huh?" "Don't say that!! I think it looks as... as liminal as ever! Just. A lil' more so now. Gives it a sense of genuine abandonment- which is what you wanted in the first place, right?" "S'ppose so. But still!!! We're SO lucky daydreams live forever, yanno. I don't know how I'd ever get enough to replace them- not that I do want to replace them, but just think! I'd have to find a new Queenie, a new Trico, not to mention Squishy and Trippy will obviously have to come in pairs..." Such words float over Nadir's head like candle smoke. She squints in an attempt to decipher them, but the little wisps of conversation that filter through evade her most annoyingly, snuffed out in an instant. Best not to ask. The two greatest Nightmares of their era talk a LOT, she's discovered. Can she blame them? They've been slumbering in the roots of the Nightmare Tree for years- no. No, it has to be

[QUEST: DUNGEON - Room of Rhyme WC: 315] Now, ladies and gents and the whole human race, the tale to be told requires you to brace. Though smothered in feelings of shame and disgrace, it's none else but the story of Calamity's Face! A dungeon so putrid its smothering embrace swallowed up every nightmare its stillness displaced. And who should seek passage through this claustrophobic place? Why, the thundering hoofbeats of a trio in a race!   Of all Stygians stretching from sky to the sea, it delights me the most to have you meet these three. Surely you know Rico, she's shrieking with glee, for nobody else is so keen to be free! Feel free to have doubts, skeptical you can be, but who else makes the walls ring like a banshee? If anyone's counting, there's also Herschie, but he barely touches the ground as he flees. What can he be thinking? Got stung by a bee? Or is he thinking of the culpa and who is the mea? Nadir is here too, but we count her lastly, for she moves with not speed but

[QUEST: Dungeon - Room of Book SummaryWC: 351 WORDS] AFTER the events of PHOBOPHOBES and the Blue Quark Rhymes bestselling series DREAM ONLINE: THE FALL OF HYPNOGOGIA, DJ Ricochet and Herschel emerge from their slumber to find themselves in a world with no place for them. Almost immediately they are beset by the telepathic Nadir, one of the newest generations of Stygians, who informs them their worst fears have come true (even for nightmares!). The Dreamers have won: aeons have passed the Nightmares of Nausea and Escape by in their meditation-induced comas and fear has been all but forgotten, establishing peace and blissful stagnation in the waking world. What choice do brother and sister have but to trust their unlikely guide? Without her they might be trapped in Calamity's Face - the enormous, nigh-incomprehensible dungeon that has grown up around them and twisted their somnic-based powers beyond recognition - for all eternity. But as they progress ever closer to the true Labyrinth

[QUEST: Dungeon - Room of Quest Giver WC: 645 WORDS] Hey, you. You're finally awake. >Attempt to stand up (Failure) Gently now! Gently. To rise from slumber after such a long time is never easy. Your essence is fragmented, your dominions fallen to ruin- yes, you especially. Unraveled one. Torn to ribbons yet still not to shreds. I applaud your resilience in the face of the Calamity. Now, you must have a great many questions as to why you are here. Ask and you shall receive. But listen here and listen well: some answers are simply not worth pursuing. >Confusion How am I speaking to you without using my mouth? An excellent beginning. You see, I could not form words even if I tried. I am born of the thoughts that scream over silence, sweeping over dreamers as all-encompassing as the tide - to put it simply, I am in your head. I, however, am no hallucination.  That you can rest assured of. >Ask stranger's name  My name is Nadir. Herald of the new world you have arisen in. >Is the

[QUEST: E-047 (RETURN-001), WORDS: 610] “Log Number [REDACTED]. Or something. Day: Don’t know! Time: Don’t care!! Look, forget about the log! I know what I saw. I mean- I don’t know- but it was there and I saw it, alright?! That THING. Something in the woods. It was just… there… staring at me. Watching me. Waiting for… me??? What monstrosities lurk beyond the veil in this accursed city? What abominations could strike fear into even I, the Harbinger of the Apocalypse?!??! I shudder to think of some malicious entity more fearsome than me! Huff… puff… should stop narrating now… outta breath…” Hazard had not wandered into deep, dark woods where he soon grew hopelessly lost. (He didn’t even remember how he got here anyway!!) His aether had definitely not turned to ice when he felt a chilling presence boring into the back of his skull. And he most certainly hadn’t screamed at the top of his lungs like a little baby and ran away!! No siree!!! No idea what you’re talking about. But here

[QUEST: E-047 (RETURN-001), WORDS: 1839] “Log Number [REDACTED]. Date: Unknown. Time of day: Unknown, only that it is still somehow day. The Sun never sets here. I say Sun with a capital S because it is everywhere I go and everywhere I look in this blasted kingdom. What a menace. No wonder Treatropolis fell; setting up shop with that THING hovering over your heads all the time was doomed to fail. Perhaps it is a Harbinger of the Apocalypse, as am I. If so I feel no sense of kinship towards it. I scorn its very existence, I need none of its aid. We are not the same. I will bring about my own day of reckoning, and when I do, it will be glorious…” And so on, and so forth. These are not words hastily scribbled upon the last torn page of a faded journal before the writer succumbs to crystalline rigour mortis. Neither does this broadcast play from a long-forgotten VHS recorder over and over on repeat. Nay, they are the mumblings of a fiendish creature stalking through the abandoned halls

[QUEST: E-047 (RETURN-001), WORDS: 2017] Foul trespasser. Send word far and wide. Of the last Queen of Treatropolis, Queen [REDACTED] [REDACTED] the Xiith. True heir to the [REDACTED] bloodline. Consort of the Treatropolis Sun. And the majesty of the darkest day of her dynasty. Bits and pieces flake off the crumbling city walls. An unnatural sheen radiates from the candy houses, coated in a sickly sweet glaze. Stare long and hard into the murky gloop and you just might see it: A lone figure shambling mindlessly through the twilit gloom of once-great Treatropolis. There is still life in this urban wasteland of candy canes and lollipops. Or some semblance of it at least. A crow circles impatiently overhead. After all, scavengers seek out the dead to feast. On occasion the crow swoops down and dive-bombs the nightmare invader, causing his shuffle-step, shuffle-step gait to stagger to a halt. “Caw! Caw!! Cacaw caaaaaw!!!” Though it furiously bombards the Stygian with noise and

[QUEST: E-047 (RETURN-001), WORDS: 720] “It is better to light a single candle than curse the darkness.” Where were you when the Sun set for the last time over Treatropolis? Beyond the gates of the great Treatling city, shut for all eternity, the twilit streets glisten in an array of tantalizing hues. A pied stranger wanders down a pristine road of sheer, glossy sugar. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. With every step, the city crackles and shatters underfoot. Konpeito balls begin to gather beneath the soles of her hooves; every so often the stranger stops to stamp them out lest her journey be laced with candy-coated agony. What a tragedy, she mourns as she looks over the colorful shards. How the mighty have fallen. We will never have another Hundred Year War again. I know of the pain and suffering it wrought. It is a mercy and a kindness that none can relive them. But this… Is this peace? I do not know. The stranger moves on. A swathe of stardust is all that remains. Where is

“Zem luna, teim luna.” “Zem Luna, ve teim a.” The last passenger has disembarked. Though the ferryman waves farewell, they are already gone. As he glides down the river the only thing rising to greet him is his shimmering reflection. Skimming past perilous reefs, snatched from the gnashing jaws of death with just a touch - is he alone? He can count the Yevatem who hailed him down today on one hand. He does not blame them. Few teskavtlejem dare travel the selerved this way. On a craft so light, down a route so precarious, and with naught but a single guide? Who would go on such a ratetvoitlej voyage? Who, indeed? But there are always those who will need the ferryman. They must go on, they must. The hasty, the desperate, and the dubious who it is best not to question. And a smiling ferryman is better than going alone. For only the ferryman knows the way of the selerved, and there are plenty of ways an unsuspecting traveller might sink into the embrace of Ai Matia, as the