Orcus, supremely powerful lord of the undead, sits on his throne of skulls in a realm of tortured souls (George Barr, Forgotten Realms Solo Quest Knight of the Living Dead by Allen Varney, TSR, 1989)
Where to start with Steve Jackson’s Sorcery series? At their most basic, they are close cousins to the Fighting Fantasy books: they share the same fantasy setting as the majority of those books and use a modified version of their rules.
That probably begs the question: what are Fighting Fantasy books? Your basic choose-your-own-adventure gives you control over the narrative through choices, usually binary ones; your success or failure is directly tied to which option you pick. Fighting Fantasy introduced dice-based combat and statistics, a-la D&D, to the mix, meaning you could fail because of bad decisions and bad luck in combat/poor equipment management. First appearing in 1982 Fighting Fantasy paved the way for similar series (reaching a height of popularity between ’84 and ’86) like Lone Wolf, Golden Dragon and the Grailquest books.
There isn’t much practical difference between these sorts of books and the solo-quest modules available for D&D, RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu. Those didn’t catch on in conventional RPGs and, while I love all of the series that I mentioned, I am not sure the addition of RPG mechanics adds anything to the experience other than a measure of frustration. Your mileage may vary.
The first volume of Sorcery is The Shamuntani Hills. Someone stole a magic crown and you’re aiming to get it back, first by trekking through a dangerous wilderness. John Blanche (who did a lot of work for both Fighting Fantasy and Games Workshop) does some of his best illustration work here. I’ve always thought his style was similar to Ian Miller, which is either a blessing or a curse. In this instance, blessing, for my money anyway. Bonus points for putting a badass manticore on the cover. Points deducted for giving the manticore wings.
Story wise, Sorcery starts out strong with brief entries that allow for a lot of varied ground to be covered. There’s some flat-out evil instant-deaths, though, so beware.
Well, I had a lot of fun writing this fic about Logic experiencing a nightmare, and Roman helping him with it, so I decided to explore Roman helping Anxiety, Patton, and himself with nightmares. @sanders-snippets had an idea of Roman helping Anxiety during nightmares on this thread and that’s what prompted me to write this. @corystssides also wrote a fabulous fic based off of that same thread and you should go and read it.
Tip Jar
Warnings? Well, they’re nightmares. They’re meant to be distressing. There’s abandonment themes and extremely painful but non fatal physical injury, a blood mention, and falling. Also, stressful situation having to do with a car.
Abstract: If you don’t remember your nightmares, its probably because either its not a problem you can deal with consciously or your dream self successfully took care of it. In this setup, Anxiety is the source of all nightmares whether he wants to be or not, and Roman is the one that helps the subconscious overcome the problems.
Anxiety’s Nightmare
Roman hated it when Anxiety was the one experiencing the nightmare. Okay, he usually did. Part of the time, Anxiety’s nightmares were easy to deal with. They were social nightmares. Accidentally coming to school in your underwear, forgetting your line on stage and having people throw things at you, uncomfortable romantic or sexual situations, things like that. Things that were easily remedied by getting Anxiety out of there or simply giving him a pair of pants to put on.
Then there were the abstract nightmares. Good God, did he hate those.
Roman tried to find where Thomas was being represented in the dream. If he could do that, he could pull Anxiety out and give him slightly more control. If the personality trait experiencing the dream could think consciously instead of riding along that made things much easier.
He suddenly found himself standing upside down on a ceiling over an auditorium. Wait no. It was a field now. And, he wasn’t on a ceiling anymore. Okay.
He started wading through the field, which seemed to be changing color, and bleeding paint? No, not anymore. Now it was a house that looked like it had stepped straight out of the 1950s. What in the name of sanity was any of this supposed to represent?
He heard inappropriate noises coming down the hallway of the house and decided to follow those.
He opened a bedroom door that seemed to have a mind of its own and saw Thomas standing there like a statue as a woman without any eyes made unwanted advances.
Roman pushed her out of the way and she warped and spasmed until she disappeared. He took dream Thomas by the hand and spun him around. As he spun around, dream Thomas turned into Anxiety, eyeshadow and all.
Anxiety fell over and Roman made no effort to catch him. As soon as Anxiety hit the floor, it began to warp and made a solid effort to swallow him.
Roman jumped down the pit to retrieve the emo persona, threw him out of the pit, and jumped after him just as the ground snapped shut.
“What is going on here? What does any of this mean?” Roman asked, panting on the ground.
“Princey!” Anxiety said urgently.
Roman stood up and wheeled around to find himself facing a giant spider. He held back a scream and then hit it with his sword. As soon as he did so, the spider exploded into several thousand more spiders.
Roman let out a shriek of terror and grabbed Anxiety’s wrist. He dragged the other side away as quickly as he could. Anxiety was secretly grateful for this, because a moment before he couldn’t bring himself to move out of sheer terror.
The two personality traits found themselves running down a mountain that only grew steeper as they went. Soon, they fell over each other and the drop swiftly turned to a 90 degree angle. Soon, they were free falling. That was quickly brought to a stop by a tree that was growing out of the side of the wall of a mountain they had fallen off of.
Anxiety landed next to Roman at a strange angle and both heard a snap.
“Anxiety, what was that? What does any of this mean? Tell me!” Roman said, trying to stay calm.
“My leg just snapped, genius,” Anxiety said, “Ow, augh. And even I’m not sure what it means. We’ve got a lot of issues, Princey,”
Roman gently helped Anxiety turn into a sitting position. It was true. Anxiety’s lower leg had snapped clean in half and was now turned at a horribly unnatural angle. It would go back in place once the dream ended, but for right now the pain was very real.
“We need to get out of here,” Prince said. “Perhaps there is a trail, or a door, or…”
“Forget it, Princey,” Anxiety said. “We can’t fix any of this. Just let it happen. There’s no point,”
Roman stood on the trunk of the tree and angrily looked down at Anxiety. “I am really growing sick of your unbearable, defeatist…”
They heard a snap. Then a crunch. Then the tree shifted.
“Told you. Ow,” Anxiety said, trying to move his leg.
Roman grabbed Anxiety by the waist and ignored the other’s cries of pain and proclamations of stupidity as he desperately tried to reach the mountainside before the tree fell off of it.
He didn’t make it. The tree uprooted itself and everything else disappeared, leaving Roman clinging to Anxiety as they fell into an abyss.
Roman held Anxiety tighter. “What does this all mean? Tell me!” He cried out over the rushing wind. “I’m supposed to help you!”
“Shut up!” Anxiety said, unable to hide the terror in his voice. “You don’t have all the answers! None of us do! There’s no point!”
Roman took a deep breath and concentrated with all his might. “Hold your breath!” he cried out.
Anxiety hated this, but did as he was told. Roman shifted them around so Anxiety was on top of him as they fell, so when they hit the water, Roman was the one that took the brunt of the fall.
Roman moved despite the pain in his spine and dragged Anxiety to the surface of the water. They were now swimming in a dark ocean that seemed to be filled with ink. There was a sky above them full of stars though, and a shore was in sight.
It took the prince far too long to drag Anxiety to the shore. They kept going under, because of how tired and injured they were. The murky saltwater stung at their eyes and at times even Roman felt like giving up and sinking to the bottom.
When they reached the shore, the sand was mercifully forgiving and Prince moved Anxiety into a sitting position.
Anxiety coughed up seawater and pounded his chest until it was clear.
“You really are an idiot,” He said hoarsely. “Ow, ugh. I hate this,”
Roman gripped Anxiety’s shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he said, as everything faded to black.
Morality’s Nightmare
Morality was experiencing the dream through Thomas’ eyes but couldn’t really do anything. It was like his voice and body were moving of their own accord. Like he was trapped in his own skin.
Thomas was wandering through a large house. It was ornately decorated and seemed bigger than it should be. Or maybe he was a foot shorter than he normally was. It was hard to tell the difference.
“Hello?” he called out. “Is anybody there?’
The words seemed to disappear on his lips and fizzle out inches from his face. He felt weak.
“Um? Hello? This isn’t funny!” He called out.
He walked into another hallway. It was full of paintings, none of which had people in them. Another hallway was full of mirrors that didn’t reflect anything. It led to a large ballroom with no windows.
Morality wanted more than anything to run, to find an exit, to stop the dream, but he couldn’t. The body he was trapped in was moving slowly and cautiously. It barely talked over a whisper and it weighed on him like a coat made of lead.
“Hello?” he called out again.
This time the words echoed around the gigantic room, spitting his word back at him.
“Hello? Hello? Hello?” the room echoed back at him.
Morality went to cover his ears. Wait. He could move!
He looked down and saw he was wearing his blue polo shirt and cardigan. He felt his face. There were glasses there.
“Roman, where are you?” Morality called, looking around.
“I’m over here, Patton,” Roman’s voice called from everywhere at once.
“You’re gonna have to concentrate, Kiddo!” Patton called out. “I can’t tell where you are,”
“Oh, now I’ve lost track of you!” Roman said, his voice still coming from everywhere at once.
“That’s okay, Roman!” Morality called out. “You’re doing a great job!”
“I am aware of that, you incompetent dolt. Now stand still so that I may find you,” Prince said.
“I dunno if I can do that, buddy,” Patton said,
“And why not?”
“Well, the ceiling’s coming down. I’m just gonna go out into that mirror hallway, m’kay? You’re doing a great job!”
Morality took off at a sprint as the ceiling began to come down like an elevator. Decorations were pushed off the walls and the chandelier hanging from the descending ceiling shook and shed pieces of crystal that shattered as they hit the floor.
As soon as Patton reached the mirror hallway, he tripped. The ceiling was about a foot away from him when he was forcibly dragged into the hallway.
Roman picked Morality up and placed him on his feet.
“Wow, Princey, Nice save!” Patton said.
“I am aware of that Morality. May I ask how this does not scare you?” Roman said, brushing rubble off of his shirt.
“Oh, I’m scared kiddo. I’m terrified. This mansion doesn’t have an end and I’m all alone. Can’t lie about that,”
Roman looked around. “And we appear to have gotten even smaller,”
Now they seemed to be a foot and three inches shorter than normal.
“Yeah, that happens,” Morality said.
“I remember,” said Roman, recalling the last time they had this dream. “I do not like it one bit,”
“Roman?” Patton said, “Hate to be a downer, but these mirrors give me the creeps. Is it okay if we get moving?”
“Always so polite. Very well,”
The two of them held hands as they walked cautiously through the mansion so they wouldn’t be separated. Morality was concentrating on breathing normally, while the prince held his sword in the hand that wasn’t keeping track of Patton and stayed on guard.
But there was nothing to guard against. The house didn’t do anything else and they stayed at the same height. It simply didn’t end. There were no doors. No windows. The rooms only had door frames and it wasn’t entirely clear where exactly the light was coming from.
“We’re alone,” Morality said finally. “We weren’t able to find anybody. Do you have any ideas, Roman?”
Roman stopped walking and sighed. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Morality,”
They stood there, feeling the emptiness of the large dining room they were sitting in. All the chairs were too big. They seemed to have shrunk another few centimeters.
Morality didn’t look happy anymore. He was the one that had nightmares least often out of all of them. Except Logan of course. He never did know how to deal with it. He expressed his distress openly, like he always did.
Roman sat next to Morality on the floor and rubbed his back as the father character cried quietly. He would never bring this up later. What happened during dreams stayed there.
After a few minutes Roman looked up.
“We seem to have gotten even shorter,” he noted.
“Yeah, it happens,” Morality said, drying his eyes. “On the bright side, that means it must be almost over, right?”
Roman smiled. “You always did conquer your problems quickly,”
He pointed dramatically to a door frame, and an actual door appeared there.
Roman helped Morality up. “Well? Are you going to try it?” he asked.
Morality’s smile returned, and it was as genuine as ever. “You bet! Let’s get going!”
He grabbed Roman’s hand and they sprinted for the door. When they got there, Patton didn’t hesitate for a moment, and flung the door open, putting an end to the infinite house.
Prince’s Nightmare
Why didn’t Prince ever tell anybody about his solo nightmares? Well, they may be terrifying, but they were also just so… normal. And Roman could not have anyone thinking that anything about him was normal. Tonight’s nightmare, although ordinary, was the most terrifying he had experienced in a very long time.
Thomas was driving down a road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. He was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that he was late for something, but what he couldn’t remember.
This was getting ridiculous. He was supposed to be somewhere. The headlights barely cut through the inky blackness of the country road. Where was he? How did he get there? What was he late for?
Roman slowly but surely became aware that this was his nightmare. He felt even more lost. He couldn’t get control. Dream Thomas continued to drive down the road, completely lost. He turned every corner that came up and tried to find a highway or a freeway or a town or anything, but there was nothing. Nothing ever changed. The same landscape passed him over and over again.
Finally, Roman got himself together enough to take over. The pleather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans Thomas was wearing were replaced with regal attire and Prince took the wheel.
However, as soon as he did, a sinkhole appeared directly in front of him on the road. Roman slammed on the breaks in a panic and veered to the right. As soon as the car came to a halt, he heard a cracking noise behind him.
The Prince looked behind him, and in the dim glow of the break lights he saw giant cracks appearing in the ground. The creative side slammed on the gas petal and the tires screeched off into the night.
The asphalt behind him continued to crack, and somehow he knew that he was always just a few inches in front of the canyon that was swiftly forming behind him.
Another sinkhole appeared in the road. He swerved and barely missed it. He still didn’t know why he felt like he was late for something. Being late was clearly not his biggest concern right now.
Suddenly he saw a fallen tree over the road. The break decided that now would be a good time to stop working, and the car went flying into the air.
Mercifully, the car landed upright, but the airbag didn’t go off, and Roman hit his head on the steering wheel. The break resumed working and he shakily put a hand up to his head and hit a wet spot. He took his hand down and saw to his horror that his fingers were covered in blood. He absentmindedly wiped his hand off on his white shirt and swallowed.
He went for the door, but then the car lurched forward. Another sinkhole was opening up. Slowly this time.
Roman quickly put the car in reverse, got a few feet away, and then changed into drive again. The tires skidded loudly and then he shot off into the night again as the canyon resumed its growth behind him.
“What is wrong? What does this mean? Curse you, Anxiety!” He yelled to no one in particular.
He knew that Anxiety couldn’t hear him, and that he didn’t necessarily always want to cause these nightmares, but he often found yelling to the sky helped him think better. And his general philosophy towards problems was, when in doubt blame someone else.
The blood was dripping down his face now. It was disgusting and he wished he could stop, if only to wipe his face off. He swerved around another sinkhole and yelled out a curse at the top of his lungs.
There was only one thing to do for this. He was going to have to crash the car. He had no idea where he was supposed to be going or what he was late for, but right now that didn’t matter. The car had to stop.
He made a sharp right turn and drove into a field. He hit the breaks and the car skidded out until it ran into and completely totaled a shed.
This time, the airbags deployed and the wound on his head wasn’t aggravated. He pried open the door and stumbled out into the night air. There was no longer any indication that the ground had been falling apart. Everything was quiet.
Roman wiped off his forehead on his sleeve, not caring about the consequences. He briefly thought about how much of a concussion he would have if this was real. Thankfully, it only felt real.
He put pressure on the wound and sat next to the totaled car. Maybe the dream didn’t have to end quite yet. Maybe he could just sit here for a while. Maybe.
Somewhere in the field, crickets were chirping. He let them keep going on as he slowly drifted out of consciousness. Maybe now he could sleep. Really, truly, sleep.
“Floating like driftwood on the sluggish river of blood -- Bone filaments crawl up the walls like ivy on a church, stretch across the ceiling, and grow thick down the other side.” (George Barr, Forgotten Realms Solo Quest Knight of the Living Dead by Allen Varney, TSR, 1989)
Thandiroq heard the commotion coming from Blair’s office, Zuru and the wild spirited druid Zinnia, murmuring and squealing about a delivery of some sorts. He shrugged his shoulders and paid it no more attention then he did when the rest of the guild made their preparations to return home from the spa. He felt something calling to him that day, the dream, so familiar.
Feralas, there was something about that land that triggered his memory and showed him a sight as he saw only once before. Now, as he sat upon his bed looking out the window of his room, an image came to him. A male kaldorei standing in a field surrounded by slumbering, playing and seemingly at peace dragons. His face strikingly similar to that of the predecessor to Blair... the old and the new, Aisleen. During a job to hunt down and capture illegal deforesters in Feralas, Thandiroq was close to falling that day as he took a blade to his gut meant for his fellow guildmate, brother, the Dragongarde Thalin. Thandiroq called for Thalin and Blair to end the hunt and follow after the last deforestor of the group, he would catch up. It was a lie, he could feel his life slowly draining from him, the wound more serious than he let them know. As the light was fading, he caught a glimpse of that face once more. Among the canopy of that wild land, he saw him looking at him, not judgingly, but with curiosity. Upon returning home, almost fully healed now, thanks to the healing potions of Blair, a surprise awaited Thandiroq. There on the bar top of Dragon Heart Inn, next to a waiting Aisleen, the blades that he had left in Feralas. “An acquaintance brought them for you, it appears you have a guardian watching over you.” Thandiroq took a deep breath as he rose from his bed and moved to the desk, where a single sheet of paper was rested and a pencil next to it. Only a single line was written upon it, the signs of how much he was struggling with a choice he had on his mind.
Thandiroq’s ears perked up as he heard cheering coming from the bar downstairs, his curiosity finally getting the better of him and he made his way towards the door. His mind a blank as to how to say what he wanted to say, he figured that a drink or two may help him find the words. He made it to the top of the stairs when he saw her, Blair, wearing a set of armor he had never seen before. His eyes widened as he gazed at her, the image of the being floating in the light of Elune, flashing into his mind. “I must leave. But worry not–I’m not going anywhere.” She spoke before leaving the Inn. A frown came to Thandiroq’s face as he watched her exit, his head slowly turning to look back towards his room, to the paper that sat on his desk. Written upon that paper was a single line, “I must leave...”
