As Cadena connects to the Gloaming account, the Dantech logo appears, a large red D with an inset T, then fades away to be replaced by the words 'The Gloaming' hovering in midair, Cadena himself hanging into space, the Sun blazing high overhead and the Moon at his feet. A book appears before him, the front cover embossed with the bronze insignia of the Sun, and then its pages open out and scatter, each becoming a window into a different world, an era of history.
But unexpectedly, an immense robed figure also hangs in the air near Cadena, its face a starry void in which two embers hang. "My champion, you enter into a place of great darkness," the WHITE says ominously.
Unlike his recurring dreams, here Cadena can move. He has arms! And legs! Examining himself, he sees an anthropomorphic dog standing on his own hindlegs. A robe of gray disguises his form, and slung across his back is a battered old staff... Yet one that hums with innate power. Or is it responding to power within himself?
Cadena, disoriented, looks this way and that, and then, driven by some sort of instinct, starts to move as if to genuflect before the figure, even as he realizes that there is no floor to stand upon. "I pray, my lord, accept my humble apologies. I am ... not where I expected to be."
The WHITE directs Cadena's attention to the pages before them. "Factions strive one against another, an endless quarreling for power. The struggle is its own reason for being, and one must lose for another to gain. How can anything great be built here?" It gazes into them. "Yet perhaps here you may find the answer to my question."
"If that is the quest laid before me," Cadena says solemnly, "then I shall do my best to find an answer." His mind flails, grasping. Who am I? Where am I? Who am I supposed to be? What are the rules? What is the objective?
The WHITE stretches its hand, limmed in nebula glow, to Cadena's body. Warmth floods over him, the feeling of being loved, of loving others. He is the protector of the helpless, the helper of the weak, the agent by which those fallen may rise once more into the Light. "Go forth," the WHITE whispers. "Be my agent in the darkness. And discover for me..."
And the WHITE fades away, leaving Cadena with a succession of pages from which to choose. One looks familiar - a view of New Metropolis's skyline.
The other pages play out vignettes as Cadena watches. A detective prowls through the night of an old-fashioned early 20th century city, glancing over his shoulder as shadowy figures follow him. In Old London, a carriage rattles through the street, pulled by clockwork horses. Gondolas glide through the water of Venysse, a vampire maiden glancing down at the moon's reflection.
"Please, my lord! Before you go--" Cadena cries out, but too late. He shakes his head, as he looks over the pages, and sees in them a far more likely introduction to a new user in a virtual reality game. Starting off the game with a character such as this, giving one a mission, before one even chose a faction ... somehow that didn't seem to be in keeping with all he'd heard of the Gloaming. Cadena looks over himself, confirming his own appearance. "It ... would seem as if I'm further along in the decision-making process than I realized," he muses to no one in particular, and then he focuses on the book, marking the spot with New Metropolis's skyline, but anxious to take note of these other vistas as well.
As Cadena's attention turns toward each page, they become larger and the other pages recede into the distance. Old London... Didn't Treasa Truclaw say something about having a home base there with the League? But she also said she'd be searching for this 'Potemkin'.
Cadena sighs. "Greetings and salutations." His mind swims. "Are there any spirits that hearken, who might provide assistance? I am but a humble traveler and new to these realms. I wish to seek out the tale of a more experienced adventurer, one who goes by the name of Treasa Truclaw."
A few seconds tick by, and then a glowing door opens in midair! Or rather, the door itself was invisible, but the light bursts through the opening, silhouetting the male figure. "Ah! Here you are, Awakened. You've wandered far afield."
Cadena squints his eyes at this. "My apologies, good sir, but there must be some sort of mistake. I have not had the chance to wander at all." He checks to make sure he's still floating, and that with the materialization of the door, a floor hasn't somehow manifested itself as well.
As the figure's feet leave the door, it shuts behind him, and a sourceless light gives him clarity. He is a fox of medium height, brown hair, a traveler's outfit that wouldn't look out of place in a Renfaire, and strapped over his back is a lute. He walks up to Cadena on an invisible floor, though Cadena continues to float. "I'm Renard," he says, winking as if to suggest of course Cadena had heard of him. "And it seems to me that you surely must have been sleep-walking far afield, to be in the Hall of Dreams."
Something in Cadena finds that name for his current location to be very believable indeed, but the rational part (weak as it is) still rails against the inherent wrongness of the whole setup. "Greetings. I am Brother Cadena," he says automatically, before even realizing he has given himself a potentially rather generic sort of name before consulting the random ... before.... He loses his train of thought. "I confess to being rather disoriented, so it is indeed possible I have wandered off. I am having some difficulty in ascertaining just where I am supposed to be in the first place. Did you perchance hear my query regards the person of Treasa Truclaw? I am here, after a fashion, at her request." He mulls over that, not quite certain if that was the proper way to word it.
Absently, Cadena reaches downward with his staff, attempting to prod at whatever floor might be beneath him, yet unseen. If indeed he's been "sleep-walking," it would seem that he needs a refresher on the "walking" part.
Nope! Still no floor. How is Renard doing that?
"Treasa Truclaw! Of course, of course, but do I know if she wants you to meet her?" Renard smiles slyly. "Maybe you can find her for yourself! As an Awakened, you have that power. You are no ordinary Dreamer, like the people that inhabit these worlds." He gestures toward Cadena's staff. "There, your stick. Why don't you give it a try? Let it point the way for you."
Brother Cadena examines the staff, and regards it for a moment, with a vague feeling that it's missing ... something ... but then he shakes that thought away, lest he get even further afield by dream-walking or whatever nonsense has led him this far. He concentrates on it, gesturing with it vaguely in the direction of the book, though heedful of any sensation that might seem to be pulling it elsewhere.
As he gestures toward the pages, a warmth inside him seems to grow brighter in the direction of New Metropolis.
Renard smiles craftily. "Very good, very good. But before you leave this place, I should warn you..."
Cadena's ears perk. He isn't about to rush off anywhere and cut off a warning in the process if he can help it.
"There will be many that claim your attention, Brother Cadena," Renard says. "Servants of the Sun, servants of the Moon, those who serve neither or both, at their whim or by their own rules. They will seek you out, and desire that you stand with them in the great wars. They are always warring, of course. Places of power, magical artifacts, love or honor, revenge or justice, this trifle, that triffle, they're all trifles, really." He leans forward and whispers into Cadena's ear. "Just remember, it's all in fun."
And with that, Renard sweeps a bow. "Will there be anything else, Awakened?"
Cadena nods solemnly. "Thank you," he says, "but I have not forgotten the quest I have already been given by my lord. I will do my best to return with the answer in good time, and not to be unduly distracted. I appreciate your time."
"So serious! You should learn to appreciate a good joke," Renard says. "Well then, ta ta!" He draws a rapier from an unseen scabbard - surely it wasn't there a moment ago - and traces a door's outline in empty space. Golden lines appear; sword sheathed, he presses it open and steps through.
"Answers," Brother Cadena whispers to himself, and then, in a moment of testing, tries to will or fling himself toward the direction of the disappearing door.
As the glowing aperture in space draws close, Cadena throws himself at it- and just barely lodges his staff in it, stopping it from closing all the way! On the other side of the door, he hears Renard turn around in startlement at the audible clack.
Cadena struggles to right himself and lever the door open if at all possible. "Please accept my humblest apologies," Brother Cadena says, with a grunt, "but it seems that everyone here has a habit of disappearing so quickly, right about when I think of another question!"
The door opens and Renard catches Brother Cadena to bring him through into... Well, it looks like an old Victorian mansion, Persian rugs on the floor, a deer's head on the varnished wood wall, a fireplace burning cozily. "Well, I suppose you didn't want to find this Treasa Truclaw person so badly then," Renard says with a grin and closes the door behind him. From this side it looks like an ordinary white door. "What did you want to ask?"
Brother Cadena pants as he tumbles to the floor, and his robes settle about himself. "My apologies. I do hope she will forgive me the delay, but these are the troubles that come about when one serves two masters." He rights himself, and pats himself off, looking about the room. "The question I needed to ask you was - how do I return to that place that I just left? You called it the Hall of Dreams? My lord, who was there just before you arrived, bid me to return there with an answer - and I can't very well accomplish such a quest, if I know not how to return." He glances about the room looking for a mirror ... or any sort of reflective surface, for that matter.
Renard tilts his head. "Well! Two masters, is it? That must be a very complicated life you lead," he says sympathetically. "It's all I can do to manage with one!" There are indeed mirrors, and Cadena can see both his and Renard's reflection... So evidently neither of them are vampires, unless that doesn't hold with the Gloaming's vampires. "As for the Hall of Dreams, wherever you wish to go, your staff will take you." He leans forward and shares this conspiratorily. "But the shortest distance between two places sometimes isn't a straight line, you know."
Cadena nods, looking faintly distraught as he examines his own reflection in the mirror, tracing out the visible "chains" visible through his facial fur. He trusts that he will likely find a similar pattern underneath the robes, but decides that can be tested some other time. "That's a relief to know," Cadena says, but then he taps on the mirror with a claw tip, still not quite registering what he sees. "There's ... something isn't right here. I don't know how to phrase my question. I am here, obviously ... but ... I cannot be here. This isn't possible."
"Oh dear. Are you sure you're Awake?" Renard says, the fox frowning. "Or are you still sleep-walking?"
"Though I've never heard of someone to sleep-talk before."
Cadena shakes his head, turning away from the mirror, and putting the staff back in its sling. He laughs faintly. "That," he says, putting his hands up to his face, "is a very good question." His hands recoil upon contact with his muzzle, though the way he glances at his hands, it's hard to tell whether the muzzle or the hands were what caused him alarm. "Just before you arrived.... I'll try to start from the beginning. There was a word - 'The Gloaming.' Perhaps I heard it or read it." He puts a hand to his forehead, and breathes slowly. "The next thing I knew, I was before that book, where you found me. And then there was one who came and gave me my quest. I ... was not asked anything about what faction I served or my name or ... or anything. And then I was left wondering what I should do, and I asked aloud for help, and you arrived. I simply assumed that you had come in response to my query. I have assumed a great many things, and that could be ... counterproductive, I fear."
Cadena's eyelid twitches here and there, as some of his statements come perilously close to breaking out of character ... whatever of all this is really "in character" or "out of character," for all he knows.
"Why, that's very simple," Renard says smiling toothily. "No one came to ask you which faction you wished to serve because you already belong to the White. And I..." His rapier appears in his hand as he advances upon Cadena. "I serve the Black."
Brother Cadena executes a penitent bow ... and then makes a mad dash for a larger door far from the white door he came from.
Reynard dashes after Cadena, yipping high foxish laughter... But Cadena proves quick enough to knock the door open and slam it in his face! He emerges into the streets of what looks like Victorian-era London.
It is night and a thick fog covers the hard dirt road so thickly it wouldn't be hard to lose his pursuer.
Cadena pulls the cowl as hard down over his face and muzzle as he can manage, and darts his way down the street, anxiously following whatever urgings the staff might have next, noting to himself that finding answers might be a lot safer if he's not alone while seeking them.