Couple starting points.
I am a USPS contractor in Alaska. In winter, sniffles and colds come with the job. Yesterday, those ailments became worse, turning into a fever. So I took some cold medicine and went to bed early. Strange dreams ensued.
The other starting point is the world of Athas, an AD&D world that was published shortly before I lost interest in that game. What is relevant here is the transition: originally Athas was a world of oceans sailed by Halfling mariners. (the Blue World) Time passed, the oceans receded, immense forests sprouted and new races erected civilizations (the Green Age). Things went wonky. The God's went away. Sorcerers appeared, using spells powered by life energy. Genocidal wars were fought by these mages, turning the forest into desert.
I had several dreams during my lengthy snooze (14 hours) but most are fragmentary at best; driving through a park in Hawaii, a series of dubious meetings with friends and relatives, that sort of thing. But the main dream...
When it started, I was a sailor on a ship traversing a deep blue sea, occasionally calling at ports on green islands. But, I kept having 'flashes.' I'd blink, and just for an instant, I'd see forest or desert instead of waves.
Then, an abrupt discontinuity: I wasn't on a ship, but was one of the drivers for a military style truck (canvas top in the back), part of convoy making our way along a muddy dirt road through dense forest. My companion was an older gent with wild white hair who spoke excitedly about the ocean. A couple times he touched my face, and just for an instant, I was back on the ship. I told him I wanted to see the real thing, not some vision.
'You will,' he said.
The trucks labored up a steep hill. At the summit, we were greeted with a view of a fair sized lake filling most of valley - maybe a few miles each way. 'See,' said the old guy, 'the ocean.'
'No,' I told him, 'that's a lake. And not that big of one.'
He accused me of having no imagination.
Another abrupt transition followed. Still in a truck, and still on a rough road through wooded country...but much less vibrant. Large groves of stunted trees surrounded by patchy grass.
We reached another valley, an immense depression hundreds of yards (meters) deep and (apparently) hundreds of miles or kilometers across, its bottom dotted with small brackish pools and sand dunes. The old guy looks at me and says 'This is an ocean.'
'I see a giant pit.'
'It will be an ocean.' The old guy dismounted from the truck, had the others unpack some equipment, and began what I interpreted in the dream as 'the Ritual.' It didn't take long. An oval a few yards or meters appeared in the air above the depression, near a wall of rock. Water burst forth. Lots of water. It took the old guy a while (days?) to get it stabilized, but then he broke camp, left it running, moved a few miles away and opened a second spigot in the air. And then a third. For quite a while (days? weeks?) these vortices spewed water into the huge valley. But then they began to falter. And I noticed something about the surrounding landscape -
- the already patchy and not too healthy forest was dying, being reduced to isolated, withered groves, surrounded by dead grass and sand.
Then the torrents erupting from the spigots dropped to a trickle and stopped.
'See,' said the old man. 'An ocean.'
But what I saw was a vast basin filled with ooze and muddy pools. 'No,' I told him. 'This is a marsh, a bog, a waste.' I pointed at the ravaged wood. 'And you destroyed the forest to create it.'
He accused me of having no imagination.
I took the truck and left him there, alternately fuming and extorting his remaining followers.
I am a USPS contractor in Alaska. In winter, sniffles and colds come with the job. Yesterday, those ailments became worse, turning into a fever. So I took some cold medicine and went to bed early. Strange dreams ensued.
The other starting point is the world of Athas, an AD&D world that was published shortly before I lost interest in that game. What is relevant here is the transition: originally Athas was a world of oceans sailed by Halfling mariners. (the Blue World) Time passed, the oceans receded, immense forests sprouted and new races erected civilizations (the Green Age). Things went wonky. The God's went away. Sorcerers appeared, using spells powered by life energy. Genocidal wars were fought by these mages, turning the forest into desert.
I had several dreams during my lengthy snooze (14 hours) but most are fragmentary at best; driving through a park in Hawaii, a series of dubious meetings with friends and relatives, that sort of thing. But the main dream...
When it started, I was a sailor on a ship traversing a deep blue sea, occasionally calling at ports on green islands. But, I kept having 'flashes.' I'd blink, and just for an instant, I'd see forest or desert instead of waves.
Then, an abrupt discontinuity: I wasn't on a ship, but was one of the drivers for a military style truck (canvas top in the back), part of convoy making our way along a muddy dirt road through dense forest. My companion was an older gent with wild white hair who spoke excitedly about the ocean. A couple times he touched my face, and just for an instant, I was back on the ship. I told him I wanted to see the real thing, not some vision.
'You will,' he said.
The trucks labored up a steep hill. At the summit, we were greeted with a view of a fair sized lake filling most of valley - maybe a few miles each way. 'See,' said the old guy, 'the ocean.'
'No,' I told him, 'that's a lake. And not that big of one.'
He accused me of having no imagination.
Another abrupt transition followed. Still in a truck, and still on a rough road through wooded country...but much less vibrant. Large groves of stunted trees surrounded by patchy grass.
We reached another valley, an immense depression hundreds of yards (meters) deep and (apparently) hundreds of miles or kilometers across, its bottom dotted with small brackish pools and sand dunes. The old guy looks at me and says 'This is an ocean.'
'I see a giant pit.'
'It will be an ocean.' The old guy dismounted from the truck, had the others unpack some equipment, and began what I interpreted in the dream as 'the Ritual.' It didn't take long. An oval a few yards or meters appeared in the air above the depression, near a wall of rock. Water burst forth. Lots of water. It took the old guy a while (days?) to get it stabilized, but then he broke camp, left it running, moved a few miles away and opened a second spigot in the air. And then a third. For quite a while (days? weeks?) these vortices spewed water into the huge valley. But then they began to falter. And I noticed something about the surrounding landscape -
- the already patchy and not too healthy forest was dying, being reduced to isolated, withered groves, surrounded by dead grass and sand.
Then the torrents erupting from the spigots dropped to a trickle and stopped.
'See,' said the old man. 'An ocean.'
But what I saw was a vast basin filled with ooze and muddy pools. 'No,' I told him. 'This is a marsh, a bog, a waste.' I pointed at the ravaged wood. 'And you destroyed the forest to create it.'
He accused me of having no imagination.
I took the truck and left him there, alternately fuming and extorting his remaining followers.