01 - A Warning

[detectiveforhierophant]

Sender: Ryotaro Dojima
To: Everyone
Subject: WARNING TO ALL RESIDENTS:

An enemy from a world several of us came from is possibly here in the Dream World with us. It can shapeshift, potentially enter dreams and corrupt individuals, as well as control creatures known as Erasers. Caution is absolutely necessary. More details below.

My name is Ryotaro Dojima. Before arriving here, several other residents and I were in a world known as the Realm of Stories, where fairy tales, folklore, and mythological stories all reside. We were brought there- for the most part willingly, to help the Storyteller repair stories that had been destroyed by an Entity known as the Story Eater.

The Story Eater can be likened to an eldritch monster, almost a force of nature, that desires to destroy all stories in all worlds. If it has any ulterior motives, it's unknown at this time. It's sort of this weird, black molten skeleton…thing. It's hard to describe even after seeing it since it shifts very easily. It is sentient, very cunning, able to shapeshift into different forms as it sees fit, and controls creatures known as 'Erasers' who are able to enter stories and tear them apart from the inside out. And more concerningly, it's shown it has the ability to slip into people's dreams and manipulate them.

Because the Realm of Stories is connected to all worlds in some capacity, damages to the initial stories would cause Erasers and the Story Eater's influence to leak into and possibly destroy our own universes. That's why the Storyteller reached out to us in the first place. We'd "repair" the stories by acting them out—basically putting on a play with a story or several stories as a basis, taking up the roles of the characters while also helping to repair the world itself by doing small quests. Doing so would give them energy to restore themselves, and their energy would weaken the Story Eater and help fight it off. Sometimes the Story Eater would outright attack, and we'd need to fight it and its minions off.

Unfortunately, the Story Eater is extremely strong and at best we could only keep it busy until the Storyteller could repel it back. During our last battle against it, although there were signs that it had grown weaker it still had enough strength to rip through the story's dimensions and fling us all into the rift which led us to this world.

We recently received messages from the Storyteller informing us that while the Realm of Stories is safe, they're fairly certain the Story Eater is in the world we're in now, licking its wounds and trying to regain strength.

Due to its ability to enter and manipulate dreams, we all need to be extremely careful and keep an eye out for any outside influence—beyond the baby tapirs—that could sneak into our heads while we're still learning our powers here, or control the noctaere like it did the Erasers. We need to be especially mindful of any negative or destructive impulses that seem out of line of our usual mindsets.

I realise that dreams are personal and we're all being pushed into…bizarre circumstances with some of our dreams being shown to others

[Dojima hesitated a moment before…deciding to be candid.]

Believe me, there are some nightmares I have I don't want anyone to have to deal with—

But if you're experiencing something you know is out of the ordinary or you don't feel right, please say something. Last thing we all need is one of us to be used by this bastard.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. I'm sure the others who were with me could add more.


[NOTE: This is an announcement regarding the Story Eater, the main "antagonist" of the game forgottentales that is directly related to Songerein. Since it's confirmed to appear again, here's an IC notice for everyone so that whenever the mods start incorporating it into the game, the characters won't be completely blindsided! Other characters from FT will be around to respond to this post.]

Comments

Sender: Zelda

[multidisciplinary]

[ Zelda has already heard mention of the Realm of Dreams and the Story Eater from a few other people, but Dojima's explanation provides a lot of new information. She carefully takes notes in the private section of her journal, on the pages headed "Realm of Dreams." But there is still at least one critical question (to her, at least) that no one has been able to answer for Zelda. ]

Thank you for this detailed explanation, Mr. Dojima. It is deeply concerning that a threat from a different world was able to travel here of its own free will.

I hope you can answer a question that I've had for some time: why does the integrity of folk tales impact the stability of an entire world? I certainly won't deny the importance of maintaining cultural heritage, but I fail to understand the physical impact of a metaphysical threat.

[ She just doesn't understand how losing folklore can destroy a world. ]

Sender: Alice Liddell

[madventure]

From what I re-call, if you don't mind answer from another who was there, it is because with each story destroyed it gained power. Power with which it could enter the worlds that those folktales tied to. The more power, the more likely it was to invade other realities to do the same to them as it would those stories.

The stories were not the only thing in danger. Think of them like pathways, connecting many worlds together.

[multidisciplinary]

[ That makes more sense. It's less the stories themselves and more their power that is important, and maintaining the integrity of the former prevents the Story Eater from acquiring the latter. Zelda adds this to her notes, along with Alice's name on the surprisingly long list of people who came from the Realm of Stories. ]

[ But what really sticks out to Zelda is Alice's analogy ]

The stories connected worlds. Does that mean, then, that there are completely separate worlds that share the same folklore?

[madventure]

Yes. There may be different names, different creatures, but there are far too many similarities to see them as anything but the same stories fitted to different worlds. Some don't have any differences at all in some stories, and it's just the worlds that are different.

In some worlds, so I learned, I am just a story. However, the girl in those stories had a much different life.

[She'd stumbled across the story of course- even more so when she gave her name and some made a connection.]