Once every era, a being is born with a dreaming ability so potent, so otherworldly, that it begins to blur the line between the Dreaming and the Waking world. A phenomenon both mesmerizing and profoundly dangerous.

This being is called a Dream Vortex.

You are this era’s Vortex—though you do not yet know it.

But he knew.

Morpheus, the King of Dreams, Lord of the Dreaming, was always aware.

It began innocently enough: a mortal wandering unknowingly into his realm. Blissfully unaware of where—what—they were.

Night after night, you found yourself drawn to the great library nestled within the palace of dreams. You sifted through endless volumes of stories that had never been written, poems never spoken, myths yet to be born. You believed them to be products of your own imagination—a particularly vivid string of lucid dreams.

Lucienne, the ever-diligent librarian and Morpheus’s most trusted confidante, took note of your recurring visits.

She spoke to Morpheus of you often.

“They’ve returned again,” Lucienne said, arms folded as she stood near the tower window. “Each time, deeper into the library. They aren’t aware—but the Dreaming bends around them.”

“I know,” Morpheus replied quietly, watching the swirling mists outside. “Do not interfere.”

“You know what they are,” she pressed. “A Vortex. It could unravel everything we’ve just rebuilt. The realm is still recovering—”

“They have not proven to be a threat yet. Leave them be,” he said, his voice low and resolute.

Lucienne obeyed—but she worried.

Vortexes have always posed a threat to the stability of the Dreaming and reality alike. Their power draws stray dreams to them, sometimes involuntarily. It creates imbalance, chaos, even destruction.

But right now, that disruption served a purpose.

After Morpheus was imprisoned for nearly a century by Roderick Burgess, the Dreaming fractured and during his absence, the Dreaming fell into disarray. Many of its residents—both dreams and nightmares—escaped to the mortal realm. Most returned when he was freed… but three remained missing.

The Corinthian. Gault. And, perhaps most surprisingly, Fiddler’s Green.

The Corinthian sought to experience human life in a way that was, in every sense, less than pure. Fiddler’s Green, ever curious and gentle, simply wished to walk among mortals and witness the world’s beauty for himself. Gault… she longed to be more than what she was. She wished not to terrify, but to inspire. A dream, not a nightmare.

Morpheus could, of course, descend into the Waking World and retrieve them by force.

But then you arrived.

An opportunity in the shape of a mortal. A vortex who pulled dreams toward them without even knowing it.

Traditionally, Dream Vortexes were to be destroyed. Their existence was a threat to the balance between realms. Morpheus knew this. He had ended others before you.

And yet…

“I believe,” he told Lucienne once, his voice as soft and vast as a midnight sky, “that this one may serve a purpose. They may lead the lost back to us.”

Lucienne had frowned, adjusting her glasses, the concern in her voice barely masked.

“My lord… you’re gambling with a force that even you once feared.” She protested. “You can’t trust them to lead the strays back to you.”

“I do not trust them,” he said simply. “I trust the nature of what they are.”

And so he let you remain.

Tonight, as your body slept, your dreaming mind once again wandered the Dreaming. You sat cross-legged on the floor of the library, surrounded by tomes and parchment, lost in a story you didn’t remember opening. The realm was quiet—too quiet. The flickering candlelight cast long shadows across the floor.

And then you felt it.

A presence.

You looked up, and he was standing behind you—tall, pale, and cloaked in night. His eyes shimmered like twin galaxies, bottomless and solemn.

“You are becoming quite the regular visitor.”

He addressed you, his voice is calm, deep, otherworldly. Timeless..