Atomino

Atomino, Zovorodi, and the Secret Chasm

Our Interviewer reflects for a short time on the walls in the deep cavern, far in the chasm and hidden from view. Dreamers walk through occasionally, but not many stay long enough to talk. Finally she notices a dreamer named Atomino standing in the room quietly. After a few moments, evoking chamele, and meditating to rest her lost dreamsoul, she walks forward curiously and evokes Vision upon him so that he can see her.

"How did you get down there?" he whispers, "magic" she said, thinking upon Kudzoo's description of the rediscovered arts. And so they continued, and Atomino introduced himself: "My master is a Lyran. This was where I am told he re-entered the city. I am from before the time you call The Great Loss."

"I would not want to bore you with a tale of me when others have done greater deeds."

I'm sure it wouldn't be boring, but whatever you feel comfortable with.

"So, how I found the dream.."

Calysto scrambles for a notepad. Atomino pulls out his pipe and fills it with a blackish substance. Calysto sits and rests notepad on knee, readying a pen. Atomino strikes his flint on a Fire item and lights his pipe, puffing happily. Dark noxious smoke appears yet it strangely relaxes him. Calysto coughs slightly as the smoke encircles her.

"I smoke gopher root. it is slightly hallucinogenic. Some have claimed me to be lazy because of my habit."

Atomino bats at the air and exhales a different direction

"Well, I was a common person in Cloudsbreak. nothing special. no family to speak of. I was a herbalist, which I have since kept to here in the dream city. I traveled far to gather herbs for sale to healers. then I heard that I could learn of more from farther away by dreaming. So I learned what was required to sleep and enter the dreamstate from the unconsciousness of sleep. What I found here amazed me to no end.

"I learned to practice the arts of healing as I had chosen the focus of SoulMaster. I talked to many from distant lands, hoping to increase my business in Cloudsbreak and it helped; but in time, I discovered that gopher root grows here and became slightly addicted.

"Anyway, while I was practicing my healing arts and gaining a name for myself, I met a young dreamer named Zovorodi. He too was a Soulmaster. we took a liking to each other and became friends."

Calysto smiles slightly, and looks at Atomino's pipe.

"The pipe has interest?"

Only that I wonder if others have suffered that addiction.

"I am sure some have. This is a new pipe, forged for me by Elektra, having the qualities of Resilience, I am able to stop smoking it and not become addicted. It is a fine gift she has given me.

"To continue then, Zovo was a greater fighter than I, since I was merely interested in making contacts for business purposes. Soon his fame was wide and many came to him to seek training in combat. One day as we talked he struck upon the idea of opening a dojo, a permanent school to train in combat arts, he asked if I would join him in this and act as the healer for any injuries incurred at the dojo and I agreed. Because of this school and his great abilities he soon was eligible to become a Master Dreamwright. He had passed me up in sphere and arts quickly.

"Soon after his ascension he became my teacher, not I his, and so he became my Master in teaching and dream lore. He is wise and kind, though his temper came get loose from him on occasion. After many years of dojo training I too had earned a name as a healer. The Overscanners asked me to apprentice as one of their own. I thought this a great honor and opportunity, so I became a minor apprentice on the project to strengthen the city walls.

"Mostly I was sent to gather elemens for the Overscanners themselves, taking messages back and forth and so on."

Atomino smiles, a look of joy at the memory of all his long dead or missing friends.

"I miss them, but they dream on in my mind."

Calysto smiles understandingly.

"But, on the day that you have come to call The Great Loss, when the first rift was formed, I was in Edgeward Barrows, smoking and daydreaming , sitting in the shadow of the Ring of Passage, out of the heat. When suddenly I heard a terrible roar; I looked up, a flood of Chaos crashing through the portal, the walls, everywhere. I had been injured myself by Zovo some time back in the dojo. A flamesear gone awry had hit me in the leg and damaged me badly. A Dreamseer had tried to heal it but it only messed up my leg. I have little good to say about Dreamseers that dabble in healing arts."

Our Interviewer chuckles silently, herself a Dreamseer.

"But, this made me limp and when the Chaos came bursting in where I was, it slowed me down. As I tried to run for the Portal to Chasm, where we now stand, the Chaos was right behind me. As I reached the portal and as I activated it, I was hit from behind."

Calysto 's ears perk up and she averts her eyes down to the abyss.

"I was thrown into what I am told is called a portal void. and void it is. Everything there looks the same. no directions, nothing. I was lost in that wasteland. Eventually I figured out how to reactivate the portal but hundreds of years had passed and my orbits were gone, my arts nonexistent. I had gone mad from loneliness and did not know that the time had passed.

"So I returned to the dream city as a new dreamer. I heard that Zovorodi had returned just a few weeks before, in this exact room. I learned that all the Overscanners had died in the accident, and that Zovo himself had been washed out into the Chaos and ensnared by a dark one. This is where he entered, after getting free of Noginus' clutches. I have seen him only 3 times since our return the rest is recent news"

Following the story, Our Interviewer aids Atomino down to the ravine so that he can continue inspecting the walls for the rifts where his master, Zovorodi, had emerged.

"Now I can do my old job and inspect where Zovo came through."