Skeinwalkin' & Winter Ballin'

Several days ago, I had the priviledge of walking the Skein with my motley-mates. For those not in the know, the Skein is the Dream World. The best way for laymen to understand it is to think of it as countless entangled strings of pearls, with each "pearl" representing one dreamscape. Mages would call it the "Lower Astral Marches." The Hobo King knows this because the Hobo King's smart.

We all convened at my Hollow, since access to the Hedge was mandatory for this kind of Oneiromantic work. Our goal was to enter the dreams of a museum curator who'd been asking Ms. Weinhart some uncomfortable questions about a certain "sundial." If this were the Hobo Nation, I would have simply had the man banished from the land, but alas, the simplicity of hobo life does not apply everywhere.

The plan was to enter the curator's dreams and make him adverse to continuing his pursuit of the stolen sundial (again, if he were a hobo, I would just command him to desist). The problem was, we didn't have a dream-tasked pledge with the man, which meant that a little Skeinwalking was in order. Fortunately, my motley is lucky enough to have the "Skidrow Skeinwalker" helping them out.

I performed an oneiroscope and the forecast for dream-travel looked good. Being changelings, all of my companions are familiar with the rigors of Oneiromancy. However, traveling through foreign dreams is a different kind of animal. Walking the Skein is rife with its own unique set of dangers. I tried my best to educate my motley in the basics of Skeinwalking, but I'm not sure that my sagely hobo wisdom sunk in. Furthermore, Professor injected us with a sedative that made waking up at a moment's notice next to impossible. Thus, if anything went horribly wrong and we needed to awaken in a jiffy, we were pretty much f*****



The Tenebrous Mirror - It lets me watch myself while I sleep.
Some might call that creepy.

While Eric Pendrake stayed behind to mind our bodies, we entered the Skein - using Gertrude's dreamscape as a starting point. Finding the dream gates wasn't too difficult, and the journey itself was pleasant enough. We saw a Roman colloseum, a battlefield, and much more. Some of my motley-mates played their hand at Dream Riding, but I kept the changes they made to a minimum, lest the dreams we entered unravel. Anyway, long story short, we made our way to the curator's dreamscape and Gertrude made the man scared of sundials something fierce! Granted the whole thing would've been a hell of a lot easier (and safer) if we'd just used Contracts of Dream, but I didn't want to say anything. Skeinwalking's fun.

The next day, my motley and I paid a visit to the Winter Court's annual Winter Carnival/Festival/Ball. This year, the festivities were held in a gymnasium. Professor had himself a booth and drew quite a crowd. I bought myself a Tenebrous Mirror and conversed with the Winter Court's Oneirologist, Juniper Riddle. I happen to be in the market for an instructor to teach me the finer points of Dream Battle. The changeling said he'd consider it, depending on my capability. Obviously, this changeling has never heard of the Hobo King.

Weird thing happened. Not Wyrd. Weird. We witnessed a brief vision of vines and other flora sprouting all over the place, causing the Winter King to laugh. My understanding is that the man never reacts much to anything. According to Professor, this indicates something big. Big enough for the attentions of the Hobo King, we shall see...