They call it the revolving lantern because watching one's life go by was a bit like watching a sh**ty picture show. Danke's mind floated in an abyss watching said sh**ty picture show with a growing feeling of confusion.
He was seeing the pictures and finding that he didn't recognize a single one. He didn't recognize the people. He didn't recognize the settings. None of the costumes, sets, or characters were ringing a bell.
Eventually, Danke decided that it didn't matter. It was enough that the story was enjoyable. He watched as the young man was exiled from his family. Which felt slightly familiar. Then he watched the young man join a monastery and become a martial ascetic.
He watched the young man grow into an old man. Watching the various ups and downs of the man's life.
It was an interesting story, that gave the slightly sense that it was being told by a fun-house mirror. Each scene transition happened in a jarring manner. Fears were magnified. Ditto for successes and desires.
The elderly monk never 'did' free himself of all desire but by the time he died, he had a sense that this was never the point. A human wouldn't be a human if they ever stopped wanting human things.
The goal of whatever belief it was that the monks order followed was for their followers to learn to master their wants. They mastered their hates and loves. They mastered their fears and disgust. They mastered their wants and eventually became better people for it. Becoming better beings in the process.
As Danke watched the old man die, witnessing as the old man closed his eyes for the last time, he realized what had been so very satisfying about the show. As Danke watched, he'd been feeding. Eating.
Dreams weren't just fantasy. Just as every good lie held a kernel of truth a powerful dream held a bounty data could be integrated and used as energy.
Using the monk's dream, Danke gained a portion of the knowledge and will he'd gained from going through the vicissitudes of life. Danke also gained some of the Monk's cultivation knowledge and it allowed him to more easily manipulate the unwieldy forces that were flowing through his body.
Time passed. If Wis spoke, Danke couldn't hear her above his screaming. He roared like an angered beast as the subatomic particles that made up his body and soul rearranged themselves repeatedly.
The puppe had said that a figment's form was decided by what it ate and what it did. A detached part of the Danke wondered what kind of creature he would become after spending what felt like years funneling vast amounts of energy into itself and consuming dreams for their sweet nutritious data.
The rest of Danke had neither the time, nor the leeway to think of such things. All he could do was channel the magical energy and worldly laws that were flowing into his body. The only reprieve he got were the times he slept. Picking up yet another dream for his core to feed on.
He noticed that his core was drawing in dreams of beings and people that had cultivated inner-strength.
He saw the lives of martyrs, political prisoners, living saints, and more. Few of those dreams were anywhere near as potent as Danke's dream of the monk. Yet, cumulatively they had a value.
The forbearance they taught him keeping the figment's essence from exploding under the weight of his burden. Their data serving to fuel the reactions going on within the figment's core.
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Time passed. Danke awoke and for a brief moment he had a disconcerting impression that his core had been shattered and remade.
The very center of his being had turned into a vast network of shining lights. Each light connected to six or seven other lights by tendrils of glowing mist. His singular soul turned into something more akin to a network. A mass of magical, bio-electric, kudzu that fed on energy to expand itself.
Danke watched the network compress itself. The vast tangle of lights mashed themselves into a shapeless mass and that mass mashed itself into what seemed to be sack made of shadows and whispers.
The transformation was complete when light entered the glassy eyes of the sack like body Danke now inhabited. He was roughly three feet in height. Instead of skin his body was covered in a soft, wool-like, fabric.
As far as Danke could gather he had become a furry, dusty-blue, a cross between a monkey, a fox, and rabbit. He had a long presumably prehensile tail. His legs were digit-grade and test hop gave him an estimate ten foot vertical leap. His little arms had no fingers yet mysteriously Danke suspected that he was actually more dexterous than he'd ever been. Even including his last life.
A closer inspection made Danke realize that the tendrils that were housed within his sack-like body could ooze out invisibly. Meaning that rather than saying he had no fingers, it was perhaps better to say that had all the fingers he'd ever need.
The eyes were gleaming black jewels, and he had a black button nose. His mouth seemed to be artifice made of stitching and possessing no real function. At the top of his head were too large, long, triangular ears. Danke could making stand up right or he could let them lie flat against his head.
All of these changes were things that Danke would need time to adjust to, but they weren't what mattered now.
"Wis?...Wis?...Where are you Wis?" said Danke. Calling out into the vast and empty plain he'd awoke in.
His cries were quickly answered. A calm, cool, crisp, female voice appearing from his back.
"I'm right here, master."
Danke spun around. Nearly tripping over himself because he hadn't yet gotten used to having legs again.
"Huh?! Oh, there you are, Wis!" said Danke. His voice filled with relief.
The paper fairy was gone. Replaced by larger form made out of a strange mixture of bone and finely crafted porcelain. Her entire body was now an eerie bone white. Her hair was gray-silver. Her eyes were bronze. Her face was beautifully sculpted and being made out porcelain was now frozen in a state of muted emotion.
"Master, never do that again!" said Wis.
"Never save your life?" said Danke.
"No! Never risk yours! I am a Puppe. We can not die because we are not alive. We are illusory life forms that can be created and recycled at will!"
"I thought figments couldn't die either?" said Danke. Not liking the way his puppe was referring to herself but deciding not to argue over it.
"Yes. But you 'can' fade. And a long enough, bad enough, fade into dormancy is functionally no different death! Please, master. I do not know what I would do if you died." said Wis. Clearly distraught.
"Fine...Fine. In that case, that means you can't die either. You're the first face I saw in this world which basically makes you family."
That made the porcelain woman freeze.
"I...Yes, master. Understood. My apologies for allowing myself to be overwhelmed."
"Nah...No need for unnecessary reservations between the two of us." said Danke. Shaking his head.
"Also are sure you're still just a puppe? You feel different somehow." said Danke.
"I...I'm not sure, master. A puppe's fate is to be absorbed into their figment or to be absorbed by the world's will for recycling. My database has no recorded precedents for alternative outcomes. I'm not sure what I am, master. But you can trust I shall always be at your side to guide and assist you as needed." said Wis.
"Sweet. Any clue what the f**k I'm supposed to be?" said Danke.
The puppe gazed at her diminutive ward. Trying to place his features with those of the beings and creatures recorded within her memory.
"Since your new form is the consequence of a great evolution, you are thusly a unique existence. However, being unique does not equate to escaping categorization, master. Going from the data traces within your essence and similarities between your form and the form of other beings within the unwinding world, I would guess you are some unique variation of Dream Hopper.
"Dream Hopper?" said Danke.
"Yes, master. Dream Hoppers are entities that feed on the psychic energy present between dreams. They also possess the ability to use dreams to hop between realities." said Wis.
"Woah, that sounds damn nifty! Hows that work?" said Danke.
"This is the unwinding world, master. If you spend long enough in Abwickeln, you'll understand that the lines between truth and fantasy are more thin and mutable than in the lesser worlds."
"I...Huh, that actually sounds a bit familiar. I think its one of those inherited memories. This is a world built on dreams and dreams in general while non-substantive hold enough fragments of 'reality' that someone with the ability can all sorts of things. I think...I think that's the root of how magic works. Thought is existence. Existence is thought...Something like that?" said Danke. Rubbing his head.
"Something like that indeed, master. A long explanation of how objective states and subjective perceptions interact on the quantum scale would be needed to explain more clearly but I feel that likely isn't necessary if you have begun unlocking memories regarding the nature of dreams and magic."
"Yeah...I guess. Anyway, what do we now?" said Danke. Feeling a faint headache coming on.
The porcelain woman and the plush figment looked up at the sky with a massive hole in it.
"It seems that we might have blown a hole in the 114th layer and fallen all the way down to the 127th layer, master. While such things are not unheard of, it might be best if we leave the area before someone comes to investigate." said Wis.
"Good idea." said Danke. Not wanting to be held liable for blowing a hole in the world.