Journey to the Capitol - Part 2 - Daydreamweave

Ahsch tried casting the spell again - for the fifth time on their second day of travel, a little past lunchtime. Much to his disappointment - but not surprise - it failed to go through, and with a sigh, the Dominant Mage went back to the mental drawing board. The sympathetic bond is connecting, he analyzed, but the moment the 'dream' portion of the spell tries to get established, the entire spell falls apart.

He'd tried keeping the 'dream' on his end of the bond, and sending it to the target's end of the bond, but neither worked. He had the sense that it was possible, but he was missing some key piece of information. When I keep the active part, it's essentially useless; when I try to send it to the spell's target, the bond snaps, and even if it succeeded, I doubt it would suddenly function better than keeping it on my end.

Have you considered embedding it into the bond itself?

Ahsch frowned at his familiar's suggestion. Yes, despite my better judgement - I suspected the 'dream' would be too... 'bulky' to fit into the bond, and every time I tried to combine the two into one unit, that's exactly what happened.

He could feel the mental blank stare Mahat gave him. Master, you come from a world where enough information to fill a city-sized library fits onto small chips the size of a few sheafs of parchment.

The hrafthi shook his head. Those are different. The internet and computers just store tiny little bits of data, literal zeroes and ones that are interpreted into something a human understands. The size of that information in book form is irrelevant.

You're missing my point, Master. In what way is the 'dream' component any 'bigger' or 'more complex' than the sympathetic bond? Compare and contrast them.

Frowning, he did so. The dream was interactive; it could include... well, technically an indefinite number of people, the spell's Power being the limiting factor; other forms of magic could still function through the dream as long as they were non-physical; the dream could be shaped at-will. A sympathetic bond, on the other hand... he had to admit it was still interactive, since other effects were often the whole point of such a bond; it was limited in terms of how many people could be included, as the bonds were point-to-point, like a line; most magic... could still work through a bond; and while not exactly 'shaping,' a bond could be moved - Spirit String proved that.

Okay, so they're not too far from each other, but what's your point?

You're imagining a bond like a strand of spider silk, and the dream as a amorphous plane or sphere. But try switching those mental images: a bond could be an endless plane that only touches two points in the physical reality; the dream a spiderweb of connections between sleeping minds.

Ahsch was stupefied by that suggestion. Especially because he could feel the ring of truth to his familiar's words. And when she put it that way...

He reworked the spell, imagining it as more of a web - while the other strands led nowhere in particular, they still stretched out and supported the center - the 'dream.' And he would tie one strand to himself, and could cast the other out and latch it onto Ariin. The result would be...

He cast the spell... and felt it take. Following the bond, he found his sister, and... Ariin?

Woah, that's weird!

Yes! It worked!

The Dominant Mage could feel himself grinning like a maniac, but nobody was looking at him except for his twin, so it didn't matter.

I thought you were working on a telepathy spell, not this... shared daydream. Ahsch could almost 'see' his sister frowning, her mind 'looking around' at the workings of the spell.

Hey, I'm working with what I've got! he protested, mentally crossing his arms and looking offended.

I understand, but this is... disorienting.

It was true - due to being made from a sympathetic bond and a spell that dealt in dreams, not thoughts, this new 'telepathy' spell was more like a communal daydream... or a 'Daydreamweave.' Ahsch pondered the name for a moment, but was interrupted by the much more familiar - and less disorienting - feeling of Mahat in his head. Master, either pass this along or include me in the spell... The hrafthi did the latter with a thought, dropping and re-casting the spell with both Ariin and Mahat included, and his familiar directed her message into the shared mindscape. Having a shared daydream - not just shared thoughts of words - is quite useful. For instance...

The 'image' of Ariin, naked and red with exertion, speared on Mahat's feminine cock, whilst the girls' Master took his own pleasure in his familiar's tight cunt, was projected for all three to see. Silence reigned for a long moment.

Fuck... Ahsch murmured into the dreamscape.

Okay, first off, that's hot, his twin moaned. Secondly, that's a potentially amazing advantage. Brother, how costly is it to keep this up, can could you teach me how to do it? I've some familiarity with sympathetic bonds due to Mystic Domain - and the hrafthi Innate Magics - so I believe I could replicate it if needed.

The Dominant Mage thought for a moment. _It's surprisingly cheap for what it does - maybe... 100 Mana to cast and... 50 to keep up? _he guesstimated.__

If she - and possibly I - can learn to cast it, we could group cast it and leave it active indefinitely, Mahat mused.

Ahsch's eyes widened at the idea. The group casting would split that cost and upkeep by the number of casters - in the best case scenario here, by three - and having a permanent, shared bond with Ariin and Mahat would be incredible.

And not just us two, Mahat whispered to him alone, but any other Thrall you want to include. You could even set up... what was the term, 'group chats' for specific members of your eventual harem, for whatever needs you have.

She was right, and the Dominant Mage felt his mouth go dry at the thought. But then he shook his head. Like always, you're getting ahead of us, he chided his familiar teasingly. But you make a good point.

Turning his focus back into the dreamscape, he started to explain the workings of the spell to his sister, with occasional interjections from Mahat. When the party stopped to make camp for the night, the hrafthi girl was at about the point that Ahsch had been at couple hours before lunch, and they guessed she would be able to replicate the spell by mid-morning the following day at worst.