Chapter seven: Dream War — The Forgotten Realms

The dreams began bleeding.

They started as fragments—fractals of wars that never happened, languages never spoken, faces carved into mountain walls. But over time, the dreams became more real than reality itself. Cities crumbled under tides of sound. Moons bled light into oceans of glass. Skies roared with dragons shaped like grief.

And in the heart of each dream... were the four.

Sorya stood on a spiraling tower of crystal, watching timelines warp around her. She could feel Gaia’s pulse beneath the floor, beating in time with her own. She didn’t know if she was dreaming—or being remembered.

Kael walked a dreamscape city that changed with every step. The buildings played music. The streets reformed behind him. Here, language bent to intent. His words had weight. Each rhyme shaped architecture. Each chorus could raise the dead.

Dren found himself deep in a cave of roots, surrounded by glowing glyphs, some alive and moving. It was here he met the memory of his former self—Drezul, Keeper of the Earth Frequencies. Drezul had once betrayed Gaia, seeking to accelerate human evolution by force.

“Why show me this?” Dren whispered.

“Because the war never ended. You must choose differently now.”

Alani was underwater, suspended in liquid starlight. She watched her past lives flicker in coral reefs: midwife of the first tree, whisperer of ancient fungi, a queen who fell in love with a being of pure flame. All of it lived inside her still.

And then—they met again.

In the Akashic Library.

Not as humans, but as their true forms: divine vessels of infinite ancestry. Beings beyond color or race. Their bodies pulsed with languages unspoken, their faces shifting between cultures and centuries.

Each held a weapon:

Sorya held a lens of light that shattered illusion.

Kael held a staff made of sound.

Dren bore gauntlets of gravity and time.

Alani carried seeds that held galaxies.

Before them stood two others—the Fifth and Sixth, the gods whose memory was still forming.

One bore shadow and sorrow.

The other, mirrors and flame.

They did not speak yet. But they were known.

The Akashic Library was Earth’s soul in architecture. Floating tomes. Spiral staircases of memory. Maps of emotion. Rooms only entered through heartbreak. Doors only opened by forgiveness.

Here, Gaia spoke.

Not in words, but in vibration. Each of them heard something different:

“You must end what began long before the first civilization.”

“This is not Earth’s first story.”

“Pure love... is the last energy that remains incorruptible.”

The old gods—jealous and fearful—had stolen and distorted Gaia’s blueprint in an age long buried. They masked the glyph. Rewrote laws of spirit into laws of control. Built temples to self instead of harmony.

That war still echoed in every human conflict.

And so, Gaia revealed the Dream War:

A multidimensional unraveling. The waking world was but a shadow of it. The gods must enter once more—not as rulers, but as reminders. Not to conquer, but to harmonize. And not all of them would remember.

Before the return, Gaia asked each:

“Do you choose to forget… or to feel it all?”

Sorya: “I’ll feel it. Even if it breaks me.”

Dren: “Let me carry the weight. I deserve that much.”

Kael: “Let me dream with rhythm, even if it burns.”

Alani: “I’ll remember the pain... so others can heal.”

The Fifth and Sixth said nothing. They vanished—unknown, undefined, perhaps already walking Earth... or perhaps watching still.

As they descended from the Library, consciousness wrapped them in illusion again. They awoke in their beds. Coffee brewing. Phones buzzing. The mundane world intact.

Only the glyph remained.

Etched behind their eyes.

Waiting.

Whispering.

Waking.