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 The dream is always the same way. The dream is always the same way.
  
-You float in a [[the Void|void]]; a place that has no edges. In one moment, you're standing on a sunlit street lined with plants so impossibly green they hurt to look at. Cars hum past and children laughing in the background; the air is sweet with cut grass and distant rain. In the next moment, the ground dissolves beneath your boots and you tumble through a place of vivid energy: your mind fills with the images of floating crystal spires that sing in frequencies no human ear should hear, with rivers of liquid starlight and abstract animal shapes flying overhead with wings made of pure spell-light. Then the colors bleed away, sucked into a black that had no bottom. Back into The Void. No sound, no direction, only raw emotion. This is what a world of magic is like: white-hot threads whip past like silent lightning, burning without heat, and the lightest touch overpowers you with feelings of joy so extreme you might burst into tears; elsewhere, strands of dark energy float past and getting close seem to bring you back down into an emotional chasm that makes your sternum feel like it's being ripped open.+You float in a place that has no edges. In one moment, you're standing on a sunlit street lined with plants so impossibly green they hurt to look at. Cars hum past and children laugh in the background; the air is sweet with cut grass and distant rain. In the next moment, the ground dissolves beneath your boots and you tumble through a place of vivid energy: your mind fills with the images of floating crystal spires that sing in frequencies no human ear should hear, with rivers of liquid starlight and abstract animal shapes flying overhead on wings made of pure spell-light. Then the colors bleed away, sucked into a black that had no bottom. Back into [[The Void]]. No sound, no direction, only raw emotion. This is what a world of magic is like: white-hot threads whip past like silent lightning, burning without heat, and the lightest touch overpowers you with feelings of joy so extreme you might burst into tears; elsewhere, strands of dark energy float past and getting close seems to bring you back down into an emotional chasm that makes your sternum feel like it's being ripped open.
  
 And always, at the center of the storm, she waits. The girl... And always, at the center of the storm, she waits. The girl...
  
-Grey mist coils around her like perpetual smog. Black shadows cling to her edges in a way that devours every detail, swallowing her face, her hands, the color of her eyes. You never quite see her. But her voice cut through the chaos as clear as a struck bell.+Grey mist coils around her like perpetual smog. Black shadows cling to her edges in a way that devours every detail; swallowing her face, her hands, the color of her eyes. You never quite see her, but her voice cuts through the chaos as clear as a struck bell.
  
 “William… William… I need you. Find me, please…” “William… William… I need you. Find me, please…”
  
-The plea followed you through every shift of the dream. When the sun warms your skin in one heartbeat, her voice is there. When magic lifts you weightlessly in the next, her voice is there. When the Void swallows you whole, her voice is there. It gets closer as the dream goes. It's desperate, as though the darkness itself is trying to choke it out.+The plea follows you through every shift of the dream. When the sun warms your skin in one heartbeat, her voice is there. When magic lifts you weightlessly in the next, her voice is there. When The Void swallows you whole, her voice is there. It gets closer as the dream goes. It's desperate, as though the darkness itself is trying to choke it out.
  
-“William… I need you. Find me…”+“William… Find me…”
  
-You reach for her every time. Your fingers pass through mist and shadow but came away empty. The dream has been repeating for months—every night, sharper, louder, more urgent—until the words feel like they've carved into the inside of your skull.+You reach for her every time. Your fingers pass through mist and shadow but come away empty. This dream has been repeating for months—every night, sharper, louder, more urgent—until the words feel like they've been carved on the inside of your skull.
  
-And then, the propaganda voice bleeds through, the way it always does every morning.+And then, the propaganda voice bleeds through, the way it does every morning.
  
 “Citizens of Myrah! The Revolution continues today!” “Citizens of Myrah! The Revolution continues today!”
 +
 +The dream cracks like ice and the colors, the sounds, and the feelings shatter into grey shards as your eyes open.
 +
 +----
 +
 +[[William Davenport|William]] jerked upright on his narrow bunk, heart hammering before his eyes even opened. The same voice every dawn. The same hollow cheer. He rubbed the sleep from his face as he muttered, on autopilot, the required response under his breath.
 +“Glory to the Triumvirate.”
 +
 +He swung his legs out of bed, the stone floor cold enough to bite through his thin socks. Outside the slit of a window, the sky pressed down like wet ash—perpetual clouds, perpetual smog, the energy of the magical barrier overhead churning the air into the same dull grey it had been for a thousand years since the [[Arcana Revolution|Revolution]]. Will glanced at it and noticed the smallest beam of sunshine come through the upper cloud deck. "The Grey World is looking nice today," he said, feeling strangely optimistic. 
 +
 +Will grabbed the short staff off his bedside table. //DESCRIBE THE STAFF HERE//
 +
 +//PERFORM THE CLEANSING RITUAL HERE//
 +
 +Morning inspection came next. Will joined the silent line of Third Ranks in the corridor, backs straight, wands at their sides like rifles. A Second Rank overseer—a pureblooded blonde girl  around Will's age—stalked past, scanning each boy and girl with a hovering crystal that glowed green for “acceptable.” Will’s crystal flared a brighter green than most; it always did. The overseer’s lip curled anyway.
 +
 +“Third Rank Davenport. Uniform creased at the cuff. Deduct one merit.”
 +
 +Will bowed his head. “Thank you for the correction, honored Second Rank.”
  
 From above, the world of [[Myrah]] looked much like any other world.  Rivers, mountains, forests, and, of course, cities.  Cities that covered roughly half of the arable land of Myra. From above, the world of [[Myrah]] looked much like any other world.  Rivers, mountains, forests, and, of course, cities.  Cities that covered roughly half of the arable land of Myra.