I stop. It is, by all measures, a silly name. Ravenweal? The most emo bird possible and an obscure word for an injury? But it’s a little sharp, and a little painful, and a little angry, like a swollen dark bruise. If I were in school and picking a name in front of all my classmates, I would never take this one. But here, in the safety of my room, where I will be interacting with strangers in a game, there is freedom.
I can pick the name and the image I want. No one is here to judge me.
Raven—I am already thinking of her as Raven, shortened—shifts her weight and smiles. She’s ready to go.
I hit the big button at the bottom of the screen.
ENTER WORLD
Chapter 6
The screen goes black, then opens to a cinematic.
Emery Ashworth, heroine of the books, stands atop a building, her back to the viewer. The bright lights of the Sleeping City silhouette the wild curls of her black hair and the silver shine of her Colt .45 Peacemakers, her dreamform weapons. My heart jumps; I didn’t anticipate that the game would render places and characters from the books in animation, and I’m surprised by how excited I am to see it. To see Emery.
A voiceover gives me the story of the Children of Hypnos:
In the early days of human civilization, as cities were established and populations grew, the nightmares of humankind became powerful enoughto emerge from the Dream, humanity’s collective subconscious, and enter the waking world. Elite fighters known as dreamhunters came into existence to keep humanity safe from its own subconscious. The Hypnos State, a global organization that oversees all dreamhunters, was formed to maintain order.
As the narrator speaks, Emery jumps off the building. The camera changes to a wide shot of her walking across a campus. There’s the fountain in the middle of the campus, and behind it the big gymnasium with the name Hothram Hall carved above the doors. Other students pass Emery on their way to classes. Then a closer shot: Emery’s hand reaches out and taps a girl on the shoulder as she walks by. The girl turns, revealing her face, and I sit up straight. “Jacqueline!” It’s one of Emery’s best friends, and sitting with her are the other members of the Fenhallow student council. Emery moves away.
The narrator goes on:
In North America, the Hypnos State has created the Sleeping City, a hub for dreamhunter training. But a high concentration of dreamhunters doesn’t make the city safer; in fact, it has become a hotbed of Dream activity.
Emery passes another group of characters. I recognize all of them too, and seeing them brought to life in such detail has me grinning. I didn’t realize how much I loved these characters already, even after just a book and a half.
The narrator continues.
As a dreamhunter of Fenhallow Academy, it’s your job to contain this Dream activity. Protect civilians from nightmares, hunt down rogue dreamhunters, and as always, stay on the lookout for your doppelgänger—the manifestation of your subconscious, out to kill you and take your place in the waking world.
But it is no longer business as usual for you and the other dreamhunters. Whispers of a larger foe are spreading, a foe that could shake the very foundations of the Sleeping City. It’s up to you to discover if the claims of the Hypnos State are true, or if dreamhunters have been fed lies for centuries.
Emery stops at the open Fenhallow gates, alongside a boy her age. A close-up reveals Wesley Jager, her dreamhunting partner, giving her a look of exasperation because she took so long. Then, finally, the shot settles on Emery’s face. This is before really bad things have started happening to the characters, so she is still Queen Emery, the best dreamhunting student in the school, and a bit full of herself. She smiles at Wes in that challenging way I so liked on Raven when I made her, and I start to wonder if I didn’t make her a bit like Emery on purpose.
Emery raises her smoky blue eyes and looks straight down the camera. Then she raises her gun.
The screen goes black again and flashes with a line of bold text.
THE HUNT IS ON
The game world loads in. Raven is sitting in the back of a moving car, and the driver is talking to her. She—I—am a transfer to Fenhallow, and this is my first day. I have to get acclimated. After the short cutscene, the car drops me at the wrought-iron gates of Fenhallow. Already there are other players here, running in and out of the gates, up the long drive onto campus. Their names are displayed in purple text that floats above their heads. Below their names is more text inside brackets—groups, maybe? Servers? They have wildly different armor and weapons, and some even ride mounts. Horses with flaming manes, giant panthers, motorcycles. There’s a mini map in the top right corner of the screen, a health and stamina bar for Raven in the top left, and an empty action bar across the bottom.
Tutorials show me how to move around with the mouse and keyboard and access my menus. A quest indicator on my mini map tells me where to go. I make Raven trot onto the Fenhallow campus, up a winding drive and past brick and stone buildings. Wrought-iron lampposts bathe the walkways in warm yellow light. Over the tops of the buildings, the skyscrapers of the Sleeping City make a sparkling backdrop as night falls. Ethereal music sets the mood.
The quest marker leads me into the middle of campus, to the quad and the big fountain, and then up into the administrationbuilding. I take my time looking at the buildings, examining the little details, sitting on benches, sinking into the feeling of beinginsidethe story. I eventually wander up to the administration building.
