The Sound of Peace

At long last I have found something to drown out the Dream! Over a year with the Soundless could not save me... then they came. I heard them before I saw them, the distant call of silent screams like sea birds wheeling in my mind. They were Sylvari, like us, but the Dream fell away before them. The other Soundless tried to flee, to hide, even to fight; not me. All I could do was stand and revel in the blissful stillness of those minds that swarmed our little island. They took me and several others with them, back to the thicket they called home. In the safety of their bramble cells I finally managed to ask one of the other prisoners who our captors were.

The Nightmare Court, they call themselves. Sylvari who believe that Ventari's teachings corrupted the Dream from its true nature, a nature of horror and pain and rage. They apparently capture and torture other Sylvari in an effort to revert all of the Dream. I don't know if they're right or wrong, and I don't care. The screams of their victims, the horror of their deeds, silences the endless noise of the Dream. The overwhelming racket of identities and lives is no louder than the susurrus of waves on a distant shores now. For the first time since I Awakened, I am alone in my own mind. For that alone, I will gladly fall into whatever Nightmare they offer me.

Searching for Silence

It's been months and months... the Dream scholars can't help me. There is no silence, there is no control. Whatever lets the other Sylvari filter the Dream, I don't have it. It's always there, always roaring through my mind; the memories of my hundreds of brothers and sisters, the Dreams of our entire race, the unformed prescience of the Dreams to come. It never stops, it never stills.

I found my own name in the noise - I am Madruun. My own Dream yet eludes me, but I have learned of a group of Sylvari called "The Soundless". They have abandoned the Grove and seek to shut themselves away from the Dream and the Pale Tree in an effort to escape our collective unconscious. Maybe they can help me escape this din and remember what I am meant to do or be.

Awakening

The world is bright and cold... and loud, so loud! So many voices, they whisper, shout, laugh, scream, all around me! The Dream was so quiet, so still... what did I Dream? I can't remember, there's too much noise!

Another approaches me, calls himself a Mender, says he's here to help. I ask him to stop the noise - he doesn't know. He doesn't hear. How can he not? So loud, so close, all around me. Mother, make it stop! The Mender takes me, leads me to a dark garden... Night Bloom, he calls me, born of the darkness. The sound... the noise... it doesn't change! It follows me. It's not around me, it's inside me! The murmur of Dreams, of memories, the voices of my brothers and sisters, inside my head, never silent! So many dreams, so many minds, who am I? What is mine in this cacophony of being? The Mender says he's never seen someone so attuned to the Dream, that he will find a scholar to help me quiet the noise and remember my own Dream. He leaves me alone in the dark garden to ponder his words.

Attuned? No... afflicted.