A Hundred Years In The Waking!

Written by Dan Slott
Art by Patrick Spaziante, Manny Galan and Harvey Mercadeocasio

Wiseman the Wicked sends a powerful dream to a blacksmith that causes him to work day and night, without food or sleep until he fashions a gleaming spire to match the one high atop the tower in the centre of Nightmare. This is to form a shared focal point within the two realities so that Wiseman can spread his dark influence into the waking world. To open the doorway he needs the power of one perfect dreamer, and only two perfect dreamers exist in any given century, but thanks to his harlequin-like lackeys, NiGHTS and Reala, he has them both, and their precious dream energy.

But something rather unexpected happens…feeling that a reality made in Wiseman’s image would be “a little too one note and boring”, NiGHTS steals the red dream energy and shoves it back into the real world where Wiseman can’t touch it. In doing so, a shard breaks off one of the red crystal-like spheres and fuses to his chest. Napp and Snuze, a pair of curious Nightopians, witness this and peek through into the real world to see the spheres bury themselves in the ground near the blacksmith. He describes them as twin seeds, and so the new settlement is named…Twin Seeds, a town quite literally built on dreams.

A hundred years pass, and Napp and Snuze are still watching over the tower. They slip through and Snuze decides to find the new perfect dreamers (now that a century has passed and a new pair have been born) before Wiseman does, leaving Napp to guard the rift between the realities.

He finds them, but they are both in a hurry and going in opposite directions. He reveals himself to one of them, Elliot Edwards, and begins to explain all about Nightopia, NiGHTS rebelling against Wiseman, his eventual capture by Reala, and the pair’s century long imprisonment (NiGHTS for rebelling and Reala for failing to stop him).

Elliot frees NiGHTS by bonding with him, but is spotted by Wiseman, who sends Gillwing after them. While NiGHTS/Elliot flee from the massive dragon, Wiseman sends Puffy after the second dreamer, Claris Sinclair, who calls for help. NiGHTS abandons Elliot to help Claris, but Elliot manages to escape Gillwing by simply waking up.

But Wiseman’s not licked yet. He enters the dreams of Roger Wilkeau, a bullish rival of Elliot’s, and leads him to the imprisoned Reala so the unsuspecting teen can release NiGHTS’ evil twin…