Few places among the many dreamscapes I've visited are so distinct and none so relaxing as the Rainwell. Like other Isolated scape types, the only ways in are chancing to Ingress there or chancing to wander in from another scape's Exit Portal, and to leave the place enacts a Series Advance, you wake up or enter a new scape but with no effect of Contextual Flow.
The most evident features of the Rainwell are that it's warm, and tall. The decagon shaped room lies somewhere deep underground, covered in clean; off-white porcelain tiling over every inch of floor and wall.
The walls. Apart from the couple of exit doors and tubes, their tiles are periodically broken by panels of some ventilation or other techs, and the light fixtures that permeate the shower's entirety with a soft, warm glow. So arrayed, the walls reach several hundred feet or more straight up, where they disappear into somewhere the eye can't reach.
And from that ceiling's misty obscurity, purest water like a warm spring rain evenly, infinitely falls down saturating the whole room, it's white noise an eternal balm.
The floor is over a dozen yards across and only furnished by a few squared benches and recliners of the same material of and homogenous with the floor, I found these to be far more comfortable than they look.
The ground in the center of the room lowers, over varying steps, down to a circular pool. It comes only to about waist height, but when floating or submerging in there I've sometimes felt much deeper. Fortunately injury and suffocation are not Defined here, as my standard tests quickly proved.
At one side of the room is a pool, on it floats a covered pod like a cocoon with one end open for entry. Upon clambering inside you'll find it an airy and cozy bed of something soft and inflated, where you can lie for a while, drifting off to the easy sound of muffled rainfall splashing off your roof.
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The Rainwell is not an entirely Static scape, for nearly every time I wake up from the cocoon I find an entirely new change. Once when I woke, there were cloth awnings stretched across the well's heights, and under them smooth seats sculpted very comfortably. Another time there was simply a fountain in the central pool. On more than one occasion, there was a trail of outcropped handholds and footholds that spiraled up the walls leading to a door about two hundred feet up. I tried so hard to reach it once, but the grips were challenging enough without being slippery, wet porcelain that after an hour of falling, that Branch was starting to close and I gave up.
The shower waters are also not static in their conditions, for indeed someone or something controls them. I cannot say what they may be, only that they operate somewhere above and are quick to grant your any request. At any time you could shout up 'Colder water at high pressure, please', 'Make the water hot and fall like snow if you would' and very shortly it would all come to pass. I once asked for some soap and suds started pouring down from the heavens, slicking the whole place up. I quickly forgot about everything I knew, because I was having so much fun slipping, sliding and belly sledding about like a penguin.
There are many things they don't do of course, in particular they never truly stop the water. I am far from finding out all they will though, so I urge you to ask for all you can think of as well.
I strongly recommend that on your way out, you request rubber ducks. Whatever you'd expect from that, you're way, way off.
To visit the Rainwell is a lucky privilege. One or three or so hours there will wash years of worry, weight and grime off of any soul, leaving them feeling lighter and more invigorated than ever thought possible.
If you go there, bring a loved one with you if you can! As everything is better together.
Safe travels in the Dreamscapes my friends!
- Wilbur A. Derringer
Somnologist and independent journalist
