Tower of Somnus
Cale Plamann
Humanity is judged unfit by the Galactic Consensus after first contact; instead of advanced tech, humans are granted access to the Tower of Somnus — a vast, shared dream-world 'game' that can be played in sleep, where powers, levels, and magical abilities earned inside the Tower persist into the waking world. Katherine 'Kat' Debs, a hereditary corporate arcology worker dreaming of freedom, enters the Tower free of corporate control. What begins as a path to buy her freedom becomes a galaxy-spanning progression from corporate pawn to shareholder and beyond, as Kat climbs the Tower's floors, unlocks new tiers of magic and system-granted abilities, and leverages that power to challenge alien invaders, corporate oligarchs, and rivals who are climbing the same system at terrifying speed.
Progression: System/tower progression fantasy: The Tower of Somnus is a Consensus-engineered, sleep-accessible multiplayer tower with discrete floors/levels, quest-like objectives, and system-granted powers (magic, augments, skills) that are retained in the physical world. Progression is explicit and central: Kat gains experience, unlocks new abilities/tiers, increases raw power rating, and climbs tower floors to earn credits, alien technology, and political leverage. Advancement is measured in tower levels, power tiers, and retained waking-world strength; rivals' parallel climbing (someone rising 'not many levels behind her') creates direct level-race tension. Corporate rank (hereditary employee → shareholder) mirrors system rank, but tower power is the literal mechanism for social mobility and survival.
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