This is just a broader note that occurred to me as I read this chapter if it helps you. I was trying to figure out what exactly the Sleeping Man was trying to do, and discovered this paragraph on my second go-round. I think it’s the most important paragraph in this chapter because it sets up what the Sleeping Man’s goal: get to the Compendium, and I like the mystery of whatever that is. But somehow this goal didn’t stick with me the first time. I wonder if you’re throwing a few too many detail at us right off the bat -- you have the Sleeping Man and the Desert, which are vital, but there’s also the Green Mountain, the Cannoi, the Compendium, the Volto Empire, all in the first 4 paragraphs, so it’s hard to weigh how important the Compendium is for a new reader. Maybe you can let the other details out a little later, once we’re hooked. Whatever the solution is, I think the more you can make his immediate goal seem urgent and important in the beginning, the more you’ll pull me in right away. I hope that’s of some use...
It was a long, arduous process to reach the Compendium. Its existence had faded into myth and the last surviving route was the one he had memorized from words written with magic in a language long dead. Signs had reached across the realm of dreams into the physical world and The Sleeping Man knew reaching the Compendium was the only way to stop the Volto Empire. He silently rehearsed the words.
