If you take a walk, starting at reality, and heading out stage left, you find yourself in the plane of dreams; a hodgepodge collection of visions and nightmares floating just out of sight of the mortal realm. Look at the city of Targrove; then blink just so, and you see a myriad of Targroves, each one a vision of what might have been, or what someone thinks might be, all linked together like some mad spider's web.
Look more carefully, and you might spot a bubble wedged in amongst the dreams, its sharp edges locking down one specific vision of reality within its borders. A region several hundred feet across somehow fits in the cracks between two paving stones, and a million dreaming minds could cross that road without ever knowing it was there.
Inside this bubble is the private realm of one of Targrove's more enigmatic mages, known to have strange theories on the nature of magic that allow him access to powers subtly different from those of less... learned... practitioners. As proved by the presence of his own pocket dimension, a feat no mortal mage is known to have replicated.
Imagine, now, that this bit of stabilized dream-stuff is a raft anchored in the middle of a calm lake. And then somebody decided to have their battleship drop anchor next to it.
Of course, the analogy isn't perfect - rafts don't typically come with their own gravity, and are generally less likely to survive a close encounter of this sort.
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