You
Long hair, a battle vest, and a lot more enthusiasm than skill. In the dream you play the Magical V, a guitar that looks a lot like a classic V and definitely isn't one.
The story
Three years of practice. Two hundred video lessons. One guitar with most of its strings. Tonight is your first audition with a real band, and it goes exactly how you'd expect.
That night, someone is waiting in your dreams. The Dark One heard you play. It was awful. Truly. The neighbours filed a report. But they can make you jam like a legend, and all you have to do is pass their tests.
So every night you're pulled onto a stage that never ends, all amp stacks and spotlights and ghosts in the crowd. Every chord and riff you find there is a new power, and a piece of a song. Every morning you wake up able to play it.
Bring it to the band, riff by riff, and you might just land a real gig.
But the Dark One isn't doing this out of kindness. Long ago a song was torn to pieces to keep an old evil locked inside it: the Forbidden Jam. Put it back together, play it all the way through in front of a crowd, and the lock opens. And the Dark One has found someone desperate enough to take a deal.
The Dark One
Horns, a black suit, a red tie and an access-all-areas pass. Polite, patient, and very generous with deals. Never quite says what they're for.