New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

2018, 03-15

The Vengeful One

I am in a strange neighborhood. At first glance everything looks normal, but when I look closer I see that everything is actually a twisted version of normal. It’s hard to describe what causes it, but the atmosphere is creepy as if this place is haunted by a malevolent force. The place looks a little familiar but I can’t place when or where I have seen it before. I walk down the street until I see a woman come out of one of the houses. It is a woman with long dark hair and wearing a kimono. She runs right over to me and says she’s glad I finally made it. She says the demon is hiding in that house at the end of the street. I look and I see there is a large house at the end of the street that looks out of place in a neighborhood of average homes. It also looks even more rundown than the other homes, it definitely looks haunted. The woman says there’s a barrier around the house so she’s not sure how I will get inside to get rid of the demon. I tell her I’ll handle it. I even have a song already in my mind to use, The Vengeful One by Disturbed. I absently tell the woman she can sleep soundly in her bed tonight, for judgement falls upon the demon at first light.

I go down the street towards the haunted house at the end. Everything seems surreal, the road leading to the house seems to somehow get longer as I try to approach the house. The house seems to be retreating. I wonder if the demon inside is already trying to avoid facing me. I walk faster, then I run, then I jump into the air and fly like they do in Dragonball. With me flying I am finally able to overtake the house and I land on the sidewalk in front of it. There does seem to be a barrier around the house. I call to the house for the demon to come out and face me. A strange growling voice from inside asks who dares to disturb him. I am still thinking of The Vengeful One by Disturbed so my answer is, “I'm the hand of God, I'm the dark messiah, I'm the vengeful one!” I tell the demon to come out and face me. When I get no answer I focus on sensing where the demon is. Somehow I suddenly know the demon’s name, though I do not remember it to record it here. I call the demon out by his name knowing he will have no choice but to emerge now.

I see something happening around the house, and in the yard surrounding it. There is smoke coming from some of the black windows. That smoke solidifies into humanoid forms of pure darkness. Those things start coming towards me. Apparently the demon is sending his minions out before him. I find I have two guns holstered by my side, hidden under my Assassin robes. I pull the big revolvers out and I start firing at the dark figures as they come at me. This fits into the song, too. “When you die, you'll know why. For you cannot be saved, you remain enslaved. When you die you'll know why!” My guns make deafening cracks of thunder as I fire, each shot is a headshot somehow, it’s like the bullets are attracted to their targets. “When you die you'll know why. For you cannot be saved, you are too depraved! When you die you'll know why.” And as I blow away the last of the dark specters there is movement around the house, like a cloud of smoke rising off of it. The smoke all gathers at the front of the house and solidifies into another of the specters, but this one is much bigger and has huge black horns on his head and he is wreathed in fire.

My first thought is, “Boss fight!” as if I was playing a video game. The demon snarls at me and breathes fire, growling that he is going to annihilate me. I fire my guns at the demon but the bullets disappear into his dark body with no effect. He laughs and says he doesn’t know who I am but my weapons are useless against him. I focus on the song Battery by Metallica and bolts of light energy lightning strike both of my guns. “I'm the hand of God! I'm the dark messiah! I'm the vengeful one!” I advance on the demon, choosing specific spots to fire now… certain parts of the demon that somehow appear more solid. I’m not sure how I am seeing those spots, but I am certain they are weak points. The bullets are charged with light energy and fly at the demon in streaks of light, exploding on impact. The demon just seems more pissed off. He bares down on me as if he thinks he can scare me, looming over me and bathing me in his dark shadow. I point both guns right at his head, right at his dark and empty eyes… and I fire. His head explodes, then his entire body becomes smoke and flows into a black orb that was behind the demon. “No, you don’t!” I yell as I fire bullets into the orb. At first it doesn’t seem to be doing anything but then I see swirls of light in the orb. Cracks of light form in the surface of the orb and then it shatters, the shards dissolve into light.

I focus on the song Full Moonlight from the Devil Hunter soundtrack. An orb of energy forms in front of me and then ascends over the neighborhood, shedding a bright light on everything. The light energy seems to permeate the entire neighborhood and beyond, the light seems to wash the shadows and darkness away as it spreads. I am figuring this should make sure no new demon comes to take the old one’s place… As the song is coming to an end the orb of light disperses and bathes the neighborhood and the surrounding areas in sparkly golden sparks of light that settle on everything, finding their way into even the smallest crack and deepest shadow. I turn around and I see the woman from the house coming my way. I ask her if she is ok or if the demon harmed her. She says she is fine, the part of the demon in her was banished the last time I was here and healed her. I look around to see if there is anything else that needs to be done, but everything looks normal now. The neighborhood no longer looks twisted and creepy. The woman says she’s going to make cookies if I want to stick around. But I don’t get the chance to stick around, everything fades to black and I wake up.

2017, 08-21

Darkness Rising

I am in a pretty normal looking small town, but there is definitely something wrong here. It only looks normal at first glance. The more I look the more off things seem to be. There are people around but they all seem scared of something, and there is a negative feel to the place. No one talks to me, but I am able to overhear what is going on. The town is getting corrupted by evil energies. People are being murdered and left in obscene positions throughout town. No one can move the bodies, anyone who tries suffers a horrible sickness and then death. A young girl was hung from the ceiling and her parents grieved to leave even her body like that. A young blonde girl looking and acting like Diana from Grimm managed to use telekinetic powers get the girl's body down without becoming ill. The family is having a funeral today with a public viewing after.

I follow a procession through town and no one notices me. I follow them to the funeral behind a church. I stay out of the way as family members say their goodbyes. Everything is peaceful. Soon they tell the people outside they can come in as long as they’re respectful. No one has been disrespectful, but as soon as the people come things seem to change. I get a feeling of dread it both looks and feels wrong. Diana looks over at an antique dagger hanging on a wall. She takes it down. She cuts some fruit left for the people with the dagger and it instantly turns rotten. She touches some people gently on the face with the flat of the blade and they look like zombies. She says they can be saved, however. She finally reaches a little girl who acts scared. Diana says not to be scared, the dagger reveals corruption, it doesn’t cause it. She touches the girl, gets a shocked look on her face, then runs the dagger through the girl’s neck. The mother is hysterical, but the reason is revealed… the girl turns into a monster as she dies.

Diana says she’s sorry, but that wasn’t the woman’s daughter, that was a demon. The mother wants to know where her daughter is, Diana doesn’t know. The monster body dissolves into the ground. The ground shakes and cracks open, a demon much larger comes out, laughing menacingly. The demon says he has won, they killed an innocent! Diana says no one is foolish enough to think killing a demon counts as killing an innocent just because it was disguised as a child. She steps towards the demon, but then stops. She says he’s stronger than she thought. The demon says now she will belong to him. Diana looks at me and says she needs my help. She knows I can wield light energy, and we can send the demon back to hell. I don’t know how she knew that, but I go to help her. She creates a whirlwind of light energy pulling the demon back into the crack, but he resists. I use the song Battery by Metallica to hit the demon with a bolt of lightning. With a roar of anger the demon loses his focus and is sucked down into the ground. The cracks close themselves. Diana says it’s ok if I have to go, she knows how to remove the corruption from the people. I wake up.

10/30/13

Down With the Sickness
I am somewhere strange. I am still rather drowsy as if I am just waking up from some kind of a drug induced sleep. I also realize I am standing upright, which is odd considering I feel like I am waking up from a deep sleep. As I become more aware I realize I have my hands up above me. I look up and see they are chained. I am chained to a wall. I also have chains on my feet. I focus on forming Witchblade to cut through the chains but nothing happens. I try to use the Harry Potter spell alohamora on the lock on the chains but that doesn't work, either. Something is wrong with my powers. I am sure this has to be a dream, but nothing is working. I look around the room and I see there are numerous Templars watching me closely, perhaps warily as if they aren't sure if I will have my powers or not.

One of them seems to be the leader and he acts more confident than the others. He said I will now realize all my dream powers are neutralized. I am not so sure of that. The Templar says now I have no choice but to hear him out without attacking them. I pull on the chains a bit. I feel increased strength in my body, and it feels like the chains are about to give way. I am sure it is the Mercer Virus inside my dream body… it is still active. The Templars either can't or didn't neutralize that. But I am wondering what this Templar has to say, so I stop pulling and make it look like I was unable to get free. I tell the Templar that if he wanted to talk all he had to do was ask. He says he tried that last time, but Nomad and I attacked them on sight. That was not going to happen again. I tell him to go ahead and say what he's going to say. He says there is an enemy coming that threatens both Templars and Assassins. A force from another world, more powerful than anything the Templars have witnessed before. He says only if the Assassins and Templars cooperate do we have a chance of surviving the upcoming disaster. So I ask him what he is proposing. He says they need the devices back that we have stolen from them. I ask if he means the devices they'd intended to use to influence the dreams of people on Earth… he says yes, but they won't be directed at Earth… they would be directed at the approaching invaders. Perhaps to use the controls to make some of the enemy's minions turn on him. He says the Templars have developed a weapon that works well on the type of enemy that is coming, and they will share that weapon with the Assassins… consider it an exchange. I ask how I'm supposed to know if he's telling the truth. He says this is far too important to lie about. I ask him if it is really so important that he would risk his life to come here. He says he is not risking anything, but yes, it is important enough that he would die to ensure it is prevented. He says he needs to have the devices in his hands before he can let me go, so tell him where they are. I tell him I would have to go get them, there's no way my allies are going to turn the devices over to a bunch of Templars. I add that it's not like he could keep me from leaving if I want to. He laughs and says all of my powers are neutralized, so I'm not going anywhere. I tell him he has forgotten one thing… I am infected with the Mercer Virus. I pull on the chains again and they snap as if they are made of cardboard. The head Templar takes a couple steps backwards as I transform my right arm into a blade.

I tell them all to stay back if they don't want to be sliced in two. Only one of them has to die here to prove their cause. I move towards the head Templar and he orders the others to kill me. They all move in around me, but I am too fast. I grab the head Templar with my right hand and consume him before the others can get there. I get the information I wanted from him. The other Templars are already attacking. I slice through the first two Templars coming in, feel my blade, you lying bitches! My blade cuts right through their shields and armor and swords. It is a very bloody scene as I cut down all of my attackers. I then turn my attention to the memories I got from the head Templar. There is an evil entity that was going to be coming, but it was the Templars that were bringing it. A demon. They wanted to get the devices back and then set the demon to fight the Assassins for them. What a bunch of assholes! Of course now that their plans have been revealed there is no real reason to continue with summoning the demon. I wonder if they will still do so out of spite… and will the demon really cooperate with them. Maybe the demon will destroy the Templars for us! Or at least keep them occupied for quite some time. I form my bloody blade back into my arm and walk across the room which has been painted red with Templar blood. It seems that I probably should find the blood and the strewn bodies to be disgusting… but it doesn't bother me at all. I laugh at the foolishness of the Templars as I wake up.

07/19/13

A New Fusion
I wake up in bed. I roll over and open my eyes to see I am not in my normal bedroom. I find I am in the bedroom of my dreamscape. I get out of bed and I almost trip over a Buddha statue on the floor. I see it at the last minute and I avoid stepping on it. There is a black cat sitting on a chair in the room. I go over to the cat and start petting it. The kitty begins to purr. While I'm petting the cat I look around the room and I see I'm not alone there. There are two men there with me. I recognize Q and Alex Mercer in the room watching me. Q takes out a pair of pendants and holds them up. He says they are the fusion amulets. He says those strange people who seem to want to take Alex with them are being very insistent, and their stories are looking very suspicious. He says the simple solution is for them to take the fusion of Alex and me so we can find out what they're up to. Q hands Alex and me a fusion amulet. Q says to put the amulets on, so I put mine on. Alex looks at his and then puts it on. The amulets activate and trigger a fusion as was done between Vegeta and Goku when they used the magic earrings to become Vegeto.

Since the result has to look like Alex, I find myself looking out of Alex's eyes. Q takes out an electronic collar of some kind. He says it creates a stasis field, but he is sure my power level can toast it at any time I choose. He puts it on Alex/me, though I can tell Alex doesn't like it one bit. Q snaps his fingers and the next instant Alex/I are in a room I don't recognize. There are a couple people waiting there, one man and one woman. Alex tries to transform in some manner but the stasis field blocks it, so instead he just glares at the two of them. The woman looks at Alex/me for a bit. She pushes a button on a device and an invisible barrier closes between Alex/me and the two people. The woman asks what we are trying to pull. They're taking Alex only, not this fusion. What? How could they know about the fusion? I pull off the amulet in frustration, causing the fusion to break apart. I am now standing next to Alex, the stasis collar falls to the ground. Alex forms both arms into blades and attacks the barrier between us and the people. The barrier displays some scratches on it but the damage isn't nearly enough to break through it. He finally stops that and goes to the back of the room. I go over to the barrier and ask who the fuck they are that could see through the fusion. The woman laughs but neither of them answers. So use some other form of fusion? The man says it's not that easy to fool them. Some other form of fusion... well when Alex consumes someone they become one... but that seems like a bad idea... but why? This is a dream, this isn't my real body. It has been blown apart, burned, cut apart, near ground zero of a nuclear detonation, and fucked up any number of ways, worst case scenario is I just wake up. No risk in a dream except for energy contamination. So I telepathically tell Alex to try to consume me. He responds aloud, says no, and asks if I'm crazy. I respond telepathically, telling him to just think his responses, and no, I'm serious. Go ahead and do it, I won't prevent it. This is just a dream for me. Just my dream body, my real body is safe in bed sleeping. He telepathically responds this time, asking if I'm sure doing that even to a dream body won't hurt me. I tell him my dream body has been stabbed, crushed, blown up, cut, at near ground zero of a nuclear blast… Nomad got turned inside out with no negative effects… so yeah, I'm sure. So just come up behind me and do it. I ask the people on the other side of the barrier what they want with Alex anyway. The man says they already told us he has to pay for his crimes. I say I want the truth this time. He says he told the truth. The woman says I shouldn't turn my back on Alex. I ignore her and tell the man I have a sensitive bullshit detector and it is going off full blast. The woman says that thing is right behind me. I ask her what thing. She says Mercer is right behind me; don't let it get a hold on me. I dismiss her concern and turn to the man. I tell him to stop feeding me bullshit and telling me it's chocolate. The woman says look out right as Alex puts his arms around me. The woman tells me to get away before it's too late; I just look at her like she's nuts. I can tell Alex is still hesitating. I telepathically tell him to get on with it already. The woman is pounding on the barrier, yelling at Alex to leave me alone. Something is surrounding me from behind; it's like being pulled into a cocoon of some kind. I don't find that alarming at all, it's actually rather warm and comfortable, until it closes over my face. Then I get a sense of claustrophobia and I have to resist an urge to power up and blast my way out. I feel weird. I wonder if getting consumed would normally hurt; I don't usually feel much pain in dreams, though the Templars have made me feel pain before. I can distantly hear the woman yelling at Alex to let me go, and then everything fades to black…
 
Realms of Darkness
I'm not sure if I woke up here or not, but I find myself floating in darkness. I go to open my eyes but I have no eyes to open. It seems I am a consciousness floating with no body, or a non-corporeal entity maybe. But I can hear. I can hear someone yelling a lot, someone is yelling that some bastard piece of shit consumed Raven and if someone else had cooperated from the start this wouldn't have happened! I am feeling somewhat pissed off, too. I finally manage to open my eyes; or rather I just start seeing. I am looking at an invisible barrier beyond which are two people whom I hate. I am pissed off at them. I want to cut them in two and consume them. What? That's not normal… I look around the side of the room I'm on. Q appears near me and looks at me strangely. He is speaking to me as if he can't see me. He asks if I am in there. My first reaction is to make some sarcastic remark. Nope. Raven has stepped out of her mind for a few moments. If she should return before her mind comes back, please tell her to wait here. I go to say that but I don't have a mouth to speak with. So I send it to Q telepathically. Q replies telepathically that a simple 'yes' would have sufficed. Q then speaks to me aloud. He says I have made a big mistake, and then adds that Raven was really the only one who wanted to protect me. He puts the stasis collar back on me. I want to ask Q what he is talking about, I am Raven, you idiota. No mouth to speak with… but then I find I do have a mouth I'm not controlling. It speaks in a man's voice and says he didn't want to do it at all, it was Raven's idea. Q says that sounds like bullshit, Raven would never have allowed that. I sense that I am not alone. There is another mind here with me, and I reach out to see who it is. Images flash through my head, memories that aren't my own. The other mind present here with me is Alex Mercer off of Prototype.

I try to communicate with him telepathically. He responds, seeming surprised to hear from me. The invisible barrier disappears. My first thought is to transform and cut both of them in half. But I counter that thought, remembering that the goal was to find out what these people are up to since it was clear they are not telling the entire truth. The man says he hadn't realized how stupid I (Alex) was to consume the one person who was trying to help me (him). I am thinking the sucker is really him and the bitch with him. She uses a device she has to open a portal and the man pushes me through it. I resist an urge to turn around and kick him in the balls so hard they get lodged in his fucking nostrils. The portal closes behind us and now we are on an open field. A man is waiting there. He says he had almost given up waiting. He looks like Leland Gaunt as seen on the Needful Things movie by Stephen King.

Somehow both harmless and malevolent at the same time. I can tell Alex doesn't recognize him which leaves me wondering why he wanted these people to bring Alex to him. He tosses a bag to the two people who brought Alex (me) here. They both look intently in the bag. Leland tells Alex (me) that he (I) fucked with the wrong people this time. He laughs in a rather friendly manner, but there is no laughter in his eyes… they look like bottomless abysses. I look into the abyss and it seems the abyss is staring back. He looks briefly puzzled so I stop looking and he finally looks away. I wonder if he could possibly see me inside of Alex. No… surely not this way… not when I was really just a part of Alex… He opens a portal and pulls Alex (me) through it… into a nightmare. Both Alex and I recognize the place instantly even though I am sure he has never seen it, it is the Dark Realm. Alex lets out a, "What the fuck?!" Leland seems pleased with Alex's surprised response. A demon appears, big and ugly. It glares down at Alex (me). It laughs and says that since Alex (I) interfered with his zombie hoards opening the portal now he (I) would pay the price by… what the fuck? The demon looks over at Leland and asks what the fuck this is? The demon says there are two consciousnesses in there, not just one! I telepathically ask Alex how he managed to piss someone off in the Dark fucking Realm. But I already know the answer. In the infected New York there were some infected that were being controlled by an external force and they had been trying to open some kind of gateway. Only certain infected enemies had that power, and Alex had consumed or killed all of them thus preventing the gateway. This must be the demon who had been planning on using the gateway. Ok… that's enough of the Dark Realm… time to go. I tell Alex he'll have to work with me on song spells, but it seems he already knows that… as well as what song spell I'm about to use… Megadeth's Crush 'Em. As the song starts, the energy from it not only breaks the stasis collar, but makes it explode and fall to the ground in pieces. The song creates gravity bombs that come down hard on the demon, pounding him into the ground in a large crater. By the time the song is over the demon has been knocked down, but he is pissed. The demon's minions start coming and attacking Alex (me). He starts dealing with them in a way he is a bit more used to by forming blades and cutting through a lot of them, I focus on the song spell Battery by Metallica and hit more of them with bolts of lightning. We get a ways away from the main demon before finding we are completely surrounded by demon minions.

So now Alex holds them back while I prepare a kick-ass Immortal Fire spell. "And suddenly, the unreal silence is broken by a lament. A lament coming up from the deepest, darkest abyss. And from the seven gates of the dark fortress the dead come back to life to face them. This is hell. Immortal fire, now rise, light my heart, light my way through the darkness, the guardian of space and time!" A massive blast of white flames extends outwards from Alex (me) and incinerates all demons in its path, rising up into the air to catch the flying ones, as well. Now to get out of there. The spell song Through the Never opens a portal out of the Dark Realm. Alex (I) jump through it and it closes behind him (me) before any demons can follow. On the other side Alex (I) is in the same field he (I) was in before our little trip to the Dark Realm. In fact, the man and the woman who had wanted Alex are still there looking at some glowing round gems that they apparently took out of the bag Leland had given them. They are so absorbed in what they are doing that they don't even notice when Alex (I) appear from the portal in the field. I am immediately pissed off at them, though I think it is really more Alex who is pissed off at them than me. He (I) goes right over and picks the man up by the back of his shirt. The woman is just staring with huge eyes, looks like she might shit her pants. The man, on the other hand, drops a stream of expletives and insults that would make a drunken sailor blush. The woman indicates for him to shut up and says he didn't really mean any of that, to which he responds that he sure as fuck did mean every word of it. Not that Alex needed him to get any more pissed off… The man doesn't even realize what is happening when Alex (I) consumes him. I now know what those orbs are… they're real materia, the magic gems from Final Fantasy 7.

And some particularly powerful ones, too. These ones use dark magic. The man at least knew exactly who he had made a deal with, a demon in the Dark Realm. He also knew exactly what he was doing when they handed Alex over to an agent of the Dark Realm. The woman pushes the bag towards Alex (me) and says to take them all as she gets up and runs away. Alex isn't at all interested in the materia, however. He (I) teleports to a point directly in front of the fleeing woman, who skids to a stop and falls on her ass. She scrambles away a few feet but doesn't make much effort to escape, perhaps deciding any attempt is futile. Instead she just holds her hands up in a fending off gesture and says she will do whatever Alex (I) wants if he (I) will just let her go. When Alex (I) grabs her she tries to say the man forced her into helping him, which Alex (I) already knows is a lie. Apparently Alex is in no mood to listen to any more of her bullshit as he (I) consumes her right there. More memories. Apparently the two people wanted to make a deal with the demon to gain more power, to use that power to invade a neighboring country (kingdom?) and obliterate all who got in their way. Not friendly people at all. And neither of them knew of or cared about any crimes Alex may have committed. I feel like I should be waking up. But not here. Alex knows what I am thinking and cooperates with opening a portal back to my inner world. On the other side there are people waiting that don't look too friendly. I telepathically tell them I am here, don't go nuts now. Q asks if I know how to separate. I tell him it should happen automatically when I wake up. If not, I'll figure it out later. And it is here that I wake up.

04/12/13

Tornado of Flames
I am in my own room, sitting on my bed, looking around. I am surrounded by Templars, which immediately pisses me off. I just used an Immortal Fire before going to bed and they're already back? I focus on using Dark Power of the Abyss by Rhapsody again, to drop another Immortal Fire and get rid of all of the Templars in the area. As the wave of flames from the Immortal Fire expands outwards from me I see it starts rotating as if it was caught in a tornado.

The flames are actually pulling the Templars into a vortex portal. I wonder where the vortex portal might lead, and I look through. I see through the portal to what looks like deep space on the other side with a small planet of solid ice, maybe it's Pluto. I figure as long as it's not the Dark Realm they can go there for a while. The last of the Templars are pulled through the portal and then the portal closes behind them. Nomad opens another portal that leads to the moon, and we go through it. I remember that Nomad's girlfriend Winter needs some healing for her fibromyalgia, and there are a couple sores left to heal on Nomad, so I figure we can do some healing first. We go to the balancing pools and slip into the water. The warm water feels very relaxing. I see Winter is already floating in the water, seeming to be asleep. I go over to her and focus healing energy through her. I send the energy through Winter's whole body before moving over to Nomad and focusing healing energy on his foot, on the couple remaining sores, most of which are gone completely and only two small ones remain. While I am focusing the healing energy I feel healing energy going through me, it is so relaxing. I think I am going to fall asleep right there. I am floating in the warm water and almost asleep when someone gets my attention. Washu is there, she says maybe the nanites in my head on the physical plane can be put to use to help us instead of the Templars.

At first I have no idea what she is talking about, I give her a blank look. She says come on, Janet also wants a look. Winter stays in the balancing pools, floating serenely in the water. Nomad and I follow Washu to the sick bay area of the moon tower. It looks like a Star Trek sick bay. Nomad and I each lie down in a bed, scans are being done. The computer responds that there are nanites in both of us, though the ones in Nomad appear to be disabled. Apparently mine are doing just fine… unfortunately… Washu says she thinks they can hack in to the nanites and take control of them, or of course disabling them is an option. I tell her maybe reprogram them… if I could use them to get a clearer contact to the Borg Collective then maybe I could boost my recall of everything from things I have learned to my own dreams. Washu agrees with that, Janet types something on a computer. I feel drowsy and I fall asleep on the bed, I notice I can hear voices in the distant part of my mind, voices like those in the Borg Collective. It is just on the periphery of my awareness, however, and I slip off to sleep.
 
Secret Invasion
I am with Nomad and some other people in the tower on the moon looking at a computer display. The display shows the area just outside of a town, it looks like Masyaf from the Assassin's Creed games. In one dark corner there are Templars disguising themselves as Assassins. The Templars don't even look like normal Templars, they look demonic in nature, and they are heading into Masyaf unquestioned along with a group of Assassins who had been out scouting the area for intruders. I think that was an epic fail on the scouting mission… So we go to the tower teleporters and teleport to a spot right near where the Templars are disguising themselves. They are Templars disguised as Assassins.

We change our appearance so we are now Assassins disguised as Templars disguised as Assassins. We go into the town around Masyaf in these disguises, unquestioned. It seems really obvious to me that there are people who do not belong here, but the guards at the gate seem oblivious. Inside the town it seems people are splitting up a bit, though I am not sure where they are going. I follow a couple of Templars up towards the castle. One of the Templars is sneaking up behind an Assassin guard, but I sneak up on him first. The Templar is dead before he can make his move, I kill him by pumping light energy into him through my hidden blade. I look around in time to see Altaïr eliminate the other Templar I had been following. I look around, not sure how to spot the Templars hidden among the Assassins and civilians. Then I remember the tiara I got from Koomo in a previous dream… it gives me Eagle Vision like the characters in Assassin's Creed have. So I activate that and look over a ledge at people down below. Most of them don't glow at all, those are civilians. Several glow blue, indicating they are allies, they are Assassins. I spot a red one, a mixture of red and gold actually. An enemy and a target. A Templar. The Templar is right below me, so I do an air assassinate on him, dropping right down on top of him. Two of the Assassins see me do this, and their impression is that one Assassin just killed another… I pull the hood off of the dead Templar to reveal his true nature so they will see why I have done that. I tell them that I saw this Templar and others sneaking into Masyaf, be on the lookout, there are more intruders around… all of them demons. I wonder if normal weapons will do any good on the demons… I leave the spot and scan for more enemies. I spot two more Templars heading for the castle entrance. When I get close enough I realize I have been spotted, and they attack me. I form Witchblade into a sword and defend myself. A couple Assassins in the area don't seem sure of what to do when they see what they think is three Assassins fighting each other. I manage to hit them both with light energy and take them out, revealing their true nature at the same time. The other Assassins in the area seem surprised to see the intruders. I wonder how far the Templars would have gotten without being seen… Spike, also dressed as an Assassin, arrives from my left. He says the enemies have all been accounted for, but there is a large force approaching Masyaf. Everyone is gathering at the front to repel it. I head in that direction, but I wake up before I have a chance to make it.
 
Time of the Storm
I am with a large group of people, a large group of Assassins outside of the walls of the city of Masyaf. I see a dark cloud approaching, my first thought is that I am in a Dark Tower dream and the Wolves of the Calla are approaching. I look around and confirm I am surrounded by Assassins rather than gunslingers. The approaching cloud is a group of enemies, but it is not the Wolves of the Calla, these enemies are Templars. One Templar arrives ahead of the others, approaching as if he had nothing to fear from the group of Assassins waiting to meet him. He laughs at the group, in fact. He says he will give us all one chance. Hand over the artifact key and maybe he can convince those following him to leave us alive. Someone in the group of Assassins says if the Templars turn and leave now then maybe some of them will make it out alive. The Templar laughs and says he had hoped we would do it the hard way, this is going to be fun. The Templar makes a motion to unseen forces behind him and they all seem to appear out of nowhere. The bracelet I got from Koomo transforms into a pair of giant raven wings, lifting me up above the fight below. I use Battery to call down lightning from the clouds, lightning made of light energy to strike down the demon Templars.

All around me I see the fighting has begun, Nomad has transformed into some kind of giant feline and is tearing through Templars like they aren't even there. Most of the people there are fighting with swords, I am being fired at with arrows that are glowing with a black light, charged with dark energy. I dodge most of the arrows, though a couple actually put holes through my black wings. I land in the middle of the fight and form Witchblade into a sword. I can't really see much of what is going on right now, from the middle of the fight. I occasionally spot a familiar face… Nomad… Spike… Altaïr… I use the song Divide by Disturbed to create multiple instances of me. The fight continues for a short time longer until we have emerged victorious. The demon Templars are all either destroyed or forced to retreat to their home dimension. I focus my efforts on healing injured Assassins now, there are a few people around who have been injured but not killed. I wonder how many of the Assassins got killed in the fight, wishing I could somehow have saved them all, but the only way to do that would have been to keep them out of the fight entirely, which they wouldn't have agreed to. I have just finished healing a female Assassin, one of the few women I have seen on the battle field, when I wake.

03/28/13

Back to the Night
I am with some other people in a barren place, there is no sign of life anywhere near us. I look around and see who is with me. It looks like a quest group from DDO. I am dressed like a paladin in black armor with a large sword, Nomad is decked out in black armor and has a big axe… There are other people there, too, I see someone who is a humanoid fox. I think it must be Pablo. I see him as his long fluffy tail disappears down into a cave entrance. Others are following. I follow the group, not noticing everyone who is with us. I do catch a glimpse of Spike dressed in leather armor, black leather armor, he is looking HOT!

We all descend into the darkness, into the caves. The caves are like an endless labyrinth of passages. I hear the screams of people being tortured echoing through the passages, screams of pain I wish I could block out of my mind. We explore through the halls and find an area that looks like a prison of some kind. There are cages with people locked up inside, the people aren't all human. In fact I don't think any of them are purely human. I see some centaurs in a cage much too small for them to hardly move,

a tank of foul looking water with merpeople in it, some bird cages with fairies locked inside them. There is a guard pacing down the hallway between the cages, periodically stopping to mock or taunt the prisoners and laugh. The guard looks partly like a demon and partly like a Templar… a Templar bastard… my first thought is to want to get rid of him, but before I do something stupid I see another guard there. If I'd attacked the first one the second one would have sounded an alarm and alerted every Templar in the place. Instead I see the humanoid fox sneak right up behind the Templar guard and snag the keys right off of him without being noticed. Pablo brings the keys back and we start unlocking cages as the guards pass, letting prisoners quietly out. I open a portal to the healing glen, the prisoners go through to safety. This is going smoothly until we reach an area with some giants chained to the walls. The giants aren't content to be silently released. As Nomad unlocks one of them he pulls free and tries to step on one of the demon Templars. An alarm goes off and a fight ensues. The demon Templars are coming from all directions. I am focused on the fight now, using my sword to cut down Templars near me and using Battery by Metallica to call down bolts of lightning on those farther back. We fight to hold off the Templars just long enough to allow the prisoners to be evacuated to the healing glen. Once all the prisoners we have found are free we follow them through the portal, closing it immediately behind us so the Templars can't follow. I look around the healing glen but then I wake.
 
Halls of Healing
I am at the balancing pools on the moon with Nomad. He is relaxing in the water, cleansing some disgusting stuff off of him. I focus healing energy into his foot, focusing on making the healing proceed quickly. I think the problem I have with dream healing is sometimes I quit before the healing is done… so I won't do that this time, keep healing it until it is completely gone. Nomad wants to go somewhere else, says something about Templars wanting to destroy us, have us end up dead, in prison, or in a loony bin… I tell him they can't touch us here in the dream state. He says he hates them for what they've done. I tell him to try not to, I let my hate go too far and I sent people to the Dark Realm, a place no one should ever see. It is poison that will kill us just as surely as direct Templar attacks. He says it is time to go back to the Temple of Angels to be healed. I tell him we could probably both use healing. I open a portal focused on getting to where he wanted to go. On the other side of the portal we are in a temple in the clouds.

There are angels there, they have healing potions. There is someone else there with us, a man who looks to be part bat… a form of batman? He looks familiar, and Nomad clearly knows him, refers to him as Koomo. I try to remember who Koomo is, my mind isn't entirely clear about it, though I am sure we have seen him in dreams before. Koomo is thanking us for helping free his people from some demon wraith. He says he has gifts… for me? I don't feel I have done anything to deserve gifts, but it feels like a bad idea to refuse… he gives me a golden amulet with a dark crystal in it, says it will help keep the dark and light energies balanced. When I touch it, it forms into large raven wings on my back. He also hands me a bracelet, golden with a dark crystal, that transforms into a snake with jet black eyes. He hands me a golden tiara that also has black crystals in it, I feel a bit disoriented when I put it on, he says that is normal, he says something about sonar…

what the tiara has given me is the eagle vision off of the Assassin's Creed games, I can see the auras of people around me, all of them in the area are glowing blue, indicating allies. I find I can will my vision back to normal. I thank Koomo for the gifts, but he says he has one more… but I have to fight him for it. He tells me to fight him. He throws an attack at me, which I dodge before taking to the sky. He is fighting me with a spear. I figure it is a good chance to try out what he just gave me. He attacks with the spear and I use the snake whip to pull it away from him. He dives to the ground, disappearing into a vast labyrinth that seems to radiate darkness. Maybe this is just a test to see if I can use what he gave me… so I activate eagle vision, and I can see him in the dark maze. His aura is now a swirl of blue and gold, indicating he is a target, but still an ally… which seems appropriate to the situation. So I dive into the maze and there is a fight between Zoomo and me, which he finally concedes I have won. I help him up. The spear he has been fighting with turns into a glowing ball of energy, which he says will form into anything I need at the time… armor, weapons… the golden energy flows around and fuses with my Witchblade, the Witchblade bracelet glowing with a golden light. Zoomo says something to Nomad, and I hear him saying something about his planet needing healing. I tell him I would be glad to help with that if I can. He says any healing would be helpful after the damage the demon wraith did during its rule. I make it a plan to do what I can there. We enter a chamber that is very relaxing, that must be one of the healing chambers… I am surrounded by some kind of comfort I can't really describe, and I fall asleep in the dream.
 
World Concert
I am flying in my Fire Valkyrie over a place I don't recognize. I look down and see there are cities down below, I still am not sure where I am, but I have a feeling as to what I need to be doing here. This place has too much negative energy, unstable negative energy, and I am here to help with that. So I broadcast a song out over the cities and mountains, broadcasting it so everyone can hear it. Transmitting through every receiver within range, which is every receiver in the world. I am broadcasting the song Touch My Heart. I follow that song with Liberate by Disturbed, and another anime song, Full Moonlight. The planet wide concert doesn't really take very long, but I can see the positive energy flowing over the surface down below as the healing songs have their intended effect. As the last song finishes I head back out into space, flying out through a solar system I don't recognize before I finally wake up.

Note: This is another night of attempting to have a successful MILD, I believe this is the 10th night. This night I actually met with success! My goal focus was to complete a lucid Harry Potter dream with MoSh, and I did, indeed, have that dream! Here is that dream, along with other dreams that came along with my epic recall last night.

Demonic Payback
I am in a city, walking down the street with a friend of mine, my friend is a younger girl, and I feel very protective of her. I also feel she is a best friend of mine, much like a sister… We are walking down a street with shops on both sides, she is talking animatedly and seems like she is in a very positive mood. She is looking in the shops at everything from clothes to nic-nacs to books and talking about which ones she would like to have, though she is clearly under no delusion that she can have all of what she would like. As we are walking I am halfway listening to her and halfway surveying the area and everyone around us for possible threats. Soon the threat I am expecting happens, a hole opens in the ground in front of us, I see the glow of fire and lava through the floor.

Everyone around us screams and runs away, a strange arm reaches out and pulls my friend into the hole. Just before it can close I jump into the fire after her. I land on a solid ground down at the bottom of the hole where I find three demons toying with the girl. Poking at her, pushing her between them, as they are doing that they are also wrapping strange sticky ropes around her, ropes like giant spider webs. They see me and turn their attention to me, leaving the girl on her own. She is already hopelessly entangled in the sticky ropes, the ropes are also sticking to the ground, making it impossible for her to get up. I tell the demons they made a huge mistake by kidnapping my friend, and now they will pay the price. They are laughing at me about that, but I wipe the smiles off their faces really fast when I form Witchblade into a sword and cut them down where they stand. I am then able to carefully cut the sticky ropes off of the girl and open a portal to get us safely back to the surface, although she no longer seems interested in shopping, she is crying on my shoulder from the traumatizing experience.

Senseless Destruction
I am in my own house, though it isn't the home I live in right now, rather it is the house I lived in before moving here. I am in my mother's room, looking out onto the patio beside a door that leads from her room to the back yard. For some reason I am in a destructive mood. I grab a flat screen television and smash it down on the concrete, and of course it proves to be very smashable. The screen breaks open and the wreck sits there on the ground. I decide I like breaking things… I grab everything breakable I can find. Some china dishes, some of my mother's and my nic-nacs, a chair made of wood proves to be a bit harder to break but I am able to smash it against the ground a few times to break it. I smash my mother's computer on the ground. I smash a few more pieces of china dishes out there, then I smash my own laptop on the ground.

My mom apparently gets home now, she comes into the room and sees the pile of broken crap on the ground. She asks what am I doing? I say I feel like breaking things. I am smashing a book case with a chair, this is proving to be a bit harder than breaking some of the things, but it is breaking. She asks if I have gone insane. I tell her not to worry about it, this is just a dream and everything will be just fine when I wake up. She looks at me as if she is now certain that I am crazy.

Secrets Within
I am in my own house with Tigress, and we are looking for something in my closet. While we are looking at that, we notice that there is more area between my bedroom and the game room beside it than is being taken up by the closets of the two rooms. There is an unused area in there? That seems weird. We look closer at that area, we are wondering if there is a space in there that got closed off during the construction. Tigress finally finds there is a way to open one of the walls, there is a door deliberately hidden there, it's no accident. We open the door and look into the small hidden space.

There is a stairway heading down deep into the ground, which seems surprising considering I live in a manufactured home that sits a couple feet off the ground with a crawlspace beneath it. I think about that for a minute, then I figure since I have never looked under the house very well before, there is most likely a pillar in the middle of the house to accommodate this stairway. Tigress and I head down to explore the place beneath the house, and we find a small maze of passages crossing each other. There are some small rooms branching off of the passages that are set up as bedrooms and a small living area. I remember telling Nomad that if there is an emergency I don't have a suitable shelter to hole up in… now I see how wrong about that I was!

Dreams of Dreaming
I am in my living room with my mother and Tigress, and we are watching television, we are watching an episode of the series Medium about a woman who sees visions through her dreams. She is having a dream about a man who kidnaps young girls, about 12 years old, takes them home with him and rapes them repeatedly, then he hangs them upside down from a tree and beats them to death with a baseball bat. He leaves the bodies there for whatever unfortunate individual receives the shock of finding them. What a sick bastard.

Allison Dubois is having problems with the vision because even though she can see the man's face in the dream, she is never able to focus on it well enough to identify him. I am talking to Tigress and my mom about lucid dreams, I say she should learn to do a reality check and realize she is dreaming. I say that even though she wouldn't want to do anything to alter the vision in the dream, she could make an effort to remember specific details that she might tend to forget if she hadn't realized it was a dream. Tigress agrees with this idea, though she adds that Allison might unintentionally interfere with the messages the dreams have. My mother says she remembers my late brother John talking about his dreams a lot. This seems strange to me since I don't remember hearing him talk about dreams much at all.

Daytime Friends, Nighttime Lovers
I am at a hotel in a swimming pool, it is a nice day and I am enjoying the water. I am surveying the people around me, there are quite a few colorful characters about today. There is a really fat woman in a bathing suit that is much too small for her, and her even fatter husband is wearing swim trunks that are so tight on him that they look like tighty whiteys. Ok… that's something I don't need to be seeing… but it makes me feel quite skinny by comparison. I look at more people around, and I notice two couples that look like newlyweds. Or at least they are going at each other like newlyweds, and I am thinking that's what they are. Both couples look like perfect couples, pretty women, hot men, very much in love. Finally everyone leaves and I am alone in the pool. Before long, the two women from the couples come back, now they are in costume. They are dressed as very hot and sexy sorceresses from some fantasy realm, though I can still easily see they are the same women.
They get in the pool and start making out with each other. Um… I wonder if their husbands know they are doing that. Well, it turns out all of them are on even ground. Both of the men come back dressed in costumes that make them look like muscle bound freaks, the costumes are clearly meant to be comedic. I can also easily recognize them, though. The two men get into the water and start making out with each other. I figure they must all be friends and having a bisexual relationship. That turns out to not be true, however. When they all see each other, the entire group of them start fighting and cursing at each other. I am getting quite a show during my swim here…

Animal Rescue
I am in a house looking around, I find there are lots of cages with small animals in them. The main problem is that these animals don't belong in cages, they are all wild rodents from the area. Squirrels, mice, rats, and other rodents I see regularly on the ground gathering food. So why are they in cages? They should be free. I open the cages and start setting the animals free. Before I let each animal go, I take a photo of the animal on my iPod so I have a record of what animals I have set free from where.

I coax the last little animal, a ground squirrel, out of a cage and pick it up. The animal wants to be free. I take the photo of the animal, then I hold it for a few minutes, thinking how nice it is to pet. I finally set the squirrel down and watch it run up a tree. I go out behind the house and I find there is a large display made of dog biscuits. Someone has used the dog treats to build dog houses, fire hydrants, and many other interesting structures. There is a white powder all over the treats. I realize that is poison… someone wants to kill dogs! There are several dogs heading for the display, drawn in by the smell of the treats. I have to stop the dogs. I stop the dogs from getting to the treats, then I use the empty cages from inside to build a makeshift fence around it. The owners try to deny knowledge of it, but their denials are pretty pathetic. To my surprise, the rodent I was holding last seems to be impressed by my efforts to help the dogs and the other animals. The squirrel comes back over to me and wants me to pet it some more.

Death Hospital
This dream relates to the girl I was protecting a few dreams back. I know she is now in a safe place, but the enemy is still looking for her. They are willing to do anything and everything to find her. The enemies have captured some people and are holding them in a hospital, interrogating them for information on where the girl is. We have to get those people out of there. I am with a man, and we sneak into the hospital with false identities. I am searching for the prisoners, I found a place I wish I hadn't. One of the prisoners, a woman, is strapped to an operating table. They had cut off the top of her skull and they are messing with her brain, clearly they are deliberately stimulating the pain areas of her brain to induce excruciating pain.

They are also asking questions about where the girl was, I know she knows where the girl is, but she is refusing to talk. The assholes keep torturing her, but all they get out of her are pleas for death and some cursing. I break a window from the observation room and get into the operating room where they are torturing the woman. I already know there is no way to save her life, they have done too much damage to her brain… so reluctantly I grant her wishes for a quick death using one of the scalpels the assholes had been using to torture her. Just as she is dying she gives a smile of relief, reassuring me that I did the right thing. I somehow manage to get out of the room by cutting a couple of the doctors with the scalpel and making a break for it as I reach the door. I meet up with the man, he just got back from a holding area where he was able to rescue a man and a woman. We evade enemies and reach the roof where there is a helicopter. The man manages to get the helicopter off the ground, but he isn't very skilled as a pilot, so when we are being chased, he hands the controls to me. The woman doesn't think I can fly, but I prove her wrong. I stay low to the ground and fly very dangerously through a canyon, managing to lose our pursuers. We reach an airport and get on a plane, heading into the sky before the enemy is able to catch up.

Harry Potter: Sunken Treasure
I am at Hogwarts with several other people, and I am lucid. I fell asleep focused on getting to this dream, and it seems to finally be happening. A group of us are standing on the banks of the lake near Hogwarts. It is a warm day, though it isn't especially hot, and the water in the lake is still quite cold. The people in the area I recognize include MoSh, Hermione, Harry, and Draco. Hermione says she has a spell to allow Harry and her to breathe underwater. She says she knows I am MoSh's friend, but she can't share the spell since I am also on the opposing team. MoSh says not to worry about it, I surely don't need any spell to breathe underwater. It is time to start the competition. Hermione uses her spell on Harry and herself, MoSh says he doesn't need it. He says they should take hold of his fin and hold on tight. They look a bit puzzled, but then MoSh transforms into a water serpent… with fins… so the three of them go into the water, Harry and Hermione being pulled along at high speeds by MoSh.

Draco is staring at that in shock, as is everyone else. I get Draco's attention and I tell him we need to get moving. He says he can't breathe water… he whispers he doesn't even swim very well. I tell him I have that covered. I hand him a leaf of an herb, the herb tastes like mint. I tell him it will allow him to breathe underwater. He asks what it is. I tell him I've been brewing a special potion, and soaked the leaf in it, and it allows breathing underwater. I eat one of the leaves… which is just a peppermint leaf… it tastes minty. He is unsure. He finally takes the leaf and eats it. Now it is hard to get him to take his first breath of water. I practically have to drown him to make him breathe water… So we get a late start. We dive down to the bottom of the lake where the maze entrance is. The maze is a bit confusing, but we get through it without too many problems. At the center of the maze we find Vegeta is down there. Of course being underwater is no issue for him. He is talking to us telepathically. He says the next challenge is a martial arts tournament, where only the most skilled stand a chance of winning. He says he is willing to teach if we are willing to learn, but anyone who will learn from him will have to take their training seriously. There is treasure there, too. Draco and I both get red gems. We go back to the surface of the lake and find out that MoSh and his team finished first.

So preparing for battle, the three of us enter into the portal… and are instantly swept into a divergent dream of epic proportions, the following dreams all took place simultaneously on different planes, in different parallel worlds…

I emerge from a portal with MoSh by my side, I wonder where Nomad has gone off to. I decide maybe not all of us will be in each instance of this dream to take place. So now I look around the place to see if I can find Asuka, since my portal led us here she must be somewhere around. All I see at first is a green grassy area with some rocks lying about.

MoSh says he knows this place, and it looks like Nomad was wrong this time. I ask him what he is talking about, he doesn't answer me, instead he calls out to Kaomea as if he expects her to show up somewhere around the place. He is not disappointed, she comes from behind one of the larger rocks and says she has been expecting MoSh to show up. MoSh says he is looking to get Asuka back, so let her go now. MoSh says that even if Kaomea is mad at him, she shouldn't take it out on Asuka, she hasn't done anything. Something about the entire situation doesn't feel right, but I'm not sure what is wrong. MoSh doesn't seem to notice anything strange, he is clearly annoyed with Kaomea.

While MoSh talked to Kaomea I look around the area a bit more, trying to find the source of my strange feelings. I find nothing out of the ordinary, so I wander back to MoSh and Kaomea. MoSh is clearly getting more upset by the minute, demanding Asuka back. Kaomae is just putting the moves on him, she says something about Asuka will be fine as long as MoSh gives her what she wants. I say to Kaomae that she had told me if Asuka was with her, she wouldn't give us any problems taking Asuka home. She gives me a dirty look and asks if I am really that gullible as to believe that, but now MoSh belongs to her unless he wants something to happen to his precious Asuka. That sounds completely wrong for what I know about Kaomae, who has always been friendly towards me. She finally says MoSh can have Asuka back after he pleasures her, and she starts taking her clothes off and behaving in a sexy manner… apparently not even caring that I was standing right there watching. She beckons MoSh to come closer, I know this can't be right, so I focus on a rhyme spell I have used before… "This illusion will no longer be, your true form is what we'll see…" I repeat the rhyme spell a few times, and sure enough, 'Kaomea' begins to change form into some kind of demon… soon there is a naked female demon standing in front of MoSh trying to seduce him… She seems honestly surprised when MoSh responds to her advances with a, "Yuck! Who the fuck are you and where is Asuka?!"

The demon finally looks down at her own body, at first she seems surprised to see she was in her demon form, and then she looks pissed about it. She hisses loudly and then begins to get downright ugly as her mouth opens up impossibly wide revealing rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth that look like those of a shark. She lunges at MoSh, apparently intent on ripping a large bite out of him, her fingers are razor sharp claws aiming to tear MoSh apart. MoSh tells the demon he should tear her apart for coming after Asuka, she says to go ahead… she is merged with both Asuka and Kaomea, so go ahead and tear her apart, she would revel in their pain. MoSh hesitated there, tells her to let them out now, she laughs some more. She says he should make her, it would never work. I said how about if I make her let them out? She glares over at me and says no one can do it, because she won't let go until there's nothing left of them. I don't bother listening to any more of her threats, she is back to paying more attention to MoSh than me. She gets downright ugly, her mouth splits impossibly far open to reveal rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth like those of a shark, and she is drooling… yuck… it looks like she wants to take a big bite of MoSh…

I decide I have had enough of being ignored, so I focus on the song "Come Out and Play" by the Offspring, focusing primarily on pulling the demon to come out and play, to keep her separated from Asuka and Kaomea. That gets her attention away from MoSh, most likely because it is working, I can now sense three individual energy signatures inside the demon, and I am focused on separating them. The demon is hissing at me and starts to move in to attack, but she is stopped as the two she is merged with are pulled out of her, tearing their way out of her, the demon collapses to the ground after the separation. It seems the separation has taken much of her power away. Asuka runs over to MoSh, getting behind him looking for protection. Kaomae is apparently much more pissed off than that, she turns into a large black panther and pounces as the demon is starting to recover, tearing into the demon with teeth and claws in a very vicious display considering she had said she was the spirit of love… there is no love going on there. There is a brief and vicious battle, then the demon gives one last hiss of anger, says this isn't worth it, and disappears. MoSh wants to know why Asuka was with Kaomea in the first place, Kaomae says Asuka came to her for help. Before any more questions can be asked or explanations can be given Kaomae disappears, I figure she woke up. MoSh asks me what that demon wanted with Asuka… I say it seems everyone wants to get their hands on Asuka…

To Be Continued…

Note: I am so busy with school papers and such right now, between classes and homework and work and dreams and… and… so busy. So I am going to be recording this dream in as short a version as possible without leaving out any important details.

I slipped into a WILD and found myself in MoSh's inner world. I wondered what was to be done first, I remembered MoSh had said Asuka needed healing, so that was what I was there to do. I didn't see any of them there, I didn't see MoSh or Asuka, so I opened a portal to track them down. The portal opened quickly and I went through it. The portal led to the healing glen, or that's what it looked like at the time. MoSh was there, as well as Kaomea… I could tell Asuka was merged with Kaomea. I wondered if that was a good idea for Kaomea to be merged with Asuka since MoSh had said Asuka was infected with something. I figured we would heal them merged the same way as we would heal them separated. MoSh said there were dream demons in them, so I figured that was a good place to start. I focused on the song "Come Out and Play" by the Offspring, focusing primarily on the line about keeping 'em separated, and focused on reaching in and pulling a dream demon out. I got one! It was quite easy to do, and I pulled the thing out. It attacked me immediately, but I hit it with a bolt of light energy lightning, and that destroyed the demon quicker than I had expected. It hadn't been that powerful, so why had it been having so much of an effect?

I looked around the area now, and I realized that while I had been focusing on the spell, the entire glen had changed. It was no longer a beautiful and pleasant place. It was downright creepy, there was a thick mist on the ground, the sky had gone dark like smoke, there was a foul odor around, and the plants around us seemed to have withered away just in the past few minutes. I looked back at Kaomea… there was still more there, more dream demons? How many could there be in there at once? I used the "Come Out and Play" spell again and pulled out another dream demon, then another… and another… and another… And while I was doing that, MoSh was doing it as well, I saw him pull out several dream demons, though I didn't note any details of how he had done that. There were so many that I opened a vortex portal to pull them all into a parallel dimension. Then I thought maybe the vortex could pull the dream demons right out of Kaomea, pulling them straight into the parallel dimension… so I combined the "Come Out and Play" spell with the vortex portal and started streaming dream demons right out of Kaomea… and they just kept coming! What the HELL?! There was no way there could be that many all in the same place… what was going on here? I had no idea, but it seemed to continue forever until the flow finally ended. I closed the vortex portal, sealing all of the dream demons, or whatever they were, in the void between realities.

I looked over at Kaomea, and she was still merged with Asuka, I wanted to be able to get them both apart, too. I wasn't sure if they might be stuck due to having had all those things in there with them, so I used "Come Out and Play" one more time… and Asuka came out, looking relieved to be separated. There was still something inside of Kaomea… another demon? How was that even possible? I wondered if there might be some kind of portal in her that was going to keep an endless supply of demons coming into her, piling them in just as fast as MoSh and I could get them out… MoSh and I were able to de-fuse the final demon fairly easily… but it wasn't a demon at all! It was a woman, I didn't recognize her, but I knew it was another dreamer, that energy was around her. I didn't have a lot of time to figure out who she was, however, she took off and immediately disappeared through a portal, MoSh was hot on her tail, and then the portal closed behind both of them. Asuka and Kaomea were both watching after MoSh as if they also weren't sure what was going on. This is where the dream ended.

Note: This is officially my 3rd WILD in a row! I can now safely say my dry spell is over! I didn't have any particular goals for tonight, so I ended up not focused on much of anything as I used my light / sound machine to meditate as I fell asleep, and I slipped into a WILD…

I was in my own room still. I almost didn't recognize that I had passed from my waking self into a dream state. I got up and left the room, heading outside. It was daylight outside, so that was one key difference between the house in my inner world and the one in my waking life. I was lucid and dreaming. I wondered what I might do. I thought for a bit, and then I thought I might be thinking about it too much… I didn't want to lose the dream before it had even begun. After a bit more thought I remembered that Tigress and I are working on a project for our capstone in school, one big project that is supposed to demonstrate what we have learned in the past couple of years. That game started right at the U of A, so I would go there to start the walkthrough of the game. It would be much faster to fly than to walk, or even drive, so I took flight and headed in the direction I knew the U of A was located in.

I landed on the street I have designated to be the setting of the beginning of the game Tigress and I are making. I focused for a bit, I closed my eyes and focused on manipulating the dream scene. I was in my own inner world, so this was not a difficult task. When I opened my eyes the area looked just like I had imagined the setting of the game would look. So now it was time to start playing. The street behind me, which was to the south, was blocked by road construction. There were holes and warning cones set around, and there was random construction equipment also blocking the way. That left one way for me to go. I headed to the north. I remembered there was supposed to be a hidden area off to the east, through a small opening in a fence. I went to that.

The opening in the fence was there. I slipped through the opening and went down the alley behind the fence. There was a tall fence blocking access to a parking lot which would be out of bounds if the player were to go there, and there was a turn to the north shortly before the parking lot dead end. This was also a dead end, but there was a crate down there. The crate looked abandoned, next to a dumpster. I went to check it out. There was some stuff in the crate. When I looked in it, strangely enough I found there were some energy drinks in it. Many of the cans were broken open, which was probably why the crate had been discarded… but I found a couple that were intact. I slipped those into my backpack. This was the first time I really noticed I had a backpack on, but it made sense since I was a college student and I would need to carry stuff… Now that I had found the hidden items, I returned to the main street and continued walking around.

A bit farther to the north on the main street there was more construction. That effectively sealed off this section of road. There was nowhere for me to go from there. So I had to turn around and head back. I knew where I needed to go to trigger the next part of the game, I just wanted to look around a bit more. I had seen all there was to see here, however. I went over to the bus stop near the center of the section of the street, right across the street from the hidden passage through the fence. When I got there it triggered the next phase of the game.

The sky, which had been bright and blue, seemed to darken even though there were no clouds. Everything around me seemed to get darker, actually. There had been birds singing, but now those went silent. In fact, all of the ambient noises I had been hearing were now gone. The sounds of birds singing, of the wind in the trees, of traffic in the distance… now it was as quiet as the grave. And this area was beginning to look quite creepy. I felt a chill run down my back consistent with what the character might be feeling. I saw, or maybe sensed is a better word, movement behind me. I turned quickly and saw a robed man standing there with a sinister grin on his face.

"Did you really think we wouldn't find you?" he asked, "Well you were wrong. We have eyes and ears everywhere. You should have known it was just a matter of time. You'll be coming with me, now. Or, of course, if you resist we could do this the hard way…"

"Who the hell are you?" I asked the strange man, "And what are you talking about? I'm not going anywhere with you!" I had an instinctive knowledge that if I went with him it would mean big trouble.

"I thought you might say that," the man said, "That is disappointing. It is unfortunate, but when you weren't willing to cooperate, my men were forced to kill you." He made a gesture to the trees off to my right, which were now enshrouded in a strange fog, giving the area the same kind of creepy atmosphere I had seen in Silent Hill video games… Shapes moved in the fog and then emerged. There were four men in black hooded robes. They quickly surrounded me, cracking their knuckles.

"When the deed is done," the first man said to the four around me, "make sure you take anything of value off of her. This will look like a simple mugging where multiple assailants robbed this poor young college student, brutally beating her to death in the process. And you must make absolutely certain that she is beaten to DEATH. There will be no repeat of your last failure."

I had let myself get into character, so now I felt definite fear for my life. These four goons weren't small men by any stretch, they had me surrounded, they had orders to beat me to death, and they looked quite eager to carry out those orders. I looked around quickly to see if there was anyone around that might help me… but there was no one there… at least no one I could see through the fog… maybe I could slip between them and escape? That was my only chance… The space between two of them was slightly larger than the space between the others, so I made a quick break for that. I never had a chance of making it. One of the goons grabbed me suddenly and violently pulled my arms behind my back, holding them there. Apparently the idea was that one would hold me while the others did the beating. I tried to pull free of the man behind me, but he was too strong… there was nothing I could do…

"This is gonna be fun," the goon directly in front of me said as he approached me. All I could do was pray the end came swiftly… but no. As the man pulled his right arm back to throw the first punch, I found myself reacting on instinct somehow. Moving my body in such a way as to gain leverage, I bent over and flipped the man behind me over my head and threw him into the one in front of me. Both of them went tumbling to the ground. My first thought was still on escaping… so I tried to run for it again. One of the other two men grabbed my arm as I tried to get away. Acting completely on instinct, I turned around and kneed him in the crotch really hard. He doubled over in pain, grabbing his aching privates. I brought my elbow down hard at the base of his skull, knocking him instantly out cold. I turned and intercepted another of the men coming at me. There was another one coming at me from the other direction. I took advantage of the situation and grabbed their heads, slamming their two heads together. Both of them were out cold. The last man was more hesitant to approach me. But he finally did… and he met up with my foot to his face. I did a roundhouse kick just like I have seen Chuck Norris do countless times, but I had never imagined myself doing one… Not only did I do it, I did it well. My foot made contact with his face with surprising force, knocking him back onto the ground, also out cold.

The one first man to arrive, who was clearly the leader, was not pleased. He was glaring at the four men on the ground. One of them was regaining consciousness… The leader went over to the one goon regaining consciousness and helped him to his feet.

"You have failed me for the last time," the leader said to the goon. He pulled out a knife he'd had hidden in his robes and stabbed the goon in the gut. The look of shock on the goon's face turned to one of pain as the leader slowly and deliberately twisted the knife. He pulled the knife out, letting the goon fall to the ground, bleeding and clutching the wound. I got ready for the leader to attack me now… but he didn't. Instead he motioned and four more goons came out, these ones were armed. They had nunchucks that had blades on one end of them…

"So it won't look like a typical mugging…" the leader said, "I don't care! Kill her!"

I was wondering how my newly discovered martial arts skills would match up against these guys… I would soon find out. They were surrounding me again, but now someone else arrived. This man was dressed somewhat different than the others, and he was apparently on his own. He threw a sword to me. I hesitated and was about to ask a question.

"There's no time for questions," he said, "Just fight!" I had no choice but to fight. And now I was discovering that I had instinctive skills with the sword, too. My skills with the sword proved to be more than the enemies could stand up to. Between the new arrival and me, we quickly took care of things. But this time I hadn't just knocked the enemies out… I had killed them. After the fight was over, I was staring at the dead men, more than a bit disturbed by how easily it had come to me to kill them… I had never killed anyone in my life, and now I had killed two of them… but I'd had no choice… I noticed that the fog had lifted, and the place was no longer creepy… except for the dead people.

"Come on," the man who had helped me said, "We have to get out of here!"

"What the fuck is going on?!" I asked.

"There's no time," he said, "Malum just left… he will surely be back with more everto… we have to get out of here!"

"Malum?" I asked, confused, "Everto? What the…"

"There's no time!" the man insisted, "The Ascendentae will answer all your questions, but you have to come with me! It is no longer safe here!" The man opened a portal and I followed him through… (to be continued)