New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

07/28/13

Tigress in the Springs
I wake up in bed and roll over. I am about to go back to sleep when I realize I am not in my own waterbed. I also notice that even though I have my eyes closed I can see the light is on in the room. I open my eyes and find out that I am in the bedroom of my dreamscape. I recognize the place right away and I sit up in bed. There is a black cat on my bed with me.

The cat comes over to me and purrs softly. I pet the cat for a bit and then get up. I look around the room, almost certain that something strange is going to happen. I'm not sure what I expect… something Templar related most likely. The cat jumps down from the bed and walks across the room to a door. The cat sits beside the door and meows. I open the door and the cat heads down the hall. It is a long hall with no doors on either side. The cat is moving rather quickly and I have to hurry to keep up. The cat reaches the end of the hall and scratches on a door. I go to open the door, but it is locked. The cat meows a bit impatiently. I focus on the door for a bit and then I use the alohomora spell from the Harry Potter books. The door clicks unlocked. I open the door and enter the next room. I recognize this next room from dreamscape as well. It is the living room area where my name is written on the wall. It says "Raven Knight Is Free" in black marker. That doesn't seem like what should be written there… it has changed somehow. I look around the room to find the cat. The black cat is grooming itself on the couch. Is this the destination room? I look back at the graffiti. Now it says "Raven Knight Is Infected" on it. Infected? Infected with what? The writing on the wall morphs. Now it says "Mercer Virus" in block letters. I think about that for a minute, but it seems I already knew that… clear to the point where I have used Prototype abilities in dreams. The writing on the wall morphs again. Now it says "Sometimes the disease is the cure," in fancy cursive writing. The disease is the cure… the Mercer Virus is a cure for something? A cure for what? The writing morphs. It changes to "Raven Was Here" which looks like what it is supposed to be. I hear an insistent meow from the other side of the room. I follow the sound and find the cat beside a staircase. The stairs lead up. I follow the stairs up and into a TV room. The television is a large flat screen, and it is turned on, but there is only static on the screen. This room also looks familiar from the dreamscape. The cat jumps up on a chair and curls up. I look at the television and will it to change channels. The image on the screen changes to show a hot spring. I remember saying I was going to meet Tigress there for healing.

I approach the television and find it is a window I can step through. I step through the television and into the biodome near the hot springs. I look around to see if there is anyone else there. I see Tigress in the hot springs relaxing. I go over near her and focus on the song Voices to heal some pains she has been having. She doesn't seem to notice me. I slip into the healing springs, it is warm and comforting. I sink to the bottom. I look up and I see Winter floating in the water. I swim back up towards her and then float beside her while I focus on Voices again to help her with her fibromyalgia. When I stop swimming I sink back to the bottom. I swim back up towards Winter and finish the song before sinking yet again. I wonder why I keep sinking… but then I wake.
 
Moving Day
I am with my mother and we are driving through Tucson looking for a new house. I have no idea why we are moving, but it seems I periodically have dreams of moving to a new and larger house. We are looking for a rather large home on a large plot of land. We soon spot the house we are looking for up on a hill overlooking the city down below.

We drive up to the home and park in the long curved driveway. The two of us go up to the house and ring the bell. A woman answers the door and lets us in. She is tall, unbelievably tall, and has long golden blonde hair. She is holding an adorable little tortoiseshell kitty cat. I immediately think of Amber. My sweet little Amber. Apparently the woman notices me looking at the kitty because she asks if I want to hold her. I say yes, and she hands me the cat. The cat looks at me and begins to purr as I pet her. I tell the woman about the cat's resemblance to my lost cat Amber. My mom and I start looking around the house, I take the cat with me. She continues to purr. The house is even bigger inside than it looks outside. I finally put the cat down when she begins to wiggle. I look out the back sliding door and I see a pool outside. The view is great, I can see the entire city stretched out below. The air looks surprisingly clear today. My mom is talking to the woman. She is saying we will take the house. As we are leaving my mom tells me that we'll have to spend the night in a hotel because she already sold the old place. I wonder where the dogs and cats are. When I ask my mom she says they'll be fine but doesn't really answer me. She takes me to a hotel and then leaves. I go into my room and find I am not alone there. My ex boyfriend James is there with his new wife Tina. I wonder why I am there with them. There are two rooms connected with a bed in each room. I am to use one of the beds. Annoying, but for one night I can handle it. So I go into one of the rooms and lie down to go to sleep. I hear James and Tina having sex in the other room. Yuck. Not what I wanted to hear. Finally they go silent. Then I feel someone slid into bed with me. What the fuck? I look and see it's Tina. What is she doing here? Did she get pissed at James for poor performance? I am so tired I am about to put up with that when James joins us. What do they want? A threesome? No way! I get out of the bed. I'm going somewhere else. I'd rather sleep in a dumpster. James and Tina get up. James asks me where I'm going. A man enters the room and looks at them. I recognize Alex Mercer from Prototype, but somehow this isn't odd enough to make me do a reality check.

James says my new boyfriend there can join us… Alex looks kind of confused, then pissed off. I have enough time to think he is chronically pissed off before he goes right over to James and calls him a lying sack of shit, throws him on the ground, pounds the shit out of him, and consumes him. Tina rolls her eyes and says James has always been such a wuss when it comes to fighting. Alex looks puzzled and then grabs and consumes Tina. He looks over at me and says they weren't real… there was nothing there. I don't answer, I am too busy staring at a smear of blood on the ground that is all that remains of James and Tina, and I find myself laughing. They weren't real? Maybe they were never real… "I just made you up to hurt myself…" lyrics come to mind, part of the song Only by the Nine Inch Nails, I find myself singing a slightly altered version. "I just made them up to hurt myself, I just made them up to hurt myself… and it worked." Alex is giving me a really strange look when I wake up.

 
DDO Prototype
I am in a green field outside of a walled city. I look around to see where I am and I see there is a gate into the city that is closed tight. I wonder if I will be able to get into the city. I head over to the gate and look to get inside. There is a guard at the gate that looks down and asks who I am. When I don't answer right away he says I don't look like a minion of the Devourer. The Devourer? I am in a virtual reality video game! I look at the city wall, marveling at the graphic detail of this game. My thoughts are distracted when the guard says he can let me in as long as I hurry and give up any weapons when I come in. He says that goes for both of us. Both of us? I turn to look behind me and I see Alex Mercer from the game Prototype. I do a double take at that. He is looking around as if he is not sure where we are any more than I am. So now I have both DDO and Prototype? A virtual reality crossover game! Awesome! I look past Alex at the horizon where I see smoke rising. I ask the guard what that is. He says it is the Devourer encampment. He says he hopes those fires aren't burning the hostages… I ask what hostages. He says that they have taken some villagers as hostages. He says they will burn the hostages alive if they don't hand over the sigil stone… which they can't do… but they don't have the soldiers to get through the enemy forces and reach the hostages. Rescue the hostages. Sounds like that's the quest. I'm not sure what Alex intends to do, but I tell the guard that I'll bring the hostages back. The guard asks if I am crazy. I tell him I'll show him crazy. I look towards the smoke in the air and then head in that direction, taking flight as I go. I hear the guard say, "What in Tarinthia?!" as I get out of earshot. I look down below me and I see Alex is keeping up with me easily and then he pulls ahead. I speed up my flight using energy. Alex comes to a stop just before the land drops into a canyon, I land beside him. The smoke is coming from various camp fires down below. I see an array of enemies camped out there. Quite a few sahuagin gathered around a river that flows through the center of the canyon, which is quite wide.

The enemies on the other side of the river seem to be primarily humans dressed in Devourer robes. I see a cave on the far wall that is quite a ways up the side of the cliff, there are bars on the entrance. I figure they must have the hostages in there. Alex says it doesn't look like there's so many of them and then jumps off the cliff. He glides out over a group of sahuagin and drops lightning down on them. I hear the song Battery by Metallica. The sahuagin are water elementals, and particularly susceptible to lightning… fried sahuagin. I am thinking he just used Battery by Metallica… and that's not normal for Alex Mercer. He lands in the area that the lightning cleared and launches a tendril devastator attack that catches sahuagin in a larger radius and even some of the Devourer minions beyond the sahuagin. Now that's more normal for Alex Mercer. The enemies are just now managing to react to the new arrival, though they don't seem too organized. The enemies have officially been caught with their pants down. I jump out over the canyon, flying, and dropping Damage, Inc. fireballs down on enemies as I go. I land in a burned area where a fireball hit and use Phantom Lord to clear a larger area with a wall of fire. Enemies quickly start closing in again. I wish I could use the tendril devastator right now… but why not? If this mod allows for Alex to use Battery… so without really considering how I to do it I set off a tendril devastator and clear a large area of enemies.

There are far fewer enemies now, and they seem confused as to where the attacks are coming from since they seem to be everywhere at once. I see Alex grab a guy in Devourer minion robes that are fancier than the rest of them, probably one of the higher ups, and consume him. I form a sword with Witchblade and fight off two Devourer minions attacking me with spears. Alex is coming right at me now, he takes off and flies right over my head to land beyond me and head for the far wall of the canyon. He jumps up to the cave entrance where the hostages must be being held. I follow after him, fighting through a couple remaining Devourer minions on my way. When I get there I jump towards the entrance, intending to fly the rest of the way, but I reach the entrance with a jump. The gate to the prison has been pulled off of its hinges and tossed aside. I go into the inner cavern that is lit by torches in the walls. I get there just in time to see Alex push a couple hostages out of the way before grabbing a man and quickly consuming him. WTF? "What'd you do that for?!" I yell over the noise made by surprised hostages. I wonder why Alex is killing hostages. In response to what Alex did the other hostages are now clambering over each other in an attempt to get away making it hard for me to get through to Alex. I finally get through into an area around Alex that is now clear. He starts pushing his way into the crowd as if looking for someone specific. He finally grabs one hostage and drags him out into the open area. It looks like he is going to consume that one, too, so I yell at him to stop it. He stops and gives me a dirty look before throwing the hostage over to me and saying he is a traitor who set these people up to be captured. He says to just consume the bastard then I'll know the truth. I say no, I won't do that. The man says Alex is insane, working for the Devourer. A woman asks if he didn't see what happened to Brindle… then says she thinks Alex actually is the Devourer. Alex is just watching me, seeming not to notice the hostages climbing on each other to get as far away from him as the cavern will allow. I hear someone at the exit yell to stop pushing followed by a scream. Great… the hostages are making like lemmings. I realize I am still holding on to the hostage Alex threw at me. He says I can't possibly believe that insane monster, can I? He says Alex ate Brindle! He's not human! Damn… easily solved. I do a telepathic scan of his mind. I see him leading some people down into the canyon… then it is blocked off by the image of a mind flayer.

The hostages are freaking out… gotta get them out of here. I focus on opening a portal leading to just outside the city gates. It opens. I tell the hostages that is their way home. Being used to magic, no one questions that and they all go through the portal quickly. The man I'm still holding tries to go but I don't let go of him. He tries to pull away but I hold him easily. The portal closes leaving Alex, me, and the one hostage remaining in the cavern. The man says I can't possibly believe that monster over there… I use a quick song spell of Liberate by Disturbed and try to scan his mind again. Maybe the mind flayer was controlling him? This scan produces no more information, just an image of a mind flayer. Of course the few images I had gotten do look a bit incriminating… He tries once more to get free before pulling out a dagger and trying to stab me with it, calling me a fucking bitch and saying the Devourer will rule all. His stab is blocked by Witchblade. When the attack fails he seems to be panicking, though he really just seems to be afraid of Alex. He keeps saying to keep that thing away from him. He then stabs himself with his dagger, apparently preferring to die over being forced to talk. But damn, I wanted to know what had been going on! Without really thinking about it I consume the guy… and find out he had been working for the Devourer willingly, no mind control involved, just simple greed. He and his friend had actually prevented an earlier escape attempt, resulting in three of the hostages being burned alive. Alex says that wasn't so hard. I curse at myself for doing what I said I wouldn't do. Alex asks why I automatically assumed he was lying. I don't know what to say about that. I have to force myself to look into Alex's eyes. It looks like he is somewhat annoyed, but I can also see an inner flame. It seems to be burning pretty bright. That's something I am glad to see. He still wants to know why I assumed he was lying. I still have no answer, then I wake up.

07/25/13

Dark Tower: Save the Beam
I am in a strange place. I look around and see that I am not alone there. I recognize the people there with me. I see Roland of Gilead, Susanna Dean, Jake Chambers, and his little pet Oy all there. It seems to me someone is missing. Oh, yeah! I usually share the Dark Tower dreams with MoSh. So that would make this a dream? Maybe… I do a reality check by pinching my nose and I find I can still breathe. So I focus on opening a portal to find MoSh wherever he may be. The portal opens and I look through to see MoSh is in some kind of a strange mall with seemingly endless numbers of shops on three levels. MoSh is looking intently at one of the shops though I can't tell what the shop is selling. He is about 50 feet away. I call to him, but he doesn't respond. I call to him again and I go to reach through the portal, my thought is to wave to him, to motion him to come closer. Instead my arm turns into a strange tendril that reaches out and wraps around MoSh, pulling him over through the portal and to me.

MoSh looks at the tendril wrapped around him and then at me. The tendril disappears and becomes my arm again as the portal closes. Now everyone is here. I look over at the group, but someone still seems to be missing. Eddie! I go over and ask Roland where Eddie is. He says he's glad MoSh and I have come. He says Eddie got taken by some can-toi into the Devar-Toi. Someone let slip to them that he and the others were planning an ambush. Now they say that Eddie will be killed unless we all surrender. I ask where Eddie is being held. Roland says he doesn't know, they have him hidden to prevent the possibility of a rescue. I tell Roland that I can take Eddie's gun down with me and find him, then signal that he is ok and then they can carry on with their plan. Roland asks how I expect to find Eddie. I tell him I have my ways. I hear a voice from down below. There is a single man out in the middle of an open area speaking with a bullhorn of some kind. He says time is running out. Come out now or our friend will meet a very unpleasant end. MoSh has come over and is looking down at the man talking below. I sneak out of our little hiding place and head down towards one of the few gates that lead into the Devar-Toi. There are two guards outside the gate; both of them are can-toi, who are people who appear to be part rat.

I manage to sneak up behind one of them, as they don't seem to be paying a whole lot of attention. A foul odor wafts from the two people who have the heads of rats. So I try to do a telepathic scan of him, but there doesn't seem to be anything to read. Either there is a telepathic block in place or this guy is the stupidest individual I have ever seen. So I need another way to get this guy's information. I have been playing the game Prototype lately, so my next thought is to do a stealth consume on the can-toi directly in front of me. I am a bit disoriented as I get some new memories, selecting through them to find what I need and not be bothered by the rest of it, some of which I glimpse and find rather disturbing. The other can-toi… Harold is his name… asks me if I'm doing ok. I tell him I'm not feeling well and I have to go inside for a bit. He tells me he wouldn't risk leaving my post if he was me. I ignore him and go through the gate. A couple more can-toi see me as I pass but they don't say anything. Pimli Prentiss is the one in the open area threatening to have Eddie killed. I head straight for him. I hear him talking on the bullhorn before I reach him. He asks them if their friend means nothing to them, because time is… he then sees me approaching me and gets a look on his face like he just spotted something foul under his shoe. Putting the bullhorn aside, he asks me what I mean by coming out here and abandoning my post. He says I will be punished for… but that is all he gets out. He clearly doesn't see me as a threat of any kind, so he doesn't pose any resistance to me walking right up to him and consuming him. I get more memories and now I look like Pimli Prentiss… yuck! I drop the bullhorn on the ground… now I know right where Eddie is. I look up to where I know Roland and the others are hiding and I wave to them, momentarily forgetting that I look like Pimli Prentiss and waving to them makes no sense. I head down the street to a small building and open the door. Inside it looks like nothing more than a store room, and I see Eddie tied up in the back of the room being watched over by a couple more can-toi. Markus, one of the can-toi, asks if it's time to kill the smart mouthed asshole. I tell him the one he should kill is himself. He doesn't seem pleased by that, but he also isn't too surprised since Pimli Prentiss tends to look down on the can-toi. Markus says he just wants to bit Eddie's nose off. Eddie is gagged now, but he looks pissed. I tell the two can-toi to come here, I got something to show them. They look at each other for a bit and then they come closer. I tell them, look what I can do… and transform my right arm into a sharp blade like Alex Mercer does on Prototype.

They stare at that, but they don't seem particularly alarmed since I still look like their ally. One of them asks how I did that… the other one is about to say something when I use the blade to cut them both in half at the waist. They fall down in a spray of blood. I turn the blade back to my arm and change back to my normal form so Eddie will recognize me. Eddie is staring at me in what looks like a state of shock. I go over and untie him and give him his gun with some extra bullets. Eddie asks what the fuck I just did. I tell him there's no time to explain now, Roland is waiting for my signal that he is ok and that it is clear to attack the Devar-toi. Eddie follows me out of the store room and out to the street. Eddie takes cover, I go back to the center of the clear area and grab the bullhorn. I use it to say tell Roland all is clear. I have, of course, been spotted by the guards of the Devar-Toi. I recognize many of them as people Pimli Prentiss or that can-toi I consumed had worked with. But that doesn't matter. There is shooting going on all around, explosions, and soon the place is in total chaos. I have formed my arm back into a blade and am killing enemies with it. I notice I get shot a couple times and it doesn't seem to do anything, which clearly surprises the enemies. I see MoSh shooting several enemies that are approaching behind Eddie. I wonder who would have killed Eddie now that Pimli Prentiss is dead… MoSh is over near me now, shooting enemies. I tell him I'm losing the dream but I think they can handle the rest of these assholes. Everything fades to black as I wake.

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.

07/15/13

The Infection
I am in the sick bay of the tower on the moon. I am there with Janet and Washu. I am talking to Janet. She says she can check to see if I have actually been infected by a foreign virus, just lie down on one of the beds and she will do a scan. Right now my mind isn't particularly clear, so I don't remember what she might be talking about. What virus might I be infected with? Can it be cured? If it can't be cured, what will it do? I go over to one of the beds and lie down on my back while Janet goes over to one of the computers and initiates a scan.

She looks at the scan for a few minutes, reads a couple things on the output, and then looks at a couple graphs of some kind on a different display. She comes back to the bed and looks at me for a bit to be sure I am paying attention. She says it seems I have been infected by an interesting virus. She says it isn't immediately clear what the virus is meant to do, however, because it appears the virus is dying off even as we speak. I ask her how much of the virus is left in my dream body. She says it will be completely gone within another day or two. I ask her if she can tell why it is dying off. She says it looks like my nanites are eliminating it, probably because they are programmed to eliminate anything intrusive, and the virus was identified as intrusive. She asks me if I am actually wanting to keep the virus for some reason. I ask her if it could possibly have a beneficial effect. She says she can't tell without taking a sample and analyzing it for a while. She asks if I know where I got it. My mind is clearing now, and I can remember two possible sources of an intrusive virus. I tell her either it is the Mercer Virus as depicted in Prototype which I obtained directly from Alex Mercer after Witchblade failed to form and block an attack, or the fucking Templars actually found a way to get something past all of my defenses. She says we need to find that out, because if the Templars are coming up with new methods, we have to counter that. I get out of bed and go to one of the portal generators. I focus on locating the specific Alex Mercer that I think might have infected me. The portal opens and I go through. On the other side I am in a room with a couple of people. A woman, Dana Mercer, is sitting at a computer doing something. Alex is behind her looking at the screen.

As I appear Alex turns around and sees me there. He asks where I came from… and for that matter, where did I disappear to last time? I just disappeared into thin air… I say that must mean he has seen me before, which I figure is a good sign… He looks at me strangely and says of course he remembers seeing me before. I feel the dream slipping already, and I want to find out what I came to find out before I wake up. So I ask Alex if he infected me with a virus on my last visit there. He seems to hesitate a bit and then says yes. He seems surprised when I tell him that's a relief. I add that it is far better than the alternative… the idea that the Templars… err… you don't know the Templars here, so I'll just say Gentek since they're really the same people… found a way past my defenses and infected me with something. I tell him there's nothing to worry about, this is a complete non-issue now. A tiny mechanical mosquito lands on Alex and extracts a small sample of virus. He slaps at it and misses. It flies over and lands on my shoulder. I figure it was sent to get a sample for Janet. I tell Dana and Alex I will have to be going. Everything around me fades to black as I wake.

Note: Janet used the sample and ran a comparison, confirming my dream body has been infected with the Mercer Virus. She also confirms that it is quickly dying off and will be gone soon, though she has not identified why it is dying.

07/14/13

Witchblade Epic Fail
I am in a strange place, a city I don't recognize. It looks like the place has been falling apart for some time. I wander through the streets for a bit until I spot someone. I approach him carefully, not sure who he is. When I get close enough I recognize Alex Mercer from Prototype. I don't think much about it being a dream, however. I feel drawn to where Alex came out of. I go into where he came out of, a small area of a collapsed building that is still standing. Inside I find Dana Mercer sitting and staring blankly at a computer monitor.

She doesn't seem to be aware of much that is going on around her. I walk over to her and she is startled by my presence, but then she goes back to he blank stare. I ask her what is wrong, as clearly something is bothering her. She says her brother is dead. I look at her strangely, then I say I'm sure he's not... I just saw him leaving the building. Unless she has more than one brother... She says no, she has one brother... or had one brother is more accurate. She says Alex isn't in there anymore. I find myself falling into my dream role without even realizing consciously that I'm dreaming. I tell her I'm sure he's in there somewhere, someone just has to bring him back. She says he's too sick. I tell her for every sickness there is a healer... and I am a soul healer. I will bring her brother back. She looks over at me, and it looks like there might be some hope in her eyes. She asks if I can really do that. I tell her I have done it before, I will do it again. She says she knows where he is going, he is gathering a lot of the infected there. I tell her I'll be back with him as she knows he should be. She describes how to find Alex and then I leave the building, she follows me. I'm not sure how good an idea that is if the city is crawling with zombies and freaks, but I don't say anything since I haven't seen any zombies or freaks since arriving here. She gives me more detailed directions to find Alex. Soon we arrive in what looks like a large parking lot. There are some wrecked cars around, but it is mostly empty. Alex is in the middle of the parking lot, I'm not sure what he's doing. Dana tells me she isn't sure how he's going to react, but I probably want to keep my distance... and definitely don't let him get a hold on me. I tell her I know perfectly well what he can do, and I am prepared. I touch the Witchblade on my wrist, knowing if I need protection from getting consumed or something the Witchblade will provide it. I head out into the parking lot. Alex seems unaware of my presence until I start the healing song. I use the song Devour by Disturbed. The song is nearing its finale when I get right next to Alex, I want to see his eyes... see if this is doing anything. I faintly hear Dana yelling at me that I'm too close, back away! I ignore her warning and get even closer so I can see his eyes, looking deep into them... I'm sure I see a flame rekindling in there. The song is working fine. Just as it should. I am still looking at that when I feel a sudden sharp pain in my abdomen... I look down and see Alex has formed claws on one hand and stabbed me with them.

He has a weird smile on his face. I sit there and look at the hand that is stabbing me, more surprised than hurt... I feel only a sensation of warmth now... I use a telekinetic force wave to push Alex off of me before continuing to complete the last chorus of the healing song. Alex looks disoriented, Dana comes running over to me and asks if I am ok, then repeats that she told me to keep a safe distance. I tap my Witchblade bracelet and tell it to wake the fuck up, this is one of the rare instances where I call the Witchblade a piece of shit. I notice movement around the edges of the parking lot. Zombies... and lots of them. Without stopping to consider the recent failure I summon up a sword from my Witchblade and it forms a sword and armor immediately. I cut into the advancing zombies to the tune Bodies by Drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor! Alex seems to have gotten past being disoriented quickly and is also taking out zombies using claws on both hands. We are able to keep them away from Dana, and it doesn't take long to dispatch the mindless hoard of zombies. Witchblade forms back into a bracelet. I look at the injury in my abdomen, then at Witchblade with a scowl. I tell the bracelet in an annoyed tone that he had arrived late. Alex is looking at me strangely, he says it never works that fast… I tell him that it didn't work fast… it worked exceptionally slow, tapping on my Witchblade as one might tap on a broken watch. Dana is asking again if I am ok. I feel no pain at all, just a slight coldness around the injury. Alex says there's something he needs to make sure I know about that... I feel I am about to wake up. I tell him not to worry about it, that is surely a complete non-issue considering some of the things that have happened to me in the past when defenses had failed for one reason or another. He starts again to say something but I never hear what it is before I wake up.

07/09/13

Hug-a-Stranger Day
I am at a T intersection of an alley way. The passages extend to my left and right, and the passage in front of me leads to a street that appears deserted. I do not recognize where I am, though it never occurs to me that I might be dreaming. I am still there trying to figure out where I am when a man comes around the corner.

He pauses briefly and looks at me strangely. He seems somehow familiar, but I just can't think of his name or of where I might have seen him before. I notice that he doesn't look too good… he is moving like he has been badly injured and might collapse at any point. I find myself wishing I had my healing powers in my waking life. I feel I would really like to use my healing powers to heal this man even though I can't remember who he is. I hear someone on the main street approaching from the left. It sounds like a lot of someones. I wonder who that might be. Are they the ones responsible for this man's current condition? If so, they almost surely want to finish him off. I figure maybe I can't heal him, but maybe I can help him get to a place to hide until the enemies go away. The man is making his way towards me, so I go over to him and start helping him farther back into the alley. We get near the back of the alley; I stop to look around for someplace to get him out of sight. I hear the people chasing after him getting closer. The man is now standing behind me as I try a door that is partially hidden behind a dumpster. It is unlocked. I wonder if the people behind him could be dumb enough to miss the door. Maybe I could stay outside and misdirect them. I turn around to find the man right in front of me looking at me strangely. He says he really wishes he didn't have to do this but he can't let "them" have their way. I figure he means the people behind him. Then he hugs me. He gives me several firm squeezes and then lets me go. Now he looks puzzled and a bit alarmed. He says something didn't work, and it might be too late, could it be he's just not strong enough now? There's no time to find out what he's talking about or why he hugged me… is this some kind of Hug a Stranger Day? I tell him the door is unlocked, go in, and I'll try to misdirect his pursuers. He hesitates, looking at me strangely one more time before disappearing through the door. The door closes and I get out from behind the dumpster just as a couple men enter the alley. The man in front, who is clearly in charge, says it they almost have the bastard, don't let him get away!

Looking to delay them, I go over and hug the guy in charge. He pushes me away and asks what the fuck I am doing. I tell him I thought it was Hug a Stranger Day since that guy that just went by gave me a big hug. The man laughs, he says that guy wasn't giving me a hug… he was trying to consume me to make himself stronger… though he has no idea why it failed. Consume? My mind is starting to process slowly… The man identifies himself as being with Blackwatch and says it is important that I tell him which way this rogue hugger went. Blackwatch… consuming… wait… I'm dreaming! I do a reality check by pinching my nose and I can still breathe. I point to my right and say he went that way. I say I hope they get that asshole who tried to kill me. They head off in that direction. Of course I now realize the asshole who tried to hug me was Alex Mercer… But I don't feel angry at all, just glad that this means I can use my healing powers… and I love my Witchblade, which I am sure blocked Alex's attempt to consume me. I go to the door and go in, wondering how far Alex might have gotten… He hasn't gone very far. He is sitting on the ground a short ways inside. I wonder what Blackwatch could have done to get him in such a state. So I go over to him, he seems partly conscious and maybe resting, waiting to regenerate. I focus on the song Voices from Macross Plus, using the energy to speed up the healing process. He quickly heals and soon looks like his normal self. He asks what I just did… I tell him I'm a healer, so I used my healing energy. And Blackwatch is out chasing a wild goose… idiotic Templars… He starts to say something about what happened earlier, but I tell him I don't have time to stick around… I'm about to wake up. He looks puzzled at that statement and then I wake.
 
Poke… Poke…
I am walking down a city street in a city I don't recognize, though this doesn't seem strange to me. I am walking when I reach a spot where an alley branches off to the left. There is also a door to a business on each side of the alley. A large dumpster is sitting just inside the alley. For some reason I pause there for a few minutes. As I am trying to figure out where I am going I hear someone behind me yelling for help. I turn and look to see a normal looking man in black slacks and a blue shirt running down the sidewalk. He is pushing people out of his way and asking for help. Everyone he asks for help just turns away, however, clearly not wanting to get in on whatever trouble this man happens to be in. I think that is pretty pathetic, and when the man gets to me I ask what the problem is, is there someone chasing him? He says yes, there is someone chasing him… a mad man… he can't let that man catch him or he will be killed. The man says no, it's worse than being killed… he's heard that the man behind him will eat him alive. I am less inclined to take him seriously now that he's said the man chasing him is a psychopathic cannibal. He must notice the look on my face because he says he is being serious, there has to be somewhere to hide. He says he has to hide, all he needed was for me to not tell that monster behind him where he is hiding. He asks me for a promise, which I give. I promise I won't tell anyone where you hide. After a brief hesitation he says the hot air in the sun-warmed dumpster should help mask his body heat. So now he's also being chased by a predator?

I consider that this man might be on drugs… He goes right over to the dumpster and climbs in. I am standing there watching the dumpster, wondering how long that man intends to stay in the trash, when another man comes down the street in a big hurry. I can clearly see he is neither a monster nor a predator. Of course I can't tell if he might be a cannibal… He looks vaguely familiar but I can't place his name. He is wearing a brown hoodie under a black leather jacket.

Since most bystanders left when the first man was calling for help, I am the only one standing here now. The man who just arrived asks if I saw a man in a blue shirt and black pants come through here. I am not sure what to say. I don't feel at all certain what to do. The man in front of me says the one he's after couldn't have gotten out of sight yet, he wants me to tell him where the man is hiding… I must have seen. I make an effort not to look at the dumpster though I am still uncertain. I ask the man why he is searching for the man hiding. He says he just has a few questions to ask and he thinks that man has some answers. I tell him I can't say, I promised not to. I turn to walk away. When I turn the man grabs me from behind and covers my mouth with one hand and pokes me in my lower back with the other. WTF? So I elbow him in the crotch with my left elbow. That seems totally ineffective, and he pokes me a couple more times. His hold loosens and I use a move I learned in self defense class to spin around and kick him squarely in the crotch as hard as I can. He doesn't seem to care about that, though he does look very puzzled now. I ask what the fuck he's poking me for then I poke him twice in the chest… trying not to show my own bafflement at how the kick to the crotch did nothing. Maybe he doesn't even have balls? A somewhat fat and very smelly man comes out of one of the businesses. He says he can take me somewhere that lowlifes won't bother us. He lurches forward and grabs my breast. I kick him in the balls… he doubles over in pain and throws up. I comment mostly to myself that the technique still works… thus the man who poked me must have no balls. He doesn't seem to care about that statement; he grabs me by my collar and actually lifts me off my feet. I am looking directly in his eyes now, and I would not have any problem believing he is the psychopathic cannibal the first man said he was. I don't remember when I have ever seen someone with such lifeless empty eyes. It was like looking into an abyss, and the abyss was looking back at me. He asks again where the first man went. I tell him fuck off, you piece of trash. But this time I feel my gaze shift towards the dumpster briefly. He sets me down and heads over to the dumpster. I call him an asshole loudly enough for people on the other side of the street to hear. He doesn't even look back at me. He opens the dumpster and looks in, then drags the first man out by his neck. I wonder if I should try to intervene… I wonder if I could do any good, since I still don't realize I'm dreaming. The man in the blue shirt calls for help again, and then I hear him begging the asshole not to do it. I figure he means don't kill him. I head towards the two of them, thinking I can't just stand by if the asshole is going to kill the other man. I stop when the asshole throws the other man on the ground and literally beats him into a bloody pulp. Then the asshole actually absorbs the other man's body into his own body. It is truly disgusting. It looks like Alex Mercer consuming someone in Prototype… wait a minute… I do a reality check by pinching my nose, I can still breathe. It didn't just look like Alex Mercer consuming someone… that's exactly what it was! He takes off and runs up a tall building. I take flight and follow after him. I am already focusing on the song Touch My Heart from the Devil Hunter Yohko soundtrack. I fly up over the top of the building as the song is playing; Alex has stopped and is watching me. The song continues, golden energy surrounds and flows through Alex as usually happens. The song finishes. I want to see if it worked. I want to look at his eyes again and see if there's still nothing there… but I don't get a chance to before I wake.

06/28/13

Dreamscape 2
I wake up in bed and roll over. I am not in my own bed. Something soft and furry is curled up beside me. I reach over and pet it. It responds with a, "Pika!" and a purr. I sit up in the bed and look around. I am back in the bedroom of Dreamscape. I see the black cat sitting on a chair not far from the bed. I get up out of bed and almost trip on the Buddha statue that is sitting on the floor. I curse myself silently for forgetting it. I see there is a journal on the floor near the statue. The cat on the chair meows. I go over to the cat and pet it. The cat begins to purr. There is a knock on the door to the room. I go over to the door and ask who's there. For a minute there is no answer… and then finally someone says that he is my neighbor coming for a visit. I think he is probably a Templar. I don't really want to let a Templar inside my Dreamscape. There is another knock at the door. It is getting a bit more impatient. I think about it for a bit longer, thinking there was some reason I wanted to let them in but I am not able to remember why I would do that. They are pounding on the door now. I finally decide to follow my instinct. I open the door and get out of the way. Two Templars practically tumble into the room. They turn around and look at me. One of them looks around the room and asks if this is where I have been hiding the artifacts. I ask them what they want here. One of them looks back over at me. Before anyone can answer, however, I see another person enter through the door which I had not bothered closing. I look over at the new arrival and recognize him as Alex Mercer from the Prototype game.

I do a double take at that… Great… now my Dreamscape is infested with Templars and a viral shape-shifter. One of the Templars asks Alex who he is. The other one says he has a proposal for me, one he hopes I will not refuse. The Templar talking to Alex tells Alex to get lost, this is not his concern, and pushes him towards the door. I tell the Templar that he really doesn't want to piss Alex off. He asks what Alex is going to do about it? Fight him? Huh? Wanna fight? He says he'll kick Alex's ass right out the… He is interrupted when Alex grabs him and quite quickly consumes him. The Templar talking to me has continued talking, but I have not been listening. He stops now and stares at Alex, saying, "What the fuck?!" He takes a couple steps away from Alex, but he doesn't move quickly enough to avoid getting grabbed by Alex. All he gets out is, "Oh, shit…" before he, too, is consumed. Alex is just standing there looking at me, and all that comes to mind to say is that was truly disgusting as I look at the bloody mess on the floor of my Dreamscape bedroom. I go over to the door and look out, calling out to ask if anyone else wants to come on in. No? Good. I close the door. I turn around to find I'm looking directly at Alex… and he is holding the black cat. I do a double take at that and then head towards the other side of the room. Alex says something about Abstergo being associated with Gentek… I comment a Templar by any other name is still a fucking Templar. I look around and see the door that leads to the hallway on the Dreamscape website.

I go through that door and see it leads to a long hallway that has no doors on either side. I head down the hall, Alex follows me. The black cat jumps from his arms and runs down the hall at top speed. I wonder if the cat is leading me somewhere. I think that if he is, he needs to slow down a bit. I hurry faster to follow the cat. Alex stays right with me. I glance over at him, wondering what he is after, but then I wake up.

Plans: I didn't have any specific plans for tonight, though I was rather expecting a DDO based dream since I have been playing a lot of DDO lately… My main goal is still to have more consistent recall, as that has been very unpredictable lately. I have some recall from last night, and here it is.

Hell Is For Children
I am in a dungeon like the kind that is found in the online game DDO, Dungeons and Dragons Online. I am there looking for some prisoners, a woman in a nearby town has told me that the kobolds have kidnapped several children and are holding them captive in these very caves. Of all weird things, I have a log book in my pocket and I am able to look back over the goals I have for this quest. Find and rescue all of the children, 5 left. Kill Sagun Krent, who is apparently one of the leaders of the kobolds. Kill Darren Drexel, who is a human traitor, and apparently helped the kobolds get hold of the children in the first place. Destroy the kobold dungeon (optional) is on the end of the list. Ok, so now that I have the goals memorized, I put the log in my pocket and form Witchblade into a sword and armor. The dungeon is pretty basic, there are quite a few kobolds guarding the place, and also quite a few barrels and crates to smash, I am finding a decent amount of money. I find a locked door quite a ways in, and the kobold guarding the door has the key, so I kill that kobold and go into the main prison area. There are a few more kobolds there, I kill them, and then use some thieves tools I have on me to pick the locks to the prison cells that each have a child in them. Four children. One left. I have two girls and two boys with me, they all grab daggers from a pile of weapons stashed in the corner, not wanting to be defenseless. We look for fifth child. There is a torture room, the girl is naked and chained to a table with a kobold on top of her, forcing himself on her. Before I can act, the other four children swarm the kobold, stabbing it with their daggers, it falls off the girl and bleeds to death. Pick the locks on the girl's chains, find some rags to use as temporary clothing, she is more traumatized than the others. On the way out Sagun Krent blocks our exit. I fight him, the traitor Darren Drexel tries to grab the kids, the four stab him to death. The one girl is huddled on the floor. I kill Sagun Krent. All mandatory tasks complete. Now I can recall… no recall button? Of course not! This isn't a game! Kids and I make our way out, killing a few lingering kobolds on the way. I notice some barrels of explosives near the entrance, convenient, so once we're all outside, I detonate them with an energy ball, and the entrance to the cave collapses. All goals complete. I lead the kids back to the town, I use a healing spell on the one girl to help her overcome her trauma. Parents are thrilled to see their kids, want to give me rewards, but I wake up


One Woman Army
I am in the town of Korthos from DDO, and everyone is in a state of panic. I ask someone what is going on, he says the city is about to be overrun by devourer servants… not on my watch! I go to the front gate where there are a few warriors trying to hold the gates, there are many enemies just outside it. I say I will fight, they say it's too late, and they can't open the gates, they need to give the people a chance to escape. I jump over the gate and I am now facing a huge group of surprised enemies, that seem to be made up of sahuagin, various classes of human devourer minions, kobolds, zombies, and skeletons. What a nice mix. I use an Alex Mercer archetype and form my arms both into his sword blades and charge directly into the group, cutting enemies down as I charge through them, they are momentarily too surprised to respond much, this is totally unexpected. I am in the middle of the group now and I use a tendril barrage devastator attack and send razor sharp tendrils through all of the enemies anywhere near me, huge numbers of enemies of all kinds are killed by this. Now the ones who had been ready to attack are being killed before their attacks can actually land, others are just trying to get out of the path of my attacks. It's the devourer forces who are now panicking, they hadn't realized that many of them could be killed that quickly, so many of them are running away, the leaders are getting pissed and saying it's only one person, kill her, you cowards. There is one leader each, a devourer priest, a sahuagin priestess, a kobold chief, and a necromancer that is of a race I don't recognize. The human priest is closest, so I form one hand into an Alex Mercer claw and crush his neck to shut him up. I use a tendril from my left hand to pull the sahuagin priestess to me and then cut her in two with a blade formed of my right hand. I charge at the kobold chief and knock him to the ground, then impale him there with three tendrils… the necromancer is running, leaving undead to guard his back. I use a variant of Alex Mercer's ground spike attack, sending biomass into the ground that erupts through the ranks of the undead in a wave that keeps going until it catches up with and impales the necromancer. Except for the undead, the enemies are fleeing… cowards… disorganized, fleeing into the hills and surrounding wilderness. I use the blade to cut through the remaining undead, and soon all that remains outside the Korthos gate is a lot of dead bodies and blood. Two stunned Korthos guards are looking out of the gate, gaping at me, one of them says, "What the fuck are you?"

Note: When I fell asleep tonight, I was feeling like shit… that tends to happen when I keep having it shoved into my face that people I thought were friends really place absolutely no value on me at all… so I was pissed off and depressed at the same time, which was making my dark energy go quite unstable, and I had to get rid of that issue… so my WILD was used on getting rid of that unstable dark energy on the most readily available target, the Templars.

I was in a long hallway, and I was lucid, and I also had a good idea of where I was. I was right where I had intended to be, which was in one of the many hidden templar bases on the astral and dream planes. I wasn't feeling any better now than I had been when I had fallen asleep, my energy was no more stable than then… and yet I didn't really feel like I was in danger of losing control. I knew where I was, I knew who I wanted to direct my unstable energy at, and I had no urge to direct it anywhere else or at anyone else. I wasn't even feeling like I would rather be directing it at the people who had caused me to go unstable in the first place. While it seemed to me that the instability of my dark energy was a bad sign, it also seemed to me that the fact I felt in control of how I released it was a good thing, a sign of progress…

So now I walked down the hallway, I was still feeling angry and unstable and a bunch of other things, but it wouldn't be long before I found a target… and there was a target on their way to meet me now! I saw a Templar walking down the hallway towards me, he didn't look like one of the soldiers, he was dressed in white clothing with the red Templar symbol on it. He looked up and saw me there in the hall, and he looked quite surprised to see me. He walked quickly up to me and asked me who I was, he demanded to know what I was doing there. I decided I would act even crazier than I felt, I thought his reaction might be amusing, so I grabbed the surprised Templar by the collar and demanded to know why he was wanting to write me off like some piece of shit… he looked at me with a very confused look, said he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, so I got mad at him for pretending he didn't even know who I was. I said he knew exactly who I am, and he had better show some respect, because I am worth over twenty of him, the worthless sack of pathetic shit that he is… He told me he didn't care who I was, and I had better get out of the restricted area before I found myself confined to a nightmare where a vulture was perpetually pecking… I said I didn't need a nightmare, looking at his face was a nightmare, of course that must make it a horrible nightmare to have to look at that face every time he passes a mirror. He was mad now, and upset, and a few other things that made him look very comical, he went to the wall and pulled a lever that activated an alarm. I had seen him going for it, and allowed it, because I wanted a bunch of Templars to kill.

I didn't have long to wait, I could hear the approaching Templars, I decided to go with my Alex Mercer archetype, sometimes that can be very amusing, so before they could arrive I grabbed the Templar who had pulled the alarm and consumed him, taking his energy and his form. Shortly after a group of Templars came from both directions, surrounding me in the hall, but of course they didn't recognize that I wasn't one of them. They all began looking around in a confused manner, asking me where the intruder had gone, what was with the alarm, and a bunch of other questions they weren't giving me a chance to answer. I decided to continue picking off Templars for as long as I could get away with it, by getting behind them and using the stealth consume that I have seen Alex Mercer doing on the game. I managed to consume five Templars before I got sloppy and let one of them see me. Oh, well, I was getting tired of the covert thing anyway, so now I formed my right arm into Alex Mercer's arm sword, and started cutting through Templars with it. My Witchblade armor blocked their attacks from getting through. Of course everything that was going on got the attention of still more Templars, who were coming and attacking from both directions in the hall.

As I was slicing through Templars, I was making my way slowly through the base until I found myself in a large intersection that looked like one of the central parts of the base, or at least that's how it felt. I thought this was a good place to make the final release of all the unstable energy I had left inside me. I decided to ditch the Alex Mercer archetype, so I focused every bit of unstable dark energy I had right now into one spell, and released an Immortal Fire of epic proportions, and there was a blast of dark flames extending outward from me in all directions, a huge explosion. After the blast was finally over, and the dust finally settled, there was no sign of the base any longer, in fact I was standing in a large crater where the Templar base had been just a short time ago… And I felt drained, like so much of my energy had just up and left me, but at the same time I felt a lot more stable. I did a scan on myself, examining the dark energy inside me to see what was there, it was all stable, and it was all of my own frequency… excellent… except for a tiny part… wtf? I examined the part that was not my own frequency… had someone infected me with something? Is that why I had gone unstable? I examined it closer, I was focused on that, and I finally recognized the frequency… it was Walms' What was that doing there?! Well, it didn't seem to be harming anything… I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked over there to see who was watching, but in that instant whoever it was disappeared. I didn't get a chance to see. Who the fuck was that?! I was trying to figure that out when I woke…

Tigress then said there was more fun to be had, she said if these guys liked forced fighting so much, let's see how they do. She said she proposed a tournament, they would be fighting for their lives, and she chuckled evilly. I felt like I was losing the dream, I tried Allura's time dilation, and since it was technically a new dream I was able to stabilize the dream so it would continue…

Since Tigress seemed to know where she wanted to go, neither Nomad nor I interfered when she summoned up a stargate and used a small remote to dial up a destination. The stargate opened, I commented it was cool, and then we went through it. On the other side we were in a neighborhood that was actually rather nice. Tigress said there were still gangs in the area, just that these ones have more expensive toys… and purebred fighting dogs. That made me mad that they were using dogs like that, and it made me want to kick someone's ass. Tigress said she had other plans, though, it would start with the rescuing of the dogs and then continue to the fun part. The area was clearly divided by a river running through town, as were the territories of the two gangs.

The gang members weren't making any effort to keep a low profile, either. They displayed their colors proudly, driving through the street in tricked out cars blasting their music everywhere. I spotted one of them that looked like he was in charge, and went right up to him and asked if he was the one in charge around here. He asked what if he was, I said I had some product I was interested in unloading, but only to the guy in charge, I didn't want to deal with someone too low on the pecking order to make any decisions. He eyed me suspiciously, then apparently decided that he wasn't in any danger from a girl, and came with me. He said he would have to see my product first. I saw he had a gun tucked into his waistband of his jeans that he was fingering.

I led him back into an alley, he looked around and said the product had better be really impressive or he was going to put a slug in me right here. I said there was no product. He looked at me like he thought I was nuts, he called me a filthy cunt, and fired his gun at me. The bullet hit me right in the chest… and right in the Witchblade as it instantly formed, he did a double take at the fact the gun had proven useless. I walked right over to him and consumed him before he realized what was happening. Now having his form, I returned to the car and his buddies, I leaned on the door and peered inside, one of them, Johnny, asked what had just happened. I said that bitch had been playing games with me, so I'd plugged her. I told them to go ahead and go, I had to take care of things, make sure the right person was blamed for this killing. They drove off, though they looked a bit confused about the whole situation.

Tigress and Nomad came over to me, they both said they could recognize my energy, I said I wasn't hiding it. I said I knew where their kennel was, so we could go take their dogs. All three of us went to the kennel, there were a few gang members there but none of them questioned anything much since I looked like Marko and I said the others were new to the area, new initiates. One of them told me that the dogs for noobs were in the kennel on the right. Nomad said he wanted a really mean one. We went into the kennel, and while Tigress and Nomad teleported pit bulls and other assorted dogs back to my inner world I spray painted the tags of the opposing gang all over the kennel so it would look like their rivals had been there and taken the dogs. We even left a taunting note, issuing a challenge to take place on the main bridge between the two neighborhoods.

So now we just had to repeat that process on the other side of the river, and it went just as smoothly over there, even smoother… because when one of the higher ups of that gang saw me he came to challenge me himself, so it was easy to consume him. Finding their kennel and stealing their dogs went easily, and now we left another challenge letter and there was nothing to be done but wait at the bridge. I was scanning activity on both sides of the river, and soon some centralized movement formed. There was a growing group of people heading towards the bridge, the gangs were gathering together on both sides and approaching the meeting place, no doubt all very pissed off at the other gang and looking for some serious revenge. It wasn't long before they started arriving. I took my normal form, as I didn't want to be identified as being with either of the two gangs, and they met in the middle with murderous intent.

The one group, called themselves the Black Flames, asked the other group, calling themselves Blood Dragons, where their dogs were. The leader of the Black Flames, Jack, said he had no idea how they had gotten the dogs, but the Blood Dragons had better return them or it was going to get ugly. Stefan, the leader of the Blood Dragons, said they hadn't stolen the Black Flames' worthless mutts, and he wanted the Blood Dragons' dogs back immediately. Everyone there was getting both confused and angry, not sure who was telling the truth since both groups were adamantly denying involvement in the dog theft while just as adamantly accusing the other group. I stepped out between the groups, they looked at me as if I was mad, I asked if they had considered that neither of their gangs were responsible for the disappearance of the dogs. Jack asked what I was talking about, talk before dying, Stefan agreed, it was most likely the first time they had ever agreed on anything… Nomad said they were mistaken by blaming each other, Tigress said yeah, it was us who had stolen the dogs, and those dogs were now somewhere safe from the abuse they had been subjected to. Stefan said he knew an animal rights activist when he saw one, now we would be dog food for those poor innocent puppy dogs. Tigress said she had the perfect idea now, and we were all teleported…

To the middle of a Roman type coliseum where gladiators of old fought epic battles to prove who was the strongest and the most skilled in the land. Now the coliseum was full of assholes and the three of us, we teleported to the best seat in the place which would be reserved for royalty. All of the gangsters down below were really confused and disoriented, they were looking around. So now Tigress got up and told all of them the rules. They would fight to the death, and the one survivor would be allowed to leave the coliseum alive. They didn't have any problems fighting, so they fought. Black Flames vs. Blood Dragons, there was a lot of violence, knives cutting, guns shooting, fists flying, any weapons they had on them for the fight at the bridge were being used here. After a brief but brutal fight, there were seven Blood Dragons left, including Stefan.

Stefan said they had won, so let them out now. I said no, it wasn't over until there was only one survivor. They didn't want to fight each other. So we turned up the heat, literally. Now the Blood Dragons down there were bitching about the heat, about how it was unbearable, they were also getting cranky due to the heat. Really cranky… until a fight broke out, some of them still wanted to work together, others wanted to fight, a couple thought they were going to die due to the heat soon. Stefan tried to break up a fight between two of them, but was cranky himself… he got carried away and killed one of them, now they all got into a free-for-all, it ended when Stefan had the last of his pals pinned to the ground, he had a knife at the other guy's throat… The guy was pleading, "Don't do it, it's me, Richard, your brother!" Stefan said only one of them could leave, and he buried the knife in Richard's neck, Richard died with a last gurgling breath. Stefan stood up and looked at us, he was a bit cut and bruised, covered in blood that was mostly not his, and he said he was the winner, let him out. Tigress said of course. I didn't want to, Tigress said we had to keep our word… An exit opened and Stefan limped through it. All I heard was Stefan's screaming, and that was cut off by a bunch of barking and growling and snarling, I barely heard Tigress beside me, "Just beware of the dogs…" She laughed.

Back at the door Stefan had left through, several pit bulls came into the arena. Tigress said they had wanted a little payback. She said they were ready to go join all of the other dogs now. I wondered how many dogs total we had brought home tonight… it seemed like a lot of them. I was thinking that as everything faded and I woke.

Note: I found out from Tigress that there are some gangs that are running dog fighting rings, which involves all of the abuse, cruelty, and violence of any other dog fighting ring. The goal I had in mind was to kick their asses so they would never be able to abuse another dog again. I had this in mind as I slipped into a WILD.

I was in a city, it looked like the bad part of town, there was graffiti all over the walls and a lot of the buildings were in disrepair. I went looking around, I remembered why I was there. There must be some gang members somewhere in the area. I headed down an alley near my location, the alley seemed to be between two abandoned buildings. There was a door on the left, and a young man standing in front of the door. There was a pit bull dog sitting beside the man, the dog had a large chain around its neck. As soon as he heard me approaching, the dog started barking loudly and pulling at his chain, trying to get to me, the young man with him was urging him to attack me. He unchained the dog, and it came over and jumped on me, I telepathically spoke to the dog and told him I was a friend. The dog, though he looked like he was going to bite my face off, instead he licked my face in a big, sloppy dog kiss. I pushed the dog off of me, he sat there and looked at me with such a cute doggy look on his face… it made me want to pet him, which I did. I commented to the man there that he had such a cute dog. He was annoyed, though, he said his dog was supposed to be mean, he was supposed to be bad, strong! He came over and kicked the dog hard. That pissed me off. I told him he had just made a big mistake. He laughed at me, he said there was nothing I could do about it. I was about to zap him with a bolt of lightning, but I got an idea to find out where the others… and all the dogs… the method Alex Mercer used to find out something from his enemies… which is to consume them, so I absorbed the asshole completely, he barely got off a shocked scream before it was done.

Ok, so now I had the memories of the asshole, many of which made me rather nauseated, and I also knew where there were several more of the gang members, as well as where some of the dogs were locked in cages, cages much too small for that size a dog… I also had the form of the asshole I had just consumed, it was working just like it had in Prototype. I went into the abandoned building where there were three more dogs locked up in one room, and a couple more gang members there. One of them greeted me by the asshole's name, which was apparently Butch, and he gave me a high five, but then asked what was wrong with me… I said there was nothing wrong with me, but there was about to be something wrong with him… so I consumed him, and released the three dogs from their cages. With a total of four dogs, I found the third gang member in the building, he ended up facing the same fate as the other two assholes. From the third one I had discovered a valuable piece of information, the rest of the gang members were meeting in an abandoned lot to train their dogs… in other words, they were meeting there to force the dogs to fight. Well, it wasn't going to happen. I went directly to the site, where there were several more guys there and two girls, all of them had dogs and were near a fighting ring. There was a lot of talk about whose dog was stronger, who would win, bets being placed.

One of them looked over at me, called me Markus, and asked me what I was doing with Butch's and Craig's dogs? I said Butch and Craig didn't mind me taking them. He looked at me suspiciously, I glanced around to be sure no one was looking, and consumed him. One of the girls looked over at me, did a quick double take, and then came over. She asked what Wyatt had been doing with those extra dogs, she asked where Wyatt had gone without the dogs… well, never mind. She always had thought Wyatt was rather creepy. She was apparently this asshole's girlfriend, she got close and tried to kiss me, so I consumed her, and no one seemed to notice. One of the other guys came over and looked puzzled, he asked where Chris had gone. I told him Chris had gone to find Wyatt, who had shown up with like four dogs… The guy said he had never trusted that Wyatt… He told me we had better go find Wyatt before he did something stupid. I followed this guy around a corner… consumed him. Then the others in the group there, although it didn't go entirely unnoticed, the last two guys tried to escape and I had to pull them back with tendrils… from what these people knew, there were two more left who were selling drugs on the corner of fifth and main. I went directly there, there was one of them on the corner in a large coat, he told me to hold on, he was selling as well as he could. I told him I wasn't going to complain about that… after dealing with him, I found the last member of the gang in the alley nearby, he had a knife at the neck of a young woman and his pants down, he was in the middle of raping her! He never even saw me before I consumed him… the woman he was attacking was staring at me with wide eyes, then she ran down the alley as if I was about to attack her.

I was now in the alley, looking like an asshole, surrounded by a total of 11 dogs, most of them were pit bulls, though there were a couple of mutts that I didn't recognize the breed. I had telepathically spoken with all of them, and they were all looking at me with the tails wagging… I spent some time petting each dog, healing the ones who had injuries, but I was sure I would wake up soon. I wasn't ready, so I used Allura's time dilation method, there was still more to do here, but I will continue that in the next dream…

Note: For the past several nights I have wanted to view the dream Walms said I had where I fought Xildron. So far I have not had any luck doing this, or at least not any luck recalling it. This night was different, though, I do recall viewing the dream and it was, indeed, an epic dream.

I was in my own living room sitting in the seat on the couch I always use typing away on my laptop. I was working on a homework assignment, but I needed to draw something… I wanted to get my drawing done on the computer, but I wasn't sure how to go about that. I was trying to draw with the mouse in a graphic program that looked sort of like MS Paint but had more features, like a stripped down version of Photoshop… I wasn't getting anything done at all. I sat there and pondered for a bit longer until I had an idea. I clicked on the screen and I got a popup saying I should buy medication to make my penis bigger… um… no need for that. I closed it and got two more popups… One for Viagra and one for breast implants… closed them. There were immediately more popups… 5 of them. First came, "Discover great sex!" The second said, "Run your own business from home!" The third said, "Erectile dysfunction is a thing of the past!" The next one said, "Are you suffering from ED?" Finally came, "Make your penis two times larger!" I was about to close those when I saw that with the order they had appeared, one on top of the others, only the first letter of each title was visible… D-R-E-A-M! My computer was trying to tell me something! I was dreaming? I did a RC and became lucid.

Ok… this was cool. I was in a lucid. Now to remember my goals. The first goal I remembered was to view the dream Walms told me about where I fought Xildron. I already had my computer on, so this would be easy. I logged onto my dream records on my computer and searched for the Xildron dream. Having found it, I double clicked it and selected to view the holo-record. This was going to be cool! The hologram played, I saw the dream from the perspective I had when I was dreaming it… the only thing was that it was a recording, so even if I thought I had made a dumb move, I was unable to do anything but watch the events unfold. Since I knew nothing serious had gone wrong, I relaxed and went with the flow of the dream.

At the beginning of the dream I was wanting to find Xildron, and I also remembered that Pablo had said maybe he could help with the tracking. I wasn't sure if that was true, but there is nothing to be lost by trying it that way at least once, so I opened a portal to Pablo's inner world. I stepped into a forest and found myself pounced on by a cute fox that clearly wanted to play. I called him Pablo and said I was there because he had said he could help me find Xildron, which was something I definitely wanted to do. The fox looked at me for a bit as if not understanding what I had said, then he looked disappointed, then he turned into his human form. He said I didn't seem to want to have any fun. I told him if he wanted, I could come back in a future dream for fun, but right now I wanted to find Xildron. I focused on opening a portal, directing the portal to track down Xildron as best as I could. It looked like Pablo was also focusing on something, though I couldn't tell on what. Finally a portal opened. I remembered being hit in the face by an energy blast last time I had tried to track Xildron, so I directed the portal a short distance away so I could get through it without being seen immediately. I thanked Pablo, told him he might want to stay there in his inner world for his own safety, while he couldn't be hurt in a dream, that didn't necessarily make it fun to get blasted to dust.

I went through the portal and emerged on what looked like a moon of some kind. I could see a planet in the sky, the planet looked similar to Earth but it had a ring around it. I looked around on the surface of the moon and wondered if Xildron was there. I scanned for energy sources and spotted one, so I followed the energy. I found someone in one of the large craters, I wasn't sure what he was doing, so I got closer to him to see if he was the one I was looking for. He physically matched the description Walms had given me. When I got a bit closer he turned suddenly and fired a blast of flames at me, apparently attacking before he could even know who was behind him. I used Whiplash to send the blast back at him, he absorbed the energy back and sent it back at me again. I formed Witchblade into armor to protect myself from the blast… or I tried to do that, but nothing happened. I looked at my wrist and saw there was no bracelet there, the bracelet that is my Witchblade was missing. How could it be missing when I never take it off? The blast of flames was strong enough to send me flying clear off of the moon and into space, in the direction of the planet with the man following after me.

I turned around to head back to the moon, but the man, who I had decided very well might be Xildron, was blocking my way with a wall of flames. Apparently he wasn't going to cooperate with a healing spell, I would have to get rid of some of his energy first, so I focused on the song Enter Sandman. The spirals of dark and light energy formed around Xildron, creating a large explosion contained in the center. There was another explosion around Xildron that cancelled out the explosion from Enter Sandman… I tried the more powerful version of Enter Sandman, which involves inserting a tiny piece of antimatter type energy in the center of the explosion, about the size of a grain of sand, but none the less it is enough to intensify the explosion formed there. So now the spirals of light and dark energy formed, I threw the grain of antimatter energy into the center of the exchange… normally I would get antimatter energy from Witchblade so I'm not really sure where I got the energy… and there was a much larger explosion.

This explosion clearly had an effect on Xildron, it pissed him off. He absorbed both the dark and the light energy from the Enter Sandman spell and came out of the explosion, tackling me and we shot through space towards the planet. It was clearly a live planet, I didn't want to fight on a live planet, so I opened a portal in our path that would take us to a place where it would be safe to fight without having to think about possible collateral damage.

Xildron and I fell out of the portal onto a barren planet, in a huge canyon with some impressive rock formations but no sign of life. It was too bad that we might destroy the rock formations, but at least there was no life on the planet that could get caught up in our fight. Now that there was no other living thing in the area I switched tactics to use Crush 'Em by Megadeth since apparently Xildron would absorb either dark or light energy, Crush 'Em creates a gravity based attack. The first wave of gravity pushed Xildron into a large crater, which seemed to surprised him a bit although it didn't seem to hurt him much. He was instantly came at me again, I sent another pair of gravity blasts at him… the first one pushed him against the canyon wall, the second one was from above and pushed him down into a large crater. He was going to come at me again, but I kept the waves of gravity coming… "Now I lay you down to rest, you'll never be more than second best, step inside, you're in for a ride, and we crush, crush 'em!" After a large number of the gravity blasts had pounded him into a rather deep crater I looked in and it seemed he was a bit disoriented. Maybe now would be a good chance for a healing spell…

I got closer to where Xildron was, he was just getting up and glared over at me, but by now I had already started the healing song I had chosen which was Silver and Cold by AFI. The song was having the effect of pulling off some of his unstable dark energy and replacing it with stable dark energy since I was certain his base energy type was dark. It looked like he was about to attack me when the stable energy started being returned to him, and then he stopped with a really puzzled look on his face. Did that mean it was working? It must mean it was working, he had definitely noticed something in the energy that was returning to him. I continued with the song, focusing a bit on stabilizing the dark energy I was absorbing, and the song was just about over when Xildron got a pissed off look on his face. He came directly in front of me and glared directly into my eyes, the healing spell had not done enough… there was still a lot of hate in there… he said he would know that energy anywhere. He said my mission to kill him would fail, he would send me back to the fool who had sent me… send me back in pieces. He grabbed hold of my left arm and powered up a blast of energy he had aimed at my face.

Ok, so apparently he still wanted to fight more and I was still up a creek without a Witchblade, so I decided to go the other way and use the dark energy to follow the Alex Mercer (from the game Prototype) archetypes I have developed in my mind… I used the dark energy and formed my right arm into Mercer's sword blade. I cut at his arm that was holding on to me, and he quickly released me when he was cut by the blade. So now we engaged in an intense and fast paced battle where he was using an array of physical and energy attacks and I was using the full arsenal of Alex Mercer attacks as well the armor Alex Mercer used in Prototype, the armor was hopefully going to replace the missing Witchblade armor. During this battle, however, neither of us seemed to be able to get the upper hand. I was glad I have been speed training with Vegeta or I probably couldn't have kept up! While I was mentally thanking Vegeta I must have let my guard down just a bit because I got hit by a large blast of energy and knocked into the wall, closely followed by Xildron, who was now demanding to know why… I felt Xildron probing my mind and I quickly blocked him out, but he had gotten a small piece of information… Xildron wanted to know why Walms had sent me to do his dirty work instead of coming to face Xildron himself. He called Walms a coward and said he would have to teach dear old dad a lesson.

Xildron was hesitating, apparently wanting some answers out of me which I had no intention of giving. I barely noticed that my energy was getting a bit unstable from the unstable energy I had absorbed from Xildron and from the fighting with so much dark energy that I'm not completely used to… Xildron was demanding that I say something… so I did, but it wasn't what he wanted to hear. "Suddenly, the unreal silence was broken by a lament, a lament coming up from the deepest darkest abyss…" He asked what the fuck I was talking about, clearly confused by that seemingly random statement, "And from the seven gates of the dark fortress, the dead come back to life to face you… this is Hell!" Xildron gave me a look of anger and frustration, not expecting the effect of the spell he had willingly given me time to set up without interference… "Immortal fire, now rise, light my heart, light my way through the darkness, a guardian of space and time!"

A massive wall of energy erupted around Xildron and me, which took him by surprise. I guided the energy on a path to center in on Xildron, but it wasn't entirely stable… there was both dark and light energy in the wall of flames, they were mixing with each other and becoming even more unstable… instead of centering in on Xildron, the flames concentrated in the area all around Xildron, which included where I was, I had just been blasted by my own energy attack, how lame is that? I tried to get out of the path of my own immortal fire spell, I ended up right in front of Xildron. He said he would send me back to his father in pieces, my mission had failed. A portal opened behind me and Xildron absorbed some of the immortal fire energy and used it to push me through the portal, which closed behind me.

I was now in the air over a green forest, although I felt more like passing out than flying, It is extremely draining to release a large amount of energy and then get nailed by that same attack. I flew for a bit, and then felt that I was falling, but someone grabbed hold of me and took me in for a landing. I looked to see who it was and I saw it was Walms. Xildron had said he was going to send me to Walms, and he had done just that. I wondered how much energy Xildron had left, had he been able to absorb all of what I had put into the immortal fire spell? Was he still strong and ready to go or was he also about to pass out after that fight? I had no way of knowing.

I was trying to tell Walms that Xildron was coming and he was pissed, but I didn't seem able to make Walms hear me. He looked rather pissed off… was he mad at me? For starting a fight with Xildron? Whether he was mad at me or not, he was healing me, I could feel the icy cold of his stable dark energy flowing through me, I felt some better from that. I told him to be careful, Xildron was pissed. I saw no one had followed me through into Walms' world, there was a kid there… maybe Xildron wasn't in any condition to come through and get pissed at Walms right now. Maybe the fight had taken more out of him than he had let on. No matter what the reason, he had not followed me through the portal. Walms was saying something I couldn't understand, but then I was teleported and found I was in my own bed. I was still tired, I thought I had just woken up. I should take notes on the Xildron fight, but I couldn't find the energy to sit up and write the stuff down, so instead I just fell back asleep again. By the time I woke in the morning I had completely forgotten the dream.

The hologram viewing ended when I woke up, and I was on my couch with my computer. I was thinking it had been foolish to use an immortal fire when my energy was that unstable, of course that would lead to a highly unstable immortal fire spell which would be nearly impossible to control properly. Maybe if I put it together with Crush 'Em the gravity could pull the full force of the immortal fire to one target with more accuracy… maybe if I… but I didn't have time to ponder other ideas before I woke.