New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

01/04/12

Note: Three days running… and this time I have more than one dream to post… yay! Of course part of the reason there are multiple dreams is because I have a cold right now, and that caused me to wake up more than I normally do.

Woman's Best Friend
I am in my own house, and I know there is something I want to do before I do anything else in dreams tonight. My dog, Thor, has been diagnosed with a melanoma in his mouth, which my mom says she thinks is getting bigger. He has an appointment with the vet tomorrow, so I want to take the chance to do a little healing on him. I leave my bedroom and find the dog in my mother's room, he is lying on the bed sleeping. I take his head in my hands, one hand on each side, looking into his big brown eyes. I sing the song "Voices" from the Macross Plus soundtrack while focusing healing energy into Thor.

Fly Me to the Moon
I am on the moon, on the green moon, everything looks more like it would on Earth. The moon has been terraformed. I see the Earth shining brightly in the sky, it is beautiful. Nomad is there with me, I go over to him, is it really him? It seems like it has been forever since I've had a confirmed shared dream... I go over to Nomad and say hello to him, I happen to think of him saying he has been having problems with carpel tunnel syndrome lately. I take both of his hands in mine and sing the song "Voices" from the Macross Plus soundtrack, focusing healing energy into Nomad. Maybe it can also help with the cold he has been fighting. I notice there is someone off to the side, they seem to be staying just out of sight. I wonder who it is. I ask Nomad if he was aware he is being followed. He looks over and says that is nothing new, he is always being followed. Now how about that Oblivion gate? Ok, let's go. I focus on opening a portal, using Avalon to find an Oblivion gate that needs closing. A portal opens and Nomad and I go through. I briefly see the landscape of Tamriel before I wake up.

Templars in Oblivion
I am in Tamriel, in the world of the game of Oblivion. Nomad is there with me, and I see movement off to the side. I wonder if there are bandits or enemies out there, but I don't really have time to check it out before I notice there is an Oblivion gate not far off. Nomad and I head in that direction, taking a brief flight to get to the gate. Nomad lands slightly before I do and kills two Clannfears before I even land. We go through the gate into Oblivion…

The Oblivion plane looks like I expect it to look, there are a couple of scamps there attacking us, we eliminate those quickly. I remove the head of a scamp with a sword that forms from Witchblade. I am starting to get into the Oblivion theme, and I remove a piece of skin from the dead scamp, that will be useful in potions later. Nomad and I are exploring the world of Oblivion, though I am taking quite a bit of time heading to each cluster of bloodgrass and harvesting some to make potions from. Nomad seems amused by my gathering of the bloodgrass. A couple more scamps attack us, and then a daedra appears with a sword. I hit the daedra with a bolt of lightning, Nomad removes its head. There is movement behind us. I turn to look and there are Templars here! Where did they come from? I tell them they are in the wrong game, get out of Oblivion and into Assassin's Creed. One of them, there are three of them, says there isn't anywhere we can go that they can't follow. A daedra emerges from behind the Templars and draws its sword. I tell them to look behind them, they're being attacked. One of the Templars says they're not dumb enough to fall for that. That Templar finds the sword of the daedra running through his middle. The daedra kills the three Templars and then attacks Nomad and me, I attack the daedra with my sword and run it through. I see Nomad is fighting something else, but I wake up at this point.


Close Shut the Jaws of Oblivion
I am on the planes of Oblivion with Nomad, there are quite a few dead scamps around us as well as a couple of dead daedra. He says it's good of me to come back. I say my cold woke me up. We enter into the tallest tower I can see and I see the familiar base of the tower of Oblivion. We enter the area called the "Blood Feast." It is the base of the tower, there is a beam of fire shooting up the tower to where the sigil stone sits at the top. I start playing through as I normally do, I kill two scamps and a daedra at the bottom of the tower. Nomad is looking up the beam and he says this should be easy… then he starts flying up the beam. I look after him and say of course it's easy if you use cheat codes… He looks a bit puzzled. I comment he must have used a cheat code in order to fly. But if he wants to cheat… I fly up with Nomad. Even though he is flying directly to the sigil stone, he is not doing it to avoid fights. He stops off on a couple of the paths along the way just so he can fight a daedra or a scamp that is shooting at us. We reach the top of the tower quickly, I go over and kill a couple of daedra that are waiting there for us to come from the opposite direction.

Nomad is looking at the sigil stone floating in the air, floating right in the middle of the beam of fire. I say all we have to do is take it to shut down this Oblivion gate. I reach out and take the stone from its place, which causes a big explosion and then we are standing back in Tamriel beside a ruined gate. The sigil stone is vibrating in my hand with energy. I ask if Nomad wants to keep the stone, then I hand it to him. I can get many more. He is looking at the stone when I wake up.

Note: I am far behind on my journaling, I am really going to try to make this a summary of these dreams without skipping anything important. I know… I have tried to do this before and epically failed, I am trying again.

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

I exit the portal and I am immediately greeted with a large explosion that blasts me about 50 feet backwards, I would have passed through the portal again if it hadn't closed behind me. I land on the ground and realize I have been protected by a quick reacting Witchblade. I look around to try and get an idea of what is going on. I am completely surrounded by chaos, it is hard to keep track of anything that is happening. What I am able to identify is there is a massive battle around me between Templars and someone else, a lot of them look like Assassins, though many of them look unfamiliar to me. I sense where I need to go almost instinctively, so I start making my way through the battle field without paying any more attention to the chaos than I have to in order to keep from getting blasted.

It seems that the Templars have a problem with my trying to pass through the battle field undetected, however, as a bunch of them get in my way and are clearly going to give me trouble. I have a sense of urgency, so I don't want to spend time playing with Templars right now… so I form Witchblade into full armor and a sharp sword and charge right into the group of Templars, cutting through the couple in front and then jumping up into the air, using a blast of energy to propel myself up higher, and I end up flying right over the main group of them towards a mountain that I immediately identify as my destination. There are Templars firing everything they can manage to fire at me, arrows, burning arrows, energy blasts, guns… Withcblade is blocking much of it, and much of it is missing, I am thinking they really don't have a clue what they're supposed to be doing here. I come to a landing, not at the base of the mountain, but at the entrance to a cave about half way up the mountain. I hurry inside the cave and am now sheltered from the barrage of crap being fired at me by random Templars.

I now find myself in a long passageway, it definitely looks like the dungeon Nomad described seeing Asuka in, so I head down the hall to see if I can find her. I come around a corner and get attacked by a Templar guard, this one is stronger than the ones outside, he also seems to know what his mission is, his mission is clearly to kill me. He has some kind of weapon that fires tendrils much like a Witchblade, and those tendrils are spiked and wrap around me. They never actually get a hold on me, however, as I power up an energy field that holds them at a distance and then the energy field becomes strong enough to incinerate the tendrils in white flames. Not only that, but the white flames travel along the tendrils back to the Templar and engulf him in white flames, he burns brightly for a moment and then is gone. I continue down the halls, somehow sensing which way I have to go through the labyrinth of passages. I come around another corner and find myself face to face with the face of a big cat / human or something, it is hard to tell because it has its mouth wide open and is roaring deafeningly in my face… roaring an expletive? Roaring that it wants to be taken to Asuka now? Why is he asking me where Asuka is? If he's a Templar he should already know where Asuka is… if he is a Templar… So I wait for him to finish his yelling in my face, most of it isn't intelligible anyhow, then I finally decide to summon and pop a large breath mint into the yelling mouth.

That has an instant effect, the mouth closes, and the cat face has a thoughtful look on his face as he sucks on the breath mint, then he gets an interesting look on his face and says my poison tastes good… but it wasn't going to… uh… he stops talking mid-sentence. I tell him it's not poison, it's a breath mint for his foul breath. He stands there looking for a minute, then he clearly recognizes me as Raven, and it is the same time that I recognize him as Nomad… he says we have to get Asuka out of there, I say I know, and we continue down into the dungeon farther.

There are more Templars in the way, we take them all out, although the last one in the way looks more like a large mech than a regular Templar, and it has a lot more power than normal Templars. But between Nomad and me, we take him down without much trouble… I trip him up with some tendrils of Witchblade, Nomad ran something large and sharp through the thing's neck, which I hit with lightning… so the Templar mech was tripped, impaled and beheaded, and then electrocuted. I figure that should do the trick, and it does, so Nomad and I continue into the lowest part of the dungeon where we find Asuka chained to a wall, naked, it looks like she has been beaten badly… and there is a Templar there with a burning torch, he is burning her repeatedly and laughing at her. Before I can even react, Nomad was apparently so pissed nothing could get in his way, he is on top of the Templar tearing pieces off and throwing them randomly around… I get hit in the face with an unidentifiable chunk of bloody flesh… yuck… Since Nomad seems to have the Templar taken care of, I go over to free Asuka, heal her, and also to summon up some clothes to cover her, a nice kimono like I am used to seeing her in, she seems happy to see me. I am getting a hug from Asuka when Nomad finishes with the Templar and looks over at us, he is covered in blood and yuck but seems pleased with himself…

Note: Asuka seems to be missing again. Last night MoSh had a dream where some creepy guy used telepathic tendrils of some kind to control his and Asuka's mind, at which point he tried to swap out the version of Asuka that has been married to MoSh with a twinner from another dimension. He used the mind control so he could walk out with Asuka and not actually have to fight anyone. Additionally one of those who had taken Asuka had appeared to MoSh to be Kaomae, someone we have been sharing dreams with recently… so my goal for tonight was to track down Asuka and see who had actually taken her. Nomad was suspecting Templars… I was tending to agree with that… so I was focused on finding Asuka as I slipped into a WILD.

I am in the biodome on the moon, which is where I said I would meet up with Nomad. I remember that I am also going to go get MoSh so he can come with us and help get Asuka back from wherever she is. I look around to see if Nomad might be there already, but there isn't anyone there at the time. I look into the pond where the koi are swimming around, rainbows of fish in the water… maybe I can go get MoSh before Nomad even gets there. I open a portal to go find MoSh and bring him along to go find Asuka.

I exit the portal into MoSh's inner world, to the place I usually enter. I go up to MoSh's house and knock on the door, I'm not sure if MoSh is still inside or not, but it is where I feel I should go. The door opens and MoSh is there, he says he can feel that Asuka is in danger, she isn't just over there visiting Kaomea, she can't get back home. He turns invisible and says he will watch to make sure nothing goes wrong, just in case my energy reacts badly to Kaomea's energy again. I tell MoSh to become visible again, it really doesn't look like we are going to find Asuka with Kaomea. I tell him that I spoke to Nomad last night, and Zaphor had told him the Templars are responsible for grabbing Asuka this time. It makes sense that they would try to make MoSh think Kaomea had something to do with it, to get us looking in the wrong place. I tell MoSh it doesn't matter who has her, I will track her down and find out who has her. I tell him Nomad is waiting to help us with this, he is waiting back on the moon, so let's go pick him up first. MoSh agrees to that, so I open a portal back to the moon, back to the biodome.

Sure enough, when we exit the portal back in the biodome Nomad is there waiting for us. Nomad says he wants to go by the Temple of Angels for healing before finding Asuka. MoSh says that will take too long, we might end up waking up before we get Asuka back. Nomad says that's not going to happen since we can dilate time, MoSh says that doesn't always work for him. Nomad says he feels it is very important to go by the Temple of Angels first, I decide to add my input that in the time we might spend arguing about it we could have already been to the Temple of Angels and now be looking for Asuka. I know that's exaggerating, but it seems to bring the argument to an end. Nomad opens a portal, and the three of us go through the portal to the Temple of Angels.

Once we are in the Temple of Angels the healing part doesn't take much time at all, there is a room in the temple that is filled up with golden energy, a room that is meant for healing and for enhancing healing abilities. Even though I don't remember ever being there before, I remember what it is for. When we leave that room there are several angels that meet us and are talking about something, but I am distracted for some reason and I don't hear all that they have to say. I am currently pondering why it might be that everyone and their aunt and uncle are after Asuka, the only conclusion I can reach is that it gets really annoying that all of these enemies won't just leave Asuka alone. After a bit of thought, Nomad snaps me out of my reveries and says we can go find Asuka now if I am ready. I focus on opening a portal to find Asuka, after a bit of focus, a portal opens up in front of us. Nomad says that once we reach her he will let out allies know where to come if we are going to need their help, and he says he has the feeling we might need all the help we can get. So preparing for battle, the three of us enter into the portal… and are instantly swept into a divergent dream of epic proportions, the following dreams all took place simultaneously on different planes, in different parallel worlds…

To Be Continued…

Note: Tonight was composed of fragments which I will post here. Actually, I'm sure there was more to each of these dreams, but those are parts that I am not able to remember at this point. So here are the fragments:

Under My Skin
I was in the lab / sick bay in the biodome tower with Tigress and Janet, I couldn't remember how I had gotten there, but somehow I was lucid. I looked around, I saw Tigress talking to Janet for a bit, so I just waited. I remembered Tigress saying she wanted Janet to check us both out to see if we might have any parasites inside us. She came over to me and said Janet had given her a clean bill of health, so there was no need for her to stay here any longer. I wondered where she might be going so fast, didn't she want to stick around and maybe do something after Janet checked me out? Janet told me to lie down on the sick bay bed and she would check me out. I did that, and I couldn't see what she was doing, I was lying on my stomach, but she was talking about some rather disgusting leech type things that she was removing. I wondered if Tigress was waiting for me… I saw someone out of the corner of my eye, I looked and I saw Nomad. He said there were parasites on me, he was sure he had sensed those there. Janet said there sure were, but she was almost done getting them all off. Nomad asked if she had gotten the ones off of Tigress, too. Janet said Tigress hadn't had any parasites on her, though she had checked for them. Nomad seemed to think that was odd, but he didn't say anything.

Mistaken Identity
I was in my room and lucid, I remembered I had a goal of locating Walms and restoring his flame, which he had told me was out. I knew from how he had acted that it wasn't completely out, but I thought maybe he could use a bit of help getting it strong again after encountering some strange energy that had apparently damaged it. He said he had been staying away from everyone until the flame was restored so he wouldn't look to pointlessly hurt anyone (if the flame had been out that wouldn't have mattered) so I might have problems finding him. I focused on locating Walms, he said his energy would be different, so I wasn't really sure what I would trace. So I just focused on what I know about Walms from talking to him and sharing a few dreams in the past, using a song spell for tracking… and thought it took a bit more energy, a portal finally opened, so I went through. I exited the portal into a forest area, looked consistent with somewhere I might find Walms. I looked around, not sure where I might find Walms, but then I spotted someone over beside a particularly large tree. I went over to him and looked at him closely, I couldn't see much in the way of energy there, well that fit… I had expected that Walms would be hiding his energy pretty well. I called the person Walms and said hello, I said I was there to restore his flame, and I was sure I hadn't been followed. I got a blank look as a response, so I thought maybe he wasn't lucid… I told him he was dreaming, I added that I was Raven Knight. He continued to give me the same blank look as if I was speaking in a foreign language… damn… I wondered if there were times that Walms was non-lucid that he didn't remember English… "Yo estoy Raven Knight," I stumbled in Spanish, "Estoy aquí para restaurar el fuego interior ... Walms? Estás soñando, ya sabes ..." That same blank look that was beginning to get quite frustrating… "How cute…" a voice said from my right, "She doesn't recognize me…" I turned to my right really fast, just in time to see someone vanish… Walms?! Then who was I talking to? The person I had been talking to said something that made absolutely no sense… um… I went over to the place the person had vanished… that was Walms, no doubt… "Wait a sec!" I called, even though he was long gone. I focused on opening a portal to follow him, but my memory ends here.

Templar Party
I was in what I thought of as my house, but it wasn't like my waking life home. The inside of it was very similar, but there was a huge deck out back where there were a lot of people having a party, there was music, food, a swimming pool, and everyone was having lots of fun. But somehow I knew the guests were all Templars… I was also thinking my mom had no idea who she had invited over. I tried to tell her, but she wasn't listening. She went outside to take care of the guests, but I stayed in my room. I was able to look out my window at the partiers outside. I didn't want them to see me, so I was staying low and just peeking over my window sill to see them out there. My mom looked frustrated, then she came inside and found me spying on the party. She said she didn't care if I stayed long, but it was rude of me to not show up and at least say hi to our guests. I said I couldn't do that, those were all Templars, and they would surly know that I was aligned with the Assassins… She told me not to be silly, they wouldn't know that unless I went out with a sign that said, "GO ASSASSINS" or something dumb like that. She said she wanted to see me outside in 15 minutes, and that was final. With that she left the room. I knew for sure that the Templars would recognize me, so I had to get out of there. I went out of the back door and headed for the gate, trying to hurry before I was seen… epic fail. I hadn't made it halfway to the gate before my mom spotted me and brought everyone's attention to me. The Templars looked over at me, I could tell by the way they looked that they knew I was with the Assassins… My mom, oblivious to everything, was cheerfully introducing us, which is not actually like her normal behavior at all.

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…

I was on the beach, walking along the shore and looking for seashells. It was a beautiful day out, the sun was actually a bit on the hot side, but that was balanced out by the cool breeze blowing in off of the ocean. What a wonderful day for a walk on the beach. I was wishing I had brought my swim suit because now, as I watched the waves rolling in from the endless blue horizon, I wanted to swim out into the water and let the waves carry me back to shore.

Well, I couldn't swim but I could definitely wade. So I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my jeans, and waded out into the ocean until the water was about up to my knees. I continued walking along the shore, enjoying the ocean breeze, the smell of the ocean, the sounds of the seagulls, the fact there weren't any other people out there… but wait… I did see another person a bit farther up the beach. Crap. Well, I could at least hope there weren't very many people, maybe even just the one. I wasn't about to change my course just because there was one person on the beach, so I continued walking and got closer to the person, who turned out to be a man, and as I got closer to him I realized I knew him!

"Nomad?" I asked, surprised to see him.

"That's me," he said, "This is a dream, and I was about to ride a dream wave all of the way to the moon! Hop on the next wave and ride with me!"

Riding waves to the moon? There's no way that could be even remotely possible, although Nomad looked like he was being completely serious about the idea. I then registered the rest of what he had said, this is a dream, and he was going to ride a dream wave. Not just a normal wave, a dream wave. So this was a dream, then? I confirmed that it was definitely a dream when I did a RC, turned to Nomad and said this really was a dream.

Before anything more could be said about riding waves all of the way to the moon, however, the calm peacefulness of the beach was shattered by harsh yelling, energy blasts firing, and swords clashing. Who the hell was making so much noise?! I looked and saw that the beach was covered by Templars now, stupid Templars have to come around and ruin everything, and they apparently had come to attack Nomad or me or both of us.

Nomad transformed into a giant shark that was sparking with electricity. When he did that he was in mid jump and he came down on top of a few of the Templars and appeared to swallow them whole while shocking the Templars that just happened to be too close to him. Of course that left this huge sparking shark on the beach, when he would have been much better off in the water, so I telekinetically tossed him into the water, and then I threw a few Templars in after him so he wouldn't be alone out there. He seemed to think the Templars looked tasty, as he started eating them whole, I wondered if the lightning around him meant they were at least cooked before he ate them, and my next thought was, "Yuck! Nomad, you'll get diseases from eathing those things!" As if acknowledging that, Nomad spat out a chewed up Templar onto the beach, which was quite disgusting, and terrifying to one of the other Templars who ran for his life down the beach. That was the only Templar with a brain, however, as the others all yelled and came to attack both Nomad and me.

It was about here that Nomad figured out that since he was a dream shark he could swim just fine in the air instead of in the water, so he jumped out of the water and chased Templars around on the beach, grabbing them in his massive jaws and literally biting them in half… other Templars came straight at me and attacked, they got greeted my my Witchblade sword for their troubles. I told one of them that seemed hesitant to attack me to go away and leave Nomad and me alone, we were just trying to have a bit of a fun dream, hadn't been looking for any trouble with the Templars, so just go away! He didn't seem to think that was as good of an idea as I did, however, he attacked me anyway and got my Witchblade sword run through him for his trouble. Well, no one could say I didn't try to get them to just go away. The fighting continued for a while longer until the few remaining Templars finally got the picture and ran away through portals that opened up a short distance down the beach, leaving Nomad and me alone once again.

Nomad turned back to his normal self and asked what that thing with the Templars had been all about. I told him I didn't have a clue, I didn't even know for sure which one of us they had been after or if they might have been after us both or maybe they hadn't really been looking for either of us but just happened to find us… Nomad said they were just being stupid like they always are, so now how about riding the dream wave all the way to the moon? He pointed out to the ocean where the moon was rising over the horizon, the reflection of the moon was very clear in the ocean water. A very beautiful sight. Nomad and I didn't end up riding the wave to the moon, but we did have a nice length of time to enjoy the beach and relax there. The water was great, and we even found ourselves to be in the company of dolphins when we transformed to merpeople and swam a bit farther out into the ocean and farther up the coast. I was thinking that if it hadn't been for the interference of those stupid Templars, this would have been a perfect vacation dream!

I was outside my house. I looked around and saw the desert around me. Nothing looked out of place, it looked the same as my waking life. I was hot due to the fact it is the desert and it is summer. I wanted to go back inside where it would be cool. I walked back over to the house and tried to go inside. The front door was locked. Wtf? Why was I locked out of the house. I went around to the back side of the house and found the two doors on the back of the house were also locked. Damn! I tried to think where we keep the emergency key hidden, in case one of us needs to get inside and has no keys. I couldn't remember. I looked around, under rocks, under pots, everywhere I could think of that the key might be hidden. No key. Damn… my mother must have taken the key in.

So by now I was really hot. I wanted to get somewhere cooler. I really needed to cool off. I went to the front yard where there is a small pond with a few fish in it. I found it was dry. There was no water in it, and several dead fish were on the bottom. The plastic bottom of the pond was cracked and splitting as if it had been empty for years. I walked away from the dry pond and over to the gate at the end of our driveway. The gate was lying on the ground. I walked down the road a ways. Sooooo hot… I saw some trees all together that gave a nice amount of shade. That would have to do. I went over to the trees. I could feel cool air coming from under the trees. I got down under the tree. The foliage was so thick that I couldn't see through it, but there was a small hole through the plants. I crawled into that hole to immerse myself in the coolness. The hole went on forever… this was weird… and it got me curious as to where it could lead… I kept crawling and emerged in another place where it was dark. Night time? And I wasn't in a desert… I stood up and did a RC… I was dreaming!

I walked across the meadow for a ways until I reached a small rocky hill. I looked up into the rocky area. I was getting a weird feeling about the area. I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked around a bit, looking mostly towards the rocky hills because they provided so many places to hide.

I was scanning the hills when I heard movement behind me. I turned quickly, activating my Witchblade sword in case I was attacked. I paused once I was turned around and then put my Witchblade sword away. I was being followed, but I was being followed by MoSh, not an enemy. MoSh said it looked like I was still mad at him. I looked around a bit more… the bad feeling hadn't left me just because I had identified MoSh. I responded to him in a quiet tone, saying I wasn't particularly upset right now… but this place was giving me the creeps. He asked if the Templars had been attacking me again. I said the Templars were all dead. That was where my negative energy had gone. At least they're useful for something…

It looked like MoSh was about to say something else, but he never got the chance. Someone apparently thought it was necessary to prove me wrong about all the Templars being dead… There was movement in the rocks. Templars emerged from the rocks. There were about 20 of them… not many at all. This would be easy. I formed my Witchblade sword and attacked them. They attacked. Some of them had weapons that looked like futuristic laser weapons, others had swords. I attacked them. Cut through one and ran my sword through another. I saw Templars attacking MoSh… I also saw him kicking the shit out of them. This fight was over quickly. The Templars were lying around us, dead. The bodies quickly disappeared as they woke up.

"Ok…" I said to MoSh, "Now all of the Templars are dead,"

MoSh was going to say something again. I felt the dream slipping away. I tried to focus on dilating time. I told MoSh I was about to wake up… but I would try dilation… but I never even got a chance to get focused before everything faded and I woke.

Note: I fell asleep this night with my energy in a very unstable state due to some problems I had during the evening. When I say unstable, I mean unstable to the point where I was not able to finish my evening class in school… I had to tell the instructor I wasn't feeling well and then leave early. While I had managed to calm down some by the time I went to bed, I was still very unstable. A large portion of my negative energy was directed at the Templars who have given me nightmares on the previous two nights… so my main plan was to kick Templar ass. I had this plan in mind when I fell asleep, but I was not successful in entering my WILD. Fortunately, my intentions were strong enough that I still ended up where I wanted to be…

I was in my room. I was in bed. I rolled over and thought about the events of the previous evening. I was a nice mixture of pissed off and depressed, basically quite unstable. I was thinking that was why I was being unable to sleep. I sat up in bed and stroked the kitty beside me. She purred. I got out of bed to use the bathroom. I thought I should try to stay in the habit of doing an RC when I wake up or get up in the night… even if I don't think I've been asleep… I did a nose-pinch RC and found that I was dreaming. I became fully lucid.

I thought about what I wanted to do… I was feeling pissed off… and I wanted someone to take that out on. Templars! They were the origin of my current problems, so I would take it all out on Templars! I had told them that continuing to disturb my dreams and turn them into them nightmares would result in serious consequences. Now it was time to deliver on those consequences. I focused on opening a portal to find a Templar base, I would go straight to them and have a kill fest right there in their base. The portal opened and I went through it.

I was now in a Templar base. There were Templars wandering around. They all were going about their own business. At first no one noticed me. Those were the bastards who had turned my past two nights' dreams into nightmares… they were the cause of the instability and the situation that had led to an argument between a friend and mine who had told me that he no longer wants to be my friend… I walked over to the Templar closest to me as the others moved out of sight. I could feel unstable dark energy inside of me… my energy had been unstable all evening, and now I could finally do something about it! I grabbed the Templar by the throat and slammed him against the wall. He let out a surprised 'glurk' but could not speak to alert the others. I squeezed his throat until I felt something get crushed, then I let him down. He grabbed his neck and was choking… he couldn't breathe… he coughed up blood, collapsed, and died.

One dead Templar was not nearly enough. Time to start killing them in larger numbers. I went into a room with two Templars there. A big guard and another who looked more like a scientist. I used Master of Puppets on the guard, and made him beat the other Templar to death. I then made him grab a scissors from a desk and imbed it into his own throat, followed by using the scissors to cut the wound larger. He pierced his own jugular vein and bled out . I continued through the base. I met several Templars in the halls. I stabbed each of them with my hidden blade before they realized I didn't belong there. I looked into a large control room. There were 15 Templars in there at control stations. I let a tendril of Witchblade out, it went through the room and pierced the throats of each Templar. The instant I retracted the tendril, the blood flowed freely and they all died.

As I continued on my way, I tried to think of a creative way to kill the next Templar… I found a lone Templar in the hall. He stopped and looked at me. I used Damage, Inc. to set him on fire. The Templar was quickly engulfed in flames. In a blind panic, he ran into another room with a number of Templars in it. He wanted someone to help him, but all he ended up accomplishing was to set several more of the Templars on fire… now there were five Templars panicking in the room, engulfed in flames and screaming in pain. That didn't last long; they all collapsed, dead. I killed the next few Templars I met with my Witchblade sword. Electrocuted a few with lightning. Crushed several more with gravity. And each Templar I killed was immensely satisfying. My unstable energy was simmering down to an icy rage.

It was around here that I thought I was waking up… but I wasn't finished getting my payback against these Templar assholes! I focused on Allura's method of time dilation and the dream stabilized.

I made my way down into a dungeon. That looked like the kind of place where they would carry out their tortures. There were hooks on the walls from which lanterns were hanging. I used telekinesis and lifted a Templar up, impaling him on a hook through his abdomen. He was still alive when I left him, coughing up blood as he tried to call for help. The next several Templars I came across met the same fate as the first one, hung from those iron lantern hooks. I found three more Templars near an open dungeon cell door. A couple of big guards and a smaller one. I could hear them talking, I could hear them clearly.

"Ok… when she gets here," the one said to the others, "You grab her like last time. All you have to do is chain her up in this room, and we'll let the rats do the rest." He laughed.

I was standing right beside the three Templars now, between the two larger guards while the smaller man was facing away from me, looking at a door. "So…" I said, "What's the plan here?"

"Weren't you listening at all?" the Templar said with some frustration, "You two grab Raven, chain her up in the dungeon, and then we watch the rats eat her alive! Now get it…" the Templar had been turning around, and was now facing me. There was a big guy on either side of me. "There she is right now! Grab her, you idiots!"

Each of the big Templars grabbed one of my arms and held on tight. I didn't even try to pull free. Time to activate Witchblade. Nothing happened. The smaller Templar held up a remote and laughed. He said the dampening field was up, so I could forget my little tricks. I told him it was their loss. Using Witchblade would have brought them to a much quicker death than the alternative… The smaller Templar told the other two to put me in the cell; the rats are hungry. He laughed again. I focused on controlling dark energy into tendrils. The tendrils wove from each of my arms and wrapped around the arms of the big guys beside me. At first they didn't seem to notice. Then both of them started screaming and let go of me… or they tried to let go. Each of them had a black tendril boring its way into their arm. Each attempt to pull free resulted in more pain.

The third Templar just stood there and stared at us for a bit, muttering something about the dampening field he had mentioned before. He pulled out a sword and was apparently intent on just killing me so I would wake up and be away from them. A third dark energy tendril snaked out of where my 3rd eye would be and wrapped around the sword. The Templar dropped the sword and turned to run down the hall. The tendril was faster, and it bored its way into the Templar's back. Armor was nothing to the dark energy tendril. All three of the Templars were now screaming in pain. Their screams brought more Templars to see what was happening. The tendrils that attached me to the three separated, and I was able to direct those tendrils and more at the arriving Templars. Most of them didn't have a chance to react… a couple tried to cut the tendrils with swords, but that was completely ineffective. So soon all of the Templars in the room, the three I had found there plus 12 who had come to check it out, were writhing on the ground in pain.

I went over to the Templar who had been telling the big stupid ones the plan. He was grimacing in pain and clutching his abdomen. I kicked him there and lifted him up. I told him I knew he would wake up soon, but for his sake he had better have learned a valuable lesson… don't fuck with me. And don't go back to fucking with any of my friends, either. Harm one of them and the results will be the same, maybe worse. Get the picture? He cursed at me. I slammed him against the wall and said if he was still failing to get it, there's a lot more trouble where this came from. So stay away from me, stay away from my friends, or there would be consequences. I dropped him on the ground where he continued to writhe in pain. I wasn't sure what the dark energy tendrils were doing… or maybe I was… they were eating the Templars alive from the inside out. Well, they had intended for me to be eaten alive, so their plan backfired.

I went into the dungeon cell and looked around. Chains and shackles on the floor clearly meant to chain a prisoner so they couldn't move… cages with horribly underfed rats inside them; add animal cruelty to the list of Templar offenses… I felt my dark energy. It still felt like an icy rage… I was glad the Templars were in pain. But not the animals… they had done nothing. I opened the cages. The rats weren't in such bad condition that they couldn't make a run for it when given the chance. They ran for the cell door and out it. I heard more screams from the Templars. I glanced out and saw some of the rats were on various Templars. The Templars seemed nearly immobilized with pain from the dark energy tendrils… and now there were rats on them. A rat chewing on a Templar's ear, a rat chewing on a Templar's cheek, a rat chewing on a Templar's nose… The rats would be fed… but it was fresh Templar on the menu… I shut the cell door and was waiting to wake up. Now I was alone in the dark room with nothing but the background sounds of Templar pain.

I was waiting in the dark room to wake up. The icy rage inside me made the Templars' dying gasps of pain sound like wonderful music… then there was silence. Ok… now to wake up? Maybe that dampening field was still there and I would have to leave here by normal means and then wake up… I formed a fireball in my hand… my abilities seemed to be working fine.

"Raven!" came a voice from behind me. Wtf? Who had found me here? I turned and looked behind me, I saw MoSh was in the room with me. The icy rage I had felt inside had been starting to subside… but suddenly it surged back again, almost as strong as it had ever been. Now it was MoSh's turn… I would see him writhing on the ground in pain… I would… wait… no… I turned my gaze back to the blank dark stone wall. Watching Templars suffer… ok. But not MoSh… no. I focused on that blank stone wall and on The Curse by Disturbed, must stabilize the dark energy. It'd had its fun with the Templars… and that's all it was going to get. MoSh was saying something about dark energy and an attack. I said that telling me to stay out of his dreams doesn't make a whole lot of sense if he is just going to come into mine. He said he needed my help to stop the dark energy something… I said if there was a dark energy threat, get Walms or Tigress… and if it was simply an extremely powerful threat of any kind, get Vegeta… but don't stay here. My energy is currently about as stable as nitroglycerin… well shaken nitroglycerin, and could blow at any moment. And it was getting very unstable… it hadn't been very unstable earlier because I had been working with it to eliminate Templars, but now I was actively fighting it… and that was creating instability.

That was it… I wouldn't be able to keep it inside any longer. I turned back towards MoSh… who took a step back when he saw how crazed I probably looked… I opened a vortex portal right next to MoSh that led back to his inner world, used telekinesis to push him through, closed it behind him and then BOOM! There was an explosion… and then I was no longer standing in a Templar base… now I was standing in a crater… um… ok… I hadn't realized the explosion would be quite that bad… although the icy rage was completely gone now. Completely vented off against the Templars. I looked around the crater… I didn't think a single Templar could have survived… which brought me to a chuckle. But I felt stable. Finally it felt completely under control. Now that control was restored everything faded and I woke.

Note: I fell asleep with very little in the way of goals tonight… MoSh had said he was going to come over to do a healing on me, although I told him I felt ok. But then a little extra positive energy never hurts anything, so I figured if he wanted to do it, we could share some positive energy, most likely with Basara involved since he usually shows up whenever someone mentions the idea of healing. Unfortunately I was not successful in entering my WILD this night.

I was in a clearing in a forest. I could see there were buildings around, it looked like a small town was hidden amongst the trees. I wondered where I was. I didn't even consider the idea I might be dreaming. I noticed that there were quite a few people around, and then I noticed they were Templars. What the fuck was I doing in a Templar base? I figured I didn't want to be there, so I went to leave. That was when I noticed there was a big guy on either side of me holding onto me tightly. Their grip was like iron, and I could not make them budge to get free. I was a prisoner of the Templars… that couldn't be good.

I heard another Templar say they were ready. One of the big guys holding me forced me to the ground so that I was lying on my stomach with my face in the dirt. I felt someone lie a long wooden pole on my back, and I was quickly bound tightly to that pole. When the large Templars moved away from me I couldn't move at all except to turn my head and look around a bit. They turned me over onto my back and ripped my clothes off… I called them a bunch of fucking perverts. I was now naked and tied to a metal pole… I could hear people around me laughing and jeering.

The Templars then stood the pole up and I realized I was bound approximately in the middle. I saw they had a fire ring in the middle of the clearing, a rather large one. It was long and fairly narrow, there was a rotisserie stand on each end of the fire circle, and a pan sitting on top of the wood that looked like it was there to catch the juices of roasting meat. It looked a lot like the picture here, except the pan was on permanent metal legs and the fire pit and pan looked long enough to accommodate a very large piece of meat… or a person…

It was about then that I realized what they might be planning to do. Since I believed that was my waking life, this resulted in a feeling of ice cold fear at the pit of my stomach… I fought against my bonds, desperate to get away now, to avoid what it seemed they had planned. The bonds were too tight… I couldn't budge them even a millimeter. And my worst fear was confirmed when they carried the pole I was on over to the fire pit and placed it where the spit of the rotisserie would go with me hanging on it, looking down into the black pan. There was a quantity of grease in the pan, which was hardened right now. I was noticing every little detail… a fly stuck in the grease and trying to get free, but it was no more able to move than I was. Templars preparing to light the fire. This couldn't really be happening. I think I might have done a reality check if I could have even moved in order to do one… I found I kept repeating the word 'no' over and over, and I was ashamed of the fear I heard in my voice.

Then I said there must be some agreement we could reach that would allow me to get out of this. A couple of them laughed. But one of them said there was. He said if I could present one of my friends to take my place, they would gladly roast up my friend instead of me and I would be free to go. One of my friends? He said yes. Any of them would do. Either Nomad or MoSh would be their first choices… but if I presented them one of the others I have shared dreams with it would be sufficient, too. Markus, Tigress, or even Loaf… someone laughed that they could have toast… just choose one and teleport them here and I would be free to go while my friend was executed in my place. I told them they had to be kidding… there was no way I would betray a friend like that… I knew perfectly well I could never live with betraying a friend in that way, so in spite of my fear I told them to go fuck themselves. The Templar said it was my choice, and told the other one to go ahead and light the fire under the pan.

I didn't really notice anything at first. Then the pan was heated and it was getting a bit uncomfortable as the heat was rising off of the pan and into my face. The heat continued to increase, an intense and dry heat that made it feel almost like I was on fire. How long could this last? Wouldn't I get heat stroke and pass out from that heat before long? They let the fire die down a bit and the heat faded to a lower but continuous agony. For some reason it seemed to be imperative that I make no sound to let them know the pain I was in, so I kept my mouth tightly closed so I would not let an involuntary cry or moan or pain escape. I saw as the grease below me melted and the fly was consumed by the heating grease, killed. Another thought I was having was that the heat would burn through the ropes that bound me to the spit… then I could get free… but they were thick and sturdy ropes that didn't seem to be suffering from the exposure at all. A Templar came over and looked at me, then he poked something on my leg with a long fork, causing a sharp and excruciating pain… somehow I knew he had just popped a heat blister… that area of my leg was now in much more pain than the rest of me, and other parts of my body felt like they were beginning to blister, I could actually see a few blisters starting to form on my breasts… When would I finally get heat stroke and pass out?!

Another short while… and several more popped blisters later… a Templar came back over. I was expecting another popped blister… but instead he had a cup, which he used to scoop some of the now sizzling grease out of the pan. He proceeded to pour the sizzling grease all over my back… where it burned unbelievably hot. The Templar poured a couple more cups of blazing hot grease on my back, laughing when I was unable to contain a cry of pain… these assholes were basting me! And even after he walked away, the grease on my back was continuing to cause an unbelievably intense agony… it seemed I would surely pass out, but somehow I didn't… even though I wished I would, prayed that I would pass out or die from heat stroke… Instead I just hung there in agony, all hope seemed lost…

"Raven!" I heard a familiar voice and forced my head to turn, although that caused heat dried skin to crack and bleed, bringing with that another wave of pain… I someone standing off to my left a ways, and a portal opened behind him. My sight was fuzzy… I wasn't sure who it was… He continued talking. "It's time for… what the FUCK?!" Apparently he had taken a look around for the first time since arriving and noticed things were not as they should be. I wanted to call out to the man for help, but my throat was too dry and cracked to speak… and all that came out was a small squeak… As I have stated, my mind was really foggy from the heat and the pain, but I heard some cursing, a demand to release me, and then a fight. I saw movement to my right and the man who had just arrived shoved one of the Templar's faces into the hot grease in the pan below me. When the Templar's face came out it was covered with blisters and the Templar was screaming in pain. I heard more fighting, some Templars screaming about something… a loud hissing sound like an angry cat or snake… and then silence.

The man from the portal returned. He took the spit I was tied to away from the flame and started untying me. Every time he touched me it was excruciating, but I did my best not to let him know that because I knew he was just trying to help. Once I was free I found I couldn't even stand on my own… my legs were about like spaghetti… The man supported me, holding on to me as gently as he could… I heard him say he would get me healed up as good as new. He could heal IWL? Wow… I wondered if there was any possible way I could get him to teach me to do that… but even if he couldn't, he had already done so much by getting me free of the Templars. He lied me down in a soft area of grass. Even as soft as it was, each blade of grass was like a steel blade cutting in to me… I once again did not let him know how much it hurt. He was trying so hard to be careful.

The man sat down near me. I could hear him playing a guitar. I could feel healing energy come from that guitar. Soothing healing energy… it felt like a soothing healing salve had been applied to my entire body, and it felt wonderful. I tried to open my eyes and see who it was that had saved me… but I was so tired. Completely worn out. But he was playing a guitar to create a healing effect. I only know two people who do that. Basara and MoSh. And I couldn't see Basara shoving a Templar's face into burning grease under any circumstances, unless he had seen what they were doing and completely snapped, so I was assuming it was MoSh… I tried to ask the man if he was MoSh… "You… MoSh?" He didn't really answer that, he just told me to rest… when I fell asleep here I would wake up and be safe in bed. Safe in bed? Was this really just a nightmare? I let myself relax and slip into sleep. I could find out for sure later if it was MoSh who had come to find me. I fell asleep and woke up.