New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

2017, 06-03

Wraiths in the Dark

I am in a dark forest, and the first thing I was notice is that I'm a bit chilly. I look around to see where I am but I don't recognize anything. The trees are tall and dark, there are patches of snow on the ground. I hear the sound of someone moving in the darkness. I even hear soft voices from that direction so I know there are people over there. I quietly follow the sound of the voices until I peer through the trees and see three men on horses making their way through the trees. One of them seems to be trying to convince the others that someone they're looking for, someone they refer to as Wildlings, are dead. One of them says he saw the bodies. They keep debating that as they continue, and I'm sure if there are any live Wildlings they will have already heard these idiots.

The three men stop and dismount. Two continue on, one stays with the horses. The two that advance start making more effort to be quiet. I follow them a bit farther and they stop to look down into a clearing. One of them laughs and says the dead bodies got up and moved out. Or maybe they weren't dead is more likely. One of them climbs a tree for a better look at the area. I look down below and see an abandoned camp. The strangest thing is what looks like a good quality battle axe lying abandoned in the camp. Surely no one would leave that behind. I notice that it seems to be getting colder. I see movement in the trees, and I see something move. A strange creature, humanoid, bug glowing with a dim light, a pale green. It's eyes are glowing with a cold white light. I watch as the man on the ground draws a long sword and challenges the strange creature. The man looks like more of a boy, but is standing up like a man. The creature has a sword that looks like it's made of crystal or glass. They fight, though the man is clearly outmatched. The creature's sword shatters the man's sword, and he falls to his knees, unarmed. It's time for this to stop.

I come out of the trees and tell the creature if it plans on killing this man unarmed then it will have to go through me first. A hollow laugh comes from the creature, a wave of cold hits me. I form my right arm into an Alex Mercer blade. The man gets off his knees and tries to get clear but there are more of the creatures behind him. So I get beside the man. The ones behind us look like they won't interfere with the one on one fight. The creature and I fight. It is skilled with the blade, and blocks my attacks. This looks like a creature of evil, so I charge my Alex Mercer blade with light energy. The next time our blades clash the creature's blade shatters, creating an opening for me to drive my blade into its chest and pump it full of light energy. The thing glows brightly then is burned away by the light.

Now the ones behind us move in, there are five of them. I push the man to my other side and step into the middle of the group, unleashing a Legend of Zelda style spin attack, cutting each of them with light energy. They fall back, not seeming to know what to do. I call to the man in the tree to come down, they're getting out of here. He drops and the three of us return to the one watching the horses. I tell them they'd better ride for it, there could be more. The young man asks who I am. I say Raven Knight, but there's no time to chat, run! They all mount and disappear quickly into the dark forest. I hope they'll be ok. Everything fades and I wake.

Note: I have been having a horrible amount of nights where I can't remember anything from the night before… and it is really starting to piss me off. Last night I did manage to remember a few dreams, however. None of them were lucid, but it is far better than nothing, and I think I saw a couple of other dreamers in there, though I will have to wait to see if it was really them or DCs that looked like them. After all the nights of not remembering anything, I am happy just to have something to journal.

The Golden Dragon
I am in a forest, it is fall, the leaves of the trees are changing to a rainbow of oranges and yellows and many are still green, so I figure it must be shortly into the fall season. There is a gentle breeze blowing, and it is a pleasant day out. I wonder how I have not found this place to take a walk sooner, since I never get enough exercise. Now that I know of this place, I am likely to take a lot more walks! I follow the path through the trees, I don't know where it leads, so it is an adventure to find out. I come across a stream with a small bridge across it, I pause to look at the stream, then I continue. The stream is flowing off to my left, parallel to the trail, and soon I reach a lake. I walk around the lake, still enjoying the day immensely. I come around some large rocks to find myself face-to-face with a large golden dragon, who is glaring at me as if my mere arrival represents a serious inconvenience to him… oh, crap…

Well, the dragon is glaring at me, I am certain he is going to incinerate me with a blast of fire on sight, but instead he speaks. He asks what is the meaning of this intrusion, and it had better be good, because he doesn't like being disturbed. I search my mind for a reason I might have come to disturb this dragon, damn… if only this was a dream I would be able to take care of myself even if it just involved opening a portal and bugging on out of there. (I thought about it being a dream and still no RC? ) So I search my mind a bit more until I finally remember a couple cases where someone was face to face with a dragon and walked away. Those cases are in Shrek where Donkey was right in front of the dragon guarding Princess Fiona, and The Hobbit where Bilbo was face-to-face with Smaug… they bought themselves some time, and in Donkey's case a girlfriend, by appealing to the dragon's ego… by complimenting him/her. So instead of trying to convince the dragon that I'd come upon him by pure accident, I say I had heard there was a magnificent dragon in these parts, so I had come to see for myself. And, indeed, the word magnificent falls short of the reality of the dragon, for mere words could never describe the awesomeness I am now witnessing. The dragon glared down at me and asked if it was worth my life to lay eyes upon him… I respond that there are few things in the worlds that are worth risking my life to witness, but a dragon such as him is surely one of those. And if I am to die, which everyone does eventually, better it be by one such as himself rather than some stupid accident or illness or to waste away in old age. And while I don't especially want to die now, I actually mean it about it being much more interesting and unique to be killed by a dragon than by more mundane means… and he is definitely an awesome looking dragon… so I'm not lying. He can tell I am being truthful. So he seems to calm down a bit, and finally says then I will have the honor that very few before me have had… the honor of gazing upon him… and of dying by his claw.

I say just because gazing upon him is worth dying for, that doesn't mean I'll willingly die… so I jump into the lake and swim underwater to find a portal to get out of there, I am certain there is a portal near the bottom. I take shallow breaths of water so I can breathe it for a short time and I find the portal. I swim through it, the interior looks like a wormhole, and I exit in another lake and swim for the surface. When I reach the surface I look around and see the golden dragon is still there, still looking in my direction… um… I'm in the same place? The dragon looks a bit puzzled, probably wondering why I came back to the same place as if I want to die… I say I took a wrong turn in the portal, and head back to the bottom of the lake. I swim through the portal again and this time I wake.

I was in the living room watching the television, it was a show about fat people and ways to lose weight. I watched it a bit more and I realized it was a Dr. Phil show, he was talking about the importance of exercise in losing weight, I was feeling particularly fat right then, but I didn't want to exercise… Dr. Phil kept talking about the various things that could happen to overweight people, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks, strokes… endless amounts of problems that can come from being overweight. I was thinking I really should get out and exercise, so maybe I would take a walk, I certainly didn't have the patience to listen to Dr. Phil any longer.

I went outside and started walking, the weather wasn't as hot as I had expected it to be, so I thought this walk might actually end up being a decent length one. The main road near my house is under heavy construction, so I didn't think it would be very pleasant to walk there right now, so I decided to look in other directions. I headed down a path I had never noticed before and I soon found the landscape changing around me, I was slowly leaving the desert landscape and entering a forest of trees. That seemed really odd… odd enough for me to do a RC, which revealed I was dreaming!

So now that I realized I was dreaming, I stopped to think of my goals for the night… at first I couldn't think of any of them, but I finally thought of the one from Mortal Mist where the goal was to explore a forest and note all of the details of the season long with the animals, weather, and other details. That would be a nice relaxing dream to have right now, so I thought I would do that. I walked through the trees, looking at the place and making note of all of the details I could, the trees were beautiful, the leaves were blowing in a gentle breeze, all of them were changing color to various shades of red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, and teal… um… blue, purple, and teal? Well, that didn't matter, this was a dream forest after all… I wondered if there are places where the leaves really do turn to shades of blue and purple, then I thought of course there are! I'm in one!

I continued walking through the forest, making note of and enjoying every detail I could take in, the feel of the cool breeze on my skin, the smell of the trees… it smelled like it might rain soon… I listened to the birds singing in the trees, the crunch of the fallen leaves on the ground as I walked through them, I caught glimpses of small animals running around in the trees, several squirrels, a couple of bunnies. One of the squirrels was quite brave, it ran right up in front of me to grab a fallen nut and then ran back to the trees and disappeared into its branches, I figured the squirrel was storing food for the winter. I saw more movement in the trees, and this time a fox emerged, cute! The fox was definitely brave, the fox came trotting right over to me and looked at me as if he expected me to pet him. Wait a minute… that fox could be none other than Pablo!

I sat down in the fallen leaves and stroked Pablo, the dream had become so vivid as I focused on every detail, the fox's fur was so silky and soft as I pet him. Pablo was a red tailed fox with a white chest, red fur on most of his body, dark brown feet, a long fluffy tail, most of the tail was red like the rest of Pablo, but the tip of the tail was pure white. What I noticed most that I couldn't get over was how soft the fur was, as soft as petting a cat, it was too soft to resist putting my arms around him and giving him a hug, burying my face in that soft fur. I saw movement near a tree and I looked, there was an animal I didn't recognize digging a hole in the ground near the base of the tree, I figured that would be a den, I wondered if that might harm the tree to dig right there… Pablo changed from an adult red tail fox to a fox cub so I could scoop him into my arms and continue walking, such a cute fox cub… I carried Pablo farther down the trail until I found a stream flowing across the path, the sound of the stream was so clear, the water was also clear, I could see some small fish swimming around in it. There were rocks positioned perfectly for crossing the stream, things were so clear that I could clearly see the difference between the dry rock and the wet rock that was being splashed by the stream.

I had to do a RC again, because I thought I would soon forget I was dreaming if I didn't remind myself, so I re-confirmed that I was dreaming before crossing the stream… and then the fox disappeared from my arms! I was momentarily alarmed, then I realized Pablo had probably just woken up, so I got down on my knees by the stream and splashed some of the cool water on my face, and it felt wonderful. I sat there for a bit longer, letting myself take in the details of the blue sky which I could see between the trees on either side of the stream, and there were some fluffy white clouds drifting across the sky… nothing looked like rain, I wondered why it smelled like rain… I got up and headed back into the forest, watching the birds flying around as if they were in a hurry to get something important done. I was walking down the path, getting close to forgetting it was a dream, when a huge shadow fell over the forest, a huge dark shadow. I also heard a loud "THWUMP… THWUMP…" sound from overhead and felt a rush of strong wind blowing down from above. This wind felt a bit chilly, and many of the colorful leaves that had been hanging on to the trees now fell off and blew around in the hurricane type winds. I looked up just in time to see a huge winged creature fly overhead, creating the wind as it flapped its massive wings.

The animal had flown farther along the path, so I followed the path faster, I really wanted to see what that thing had been. I knew it was a dream, so I had no fear that I would be in danger from it. I finally exited the thick part of the forest into a large clearing, a meadow, and I spotted several deer running past me and disappearing into the shelter of the forest. Whatever that thing was, the animals were scared of it, and maybe with good reason. I looked up and I could hardly believe my eyes… it was a dragon! A huge dragon, it flew over the meadow, swooped around in a large arc, and then returned to the meadow. It flapped its massive wings to slow down and land, the force of the wind almost knocked me over, and finally it landed and roared a deafening sound. Wow! The dream was so vivid and now I was meeting a dragon! Awesome! I had barely found a bit of voice to my awe, "Wow… you are absolutely AWESOME!" I said to the dragon, "Absolutely AMAZING!" I stood there taking in the details of the dragon, his size… he was huge… his scales, they were of various colors of greens and browns, but all of them glistened in the sunlight like gems… he had claws like spears on each of his limbs, teeth, huge white teeth, and his wings! He really could make a hurricane with those wings! I was sure of it!

So now I was facing this huge dragon, I had no idea what its intentions might be, but I felt like I was losing the dream, like I was going to wake up. No way! There was no way I was going to let myself wake up now that I was face to face with this amazing creature! Refusing to lose the dream, I focused on Allura's method of time dilation, and by doing this I managed to stabilize the dream, which I will continue in the next post.

To be continued…

Note: My first goal for the night was to go to MoSh's inner world and heal both MoSh and Asuka. I wasn't entirely clear on what had happened to them, but MoSh said that Asuka has been behaving strangely since we rescued her the most recent time and fought the reptilian alien. Other goals I had included opening the locked book (still on my list) and having a DDO dream with Tigress (also still on my list). Tigress and MoSh also volunteered to help me try to open the book, so they would be with me during that task as well.

I was in a green field. I looked around to see where I was. I didn't recognize the place. I wondered how I had gotten there. I stopped to think back about what events had led up to my being here. I had no memory. That seemed really strange. I started walking across the field towards a forest. I could see strange things over near the forest, small flying things. As I got closer I saw they seemed to be glowing. I went over there, and I saw that there were small creatures flying… they looked partly like insects of some kind, partly like fairies… They were also glowing. Closest to a cross between a fairy and a ladybug… And there were many of them. Animals were fleeing the forest, apparently under the guidance of those fairies. I wondered what was going on in there. I headed for the forest to see.

A couple of the fairies flew over to me and got in front of me. They were about the size of a hummingbird, so I couldn't miss the fact they were trying to warn me off. One of them flew right over in front of me. She was talking in a strange language at first, sounded like squeaks and whistles, but then she changed to English… or there was a translation being done. She said I didn't want to venture into the forest, there was a fire. A fire not of this world. I asked what she was talking about. She said that a strange dark fire had come from somewhere in the middle of the forest. She said some kind of demon had attacked a long abandoned shrine and set it ablaze. She said if the flames had stayed in the shrine it wouldn't have been a problem, but they had spread. She said she and others of her kind were supposed to be the guardians of the forest, but they could not stop this flame… they had failed and were trying to save as many lives as possible. Somewhere in all this I became at least partially lucid, and I told her I would see what I could do to help. She looked at me strangely. I assured her I could help, then I took flight. She was clearly surprised to see that… I flew up to where I could look out over the forest, and I could see the black flames consuming the forest.

I flew towards the dark flames. I could tell right away what it must be… someone had started a fire of dark energy. I wondered why someone had wanted to destroy this forest. Well, it wasn't going to happen. I reached the flames and flew right into them. The flames around me felt cold instead of hot, they were not actual burning flames, but a cold fire that was draining the life out of the forest. I focused on the song Full Moonlight from the Devil Hunter Yohko soundtrack, and used the song to gather up all of the dark energy into one place. I flew through the forest as I did that, collecting it from every place I could find any. The collection ended up with me in the shrine the fairy had spoken of. The shrine was abandoned as she had said, and it was completely destroyed. I looked at part of it, and it looked like whoever had used the shrine had been worshipping some kind of… um… piecing this together from a few shattered statues… worshipping a something that had angel wings, some parts of a snake, and a human face?! Wait a minute… I wondered if they had been a race of nagas… winged snakes… but I didn't know, and it didn't really matter. This place hadn't been used for many years. I collected the last of the dark energy and absorbed it into myself. I felt the cold energy inside, used The Curse to stabilize it. It was surprisingly stable already considering it had been a raging flame… or maybe it is just getting easier to stabilize it.

I looked at the forest around the shrine. It was already dead… I used the song Full Moonlight again to spread golden healing energy through the dead forest, and into the areas around it that just looked a bit sickly. The golden energy flowed into the dead trees and plants, flowed into the disgusting looking water, flowed through the polluted looking air… and it was visibly restoring things as it went. I wasn't sure how long it would take to restore things, but it was getting off to a good start. I flew back to the edge of the forest and told the fairies that the dark flames were gone. They seemed very surprised at that. They were also very grateful for helping their forest. They started leading animals back into the healthy areas of the forest. The female I had spoken to earlier said they would be able to get to restoring the forest to full health now. It was here that I let myself wake up.