New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

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.

10/06/11 Monday

Football Rocks
I am in my own house, sitting on the couch watching a football game. It is the Dallas Cowboys vs. some team I can't remember, but I remember thinking the other team must not be very good. The Cowboys are kicking the other team's ass, and the Cowboys aren’t even doing very well. My mom actually seems disappointed that the Cowboys are winning when they haven't earned it. I am annoyed at her being hypocritical so I get up and leave the room. I go outside into the desert around our house and start looking around. Something seems off, but I can't place what. I pick up a couple of rocks and see that they are uncommonly shiny. I decide to keep them. I find a larger rock that is really pretty. It is a bit too large to take back. I pick it up and see it breaks easily, so I take a small piece of it. Someone else is in the yard with me and he says if everyone takes a small piece there will soon be nothing left. I tell him it's on our property, no one else will be taking any, and I won't take any more. He doesn't seem to believe me. I put the small piece of rock in my pocket and continue looking around the yard.

Secret Gifts
I am in Bookman's with Alicia, and we are browsing for stuff to buy. She is looking around in the books and I am checking out the video games. I find a game for the PSP that is a sequel to the game Prototype I have played on my XBox. I pick it up and look at it to see what it is about. I am thinking I have read that in the new game, the main character from the first game is the bad guy… and I don't like that idea… But this game says the player is still playing as Alex Mercer. The only thing that stops me from buying the game is that it's a side scroller, and that doesn't appeal to me. I put the game back and look some more. I find yet another installment of Assassin's Creed. It doesn't say what system it's for… so I look for someone to ask. Weirdly enough I find an employee dressed as an assassin from Assassin's creed. I try to get his attention, but he is set on ignoring me. I have the crazy idea I am not really there. I try to get Alicia's attention and she responds right away. So the guy is just being a jerk. I try to get his attention again and he finally responds. He says the game is not for me and ignores me again. What an ass…

Assimilated Virus
I am in a video game, and I am fully aware it is a video game… beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is an awesome virtual reality game and I want to explore it fully. I am walking down a busy street with lots of people. I also notice there is a heavy military presence there, many soldiers are walking the streets. The civilians don't seem to notice this as strange, though some of them do seem a bit nervous. I wonder why. I head down a side street to try to clear my mind away from the crowd. There is a suspicious man there, he is watching me. I am not worried about it. This is just a game. Instead I investigate him, which seems to take him a bit by surprise. It doesn't seem to bother him much. He grabs my arm and stands there with a puzzled look on his face. I get a report from the nanites in my system that he tried to infect me with a strange virus. Epic fail, the virus has already been neutralized. I tell him his plan was an epic fail… have some of my infection… and he is infected with nanites… too bad I wake up before I find anything else out.

Note: Tonight I have noticed that my list of goals doesn't seem to be shrinking any even as I complete some of my goals… I'm adding them as quickly as I can complete them! First was to pick up MoSh and do some training with Vegeta, who has said I can use my WILD's for other things and try to train in a DILD, but I don't trust my DILD's to be consistent enough to make sure I get any training in. This training session was a lot like others, so I won't go into extreme detail, just to put we did some speed trials to continue increasing our speed, then trained with swords against each other, together against one stronger opponent, and together against a large number of opponents. Vegeta said both of us are showing a lot of improvement in a short period of time. Other goals included the continuing attempt at a shared DDO dream, finding Xildron, and the next task of the year which is showing humans how to make fire. My WILD was taken up with Vegeta, the rest of the night was fragmented, but here it is…

*Xildron*
I was lucid and I was working on my goal to find Xildron. I don't remember the beginning of this dream nor how I became lucid, and that really isn't important to the part of the dream I remember, anyway. I was in the break room at my school surrounded by other students. Dennis was bugging me. He was saying something about opening interdimensional portals in games. I told him I could open a real interdimensional portal, but he didn't seem to believe me. I really didn't care. Nick was saying there are only two dimensions to work with and he had already seen both of them. I also ignored Nick as I focused my mind on finding Xildron. I focused on the description Walms had given me about Xildron… I focused on both the description of the human Xildron had been changed into at the same time as I focused on the dragon he was supposed to be. I realized I didn't even know for sure what kind of energy he used, dark or light… I had been assuming Xildron used dark like Walms, but then again everyone knows what three words make up the word assume… ass-you-me. I focused more on the description and the situation than on the energy form since I wasn't sure. I was only vaguely aware of Dennis and Nick bugging me and asking what I was doing, I heard someone say I looked constipated… and finally a portal opened. That left the people around me all stunned. I ignored their stupid reactions and went into the portal, hoping to find Xildron on the other side of it. I exited the portal and had a look around. I barely got a chance to register that there was a red sky before I was hit in the face with a huge blast of energy that pushed me back through the portal. Witchblade formed instantly to protect me, but I was still pushed back into the break room of my school where both Dennis and Nick had been peering into my portal after me… and of course I crashed into both of them with intense force, slamming them through the next wall… and they had no Witchblade to protect them. I stood up and saw Dennis and Nick were sprawled at weird angles on the floor, they looked dead. My only thought was, "What the fuck was that?!"

*I Have a Gambling Problem*
I was supposed to go to school. I didn't feel like going. I had some extra time, and I wanted to do something else. The last thing I wanted to do was show up early for a class I hated. My ethics class was where I was supposed to be going, and it was the last place I wanted to go. I stopped at an arcade, thinking maybe there was a video game in there that might distract me for a bit and get me relaxed before I had to go to that horrible class. The arcade was huge, rows and rows of arcade games, all making beeps, buzzes, other strange noises, and loud music. I walked down the aisle and saw numerous games that I really wanted to play, but there was only one problem… the games were all so expensive! I had some money, but I didn't have nearly enough to get any significant play out of any of the games. Maybe one play and then I would be flat broke. I continued wandering through the arcade, feeling more annoyed rather than more relaxed as I had intended, and then I found a slot machine. Weird… I looked at a few of the units and noticed something weird about one of them. The cover to the wheels where the symbols showed up was cracked. It was just possible to get something in there… I was able to push a pencil through and move the wheels with the eraser part… and select what symbols appeared. Hmmm… I put some money in and pulled the lever. The colorful symbols flashed by on the wheels until they finally stopped, with a spot where I knew I had won nothing. I moved one of the wheels by one symbol so that I would at least win something. Money came out into the tray; it had accepted the new position as the final position even though I had cheated! I looked around and did that a few more times. Each time I did it I managed to win a small amount. I didn't want to get greedy with this since I was cheating, but it seemed they were also cheating by charging such outrageous prices for their games. I collected my quarters and then I stopped… I hadn't even thought about there possibly being video cameras there… what if I had been seen? Might security guards be coming for me even now? Shit! I practically ran down the aisles and between the game consoles and out into the parking lot, half surprised that I made it all the way. I got in my car and left, expecting to be followed at any minute…

*Down With the Sickness II*
I was at my new job, which strangely enough, was at a lab doing research work even though my education is in computer operations and game design. That didn't seem strange to me in the dream, though. It seemed completely normal. I was looking through a microscope, watching a virus… the virus was on the viewing slide with some blood cells.

Small pieces of the virus kept breaking off, and then those pieces touched another cell, that cell became a viral cell. That meant it spread very fast, and in almost no time at all it had consumed every single healthy cell on the slide. There were people who had this virus. My goal was to help find an antidote… a vaccine… something that could save those who were sick and prevent more people from becoming sick. It was one nasty bug, I had also discovered it is easily transmitted from person to person, or to other animals, through the air… it was airborne… and just inhaling a single cell could prove fatal since it reproduced so quickly. This virus was so easily passed from one person or animal to another that merely having the virus land on your skin can prove fatal since the virus immediately attacks the skin cells… I put on a biohazard suit and went into a treatment room where there were people with various stages of the disease, we were trying different treatments that looked promising, but nothing had worked. I returned to the lab after checking on the patients. When I took off my biohazard suite, I found there was a hole in the suit… right over the left elbow… there was no way I could have not been exposed. I looked at my arm, I was sure that was where the infection would start… and there was nothing to be done for it. I went to the sink and scrubbed the area with anti-viral soap… but I was sure that wouldn't help, my cells were already being infected, it was just a matter of time before I would die… or maybe not! My first thought was to just give up, but that wasn't going to happen. No chance. I would resist this sickness through sheer strength of will! I was not going to die!