Visions in the Dark

I am some a future version of our world where severe economic recessions and war have devastated most countries and much of the human civilization has reverted to Mideieval era technology and feudalism. There are pockets of technological advanced socities still in existence, but they have isolated themselves from the rest of the world with cities surrounded by walls and drones to kill people trying to break in. Many countries have become lawless and chaotic because religious zealots and warlords and their tribes fight for land and resources, including most of North America, and at the beginning of the dream I am fleeing my home and I end up on a ship headed to India.

I though India would be just as chaotic and poor yet fortunately there is religious tolerace and peace, and unlike most other countries, there is often running water and electricity availble in some cities. I end up living with a friend who fled North America years ago and she shares a cramped apartment with several other families above a rare bookstore which went out of business the day before I arrived. The first floor then becomes a communty meeting hall for the small village and the local Imam (who is also the head man of the town) gathers people every night to talk about relevent issues and to bring his television in so everyone can see the little bit of international news that is broadcast every now and then.

One night the broadcast is interupted and highjacked by a powerful and rouge warlord in Iran who claims to have a Doomsday Machine, which will obliterate all other countries in the world except his and he is going to set it off on the next full moon, a few days from now. To prove the effectiveness of his machine, he turns it on the Australasia continent and literally wipes it off the map. The remains of the continent are smoldering boulders and much of it falls into the sea or is completely unlivable because it is desicated wasteland. The crazy warlord gives no ultimatim and so later news reports tell of how many places become even more chaotic, mass suicides occur, or alternatively some places that were so violent and dangerous before suddenly become peaceful as people resign themselves to their fate.

Some how I meet a man who has just come into our village who claims to have worked on the Doomsday Machine and fled Iran when he learned what its true purpose was. He has made copies of the three electonic keys needed to gain access to the machine and shut it down, but unfortunately lost one in Pakistan while he was fleeing. He gives me the other two keys and a map of the place where he lost the other key and sends me on my way. I easily cross the border into Pakistan because there are so many people heading towards Iran, trying to get in, that no one really notices me.

The small village where the lost key supposedly is lays in the ruins of what once looked like a very industrialized and technologically advanced city. I search many abandoned and decrepid old office buildings and come across a gathering of people sitting in what used to be a cafeteria or something. The floor is tiles and the roof is high, and there are rusted counters and sinks all along the walls. There are no tables and chairs any more and everyone is sitting in a circle around a few men and one woman. The men are talking about making peace with yourselves before you die and the woman sits silently admist them and yet seems to emit waves of warmth and compassion that penetrate the heart of everyone in attendence. She is filled with great love for us all, but also with a great sadness and a feeling of helplessness. She is ancient and beyond any human entity in the world and I think that she is a Goddess of some kind. She is weaving black hairbands and wristbands with scraps of yarn and passing them out to everyone in attendance.

I recieve one and instantly the location of the lost electronic key appears in my mind, as if the information is being chanelled directly to me from the goddess -like woman. I head up to a higher level and find it hidden in a desk in what looks like used to be some rich CEO's office. When I go back downstairs to the cafeteria, everyone is gone and the place is dimly lit and covered in dust, like no one had been there for hundreds of years. I still have my hairband though so I know the experience was real.

I follow the throngs of refugees headed for the Iranian border, but it is extremely dangerous as criminals and other unsavory characters prey on the desperate people. Many people are robbed of the few belongings they have, and many more or killed or tortured for fun. No one is safe from being kidnapped or raped and almost all who make it to the Iranian border are immediately turned away and have to go back and face the human monsters waiting for them outside of the border crossing. Those who make it into Iran do so because they bribe the guards with everything they have. I have nothing to offer so I have no idea how I am going to get in. One of the border guards asks me for my hairband and as I pull it out of my hair I see that it has turned to gold. I am let into the country and finding the Doomsday Machine isn't hard because it is being advertised on fliers and billboards in every street corner and I head to the capital (in my dream it was called Karachi, which is not the capital city of Iran but a port town in Pakistan).

The dream becomes fuzzy and I cannot remember much more. I do end up shutting down the machine, but there is no big confrontation with the warlord or anything heroic like that and I thought this dream ended kind of anti-climatically.

I am in some sort of alternate universe where technologies are mainly the same but humans live in feudal societies and tame and ride dragons rather than drive cars. I am secretly a princess of a lost dynasty and the last of my family's bloodline. I have long black hair, pale skin and blood red eyes, which are traits of my royal family's genetics, though most people do not realize this. I have been rasied as a commoner by an adoptive family in a place called Moon City but civil war breaks out and we are forced to flee.

My adoptive mother, brothers and I go to the main city of the continent to stay with some family and friends. Politics is tumoltuous in this city and it is ruled by an authoritorian leader who controls every aspect of the citizen's lives. Every night there is a curfew at sunset and people caught outside after it is implemented are arrested or killed by the security force loyal to the iron fisted leader. It is not as bad as it sounds though and as long as people obey the rules and don't openly oppose the leader then they can live their lives otherwise normally.

The house we go to is at the end of an alley and only has three bedrooms for almost 10 people to stay in. I get stuck sharing a bed with my brothers and one of my friends. All of the older people are up all night talking about the war in Moon City and I cannot sleep because I am in a strange place and the talk of the older folk worries me so. In the morning my mother, grandmother and aunts go shopping and I wander the neighbourhood to orient myself with my new home. I find a vast, white sand beach and happily dig my bare feet in the sand and dip my toes in the cool water. In the distance I see a handsome young man watching me enjoy the beach. He is sitting on a large black and purple dragon and gazes on me with a withering smile. I do notice him but I pretend not to and ignore him.

Afterwards I am walking along a marketplace and find a used bookstore. I spend a long time browsing the books and I am so happy and content that I kind of get carried away and forget about the time. I finally buy a book and start reading it on the way home. I am walking slowly and so intrigued with my book that I do not notice the sun beginning to set and the streets becoming empty. I finally snap out of my reverie when I am at the far end of the alleyway where my grandma's house is and though I am kind of scared I know that I do not have very far to go. I begin walking briskly but I do not notice the four or five patrol officers appear behind me riding thier massive green and black dragons.

One of them yells at me and when I turn around they all jump off their dragons and force my back up against a wall. They begin shoving me and demanding to see identification and when I produce my passport they throw it on the ground and begin harassing me for not being a native citizen. They ignore my fearful protests and two of them grab me, turn me around so that my back is facing them and pin me to the wall. Another of the guards starts frisking me roughly and inappropriately by putting his hand under my skirt and rubbing between my legs. I try to scream but one of the guards covers my mouth with a gloved hand and they all start laughing and cajolling me as the assault continues.

Suddenly a voice shouts down the alleyway and the offending guards snap to attention and let me go. The young man who had been watching me on the beach approaches, riding his mighty purple and black dragon, and demands to know if the soldiers have anything better to do than harass young girls. One of the soldiers starts to stammer and answer but the young muscular man shouts at them that this kind of thing is not what his father is paying them for and he screams at them to beat it, which they do with much haste.

He gets off his dragon, picks up my passport from the ground and asks me if I am all right. I kind of glare at him with anger and indignation. How the hell does he think I feel after being sexually assaulted? The young man can see they I am distraught, laughs at himself and conceeds that it was a stupid question. He introduces as Mordred and tells me that he is the son of the man who rules this city. He looks over my passport and then seems to inspect me withis sharp and intense gaze before handing my id back. He asks me a few questions about why I left Moon City and I answer as I can.

He offers to escort me home but I am suspicious and worried that he will take advantage of me too. I am able to tell him that my grandmother's place is just down the street and we walks with me there, his dragon following closely behind. The young man gives me a cell phone and tells me that I can call him on it at any time if anyone else gives me trouble while I am in his city. After he sees be home and bids me goodnight I watch him ride his dragon away through one of the few windows in the house.

I do not tell my family what happened and the next day I stick very close to my mom and aunts as they travel to a large multi-storey mall for some shopping. I don't know why but it soon seems that I am there by myself and wander past the shops slowly and with much disinterest. I come across a food gallery of sorts but the dream distorts somewhat and while I can see the kind of food being served, I cannot read the menus and names of the food stores for some reason. Near one store that looks like a Taco Bell, I find a glass display case with many little ancient egyptian crafts and I spend some time admiring a little statue of a seated goddess Sekhmet.

A voice suddenly announces over the intercome that sunset will happen in about an hour and everyone is advised to go home. I am on the second floor of the mall and head towards an elevator, trying to avoid the man people scrambling around as if in a panic. I come across one elevator and there is a stroller nearby with a baby in it, but no adults in sight. I don't know what to do so I just get on the elevator but I am confused by the buttons on it. There are many buttons but none are labelled or clear and I cannot tell which button to press to go down. I make a guess and push one but instead of going to another floor the elevator starts moving along a track from one side of the mall to another.

I get out on the otherside in frustration and come across another adandoned baby in a stroller. People are running around ignore it so I do to. I am starting to panic because I don't know how I am going to get to the main floor to exit the mall before sunset, let alone make it all the way home before it gets dark completely. I try another elevator (and pass many more abadoned babies in strollers - I think I counted five in total this time) and luckily I find one where there is a woman with two children waiting to get on. I am hoping that the woman will know how to use it and slip in first, but she pushes her children in and then allows the door to close, apparently content to adandon her childred as well.

I am panicking and don't know what to do because the elevator is not moving and I don't know how to open the door electronically. I pull the doors apart physically but watch in horror as the two children slip between the space from the elevator to the floor and fall down the shaft. Suddenly the elevator starts moving and goes down to the main floor. When I get out of it I find the woman from upstairs holding one of her children as if nothing had happened.

It is almost dark outside and I am approaching the front doors of the mall when an army of masked soldiers in blue riot gear pushes their way in. The leader of the group points to me and says "There she is - that's the princess." The other soldiers pull out their guns and start shooting in my direction. I run as fast as I can and through a door into a dark room. I pull out the cell phone that Mordred gave me and call the number that is on speed dial. When I hear his voice I break down and start crying and tell him that people are trying to kill me. He tells me to stay where I am and that he will be there soon.

I don't know why the soldiers in blue do not located me, but I can hear them searching through the mall and shooting any straggler shoppers they find, since it is now dark outside. I am very scared and can only hope that my adoptive family made it home a long time ago. I am also confused as to how these soldiers know that a I secretly a princess.

A vent opens on the otherside of the dark room I am in and Mordred appears and tells me to follow him. Down the shaft and into the basement we go and we get on a service elevator that goes down deep underneath the mall and to a long forgotten underground street. His dragon is there and we get on and follow the tunnel to where it comes back above ground on the other side of the city. Along the way Mordred tells me that his father's spies have figured out that I am the long lost princess and has ordered my exection because he does not want anything to threaten his hold of power over this part of the land.

I cannot remember the end of the dream but I think Mordred and I run away together and away from the city.


(A lot of Dragon Booster influences in this dream.)

I'm at a public park in Shanghai where some kind of festival is going on. There are many rides, attractions and fast food vendors. I am my dream incarnate Chun-li, who is usually Chinese, but I know intinctively in this dream that I am half Chinese, half Japanese, and this is something I have to keep a secret because at this point in time the Chinese and Japanese have very tense relations and there is great suspicion between the two nations in my dream.

While there is not yet war, trade and immigration has been halted and anyone who is Japanese is immediately exiled or extradited to Japan. The same thing happens in Japan to people of having Chinese descent. People like me, with half and half relations, keep quiet because of the fear of being rejected by both countries. I greatly fear being exiled to Japan because I have lived in China my whole life and would not know where to go or what to do in a foriegn country.

I am with a small group of friends (who know of my half blood and keep it a secret) and we are watching acrobats doing tricks on giant trampolines. Afterwards we watch some fireworks and then go to check out the food vendors. The park is open all night but many people have left and few people are still around. Mostly the campsites containing the vendors families and supplies are still active. The moon is full and directly over head. My friends and I go down one road at the edge of the park and find North America food vendors containing stores like KFC, Taco Bell, a few pizza places and Burger King. One of the vendors between all of these North American vendors is a food store selling Japanese style food and sushi, though it outwardly passes itself off as a fish and chips joint. We are surpised at this and dare to order some food from there. The vendor is very kind and quietly gives us are meals (I order sushi pizza and an eggplant handroll) and we sneak off to a picnic table in the now dark park to eat our forbidden food. I become nervous because I can see some of the Chinese vendors across the street watching us.

The next day my friends and I are at a mall complex doing some shopping when we hear the news that Japan and China have declared war with each other. Many people in the mall have gathered around a large audio/video display which was previously selling automobiles but has been switched over to report the breaking news. The reporter says that the two countries armies have met in the Sea of Japan, not shots have been fired yet and there seems to be a highly tense stalemate with neither side yeilding their positions. The report then reads a breaking bulletin that people of Japanese decent, no matter the degree, are now labelled as enemies of the state and are to be arrested immediately. I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach when I hear this, and have to sit down for a moment because of weakness in my knees.

When I gather myself I leave my friends and run all the way up to a second floor department store where I know works a half Chinese half Japanese fashion designer. We know each other as acquaintences but he is not happy to see me. Because of his open and flamboyant personality (he's gay and dies his hair blond) he has never denied being half Japanese and now he knows he will probably be arrested because of it. We sit on a display counter in his store and listen to the news report coming from the floor below as it reports the breaking news that the two country's navy vessels have begun firing at each other and several ships have been already sunk. Almost everyone in the mall is now gathered around the giant television to watch.

Suddenly my friends come up the stairs and run to us. One of them says that we should start a protest for peace and that we could have a fashion show as a fund/awareness-raiser. The fashion designer is pleased with the idea but says he will probably be arrested soon. My friends give him encouragement and they start fussion over details like location, participants and the such but I kind of phase them out and listen to the live reporting of shell fire and bombs now on the Chinese coast far south of Shanghai. The dream skips ahead a few days, the fashion designer's store is a hive of activity. We have found hundreds of people to join in our war protest and dozens of people willing to participate in the fashion show fund raiser. The fashion designer has not been arrested but he and his store is under constant servaillence.

This dream ends here and I get up to use the washroom. It sort of continues after I fall asleep but there are some differences.

I am in the mall from the previous dream, planning a fashion show with my friends, but we are no longer in China and there is no war with Japan, but the gay fashion designer is still here, though he is now just Japanese, and he is arguing with one of the other designer's of the show, who is a Chinese woman. They each want the show to be influences by their countries of origin and argue like cats and dogs about trivial details like colour themes and placement of artwork. Several of my friends are watching the arguments with bemusement as we help set up.

One of my friends is a brown haired girl named Lily. She suddenly leaves the store and we cannot find her. A young man with blond hair shows up and asks me and some of my friends to join him outside, were we find Don Cherry about to start a tour of the city in what looks like an Apache helicopter. On one side of the Apache is a smaller version of the copter as some sort of escape vehicle. It seems normal to everyone else but I cannot understand why the helicopter has a helicopter on it.

The blond man gets in the mini copter and detaches it from the big one and lands it on the mall's patio roof. Don Cherry and my friends get in the big Apache and take off. I am too freaked out to get in either copter. When they are gone Lily suddenly shows up but I notice that something is odd. She has no idea about the fashion show she had previously been helping set up and she started talking about the public park festival from the previous dream, which in this dream, was not supposed to exist.

The blond man tells me that there has been a tear in space and time and that there are now two Lily's in this world. The doppelganger Lily doesn't belong in this world and her presence here threatens the existence of the real Lily, who is stuck in the past. The blond man gets into the mini copter and there is a brilliant flash of light and he and the machine disappear. The doppelganger Lily is very shallow and airheaded and keeps asking me vain and repedative questions.

The big Apache carrying Don Cherry and my friends return and are happy to see Lily, but they don't notice that this is obviously not the real one. I can hear the blond man's voice in my head saying that space/time is shifting so that all the abnormalities that came through the interdimentional tear are becoming normal. Things will only return to normal if he can find the real Lily and return her to this space and time.


I cannot remember the end of this dream.

The dream begins in outer space, some time in the future, where two opposing factions are vying for control of an area of space somewhere in a remote galaxy. The beginning character of this dream is a "bad" guy renegade of the enemy group. He appears as my dream character Walter and he is a tall man with firery red hair and goatee. His ship is attempting a covert mission to penetrate a line of defence set up by the "good" guys.

The mission fails and Walter and his small crew of renegades are captured. Imprisioned aboard the "good" guys ship and because they are renegades and not officially listed as members of a military, Walter and his crew are subjected to experiemental science testing to achieve alternative physical forms during combat.

The experiments require chocolate bars to activate and at first there are only personality changes in the renegades, but after months of experimentation, physical slave labor (to build up muscle), and mind altering drugs and reprocessing (brainwashing) Walter beings randomly transforming into a white tiger in his prisoner cell at night. Soon his right hand man begins transforming into a grey wolf and other members of Walter's crew assume other animal forms.

The leader of the "good" guys has been following orders this whole time though he has secretly morally opposed the way he has been ordered to treat his prisoners (I think his name was Greg or something). When Walter and his crew begin transforming into animals, Greg is ordered to lead use the experimental prisoners to a nearby abandoned planet to decontaminate it of harmful chemicals and remove pockets of pirates and smugglers who inhabit some of the abandoned cities.

After the planet has been liberated and cleansed, Greg is ordered by his military leaders to capture more enemies and subject them to the experiemental transformation process as well. Greg protests and refuses and as punishment for defying orders Greg and his crew are subjected to the same experiments that Walter's crew endured. When the process is complete Greg begins transforming into an African lion and some of his crew also assume the forms of other sahara creatures.

With their new transforming abilities, superiour strength and skills, Greg defects to Walter's side and the two commanders then lead their crews to rebel against the oppressive military factions vying for control of this area of space. I cannot remember the end of this dream.

This is the second dream I had on September 25th, 2008.


I am floating above a large inland sea surrounded by high cliffs and thick forests. There is a long winding railroad track that runs along the circumferance of the sea by I do not know if it is used because some parts of it dip down and are sumberged. There are two islands near the center of the sea where tiny humans live. Or at least they seem tiny compared to me and everything appears in minature. I am invisible and no one can see me. There are two groups of people that identify themselves by colour; the red people on the eastern island and the blue people on the westen island. The people have different cultures and beliefs and though they have everything to survive independantly of each other, they constantly war with each other because of their differing spiritual beliefs or something.

I suddenly find myself at the same scale as everything else and walking along the train tracks along the northern edge of the sea. After a while the track dips down into the water and heads towards the center of the sea. I keep walking and find that I can continue walking along the track without drowning or becoming bouyant. I follow the track down to the center where a submerged but seemingly abandoned city exists. Some of the buildings look modern, even futuristic, while others are made of a slightly glowing coral. There are many colourful lights around the city and they illuminate a giant bearded merman sleeping in the very center. He looks a lot like the classical sea god image but he makes me think of the father from Disney's The Little Mermaid, King Triton. There is a mighty golden trident at his side which is almost as large as he.

The is suddenly a great deal of tension coming from up above and I can sense this telepathically. The energy of the tension is so strong that it wakes the giant Sea King, who sighs wearily. He sits up and grabs me with his massive right hand (though very gently, and I know somehow that he isn't going to hurt me) and grabs his trident with his left hand before surfacing quite rapidly. On the surface nighttime has come and the Sea King and I can see that the two islands of people have amassed great armies on their respective islands, seemingly to destroy the other once and for all. The giant merman quietly tells me that he is the god of these people and protects them, and that they fight each other because each believes that they are more favoured by the god over the other, which they believe makes them superior and that the 'lesser' island should submit. Thus the fighting never stops.

The Sea King tells me he is tired of the fighting because he cares for the red and blue people equally and though he wishes neither any harm he is considering letting them destroy each other so that the constant warring will finally stop. He places me on a giant clam shell and sends me towards the islands, to warn the warring sides of the god's growing apathy. I am visible again and I talk first to the red people but most ignore me while others threaten me. I then go over the the western island where the blue people live. They are suspicious because they saw me come from their enemy's island, but are more willing to listen to my warning. In the end though, the blue people say they will still fight, partly because they know the red army is going to attack anyway.

I return to the Sea King and tell him what happened at which point he becomes very angry. He swims between the two islands and raises himself up out of the water as far as he can and towers over the tiny islands, whose people cover is fear. The Sea King declares loudly that neither island is favoured over the other, that they are both equal and that the fighting has to stop. He also says that their unique and seperate cultures should be celebrated as complements to each other, not as opposites.

The red army suddenly lunges forward and makes its way over to the blue island. They continue from their little boats and charge forward as if to attack. They reach the blue army and it looks as if the two sides are going to violently clash with each other, but instead the armies merge and walk through each other as if they were transparent. As this happens the blue and red peoples become different shades of purple. The armies and people mingle together and laugh and hug and dance. There is a drunken reverie to celebrate their coming together as the Sea King returns to his place at the bottom of the sea and goes back to sleep. I watch the partying from afar, feeling like an outsider and do not participate in the celebration because I seem to have become invisible again. My last feelings in this dream were of isolation and loneliness, then I woke up.

Dream starts off in a land of monsters, which is ruled by a short, ugly orc who lived in a white and green marble castle. Because of a civil war going on, everyone is trapped in the castle, including a beautiful human princess who was seeking shelter from the fighting. It is not made clear in the dream why the Princess was in the land of monsters in the first place. The Orc King and the Princess had names in the dream, but I forgot what they were upon waking.


The Orc King lets the Princess into his castle and makes her stay in a cage that is suspended above the throne room. The only way into the suspended cage is up a rusty ladder that is leaning against a pillar and then balancing on a tightrope. Though he tells the Princess that she is not a prisoner, the king will not let her leave the castle. The ugly, little orc also makes his lustful desires for the beautiful Princess be known, but she rejects any and all of his advances. The king is dissapointed, but respects her wishes to be left alone. Before he leaves, the Orc King has the suspended cage lowered to the floor and tells his servants to meet every demand that his beautiful human captive makes, as long as it does not involve leaving the castle.

The king leaves the throne room and goes into a cave below his castle. There is an old orc witch who lives there and she tells the Orc King of a powerful magic item that is owned by the father of the Princess being held captive upstairs. The Orc King immediately begins to plot holding the young woman randsom in exchange for the magic item, but the witch warns that the Princess has some magic power of her own and will enchant and destroy the king if he is not careful. The Orc King tells the old witch of his sexual desires for the Princess, which have been increasing every minute to the point where he was beginning to wish that he was human, so that his beautiful young captive would recieve his advances. The orc witch is horrified at the kings confession and flees the cave in disgust.

That night the ugly ruler of the orcs laid upon his bed and was just falling asleep when the Princess appeared in his chamber. She splashed a cold, silvery liquid on him immediately it began to feel as if it was burning off his skin. The Orc King screamed and writhed in pain on the floor, but as quickly as the pain had come it was gone. He stood up and realized that he had been transformed into a human. The effect was temporary and wore off when the sun rose, but not before the Princess finally recieved the king's lustful advances. For many nights afterwards the Princess returned to the Orc King's chamber at night and splashed him with the strange water that transformed him into a human, and every night she came to him the king fell more and more in love with the Princess.

When the fighting in the surrounding area suddenly stopped and it was safe to venture outside, the Princess wasted no time in escaping the Orc King's castle and fleeing to her own kingdom. The king was heart broken but he did not pursue her. That night as the king sulked under the light of the full moon, he suddenly felt a searing pain and was transformed into a human again, even though the Princess and her magic water was no where around. He hid in his chamber until susrise when he expected to revert to his normal self, but when he did not, the king snuck out of his own castle and went to find his beloved Princess. His heart and mind desired nothing else now except to be with her.

The transformed king searches for a long time, but eventually finds the Princess. She is surprised to see the Orc King in his human form and is more so when he asks to marry her. She accepts and as a wedding gift, the father of the bride gives them the powerful magic item that the Orc King once plotted to obtain. (For some reason this powerful magic item looked exactly like an old-school typewritter.) The new groom asks if he can take the magic item to his kingdom, to restore peace, and the Princess and her father agree. The older king insists on going ahead though, not knowing that his new son-in-law's kingdom is a land of monsters. Taking the magic item with him, the old king leaves the newly weds to be alone.

The Princess and her new groom try to catch up to the old king after consumating their marriage, but when they are about half way between the two kingdoms, the Orc King suddenly reverts to his ugly, little self. He is distraught because he believes that his beloved human bride will have nothing to do with him while he looks like a monster, but the Princess comforts him and does not leave. The Orc King asks his bride if she has any more of the magic water but she shakes her head no. The Princess tells him of a magic fountain within a cave that will fulfill any one desire if he bathes in the water, but the Orc King has to journey to find it on his own. The Princess then returns to her own kingdom to wait the return of her new husband.

The dream either skips a bit, or perhaps I have just forgotten the sequence, but the Orc King travels for a long while before finding the magic fountain in a far away land. He washes himself in the water and his ugly green skin melts off and he is transformed into a human again. Unlike the previous transformations, however, this is a pleasant experience and not a painful one. The transformed king rushes back to his land and finds that not only has the fighting between the monsters increased, but his father-in-law has been viciously murdered and the powerful magic item stolen. Because none of his subjects recognize their king in human form, he is attacked whenever spotted and has to sneak around as much as possible.

The transformed king find his way to his castle and spies the orc witch in the courtyard. She appears to be in possession of the magic item. When she sees her king, the witch immediately recognizes him and hands over the magic item without a fight. She also gives the Orc King an amulet and says that his loyal subjects will recognize him as long as he wears it. The old orc witch then falls over in pain and blesses the union between the Orc King and the Princess before expiring. From her dead body a white bird flies forth and disappears into the expansive blue sky.

Actually, though the king has many loyal subjects who respect his peaceful rule, there are equally as many monsters in his land who resent being ruled by a human. A bloodthirsty rebel faction kidnaps and kills the Princess and the transformed king abdicates his throne in his intense grief. His land breaks out in violent war again, but he does not care. The Orc King buries his beloved bride on a hill between the two kingdoms and then lays down on her grave and dies of despair.