New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

Note: MoSh says he got a PM from Walms stating that Asuka has been poisoned. The best I can tell, it appears that Walms was going back to MoSh's inner world to get something he lost there, Kaomea was there, and everything went unstable ending up with Walms leaving a poison of some kind in Asuka. Apparently this was the cause of the illness I tried to cure last night. MoSh said Walms had refused to help cure her, Walms said he just wouldn't go near her in a dream… so my goal was simply to go find Walms and get the antidote, then take that back to Asuka. I fell asleep with my light / sound machine and successfully slipped into my WILD…

I am in my own room, but I know that I am dreaming, I am in a lucid dream. I remember my goal is to go find Walms to get the antidote to Asuka's illness, so I focus on opening a portal to locate Walms. Just as the portal is about to open, another portal opens and MoSh comes into my room. MoSh says he can make sure Walms tells him how to heal Asuka, I tell MoSh that he's already told me and the only thing I have to do is go get it. He pauses for a bit, it looks like he isn't completely lucid, and then he seems to remember. He says yeah, he remembers, but he doesn't seem fully convinced everything will go that easily. I tell him I usually get a feeling about that kind of thing, and I wasn't feeling anything to indicate a problem. The portal I had opened to locate Walms closes before I get a chance to make sure it stays open, so I have to open another one. I realize that is just as well, as the first portal was no longer accurate, apparently Walms had moved. I go through the new portal, MoSh follows me through.

MoSh and I exit the other end of the portal, I look around and see we are at the edge of a forest near an old building of some kind. I scan the area to see if I can find Walms there, but it is not difficult to find him, he is over near the building holding something. I get a bit closer and I see he is holding a strange animal… or a bug? It is about the size of a bunny rabbit, it is furry, but it looks a lot like a beetle. It looks like a big, furry beetle. I get close enough to Walms and ask about getting the antidote, instead I get a bug… the fluffy but Walms is holding flies into the air and hovers only a couple inches in front of my face, staring into my face with huge multifaceted eyes. I reach out to touch the bug's fur, it looks really soft, MoSh tells me to stay away from the bug in case it is dangerous. The bug responds by hissing loudly at MoSh, a strange hissing / squealing noise, then it flies away into the forest. Um… ok…

I turn my attention back to Walms and start to ask about the antidote again, MoSh says he wants the antidote right now. Walms says the cure is simple, really, all it takes is a bit of his blood… so come get it. He disappears from sight, drawing a crude expletive from MoSh, it looks to me that Walms apparently wanted to make a game of it to get the antidote. I feel a short burst of instability, I wonder if maybe it would be a better idea to just go back and get our trio of genius docs to fix the problem, since Walms had already told me what the problem was, curing it would be a piece of cake for them… without even waking them from their nap. I may have been considering talking to Washu, Janet, and Maura, but MoSh was already gone, breaking down the front door of the building and making about as much racket as a rhinoceros charging through a china shop… I follow MoSh into the building, I can see he is chasing Walms, who seems to always be just a bit ahead of MoSh. I soon lose track of them in the maze of halls and passages in the building. That is fine with me, I hadn't figured a straight forward race would get me anywhere. MoSh had that one covered, I'd have to take another approach.

I stop trying to follow MoSh and Walms at all, and I focus on a tracking spell, not to use in a portal, but just for tracking alone. The first thing that comes to mind is "All Nightmare Long" by Metallica, "We hunt you down all nightmare long…" and it would only stand to reason I would find Walms in the middle of a nightmare somewhere… I focus on the tracking, and I feel an instinctive pull in one direction, so I follow that pull. It actually leads me out of the building completely, I find I am on the third floor of the building and the forest is stretching out below me. I jump out of a broken window and fly over the forest, form shifting in mid flight to become a raven… wait… too obvious… I change into an eagle… that also seems too obvious… I change into a simple tree sparrow… I fly down into the trees, still following my instinct as to where I would be able to find Walms. If he is out here, I wonder where MoSh is… is MoSh following Walms out here? Is MoSh following a fake Walms in the building? Am I following another fucking DC? I realize I am muttering as close as a song bird can get to expletives… well, I would follow my tracking instincts, and just see what I find.

I am getting close to the signal source, so I land in one of the trees and look over beside a tree where I see Walms sitting there looking at an animal, this one looks like a rabbit of some kind. I flutter down closer to Walms and the rabbit, trying to be sure that it's really Walms and not a DC this time. I land on a low branch only to have the rabbit spring from Walms' arms and attack me… with fangs… psycho rabbit! Ok… I hadn't expected that, but I react as the sparrow would and take wing, chirping expletives at the rabbit as I fly out of reach. Walms calls me a silly bird, and says I should have known better than to get that close to a… (I don't remember what he called the bunny animal). I fly over closer to Walms and land in a tree near him, and I do my best to unobtrusively scan him to be sure it's not a DC. Real energy signature, looks right… I don't think it's a DC… Walms is looking at me strangely, I wonder if he can tell I'm not a normal sparrow, well if he can, I'd better make it quick or have to do the whole tracking thing over again, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be in the dream.

I flutter down to the ground as if I am going after a particularly tasty seed or worm, poking around the ground with my beak, of course not picking up anything… my Witchblade has adjusted its size and form to my altered form… so the easiest way I can think of to get what I need is to use that. A tiny tendril of Witchblade extends from my right leg into the grass and other vegetation, snaking its way around to where Walms is standing and watching me, the tendril of Witchblade is behind him now, it snakes its way over and claims the sample I need while making no more disturbance than a light breeze. Walms is looking at me very closely… I decide not to wait any longer. I pull the tendril of Witchblade back and take flight into the trees. I wonder if Walms had any idea it was me he was looking at, I wonder if he knows I got what I was after… I figure it doesn't really matter, now I have to get the antidote back to Asuka.

I head into the building, now I want to find MoSh, because I figure he will want to be there when Asuka is healed. I then kick myself as best as I can in the form of a sparrow, wondering why I didn't just track MoSh the same way I tracked Walms. I finally do that and open a portal to go straight to MoSh. A small bird-sized portal opens and I go through it into MoSh's inner world. MoSh is looking around for something there, Asuka is there with him. She looks fine, there doesn't appear to be any sign of her previous illness relapsing. I ask how she is feeling, she says fine. I tell her I have what we need for the antidote, but I feel it should be done in the healing glen. MoSh asks if I checked the blood to make sure it is safe. I tell him it is safe, I have no doubt in my mind about it… I open a portal and go through into the healing glen.

In the healing glen there is a pool of the healing water, Allura is there waiting for us. She says she will have to remove the time stasis from the toxin, so that it can be neutralized. She does something, though I can't tell what, then says Asuka is ready to be healed. Asuka gets into the pool of water, I realize I have no idea what to do with the sample… d'oh! Not bright. Apparently the Crystal Golem knows more than I do about that kind of healing, he takes the sample and pours it right into the pool of water with Asuka. The water turns a disgusting black color, MoSh moves to pull her out of the water, but the Crystal Golem stops him and says the poison is being purged from Asuka, drawn out by the blood sample he had just added, so this isn't a negative effect. The water gets really disgusting and finally the Crystal Golem lifts Asuka carefully from the water and bathes her in light energy. I use Touch My Heart to clear any remaining dark energy from Asuka, I barely get that done before everything around me fades to black and I wake up.