Recent DJ Posts

2017, 05-12

Return to Minas Tirith

I am in a place I don’t recognize, I look around and see a man, is demanding to know who I am and how I got up here. He says only his personal guards and those he has admitted are permitted here. I wonder who he is, then I see another man there is Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Gandalf says he knows me, I have traveled with their company at a couple different times. More important now is that Denethor get a rescue force together or Faramir and his men have no chance of reaching the city alive. I ask what has happened. Gandalf goes to the edge of the outcropping that overlooks Minas Tirith and the surrounding lands and he points out at a rock formation that is surrounded by many orcs. He says Faramir and his men have taken refuge there, but they can’t hold off the attacks forever, which is why Denethor needs to send out a rescue sortie. Denethor says there is no way a sortie would be successful, he would just be sending more men out to die. Gandalf is frustrated and says Denethor’s son is out there as if Denethor wasn’t already aware that Faramir was out there and cornered. Denethor says it is the hardest decisions that fall to him, but there is no hope for success. I tell him to just stay up here and watch if he thinks the situation is impossible.

Denethor is asking me what I think I can do about this but I ignore him and run right at the edge of the outcropping. I jump up and out into the open air much to both Denethor’s and Gandalf’s surprise. I fly out over the city and then out over the fields beyond. The enemies are filling the fields beyond, they are doing double takes at me flying but then they start firing arrows at me. I dodge them and dive down to a place among the enemies, about halfway between the rock formation and the gates of Minas Tirith. This is a good spot for Dark Power of Abyss by Rhapsody, it’s time to drop an Immortal Fire! “And suddenly the unreal silence is broken by a lament... a lament coming up from the deepest darkest abyss. And from the seven gates of the dark fortress, the dead come back to life to face them... this is hell!” As I do the next part a circle of light energy erupts around me. “Immortal fire, now rise, light my heart, light my way through the darkness, the guardian of space and time!” A circle of light energy explodes out from my position, blasting enemies out of the way all of the way from the rock formation where Faramir and his men are hiding to the gates of Minas Tirith.

In the aftermath of that massive blast the fields are left bare, enemies that were on the edge of the affected area are all fleeing in terror of a force they have never witnessed the like of. The way to the rock formation where Faramir and his men are is clear, I go over there to see if everyone is able to move towards Minas Tirith. I see Faramir come around the edge of the formation, with another familiar person right behind him. Altaïr is there with Faramir, his sword is drawn and covered in the blood of orcs. Altaïr says the enemies won’t stay afraid to approach for long, they’re too dumb to know their own peril. I ask if anyone needs healing before they can be moved to the city. There are a couple that are on the edge of death with serious wounds, so I quickly heal them and then we start heading for the gates of the city. Most of the enemies are keeping their distance, but not the Nazgul, five of them are swooping in towards us as we are making for the gates. From the gates of Minas Tirith now comes a man on a white horse, they are blazing with light energy. It’s Gandalf, the White Rider charging out to meet us, shining a bright ray of light energy at the approaching Nazgul. The wraiths veer aside and break off their attack, retreating into the night. We reach the gates and get inside, Gandalf following us in as the gates are swung closed with a heavy clang. The people in the city are all cheering us and the return of Faramir and his men, happy to see their safe return. I now have the time to heal the rest of the wounded, whether their wounds be small or great. Shortly after I finish healing the last wound everything around me fades to black and I wake.

01/17/14

I am in a strange place that somehow looks familiar and foreign to me at the same time. I am walking down a street in a town that looks like something out of one of my video games. Specifically out of Assassin's Creed I. Maybe Jerusalem. There are people walking on the streets and chatting casually though they all seem a bit uneasy. Like they're expecting something to happen at any moment. I notice there seem to be an awful lot of guards wandering the street as well. Many more than would seem justified in a peaceful city street. The guards also seem a little on edge. I see a commotion from off to my right and I head in that direction. There are a lot of people gathered around one spot, all talking animatedly. Some people are talking about dark magic and demons. I wonder what is going on. I push my way through the crowd to get a look at what they're talking about. People are calling the guards, apparently worried about something. Someone tells an approaching guard to use caution, this creatures has black magic and isn't afraid to use it! I head in the direction they are indicating. I am thinking this black magic user might be why I'm here.

I get to the place they have indicated before the guards close in and block it off. I find that the guards do have someone cornered, and it is definitely someone who doesn't belong here. Ratchet and Clank are here at the end of a dead end alley. The alley is blocked off by guards and Ratchet has one of his guns out and is pointing it at the guards. Clank is telling him he doesn't know if they're really enemies or if they're just confused, which must be why Ratchet isn't firing at the guards. The guards are wielding their swords at Ratchet but don't seem to dare approach, most likely due to the scorch mark on the ground... it seems Ratchet fired a warning shot and that is the "black magic" they're referring to. The talk of demons comes from the fact they've never seen anything even close to a lombax or a robot before, especially not one that appears to throw fireballs... A guard finally decided to use a ranged weapon... and he fires an arrow at Clank. The arrow hits Clank and bounces off with a *clank* noise but doesn't harm him. I get closer to them and throw a smoke bomb into the middle of the scene. I use my eagle vision to locate Ratchet and Clank and get them off of the street into a small concealed garden area that would no doubt make a very good hiding spot for an Assassin. I hear the guards behind me yelling and searching, giving orders to find them immediately. I wonder if they have a better plan on what to do if they do find them… get shot with more fireballs?

Ratchet and Clank seem quite confused as to what is going on. I tell him someone is screwing with space-time and I think I know who... and that someone is gonna be feeling my hidden blade really soon. Clank says they had just been heading to town to get a replacement part for Ratchet's space ship when a strange gateway had opened and pulled them here. Ratchet seems annoyed at being called a demon. I am thinking I need to open a portal to get them home. Before I have a chance to I spot that we aren't alone in the garden. I had originally thought it looked like a good hiding spot for an Assassin and I'm not the only one to have thought that. Altaïr is here. He is right behind Ratchet. Wait... does he also think Ratchet is some kind of demon or monster? I think he does... because he has his hidden blade out. Before he can stab Ratchet I push Ratchet out of the way and tell him to stop it. Altaïr stabs me. Of course in the dream state I am now a virus like Alex Mercer... so that does nothing except create a small injury that instantly heals. I ask Altaïr what he's doing that for. He hesitates when he sees me heal and says I must be another of the demons. He says he has heard that the Templars have enlisted demons to aid them. I say yes, they have, but neither Ratchet nor I are demons. The demon is no doubt the one who pointed Ratchet out to him. I am an Assassin from another dimension. Ratchet is also from another dimension, also not a Templar. Altaïr seems unsure of who to believe now. He says he's seen Ratchet use black magic on some guards... No. Not black magic. Just a more advanced weapon. One that doesn't really belong here, so he'll be taking it home with him.

So I need to send Ratchet and Clank home. I start focusing on opening the portal but it seems to be giving me trouble. Altaïr seems unsure of who to believe. I get the idea he is leaning towards believing me. He eyes me for a moment and then says he does believe me, that other person hadn't stayed around long enough for him to verify who's side he was on... but he can see I am an Assassin. He stares at Ratchet for a long while and that seems to annoy Ratchet a bit, who switches his tail around... which draws Altaïr's attention to it and he stares even more. Ratchet finally asks Altaïr if he's never seen a lombax before. "A what?" is Altaïr's response. I comment no, no one here has ever seen a lombax. Wrong time. Wrong planet. Wrong galaxy. Wrong fucking dimension. Robert de fucking Sable. I really want to find Robert and then rip off his favorite body part and shove it up his ass… Ratchet is asking who Robert de Sable is, but Altaïr knows exactly who I am talking about. He says Robert de Sable and his Templars will stop at nothing to get what they want, but this… a lumbet from a different planet? A different dimension? Yeah… but a lombax, not a lumbet… whatever those might be… I gotta send him home. I focus on opening a portal to send Ratchet and Clank back home.

I am focusing on the portal when Altaïr distracts me. He says Robert de Sable's name. I turn and see Robert de Sable standing at the entrance to the garden. He is laughing. Altaïr says he doesn't know what scheme the Templars are up to this time but it will fail. As long as there are Assassins around the Templars will always fail. Robert seems to be ignoring Altaïr right now. He asks me if I'm not going to send my two friends home. I hesitate in opening my portal… he seems to like the idea of me sending them home a bit too much, like maybe the Templars have fucked up my portals somehow. Like maybe if I send them "home" I'll actually be doing something to make things much worse. Robert laughs when I hesitate. Of course maybe he is just messing with me, too. And I can't keep Ratchet and Clank here… I really want to kick Robert's ass. Ratchet asks who this guy is, referring to Robert. He is the cause of a hundred paradoxes that Assassins keep having to fix… and this is just another fail. Because that's what he does. He fails. Has always failed. Will always fail. In the history books next to the name Robert de Sable they will write, "The Ultimate Infinite Failure" as the definition. Robert says he will show me a failure and throws a dark energy fireball at Altaïr. I pull the energy ball over to me and absorb it. I tell him to stop passing out dark energy. Well he has done it for the last time, anyway. I use an Alex Mercer move and drive spikes into the ground. They erupt right under Robert… right as he disappears in a blast of smoke. Shit! The chicken-wuss disappeared again! "Come back and FIGHT ME, you FLAKY JERK!"

The spikes and the commotion have apparently gotten some attention. Guards are entering the garden through the narrow entrance. They have their swords out and are attacking on sight, apparently not concerned with the idea there might be some innocent people here, too. One of them gets himself stabbed by Altair's hidden blade. A second gets shot with Ratchet's blaster, a third gets electrocuted when he tries to grab Clank. My Alex Mercer claws take out a fourth. The others aren't as quick to push through the opening. Altaïr says he knows a way out. He jumps up a wall and grabs a ledge, climbing as if he is assuming everyone else can obviously follow him. Clank jumps onto Ratchet's back and uses a jet booster to get Ratchet all the way up to the ledge Altaïr grabbed. I easily follow them as well. I guess Altaïr wasn't mistaken when he assumed everyone could follow him. Except the guards, that is. They don't seem to be able to reach the ledge. Close, but not quite. Altaïr throws a knife and takes out an archer aiming at us. A shot from Ratchet's blaster takes out that archer's partner. We get to a place that is hidden from the guards. I hear them out there still looking, but they aren't having any luck.

I go back to focusing on opening a portal to get Ratchet and Clank home. A portal opens. I look through the portal and see a place that definitely looks consistent with a Ratchet and Clank world. Robert is still in my mind laughing, still making me question whether this portal is good or not. I go through it, indicating Ratchet and Clank should follow. If it's the wrong place I can set it right once we get there. On the other side of the portal I look around and see the setting is consistent with a Ratchet and Clank world, but the inhabitants are not. The inhabitants are all reptilian creatures with big green eyes and a lot of teeth. They see us enter from a portal. Some of them just look confused, others look like something else… One of them is looking at Ratchet in a way that makes me think he wants there to be fresh lombax on the menu for tonight. I think Ratchet has the same idea, he gets a bit closer to me and says this is definitely not his home world. I tell him I know, this is another trick of Robert's. Time to get out of here. I open another portal, focusing even stronger on getting to Ratchet and Clank's home world. The portal opens and we go through it before anyone in the previous place decides to make a move. Now this world looks right. One of the people there even seems to recognize Ratchet and Clank. I think for a bit and remember his name… Big Al! So I think they're in the right place now. Which is good since here is where I wake up.

05/29/13

Winter Shield
I am in a place I don't recognize. I have somehow become semi-lucid without remembering how it happened. I look around and I see Nomad sleeping in a bed. He is there holding Winter. I stand and watch them sleep for a while, thinking they look peaceful together and feeling lonely that there is no one in this dimension meant for me. I am lost in my own thoughts when I see that I am not the only one watching them. I look around and see there are Templars everywhere. I am not sure what they are doing there but I am sure they are up to no good. I drop an Immortal Fire spell right near Nomad and Winter. The explosion of energy incinerates all the Templars in its path. When the energy fades I see all of the Templars are gone. I look back at Nomad and Winter, feeling a little better. Being alone doesn't mean I have to give in to the Templars. I wait for a bit longer and Nomad wakes up, or more accurately he enters the dream. He looks up at me. I tell him he had been surrounded by Templars, but I got rid of them. We can get right to putting up a shield around Winter. He agrees that is a good idea, first we'll have to go into her inner world. He says he isn't sure what condition the place is in… Since I have never been in there I let Nomad take both of us into Winter's inner dream world. Once we are in Winter's inner world I see that it is in complete chaos. The place is on fire, and there are dream demons flying everywhere. Nomad looks around and then says the dream demons are only DC's. That means her inner world has fortunately not been invaded as it appears. The dream demon DC's are making things a bit chaotic so I focus on two songs at once. Enter Sandman to create a cyclone of energy and Black Hole Sun to draw all of the free flying dream demons into the center of that cyclone. There is a large explosion in the center of the cyclone and the DC dream demons are destroyed. I look around and see Nomad holding on to Winter. I focus on the song Blitzkrieg by Metallica in order to form a defensive shield around all of Winter's inner world.

After that is done I focus on the song Full Moon Light to spread healing energy throughout the place. It flows to all areas of Winter's inner world as well as through Nomad and Winter. Nomad looks upset by something. I ask him if Winter is ok. He says we need to go to the healing glen. I open a portal to the healing glen and we go through it. We are greeted by the Crystal Golem. We all sit down in the tall grass, Nomad is holding Winter close to him. The birds are singing, there are butterflies flitting around as well as some other iridescent insects. An angel is singing a healing song. For some reason the healing energy isn't making me feel any better, I am feeling more alone than ever. So I get up and leave, walking through the tall grass until I come to a small pond.

I sit down on the banks of the pond and look out over the water wishing I didn't feel like crying. But I am alone… so it's ok to cry. So I sit there and cry silently. I don't know how long it has been before someone is beside me. He asks if I am ok. I instinctively try to wipe the tears away, it is a habit for me to not want to be seen crying. He doesn't say anything more, he sits down beside me and puts his arm around me, pulling me close. Somehow the fact someone came to check on me makes me want to cry more, people don't do that in my waking life. I look to my side and see Altaïr is the one sitting beside me. We sit there for a bit until I hear strange noises behind me. Nomad is there, says something about smoking a joint. Winter is playing around with some kind of ninja powers. Nomad says we have to find Ezio. Altaïr says he already knows where to find Ezio. The Ezio we are looking for is from the same world he is from, just a different time period. He said he scouted the area and caught sight of a shadow templar disguising himself as Altaïr, but he disappeared before Altaïr could stop him. A fake Altaïr… that would explain the visions I got of Ezio and Altaïr fighting, it was no doubt the fake Altaïr. Good to know since between Ezio and Altaïr I would tend to choose Altaïr. I wake up, and for a few seconds I still feel Altaïr's arm around me as if he had come out of the dream with me.
 
Shadow Ambush
I am in a city I don't recognize. I look around but I don't see anything that can help me recognize the place. Something about it reminds me of a city from a video game, so I decide I must be testing out the latest virtual reality system. So I set to exploring the town. There are quite a few people wandering the streets but I don't recognize any of them and none of them seem to notice me. I continue wandering until I find several guards that seem to be bullying one man, pushing him around, threatening him… I figure it is probably an optional task to teach those bullies a lesson. So I check for weapons and find I have a sword and a hidden blade. Good enough. I go over to the guards and tell them they had better leave that man alone. The guards laugh at me and tell me I had better move along if I don't want to get hurt. I tell them I don't see anyone around that could hurt me, but this is their last chance to back off. The guards just laugh at me. One of them says maybe they should put me in my place. The guards are now surrounding me, there are five of them. The guy that had been being bullied takes the opportunity to run away. Jerk… he won't even stick around to offer a reward for helping him? Well, kicking these guys' asses should be a reward in itself. The guards are around me with their swords drawn so I draw my own sword. This brings more laughter. One of them laughs and says the little girl thinks she's going to be able to fight. One of them attacks me. I block his attack and then cut him down with a counter strike. The other guards seem surprised I was able to do that. The others attack me now, I dodge out of the middle of the group, using a counter strike to take another one out. Three left, and they're all attacking at once. I focus on one and use a counter strike, turning around quickly to find the two coming from behind me… are already dead? They haven't even hit the ground yet, and there is a man standing between them, the one who killed them.

I recognize that man as Ezio. He is looking at me strangely. Ok… taking out a few guards is easy, but I don't think I'm a high enough level to take on Ezio… but I don't have to. He comes over to me, it sounds like he is going to ask me to join the Assassins, but he gets interrupted by another Assassin running up to him. He says there is trouble, and Ezio is needed right away. Ezio follows the other Assassin quickly and I follow Ezio, since he's apparently going where the action is. We leave the main area of town and end up in a small glen of trees. The other Assassin has stopped and is just standing there. Ezio asks what is going on, who is in trouble? The other Assassin looks up with a really evil grin on his face and says Ezio is the one in trouble. There are Templars emerging from the trees. They all seem to be surrounded by dark auras. Shadow Templars! There are shadow Templars in this game? Then there had better also be magic to defeat them! Ezio is instantly ready to fight the new enemies. I tell him to wait just a second… then focus on the spell song Battery to summon a lightning bolt of light energy to charge Ezio's sword.

He looks at the sparking blade only briefly before attacking the shadow Templars. There are six shadow Templars including the one disguised as an Assassin. The Templar disguised as an Assassin is the first to fall to Ezio's blade. The others has been moving in, but when they see their friend go down so easily they seem to hesitate, giving strange glances at each other. I hear someone muttering about dark energy making them invincible… and a response of just kill them! Ezio takes out a Templar coming at him from in front and then one off to his right in one smooth motion. I manage to take out one attacking Ezio from behind and then counter strike the one attacking me. I turn around just in time to see Ezio cut down the last Templar. Ezio looks around to make sure there are no more Templars hiding in the trees and then over at me. He asks who I am… there was something strange about those Templars, what was it? All I end up tell him is my name… Raven Knight… then I feel like I am about to wake up. I find that disappointing. I don't want to return to my waking life. I realize I have spoken aloud, said I don't want to leave. Ezio says I don't have to go anywhere, but apparently it's not up to Ezio… I wake up.

04/16/13

Field of Dreams
I am lying on a blanket in a green field, I have just entered a WILD. The field is a very nice place, and a gentle breeze is blowing across the grass. I see I am alone in the field. I try to get up but there seems to be something holding me down. I can't move. I wonder if I am experiencing sleep paralysis. That seems odd, I haven't had a problem with that in the past. I try again to get up, but when I find I can't move, I decide to let myself relax and enjoy the feel of the soft grass beneath me and the gentle breeze blowing over me.

But I feel like I'm not alone… so I don't want to stay still. I look around and I don't see anyone. But I feel them there. I lie back in the grass and try to feel who might be around me. I sense hostile intent. I don't like the idea of being in sleep paralysis and surrounded by enemies. So I focus on the song Dark Power of Abyss and try to do an Immortal Fire. The spell goes off, though it isn't as powerful as it usually is since I can't move. What it does do is break my sleep paralysis so I can get up. I look around and I don't see anyone, there is no sign that there was anyone there at all. I focus on opening a portal to the moon, I remember plans to continue healing. A portal opens and I go through to the balancing pools. When I get there I see that Nomad is already there, as is Winter. I go over to Winter and focus healing energy through her, hoping to keep her fibromyalgia under control. I direct healing energy to Nomad's foot to get rid of the remnants of the sores he has there. After that is done I sink into the balancing pools. It is very relaxing. I sink into the warm water and fall asleep in the dream. 

The Goblin King
I am with a group of other people at the entrance to a castle. I recognize the people I am with. Nomad, Spike, Bakura, Altaïr are all there. What I notice is that while I recognize them all, everyone looks like a Templar. I look like a Templar. I wonder why we are all dressed as Templars. Templars are a dream sign, so I do a reality check and become fully lucid. There is a group of Templars going into the castle, and we go into the castle with that group. No one notices us there and the gates close behind us. Nomad says we have to find out where the Goblin King is being held. I look around for some sign that might tell me where he might be. I see one door that has a couple Templar guards on each side of it. I wonder if that might be where we need to go. It doesn't look like they're even letting Templars through the door. I get over closer to them and notice they are watching me closely. I focus on reading them telepathically. The door does indeed lead to a dungeon, and that is where the Goblin King is locked up. They are under orders to keep everyone out except for a select few Templars. It also appears that the guards are under orders to kill the prisoner if there is any sign of a rescue attempt. I move on before anyone becomes too suspicious. I tell the others I know where the Goblin King is being held. I am thinking one of us will have to disguise ourselves as a specific Templar when I see someone approaching the door. I pull invisibility cloaks from my pockets and pass them around, we slip through the door behind the Templar guard that they allow through. On the way down to the dungeon Altaïr takes out the single Templar, who has a key to the lower areas. The dungeon is empty except for the Goblin King and a couple more Templars guarding his cell.

Nomad takes out one of the guards and Spike takes out the other. Inside the cell we find there is a goblin chained to the far wall, he looks very cranky. After letting him know who we are we try to unlock the chains, but the key doesn't fit. I use the Harry Potter unlock spell alohamora to open the locks and free the prisoner. He is clearly not in the mood to make a stealthy exit… he charges out of the room like he thinks he can take on every Templar in the place by himself. We follow him out of the dungeon and get to the main level of the castle just as he is bursting through the door into the main courtyard. Nomad fires off a flare, no doubt indicating it is ok to make a move now. I hear a commotion from outside the castle, it sounds like there is an army attacking the castle. The Goblin King is under attack, though no one is attacking the rest of us since we still look like Templars. I use Battery and call down lightning to strike Templars as they attack the Goblin King. No one seems to know exactly where the lightning is coming from. They notice when it appears several Templars are helping the Goblin King, however. Something is smashing at the main gate of the castle. Nomad gets over near the gate and pulls the lever that opens it, allowing a swarm of goblins into the castle. Now everything is chaos. I make sure to switch back to my usual Assassin robes, I don't want to be a target for the goblins. I use the song Damage, Inc. to call fireballs to hit Templars. The fight doesn't take long before the entire place is overrun by goblins. I see a portal in the back of the castle with the last few Templars retreating through it. The portal closes just before the goblins reach it. I am thinking that must be the last of them, and it is here I wake.

03/27/13

Pools of Healing
I am in my room, in bed. Someone is yelling at me. That is all I am aware of at first. Who is it? I open my eyes and see there is a single Templar beside my bed and he seems to be in a bad mood. But I notice he doesn't seem to be sending off the attacks I have come to expect. He is asking questions. He wants to know something. I assume I know what he is talking about, but I assume wrong. I expect he will be wanting to know where I have hidden the thing I stole from them, instead he is asking what I did to someone. The three Templars that went through that portal aren't acting normal at all, what is wrong with them? I am a bit annoyed at this Templar being here yelling at me, my first reaction is to tell him I'll show him what I did to those other three… he falls silent and takes a step back, clearly not liking that idea. My mind clears and I remember that there were three Templars I got pissed at and sent to the Dark Realm. I'm not about to send another one there, but I am glad the idea of it has made him shut up. In fact I remember I had plans to get those three out of the Dark Realm, no one deserves to be left there. But first to the moon. I focus on opening a portal, and it opens right away. The Templar moves away from the portal. I tell him it leads to the balancing pools on the moon, not the Dark Realm… and then I go through the portal. I get to the other side and it is right next to the balancing pools.

Nomad is already in one of the pools and appears to be relaxing. I get into the pool and focus healing energy on his foot where he still has some sores, though the injuries look like they're improving. After doing that I let myself sink through the warm relaxing waters to the bottom of the pool where I am having no difficulty breathing the water. It smells fresh and clean. I am relaxing there as I fall asleep.

Out of the Darkness
I am with Nomad, Link, Altaïr, and Spike. I immediately don't like the place. We are in what looks like an underground hallway, part of a labyrinth perhaps, a long stone corridor that is illuminated only by torches set in the walls. The passage is stiflingly hot, the stone walls are practically too hot to touch. The look of the place isn't what I find worst about it, however. It's the sounds. From seemingly all around come the echoing sounds of people screaming in pain, like someone is being tortured. I wait for a moment for my mind to clear and then I remember I am actually there to get three people out, because this is probably the area of the Dark Realm they have been brought to. I sent them here, I need to get them out. I notice everyone else is wearing black, black versions of the usual Assassin robes, and I realize that is much harder to see against the dark stone than the white ones I have. So I change my white ones to black.

Someone I don't recognize comes down the hall, my first impression is that she is a Templar. But she seems to be helping us… well maybe she would be since the goal is to retrieve three Templars from the Dark Realm. She says she found the way through the labyrinth. There is a torture chamber, she shudders but offers no further description. Another scream of pain echoes through the halls making further description unnecessary. She says there are more than three of them there, she wasn't aware of which ones were the Templars I had sent here and who the others were. I figure it doesn't matter… if they're prisoners here they need to get out. We all follow the woman down some halls to a room of nightmares. I see a sight I am sure I have seen before. A man is naked in a metal cage over a fire, his skin is blistering and cracking as it burns, his face is a mask of pain but he is silent. Nomad says they will see about getting more free before we're discovered, though that probably won't take long. I go over to the man in the cage, he is not even aware of my presence. There is a demon of some kind watching him, completely absorbed by the sight. The demon is not paying any attention to me. The demon looks almost like a human, in fact if I hadn't already known it was a demon I might have thought it was a Templar… but a Templar wouldn't be torturing another Templar, would he? I charge my hidden blade with light energy and sneak up behind the demon, pumping him full of the stuff before he can sound an alarm. I open the cage with the half-dead Templar in it. There were three I sent here… where are the other two? I find the other two near where the first one was. The second one is another man, he is impaled on a pike that is set in fire… burning and impaled… and a demon is watching that. There is a woman in a small pit hogtied and there are bugs all over her, nasty demonic looking things, eating her alive… another demon is observing.

Somewhere around here someone must have gotten some attention, however, as the demons depart their posts and began gathering somewhere. I take that opportunity to get the other two free. I focus healing energy on them, healing up burns, bites, and other injuries, and blocking any pain. I see the others are there, and they have more prisoners with them. They are in an alcove, and I see there are demons searching the place. They seem a bit confused, and not sure where to find the intruders. The rescued prisoners all look like they're still in shock from their experience, they aren't very responsive. Nomad says they need more healing, and opens a portal to the Healing Glen where the crystal golem takes care of those who have been seriously hurt more than just physically. I'm not sure how many prisoners we rescued, though I am sure the three Templars I sent to the Dark Realm are the three I got out. I am thinking there are still more of them back in the prison, more of them that shouldn't be left there… but I'll not be getting them out now, I wake up.

02/23/13

Note: Someone named Lara has been visiting us for the past few days with the goal of helping break some psychological blocks I am having problems with. After she was here it was discovered she had been working for some Templars in her home world, but she has agreed to help with the blocks in exchange for a cure for her son, Anthony, who has an inoperable cancer. Of course it's not inoperable for someone like Q or Washu… The area she works in looks for time fluctuations which can be used to see through time, know the outcome of certain operations before doing them… know what Assassins are going to do before the Assassins even know… She said they found a timeline where an Altaïr was about to die in the natural course of the timeline. They managed to grab him, Lara said the point was to use energy healing so Altaïr could learn how to feel love… but the truth no doubt has more to do with mind control. Lara truly believes people like Altaïr (Assassins) don't have the capacity to care about anyone due to how they grew up so they need to have their hearts healed… the final point being my goal, to go into the facility where they are holding Altaïr and get him out of there… In order to make sure as few people as possible get hurt Lara says she can get me in by telling them I am a soul healer (not a lie) and I can have the effect they are looking for on Altaïr.

Moon Assassin
I am on a beach taking a walk on a very peaceful day. I remember my goal, and first I have to go meet up with Lara so she can sneak Sailor Moon into the Templar facility. Before I can even open a portal, however, Q appears with a woman I don't recognize, who turns out to be Lara. I have never actually met Lara face to face… Q says he will take us to the correct world, then snaps his fingers to transport us. When we appear, we are in a house. In a bedroom. Lara leaves the room and heads downstairs. An older woman eyes Q and me suspiciously as we follow Lara. Q says he will take care of Anthony's treatment, it is almost done, then it is not only guaranteed that Anthony's current cancer will be gone, but he will be immune to any cancer in the future. I notice that Q looks like a doctor. The older woman looks similar to an older version of Lara, and I realize she is primarily looking at me. She says she doesn't want any of "them" around Anthony… then asks what I am doing here. She says she knows the doctor has to see Anthony, and has even accepted the demons Lara has to deal with in order to get Anthony cured, but no one else is to have access to Anthony. Lara starts to tell the woman my name… then hesitates… I say my name is Serena… Serena Usagi, using the name off of Sailor Moon… and I am a healer, so who is this "them" she thinks I am? She scoffs and says I already know… and if I am a healer she is the queen of England… then tells Lara to get me out of her house. I am about to question why the woman doubts my being a healer, Lara points at a mirror… I am dressed like an Assassin from Assassin's Creed… oops… that's not how Serena dresses… so I use the crescent moon wand to transform into Sailor Moon.

The older woman, who I determine is Lara's mother and Anthony's grandmother, does a double take. Lara hurries me from the room and outside. She eyes my Sailor Moon form for a bit. She says she has no idea who Sailor Moon is, but that means the others probably don't, either. I ride in a normal car with Lara for a while into the mountains, then up to a gate that is mostly hidden. It reminds me of the entrance to some secret military installation that's not supposed to exist. The guarded entrance leads to a tunnel that leads deep within the mountain.

Lara pulls up beside a guard gate and says she has to speak to the captain… whoever that might be. The guard asks who I am. She just says the captain will want to talk to me, she was looking through a time flux and might have found the answer. He wants to know what answer she has found. She says she might have the cure, and the captain will know what that means. He asks again who I am. She gives him the name Serena Usagi, known in my home world as Sailor Moon, the moon healer. He talks on the communicator inside the guard station for a bit and then finally comes back. He opens the gate and tells Lara to follow the vehicle in front of us, and do not leave the path at all, he says we have only limited access here. With a relieved sigh she agrees and drives on after what looks like a jeep of some kind. Lara drives through what seems like a maze of passages. There are numerous large doors along the passages. Now and then one of them will open and the jeep will lead us through it, then it will close behind us. After getting completely disoriented we finally come to a stop. There are several guards around us when they lead us into an office room. There is a man there, and he looks me over closely. He asks who I am. I tell him I am Serena Usagi, Sailor Moon, a soul healer. Lara says she has seen me heal the hearts of those who have never learned to love. He turns on a monitor. He indicates I should look at it. There is a white room with only a bed and bathroom facilities. There is a man in the room. It looks like Altaïr, though he isn't dressed as an Assassin, he is just in plain white clothes. He is sitting on the bed doing nothing. The captain tells me to do what I have to do. I ask if he really thinks I can heal someone over a television link. I have to be in there with him. He looks at me suspiciously. He says if I am in there he can't guarantee my safety. I tell him I have healed people as powerful as Vegeta when he is attacking me… He says he has no idea who Vegeta is. I tell him I have to be in there with Alt… the person he wants me to heal. Did I just screw up? Maybe not… he says I will be taken to the holding cell, but I will be on my own, even if the prisoner attacks me. I say that's ok. I am led through some halls and to an airlock. What do they think Altaïr is, an alien? Maybe just to make sure he doesn't get out? I remember Lara saying he got out once and killed a bunch of Templars, almost getting out of the facility before getting trapped again. I guess they don't want a repeat occurrence. I go into the middle area of the airlock, the door behind me closes, the one in front of me opens. I go into the small room. Altaïr is looking at me now… hatefully glaring at me, though I notice a slightly puzzled look when he gets a better look at my Sailor Moon form. The door immediately closes and locks behind me. No matter. I'll open a portal. I focus on opening a portal. Nothing happens. A dampening field? A voice from nowhere asks if I really thought they would let a stranger walk right into a secure facility and then walk out with their most valuable prisoner. I decide to stay with the Sailor Moon theme. Open the door or in the name of the moon they'll be punished. The voice says he knows perfectly well I am not Sailor Moon, she is a dumb cartoon, I am an Assassin, so now they have two. I do a Cosmic Moon Power blast on the airlock door, it looks like a Final Flash from Vegeta…

and it blasts the door off of its hinges, practically melting through it. Altaïr is doing a serious double take… another Cosmic Moon Power blast takes out the outer door. Alarms start going off everywhere. I tell Altaïr it's time to blow this pop stand… up… I wonder how far I have to go to pass the dampening field. There are guards outside the second melted door, it looks like they're not sure what to do. Some of them shoot at Altaïr and me, others turn and run. The ones who are firing change their minds after "Cosmic… Moon…" before the blast goes off. They run down the hall and around the corner. I try a portal… nothing. Altaïr and I head farther down the hall. Someone tries to ambush us from around a corner. I hear the popping noise when Altaïr breaks his neck. I try a portal. It opens! I tell Altaïr that is our exit, I figure the dampening field was probably just around the holding cell. I lead Altaïr through the portal and into the control room on the moon before I wake.
 
Secret Escape
Note: This is a case where I think I was having two variant dreams at the same time. In one of them I went to meet with Lara so she could sneak me into the compound where Templars are keeping Altaïr, but in the other one I used Avalon to get in on my own. The previous one is journaled above, this is the second version.

I am on the beach as in the first dream. But this time Q doesn't show up. I wander down the beach for a while longer before deciding I need to go find the Altaïr who is being held by a bunch of Templars. I focus on opening a portal to find him. I focus on finding the one that Lara has told me about. After a brief hesitation, during which I wonder if it is going to work, a portal finally opens. I go through the portal into a long hallway that is large enough to handle vehicles.

It looks like some kind of underground military facility. I wonder if this is where Altaïr is being held. I wonder how I can find him. I need to get access to their computers. I can locate him through that. I go through a door and into an office. The people in the room seem to know who I am, and a man asks why I'm not dressed. He throws some lab clothes at me, so I put them on. He then hands me a syringe. He says that's the drug, the strongest version yet. He says Altaïr will either be very receptive to the programming, he will be dead, or go stark raving mad. I look at the syringe... there's no way I'm giving that shit to Altaïr… The man, apparently sensing I am hesitant, says this is my project… he's not going in there. I look and see I have a keycard. I use it to open the door the man is looking at. It leads to what looks like an airlock, and then into a white room. I see Altaïr is in the room, he is chained to the far wall. I am being watched. So I try to act like they expect. I go over to Altaïr… who looks like he is unconscious. A voice comes from the speakers, telling me to administer the drug. I have to get Altaïr loose… then open a portal. The needle on the syringe… I can pick the lock with that! So I reach for one of the chains and I realize it isn't really attached to anything. It looks like the locks have already been picked? The next thing I know the syringe has been taken from me and is stuck in my neck, Altaïr is loose, he says we are leaving here now unless I want a dose of my own medicine… An alarm is going off, I tell Altaïr to cut it out, we're on the same fucking side. He takes my key card and injects the drug into me, pushing me aside and going for the door. Great… I'm wasted on drugs… I toss the syringe aside and try to clear my head. Everything sounds echoed and far away. I hear a commotion outside, someone has come into the room with me and is saying something about an antidote. I focus my energy on clearing out the drug and my head clears. I push the two men away from me and head in the direction I think Altaïr went. People behind me are asking me what I'm doing… I need a doctor if I hope to survive that drug… I ignore them. In the next room there are two dead people. One of them has his head at a really awkward angle, the other has an unidentified object sticking out of his neck… ok… on the right path. I follow the commotion down the hall.

A couple guards shoot at me before realizing who I am. I send a wall of telekinetic energy down the corridor that stops the bullets and pushes the guards back against the wall. I see Altaïr around a corner, he is looking right at me now. I'm not sure how to convince him I am actually there to get him out… Altaïr disappears down the hallway. I follow him. When I come around the corner someone shoots at me. Altaïr is shooting at me? Apparently he grabbed one of the guards' guns. I see someone behind Altaïr, aiming at him. I use telekinetic energy to knock that person back against the wall. Altaïr disappears down a side passage. Shit… this is ridiculous. Maybe my disguise is too good… so I switch to my usual Assassin robes before following Altaïr again. I hear more gunshots. I am on the right path when I find a dead guard. Altaïr aims a gun at me, but then stops when he sees I now look like an Assassin. He points the gun at someone behind me and fires… but gets only a click, he's out of ammo. I look behind me and see a couple guards there aiming guns. More guards on the other side of Altaïr. I get over closer to Altaïr and tell him it's time to get out of here before opening a portal. Someone is yelling to shoot them both, so I just shove Altaïr through the portal before following him through and waking up.

01/01/13

Split Consciousness
I am in my Fire Valkyrie heading for the moon. I land on the moon and look around briefly before opening a portal to get somewhere I need to be. I go through the portal and enter a place that looks like a scene from Assassin's Creed. This does not surprise me since I have been dreaming a lot about Assassin's Creed lately. What does surprise me is that someone calls my name. I look over to where someone is calling me from and I see there are lots of Templars. Four of them are holding on to someone who looks like Altaïr. One of the Templars is laughing at me saying I had better not try anything or Altaïr would be dead before I could stop it. I use Battery to call two bolts of lightning, one on each side of Altaïr, nailing the Templars holding him. That frees Altaïr, who grabs a sword from one of the four fallen Templars and runs it through another Templar.

They now have a fight on their hands. I am about to help Altaïr with the large number of Templars, but one of them is still laughing at me. He says I can only save one of them, though. One of them? Who else? He says there are far more of them than there are of me, right now there is a parallel world that just lost its Altaïr. I saved one and lost the other. I use Divide by Disturbed to separate into two people, and one of me opens a portal to find the other Altaïr they are talking about. The situation is practically identical, so I use an identical solution. Battery… the Templars holding Altaïr die… Altaïr grabs a sword and fights back. But they are still laughing. Do I really think there are only two worlds? There are others? Shit. I use Divide again, there are four and then eight and then 16 of me. I send other copies of me to other worlds tracking other Altaïrs. Having multiple copies of me in different dimensions is really disorienting. And not all the worlds are exactly the same, though the basic idea is the same. I free more versions of Altaïr to fight and the Templars are still laughing. I intend to make them shut up. Another Divide. 32 of me, 64… a Templar asks if I really think I can get to all of them. One of me enters a world where I am right in front of Altaïr… and he stabs me with his hidden blade, so at least one of me has been stabbed. I'm not sure how many of me got stabbed. I wonder why Altaïr has attacked me in some places. A Templar says not all of them are immune to their control. So in the places where Altaïr has attacked me I use Liberate by Disturbed to break any possible mind control. It has become hard to keep track of what I am doing where, though. I think maybe I did Liberate everywhere… not that it has any effect where there is no mind control in effect. The Templars are still laughing at me, saying I have missed so many versions of Altaïr, there are so many places where the Templars will now win… there's no way I can save them all, so I might as well give up… So I Divide again, splitting to 128, I have the strange sensation of being everywhere at once and nowhere at all at the same time. But everywhere is close enough to the same. Free Altaïr, use Liberate just in case it's needed, fight Templars. It is really disorienting, I keep hearing Templars laughing… but is it a bit forced now? Maybe I'm reaching their limits… so I Divide yet again to 256, splitting into way too many places at one time… I feel like I am going to completely lose it, so I set to the same task everywhere. Get right next to Altaïr and drop an Immortal Fire. There is a bright light exploding in my mind as 256 simultaneous Immortal Fire spells go of at once, and for once there is no Templar laughter. Just a bunch of yelling. I don't have enough focus to understand what the Templars are saying, but I am reassured by the fact they don't sound happy. I think there is a lot of cursing. I wonder if I have found all of the instances where they have ambushed Altaïr… or did the Templars win in some places… no time to really ponder that before I wake up.

Lost Children
I am in what looks to be an abandoned town, though most of the buildings are still standing quite well. I wonder where all the people there went. I am not lucid, but I know I have a mission to complete. I have been tracking a pedophile to this location. It is a known fact that he has kidnapped numerous children, but no one has been able to track him to where he is keeping them. I have been on this case for a while and I think I am getting close to finding his hideout. I sneak through the streets of the town, peering into windows of homes as I go. Then my attention gets drawn to an abandoned hospital.

I think I see movement over there. Maybe that's where he is. I sneak over and get close to the hospital, and I do seem movement this time. There is a tall bald man pulling a little boy along by the arm, and the little boy is crying. I recognize the man as the pedophile, he is my target. I think maybe I have been playing too much Assassin's Creed because the man seems to faintly glow yellow. An assassination target. I have to get close to him when he doesn't have a child with him or it could become a hostage situation. So I tail the man into the hospital and he shoves the child into one of the rooms, locking the door behind. He is now alone. Now to get close to him. Looking around I see some rubble on the ground. I pick up a large rock and chuck it at the guy, hitting him on the side of the head. He doesn't seem hurt, but he does seem annoyed as he looks over and sees me. He says I am too old for him to have fun with, but not too old to kill. I throw more stuff at him. Mostly rubble on the ground. Rocks… pieces of wood… an old coffee mug… he gets more pissed off with every piece that hits him. He says he is going to have fun killing me slowly. He comes at me, as it appears that I am unarmed. But that weird yellow glow isn't the only thing I have brought from Assassin's Creed. He runs right up onto my hidden blade, practically stabbing himself. He has a shocked look on his face since he hadn't seen a weapon in my hand. I stab the bastard again to make sure he is dead. There are children locked in many of the rooms of the hospital, some of them aren't in very good condition. I call the police and real hospital and before long there are children being led out, some walking on their own, others being carried and given IV medication, all of them look traumatized. Their ages seem to range from 4 to 8… I am glad the pedophile is dead, though in a way it seems like it was too easy for such an asshole. I am still thinking that when I wake up.

Nightmare Changes
I am in a strange place, I look around to see where I am. It is a wide open plane that looks pretty desolate, the sky is a strange color of orange with some strange wispy clouds floating around up there. It is a strange looking place, but for some reason this doesn't make me lucid.

So I search around for a while to see if I can figure out what's going on. I soon find a couple of people in the vast area. One of them is familiar to me, my first thought is that it is Nomad. He is there with someone else, I somehow know that one is a dream demon. Nomad and the dream demon are exchanging heated words. The dream demon is laughing at Nomad, saying he can never die. Nomad doesn't take the dream demon seriously, he says he knows the dream demon can't die, so how about if the dream demon has no ability to stay together and suddenly exists everywhere but is unable to do anything… eternal pain. The dream demon looks shocked at that idea, seems to be afraid of it. He says please don't do that… then he starts changing form repeatedly into an array of twisted and deformed forms, and he is doing it really quickly. I hear the demon say he won't let it happen, then he self destructs, exploding in a blinding flash of light. When the light fades everything else has changed, too.

Now we are in a bright green and sunny place that looks like paradise. Something still seems wrong. I search around and find one of the shadows of a tree is much darker than others. I approach the shadow and it comes to life, this is the dream demon. Witchblade forms into a sword and I cut the thing in half before it can attack me, though it is about to do so. After the dream demon is gone everything around me fades to black.

Déjà Vu
I am in a room watching a television display, there is a sequence of action going on there. The scene is a fancy dinner, there is a man at the head of the table, I know he is a notorious terrorist, responsible for the deaths of thousands. He is making a toast to a plan he has going on that will kill thousands more, he says no one will ever forget or underestimate the Crimson Knights again. I see myself at the table eating, I pick up my glass of wine and toast the asshole's health… then I add that I hope he enjoyed it before throwing two daggers at the same time. Both of the daggers strike lethal points on the asshole, one in the heart, one right in the jugular. He collapses onto the table and then falls to the side onto the floor, pulling a large amount of things onto the floor with him. Then the scene shifts, and now I really am at the table, I really am at the dinner. Everyone is talking and eating, I see some chocolate treats and I eat a couple. The terrorist leader gets up and proposes his toast. After he gets up and begins his toast, everyone else is toasting his good health. I have the daggers, but can I really throw them effectively? I know I can, because I already saw myself do it! I get up and make the comment I saw myself make on the video, then I throw the daggers, and he collapses just like in the video. Everyone is in shock, staring between me and the man who just collapsed, so I take advantage of the confusion to make my exit. I head to the nearest window, we are on what appears to be the third floor. I grab hold of some fancy curtains, and jump out the window, the curtains gradually unravel until I land on the ground, rather hard, but not too bad. I am making my exit from the area when I wake.

Déjà Vu Vu
I am at what looks like a festival of some kind, there are lots of people who seem to be very happy and celebrating something. I'm not sure what they are celebrating, but I also think this is not that important. There is someone there with me, I think it is Altaïr. We are looking for some people that we know are looking to kill someone, we are trying to make sure the killing doesn't happen. I see some people walking around, but there aren't very many that seem to stand out at all. And the ones that do don't stand out in any suspicious way. I know who we are looking for, and those are not the right people. I finally spot the targets, there are a few men in red and black robes, those are the killers. There are three of them, I need to make sure they don't see me, because they will surely recognize me just as easily as I recognize them. I find Altaïr and I tell him I have found the targets. Now the two of us follow the enemies until they are in an isolated space where no one will notice what happens. It turns out they also knew we were there, now they're looking to eliminate us just as we are looking to get rid of them. They seem unaware that we know them, however, and we still manage to take them by surprise and get each of them with a quick strike. We move the bodies to a place where they won't be found for a long while before leaving the scene and merging back in with the crowd.


Assassinate the Assassin
I am in a hotel with Altaïr, and we are looking for a specific room. I am looking at Altaïr for quite a few minutes before this finally seems odd enough to make me do a reality check. I discover I am dreaming. I look around the hotel and think about different goals. The only goal that comes to mind is the task for the LPTC that involves killing the person that killed Martin Luther King. I realize I have absolutely no memory of how this event really took place, I really am not sure how to make the task work. Since I don't know how the task is supposed to happen, I decide to go with my best estimation. I wonder if that will make a difference on whether or not it counts for the LPTC task. Well, either way, I can do the task this way. I make my way through the hotel looking for the killer, I come to one of the rooms and I see a man in the halls with a gun. He is also moving like he doesn't want to be seen. I move quietly up behind the man and get him from behind with my hidden blade. He falls to the ground, dead. I see there is another man breaking into a room. I have to get there in time to stop him from killing MLK, but it turns out I didn't need to worry. Altaïr is right behind him and takes him out before he can go anywhere. I look into the room the man was breaking into and I see that MLK is in the room coming in off of a balcony, he is looking at Altaïr and me with a strange look. I'm not sure what to say at this point, I finally tell him to keep believing, perhaps one day everyone will truly be seen as equal.


Blood in the Water
I am at what looks like an amazing water park of some kind, it is a huge place, there are so many pools and waterfalls and rivers flowing around. There are many plants and flowers, it is definitely beautiful. But there are also killers roaming in the group, and I know they have to be stopped. There is someone else there with me, he is familiar to me… MoSh? I'm not sure if it is MoSh or not, just as I wasn't sure earlier if it was Nomad. But he is there helping me track down the killers in the water park. I know who I'm looking for, though I am thinking blending in at a water park and still having my hidden blade would be rather difficult. But it isn't… my hidden blade collapses into the size of a bracelet, which is my Witchblade, though I don't think of this at the time. MoSh is there with me, and we head off in separate directions. I know the killers when I see them, I'm not sure how I know this, but I am certain of it. I see there are certain people at the water park who are not there to have fun. I spot one, go casually over behind him, knife him with my hidden blade, then I walk casually away before he even collapses. I hear people behind me responding to the man's collapse, but I don't look back. I just keep going. I find another one in the men's locker room, he is the only one there. He looks over at me and seems to assume I followed him in there because I think he's hot… he is sooooo not hot. But I play along until I'm close enough to take him down. I go back outside and now I see MoSh, who is on the other side of the pool with his arm around a man like they're buddies. MoSh helps the man sit down in a chair and then leaves. It will be a while before anyone notices the man is actually dead. I see one of the killers is about to attack his target. There is no time to get over there before it's too late. I grab a knife from a table, it seems to be a knife used to cut steak, though it seems awfully big even for that… It is perfect for my needs, though. I pick up the knife and throw it at the man, it gets imbedded in the man's chest, killing him before he can attack his target.


Killer Movies
I am outside of a movie theater with my mother, waiting in line to get a ticket for a movie. We get to the front of the line and she buys tickets for us to two different movies, but then she says we won't actually be going to the movies at all. The man in the box office seems to think we are nuts, but he doesn't care. My mother goes to one of the movies, I separate from her and go to the other. I have a job to do in there. I am lured to the concessions stand by the smell of fresh popcorn. I order some popcorn, momentarily distracted from my mission, and the woman behind the counter hands me a big bag of popcorn. I pay her and walk away, looking at the popcorn, dripping with butter… movie theater popcorn with loads of butter… yum… I am heading for the theater and munching on popcorn, then I start wondering how many points I'll have to count for this… probably a lot. I decide it doesn't matter, what I have to do in the theater is much more important. I head into the movie theater and search the seats until I find the person I am looking for. I know who he is. He is a serial killer, but there isn't enough evidence to arrest him. Now there he is enjoying the movie just like everyone else, and his after-movie activity probably involves torturing some woman to death. His MO… to tie the woman up and see how many times he can stab her with a pen knife and not kill her, because he seems to find it very rewarding to watch them bleed out. He takes his time, carefully planning out each stab, he seems to find each one like an intense sexual experience… I have the images of him making his kills playing out in my mind, talk about TMI, this was definitely TMI. The woman has long curly blonde hair, looks to be in her early 20's, the man is sitting on top of her, she is tied to the bed… he is caressing her with the blade and then suddenly plunges the blade in to her shoulder. She tries to scream but can't because she is gagged, though she is crying. I sit down in the seat directly behind the killer. An image of the man sinking his knife into the woman's abdomen… another muffled scream. Just to be sure, I tap the man on the shoulder and ask for the time. He curses at me and tells me to go have sexual relations with myself. The killer sinking his knife into the woman's thigh and cutting slowly, more muffled screams. Damn! I don't need to see this! The man is the killer. I use my hidden blade and kill him instantly. I leave him sitting in the seat at the movie, no one will know he's dead until I'm long gone.

I think for some reason Nomad wanted to fight the Crystal Golem… whatever. I stayed with Spike and contributed my healing energy to his recovery.

I stayed by Spike's side for a while, I had the idea I was going to wake up. Well, this time would no doubt mean I was waking up for real since I have never succeeded in doing two time dilations in one dream before. But hell, there was nothing to lose by trying it again… I wondered exactly how long I could spend in just one dream doing time dilations over and over before I reached the limits of the laws of physics and could go no farther… I wondered if there was a limit other than my own abilities… would trying to dilate time too much create problems? So I focused on using Allura's method of time dilation again. That wasn't working… if anything it seemed to be causing the dream to go more unstable, which was the same thing that had happened last time I had tried to dilate time for a second time in a single dream.

Ok, I would give it one more shot… I put my right hand on the ground and tried to focus on it… my hand looked blurry, I wasn't able to focus on that… so I turned and focused on Spike… he was part of the dream… I could see the rest of the dreamscape… ok, that part was good. Now what, count? Yeah, the next part was to count and focus on each count extending time, I wasn't sure if I would get that right or not, and focusing on everything at once was getting a bit disorienting, which was making the dream slip more. I forced myself to resume my focus, then count, 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… Spike, the healing glen, this minute in waking life stretching out to allow for more minutes of dream to fit into it… 6… 7… 8… 9… 10. I was still crouched on the ground, I could vaguely sense my physical body in bed as I tried to hold onto the dream. I stood up in the glen, trying to get my dream body in a position as different from my physical body as possible… I didn't want to sense my physical body… I heard a voice, please tell me it isn't a waking voice… that some asshole was about to wake me up…

But it was the Crystal Golem, he was coming back to check on Spike, he asked if I was ok, he said I didn't look well. My attention was redirected at the Crystal Golem, and the dream stabilized as I was distracted from the sensation of my physical body. I wasn't sure if that counted as successfully using Walms' method of time dilation or not, since I had been sure I was about to lose the dream until the Crystal Golem had directed my attention back into it… The Crystal Golem was saying Spike would be fine now, but he could not truly be safe until we went back and defeated the Vampire King once and for all. The Vampire King? He had called himself Death… but I really didn't care what the asshole called himself, he would not be going after Spike again. Nomad was with the Crystal Golem, he said he was ready to kick some ass. Our Spike said he would teach that bastard what he could really do. Pablo seemed somewhat hesitant to come, I don't think he liked the idea of fighting Death (which was still how I was thinking of him) again. So this time the Crystal Golem opened a portal and those of us who wanted to fight went through…

On the other side we were in the desert again, I looked around to see who was with us, I saw Nomad, Altaïr, Spike, and Angel with me… where had MoSh gone? Had he woken up? As if reading what I was thinking and knowing who I was looking for, Nomad said MoSh had woken up while we were back in the glen. Damn… that was one fewer people to fight this Vampire King who calls himself Death… I noticed that the midday sun was shining brightly on the land, making everything almost blindingly bright, would that have any effect on Death? If he was actually a vampire, it seemed like it would… but I realized it didn't when the ground shook and he came flying out of it like a bullet, landing on the sand in front of us looking as evil as ever, he was laughing at how we were looking at him, he said of course the sun didn't hurt him, he was Death… the king of the vampires. I said I wasn't amazed that the sun didn't hurt him… what I was amazed at was that I had just discovered a life form that can exist and function without the presence of a brain! That clearly pissed him off a bit, and now more bats poured out of the darkness below and flew right into Death, into his cloak, becoming part of him… there was no doubt about it, this guy was made of bats! As the bats continued to add themselves to him, his power level was increasing and he was also physically growing until he was about 20 feet tall, blood dripping from his fangs, eyes glowing red… um… I wondered if he had actually put any effort into his powers or if he just wanted to look scary.

So the fight started. He unleashed hoards of the bats now, from inside his cloak, they were all glowing with dark energy auras, and those auras made me think of something… Walms might want to kick this guy's ass! So I telepathically tried to contact Walms, I was hoping it wouldn't wake him up as my telepathy has done in the past, I was trying to be careful with it… As I was focusing on contacting Walms, the enemy had grown to about double his original size… more bats had been flooding from the ground and adding themselves to his mass, so now he was about 40 feet tall… I felt a contact of some kind, had I gotten through to Walms? Hopefully I had… I told him that there was an epic fight just starting where I was, so if he wanted in on it, get out here, and there was some yummy dark energy in it for him… the response I felt I was getting was confusion, and a response sounding like, "Who the hell are you?" That took me by surprise, I thought he would have recognized my energy since we've shared several dreams, but whatever… I identified myself as Raven Knight and said there were snacks in the form of dark energy covered bats… and one really big guy that was creating the smaller snacks, he could be dinner. Walms seemed to be about to give me a response… then I lost all contact… he had woken up. Damn! Of course after the confused response I had gotten I was wondering if I had actually gotten through to Walms at all…

So I turned my attention back to Death, he had picked Spike up in one hand and was laughing at him, it seemed he thought none of us could be a considerable threat to him… there were thousands of bats attacking us, so I summoned a natural enemy of the bat… there were large insects in the area that were a lot like praying mantises, and they came and attacked the bats in huge numbers. Nomad had also done a summoning, and a huge flock of black birds dove from the sky and attacked the bats… there was a battle raging in the sky, the other creatures of the desert were just as anxious to banish Death as we were, I'd contacted the insects but I was not exerting any control over them… they were attacking completely of their own free will. Angel was creating walls of white fire that were incinerating the bats on contact, Death was still over there laughing because we were so busy with the bats that we hadn't even gotten close to him…

Well, it was time to change that. The birds and insects were keeping most of the bats busy now, Death was holding Spike up for everyone to see and saying he was just going to have to crush our friend like the gnat he was. That was much easier said than done, however. Out of nowhere Altaïr came from above and literally cut the hand that was holding Spike clean off. Spike, of course, got free easily and jumped up and onto Death's back, quickly striking at the exposed target, tearing into Death's neck and drawing his energy right out. Death was roaring incoherently in pain and rage, trying to reach back and grab Spike… if he was weakened, he would be opened to attack… so I called scarabs, flesh eating beetles, from the ground to cover Death, consuming the flesh right off of him, Nomad was bathing Death in flames at the same time. The scarabs didn't seem to notice the flames, their carapaces were protecting them while Death was being burned. When the scarabs were finished and the flames passed, there was nothing left of Death than a charred skeleton… but he still would not die! He just kept yelling maniacally that he was Death, the Vampire King, and nothing could kill him! He could never die!

Death was trying to crush whoever was at his feet, we all got clear of him, Angel was firing some kind of white light directly into Death's eyes which seemed to be both hurting and blinding him at the same time. While she was doing that a couple of Nomad's ravens swooped down and plucked the eyeballs from their sockets… yuck… and dropped them into the sand, where Death proceeded to step on his own eyes by accident… also yuck… Nomad was blasting Death with what looked like acid, it was smoking and dissolving the bones on contact, Death was screaming something incoherent again… maybe I could hurry his demise along.

There were tiny worms in the desert… worms that fed on the bones of animals that had died in the desert, so I called some of them, basically ringing the dinner bell for them. They came out and burrowed into Death's heel bone, Nomad was giving me a strange look, I said they would infect and consume the bones. Nomad turned into a huge dog and was gnawing on one of Death's bones, an arm bone, while it was still attached. Nomad tore the bone off and ran off a ways and buried it, he seemed to be finding this to be an amusing game.

I saw the signs of the worms spreading out from the place where they had entered, causing a spider web network of cracks to form throughout Death's entire bone structure. The bones crumbled as the bones were consumed, I could understand some of what Death was saying, he was saying this wasn't possible, he was immortal, he was Death, he was the Vampire King… and then he turned to dust and blew away on the desert wind.

There was movement around us, there were still some bats around. We didn't attack them, I figured they were without a leader now and would just return to the safety of the caves. But they were not doing that, instead they gathered around Spike, changed to their vampire forms, and bowed to Spike. They were all hailing him as Spike, the Vampire King. I wasn't sure what had happened, but one of the vampires answered Nomad who also seemed a bit confused. One of the vampires, an attractive female, came over and said the old Vampire King was dead… and the one to have most recently drank of his blood was Spike, so that meant the crown would be passed on to Spike for his part in the demise of the Vampire King Death. The vampires seemed quite pleased to see the last of Death... I looked at Spike, surrounded by his worshippers… he looked a bit awkward there, but wasn't showing it much… He told them they could stop bowing, the sun did seem to be draining their energy, so Spike told them to get back down below before they all burned up.

Spike came over to me and commented that his being the Vampire King was certainly unexpected… he then added that he had already chosen his queen. He kissed me. I felt the dream slipping again. I'm not sure how long I could extend a dream for, but this time I didn't fight it, I was kissing Spike as I woke.

I had said something about checking back on MoSh to see if he wanted to go on an adventure, but I figured I could accomplished another task of the month for Mortal Mist in the process. I would go through a mirror to get back to the biodome!

So with the goal of going through a mirror to get back into the biodome, and thus back to MoSh, I summoned a mirror right in front of Pablo and myself. The mirror was a full body mirror, oval in shape, and it was sitting up off of the ground on a stand. It would easily make a large enough portal for Pablo and me to go through. I am not very familiar with using mirrors for travel, so I tried a couple of times… I tried touching the mirror… it was solid. I then focused on making the surface of the mirror fluid, picturing it as if it weren't solid but instead was the perfectly still surface of a pool of water, so when it was touched it would ripple. I visualized that clearly in my mind and then reached out and touched the mirror again. I got the ripples I was looking for. So now I just had to set the destination. I focused on the portal leading to the hot springs in the biodome. As I was focusing, the mirror changed from a still reflective surface to an actual portal in the mirror… I thought that looked really cool, a wormhole starting at the mirror… so I picked up the Pablo fox, held him close against my body so we wouldn't possibly get separated, and stepped through the mirror into the wormhole.

The ride through the wormhole was a rather wild one, like going on a really intense roller coaster… only much faster than any roller coaster I have ever experienced. The wormhole seemed awfully long considering that the distance between the surface of the moon and the biodome isn't that far… It seemed to me that in that case it was senseless to use a wormhole since it seemed to be taking much longer than just teleporting there or using a normal portal. But whatever, I wasn't in a huge hurry, and the ride was rather fun… or at least I thought it was fun… the fox in my arms looked a little nauseated… and then we finally came out the other side of the portal… and fell down over a desert, I landed on the back of a horse… wtf? I was on Stardust's back, Pablo was clinging to me, no doubt as surprised by this turn of events as I was. I looked around and saw I wasn't alone, Nomad was with us… so was Angel… and MoSh… and Altaïr… Spike… they were also riding horses… and we were being chased by Templars also on horses… what the hell was going on here? I had set a portal to go to the biodome and now I was here…

Ok, while I wasn't sure what was going on or how I had ended up here, it was pretty clear that I would have to fight the Templars… I rode over closer to MoSh and asked him what was going on, had Nomad found him in the biodome? Were Asuka and the kids ok? He gave me a strange look, but I didn't have time to think about that, Templars were shooting arrows at us. I moved away from MoSh and started throwing fireballs at the Templars. Nomad was throwing white blasts of energy, MoSh was throwing what looked like small daggers that were sparking with a green light… We were doing that, then suddenly Angel jumped from her horse, pulled out a couple of short swords, and proceeded to hop from horse to horse, killing the Templar on the back of each horse before moving on. She soon got back to the rest of us and got back on her horse, which had continued running the whole time. I used Battery and called down lightning to strike as many Templars as possible, taking them out while leaving their mounts unharmed. I didn't want to hurt the horses… We rode farther across the desert until we came to an enormous sink hole… we got off our horses to investigate. The horses were getting fatigued, well Stardust wasn't, but the others just had normal horses… I looked and saw the Templars' horses had continued following us even though they had no riders. I focused on teleporting them… not sure where, but I could see that it had lots of green grass and plentiful water… it looked like paradise for horses. All of the horses disappeared, including Stardust.

Nomad was looking down into the sinkhole with obvious interest, he said he wanted to jump in it. I asked why, pointing out we had no idea where it might lead, he said it didn't matter since we were dreaming and could not be hurt. I felt movement under my Assassin's robes, which I was finally able to take the time to notice I had the Assassin's robes on, and I realized Pablo had burrowed down under the robes to where he apparently felt safe… or as safe as possible. All of the others were dressed in Assassin's robes, too. Altaïr commented that not all of them were dreamers, Angel, Spike, and himself were not dreaming… but at the same time he didn't really have any objections to exploring someplace new… he did that all the time. What's the worst that could happen? MoSh said death, Altaïr said no, death is not the worst thing that can happen, some things are much worse than death. Spike said he couldn't die since he was already dead. Nomad had already made up his mind and jumped into the sinkhole, I figured I had better follow him, and everyone else apparently decided to follow the both of us.

The sand was flowing through a hole at the bottom and into a cave underneath, I grabbed onto a ledge with a tendril of Witchblade… and felt claws digging into my stomach as Pablo grabbed onto me with his claws… then some weight hanging off of me as Altaïr had grabbed hold of me… Spike flew over the hole in the ground and landed on solid ground at the opening of a cave. Altaïr jumped to that ledge and also climbed out, Angel floated over there, Nomad and MoSh both flew over and Witchblade pulled me up with the tendril. So now we were all in the entrance of a cave watching sand fall past us just outside the cave… it seemed the sand must eventually stop, there couldn't be an infinite amount of sand… but the only way for us to go was forward.

I took a couple minutes to disengage Pablo's claws from my stomach… ow… and then I set the fox down, he immediately changed into a state that was half human and half fox, looking something like Fox McCloud from the Starfox games. He looked over at me and said he was sorry about the thing with the claws, it had just been an instinctive reaction, I told him not to worry about it as I quickly healed the stinging cuts in my stomach. So the group of us started walking down the passage, through the dark caves, we couldn't see much. We groped along a bit longer, I heard Angel up ahead saying something was hers… it sounded like Gollum talking about the ring of doom, I almost expected her to demand someone give her back her precious. Wtf? I also heard Nomad curse… something was going on around us, I needed to see what. I adjusted my eyesight to see in the dark… I did that a bit too soon, because a blindingly bright light extended from Nomad as he tried to light the area, I couldn't see anything! I heard a commotion all around us, sounded like a lot of bats, he had probably stirred up some sleeping bats… way to go… I finally got my sight back, and the bats weren't running for a darker part of the cave, they were viciously attacking us… scratching and biting… something was odd about their energy. Their energy was off because they weren't typical bats, they were vampire bats… and I don't mean the kind of bat that drinks a small amount of blood and moves on, I meant the type of bat some types of vampire are able to transform into… Nomad formed a shield around all of us just as I was about to use Enter Sandman, I told him to drop it long enough to do the spell… he looked at me strangely, then dropped it, and I activated the spell… the whirlwind of dark and light energy pulled a lot of the bats into it, burning them as it did, and the others headed off in different directions through small passages in the cave.

So now all of us were in the cave alone, we were actually in a small chamber rather than just another extent of cave, and there were many exits from the chamber. The only problem was that most of the exits were much too small for us to fit through, at least too small to fit through in our current forms. Someone asked what had been with those bats… I said those weren't bats, they were vampires, we had somehow wandered into a vampire lair. There were four passages that we were able to fit through. One of those was where we had come from, the other three were new and unexplored. MoSh and Spike went left, Nomad and Angel went right, Altaïr, Pablo, and I went straight. We traveled for a short distance before emerging into a huge chamber, there were platforms hanging precariously over molten magma, it looked like it was a volcano… if it erupted, those platforms were history… but for now it looked like a bad platformer game. There was a man on the highest platform, he was dressed in a dark cloak and completely covered, he was mouthing off about how we had made a big mistake to disturb him… but he had been expecting us.

This is the first time I really noticed that I was alone… Pablo and Altaïr were gone, probably they sensed the hostility in this creature just as I did, and they were getting into a good position to respond to an attack. I saw Nomad and Angel emerge from a cave and onto a platform to my right, Spike and MoSh emerged on my left… all roads lead to this hell hole… The cloaked figure turned around and faced us, he seemed to be looking mostly at me since I was in the middle, and he said he was assuming we had come to get our friend back… he indicated a cage hanging over the tallest platform, there was a man in the cage who looked an awful lot like Spike… but that was impossible, Spike was right here… I looked to my left to reassure myself Spike was still there with MoSh, which he was. I figured the one in the cage must be a twinner… The cloaked figure continued to say he would be glad to let our friend go, after we defeated him. So it was going to be a fight! His loss… or very soon it would be his loss… Nomad wanted to know who the fuck he was, and he just said he was known as Death.

So the fight started then, Death appeared to be made entirely of bats… he grew in size and then released a cloud of bats from his cloak, more bats than could possibly have fit in that cloak, and they all attacked us. I used Enter Sandman again, creating another whirlwind to destroy the bats closest to us… and then they all turned back to their master, re-joining him. I saw Altaïr and Pablo were right behind Death, each of them had a hidden blade stuck into Death's back… He was pissed and in pain, trying to reach back for them, but not getting anywhere… Now everyone there combined out attacks. MoSh was a naga, breathing green flames on the asshole right as Pablo and Altaïr jumped clear… Angel fired a white arrow, Nomad threw something that looked like a spear, Spike popped up right in front of him, which clearly caused him quite a surprise to see Spike healthy and free, and sucked the energy out of him… and then he collapsed and turned to dust. As the dust blew away I could hear Death's voice saying he would never die… for Death is immortal.

I flew over to the cage that the other Spike was in and forced the lock open, then I flew in and landed beside Spike, he looked horrible. He was battered and beaten horribly, parts of his flesh were hanging off in loose chunks… yuck… he looked deader than undead… I got beside him and spoke his name, he weakly looked up at me and managed a small smile. He called me Buffy, and said he knew I would come… the Vampire King had said I wouldn't, he had said no one would care what happened, but he had known all along that I would come. I didn't see the point in arguing that I wasn't Buffy… he needed blood, that much was clear, and a lot more healing than that could do… I commented to Spike that he needed to feed, he said nah… he wasn't hungry… he was being sarcastic… I told him to bite me, and take some of my blood. He said no, with the state he was in he wasn't certain he could stop himself before he took too much. I told him not to worry about that, it was complicated and I would explain later, but I wasn't the Buffy he knows, and there is no way he can kill me here. He looked at me blankly. I repeated to him to not be stubborn, to go ahead and bite me, dammit, and drink some of my blood. He finally did. If I had been a normal human, I think it probably would have killed me… but I also think he could have stopped. He paused a time or two to check on me, and only took more when he realized it had not had any ill effect on me. He finally stopped, he looked some better, but he was still in desperate need of healing. Everyone was there with me now, and I opened a portal to the healing glen…

On the other side we were in the healing glen, I heard the sound of the Crystal Golem approaching, shaking the ground as he approached. He wouldn't be sneaking up on anyone… I called out to him that we'd been in a big fight, and needed his healing! Nomad prepared his weapon… um… why was he going to threaten the Crystal Golem? I told Nomad there was no need to fight here… I thought maybe he had lost lucidity. The Crystal Golem said he would heal Spike… He applied some herbs, did some energy work, and then he and Nomad headed off to do something… I think for some reason Nomad wanted to fight the Crystal Golem… whatever. I stayed with Spike and contributed my healing energy to his recovery.

To be continued…