New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

2018, 05-15

The Dark Tower – Blaine is a Pain

I am in a green meadow near a stream. There is a deer here, she is drinking from the stream. I see there is a monorail track not far away. Then I know what is about to happen. I see the light from Blaine the Mono speeding along the track so I teleport over to the deer and form a shield around us. Blaine speeds past in a blur, stirring up a lot of debris in his wake. The sonic boom that comes after he passes is almost deafening. The deer I am protecting is scared but unharmed so I release her and she runs off. But I’m supposed to be on Blaine! I run parallel to the track and then jump up and fly. I focus energy into it and fly like the characters on Dragonball Z, speeding along the track to catch up with Blaine. I fly right next to Blaine for a bit, matching his speed but unsure of how to get in. I finally figure I should just phase through the wall of Blaine, so I try to focus on that… I manage to phase through the wall and then I make a spectacularly unimpressive crash into what looks like a piano, coming to a stop with a loud BRANG noise.

My sudden arrival has surprised everyone on the train except for MoSh, who is just looking over at me. Everyone else is wanting to know how I was flying, how was I flying as fast as Blaine, how did I get inside from out there. Blaine says I am rude for coming in uninvited. He also says I am rude for collecting all the toxic gas back in Ludd. I tell him I wasn’t being rude, I was simply solving his riddle… figuring a way to stop the toxic gas and still get on board to be with my friends. I never meant it to be rude. Good riddle, by the way. I was barely able to solve it. Blaine seems to accept my treating the situation as a riddle and is more than happy to take credit and praise for setting the riddle up. So having appeased Blaine for my unexpected arrival the riddling continues.

Roland is telling riddles one after another, and Blaine is answering each of them instantly, with no hesitation. Susanna and Jake seem to find that very disheartening, but Eddie looks like he has zoned off into another dimension. This appears to have annoyed Susanna, who looks like she’s about to bring Eddie back with an elbow to the ribs but thinks better of it when Roland shakes his head slightly while looking at her. MoSh says he has some riddles he could contribute. I know some, too. I can’t remember specific riddles, just that Roland, MoSh, and I took turns giving out riddles for a while but we weren’t having any luck in stumping Blaine. I am thinking Blaine is cheating with his vast databanks, maybe I should hack in and break the connection and see how many riddles he can solve then… Blaine says we are almost out of time, we are almost to the end of the line.

But now Eddie seems to be coming back to us and it looks like he is about to crack up laughing. He starts telling his silly joke / riddles, and that is clearly pissing Blaine off. He tells a dead baby joke, I’m not even sure if that really qualifies as a riddle since logic gets nowhere with it… but Blaine takes it as a riddle and refuses to answer. Roland says if Blaine is going to cry off then we win and he has to keep his promise. He gets mad and sounds like he’s having a tantrum more appropriate to a spoiled 3 year old. MoSh adds in a couple nonsensical riddles, and Eddie adds another… and now the only response from Blaine is a bunch of nonsensical sounds, quote fragments, and random words that make no sense at all. My next response is, “Cool… you broke his brain!” The entire system crashes, the lights go out, the engines shut down. But we might still crash. I tell everyone to gather around me and I’ll make a shield to protect us all. I form a force field around us, Roland is apologizing to Eddie, and then we crash. Once we’re stopped an emergency escape hatch in the ceiling pops open. Roland is asking if everyone is ok. I lower the force field but then I wake up.

2018, 05-02

The Dark Tower – City of Ludd

I am on a bridge that is high over a river. The bridge is falling apart, there is a large gap where only cables are holding the bridge together. Roland, Susanna, Eddie, and Jake are all there. Jake is holding his billy bumbler Oy and carefully making his way across the gap. Eddie seems to be having more difficulty, he’s afraid of heights. I go over to help him get across. Susanna is doing fine on her Witchblade legs. I tell Eddie his Witchblade will save him if he falls so there is really no need to be afraid. While we are trying to help Eddie a man has arrived at the far end of the bridge. He looks like a leper. The leper calls himself Gasher and says he will use a grenade and take the whole bridge down if Jake doesn’t go with him. There is some arguing but then Jake says he will go with Gasher willingly, Roland says he will come to rescue Jake.

There is a break here, then I am back in the dream, but this time I actually AM Jake. I am following Gasher down a long narrow alley and he is going a bit too fast for Jake. My arrival caused a bit of a slowdown, and that pisses Gasher off. He stops and moves to strike me right in the face. I catch his arm as he swings and twist it around to pin it behind his back. I growl at him that I am coming with him because I gave my word, but that does not mean I will put up with any of his abusive shit. I twist the arm a bit harder before saying he should try to hit me again if he wants to experience his last days of existence with only one arm. I finally let go and we continue. We reach a sewer access cover and he tells me to move it. I lift the metal disk easily and throw it aside, again displaying that I have more than enough strength to handle Gasher if he gets any ideas. I can see he is having trouble hiding the fear from his eyes.

Another break, and now I am in a train station and there is a monorail engine on the other side of a locked gate. Roland, Eddie, Susanna, and Jake are all here now. They are punching in a code on the number pad beside the gate and it slides open. The train is talking and says we’d better hurry or the gas will get us. Eddie asks why do that, Susanna says so many will die, but the train just laughs. I tell them I will take care of the gas and maybe restore some semblance of stability to the people remaining here. Everyone does a double take when they see I have appeared from nowhere. Susanna says she never sees me coming, I’m just there. I tell her that happens a lot. They all get into the train, which is Blaine the Mono and Charlie the Choochoo all in one, and the door closes. Blaine tells me I was too slow. I say I didn’t want to get on now, I’ll catch up later. Blaine didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

As the train leaves the station I take to flight over the city of Ludd. I look down into the streets where a lot of people are in full panic over the noises that came from the speakers earlier. I see a purple gas coming from the sewers running under the city. I focus on the song Blitzkrieg by Metallica and use it to create a vortex that pulls all of the toxic gas into itself, condensing it all into a small ball about the size of a tennis ball. I then focus on the song Full Moonlight from the Devil Hunter Yohko soundtrack and that creates an orb that looks like the moon which hovers over the city and bathes all of Ludd in its silvery light. I see people are no longer panicking, and that is a plus. I won’t get to see if it brings those psychos to their senses and makes them stop killing each other, they never knew that was all for Blaine’s entertainment. Sick Blaine. Now I need to get MoSh and get back onto the train but instead I wake up.

2017, 12-15

The Dark Tower – Riddle Me This

I am on board Blaine the monorail. I look around and see that Roland, Eddie, Susanna, and Jake are here. I wonder where MoSh is? It seems like I haven’t seen him around lately. Now Roland is insulting Blaine. He is saying how rude he could be if Blaine was not a mere gadget. He says he could call Blaine a sucker of cocks if he had a mouth. The others are just shocked at this, but I think I might laugh. I stifle my laughter, thinking this might not be the best course of action. Roland and Blaine go back-and-forth for a bit, calling each other rude and stupid, but then they finally come to an agreement. If we can stump Blaine with a riddle, then he has to stop at the end of the track and let us off. If not, he’s just going to slam into the end and turn everyone inside of him into paste. I figured this shouldn’t be a problem for getting everyone off. But it would be best to stall so that we can get the ride across the wastelands. Roland then asks Blaine to leave while we consult with each other. Blaine agrees, and screen at the front of the room turns red.

Roland lays out a plan for how we are going to do this. Roland says we need to judge how good Blaine is at riddling, and we will each tell one riddle. Susanna first, then Jake, then me, then Roland, and Eddie will go last. After we have chosen riddles, Roland touches the screen at the front of the room to indicate to Blaine that we are ready. Blaine seems more than happy to get going on the contest. Susanna tells a very simple riddle that Blaine seems annoyed by. What has four wheels and flies? Blaine response that it is the village garbage wagon. He says if we have no better riddles than that he will regret saving our lives for even a short time. I also can’t help but notice that he hesitates slightly before giving the answer to this riddle in spite of how easy he says it is. Roland then tells a riddle, which Blaine sends the answer back immediately. No hesitation. It is my turn now. Alive without breath, as cold as death, all in mail never clinking, never thirsty ever drinking. Blaine’s answer is immediate. A fish. Jake tells a riddle, and finally Eddie. What is no sooner spoken than broken? Silence.

Blaine is just starting to say something when a sliding door at the back of the compartment opens. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series walks in. We all do a double take. She says this does not look like the Hogwarts Express. I tell her it isn’t. I tell her I can get her back, however. Blaine insists no one is going to leave unless he says so. I ask Hermione if she has a riddle to tell the train? She asks why she would tell a riddle to a train? I tell her the train is an artificial intelligence, and it likes riddles. We are in a riddling contest. Hermine he said she’s heard of artificial intelligence, but never seen one. I tell her now she has. Hermione tells a riddle. First think of a person who lives in disguise, who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies. Next tell me what's always the last thing to mend, the middle of middle, the end of end? And finally give me the sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word. Now string them together and answer me this, what creature would you be unwilling to kiss? Blaine comes back with an answer immediately. He does concede that that one is very interesting, however, saying that it’s four riddles wrapped up in one. Hermione still wants to know where we are? Eddie just says she came through the wrong door. Blaine says he hopes we learned something useful. He asks if we need more time to consult? Roland says yes. The screen turns red.

Hermione goes to the door she came through, but it closed after she entered. There’s no way to open it from this side. Hermione he doesn’t understand how this is possible. Roland says she must be one of our ka-tet. We decide that Roland will tell riddles to Blaine on his own for a while. He touches the screened indicate he is ready to continue. We ride on while Susanna, Jake, and Hermione try to figure out how to open the door. Eddie seems to have zoned off into some other world inside his mind. Roland cranks out the riddles, and Blaine cranks out answers. I go over and talk to Hermione. I ask if anything strange happened before she came in? She says no, she had just been helping Neville look for his missing toad. She had been opening the door at one of the compartments, but instead of walking into a passenger compartment she walked into here. She hadn’t intended to step into the room, but the train had bumped and sent her stumbling forward. I tell her I will get her back to the Hogwarts Express. Susanna mutters that I am assuming we get out of this alive. Hermione asked what she means by that. Susanna did not mean to say that, and she looks regretful. Hermione at this point is 11 years old, and I don’t think Susanna intended to burden her with the full truth. But now it’s too late, it’s either the truth or lie. Susanna tells Hermione that Blaine is malfunctioning. And if we don’t stump it with a riddle before we reach Topeka, it’s going to run itself off the track and kill us all.

This continues for a while, until Blaine says we’re running out of time. I noticed Eddie still seems zoned into another dimension. After Roland runs out of riddles, Jake tell some from his book. Blaine solves all of those very easily as well. Then I tell if riddles that I remember. Blaine answers all of those as well. Even a couple that I thought might have been rather secure in their dimension. Hermione even has a few riddles. Blaine is apparently not fooled by riddles from the Harry Potter world. It seems that we are now out of riddles. Blaine asks everyone here once more if we have any riddles? He asks Roland of Gilead, Oy of Midworld, Jake New York, Susanna of New York, Raven Outworld, and Hermione of Outworld. The only one he conspicuously skips is Eddie. And yet it is Eddie that speaks up and says he has a few riddles to pass the time.

Eddie hesitates for a bit, and then asks the same riddle we started with. What has four wheels and flies? Blaine is clearly annoyed. He says that Eddie is too stupid to even remember that one has already been told. It’s the village garbage wagon. And yet, in spite of the fact that this riddle has already been told, Blaine gives off the slightest pause before answering. Eddie asks Blaine another one. A big moron and a little moron walk out onto a bridge. The big moron falls off. Why didn’t the little moron fall off? There are some strange clicking noises, and then Blaine starts bitching. He whines that is not a proper riddle and says he will not answer. Roland says if Blaine refuses to answer, he has lost the contest. Roland asks if this means Blaine cries off? Blaine says no. He seems to stammer a bit, and then says the little moron didn’t fall off because he was a little more on. He says he feels soiled from answering that riddle. Eddie rubs his finger and his thumb together, and when Blaine asks, Eddie says that is the world’s smallest violin, playing My Heart Pumps Purple Piss For You. This goes on for a bit longer. Lights in the room are flashing, the walls are not staying opaque, and I think Eddie may have broken Blaine’s brain. Voice of little Blaine keeps telling Eddie to stop, says that he’s killing Blaine, but what exactly was Blaine trying to do to everyone on board? So Eddie keeps telling his bad riddles, why did the dead baby cross the road? Because it was stapled the chicken.

Finally it seems the Blaine circuits have completely shorted out. The walls become permanently opaque, the lights go dim except for some emergency lights, and the train is now just coasting forward. We are going to crash. Everyone gathers at the back of the room, and I create a stasis bubble around all of us. So when we crash, in spite of things flying around the room in disarray, no one is hurt. The door that Hermione entered through is even forced open. We force it open the rest the way, and I see the Hogwarts express on the other side. Hermione goes quickly through, and then something collapses blocking the way. A ladder drops down from an escape patch in the ceiling. I am figuring we are all going to go through it, but instead I wake up.