New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

2018, 02-19

Ghost House Treasure Hunt

I am with some other people and we are going into an abandoned house of some kind. It is a large place and I am wanting to get photos and video footage of the place. It is night time outside, so the interior of the house is very dark. I have a flashlight that I use to find my way around. I hear the other people with me, I think there are two of them, but I don’t think to turn the flashlight around to see them better. The place looks abandoned, dusty and dirty, and a bit creepy, but I’m not afraid. I want to get videos and photos that I might be able to use for making a video game, I am not thinking to find ghosts or anything creepy here. I see a spider scuttle up the wall when I shine my light on it and that seems to freak out one of the men with me. I just tell him the spiders are more scared of him than he is of them. He says he’s not so sure about that. I add that the spider we saw was a tarantula, and they are completely harmless to humans even if one does bite him. I use my flashlight for light and take a few photos of the antique furniture in the room.

I leave the first room, which was furnished like a living room. I then enter what appears to be a dining room. There are plates and silverware on the table, as well as blobs of gross looking stuff that might be whatever is left of a dinner set up many years ago. I wonder how any trace of the food is still there, animals and bugs should have eaten it by now. I take more photos of the table, the chairs, the plates, and even the gross stuff on them. I am now wanting to document everything I find, I have the feeling I won’t be able to ever return here. I see some stairs and head up to the second level. There is a bathroom up there that smells like a rotting zombie just had diarrhea and didn’t bother to flush, then collapsed by the toilet and continued to decompose. I think I might be sick, so I just snap a couple quick photos of the bathroom before closing the door and moving away quickly.

I glance behind me to see if the people with me are still following me and I can barely make out their dark forms in the dark hall following me. I go into a large bedroom that must be the master bedroom. The master bathroom smells every bit as bad as the first bathroom so I close the door to minimize the smell. Now I start taking photos of the room. After taking some photos I go to a chest and open a few drawers. There are old and worn out clothes in the drawers. I then start wondering if there might be anything of real value still here. I start searching through more drawers. I come to what looks like a large jewelry box and I open it. The jewelry box is full of shiny sparkling jewelry. I wonder if any of it is real and valuable or if it might all be trash costume jewelry. I reach in and pull out a pair of earrings. One of the men with me says I’d better not put that on. I tell him I wouldn’t try it on until I’ve cleaned it thoroughly. He says no, he means the fact it’s cursed. I don’t take the comment on the curse very seriously. I keep looking at the jewelry. There are some nice looking pieces here that I want. Every time I go to take something, however, the man with me gets upset. I decide that in spite of thinking earlier that I could never come back, I would find a way to come back and collect this jewelry. No one else was using it, so it wasn’t really stealing!

I leave the master bedroom and look in the other rooms. I am wishing I could get separated from the men with me so I could return to the master bedroom and collect the jewelry. In one of the other rooms I go into a closet and grope around the far wall to find another exit. I find myself in another bedroom and I go from there back to the master bedroom. I go to the jewelry cabinet and pull out anything I can get my hands on into my purse. When I turn around I see a woman with long dark hair standing in the room and watching me. She looks annoyed, but also a little amused. She says the jewelry is hers and I shouldn’t take it. I do a double take, I don’t remember seeing her before… and this house is supposed to be abandoned. I comment that I thought it had been abandoned, I didn’t realize someone might come back for it. She says she can’t come back for it, but I should be truthful… those beautiful jewels would be disgraced to be worn by a fat ugly pig like me. She says she will wait while I put the stuff back. But now I’m annoyed at her and I throw a piece of broken wall at her. That goes right through her… she’s a ghost! Instead of being afraid I realize she can do nothing to stop me from taking the jewelry. I tell her if she’d been nice I would have put it all back, but since she had to be a bitch and insult me, I’m keeping it. I walk right past her and into the hall. One of the men is there. He asks if I woke the curse. I tell him the curse is as impotent as a bullet with no gunpowder.

Plans: No new plans, just the normal tasks and goals. I am camping... I'm not sure what effect that will have on my recall... but I'm hoping for the best.

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DDO Explorations
I am inside of a game of DDO with Tigress. I don't even consider that I'm dreaming, I am too busy thinking how cool my new virtual reality system is. I can't believe how realistic it is, it looks like a really vivid dream. So Tigress and I are exploring an area of the game we have never been in before, we have decided to just explore and kill stuff for now. The area is crawling with enemies, so there is no shortage of things to kill. In fact, we are constantly being attacked by all manner of enemies from orcs to bugbears to goblins to humans, there is hardly a break from it.

We find some caves and hidden places to explore, as well as a few rare encounters. In one chamber we are attacked by a giant orc who seems intent on smashing us into the ground. I use a lightning attack to knock him down and Tigress cuts his throat, killing him. We continue exploring the are until we find a group of Devourer minions making a sacrifice to the Devourer. They have three women tied to a wooden pole, all three of them are naked, and a ring of fire has been lit around the women. The Devourer minions are standing in a circle around the ring of fire chanting in some strange language. A couple more of them are throwing fuel on the ring of flame to make it burn higher. The fire burns so hot the chanting minions have to back off a bit due to the heat. The heat in the center of the ring where the prisoners are tied must be extreme. We are spotted by one of the minions building up the fire, and he announces that there are intruders, kill them! The sacrifice must by completed! A couple of them keep chanting at the fire, most of them attack Tigress and me. Their plan to kill us meets with epic failure as we kill off the attackers with little difficulty. We kill the last two who are chanting at the ring of fire. Now to free the prisoners... But the fire is much too hot to get through to the prisoners. The roar of the flames, over that sound I can hear at least one woman screaming in pain and fear... I want to get to them. Tigress casts an immunity to flame spell on both of us. We get through the flames to the prisoners, who are no longer tied to the pole. The ropes burned away, but there is still nowhere for them to go since they are surrounded by fire. Tigress casts immunity to fire on the prisoners so we can get out of the fire. Once outside I see that the prisoners have burns over most of their bodies. I use healing spells on them and we are able to scavenge some robes off of dead Devourer minions to clothe them. We continue exploring and come to the sea where we are attacked by some kind of giant sea creature that is being controlled by sahuagin.

We defend against the creature until we're able to find a psychic sahuagin controlling the squid. Once that sahuagin is dead, the sea creature feasts on sahuagin before returning to the sea. We spend the rest of the dream exploring and fighting off random enemies, there are no more rare encounters before I wake. The annoying thing is there don't seem to be any chests left by these rare encounters! What a rip off!

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Map of the World
I am looking at a map with Tigress, it is a huge map that looks almost like a map of the world. The cities and landmarks are all fictional, however. I look at the names on the map and I recognize such places as Korthos and Stormreach as being DDO locations, but there are sooooo many more locations than just those. Are all of those just the small places to be found by exploring? Or are there more cities and stuff that Tigress and I have left to find? I see a couple places near Korthos, to get there a traveler would have to go through an area that had previously been blocked by ice before the dragon was set free. So Tigress and I make plans to more completely search the area around Korthos. There is so much more to do out there! So many more quests wait, so many enemies need to die! Let's go! I am excited to go, but instead I wake up in my bed in the tent.

Note: I have been having a horrible amount of nights where I can't remember anything from the night before… and it is really starting to piss me off. Last night I did manage to remember a few dreams, however. None of them were lucid, but it is far better than nothing, and I think I saw a couple of other dreamers in there, though I will have to wait to see if it was really them or DCs that looked like them. After all the nights of not remembering anything, I am happy just to have something to journal.

The Golden Dragon
I am in a forest, it is fall, the leaves of the trees are changing to a rainbow of oranges and yellows and many are still green, so I figure it must be shortly into the fall season. There is a gentle breeze blowing, and it is a pleasant day out. I wonder how I have not found this place to take a walk sooner, since I never get enough exercise. Now that I know of this place, I am likely to take a lot more walks! I follow the path through the trees, I don't know where it leads, so it is an adventure to find out. I come across a stream with a small bridge across it, I pause to look at the stream, then I continue. The stream is flowing off to my left, parallel to the trail, and soon I reach a lake. I walk around the lake, still enjoying the day immensely. I come around some large rocks to find myself face-to-face with a large golden dragon, who is glaring at me as if my mere arrival represents a serious inconvenience to him… oh, crap…

Well, the dragon is glaring at me, I am certain he is going to incinerate me with a blast of fire on sight, but instead he speaks. He asks what is the meaning of this intrusion, and it had better be good, because he doesn't like being disturbed. I search my mind for a reason I might have come to disturb this dragon, damn… if only this was a dream I would be able to take care of myself even if it just involved opening a portal and bugging on out of there. (I thought about it being a dream and still no RC? ) So I search my mind a bit more until I finally remember a couple cases where someone was face to face with a dragon and walked away. Those cases are in Shrek where Donkey was right in front of the dragon guarding Princess Fiona, and The Hobbit where Bilbo was face-to-face with Smaug… they bought themselves some time, and in Donkey's case a girlfriend, by appealing to the dragon's ego… by complimenting him/her. So instead of trying to convince the dragon that I'd come upon him by pure accident, I say I had heard there was a magnificent dragon in these parts, so I had come to see for myself. And, indeed, the word magnificent falls short of the reality of the dragon, for mere words could never describe the awesomeness I am now witnessing. The dragon glared down at me and asked if it was worth my life to lay eyes upon him… I respond that there are few things in the worlds that are worth risking my life to witness, but a dragon such as him is surely one of those. And if I am to die, which everyone does eventually, better it be by one such as himself rather than some stupid accident or illness or to waste away in old age. And while I don't especially want to die now, I actually mean it about it being much more interesting and unique to be killed by a dragon than by more mundane means… and he is definitely an awesome looking dragon… so I'm not lying. He can tell I am being truthful. So he seems to calm down a bit, and finally says then I will have the honor that very few before me have had… the honor of gazing upon him… and of dying by his claw.

I say just because gazing upon him is worth dying for, that doesn't mean I'll willingly die… so I jump into the lake and swim underwater to find a portal to get out of there, I am certain there is a portal near the bottom. I take shallow breaths of water so I can breathe it for a short time and I find the portal. I swim through it, the interior looks like a wormhole, and I exit in another lake and swim for the surface. When I reach the surface I look around and see the golden dragon is still there, still looking in my direction… um… I'm in the same place? The dragon looks a bit puzzled, probably wondering why I came back to the same place as if I want to die… I say I took a wrong turn in the portal, and head back to the bottom of the lake. I swim through the portal again and this time I wake.

I was in the living room watching the television, it was a show about fat people and ways to lose weight. I watched it a bit more and I realized it was a Dr. Phil show, he was talking about the importance of exercise in losing weight, I was feeling particularly fat right then, but I didn't want to exercise… Dr. Phil kept talking about the various things that could happen to overweight people, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks, strokes… endless amounts of problems that can come from being overweight. I was thinking I really should get out and exercise, so maybe I would take a walk, I certainly didn't have the patience to listen to Dr. Phil any longer.

I went outside and started walking, the weather wasn't as hot as I had expected it to be, so I thought this walk might actually end up being a decent length one. The main road near my house is under heavy construction, so I didn't think it would be very pleasant to walk there right now, so I decided to look in other directions. I headed down a path I had never noticed before and I soon found the landscape changing around me, I was slowly leaving the desert landscape and entering a forest of trees. That seemed really odd… odd enough for me to do a RC, which revealed I was dreaming!

So now that I realized I was dreaming, I stopped to think of my goals for the night… at first I couldn't think of any of them, but I finally thought of the one from Mortal Mist where the goal was to explore a forest and note all of the details of the season long with the animals, weather, and other details. That would be a nice relaxing dream to have right now, so I thought I would do that. I walked through the trees, looking at the place and making note of all of the details I could, the trees were beautiful, the leaves were blowing in a gentle breeze, all of them were changing color to various shades of red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, and teal… um… blue, purple, and teal? Well, that didn't matter, this was a dream forest after all… I wondered if there are places where the leaves really do turn to shades of blue and purple, then I thought of course there are! I'm in one!

I continued walking through the forest, making note of and enjoying every detail I could take in, the feel of the cool breeze on my skin, the smell of the trees… it smelled like it might rain soon… I listened to the birds singing in the trees, the crunch of the fallen leaves on the ground as I walked through them, I caught glimpses of small animals running around in the trees, several squirrels, a couple of bunnies. One of the squirrels was quite brave, it ran right up in front of me to grab a fallen nut and then ran back to the trees and disappeared into its branches, I figured the squirrel was storing food for the winter. I saw more movement in the trees, and this time a fox emerged, cute! The fox was definitely brave, the fox came trotting right over to me and looked at me as if he expected me to pet him. Wait a minute… that fox could be none other than Pablo!

I sat down in the fallen leaves and stroked Pablo, the dream had become so vivid as I focused on every detail, the fox's fur was so silky and soft as I pet him. Pablo was a red tailed fox with a white chest, red fur on most of his body, dark brown feet, a long fluffy tail, most of the tail was red like the rest of Pablo, but the tip of the tail was pure white. What I noticed most that I couldn't get over was how soft the fur was, as soft as petting a cat, it was too soft to resist putting my arms around him and giving him a hug, burying my face in that soft fur. I saw movement near a tree and I looked, there was an animal I didn't recognize digging a hole in the ground near the base of the tree, I figured that would be a den, I wondered if that might harm the tree to dig right there… Pablo changed from an adult red tail fox to a fox cub so I could scoop him into my arms and continue walking, such a cute fox cub… I carried Pablo farther down the trail until I found a stream flowing across the path, the sound of the stream was so clear, the water was also clear, I could see some small fish swimming around in it. There were rocks positioned perfectly for crossing the stream, things were so clear that I could clearly see the difference between the dry rock and the wet rock that was being splashed by the stream.

I had to do a RC again, because I thought I would soon forget I was dreaming if I didn't remind myself, so I re-confirmed that I was dreaming before crossing the stream… and then the fox disappeared from my arms! I was momentarily alarmed, then I realized Pablo had probably just woken up, so I got down on my knees by the stream and splashed some of the cool water on my face, and it felt wonderful. I sat there for a bit longer, letting myself take in the details of the blue sky which I could see between the trees on either side of the stream, and there were some fluffy white clouds drifting across the sky… nothing looked like rain, I wondered why it smelled like rain… I got up and headed back into the forest, watching the birds flying around as if they were in a hurry to get something important done. I was walking down the path, getting close to forgetting it was a dream, when a huge shadow fell over the forest, a huge dark shadow. I also heard a loud "THWUMP… THWUMP…" sound from overhead and felt a rush of strong wind blowing down from above. This wind felt a bit chilly, and many of the colorful leaves that had been hanging on to the trees now fell off and blew around in the hurricane type winds. I looked up just in time to see a huge winged creature fly overhead, creating the wind as it flapped its massive wings.

The animal had flown farther along the path, so I followed the path faster, I really wanted to see what that thing had been. I knew it was a dream, so I had no fear that I would be in danger from it. I finally exited the thick part of the forest into a large clearing, a meadow, and I spotted several deer running past me and disappearing into the shelter of the forest. Whatever that thing was, the animals were scared of it, and maybe with good reason. I looked up and I could hardly believe my eyes… it was a dragon! A huge dragon, it flew over the meadow, swooped around in a large arc, and then returned to the meadow. It flapped its massive wings to slow down and land, the force of the wind almost knocked me over, and finally it landed and roared a deafening sound. Wow! The dream was so vivid and now I was meeting a dragon! Awesome! I had barely found a bit of voice to my awe, "Wow… you are absolutely AWESOME!" I said to the dragon, "Absolutely AMAZING!" I stood there taking in the details of the dragon, his size… he was huge… his scales, they were of various colors of greens and browns, but all of them glistened in the sunlight like gems… he had claws like spears on each of his limbs, teeth, huge white teeth, and his wings! He really could make a hurricane with those wings! I was sure of it!

So now I was facing this huge dragon, I had no idea what its intentions might be, but I felt like I was losing the dream, like I was going to wake up. No way! There was no way I was going to let myself wake up now that I was face to face with this amazing creature! Refusing to lose the dream, I focused on Allura's method of time dilation, and by doing this I managed to stabilize the dream, which I will continue in the next post.

To be continued…

Note: I started off with a couple of goals for the night. My first one was to go with MoSh to the Grand Canyon and find a city that is supposed to be hidden there.

Originally Posted by Lonewolf

The Grand Canyon in Arizona has a underground city whose dreaming entrance is a large cave guarded by a tornado/ally. Those who get inside have found their dreaming greatly enhanced including myself. I would strongly suggest you find this place. Research it and you will find there is reports of this city in folklore.

The other goal I had for the night was to do the TotM cloning task by multiplying myself. I was not successful in inducing a WILD, however.

I woke up in bed. I rolled over and opened my eyes. I didn't feel sleepy. It looked like this was going to be one of those times when I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Crap… that doesn't happen to me very often, and it seems like it just happened… but now again? I got out of bed and figured I'd get a drink and hope I was wrong. I walked out of my room and into a hall that is much longer than my waking life house. That was odd… odd enough to trigger a RC. I discovered that I was dreaming.

I stopped to think about my goals for the night. My first goal was to meet up with MoSh and head for the city that is supposedly hidden in the Grand Canyon. So I opened a portal to MoSh's inner world and went through it…

I entered MoSh's inner world where I often do, right in front of his house. Everything there was bright and sunny. It was a nice day in MoSh's inner world. I walked up to the front door and knocked on it. The door opened soon, and I went inside. It was nice inside, too. I was glad to see it was bright and pleasant instead of dark and creepy as I have seen it so many times before. Asuka was just coming into the room. She said MoSh had told her I would be over. She had some cookies with her and she handed me a couple. They were chocolate cookies with dark chocolate and white chocolate chips in it… yum… MoSh came out shortly later. I asked him if he was lucid. He said sure. I asked if he would remember this dream. He said no. I told him that wasn't good… do a RC… this is a dream. He said he already knew he was dreaming. I said then he should remember the dream. But for now we would go. I opened a portal to the Grand Canyon. A portal opened and both MoSh and I went through…

MoSh and I were now standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon… and it was quite a view. I have seen it a couple of times, but it has been a long time and its beauty still amazed me. MoSh stood there looking at the canyon for a while. I told him we had better get going if we were going to find the cave before one of us woke up. I took MoSh by the hand and jumped off the edge of the canyon wall. We both flew down into the canyon. I wasn't sure where to find the entrance to this hidden city. I remembered Lonewolf saying something about tornados guarding the entrance… so a wind elemental. But hadn't he also said the tornado was an ally? But an ally to who? An ally to peaceful visitors? An ally to the people who used to live in the city? I wasn't really sure what that meant…

MoSh and I flew low in the canyon for a while. I looked at the sides of the canyon. I didn't see any signs of wind elementals or of suspicious caves. I wondered if we were even going the right direction. I landed on the ground and looked around for a bit. This really stank… where would I go now? I looked over at MoSh. He was over by the river. I went over to see MoSh. MoSh was skipping rocks. I tried to get his attention. He looked over at me and said hello. I asked if he was still lucid. He said sure. I didn't think he was acting like himself. But I was still confused on how to find this city. And about who this wind elemental ally was... or had I read it wrong? Tornado alley? Lots of tornados? Wait a minute… there's no tornado alley in the Grand Canyon! That wouldn't make any sense! I was running out of ideas… the canyon is a huge place. I wasn't going find the cave by looking around like that. I had to use a different approach.

I went over to MoSh and told him I was going to try something different. I took hold of both of MoSh's hands and focused on teleportation. It isn't my strong point, but I wasn't sure how else to track the cave down. So I focused on teleportation, also focusing on taking MoSh with me. I focused on what I wanted to find even though I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. I focused on it, and for a bit it seemed like nothing was going to happen. MoSh was giving me a strange look as I was holding both of his hands. He gave me a strange smile. Then the teleportation worked. The scene around MoSh and me completely shifted.

MoSh and I were floating over water… and I had not realized we would be floating. We both dropped into the water with a splash. Both of us came to the surface. I floated out of the water and into the air, MoSh followed me. We were now looking directly at a cave in the canyon wall. We floated over to the cave and landed right in the entrance. It was dark inside the cave. I wondered how far back into the canyon wall it went.

MoSh and I followed the passage back into the passage. It got dark rather quickly. I summoned a light and we continued going back farther. The passage also seemed to be slanted down. I saw writing on the sides of the passage that looked like ancient hieroglyphics. The passage finally ended in a circular room. More passages led off in all directions. There were beautiful carvings, statues, other assorted artifacts. I looked at one of the statues. It looked more like an Egyptian artifact than what I had expected.

I hadn't really been sure what I was expecting, but I think I was expecting something related to native American culture. I looked at some of the artifacts there and then we just kind of chose a passage at random and headed down it. I had no idea where it went or if we might get completely lost, but it didn't really matter since we were dreaming. I looked at some hieroglyphics on the wall. I wished I knew what some of it meant, but none of it means anything to me MoSh and I explored the caverns for a while longer until I realized he was gone. I figured he had woken up. It wasn't very long after that when I woke up.