New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

07/28/13

Tigress in the Springs
I wake up in bed and roll over. I am about to go back to sleep when I realize I am not in my own waterbed. I also notice that even though I have my eyes closed I can see the light is on in the room. I open my eyes and find out that I am in the bedroom of my dreamscape. I recognize the place right away and I sit up in bed. There is a black cat on my bed with me.

The cat comes over to me and purrs softly. I pet the cat for a bit and then get up. I look around the room, almost certain that something strange is going to happen. I'm not sure what I expect… something Templar related most likely. The cat jumps down from the bed and walks across the room to a door. The cat sits beside the door and meows. I open the door and the cat heads down the hall. It is a long hall with no doors on either side. The cat is moving rather quickly and I have to hurry to keep up. The cat reaches the end of the hall and scratches on a door. I go to open the door, but it is locked. The cat meows a bit impatiently. I focus on the door for a bit and then I use the alohomora spell from the Harry Potter books. The door clicks unlocked. I open the door and enter the next room. I recognize this next room from dreamscape as well. It is the living room area where my name is written on the wall. It says "Raven Knight Is Free" in black marker. That doesn't seem like what should be written there… it has changed somehow. I look around the room to find the cat. The black cat is grooming itself on the couch. Is this the destination room? I look back at the graffiti. Now it says "Raven Knight Is Infected" on it. Infected? Infected with what? The writing on the wall morphs. Now it says "Mercer Virus" in block letters. I think about that for a minute, but it seems I already knew that… clear to the point where I have used Prototype abilities in dreams. The writing on the wall morphs again. Now it says "Sometimes the disease is the cure," in fancy cursive writing. The disease is the cure… the Mercer Virus is a cure for something? A cure for what? The writing morphs. It changes to "Raven Was Here" which looks like what it is supposed to be. I hear an insistent meow from the other side of the room. I follow the sound and find the cat beside a staircase. The stairs lead up. I follow the stairs up and into a TV room. The television is a large flat screen, and it is turned on, but there is only static on the screen. This room also looks familiar from the dreamscape. The cat jumps up on a chair and curls up. I look at the television and will it to change channels. The image on the screen changes to show a hot spring. I remember saying I was going to meet Tigress there for healing.

I approach the television and find it is a window I can step through. I step through the television and into the biodome near the hot springs. I look around to see if there is anyone else there. I see Tigress in the hot springs relaxing. I go over near her and focus on the song Voices to heal some pains she has been having. She doesn't seem to notice me. I slip into the healing springs, it is warm and comforting. I sink to the bottom. I look up and I see Winter floating in the water. I swim back up towards her and then float beside her while I focus on Voices again to help her with her fibromyalgia. When I stop swimming I sink back to the bottom. I swim back up towards Winter and finish the song before sinking yet again. I wonder why I keep sinking… but then I wake.
 
Moving Day
I am with my mother and we are driving through Tucson looking for a new house. I have no idea why we are moving, but it seems I periodically have dreams of moving to a new and larger house. We are looking for a rather large home on a large plot of land. We soon spot the house we are looking for up on a hill overlooking the city down below.

We drive up to the home and park in the long curved driveway. The two of us go up to the house and ring the bell. A woman answers the door and lets us in. She is tall, unbelievably tall, and has long golden blonde hair. She is holding an adorable little tortoiseshell kitty cat. I immediately think of Amber. My sweet little Amber. Apparently the woman notices me looking at the kitty because she asks if I want to hold her. I say yes, and she hands me the cat. The cat looks at me and begins to purr as I pet her. I tell the woman about the cat's resemblance to my lost cat Amber. My mom and I start looking around the house, I take the cat with me. She continues to purr. The house is even bigger inside than it looks outside. I finally put the cat down when she begins to wiggle. I look out the back sliding door and I see a pool outside. The view is great, I can see the entire city stretched out below. The air looks surprisingly clear today. My mom is talking to the woman. She is saying we will take the house. As we are leaving my mom tells me that we'll have to spend the night in a hotel because she already sold the old place. I wonder where the dogs and cats are. When I ask my mom she says they'll be fine but doesn't really answer me. She takes me to a hotel and then leaves. I go into my room and find I am not alone there. My ex boyfriend James is there with his new wife Tina. I wonder why I am there with them. There are two rooms connected with a bed in each room. I am to use one of the beds. Annoying, but for one night I can handle it. So I go into one of the rooms and lie down to go to sleep. I hear James and Tina having sex in the other room. Yuck. Not what I wanted to hear. Finally they go silent. Then I feel someone slid into bed with me. What the fuck? I look and see it's Tina. What is she doing here? Did she get pissed at James for poor performance? I am so tired I am about to put up with that when James joins us. What do they want? A threesome? No way! I get out of the bed. I'm going somewhere else. I'd rather sleep in a dumpster. James and Tina get up. James asks me where I'm going. A man enters the room and looks at them. I recognize Alex Mercer from Prototype, but somehow this isn't odd enough to make me do a reality check.

James says my new boyfriend there can join us… Alex looks kind of confused, then pissed off. I have enough time to think he is chronically pissed off before he goes right over to James and calls him a lying sack of shit, throws him on the ground, pounds the shit out of him, and consumes him. Tina rolls her eyes and says James has always been such a wuss when it comes to fighting. Alex looks puzzled and then grabs and consumes Tina. He looks over at me and says they weren't real… there was nothing there. I don't answer, I am too busy staring at a smear of blood on the ground that is all that remains of James and Tina, and I find myself laughing. They weren't real? Maybe they were never real… "I just made you up to hurt myself…" lyrics come to mind, part of the song Only by the Nine Inch Nails, I find myself singing a slightly altered version. "I just made them up to hurt myself, I just made them up to hurt myself… and it worked." Alex is giving me a really strange look when I wake up.

 
DDO Prototype
I am in a green field outside of a walled city. I look around to see where I am and I see there is a gate into the city that is closed tight. I wonder if I will be able to get into the city. I head over to the gate and look to get inside. There is a guard at the gate that looks down and asks who I am. When I don't answer right away he says I don't look like a minion of the Devourer. The Devourer? I am in a virtual reality video game! I look at the city wall, marveling at the graphic detail of this game. My thoughts are distracted when the guard says he can let me in as long as I hurry and give up any weapons when I come in. He says that goes for both of us. Both of us? I turn to look behind me and I see Alex Mercer from the game Prototype. I do a double take at that. He is looking around as if he is not sure where we are any more than I am. So now I have both DDO and Prototype? A virtual reality crossover game! Awesome! I look past Alex at the horizon where I see smoke rising. I ask the guard what that is. He says it is the Devourer encampment. He says he hopes those fires aren't burning the hostages… I ask what hostages. He says that they have taken some villagers as hostages. He says they will burn the hostages alive if they don't hand over the sigil stone… which they can't do… but they don't have the soldiers to get through the enemy forces and reach the hostages. Rescue the hostages. Sounds like that's the quest. I'm not sure what Alex intends to do, but I tell the guard that I'll bring the hostages back. The guard asks if I am crazy. I tell him I'll show him crazy. I look towards the smoke in the air and then head in that direction, taking flight as I go. I hear the guard say, "What in Tarinthia?!" as I get out of earshot. I look down below me and I see Alex is keeping up with me easily and then he pulls ahead. I speed up my flight using energy. Alex comes to a stop just before the land drops into a canyon, I land beside him. The smoke is coming from various camp fires down below. I see an array of enemies camped out there. Quite a few sahuagin gathered around a river that flows through the center of the canyon, which is quite wide.

The enemies on the other side of the river seem to be primarily humans dressed in Devourer robes. I see a cave on the far wall that is quite a ways up the side of the cliff, there are bars on the entrance. I figure they must have the hostages in there. Alex says it doesn't look like there's so many of them and then jumps off the cliff. He glides out over a group of sahuagin and drops lightning down on them. I hear the song Battery by Metallica. The sahuagin are water elementals, and particularly susceptible to lightning… fried sahuagin. I am thinking he just used Battery by Metallica… and that's not normal for Alex Mercer. He lands in the area that the lightning cleared and launches a tendril devastator attack that catches sahuagin in a larger radius and even some of the Devourer minions beyond the sahuagin. Now that's more normal for Alex Mercer. The enemies are just now managing to react to the new arrival, though they don't seem too organized. The enemies have officially been caught with their pants down. I jump out over the canyon, flying, and dropping Damage, Inc. fireballs down on enemies as I go. I land in a burned area where a fireball hit and use Phantom Lord to clear a larger area with a wall of fire. Enemies quickly start closing in again. I wish I could use the tendril devastator right now… but why not? If this mod allows for Alex to use Battery… so without really considering how I to do it I set off a tendril devastator and clear a large area of enemies.

There are far fewer enemies now, and they seem confused as to where the attacks are coming from since they seem to be everywhere at once. I see Alex grab a guy in Devourer minion robes that are fancier than the rest of them, probably one of the higher ups, and consume him. I form a sword with Witchblade and fight off two Devourer minions attacking me with spears. Alex is coming right at me now, he takes off and flies right over my head to land beyond me and head for the far wall of the canyon. He jumps up to the cave entrance where the hostages must be being held. I follow after him, fighting through a couple remaining Devourer minions on my way. When I get there I jump towards the entrance, intending to fly the rest of the way, but I reach the entrance with a jump. The gate to the prison has been pulled off of its hinges and tossed aside. I go into the inner cavern that is lit by torches in the walls. I get there just in time to see Alex push a couple hostages out of the way before grabbing a man and quickly consuming him. WTF? "What'd you do that for?!" I yell over the noise made by surprised hostages. I wonder why Alex is killing hostages. In response to what Alex did the other hostages are now clambering over each other in an attempt to get away making it hard for me to get through to Alex. I finally get through into an area around Alex that is now clear. He starts pushing his way into the crowd as if looking for someone specific. He finally grabs one hostage and drags him out into the open area. It looks like he is going to consume that one, too, so I yell at him to stop it. He stops and gives me a dirty look before throwing the hostage over to me and saying he is a traitor who set these people up to be captured. He says to just consume the bastard then I'll know the truth. I say no, I won't do that. The man says Alex is insane, working for the Devourer. A woman asks if he didn't see what happened to Brindle… then says she thinks Alex actually is the Devourer. Alex is just watching me, seeming not to notice the hostages climbing on each other to get as far away from him as the cavern will allow. I hear someone at the exit yell to stop pushing followed by a scream. Great… the hostages are making like lemmings. I realize I am still holding on to the hostage Alex threw at me. He says I can't possibly believe that insane monster, can I? He says Alex ate Brindle! He's not human! Damn… easily solved. I do a telepathic scan of his mind. I see him leading some people down into the canyon… then it is blocked off by the image of a mind flayer.

The hostages are freaking out… gotta get them out of here. I focus on opening a portal leading to just outside the city gates. It opens. I tell the hostages that is their way home. Being used to magic, no one questions that and they all go through the portal quickly. The man I'm still holding tries to go but I don't let go of him. He tries to pull away but I hold him easily. The portal closes leaving Alex, me, and the one hostage remaining in the cavern. The man says I can't possibly believe that monster over there… I use a quick song spell of Liberate by Disturbed and try to scan his mind again. Maybe the mind flayer was controlling him? This scan produces no more information, just an image of a mind flayer. Of course the few images I had gotten do look a bit incriminating… He tries once more to get free before pulling out a dagger and trying to stab me with it, calling me a fucking bitch and saying the Devourer will rule all. His stab is blocked by Witchblade. When the attack fails he seems to be panicking, though he really just seems to be afraid of Alex. He keeps saying to keep that thing away from him. He then stabs himself with his dagger, apparently preferring to die over being forced to talk. But damn, I wanted to know what had been going on! Without really thinking about it I consume the guy… and find out he had been working for the Devourer willingly, no mind control involved, just simple greed. He and his friend had actually prevented an earlier escape attempt, resulting in three of the hostages being burned alive. Alex says that wasn't so hard. I curse at myself for doing what I said I wouldn't do. Alex asks why I automatically assumed he was lying. I don't know what to say about that. I have to force myself to look into Alex's eyes. It looks like he is somewhat annoyed, but I can also see an inner flame. It seems to be burning pretty bright. That's something I am glad to see. He still wants to know why I assumed he was lying. I still have no answer, then I wake up.

Plans: I didn't have any particular plans for this night other than my usual list of goals that stretches from here to eternity. I left my dreams up to my subconscious and Avalon to decide.

Farmville City
I am in a strange town that looks like a massive farm of some kind crossed with a swap meet… so there are rows and rows of stalls on both sides of some aisles, each of the stalls have various animals in different enclosures. Cows, chickens, sheep, goats… every type. I am wandering through the aisles looking at the animals, and I come to one of the stalls where someone is passing out little baby chickens. I am looking at that and he says he will give me several chicks, he hands me three of them. I need to find a stall to put the chicks in, the man tells me the chicks jump really high and will go over the average height fence so I need to choose stalls where the fences are double height or the chicken enclosure is completely enclosed and covered. So I wander up and down the aisles until I find three different enclosures… Two of them have high fences around the chicken enclosures and the third one has a covered enclosure. The chicks are jumping high, indeed, almost making it over the higher fence!


DDO - Home Invasion
I am in a rather expensive house, I don't recognize the house I am in. I am there with Tigress, and I feel I am in a DDO quest where the sahuagin have invaded some homes in a town and need to be cleared out before they kill everyone in the town. And, just as I reach that realization, Tigress and I are being attacked by sahuagin. We fight the sahuagin off, I am using my Witchblade sword, Tigress is using a REALLY big axe that looks like it must weigh more than she does! She is wielding it with ease, however, and quickly cleaving off sahuagin heads as they come in and attack her. I am more focused on the sahuagin attacking me, however, and the fight is over rather quickly. Tigress and I look around for a bit more, and we find there had been some kind of electricity being delivered to the house via cannith crystal, that electricity is being used to power quite a few modern technologies. The sahuagin had severed that power supply, so we re-connect it. The sahuagin have also severed the water supply to the house, so we also restore that. The strange thing is there is also a connection that produces an oil of some kind that is supposed to be really good for the skin. These connections are only present in the more expensive looking homes, though. In each home, after we defeat the sahuagin in the house, the people living in the house come out of a hidden cellar and start cleaning up the mess that the sahuagin have made. Each of the families from the cellar bring a small treasure chest as a reward. There are quite a few houses to clear out, and by the time we get to the business district we have a lot of chests that we are somehow carrying with us in a small bag that must have infinite space inside it. There are sahuagin in the shops and businesses, too, so there is still more killing to be done. Each of the shops has a medium sized chest in the back room. There is no actual indication that the chests are ours to take, but we take them, anyways. After all, that's how DDO works… find a chest, loot it! We find one final gathering of sahuagin in the center of town, and this is where we find the leader of the sahuagin group. This is a sahuagin priestess, and she is really a nasty one, she more than makes up for her lack of beauty with her nastiness. This fight doesn't take long, however, I run my sword through the priestess' chest and Tigress relieves her of her ugly head. A huge treasure chest appears in the center of town now, and some of the people in the town are starting to venture out to see what the sahuagin have done and if they are really gone Tigress and I have lots of chests to open, and we start doing that. I don't remember what was found there, but I do remember noting there is a whole lot of awesome treasure in the chests we have gathered.

Plans: I didn't have any specific plans for tonight, though I was rather expecting a DDO based dream since I have been playing a lot of DDO lately… My main goal is still to have more consistent recall, as that has been very unpredictable lately. I have some recall from last night, and here it is.

Hell Is For Children
I am in a dungeon like the kind that is found in the online game DDO, Dungeons and Dragons Online. I am there looking for some prisoners, a woman in a nearby town has told me that the kobolds have kidnapped several children and are holding them captive in these very caves. Of all weird things, I have a log book in my pocket and I am able to look back over the goals I have for this quest. Find and rescue all of the children, 5 left. Kill Sagun Krent, who is apparently one of the leaders of the kobolds. Kill Darren Drexel, who is a human traitor, and apparently helped the kobolds get hold of the children in the first place. Destroy the kobold dungeon (optional) is on the end of the list. Ok, so now that I have the goals memorized, I put the log in my pocket and form Witchblade into a sword and armor. The dungeon is pretty basic, there are quite a few kobolds guarding the place, and also quite a few barrels and crates to smash, I am finding a decent amount of money. I find a locked door quite a ways in, and the kobold guarding the door has the key, so I kill that kobold and go into the main prison area. There are a few more kobolds there, I kill them, and then use some thieves tools I have on me to pick the locks to the prison cells that each have a child in them. Four children. One left. I have two girls and two boys with me, they all grab daggers from a pile of weapons stashed in the corner, not wanting to be defenseless. We look for fifth child. There is a torture room, the girl is naked and chained to a table with a kobold on top of her, forcing himself on her. Before I can act, the other four children swarm the kobold, stabbing it with their daggers, it falls off the girl and bleeds to death. Pick the locks on the girl's chains, find some rags to use as temporary clothing, she is more traumatized than the others. On the way out Sagun Krent blocks our exit. I fight him, the traitor Darren Drexel tries to grab the kids, the four stab him to death. The one girl is huddled on the floor. I kill Sagun Krent. All mandatory tasks complete. Now I can recall… no recall button? Of course not! This isn't a game! Kids and I make our way out, killing a few lingering kobolds on the way. I notice some barrels of explosives near the entrance, convenient, so once we're all outside, I detonate them with an energy ball, and the entrance to the cave collapses. All goals complete. I lead the kids back to the town, I use a healing spell on the one girl to help her overcome her trauma. Parents are thrilled to see their kids, want to give me rewards, but I wake up


One Woman Army
I am in the town of Korthos from DDO, and everyone is in a state of panic. I ask someone what is going on, he says the city is about to be overrun by devourer servants… not on my watch! I go to the front gate where there are a few warriors trying to hold the gates, there are many enemies just outside it. I say I will fight, they say it's too late, and they can't open the gates, they need to give the people a chance to escape. I jump over the gate and I am now facing a huge group of surprised enemies, that seem to be made up of sahuagin, various classes of human devourer minions, kobolds, zombies, and skeletons. What a nice mix. I use an Alex Mercer archetype and form my arms both into his sword blades and charge directly into the group, cutting enemies down as I charge through them, they are momentarily too surprised to respond much, this is totally unexpected. I am in the middle of the group now and I use a tendril barrage devastator attack and send razor sharp tendrils through all of the enemies anywhere near me, huge numbers of enemies of all kinds are killed by this. Now the ones who had been ready to attack are being killed before their attacks can actually land, others are just trying to get out of the path of my attacks. It's the devourer forces who are now panicking, they hadn't realized that many of them could be killed that quickly, so many of them are running away, the leaders are getting pissed and saying it's only one person, kill her, you cowards. There is one leader each, a devourer priest, a sahuagin priestess, a kobold chief, and a necromancer that is of a race I don't recognize. The human priest is closest, so I form one hand into an Alex Mercer claw and crush his neck to shut him up. I use a tendril from my left hand to pull the sahuagin priestess to me and then cut her in two with a blade formed of my right hand. I charge at the kobold chief and knock him to the ground, then impale him there with three tendrils… the necromancer is running, leaving undead to guard his back. I use a variant of Alex Mercer's ground spike attack, sending biomass into the ground that erupts through the ranks of the undead in a wave that keeps going until it catches up with and impales the necromancer. Except for the undead, the enemies are fleeing… cowards… disorganized, fleeing into the hills and surrounding wilderness. I use the blade to cut through the remaining undead, and soon all that remains outside the Korthos gate is a lot of dead bodies and blood. Two stunned Korthos guards are looking out of the gate, gaping at me, one of them says, "What the fuck are you?"