New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

Note: Tonight's goals included further training with Vegeta, to which MoSh wanted to come… I wanted to search for Xildron, about whom I learned from another dreamer. Now that I have a bit more information about him I wanted to try to search for him. I also have the continuing goals of completing the tasks of the year, sharing a DDO dream with Tigress where both of us remember, and trying to get more healing dreams in like I used to… of course this can be done in conjunction with other goals… With my goals in mind, I slipped into a WILD…

As I entered my WILD I took a few minutes to look around. I found myself in MoSh's inner world looking at MoSh's house which was, once again, completely different than when I last saw it. I took only a couple minutes to look at MoSh's brand new house, who is it that keeps giving him new houses all of the time, anyway, before going up to the door and knocking. The door opened and MoSh greeted me as he came out onto the porch. When he said to open a portal, however, I stopped him there and said he really needed to take a look at his own house from the outside. He asked why, he wouldn't remember it anyway. I said it is possible that he would remember the house… I was going to hope he would, anyway.

MoSh followed me out onto the grass in front of his house where a black dog ran over to greet us looking happy. I turned MoSh around and pointed at his house. It looked a lot like this picture except the front porch was larger as was the deck above it, and there were curved bay windows on either side of the front door. Asuka was on the deck over the front entry area, calling down to MoSh and waving to him; she called out a hello to me, as well. MoSh turned around and surveyed the house, paused to pet the dog, surveyed the house again, then turned to me. He said it is nice, asked what the big deal was. I told him it wasn't the same house as it had been on past days. He seemed to brush that idea off and said of course it was the same house, houses don't just up and change of their own accord, do they? I opened a portal to the area outside of Vegeta's house after figuring I wasn't going to get anything else out of MoSh.

MoSh and I stepped out of the portal to find we were face to face with Vegeta, who had apparently been there waiting for us. I asked how long he had been waiting; I didn't really want to train with a cranky Vegeta who had been waiting too long… He said that of course he had just come out when he felt our energy approaching. He had returned a short time ago from Walms' place, where he had found Walms this time, though he was not convinced Walms had been up to his usual standard of lucidity. I commented to him that if Walms was dreaming, there was somewhere around a 95% chance he was lucid. But apparently Vegeta didn't want to take any time up with discussing how lucid or non-lucid Walms might have been… he was ready to get straight to business. He had us do some speed tests. I watched MoSh fly through them at such speeds I could hardly see him move at all, I was sure I was nowhere near that fast. Vegeta came over to me and looked at me as if he had just heard that thought. He said that to begin with, I am not in competition with MoSh… and second, if I could see myself move I would see pretty much the same thing, so stop focusing on MoSh and focus on my own training.

The next part of the training was with both Vegeta and Serena as we moved onto swords. This part of the training involved using swords only, not to be supplemented by any powers or aids, so that immediately ruled out the using of my Witchblade sword, which was a bit disappointing. Instead, Serena brought out a pair of swords that were identical to each other, handing one of them to MoSh and one of them to me as she arrived. She then proceeded to demonstrate her skill on a fighting dummy, executing some flashy moves I have never seen before, but it looked like she hadn't even touched the dummy. It looked like she hadn't touched the dummy, that is, until she was done and the dummy turned to pieces almost as small as dust. Having demonstrated her speed and skill, we moved on to training on various sword techniques with Serena and Vegeta's help. The training included some fighting more dummies, some sparring between MoSh and myself; I changed one of the dummies into Dennis before hacking it to bits, but Vegeta seemed to think that was more of a distraction than a motivation. With Vegeta's time dilation we got a good training session in.

Note: I downloaded a new sound file, Yoga Nidra, which is a meditation track meant to aid in lucid dreaming. I used it for the first time tonight to aid in getting into my WILD. My goals tonight included doing the TotM by multiplying myself, and also some training. I have been feeling like I need to train due to having lost a fight to another DV member way too easily… and I also want alternative abilities that aren't power based in case I get attacked by Templars again and my powers don't work. So with those goals in mind, I used the new meditation sound along with my light / sound machine and slipped into a WILD…

I was in a green meadow near a house. I recognized the place as the house where Vegeta and Serena live. I walked towards the house. I saw Vegeta was off to the right. He came over to meet me. He asked if I was finally ready to accept training. He said that a fighter who will only train themselves has a fool for a student. He said he knew this for a fact because he used to be like that, and it was only when he started accepting help from others that he was able to boost his power level to what it is now. He powered up, creating a bright field of energy around him. It was a powerful energy field, and yet I knew that this energy was a mere fraction of his true power… and a small fraction at that. To prove that fact, Vegeta powered up a bit more. His energy field was casting a bluish white glow over the meadow. I still knew that what I was seeing was still a small fraction of Vegeta's true power.

Vegeta paused, and then he continued. . He looked me over as if sizing me up. He nodded a couple of times. He said he didn't see why I would have a problem with my skills and power level, but if I did and wanted to do something about it, it was time to train, and he was the one to train me He said that he has already seen I have a good power level and good skills in battle. He said the first thing I should work on is my speed. After all, an opponent who cannot hit you cannot defeat you. And after making your opponent miss is a good time to move around for a counter attack before the opponent even knows what hit them. He asked if I was ready for some serious training. Only serious training produces serious results. He asked if I was ready to commit to this… I said I would do my best. He said that's not good enough. I have to be committed to the training, coming in dreams w henever I get the chance, training when on my own… There is no, "I'll do my best," there is only "Yes, I will succeed!" or "No." If the answer is no, we are done. If yes, let's get started. I said yes. He insisted I say, "Yes, I will succeed!" and put confidence into it. Saying that made me believe I could do it.

So Vegeta and I started training. He told me to block all of his punches. He came over to me and did a Kachu Tenshin Amaguuriken as done by Ranma Saotome on the anime / manga Ranma 1/2. I blocked a couple of the punches, but Vegeta was as fast as lightning… I didn't block nearly all of them.

When that round was over, Vegeta looked at me again and said speed is definitely a place where I need improvement. He said to follow him and we would train for speed in the same manner Ranma Saotome trained… So Vegeta set up several different scenarios. The first one was right off of the Ranma 1/2 series… catching a number of fish from a tank and moving them to another tank… and the fish were piranha…

and the goal was to do it fast enough not to be bitten. The second task was also off of Ranma 1/2… the goal was to pluck a number of chestnuts out of a blazing fire without getting burned.

Then he came up with a few ideas of his own. A bunch of small flying drones in a swarm around me, they were basically drone bees. He said to grab them all out of the air, get them fast enough that I don't get stung. He said this exercise would require both speed and accuracy. Then there was the maze… a path of twists and turns with obstacles that would pop up at the last moment… and the goal was to speed through the maze as fast as possible without hitting any of the obstacles or the walls. He said that was for speed and reaction time. And don't start thinking the obstacles would be in the same place each time, because they wouldn't. It is necessary to expect the unexpected and be ready to act accordingly. His last one was a combination of the other two of his… fly through the maze and pluck the drones out of the air as I went. The goal was to capture all the drones and complete the course without hitting obstacles or walls. He added that just in case it needed to be said, I was to do all of these tasks without relying on my powers… except for in the maze, where I could use flight.

So I started working on those tasks. He had me starting on the piranha and chestnuts ones. I had done it for a short while when I felt the dream slipping. I said I would dilate time. He said not to. He said he would take care of the time dilation, I should focus on my exercises. So I continued. The dream stabilized. Vegeta continued watching me do the tasks, occasionally intervening to give me advice on picking up my speed. It seemed like I was training like that for a long time, and I could clearly see improvement even after that short time of training. Vegeta also said he had noticed a definite increase in my speed. He said if I kept that speed up for the beginning of our next session, the fish and the chestnuts were too easy for me… time to move on to the drones, then the maze, then both. And this time when everything faded, I woke.

Note: It felt like I had been in the dream state for a very long time. I am not good at judging how long, but several hours at least. When I woke up, I looked at my clock and saw I had only been asleep for an hour. Vegeta sure knows his time dilation!