New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

2017, 04-28

Quest for Knowledge

I am playing a virtual reality video game, not giving any thought to the idea I might be dreaming. I look around to see where I am and I am wondering how I can check to see what the current quest objective is. My character is a sorceress / user of light magic and energy. I have the idea I have just started recently, however, so my level isn’t very high yet. I am hoping I won’t have to face any powerful enemies right away. I head down a long hall that looks like it might be a part of a castle. I have the idea I will find out my current quest goals when I find whoever is at the other end of the hall. I get there and find a man there who looks like he might be a captain of the guards. He says there is a sorcerer trying to gain access to the royal libraries, and that would be disastrous because some of the most powerful spells ever created are written there and if the sorcerer learns to use them there will be no way to stop him. The man leads me to a strange looking door that opens with a lever. He says there is a trick to it, but they have reason to believe the sorcerer knows the trick. I ask how it opens. He says he doesn’t know, and he couldn’t tell me even if he did. I wonder how I’m supposed to protect what I can’t access. The guard says he has to go do his rounds.

Shortly after the guard leaves a creepy looking guy shows up. I have the idea he is the sorcerer who is trying to access the library. The room is large, and he hasn’t seen me yet. I am thinking it looks like he is too high a level for me to fight, but I have to try. He sees me and he attacks me with a fireball. I deflect that and hit him with a bolt of lightning. He wasn’t strong after all, and he dies, saying his master will avenge him. I am thinking if the boss comes I won’t be ready for that. How can I keep that guy out of the library when I can’t even get in? I go look at the lever and mess with it a bit, nothing happens. Then I get a thought and pull harder until the lever comes off in my hand. I chuckle, thinking I’d like to see the idiot open it without the doorknob. I hear someone coming and I hide. An evil looking man comes to the door and looks at the hole where the lever use to be, acting frustrated. He curses a couple times and then goes away. So I guess he wasn’t so smart after all. Everything fades out and I wake up.

12/17/11

Oblivion: The Escape
I am in prison. I look around to see where I am. I have no memory of how I got to be there or where I actually am. I finally decide I am in a video game, I am playing Oblivion. Awesome! And it's so realistic. The asshole across the hall starts calling me a harlot or something, and I tell him to shut the fuck up unless he can come over here and say it to my face. He keeps talking, saying I wouldn't be talking like that if there weren't bars between us. I ignore him until I hear him say the guards are coming for me, then I look out again and see the emperor and the blades coming into the dungeon. I get back from the door and wait for them to enter. The emperor comes over to me and says he knows me from a dream. Ooo… sounds kinky… he just gives me a strange look. Then he says today is the day the stars foretold. At the urging of the blades, they leave through a secret passage in my cell. I go back to the cell door and tell the asshole across the hall that I'll be going now, maybe we can meet up for a drink… oh, wait! You didn't get a secret passage opening in your cell, well it sucks to be you!

I follow the secret passage and I reach the next chamber just a couple seconds too late. The emperor and the blades have just disappeared through a door, which is now locked. Apparently they locked it behind them. One of the blades is dead in the room, along with a few cloaked figures. I find a sword there which I take. As I had expected, two very large rats attack me from a collapsed wall, we're talking rats the size of an English Mastiff or a Great Dane. I kill the rats with the sword and then head into the caves beyond the collapsed wall. I find some treasure chests and a skeleton with old leather armor. I take the armor as well as a few lockpicks and some gold I find in the chests. I also find a bow and arrows. I snipe a giant rat in the next room with an arrow before it is even aware of my presence. I continue along the passages, there are more treasure chests, some of which are locked so I pick the locks… I find a zombie eating the flesh off of a dead rat. Apparently deciding I look tastier, the zombie comes at me. I throw fireballs at the zombie and it is incinerated. No body left behind? Where is the mort flesh? Oh, well. A couple chambers later I meet my first goblin who I also take out with an arrow.

After a bit more wandering in the caves I find another collapsed wall that leads back to the castle dungeons. I find the emperor and the blades there, resting up a bit after a fight. The two remaining blades want to kill me, saying I might be working with the enemy. The emperor orders them to stand down. I chat with the emperor for a bit, he seems very certain that he is not going to get out of here alive. I stay with them for now, following them through a few more chambers in the dungeons. I snipe a couple of attackers from the shadows where they lie in wait. We soon come to the last chamber where I know the emperor will get killed, he knows it, too. He gives me the amulet of kings just before he is attacked.

I find I can move this time, though! It's not a cut scene, I can attack the asshole! I attack the asshole attacking the emperor and fight him sword to sword. After a short fight I win. I turn back to the emperor and I see a second attacker standing over the emperor's dead body. Damn… I have never seen a second one! Baurus comes in and says he has failed, then asks about the amulet of kings. I tell him what the emperor said about Jauffre and the one remaining heir. He says to take the amulet and go, so I head into the sewers. I snipe a couple more trolls and rats. I soon find my way out of the sewers and into the wilderness outside of Imperial City. I head straight into the city where I am able to sell a lot of the crap I collected for gold and then get a room for the night. I figure it is a good time to save the game, so I do so and lie down on the bed and fall asleep.

12/11/2011

Shadow Worlds
I am in school, taking a few CD's worth of data in to class for a presentation. I have completed the first level of a new video game I have been working on entitled Shadow Worlds. I go into the classroom, and it seems the instructor isn't pleased with me. She indicates I am late and I am getting special treatment to be able to give my presentation late. I figure it had better be good. I tell the rest of the class how I have been building the game using the Unity engine, I tell them a bit about the game which has to do with a dark cloud consuming everything and turning it into a vast expanse of dead nothingness… the player's goal is to restore the world to a natural state. Save forests, clean out lakes… I am giving a demonstration as I talk. I am thinking it came out pretty good. I tell everyone I have the first level completely done, so go ahead and play it if you want.


Dallas Cowboys Football
I am one of the members of the Dallas Cowboys football team. It is pretty clear that a lot of the men on the team aren't pleased at having a woman on the team at all, and they don't seem to think I will accomplish much. I am one of the offensive linebackers, my primary job is to block and create openings for the rushing back. I am actually doing pretty good. Between the strength my dream body has and the fact the opponents seem to automatically underestimate me because I'm female, I am walking all over them. They don't seem to learn, either. Often times no one bothers picking me up at all, leaving me wide open to do what I want. The game is almost over, and we need one more field goal to win the game. We are way outside of field goal range. But I am also a kicker. There are only a couple seconds left, so nothing to be lost by kicking. I use a computer in my helmet to help me aim the ball and make sure it splits the uprights, my boosted strength drills the ball all the way, a 75 yard field goal. Never been done before! Everyone is cheering, though I wonder if the computer might be considered cheating. I ask the coach, he says it's not cheating… but don't tell the refs. That says to me it is cheating… some of my teammates are still unconvinced that I am an asset to the team.


Disney Land
I am at Disney Land, and they have a new attraction. It is a water game of sorts. It is done in the water, and the goal is to throw small balls into whirlpools to score points. At the end of the round, whoever has the most points but has not gone over 200 points wins a prize. I go over 200 points very quickly. Damn… There is a way to reduce the score. I am trying to do that, it involves tricky maneuvers through a rocky underwater cave. I get the swim suit all ripped up. When I come out I am in rags. The people running the attraction are pissed. They tell me I have to replace the swim suit for $350. I say no swim suit is that much. They say they will also accept a replacement suit if I can find one. I go shopping. I find a matching suit for $75. I take it back. I briefly wonder if it is the right size… it is XXXL, looks like it would fit a small whale. They say that is no issue, it will shrink to fit whoever wears it, and stretch to fit the larger people. One size fits all swim suits. Um… whatever. A woman the size of a small whale is still having problems getting the suit to stretch enough to fit her.

10/06/11 Monday

Football Rocks
I am in my own house, sitting on the couch watching a football game. It is the Dallas Cowboys vs. some team I can't remember, but I remember thinking the other team must not be very good. The Cowboys are kicking the other team's ass, and the Cowboys aren’t even doing very well. My mom actually seems disappointed that the Cowboys are winning when they haven't earned it. I am annoyed at her being hypocritical so I get up and leave the room. I go outside into the desert around our house and start looking around. Something seems off, but I can't place what. I pick up a couple of rocks and see that they are uncommonly shiny. I decide to keep them. I find a larger rock that is really pretty. It is a bit too large to take back. I pick it up and see it breaks easily, so I take a small piece of it. Someone else is in the yard with me and he says if everyone takes a small piece there will soon be nothing left. I tell him it's on our property, no one else will be taking any, and I won't take any more. He doesn't seem to believe me. I put the small piece of rock in my pocket and continue looking around the yard.

Secret Gifts
I am in Bookman's with Alicia, and we are browsing for stuff to buy. She is looking around in the books and I am checking out the video games. I find a game for the PSP that is a sequel to the game Prototype I have played on my XBox. I pick it up and look at it to see what it is about. I am thinking I have read that in the new game, the main character from the first game is the bad guy… and I don't like that idea… But this game says the player is still playing as Alex Mercer. The only thing that stops me from buying the game is that it's a side scroller, and that doesn't appeal to me. I put the game back and look some more. I find yet another installment of Assassin's Creed. It doesn't say what system it's for… so I look for someone to ask. Weirdly enough I find an employee dressed as an assassin from Assassin's creed. I try to get his attention, but he is set on ignoring me. I have the crazy idea I am not really there. I try to get Alicia's attention and she responds right away. So the guy is just being a jerk. I try to get his attention again and he finally responds. He says the game is not for me and ignores me again. What an ass…

Assimilated Virus
I am in a video game, and I am fully aware it is a video game… beyond a shadow of a doubt. It is an awesome virtual reality game and I want to explore it fully. I am walking down a busy street with lots of people. I also notice there is a heavy military presence there, many soldiers are walking the streets. The civilians don't seem to notice this as strange, though some of them do seem a bit nervous. I wonder why. I head down a side street to try to clear my mind away from the crowd. There is a suspicious man there, he is watching me. I am not worried about it. This is just a game. Instead I investigate him, which seems to take him a bit by surprise. It doesn't seem to bother him much. He grabs my arm and stands there with a puzzled look on his face. I get a report from the nanites in my system that he tried to infect me with a strange virus. Epic fail, the virus has already been neutralized. I tell him his plan was an epic fail… have some of my infection… and he is infected with nanites… too bad I wake up before I find anything else out.

Note: I am starting a two month experiment based in Mortal Mist with a couple of other users, KayTea and mentalenforcer, to make a MILD attempt at least once per night for two months straight. It seemed like this would help keep KayTea motivated, and I also think I need to get more consistent lucids and recall. I used to have a lucid most every night, sometimes more, and good recall. My numbers have crashed lately, so I hope this will get me back on the right track again. This is night one. I had one lucid, though the lucid is not the one I was aiming for in my MILD. I had the dream I was aiming for in my MILD, but it wasn't lucid… well, I guess that's sort of success…

Party Crashing
I am at what looks like an office party, I am not very pleased because I have been forced to give up on looking for a game design job for the time being and I am working at a hospital data center again. This party isn't for the data center staff, it seems the hospital never really shows their appreciation for us, rather it's for the nurses. I won't argue that the nurses are important and to be appreciated, but why do us data center computer operators always get ignored? I feel entitled to some of the celebration. They have lots of cake, it looks delicious. They won't notice if a little of it is missing… so I take a piece. The icing is the best I have ever tasted short of my mother's homemade frosting!

I eat the cake, taking time to enjoy every bite. I want more… I take more… and then some more. They are bound to notice the change now. Sure enough, they notice me there eating cake and they know I'm not supposed to be there. One of the nurses asks if I'm not from the data center, I don't want to lie, so I say yes. She says it's nice to meet me, help myself to cake if I want it. I think she might be being sarcastic, but her smile is genuine. No one minds that I'm here, so I help myself to another piece of cake. If I have to work here, I'll do it on a sugar high!

Moving Day
I am with my mother and we are looking through our new house, which is nothing short of a mansion. This house is already ours, the only thing we are doing now is looking through the place and figuring out where we are going to put our stuff. We'll need more stuff to fill a house this big! Right now the seller's stuff is still in there, but it is in the process of being moved out. Movers are coming in and going out with loads of stuff. I leave on my own and explore areas that the movers haven't come to yet. There are so many rooms, I am planning on where I'm going to put all of my crap. I must have more crap than I do in waking life. My mother is telling me not to take up too much space with my stuff. I wonder why since there is so much room. There is much more room than we need… why are we moving into a place so big? We wouldn't be moving into a house like this! This triggers a RC and I find I am dreaming.

Yay! I start by flying, I head up a wide flight of stairs to the upper level of the mansion. It is the third floor, and I see there are many windows up there to take advantage of natural lighting. I want to go outside and fly. I take a chair and try to smash a window… strong window… I hit it harder and it breaks, I clear the shards out and then leave through the window. It's time to complete a task. What do I want to do? I remember working on a video game a friend and I are making, so I decide to dream about that. I look to find a place I can use to start development of the area without starting from nothing. I am still looking for that when I wake. Damn.

Eternal Dream
I am in what looks like either a small town or maybe an area on the outskirts of a larger city. It is a pleasant area, quiet with a lot of nice shops along the streets. There is a larger shopping center at the main intersection with a store that reminds me of Walgreens, and a grocery store, an arts and crafts store like Michael's, and a bank, but everything else is a bunch of smaller shops.

As I explore the place I make note of the shops. The antique shop on the corner across the street from the shopping center is exactly how I'd pictured it. Other shops along the streets include a jewelry store, a boutique that seems to sell some unusual clothing and souvenir type items, a book store that has both new and used books for sale, a martial arts dojo / exercise gym,

a community college type place, a gun shop, and a place that announces it sells everything Renissance. There seems to be most anything anyone could want, and some things I wouldn't have thought of. Cool. I am making an effort to remember this for when I get home, I can model this stuff. I wish I had a camera or something with me to remember the place better. I continue exploring, heading towards what looks like the main city. But I can't go any farther… there is a massive sinkhole? The crevice is so deep and there is boiling lava in the bottom of it… um… wtf? I head in the other direction. I find a residential area and then another sinkhole / crevice, more lava. I wander back into the area I started in. Something is odd about the gym. The exercise machines which have always looked a bit like torture devices in their design are actually torture devices.

The people working out aren't working out, they're being tortured… burned… crushed… flayed… having their bodies forced into unnatural positions… the people I had thought were personal trainers are the torturers and they are taking pleasure in every cry of pain and plea for mercy… this isn't right… I go to look for a way out of town again, and I find a small bridge over one of the crevices. It is narrow and perilous. I try it anyway. As I cross over I am attacked by fire demons or elementals or something like that, and I wake up in bed. I get up, I have my own place, but that doesn't seem odd to me. I go into the kitchen and get a drink. It's time to get up. I want to go look at the book store and see what I can find out about creepy dreams like the one I just had.

House of the About To Be Dead
I am in a castle, I look around the room I am in. In spite of having had recent dreams of Hogwarts, that is not what comes to mind first here. I am thinking I am in the process of designing a video game. I am designing one of the levels, this castle will be a great setting. So right now I am looking around the level, trying to see where I want to put enemies and items and stuff like that. I place the enemies all over the place, and then I decide to do a run through to see how my AI on the enemies is working. So as the level starts, the enemies attack me, so I grab a weapon and fight back. There are weapons lying around, so I am able to use the in-game weapons to fight. Most of them are melee weapons, but I also find a gun or two. Ammo is rare so I have to conserve it. As I explore the castle I see there are enemies where I don't remember putting them. I think that is great, that means the AI of the game is making the enemies track me down to attack. I kill some more of the enemies and then I see someone else is in there with me, not one of the enemies. I look closer and see Walms killing enemies. Wait a minute…. Walms? Time for a RC! I am dreaming!

Now I am lucid and watching Walms kill enemies, making quite a gory scene of it as well, it looks like he might be eating some of them… I resume killing enemies, just because I am dreaming doesn't mean they don't need to die, and I finally make my way over to where Walms is. It looks like he is going to attack me, but then he stops, apparently seeing that I'm not one of the enemies. He makes some kind of comment to me, I say I was going to see if he could use a song spell… say gravity maybe, since I don't remember seeing him use that in a dream, and I am wanting to know more about DT… Walms just looks impatient, he says ok, but he'll only show me once, there are too many people to kill to waste much time. If I need more help, it will have to be another time. He goes through these steps relatively slowly, it looks like part of him briefly teleports and then reappears, and an enemy on the other side of the room is suddenly in two pieces… it looks like the enemy got cut open by some sharp claws, which I see Walms has formed. Ok, so I will try duplicating that… I select an enemy and try to do the same thing… epic fail. The result is my arm on the other side of the room, still holding an in game sword I had found, and flopping on the ground erratically while the enemy watches it in a totally confused state. For some reason this strikes me as particularly hilarious, and I crack up laughing. Walms is looking at me like I have completely lost it, and then he goes back to killing things. I grow a new arm. I want to try that DT again, but it didn't work so well last time. I have an idea. I look at the enemy who is watching my severed arm flop about. I pick up a sword on the ground near me, then I open a portal… just big enough for the sword to fit through… and I make the destination of the portal right behind the enemy. I shove my sword into the tiny portal, it emerges from the other end and impales the enemy. I pull the sword back and the portals close.

I am pleased with that, so I do it some more. One of the enemies looks like my ex boyfriend, James. He is trying to say he still loves me, which I don't believe. Walms enters the room and is killing stuff. James says some insulting stuff about Walms, I don't remember what, and Walms gives him a dirty look. I tell Walms that this one is mine, I'll take care of him. Walms continues on his way, killing another enemy. James says he wants me to call him IWL, I say it's not going to happen. He says he really wants me to call, he misses talking to me and wants to… *glurg* Now he looks like he's about to be sick. I follow his path of vision and see Walms eating an enemy, James seems pretty grossed out by that. I find this to be hilarious, too, and I start laughing again. I tell James to be gone before Walms decides he looks like a tasty snack. James scoffs at that, saying I know perfectly well that he can… I slip my hidden blade through a tiny portal that opens behind James' neck… and thus stab him. I wake up here.

Designing the Moon
I am designing some more of my game. I am on the moon, with Nomad, and he is helping me design the game. I am working with a strange sort of biological machine, I am thinking this is normal, it is merely one of the utilities in the game design program I am using now. Nomad and I are discussing what we want to do on the moon, how we want to set things up, Nomad wants to start by terraforming the moon. Ok, that works, so we need to decide what areas we will have. I suggest different areas based on different elements, like a fire area, an earth area, an air area, etc. Nomad says that sounds awesome, and says we can start with the forest area. I am thinking of how the game can flow, and I am coming up with a vicious circle where each element needs one of the other elements and there isn't really any place to start. I am taking to Nomad about setting up the game so it will work smoothly, he seems a bit confused by the fact I am talking about video games, but he seems to play along for now. Upon finally coming to the conclusion that the earth level would be first, Nomad asks why I am talking about making a video game… I tell him this video game will be epic, with all these territories, it will make an excellent MMORPG. Nomad smiles and says that is awesome, we would make an MMORPG area for dreamers. I am a bit confused at first, then I think of something and tell him it is a great idea to use dreams to design parts of the game, maybe even most of it. Nomad says yeah, we should use dreams… dreams like this one! I look at him in a puzzled manner, he tells me this is a dream. That isn't making sense, I tell him we are designing a video game, not a dream…

Space Ark
I am with MoSh in the landing bay of the tower on the moon, we are going to go somewhere Q has told us about. I am lucid for the first time, and thinking I can't wait to see what kind of place Q has found this time. We get in our ships, MoSh gets in his ship with Asuka, I get in mine with Basara, and we launch from the tower. Before we have gone far we find a wormhole that Q has created, and we fly through the wormhole to a distant area of space. There is now a fleet of ships near us, ships flying through space going to somewhere I don't know. We fly over towards the fleet, and I see fighter ships around that look like the ships on Starfox… There is also one huge ship that looks like a section of a planet under a dome, the other ships are all flying around that one, which seems to be the one to be protected above all others. We make contact with them, and they give us permission to land, making me wonder if Q has been here before us to tell them we are coming… We land in the landing area, and there are some people there, they are talking about what the ship is for. Apparently they were able to get warning of their star going supernova, so they constructed this space ark, with a section of every kind of habitat from their home world and also a selection of all the different animals, so they would be able to start over on a new world. He says most of the space ark is wilderness, and they have to take care of everything to make sure no life is lost on the way to their new home.

Back to the Drawing Board
I am in a strange room, I know I am there to continue designing a video game, no doubt the one I was working on earlier. I am working on a puzzle part of the game now, testing it out to make sure it is working properly. The way to solve the puzzle is to step only on certain tiles and in the right order and use those tiles to reach the other side of the room. I do the jumps necessary to get across the room, I am wondering if it is the proper difficulty. Does it need to be harder? Easier? Have a difficulty setting? I'll have to give that some thought. When I am almost to the other side, I notice something wrong with one of the animated parts… there is a fan in a vent that is wobbling instead of spinning properly. So I get out of the game and enter a modeling mode, moving over to the fan and adjusting the size and shape of it to make it fit better. While I'm in the modeling mode, I adjust some walls and start adding a new room. In the new room there are two bodies that appear to be dead but will come to life and attack. This fact is actually betrayed by a slight twitch in the bodies that gives away the fact they aren't really dead. Now I just have to test to make sure they come to life at the right place to make the game challenging without making it impossible.