New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

01/11/12

Paths to Nowhere
I am on a bicycle riding down a road in a place I don't recognize. I am thinking it is really something how I could live in a city for most of my life and still have there be so many places I haven't seen. I'm in the mood to explore for a while, so I start doing that. I ride my bike down into an underground tunnel that is going under some other streets. I hadn't realized there even was a tunnel in town! In the tunnel I notice there are several more passages branching off to the sides. While the main tunnel is large enough for a car, the side passages definitely aren't. They are large enough for a bike, however. So I start exploring them. They are all well formed circular tunnels that are lighted by lights running along the ceiling. It can be quite disorienting, and I soon find I think I'm lost. This doesn't bother me, however, as I know the tunnels can't go on forever. I find an underground shopping area and I park my bike to look around. I am quite tired and I think a nap would be nice. I find a place that has inflatable mattresses available for people to rest on. I lie down on one and snooze. I awaken to find the mattress is floating on water. I ask someone near me what is going on. She says that's why the mattresses are inflatable… because they get moved while we sleep to a new location. Damn, I think, I'll never find my bike now!


Village of the Damned Assholes
I am in a strange place, it looks like a village out of old times or maybe out of an RPG… such as Oblivion. It is night time out, and there is very little motion in the streets. There are lights glowing in the windows of the homes but no one is venturing outside. I wander through the town for a bit and finally a door opens. A woman comes out and tells me to get off the street before they come. Who? Them, the woman points at some figures moving into the village. They look strange… and I soon see why. They're zombies. She said we need to get back inside and just let them take their sacrifices. Sacrifices?

She points at the center of town where there is a pole, like a maypole, but the streamers from the top are all chained and at the end of each of them there is a naked person chained. This is no celebration. The woman pulls me and says come on, the darga will feed on the sacrifices and leave the rest of the village alone! I push the woman away with a disgusted look and tell her that's not going to happen this time.

I go over to where the zombies… the darga… are approaching from. They pause when they see me there, clearly not expecting anyone to meet them. They continue advancing. I summon my Witchblade sword and that seems to give them pause again. Not only is someone meeting them, that someone looks ready to fight. I hear a man call at me not to do it, but I pay him no heed. I charge right into the middle of the group of zombies and cut into them with my sword. They are clearly not prepared for this, and in true zombie style, it takes them a moment to respond. By that time most of them are already dead and it is quick to finish the rest of them off. I free the people who were meant to be sacrifices.

What surprises me here is that no one seems happy about the victory, in fact, they seem pissed. Wtf? A man is cursing at me! He says I have really done it now, the rest of the darga will come for revenge, the entire village is doomed now. Ok, then I will just wait around here and kick the rest of their asses when they come. He chuckles, not believing. He says there is no way one person can fight them all, certainly not a mere woman. He is pissing me off. I tell him he has no idea what I'm capable of. I fire a blast of flames at the dead zombies and incinerate them in an instant. I add that if they are too many for me to handle alone, I also have friends to back me up… some of whom are even more powerful than me. He says I have "helped" quite enough. I think he must be a leader of some kind, as a bunch of others are joining him in telling me to leave. I am pissed at that and I tell them to go ahead and rot then… anyone who willingly hands over their own people to be devoured by zombies isn't worth saving anyhow. I turn and head out of town with jeers and curses following me. I resist an urge to turn around and level the whole place with a blast of fire. The zombies will take care of that.

I am almost out of town when I see someone chasing after me. It's the woman who tried to warn me before the fight. Unlike the others, she seems truly dismayed at my leaving. She says they won't have a chance against the darga. I tell her that's not my problem, it's clear that everyone wants me to leave… so I will comply. She says not everyone wants me to leave… she pauses… she said they're just afraid to oppose the mayor… she then quickly adds that she doesn't want me to leave. She says in fact, she would beg me to stay and help them… do I want paying? She'll pay everything she has… just please don't go… I tell her that I am not interested in payment. She says if I'm angry, it is all the mayor's fault, he is the one that thinks he is always right and responds violently to anyone who tries to oppose him and his ideas. Those who back him up are just scared. She grabs my arm and then immediately lets go as if she thinks I will attack her for doing that. I finally tell her ok, when the zombies… the darga… come back I will also be back, with help if needed. But for now I am called to my home world. I wake.

Note: My list of goals remains long, but I am trying to focus on a couple at a time. Right now I am primarily focused on sharing a DDO dream with Tigress and having both of us remember it and opening that locked book I got from the Akashic Records. With not having my nightly WILD (tonight was no exception) I had better not make my list of goals for one night too long or I will just end up forgetting all of them!

I was in a bed. I rolled over and got up. I looked around. I was not in my bedroom. I was not in a normal bedroom of any kind. It looked like the kind of bedroom one might see in an inn in an RPG. I wondered how I had gotten there. My first thought was that I needed to get home. My mother would definitely be wondering what had happened to me… I looked for my purse. I would call her. I couldn't find my purse. Shit! Where was it? What was happening here? I would get home as quickly as I could to tell my mother I was ok. So I at least needed my car keys… which were probably in my purse… which I couldn't find. Ok… this wasn't turning out to be a very good situation. I thought my keys might be in my pocket… I searched my pockets… and found I was not dressed as normal. I was wearing some strange clothes that looked like something out of an RPG. Everything was all too strange that I finally decided to do a RC… and then I realized I was dreaming.

Now that I was lucid, I left the room and found out I really was in an inn. I looked around the room down below and it was a typical RPG pub. I walked around a bit and I could hear everyone talking. They were talking about an impending attack force coming down the canyon. They were talking about their warriors not being strong enough to hold the attack off, and about how it might turn out that their easily defended canyon hiding place might turn out to also be their tomb since there was no way out except through the enemy forces. People were clearly scared shitless, talking about trying to scale the sheer canyon walls or even killing themselves to keep from falling into the cruel hands of the enemies who would no doubt have torturous deaths planned for each and every one of them. From across the room I heard one woman who didn't sound like she had already given up. She was telling the people they needed to fight for their village and not give up no matter how big the enemy forces appeared to be. No one seemed to be listening to her, and when she asked who was with her, no one responded. A few people laughed. I finally spotted her. She was dressed as a paladin, and asked again if there was no one there with the courage to fight. I raised my hand, noting the Witchblade on it, and said loudly that I was willing to fight. She peered out over the crowd and looked directly at me.

"Raven?!" she asked, "Is that you?"

I hesitated, not sure how she knew me… then she took off her helmet and I immediately recognized her. It was Tigress! I went directly over to her and climbed up on the table she had climbed onto, using it as a stage to address the people around her. She now told everyone that there were two women willing to fight for their village… were there no others? Were all those men who called themselves warriors going to be shown up by a couple of women? Were there no other women who called themselves warriors willing to stand beside their fellow female fighters? Once again no one responded… there were some embarrassed glances around, some nervous chuckles. I told Tigress that we didn't need these idiots. We could handle whatever attack force there was on our own, and have fun doing it. I said I was ready to take this quest if she was. She gave one more look around the room, announced that everyone in the room was pathetic, and said she was ready to kick some ass.

So Tigress and I left the pub full of cowards, the people around us were muttering something about that just meant we would be the first to die, and went outside into the village. Tigress must have been there for a while already, as she seemed to know where to go. I followed Tigress. She went to the front gates of the village. There were guards there that didn't want to open the gates. They didn't seem to think two people stood a chance against the invading forces. We insisted on going out. They finally gave in and opened the gates, announcing that if we really felt like committing suicide that they wouldn't stand in the way. After all, everyone in the town would be dead before long when the enemy forces arrived. We went through the gate, the guards shut and barred it behind us. I wondered why they even bothered closing the gates since they were so sure they would be killed anyhow…

There was a winding path through the canyon. Tigress and I went down the path and around a bend and then we spotted a large number of somethings approaching. We got closer and it turned out there was an entire army of what looked like kobolds. Mixed in among the kobolds were some larger orc type creatures and some that looked like humans. They were all armed with swords, spears, and bows, all in armor. That was definitely a sizable attack force. A hail of arrows shot out of the group at us. Somehow we had been spotted. Tigress had a bow and arrows. She was firing five arrows with each shot. That was an interesting trick. That resulted in a return fire of a hail of arrows, because she was also very fast with shooting them. I saw there were spear warriors just beyond the archers. Those spears up in the air looked like lightning rods! I used Battery and they worked like lightning rods, too. The spear warriors were electrocuted through their own spears. The battle continued. We encountered each other. Tigress and I were both using our swords now, I formed my sword from Withcblade. Both Tigress and I were moving like lightning. Much faster than the kobolds, orcs, and human enemies. Our swords cut through their armor like it was made of tissue paper. Tigress jumped to a couple of rocks and part way up the canyon wall, then she unleashed another rain of arrows. The enemies kept coming. I cut some more down, threw some fireballs at more of them. Tigress got tired of the bow and arrows, changed into a werewolf and jumped down off the canyon wall. She tore into a bunch of the enemies with her claws, leaping from one enemy to the next. In spite of the fact we were sorely outnumbered, we fought until all of the enemies were either dead or retreating… mostly dead. The battle was over.

Tigress and I returned to the village. The guards on the gate looked quite surprised to see us back in one piece. They were just staring. Tigress said the enemies were all either dead or they had fled for their lives. The guards seemed reluctant to believe that. I noticed for the first time that Tigress had a severed head… yuck. Apparently it was the head of the leader of the enemy forces, as it convinced the guards that we had indeed been victorious. They let us into the village now. Tigress showed the head to prove the danger had passed, at the same time as she made fun of all of those people who called themselves warriors and had not had the guts to go out there and fight for their village. It looked like they weren't sure if they should be happy with us for helping them or annoyed for calling them cowards… but the thing was, that was what they were… a bunch of cowards. Overall, the view of us was that we were some kind of heroes… which I really didn't care about. I told Tigress maybe we could go out and explore a bit. She said sure, but then she disappeared… damn… she must have woken up. The people from the town were silent now, staring at where she had been. They were muttering amongst themselves about what kind of magic she had just used. I thought I could still explore a bit. I took to flight and looked down, wondering which way to go. I had just barely gotten to go anywhere before I woke.