Things to Run Away From Really Fast

There's one area in the video games vs. lucid dreaming argument where video games come out ahead: dreams are terrible at providing a consistent gameplay experience.

I'm firing some kind of energy weapon down a rocky ravine at some well-armed and armoured aliens trying to board my ship. I'm getting frustrated because the leader's damned health bar isn't going down as fast as I think it should. I pull out a heavier energy weapon, dodge a blaster shot and look down the scope of my gun—FWOOM—and feel a moment's satisfaction when I see that the leader is down below half health.

It doesn't last long.

"Boarders!" one of the two crew members at my side shouts at me, "Revan, they're coming in the back!"

Three of the armoured aliens pour in through another door and I duck so that the enemies below can't get a shot at me.

"Where's the rest of the crew?" I shout back.

My brother's running the game. He doesn't say anything, but I realize that the gameplay mechanics only allow for two of my crew members to join the fight: the ones that I had in my KOTOR-sized party.

Sithspit. Three people won't be enough to hold off the invaders.

I dive into third-person mode which automatically pauses the fight, and float quickly through the ship. I'm looking for the rest of my crew, and I come across Mystique in her natural formsprawled out on the floor of a storage room. Keeping an eye out for the other boarders, I move towards her and think about what the gameplay mechanic for reviving a crewmate should be. I'm not actually here, so...

"Found you," says my brother from behind me.

I spin around. "Revan's on the other side of the ship," I argue.

"You're here."

I scoff at his character, a tall man in black, and then run out of the storage room before he has time to reply. A fireball hits the wall as I run past, and I run through a set of double doors, another door, and into a hallway that leads to a series of bathrooms.

Second door on the left. I throw myself into the room and click the door shut softly behind me, before plugging the sink and move my hand in front of the sensor so the water runs until it's full.

Silence. My body is tense as I hold myself in position, ready to fling the water at the door.

Click.

The door opens, and I relax when I realize it's Mystique.

"Any backup?" I ask her.

"Shan."

"Everyone else is down where the boarders entered the Ebon Hawk. We'll have to retreat for now."

We move towards the back of the ship, but we're inside a facility now, all industrial chrome and steel. Bastila Shan holds her yellow lightsaber at the ready, and Mystique and I hold complementary hues of blue and orange. I wave my hand and call up my Darth Revan outfit, looking up the steel grating as I do.

I jump up to the next level. Just as I expected, an enemy stands at the ready with another an lightsaber. They smile, and I give them a bloodthirsty grin in return. It's three against one, after all.

***

Other dreams: a hiking trip with a couple of guides and a group of people, trying to find a bathroom before we leave on the trip. Looking for a judge in Ixburg who can sign a cheque that I need to write to pay a fine.

I hop on a bus with a duffel bag and a backpack, headed out to Halifax. I arrive at the hostel. There's a book sale in one of the rooms. I gravitate toward the back corner and recognize the cover for a Sherlock Holmes collection. I open it up, pleasantly surprised to find the book full of illustrations. I head over to another corner by the windows and flip through a few children's books for reference. The illustrations in every book are watercolour and ink or acrylic and ink. They have a grainy, spooky tone to them and some of the watercolour scenes are brilliant. I pick out a few and head to cash.

"You've got two books there?"

I glance down at the pile in my arms. "More than that," I say.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm charging you for five, then. Your total is $4.25."

I hand her a five dollar bill and get three quarters back. Looking at the pile again, I realize that there's actually six books, but one is only a few torn out pages. Fair enough, I decide. I head back to my room to pack.

I'm looking at a shelf full of food and wondering when I found the time to buy all of this. I pack it away (bread goes squish) along with the books. It's a perfect fit, but I'm going to be annoyed travelling with all this luggage.

Chel, a girl who was a grade above me in high school, arrives as I'm leaving. We have an excited conversation involving the odds of meeting up on the other side of the country.

I decide to stop in Quickton before heading to Vancouver. For a break in a long goddamn bus ride, if nothing else. The bus station by the Westin is suddenly a part of Ixburg.

***

In Quickton, grocery shopping. Sprained left leg, hobbling along, wondering where my crutches went. I limp along on my left ankle after I get tired of hopping. It hurts, but it could be worse. I talk to my late grandma.

***

Still in Quickton, I'm on trial as a witch. The woman accusing me is a made up character who, apparently, went to high school with me. I spend most of the trial resisting the urge to burn her alive via dream-powers. Apparently that wouldn't help my case much.

I'm defending myself; no lawyers allowed. I catch the woman in the middle of a lie and ruthlessly pounce on it, drawing out answers that prove she wasn't where she said she was. Something about flowers that are yellow and in a pot. Daisies, probably.

I'm not sure if my argument's had any effect on the jury yet, so when the Judge asks me about the green lightsaber they have in custody, I immediately reply, "My lightsabers aren't green." I consider summoning my dual sabers to the courtroom, but again, supernatural powers are not what anyone needs to see right now.

I go into a tangent, wondering what my colour actually is. Purple is tempting, and I've always been partial to red and blue, but orange is pretty close and I'm not genuinely Sith-like (far too dogmatic for me). I don't really like orange much, though. I swing a couple orange sabers around in the hallway just to try them out.

I'm sitting back in my box with my arch-nemesis a couple places down, wondering if the trial can adjourn for the day. It's almost five and I'm bored.

We all go home for the night. I've been released into the custody of my parents, so I'm walking into a bigger version of their house, kicking off my shoes as I go. I'm picking up a piece of paper that might be an assassination contract a la Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, without some serious creativity, I won't be able to collect on it. I'm supposed to stay here, after all...

Witch Trials. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: I think I was completely guilty of everything I was accused of.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Samael

Obviously, I've been watching too much Supernatural.

I've somehow been entered into a race that involves hopping on one foot and a flutter-board. I argue that 5K is a long way to hop on one foot.


idek.

I'm crowded into the entrance of a bar. I think these are people that my brother knows. I notice that one guy is acting suspicious, so I follow him outside and onto the roof. I find him threatening another man with a knife.


You know that little voice people have that tells them to quit when they're ahead? You don't have one!

"Hey!" I call, stepping out of the shadows. Both men turn to look at me, one still brandishing his knife.

"Hey, calm down," I say, hoping that I don't sound patronizing, "There's no need for that, right? Put the knife down, and we can talk."

We circle each other, and I'm moving closer with every step to the side. The third man moves away, more or less forgotten. The man with the knife focuses all his attention on me. He's not going to listen.

I step in without warning, grab the wrist holding the knife and twist. He doesn't drop the knife, but I have a hand on it, and suddenly I can see all the outcomes of the fight at once, blood spraying everywhere. Mostly his.

I'm sitting back in the bar with a group of people that I know. I'm invisible part of the time, so I play with the DCs a bit, asking them what they're seeing as they look at me. One replies that she can see the skull of my grandmother's rotting corpse, covered in maggots. I decide that this game isn't fun anymore.

The police are all over the bar, trying to figure out what happened. The patrons are willfully ignoring them. I'm glad that I'm wearing black, because at least you can't see the bloodstains. I look down at my grey shirt, covered in blood. No, I was wearing black the whole time, I convince the dream. I get back into the story by willing myself into a different form. I decide to shift into a guy, because that's an unlikely disguise. Hey, I can be Jensen Ackles!


Yay! I'm him a lot. Why?

I consider changing eye/hair color so I don't look like an actor, but I decide that he doesn't actually exist in this universe and go talk to the cops. Because it's... fun, or something.

There's a female detective on the roof, speculating about what happened. I see these speculations in flashbacks. The girl (me) made a grab for the knife, she says, and cut her attacker, injuring him. Then he killed her, and disposed of the body somewhere.


Not nearly this cool.

I'm somewhat insulted, actually, but it helps me put the pieces together. I must have won the fight. Since the man with the knife is missing, I probably accidentally killed him and disposed of the body somewhere. Wow, do they have it backwards.

Nobody wonders where the third man went.

They're talking about fingerprints, so I decide this would be a good time to change mine. I will the change, and zoom back into watching an onscreen sequence of the patterns changing.

Skinwalkers are the bad guys, right? I wonder on the irony of shifting into Dean Winchester as a shapeshifter. Am I evil right now? Maaaybe.

I converse with the suspicious detective who probably suspects me for something. I swing around the wire fences on the rooftops for a bit, before coming back to the ground where the detective is waiting on a park bench. Apparently we had a long, in-depth conversation that I can't remember, because she actually trusts me a bit now. Yay, we're friends. Or possible love-interests. Hm.

The detective is wondering if I'll be okay to get home by myself, being as it's after dark in a city infested by the supernatural. I assure her that I'll be fine (being as I'm one of the supernatural monsters everyone seems to be afraid of). I check the area, zooming out to the east, where I'm headed. Dark alleys lit by an orange glow. I zoom out to the west, only to find a pack of Dark Jedi closing in on us, jumping around as NPCs do in Jedi Academy. I spot a couple of green and blue lightsabers among all the red, mostly carried by those wielding dual lightsabers.

"We should go," I say, still tracking the pack remotely. "We should go now." I'm more concerned about the detective than myself. I heal fast.

We walk eastwards away from the group, hoping that we won't bait them if we don't run away.

They catch up to us. Immediately, I draw dual sabers in red and blue, slashing down the first two Dark Jedi to reach us. I take down another, still standing protectively in front of the detective. I rush out past a female Dark Jedi, striking her in the back before she can turn. Finally, there are two left. I face the leader and send one of my sabers flying at his remaining minion. She's down. I rush the leader with a flurry of strikes.

No effect.

I pause in my offensive. "Okay," I tell him, "That was at least three direct strikes to your neck, minimum. You should be dead." He just grins.

A blow to the arm, and I have him disarmed. I grab him by the hair and slash across his neck. "Are. You. Dead. Yet?" I ask the disembodied head. That would be a yes.

Also, fail for lack of gore.

I'm covered in blood, so I figure now is a good time for a tactical retreat. We make it to the Best Western where I've made a reservation. I figure we have a half hour to shower and make ourselves presentable (read: not covered in blood) before the antagonists start to come after us.

"I'd offer 'ladies first'", but I'm the one who looks like a walking horror movie right now."

Unfortunately, I'm really bad with numbers when I'm dreaming, so we end up wandering the halls looking for the hotel room. Which is on the third floor. No, the first. No, the second. Wait, are we in a hostel?

Skinwalkers. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Violence is fun.[/QUOTE]