memorable

This started as though i was playing a game on the computer. One of those 2d 'Destroy the Castle' type games. Through lovely dream magic, it somehow became 3d as I played, then completely changed genres to an MMO and finally became 'real'. For some reason, myself and two others needed to kill a small bird monster and use it as bait to lure out a large one. Oddly enough, this required taking the dead monster down into a labyrinthine tunnel/cave system. As we were traversing the system, the floor collapsed and we fell quite a distance. One of my companions, a rather short guy wearing elaborate robes and a crystalline staff, fell near me. Our other companion, a woman who appeared in her early-mid thirties, who wore garb similar to the man though carried a sword, landed on a level twenty or so meters above. I could not see anything after I landed and was panicking. I felt that I had to return to the surface immediately so I was trying to feel my way around, yet I had a constant fear of falling off an unseen ledge. Both of my companions produced lights and I calmed down. With no way to reach each other, our other companion nodded a farewell and sought her own way out while the guy and myself searched around our level for an exit. The only apparent way to go, besides an ominous looking drop some distance away, was an old stone stairway leading down and slightly angled to the side.

There was a bit of a gap here but I recall yet another maze of stairs and narrow, irregular, hallways. Something happened in there which I don't recall, but I found myself running towards a ledge and skidding to a stop just before plunging off the side. Two creatures, shadowlike in appearance, were not as quick to stop and slid off into the dark. I turned and, gesturing towards the opening I had come from, forced the stone surrounding it to cave inwards, catching one more of the creatures before it could get out. My companion made it out, but I was not happy. At some point during the portion I had forgotten, something must have happened, for he now was trying to attack me. I noticed that he had the same kind of aura as the creatures. I had no weapons, and whatever abilities I had used on the opening did not appear to affect him much. He swung his staff and I was hit by a gust of air knocked past the edge. I grabbed on and, as he was approaching, thought to myself "This can't be happening." following that, I had the feeling something wasn't right. With my hands rather occupied trying to keep me from falling to my death, I went for an alternative RC and tried to fly. That failed, but, knowing that I've never managed to do well at that to begin with, I tried another. Suddenly there was a rather convenient ledge at my feet to stand on. "I'm dreaming." I said. Then, to further test it, I had the ledge move up to become level with the floor. I had it, lucid in a dream. Noticing my former companion waiting rather patiently I decided to have some fun with a magic duel. Things were going well for all of three exchanges of spells and counterspells. Then a new, doglike shadow creature dropped from above, landing in front of me. I panicked and lost any sense of being in a dream as I noticed several of them crawling on the walls. Not really sure how I got out of there, but I ran and found myself near the original entrance we had used when first entering the place.

Waiting for me was the woman who had headed out earlier, she was with a group of five or so others, all preparing to fight a giant birdlike monster that was flying towards us. I had forgotten about the entire thing during my time underground but remembered when I saw it. I don't really remember what happened, but I know I was killed during the fight. I 'respawned' a distance away and was annoyed at the need to travel back to the area. I arrived too late it seemed and had to once again lure out the thing, this time though, for some reason I considered an alternative and befriended the smaller birdlike monster by sharing, of all things, coffee with it. It joined my party and we went adventuring for a while. I don't recall the details.

We ended up in an odd city. A mixture of modern urban and high fantasy architecture. Skyscrapers nestled in with waterfalls, narrow walkways, small fantasy style houses, and the epic scaled buildings common in the fantasy genre. We were just leaving a coffee shop (Odd combo of modern exterior and medieval fantasy interior) when my bird companion was captured by a group seeking to lure out the large monster and I had to catch them before they could get there and kill my new friend. I ended up with the woman from earlier, along with two younger women, three guys, and an odd talking fox (who seems to have played no role as it vanished after the initial scene of setting out). I'm not sure what happened, but myself and four others ended up being knocked off the top of a skyscraper and landed in a lake below. I remember the fall being very vivid, I can still recall the sound and feel clearly. I was simultaneously terrified and thrilled and I do believe I was laughing near the end of it. I hit the water and was disoriented for a moment before finding my way to the surface. I was with two others then, I'm not sure what happened to everyone else. We saw my bird friend being dragged away across a bridge far ahead and above us (how I could see that far I've no idea). I was dismayed, but the two people with me laughed and handed me some odd balloon/propeller contraption with a long cord attached to a pair of wings with a harness. The wings were made of dozens of overlapping, every light and thin metallic plates. I'm not sure how I got the thing on, but I did and we were suddenly trying to get airborne with them, being pulled by the propeller and balloon floating in front of us. The two women were out of the water and away quickly, ditching the propellers once they were up to speed. After several attempts, I was finally pulled free of the water and airborne. As I got up to speed, I also ditched the propeller and caught up with the other two. Just as I was beginning to feel thrilled about flying, my alarm went off.

1. I know I had a dream, but don't remember the details due to laziness. I woke up at the end and actually considered writing it down but decided to just go back to sleep.

2. I was participating in a race of some sort, yet I saw no one else. The first section was rather normal, simply running. That lead into jumping off of a platform and flying for a large portion of the race. The flying part wove in and out of odd structures and was quite fast. Oddly enough I could not see my limbs during this section. (I don't recall if I could during the first section, I simply noticed it here.) It ended with a rather terrifying moment of suddenly finding myself without the capacity for flight and plummeting down into a glass and metal tube leading under the ocean. I don't recall what method by which I traveled through there, I only recall seeing marine life and continuations of some of the odd structures underwater outside the glass walls. At the end of this section was a long slope downward that, oddly enough, ended on a platform around a hundred meters above the water. (And I could see my limbs again.)

From the platform, about a dozen different paths branched off. Some were conventional walkways with railings, some lacked the railings but were otherwise normal (Ignoring that none had supports and were floating so high), while others were odd creations of twisted wood or metal. All of the walkways headed in different directions and had seemingly random turns and intersections to them. In general, all of them lead downwards, though in a roundabout way. I ran along a relatively normal one for a time before feeling that I needed to move faster and dropping off the edge to one of the more twisted, broken paths a short distance below. From there I got a running start and jumped to a path that was only a thin black bar and swung off of it to reach another path. I dropped down from there to another broken path, receiving a nasty cut on my arm and hand as I clipped a ragged edge on metal on the way. This constant dropping down, swinging off of bars, and running along paths continued for a time before I made a running leap a good distance across and down and landed hard on a smaller platform.

Five paths branched off of the platform a short distance and each ended. One was a standard walkway, another a staircase, two were simply black metal beams, about fifteen centimeters wide that sloped down and had a couple of sharp turns. I started down the metal beam to my left. I stopped just before the end when I saw a sign that, after a moment to decipher, said 'Incorrect Path.' I caught myself just before sliding off into a good fifty meter drop into the ocean below and clambered my way back to the platform. From there I chose the normal walkway (concrete floor with low, solid, black metal walls) and ran to the end of it and down a staircase. I saw a door and rushed towards it but stopped just before it. The scene seemed to distort, like static, for a moment and words appeared on the door. As before, they read 'Incorrect Path' though the letters occasionally switched into distorted shapes before returning to normal. (Usually one or two at a time) Then I heard someone call out from behind. Before I turned, the words changed to 'Don't turn around.' I did anyway, there was no other place to go without a long fall. At the top of the stairs was a woman whose appearance shifted in a similar fashion to the words from before, with specific aspects going to static, changing, then returning to normal. Her voice did the same and she said something about not leaving. I tried to get past her but the moment I got near my vision turned odd and I ended up elsewhere.

I'm not sure how I got back to it, but I ended up on the small platform again. This time I noticed that all of the paths said incorrect at the start (The words were not there previously and floated in front of each) save for the normal path, which had no words. I took that path again, thinking that it might have a different result. I ended at the same door, and it once again said incorrect path with distorted words. I turned, and sure enough there was the woman again. Though this time not distorted. That was when I woke up.