New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

05/29/13

Winter Shield
I am in a place I don't recognize. I have somehow become semi-lucid without remembering how it happened. I look around and I see Nomad sleeping in a bed. He is there holding Winter. I stand and watch them sleep for a while, thinking they look peaceful together and feeling lonely that there is no one in this dimension meant for me. I am lost in my own thoughts when I see that I am not the only one watching them. I look around and see there are Templars everywhere. I am not sure what they are doing there but I am sure they are up to no good. I drop an Immortal Fire spell right near Nomad and Winter. The explosion of energy incinerates all the Templars in its path. When the energy fades I see all of the Templars are gone. I look back at Nomad and Winter, feeling a little better. Being alone doesn't mean I have to give in to the Templars. I wait for a bit longer and Nomad wakes up, or more accurately he enters the dream. He looks up at me. I tell him he had been surrounded by Templars, but I got rid of them. We can get right to putting up a shield around Winter. He agrees that is a good idea, first we'll have to go into her inner world. He says he isn't sure what condition the place is in… Since I have never been in there I let Nomad take both of us into Winter's inner dream world. Once we are in Winter's inner world I see that it is in complete chaos. The place is on fire, and there are dream demons flying everywhere. Nomad looks around and then says the dream demons are only DC's. That means her inner world has fortunately not been invaded as it appears. The dream demon DC's are making things a bit chaotic so I focus on two songs at once. Enter Sandman to create a cyclone of energy and Black Hole Sun to draw all of the free flying dream demons into the center of that cyclone. There is a large explosion in the center of the cyclone and the DC dream demons are destroyed. I look around and see Nomad holding on to Winter. I focus on the song Blitzkrieg by Metallica in order to form a defensive shield around all of Winter's inner world.

After that is done I focus on the song Full Moon Light to spread healing energy throughout the place. It flows to all areas of Winter's inner world as well as through Nomad and Winter. Nomad looks upset by something. I ask him if Winter is ok. He says we need to go to the healing glen. I open a portal to the healing glen and we go through it. We are greeted by the Crystal Golem. We all sit down in the tall grass, Nomad is holding Winter close to him. The birds are singing, there are butterflies flitting around as well as some other iridescent insects. An angel is singing a healing song. For some reason the healing energy isn't making me feel any better, I am feeling more alone than ever. So I get up and leave, walking through the tall grass until I come to a small pond.

I sit down on the banks of the pond and look out over the water wishing I didn't feel like crying. But I am alone… so it's ok to cry. So I sit there and cry silently. I don't know how long it has been before someone is beside me. He asks if I am ok. I instinctively try to wipe the tears away, it is a habit for me to not want to be seen crying. He doesn't say anything more, he sits down beside me and puts his arm around me, pulling me close. Somehow the fact someone came to check on me makes me want to cry more, people don't do that in my waking life. I look to my side and see Altaïr is the one sitting beside me. We sit there for a bit until I hear strange noises behind me. Nomad is there, says something about smoking a joint. Winter is playing around with some kind of ninja powers. Nomad says we have to find Ezio. Altaïr says he already knows where to find Ezio. The Ezio we are looking for is from the same world he is from, just a different time period. He said he scouted the area and caught sight of a shadow templar disguising himself as Altaïr, but he disappeared before Altaïr could stop him. A fake Altaïr… that would explain the visions I got of Ezio and Altaïr fighting, it was no doubt the fake Altaïr. Good to know since between Ezio and Altaïr I would tend to choose Altaïr. I wake up, and for a few seconds I still feel Altaïr's arm around me as if he had come out of the dream with me.
 
Shadow Ambush
I am in a city I don't recognize. I look around but I don't see anything that can help me recognize the place. Something about it reminds me of a city from a video game, so I decide I must be testing out the latest virtual reality system. So I set to exploring the town. There are quite a few people wandering the streets but I don't recognize any of them and none of them seem to notice me. I continue wandering until I find several guards that seem to be bullying one man, pushing him around, threatening him… I figure it is probably an optional task to teach those bullies a lesson. So I check for weapons and find I have a sword and a hidden blade. Good enough. I go over to the guards and tell them they had better leave that man alone. The guards laugh at me and tell me I had better move along if I don't want to get hurt. I tell them I don't see anyone around that could hurt me, but this is their last chance to back off. The guards just laugh at me. One of them says maybe they should put me in my place. The guards are now surrounding me, there are five of them. The guy that had been being bullied takes the opportunity to run away. Jerk… he won't even stick around to offer a reward for helping him? Well, kicking these guys' asses should be a reward in itself. The guards are around me with their swords drawn so I draw my own sword. This brings more laughter. One of them laughs and says the little girl thinks she's going to be able to fight. One of them attacks me. I block his attack and then cut him down with a counter strike. The other guards seem surprised I was able to do that. The others attack me now, I dodge out of the middle of the group, using a counter strike to take another one out. Three left, and they're all attacking at once. I focus on one and use a counter strike, turning around quickly to find the two coming from behind me… are already dead? They haven't even hit the ground yet, and there is a man standing between them, the one who killed them.

I recognize that man as Ezio. He is looking at me strangely. Ok… taking out a few guards is easy, but I don't think I'm a high enough level to take on Ezio… but I don't have to. He comes over to me, it sounds like he is going to ask me to join the Assassins, but he gets interrupted by another Assassin running up to him. He says there is trouble, and Ezio is needed right away. Ezio follows the other Assassin quickly and I follow Ezio, since he's apparently going where the action is. We leave the main area of town and end up in a small glen of trees. The other Assassin has stopped and is just standing there. Ezio asks what is going on, who is in trouble? The other Assassin looks up with a really evil grin on his face and says Ezio is the one in trouble. There are Templars emerging from the trees. They all seem to be surrounded by dark auras. Shadow Templars! There are shadow Templars in this game? Then there had better also be magic to defeat them! Ezio is instantly ready to fight the new enemies. I tell him to wait just a second… then focus on the spell song Battery to summon a lightning bolt of light energy to charge Ezio's sword.

He looks at the sparking blade only briefly before attacking the shadow Templars. There are six shadow Templars including the one disguised as an Assassin. The Templar disguised as an Assassin is the first to fall to Ezio's blade. The others has been moving in, but when they see their friend go down so easily they seem to hesitate, giving strange glances at each other. I hear someone muttering about dark energy making them invincible… and a response of just kill them! Ezio takes out a Templar coming at him from in front and then one off to his right in one smooth motion. I manage to take out one attacking Ezio from behind and then counter strike the one attacking me. I turn around just in time to see Ezio cut down the last Templar. Ezio looks around to make sure there are no more Templars hiding in the trees and then over at me. He asks who I am… there was something strange about those Templars, what was it? All I end up tell him is my name… Raven Knight… then I feel like I am about to wake up. I find that disappointing. I don't want to return to my waking life. I realize I have spoken aloud, said I don't want to leave. Ezio says I don't have to go anywhere, but apparently it's not up to Ezio… I wake up.