New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

12/15/10 A Tale of Two Hogwartses
Plans: Go to Hogwarts, take the train to the pyramids... Nomad says he'll be there if he can. Yay! No other plans.

Field Trip
I am at Hogwarts where I teach. The students there have been many new things lately, need I think it would be a good idea to practice it all. I think maybe a simulation where they can practice without any danger, and I think of the Outer Realms training area. Do I need to ask Dumbledore before taking these kinds of trips? I think maybe I need to find out for sure before taking the students off to all corners of the reality. So I head to Dumbledore's office, looking for Dumbledore to check and make sure field trips beyond Hogwarts grounds will be ok. As I am almost to the hidden entrace to Dumbledore's office, I see a pissed Umbridge passing on her way out of Dumbledore's office. She pauses long enough to glare at me intensely, then she storms off in a huff without saying a single word. I wonder what has gotten her in such a bad mood, but then she is usually in a shitty mood, so I don't pay much attention to her. I go into the hidden office so I can ask Dumbledore about field trip. Dumbledore asks if I saw Umbridge leaving, he said she is still trying to find a way to get me kicked out of Hogwarts, and she is still failing to do so. We have a bit of a chuckly at Umbridge's expense, and then I proceed to ask Dumbledore about the field trip. At first he seems a bit hesitant, says he isn't sure if it's a good idea to be taking the students into actual danger. I tell him that there is no real danger, the place I know of is 100% safe, no one can get hurt for real there. I tell him it's more of a simulation or an illusion than anything, or more like a waking dream, something that can't really hurt anyone. I give my word that all of the students will be completely safe. After a bit more of a pause, Dumbledore says he needs to check a thing or two out first, not due to not trusting me, but he doesn't want to give certain people any valid reason to have me kicked out.

Moon Express… All Aboard!
I am outside of Hogwarts, somewhere on the grounds, but I am not certain which Hogwarts I am at... I have been there only for a couple minutes when Nomad shows up, he says he wants to go to the pyramids to meet up with other dreamers there. I say I had thought he was going to wait at the pyramids for dream class dreamers, and we would meet there when I bring the Hogwarts Express to be part of the transportation. Nomad looks at me for a bit, then he says he was going to do that, wasn't he? Then Nomad says we will take the Hogwarts Express back to the moon and meet up with the dream class dreamers anyway. Nomad and I go to the station where the Hogwarts Express drops off the students, where we find there aren't many people. There is one there who seems to be a sort of guard, so we approach him. He says that no one is allowed access to the train without Hogwarts clearance, but he quickly changes his mind when I use MoP (Master of Puppets) to make sure he agrees to let Nomad and me take the train out for a while. Both of us get into the engine of the train, and head out on the tracks. There is a tunnel that the train passes through, which makes a perfect hidden location to go through a wormhole to get to the correct dimension. When we come out of the tunnel, the tracks lead right up to the pyramids, the Giza pyramids in Egypt. I see some people there, but I have no idea who they are. I don't recognize anyone there. After the train stops, Nomad gets off and starts talking to some of the people there, and soon I see there are dragons around us, and some of the people are getting onto the train. I notice the tracks don't continue on for very far, so how are we supposed to get to the moon? Does the train fly? Well, I figure it's going to have to start flying. I pull the train away from the pyramids after everyone is on board, and the problem of the tracks is solved right away. Two beams of moonlight seem to solidify and form tracks heading up to the moon, and that is what the train rides on to get to the moon. So I drive train onto the tracks of moonlight and moonbeam tracks all of the way to the moon. The surface of the moon has been terraformed, and the station there looks like a station in a theme park I might see in Disney Land or some other place like that. I pull the train up to station where I see people getting off, but it looks like there are quite a fewer than got on… I figure that some of them woke up. I tell Nomad that I had better return train, Nomad gives me a strange look. I tell him everyone here can wake up as they would normally. So now I follow a loop in the moon tracks and now the tracks head back down to the surface of Earth. I pass by the pyramids, go through the wormhole tunnel, and I return the train to Hogwarts without anyone other than the guard I used MoP on noticing the train had ever been gone.

The Second Challenge
I am a student at Hogwarts, I am there with MoSh, I am not lucid. MoSh says we are going to be finding out about the second task of the tri-school challenge. I think that sounds pretty cool, so I follow MoSh to the room where we will be meeting. I see Draco there, though he doesn't seem to like the fact I'm hanging around with MoSh, I wonder why he should have a problem with that. MoSh says I had better go over there and get with my partner, he looks a bit jealous. Partner? Who is my partner? MoSh says Draco is, of course, maybe I should do a RC as well. I do a RC and I realize that I am definitely dreaming.

McGonagall enters the room and announces that there is going to be a meeting of tournament contestants, so since we are all together in the meeting room the room where we first gathered, it is time to give out the first clue on how the task will be done. It seems this room is to be used as a common meeting place. McGonagall tells us the standings, how everyone did in the first task. I hear someone bitching that MoSh is still there when he didn't finish, McGonagall repeats in a somewhat impatient voice that not MoSh finishing due to foul play so it doesn't count. I hear someone else say to kick Draco out for cheating. McGonagall says Draco is not responsible for his father's actions, and was not the one who cheated, now before we run out of time, let's get to business, which is the next challenge... We are getting to talking about the task when Umbridge bursts in, she immediately points at MoSh and then at me, she says MoSh and I should be disqualified. McGonagall asks on what grounds? Umbridge then indicates her own forehead, which now has large red letters on it that spell out EPIC FAILURE. Several of the people laugh briefly, causing Umbridge to scan the room to see who it is, but she is unable to determine who laughed. I use MoP on her, then I telepathically say that little problem certainly is not worth interfering with the tournament. She pauses, then she agrees out loud to something no one else even heard, and finally she says she overreacted to the writing on her face. After another brief pause, she turns and leaves. Everyone is looking in the direction she went with strange looks on their faces, including McGonagall. After a bit of silence goes by, McGonagall finally gets the attention back to the tournament challenge. The second tournament challenge will be using magic this time… Draco comments that it was stupid to have a challenge where magic wasn't allowed… McGonagall ignores the interruption and continues to tell us that only our wands will be allowed at the beginning of the challenge, though anything else obtainable in the course is fair game. Like the previous challenge, only a small amount of information would be revealed at different times before the challenge, so they aren't telling us much... What they do tell us is that we will be taking a valuable treasure from its powerful protector, so we will want to work on spells that could help us deal with an opponent that is considerably more powerful than we are. These clues make me if this is the golden egg and the dragons challenge that she is talking about. I think it sounds very possible that this is the dragon challenge, or at least that it will be something similar. I figured Draco won't be able to cheat this time, but I wonder if the others will cheat. If they're going to be cheating, there's plenty of ways I could cheat, too… though I don't really see the point. Even if they don't cheat, I will still be able to handle the challenge.