memorable

Note: This is a dream that happened back on the 15th of the month, and I would swear I had journaled and posted this dream, but I couldn't find any trace of it. No copy on Dreamviews, no copy on Mortal Mist, no copy on my personal laptop… somehow it disappeared completely. There were quite a few similarities with Nomad's version of the dream, as well as some differences, so here is my version of the dream where Nomad, me, and several other dreamers went to help a friend of his with a dream demon.

I was in the biodome on the moon, and I was lucid. I was sitting there watching the koi. The pretty fish were swimming around in the pool. The sunlight was reflecting off of their shiny scales and off of the surface of the water. It was really very pretty. I was sitting there watching the fish when someone approached behind me. I turned to look and saw it was Nomad. I remembered that he had a friend with a dream demon giving her nightmares, an older woman. I asked if he was there so we could go help his friend… he said yes. I thought for a bit… I was thinking someone else had said they wanted to come help with this… but who? I was lucid, and yet my mind wasn't fully clear. But of course my mind isn't completely clear IWL, so why would I expect 100% clarity in my dreams? Nomad opened a portal and both of us went through…

On the other side we were in someone's bedroom. There was a woman sleeping in the bed with a… um… an ugly thing sitting on top of her, looked like it was holding her down to the bed. But she wasn't reacting to the thing's presence… the thing was the size of a large human, looked demonic, and appeared to be absorbing some kind of energy from the woman. I didn't know what the thing was doing to her, but I could easily tell it wasn't good… Nomad transformed into a big cat… a solid black jaguar…

In that form he attacked the dream demon on top of the woman, hitting it across the face with one enormous paw, claws fully extended. The force of the blow knocked the demon off of the woman and onto the ground, practically turning the thing's head around on its neck… The thing got back up and used its hands to forcibly turned its head back toward the front with a rather sickening cracking noise. It started laughing at Nomad. It didn't seem to be paying any attention to me at all… I wasn't going to have that. I transformed into a big cat, a black panther… which looked mostly like Nomad except the spots were vaguely visible on his coat where as mine was a black as midnight…

I pounced on the back of the demon, drawing the demon's dark energy out of it and into me. Nomad had changed into an Assassin dressed in solid black robes, he drove his hidden blade right into the demon's head. The demon collapsed, seemed to be calling out to someone, but then it was completely out of energy and faded to nothing.

I was about to ask Nomad what the demon had been calling to when there was a portal opening… and a bunch of Templars coming through? On brooms like a Halloween witch would use? I was briefly doing a double take at that… A group of Templars coming to aid a demon and pretending to be Halloween witches at the same time… um… One of them was talking to Nomad, seemed to be annoying him. I went to another one and asked what the fuck he was doing. He said he was working for witches or something. I then asked the first question I had thought upon seeing them riding in like that…

"So tell me…" I said, "Did you really learn everything you know about witches from Halloween ghost stories and the Harry Potter series? Do you really think witches ride brooms in the night? If so, where's your black cat? Or was your goal just to come here and look completely retarded? Which you've accomplished very well… And why the fuck are you working with…"

"FUCK YOU!!!" I was interrupted by one of the loudest expletives I have ever heard… I looked over and saw Nomad chuckling next to a Templar who was poking at his ear as if he could not hear a thing, which after that expletive, he probably couldn't… Nomad yelled something completely incomprehensible at the other Templars… no doubt completing the process of making the one right next to him totally deaf… Nomad turned back into a black cat and attacked some of the Templars near him…

"Oh… There's your black cat!" I said, "And he's pissed…" Nomad tore a few Templars apart with his claws and teeth, I opened a vortex portal that pulled them all in and deposited them… I wasn't sure what was a good place… somewhere far away… on the moon Titan.

I don't know why I thought of Titan, but that was where I sent them… After the Templars were gone, Nomad and I did healing spells on Alexis. She seemed to wake up a bit, and Nomad was talking to her. I'm not sure what he was saying to her, but she seemed to be getting agitated by it, but soon calmed back down and went back to sleep. It looked like she would be ok. Nomad started talking about getting pulled into a dream… I told him he was already in a dream. He said he meant into another dream. I wasn't really sure what he was talking about… was he about to wake up or just switch dreamscapes? I told him to focus on something and stabilize the dream… but it was no good… Nomad disappeared… and then I woke.

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Note: This was actually two separate dreams for me, but I am putting them together since they are both back dated dreams and belong together as one.

I was on the moon in the biodome again. I was lucid. I remembered Nomad disappearing from the last dream… I wondered if he was ok. I focused on finding him. A portal opened. I looked through into a black void… wtf? Nomad was floating in the blackness all by himself, yelling expletives at absolutely no one… I wondered if he was on dream drugs again… I called out to him, then threw him a tendril of Witchblade to pull him through my portal and into the biodome. He looked around. I asked if he was ok. He said Alexis was still in danger, we had to go back. I asked what was bothering her now… he said more dark things… he had seen them. I wondered if he had or if that was dream drugs… better check on her. Better look and find nothing than not look and have her attacked.

I was about to focus on a portal to get back to Alexis when another portal opened. Tigress came in. She looked at me, and changed into a paladin. She asked if I was up for a DDO dream. I told her I was going to help Nomad with his friend first. She asked what was going on there. I said Nomad had said his friend was being attacked. She pulled out a sword and said killing stuff there was fine, just another DDO quest. Um… ok… I went to open the portal again, but this time MoSh appeared. He asked why no one had come to get him. MoSh! That was who I was supposed to go get before Nomad and I went to help Alexis! I apologized to MoSh, saying my mind hadn't been clear enough to think of it… Now Nomad opened a portal, and we all went through it.

On the other side Nomad and I were on the edge of a forest looking at a rather creepy castle. I wondered why Alexis would have this creepy place in her inner world… maybe there was still a dream demon or other dark entity harassing her… We went inside the castle and looked around. Alexis looked kind of creepy, too. She was dressed all in black and had horns… she looked like a demon! She was smiling, however, and didn't look hostile. She was still smiling at us when something weird came through a portal and tackled her, and before I could even identify what it was, the two of them fell through another portal… with Nomad right behind them. The portal closed before the rest of us could get there… I had to focus on a portal to follow Nomad…

I went through the portal, MoSh and Tigress with me. On the other side we were on a desolate plane. There was an outcropping of rock over a deep canyon. There was a woman… Alexis… huddled beside a big ugly thing there. The ugly thing was growling and snarling down at her, looming over her.

I must have been in a feline mood, because I now changed back into the big panther I had been in the previous dream and tackled the demon thing off of her. We were now plunging through the air into the canyon, the thing was biting at me as we fell, I was sucking its energy out… I saw a bunch more dark creatures, those looked like shadow demons of some kind, coming from somewhere and attacking Alexis. Nomad was protecting her with a shield, Tigress was consuming the dark things, MoSh was blasting them with green flames from his naga form… Some of them were still getting through to Nomad… why wasn't he getting Alexis out of there? There was no need to be here in this dark world except to protect Alexis… and once she was safe, we could all make our exit. That was the last I noticed before hitting the ground of the canyon, I landed on top of the creature I was fighting…

The creature was stunned a bit, but then it attacked me again. The shadow creatures were coming after me now, but they never got to me… Tigress and MoSh intercepted the entire hoard of them, so I still just had the one big ugly thing to deal with. I pounced on the thing one more time and tore at its neck with my razor claws, drawing some more dark energy out… wow… this was a lot of dark energy… the thing was no longer moving. I changed back to my normal form and flew back out of the canyon. Alexis and Nomad were gone. Tigress and MoSh were still there, though most of the smaller shadow creatures had either fled or been destroyed. I opened a portal so the three of us could get back to the biodome. MoSh and Tigress went through. The big ugly thing grabbed at me from behind. I threw a blast of lightning made from light energy right in its face, then went through the portal and closed it behind me.

Tigress asked me what took me so long. I said I had found an old friend to play with a bit more. This was the first chance I had gotten, so I focused on The Curse by Disturbed to stabilize all the dark energy I had just absorbed… Tigress, still a paladin, sheathed her sword. She said she had told me this would do fine for a DDO quest… I told her I wished they had quests like that in DDO! That would be awesome. She said it would be hard. Yeah, but hard and AWESOME! Everything faded around me and I woke.

I felt my dream slipping, too, so I did the time dilation trick I learned from Allura, causing the dream to stabilize. Good… at least that seemed somewhat consistent… So my next goal was to go see MoSh… I focused on opening a portal… I opened a portal and went through it into MoSh's inner world…

I stepped out into MoSh's inner world and looked around for MoSh. I looked at his house which was where I have come to expect to see it. I instinctively knew it was his, but it didn't seem to look the same. It was hard to describe the differences… and it wasn't negative in any way, everything was still very nice, it was just a bit different. I didn't have to go over to the door, MoSh came out to me. He asked if I was ready to go view the scene with Castaneda. I said sure, but I did need to be sure of where we were going. MoSh said that was no problem, he would get us there. I could open the portal, and he would guide it. I said that was fine with me, and then I opened a portal, focusing on letting MoSh guide it. When it opened, both MoSh and I went through…

On the other side we were in a desert. I looked around the desert. The sun was bright and hot. I was a bit surprised at the surroundings. I told MoSh I thought there was supposed to be a waterfall or something… MoSh said there was. I said I didn't see any water anywhere near us… He looked perplexed. He said we must have ended up in the wrong place. I told him we could just try again. I was going to focus on another portal when the ground started to shake. Some big things erupted out of the ground. They looked like the graboid creatures from the movie Tremors… and there were two of them.

What the fuck? MoSh looked up at them, and they completely distracted me from opening a portal. One of them tried to grab me in its enormous mouth, apparently thinking I would make a good snack. I formed Witchblade into a sword and attacked it back, getting up on top of its back by flying. MoSh had changed into his naga form and was attacking the other one. This thing didn't have a head to cut off… but it also didn't appreciate being stabbed with a sword that increased in length to be long enough to go all of the way through it. The thing took off at full speed across the desert with me on its back, holding on to the sword to keep from being thrown off. I pulled the sword out and jumped off of the graboid, hitting the ground and rolling before returning to MoSh.

I didn't see the other graboid, but I didn't know where it had gone. MoSh was in his human form again. I asked if he was ready to stop playing with giant underground worms and go do our viewing. He said yes. I was about to open a portal when I saw something around MoSh's feet… a smaller graboid?!

It wrapped around MoSh's foot, but I just cut it off . A couple more of them reached out of the ground for us, but MoSh and I quickly took care of them. Now MoSh was looking at something behind me. I wondered what. He wasn't saying anything, he was just pointing. I turned around to look behind me and I saw the granddaddy of all graboids was rearing up and towering over us… that thing was about twice the size of the other ones, and it was pissed off.

It was towering over us about as big as the tower at the biodome… which is quite tall… I was considering what action would be best to deal with this… most likely to just open a portal and leave it be, after all, this was the graboids' home, not ours… when someone appeared… and he created some kind of spinning disc blades from the air, cutting the graboid down… He asked if we were ok, MoSh was staring at him like he thought it was an alien from space. I looked closer and thought I recognized him… but I couldn't place it… I thanked him for helping, then he disappeared.

MoSh wanted to know what the fuck that was. I said I wasn't sure, but I thought I had recognized that guy… I said let's go before we draw the attention of every single graboid on the planet. I opened a portal and we went through it… we ended up back in MoSh's inner world. Ok… let's try that again. I focused on opening a portal, trying to remember what MoSh had told me the location was like. I remembered a waterfall… but that was all I remembered! Dammit! A portal opened, MoSh and I went through it.

MoSh and I were back on the desert planet. Ok… I hadn't been completely sure of where I was going, but I had absolutely not focused on coming here again… I looked around, wondering if I could find any reason why we were here again! There were more graboids. I didn't really want to fight more graboids… I had drawn the conclusion this was their world, and we were the intruders, so I thought avoiding them would be best. I got MoSh's attention as the graboid attacked us, also apparently thinking we looked like a tasty morsel. I pulled MoSh out of the way. The graboid turned and was coming at us again… then it got nailed with a bunch of ice spears, and it disappeared. Wtf? I looked around and saw the same guy I had seen before, giving us a dirty look. I focused on recognizing him… Walms! I did know him! I was about to say something to him when he asked why we had been attacked. I was going to say we looked too much like graboid snack food when the scene around us shifted…

MoSh was getting quite frustrated. He was upset that we hadn't ended up viewing the Castaneda scene we had been aiming for. I wondered what kept getting in the way. I wondered where Walms had gone… or rather where we had gone. I wondered if whoever had teleported us had also teleported Walms… I looked around, wondering if there were any graboids here… then Walms was there with us. Ok, well at least he was in the same place. He came over closer to us and proceeded to give me some dark energy… um… I didn't really need any dark energy, but ok… He put dark energy in MoSh…

"Hey!" I said to him, "What did you do that…" and then he was gone, "for… um… Never mind." I went over to MoSh and focused on taking the dark energy out of MoSh, replacing it with light. Why had Walms attacked MoSh? That didn't make any sense… I thought MoSh and Walms had been friends since quite a while before I started talking to / sharing dreams with Walms… MoSh looked a bit disoriented. He asked what that had been. I told him he'd gotten dark energy, I had taken it out. It felt like the dream was slipping again. I remembered that last time I had been unable to do a second time dilation, so this time I didn't even try. I told MoSh I was waking up. I opened a portal back to his inner world. We went through it. MoSh said maybe he could dilate time… I told him I had already done that in this dream, and last time it hadn't worked twice… He said he was going to try anyway. I don't know if it worked for him or not because I woke.

"There's no time!" the man insisted, "The Ascendentae will answer all your questions, but you have to come with me! It is no longer safe here!" The man opened a portal and I followed him through…

On the other side of the portal I was in what looked like a temple. I felt the dream was slipping. I was about to wake up, but I wasn't done there… so I didn't want the dream to end yet. I repeated what I had done last night, using Allura's method to dilate time. I focused on the 12 hour clock, then morphed it into a 24 hour clock… then to a 48 hour clock… and I felt the dream stabilize. I looked around again. The man who had come to help me with the goons was standing there looking at me strangely.

"Come," he said to me, "The Ascendantae awaits." He turned and walked away.

I followed the man as he walked through the halls. He knocked on a large door at the end of the hall. Someone on the other side said we should enter. The man I was with opened the door and we both went into the room. There was a man sitting on the other side of a desk looking at us as we entered. The man referred to the man who had brought me as Salus, and said he could go now. Salus turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

I'd had a million questions I'd been wanting to ask, but now I didn't seem to be able to manage any of them. The man behind the desk, the Ascendantae, stood up and came around the desk. He looked at me closely as if evaluating me or something… I didn't like that much. Something about him reminded me of Sean Connery…

I wanted to ask what he was looking at, but he started speaking before I got a chance to. He said Salus had already told him about finding me. He said Salus had also told him about the everto finding me. He said that was not a good sign. He said that if the everto had started looking for their… then he trailed off. He paused and then said he was sure I wanted some answers. He said all the answers I wanted awaited me at the end of the negotium.

"At the end of the what?" I asked, having no idea what this negotium could be. He said it was a simple task. All I would have to do was go to the end of a passage and retrieve a book. A special book that, if I was who they believed me to be, would be able to retrieve. And I was the only one who could retrieve it. That all sounded really strange to me… The man pulled a hidden lever on the desk. A section of the floor slid aside and there was a stairway down into darkness below. The Ascendantae said that the answers awaited at the end of that passage. I looked down the passage into the darkness. I wondered what might await down there… I wasn't sure what I was going to do… but I figured I would not know what was going on if I didn't go down there.

I was about to go down the stairs when the door to the office was flung open. There were a bunch of people in the door… Templars! Wtf? My full lucidity came rushing back to me as I let myself get out of character… There weren't supposed to be Templars attacking here… the Ascendantae was also perplexed. Of course he was a DC I had made for the game… But he was programmed to respond. He went over towards the Templars. He demanded to know the meaning of this intrusion. I told him those were the everto, so he might want to go down the passage himself to escape. He didn't leave, instead he pulled out a rather fancy looking glowing sword and attacked the Templars. One of the Templars hit him with a blast of energy, and since he was a DC that wasn't even intended to fight, the Ascendentae disappeared. I was prepared to fight the Templars now. I was more focused on them, so the dream set I had created fell apart around me. It turned out I was now on the moon.

One of the Templars came towards me and seemed pleased to see me… wtf? He came over and shook my hand with one of his hands and said it was good to have me on their side. What? I asked him if he was on crack… He looked at me strangely and then laughed. He tried to lead me back to the others as a friend would do. I pushed his hand off of me. I asked what he wanted, intruding on my dream… He said it was time that we got down to business. I said I didn't have any business with him… He said if I could just convince MoSh to join us… I repeated that there is no 'us' going on here… He looked at me strangely. He said the joke had gotten old. I said I wasn't joking about anything. These guys really thought I would be working with them!

I asked him what would make him think I had joined their side. He said I had clearly accepted the dark energy… I told him that doesn't mean anything… unless the goals of controlling people by force that and the rest of the Templars were aiming for had drastically changed there was no way I would ever be helping them with it. He looked at me strangely. He didn't seem to be getting the point. I told him to go away and let me finish my dream in peace. The one who had been talking to me looked over at the other Templars. He didn't seem to know what to say now. I told him we had found a good balance… they don't interfere with my dreams, and I don't kick their asses on sight. So unless there was something else that didn't involve me joining them, please go away and let me finish my dream. The Templar closest to me grabbed my arm and said I would be going with him. I said no, I would not, so he would have one more chance to just leave in peace… Instead he tried to pull me with him. I shook him off and opened a vortex portal that dumped all of them someplace around Pluto…

I went to focus on restoring my dream world and continuing my video game development dream. Before I even had a chance to get the dream realm reformed, however, there was another visitor. This one attacked me on sight, throwing spears of light down at me. There were explosions all around me as I jumped out of the way of the attack, getting quite annoyed at my dream being interrupted yet again. I looked to get a closer look at the attacker, and I saw he looked like an angel of some kind… he didn't even pause in his attack, though, throwing another wave of glowing spears in my direction. I used Whiplash and sent the energy spears right back at him. He avoided the attack and landed on the ground not far from me. I asked him what he thought he was doing. He said he does not talk to demons. He continued attacking me. A whirlwind of golden light erupted around me, mixed with fire. This guy was really annoying… This attack was easily countered with a small wave of dark energy that neutralized the attack. The angel was already throwing more light spears at me, I jumped out of the way and hit him with a bolt of lightning by using Battery. Electricity didn't seem to hurt him… I tried a bolt of lightning made of dark energy… that did hurt him. It knocked him backwards. I told him he should get a better definition of what a demon is before attacking random people, then used a vortex portal to send him where I had sent the Templars. Maybe all of them would have some fun together.

Ok… now finally to get back to my video game dream… But the dream was slipping again. I focused on doing another time dilation. The clock with the 12 hours, changing into the clock with 24 hours, changing into the clock with 48 hours… but it didn't seem to be helping this time. The dream slipped away and I woke.

… so I figured to open a portal to get MoSh and myself back to my inner world… where he said he would take a look at the locked book from the Akashic records to see if he could help me get it open… (Continued from last entry…)

MoSh and I were in my inner world in my bedroom. I looked around and picked the book up off of my chest of drawers. I looked at the book for a couple of minutes. I remembered that MoSh and Tigress have said they would help me figure out how to open the book. I handed it to MoSh, and he looked at it for a few minutes. He set it on the bed and pointed at it with his pinky. I wasn't sure what he was trying to do, but I left him to do that. Tigress had also said she would help… but she wasn't here. Maybe I should go find her. I was thinking about finding Tigress when I felt like I was going to wake up. But I didn't want to wake up yet, I was on a roll with this nice long WILD. I wanted to know how long I could make it. Wait… it was another goal of mine to attempt time dilation. I would do that quickly before I woke, and maybe I would be able to extend the dream!

My plan was to try Allura's method of time dilation. I figured MoSh would try Walms' method, and then we could determine which one works best. I figured I would have to try both to find which one works better for me… but for now, Allura's method. Her method starts with visualizing or summoning a normal analog clock, a digital one will do no good. So I focused on that clock.

Soon I could see the clock clearly in my mind. I didn't figure there was any need to summon one, actually I thought that might make it harder. The next step is to increase the amount of time that will fit on the clock by compressing all 12 hours into half the space, then filling the empty half with 13 through 24. At this point the clock displays twice as much time as is normally displayed on it. The resultant clock will look like the 24 hour clock shown here.

Since 24 hours are now compressed into the space normally used by 12, this works out to a time dilation of 2 hours of dream time for each 1 hour of IWL time. I focused on using this technique, first vividly visualizing the 12 hour clock and then gradually compressing the time on the clock until it was a 24 hour clock. I continued compressing time until 48 hours fit on the clock. That should be 4 hours of dream time for every hour of IWL time. I didn't know for sure if it was working, but I did notice that the dream had stabilized. So maybe that meant I could call the time dilation of this dream a success? Either way, this dream was going to continue.

Since Tigress had offered to help me with the locked book, my next thing to do would be to find her. I focused on opening a portal to find Tigress. A portal opened. I went to tell MoSh I was going to find Tigress, but MoSh was gone. The book was still on the bed, still locked. I wondered if MoSh had woken up. I wondered if he had discovered anything before waking up… I figured I would have to wait until the next morning and find out if he remembered anything. I went through the portal I had opened to find Tigress…

On the other side of the portal I was in a green field. There was a fight going on not far from us. There were a bunch of people dressed in red robes fighting another person… it looked like one person against a large number. I wondered what was going on there, and I also noticed the single person seemed to be winning. I headed closer to the fight to see if I could figure anything out. I saw that I recognized the single fighter. It was a woman who looked like a paladin from the Dungeons and Dragons Online game, and I recognized that paladin! It was Tigress! Ok, it appeared that if I wanted Tigress' help with anything I would have to help her out first. This looked like the making of a DDO adventure, so I really wanted her to remember this one.

I went over to Tigress, and called to her. She briefly noted me, and continued fighting. I formed Witchblade into a sword and attacked the enemies. I wasn't sure why they were fighting, but I figured Tigress' enemies were my enemies. I engaged the enemies, fighting with my Witchblade sword, blocking attacks, cutting enemies down all around me… with both Tigress and me fighting, it didn't take long before the entire enemy force was taken down. A few remaining enemies fled across the field to a forest. I put my Witchblade sword away and greeted Tigress. I asked her if she was lucid. She said it was finally happening, we were sharing a DDO dream. I agreed that was awesome… what's the quest? She said that there were some people being held captive in the mountain dungeon, and our quest was to rescue them. I said that sounded like a good quest to me! Tigress and I headed across the field towards a mountain. I could see a cave in the mountain, and that was no doubt our destination.

Tigress and I reached the cave entrance in short order. Sure enough, there were more red robed people inside the cave. They were guarding a locked door, but once we killed them, we found a key on one of them and were able to get inside the cave. Beyond the door it was more of a dungeon than a normal cave. There were long halls and large chambers. There were enemies all around, and they all attacked us on sight. Some of them attacked with melee weapons such as swords and maces, others attacked us with projectile weapons such as arrows and darts, and there were even some that were attacking us with energy attacks. We fought the enemies, taking them out quickly as we progressed through the caverns. We searched the underground complex for a while and finally found the entrance to the main dungeon. There were more enemies down there, of course, and there were numerous prison cells.

We killed the enemies that waited for us there, and then investigated the prison cells. In each of the prison cells there was a single prisoner. The prisoners were humanoid in form, covered with fur, had fluffy tails, and there was a flap of skin between their arms and their legs that looked kind of like the 'wings' of a flying squirrel.

The prisoners were all chained and hanging upside down from the ceiling, dangling about a foot off of the floor. They looked badly beaten, badly injured. It looked like they had been beaten, burned, cut… Allison and I got the prisoners down by cutting through their chains. I did a healing spell on the injured prisoners, and then they were ok to get themselves out of the dungeon. We assured them all the enemies in the upper chambers were dead, and the prisoners headed for the exit. We finished releasing all of the prisoners in the prison cells. We went into the next room and found a nightmare…

In the next room there were more enemies, and they had several prisoners in that room, too. One of the enemies had a prisoner tied to a spit and had them hanging over a fire. He was rotating the spit around as if cooking a chunk of meat, but the prisoner tied to the spit was still alive, and already showing signs of serious burns all over her body. Another enemy had a prisoner chained to the wall and was whipping the prisoner violently, blood spraying off with every lash. A third prisoner was chained to a concrete slab and covered with blood, there were several rats chewing on the prisoner's body… a fourth had a noose around her neck and was positioned so her toes barely touched the ground… so as long as she could stand on her toes she would be able to avoid strangling to death… There were four enemies standing around, and they attacked us on sight. We had to fight those four enemies and then the ones who had been torturing the prisoners. We freed and then healed the prisoners, who then headed for the surface, leaving the dungeon quickly.

Tigress and I were now in the torture chamber alone, only dead bodies were there now. I felt like I should be looking for a reward chest and then recalling back to the surface… but this wasn't an actual DDO game! Tigress looked around one more time, apparently making sure that we hadn't missed anything. She came back over to me. I asked if she was going to remember this dream. She said we were playing DDO. I said yeah, but we were playing DDO in a dream. So she would have to remember the dream when she woke up. She said she would remember this when she logged off. Logged off? I repeated that it wasn't a game… it was a dream. She said she was going to log off now. She disappeared. Wtf? She must have woken up… crap. I started feeling like I was waking up… but I could dilate time! I didn't have to wake up at all, or at least not until I was good and ready to! I could spend as long as I wanted in a dream! I tried to focus on Allura's method of time dilation again, but between the excitement at the idea I could stay in a dream as long as I wanted and the fact I was already in the process of waking up, I was not able to focus and I woke.

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.

I was floating in space next to Q. I was already lucid. I'm not sure how I had gotten to that place, but I felt perfectly at home floating in the vastness of space. I looked around to see where in space I was. I saw there was a binary star nearby. It was very bright, so I didn't want to look directly at it. Both of the stars in the system were yellow stars. Q told me that one of them was about the size of Earth's sun, the other one slightly smaller. I could see a planet not far off. It was a terrestrial planet, a large round chunk of rock in space. I could see it was covered in craters and it didn't look habitable. I asked Q if that was a planet I could go to. Q said since it is a dream, I could go wherever I wanted. I thought for a minute… I had not asked the question I wanted to ask. I asked if there was any chance life could develop on the planet. Q looked at the planet and shook his head. He said he didn't see life forming. He said the planet is considerably hotter than Mercury, no atmosphere, temperature on the day side averaging around 1000° F and the temperatures on the night side averaging as low as -500° F. He said there was another planet I might want to take a look at, though.

Q teleported both of us instantly farther away from the pair of stars. This was another terrestrial planet, and it had a ring around it. I could also see a somewhat dusty atmosphere. Q pointed at the planet. He said that one was closer to Earth, with the temperatures being just a bit warmer there on average, it had a thin atmosphere so the temperature extremes were more than on Earth but not as extreme as on the first planet ranging from -110° F on the coldest nights at the poles during winter to 247° F in the hottest regions during the summer. He suggested we go see the surface of the planet. We flew down to the planet, through the thin atmosphere and landed on a ground made of soft dirt. I was surprised the dirt was so loose. Q said it was loose because there hadn't been any rain to wet it so it could be packed down tightly. I looked across the barren landscape. The dunes of dirt everywhere… there were rock mountains not very far away. It didn't look like it could support any form of life as it exists on Earth.

I asked Q if this one would have life develop on it. Q said unfortunately it is sterile. Completely sterile. He said a massive solar flare from one of the stars had irradiated the planet and the building blocks of life were no longer there. I asked if he couldn't restore life, or the possibility of life. He said he's not supposed to interfere like that. I asked what if I could figure something out. He said I have free will, so I can do whatever I want there. I looked around. The only thing there seemed to be plenty of was dirt and sunlight. I asked Q if some plant life could get the process of evolving life going here. He said plants would be a good place for life to start here. It certainly wouldn't be fish… I looked around some more. Whatever plant I put here would have to be able to live through anything, in the harshest conditions. I asked Q what the air was made of. He said carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen primarily. Carbon dioxide… plants can use that… release oxygen… Oxygen bonds with hydrogen to make water… it seemed like that could start a cycle of developing life. But what kind of plant could live in this kind of harsh environment long enough to get that process started? I thought more, I found myself thinking of Walms. Why was I thinking of Walms? I remembered he planted some plants in the biodome. For some reason I was thinking that a plant created by Walms should be able to survive anywhere. I suggested that plant to Q, and he said it sounded like an excellent choice.

So Q teleported both of us to the biodome. I looked where he indicated. There wasn't just a few small flowers… it was a miniature jungle of flowers. Apparently Walms' flowers had done very well in the biodome. Of course the biodome has very favorable conditions for plants, unlike the dead planet Q and I had been on… I went to the jungle of flowers and looked at a fairly small one, but it looked big enough to be well developed. I started carefully digging. The dream was still very vivid. I was noting the feel of the soil as I dug carefully around the plant's roots, making sure not to damage any of them. The root system was well developed… and it was moving on its own… and it bit me! I pulled it off of my arm and held the flower in such a way that the roots couldn't bite me again. I looked at the active roots… I should have expected something like that on a plant created by Walms… I asked Q if he was sure the flower could survive on that dead planet. He said he could guarantee it. He said if it couldn't, he would have told me when I suggested the plants. I carefully collected five more plants, being careful not to get bitten again… and then went back to Q. I was ready to go back to the planet, the six were about all I could keep at once without being bitten.

Q teleported us back to the surface of the planet. He said there were places to put the flower so it wouldn't get buried in the drifts of dirt. He said it would most likely still survive and pop out after the wind storm passed, but this would give it a better advantage. We were in an area that was sheltered by rock mountains, and there was very little wind here. I got down on my knees and dug at the dirt. It was very dry and very loose. And it felt so very real. Of course it was real. I set one of the plants down beside me to dig the hole to plant it in. As soon as I set the plant down, however, the roots dug into the dirt on their own. The thing had just planted itself! So there it was, one pretty flower in the otherwise barren dirt. I went to plant another, but Q said to spread them out to make things move along more quickly. I got up and was ready to leave. Q said he thought the plant could use a bit of energy to get it started… like plants on Earth would use a bit of fertilizer to get started… I was going to use normal healing energy, but Q stopped me again. He told me not to forget who had made these flowers. I got the idea, and I gave the plant some dark energy. It immediately looked stronger. I saw inside the flower the name 'Walms' was now clearly visible. I got a brief image of a race of people developing on the planet, discovering this flower was where life had started, calling the flowers the flowers of life and worshipping Walms… and that image was a bit disturbing… oh, well. Odds were any people developing there probably wouldn't even recognize those marks as letters.

Q and I went around the planet and planted the other flowers, or rather I let them plant themselves… gave them some dark energy, and then Q and I stood and looked at the sixth flower. It seemed six flowers weren't nearly enough to populate the planet with plant life. I told Q maybe we should bring some more. He said it wasn't necessary, but if I wanted to… Q said the planet already had a bright future… but for one problem. He teleported us to space near the planet. He said it was on a degrading orbit, and would fall into one of the suns soon. Great… nice time to tell me that… He reached out towards the planet. From my perspective it looked like he was giant and he was moving the planet with his hands. He shifted it a bit farther from the suns and said that looked good. He said that was a stable orbit for the planet. I said I thought he wasn't supposed to interfere. He said tapping it into a stable orbit is nothing compared to bringing life forms to it… He teleported us back to the biodome.

I looked at the jungle of flowers again. I saw something farther in… it looked like a light. I wondered what that was. I crawled into the jungle of flowers, pushing towards the light. It seemed to be moving as I approached it. I kept crawling and finally I reached the edge of the flower jungle and fell out, about two and a half feet down to the floor… I was awake now. I looked back at my bed. I had been crawling through the blankets instead of the flowers, and I had fallen right out of bed. Ow… I now believed I was awake, so I lost lucidity.

FA - I got up and went to the other room. I picked up my fluffy white kitty Princess and went into my mother's room to say good morning to her. She asked what had happened, she had heard the thud. I told her I had been dreaming and I had fallen out of bed. I sat down in the desk chair and turned to look at her… and noticed for the first time she was holding and stroking a chicken. A white chicken. Wtf? I asked her where she had gotten the chicken… she said we had always had the chicken. I asked her why she was petting a chicken. She said it had gotten stressed out, and she was trying to soothe the chicken into laying an egg. She said she wanted eggs for breakfast, but the chicken was too stressed to lay an egg now, so she was trying to get the chicken relaxed enough to lay an egg. She said if I wanted eggs, it would be up to me to soothe the chicken enough so it would lay another egg. I was just sitting there staring at my mom, with a cat in my arms, as my mom stroked the chicken and spoke soothingly to it… It was here that I woke for real.

Note: My first goal tonight was to go find Asuka… again. Of course I was sure I knew exactly where Asuka was, but the task of getting her out was still the same. I knew she had been taken by L again… it seems like that guy just won't quit… I am continuing to attempt my nightly WILD and I am continuing to fail at my nightly WILD. Tonight was no different. I fell asleep, no WILD.

I was walking along River road towards ITT Tech. I was late for class. I'd had to ditch my car back down River. I didn't have my backpack, but I wasn't thinking about that. I was annoyed that my car had broken down. I was annoyed that I was late for class. I was hot because I was out walking in the sun. Basically I was all around cranky. I continued walking towards the school, muttering expletives to myself about the situation I found myself in. I finally got to the school… or to where the school should've been. It wasn't there. Instead there was a pile of rubble. I wondered what had happened. I asked a man I saw. He said the school had been bombed. No survivors. What??? I looked at the pile of smoking rubble. No… had Tigress been in there? If she'd gotten there on time she would have been in there… I wanted to go check the parking lot for her car… but there were people keeping everyone out. They said something about rabid skunks in there… rabid skunks??? The man I was talking to said yeah, rabid skunks, those rabid skunks had been in there all day trying to steal the Macintosh computers. That just sounded too weird… I did a RC and became lucid.

I stood there looking at the pile of rubble for a bit, thinking about my goals. To go get Asuka back from L… again. Ok… first I had said I would pick up Pablo and take him along. So I was going to try to get to Pablo. I opened a portal while focusing on getting to Pablo's inner world. I went through the portal when it opened… I was now in a forest. I looked around. I didn't see anyone there. I wondered where I might find Pablo. After a bit of searching in the forest I found Pablo. He was in his half human and half fox form. He looked like Fox McCloud. I grabbed Pablo his left arm and pulled him through a portal I directed to MoSh's inner world. MoSh was visible as soon as I exited the portal. There was another pile of rubble, this one was the remains of MoSh's house… There was also an area around MoSh's house that was charred. The blast radius had extended outside the house and trashed some of the area around it. I grabbed MoSh and said it was time to go get his wife back. I took MoSh and Pablo through another portal that led to the biodome on the moon. That's where I figured I would find Nomad. I had figured correctly. Nomad was there looking at the koi pond. I told Nomad I was ready to go. I opened another portal to get to L's inner world and herded everyone through it.

On the other side we were all standing near the house and pool I have seen in L's inner world a couple different times now. There was a whole new set of DC bimbos there since Walms had torn apart L's first set of DC bimbos… L was lounging out beside the pool. He had Asuka right beside him, she was also lounging out. Both of them had some kind of tropical drinks. L wasn't paying any attention to us now. We got a bit closer. MoSh said he wanted his wife back. L said Asuka had chosen him. Asuka was lying beside L, and she told MoSh to go away. But she sounded like she was in a trance, kind of zoned out. I told L that Asuka would have to say that herself when she wasn't being controlled by him. He said there was no control on Asuka. I said that if that is true, he shouldn't mind if I use a song spell to free her. L gave me a dirty look. I ignored that completely. I went over to Asuka and used Breaking the Silence by Queensrÿche. L came over, apparently intending to interfere. Nomad and MoSh cut him off before he got to me. Nomad said to leave the women alone, and they guys could hang out a bit. The song spell caused the dazed look to leave Asuka's face.

Asuka looked at me and then over at the pool and then over at L. She stood up and looked annoyed. I looked back over at L, MoSh, and Nomad. Pablo was near Asuka and me. L was focused more on Pablo. He reached out and grabbed Pablo's tail, which apparently annoyed Pablo. Pablo did a wheel kick and kicked L in the face. He then seemed surprised at his own move. MoSh was pointing at L with his pinky. He seemed to be focusing on something. I looked over at L, who was now throwing threats out at Pablo. He said he was going to skin Pablo alive and have himself a brand new fox fur coat. MoSh was still focusing. I saw something behind L, at first it was faint, but then it solidified. It was some kind of reptilian alien. L didn't see his company right away, he was too busy threatening and cursing at Pablo. Now he was talking about breaking every bone in Pablo's body.

"I'm going to break every fucking bone in your body," L threatened, " and see how well you can kick once…" he looked to his left, which was where the reptilian alien was… "… kick once you… who the FUCK are you?!" The reptilian alien silvery threads that went into L's head. The alien manipulated those threads and L turned around and attacked Nomad. I focused on the song Liberate to allow L to break the mind control the alien had on him. Nomad cut through the threads that went from the reptilian to L. Once those were broken, L looked really disoriented. He looked around at everyone around him, invited Pablo back to his room for some recreational activities, emphasized that invitation with some very conspicuous winking, then he disappeared. Apparently he had woken up. Consequently the dream world we were in ceased to exist, we were somewhere else.

I looked around the new place. I didn't recognize it, we were on a barren planet. Craters marked the surface of the moon and the sky was black. There were multiple reptilian entities there. Most of them seemed to not be interfering. I wondered what they were doing there if they weren't going to interfere. Then a fight broke out, and so much for them not interfering. The fight was complete chaos. I didn't really get much of a look at what everyone else was doing. They didn't seem to want to die. Blasting them with energy didn't seem to do it. Finally the fight caused the group of reptilians to be gathered in one place. I opened a vortex portal using the song Black Hole Sun, then everyone shoved the reptilian aliens through the portal and closed it behind them. I turned around and saw we had missed one. The one who had been controlling L. That one was glaring at us. He said we may have defeated his puppets, but we would not defeat him.

I was getting ready for more of a fight, but someone else attacked the reptilian first. There was a fight that moved rather quickly, and the reptilian was getting the shit kicked out of him. But he wasn't dying. He told the person attacking him that he could not be killed. I saw that the person attacking him was Walms. Walms beat on him some more, cut him open with his claws… the wounds healed right away… the reptilian creature laughed more. Walms attacked the thing again, but this time it looked like he was trying to take a bite out of the thing… the reptilian shoved Walms away from him, asking him what the fuck he thought he was doing? Walms said he was going to eat the reptilian, of course, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The alien looked at him weird and said Walms was completely fucking nuts. Walms didn't really pay much attention to that, he attacked the thing again. He actually took a bite out of it… yuck! The thing was cursing loudly and said there were many others that would come. Walms asked if the others were as tasty as that one, then literally ripped its head off and ate some of what came out. Yuck!

I didn't want to look at Walms over there being disgusting… so I turned to Asuka. She was looking over at Walms, she looked rather green. MoSh came over to her and put his arms around her. He asked if she was ok. She was still staring at Walms, then she turned to the side and vomited. I didn't want to imagine the sight that had made her vomit. I asked how she was feeling. She said sick to her stomach… I said for that, stop watching Walms… but other than that… she looked at me now, and said she felt weak. I used a healing spell to give her golden healing energy. That flowed through her and she looked some better. MoSh said he was going to get her home. They disappeared shortly before things around me faded and I woke.

Note: I went to bed tonight with an unexpected goal. MoSh had come on the computer and said there were some disturbing things going on with him, he'd had a nightmare, so my goal was to go check out MoSh's inner world and make sure things were ok in there. This was the goal I had in mind when I fell asleep. Once again no WILD, but I did have the following dreams…

I was at work. It was the hospital where I used to work. I was sitting at my desk. I had been sleeping. Crap… I looked around and saw Susie also asleep. Well, at least I hadn't been seen sleeping. I got up and paced a bit in the office to try to wake myself up. I woke Susie up. She looked up at me and asked what I was doing. I said I was sleepy so I was walking to wake myself up. She said to grab a pillow and sleep then, it was nap time. Nap time? Since when did my job have nap time? She must have seen that I was confused. She asked how else am I supposed to check the inside of the servers except through a lucid dream? She said I should get to sleep and into a lucid so I could go check out the MExchange1 server while she finished checking on the Harp0 server. She lied her head down to go back to sleep. Checking servers in lucid dreams? Better get in the habit of doing RCs. To begin that I did a RC right there. I could breathe through my nose even when I pinched it… I was dreaming right now! Screw this job! I'm outta here!

I walked out of the office and down the hall to the door that led to the fire exit. Concrete stairs led both up and down from there, but instead I climbed up on the concrete railing. I did another RC just to be sure, then I jumped into the air and flew. Yay flying! Yay lucid dream! Ok… focus. I flew away from the hospital and thought about my goals. I wanted to do a DDO dream… I wanted to open a locked book I have in my inner world… I wanted to complete the task of… MoSh! That name pushed into my head with force. MoSh! I had said I was going to go check out what had happened with MoSh! I bumped paying a visit to MoSh to the top of my list of goals. I focused on opening a portal… at first it didn't want to work, but then I focused harder and it opened. I flew through the portal…

I landed in the yard outside of MoSh's house. The weather was bright and sunny. I went over to the house. I could hear voices inside, a man and a woman were talking really mushy mush to each other. I looked inside through the window and saw MoSh and Asuka kissing pretty heavy. I didn't want to interrupt their make-out session. I turned to leave, but I remembered I was going to check on Asuka. I looked into the window again. I would check on both of their energies to see if there was any sign of contamination. I looked, focused, and I saw none. It wasn't just that I saw no contamination, I saw no energy at all! They weren't real! Wtf? I quickly made up a corny rhyme spell… "Dispel the vision that I see, from illusion set me free." The illusory MoSh and Asuka vanished… and the entire scene shifted…

Now I was in the basement of MoSh's house. MoSh and Asuka were chained to two separate stone tables. There were people there torturing them. I recognized the torturers, too. Nomad was peeling MoSh's skin off and Angel was sticking rusty nails in Asuka. Wtf?! No way could that really be Nomad and Angel… Whoever it was I was going to stop them. I went in to stop them and noticed again… no one there had any energy. I repeated the spell I'd made to dispel illusions… "Dispel the vision that I see, from illusion set me free!"

The scene shifted again, but not much this time. It had just shifted so that Nomad and Angel were being tortured by MoSh and Asuka instead of the other way around. "Dispel this vision that I see, from illusion… glurk…" My spell was interrupted when I nearly puked. MoSh had just torn one of Nomad's eyes out and fed it to Asuka, popping it into her mouth like a piece of candy… Yuck! I went through my dispel illusion spell faster so I wouldn't get distracted again… "Dispel this vision that I see, from illusion set me free!"

The scene changed again. Asuka tied up naked between two trees in a forest, MoSh videotaping as a line of disgusting looking men forced themselves on her. Asuka was screaming and crying… no… repeat dispel illusion spell… MoSh and Asuka swapped places, the ugly men were doing MoSh from the rear while Asuka filmed it and laughed, "How do you like it, you sick fuck?" Um… no… repeat dispel illusion spell. The scene shifted. Asuka and MoSh having pretty violent and raunchy sex… well, I don't know how they like to do it… The people had no energy, not real. Repeat dispel illusion. MoSh stabbing Asuka many times and then coming towards me with the bloody knife… no… dispel illusion… MoSh and Asuka skinning live animals, couldn't tell what kind… no… dispel illusion. This was getting ridiculous! Asuka giving oral pleasure to MoSh then suddenly ripping his… um… you-know-what off with her teeth… no… dispel illusion, dispel illusion, dispel illusion! Damn it! Why wasn't it working?! I focused carefully, not paying any attention to the screaming around me as who did I-don't-want-to-know-what to who… and focused on the spell, "Dispel this vision that I see, from illusion set me free. All this horror cannot be, make it gone, so mote it be!"

I stood there with my eyes closed a bit longer. No screaming… no sounds of raunchy sex… no crying… no sounds of animals in pain… I carefully opened my eyes. I was outside of MoSh's house. There was a strange fog hanging over the area. Q telepathically told me it's called a fog of illusion. The fog lent a creepy aspect to everything. I used the song Full Moonlight to gather up the strange fog from all over, in the house, all around… into a small orb that I threw into a void.

Ok, now where were MoSh and Asuka? I had to find them. I felt for their energy and found it. They were both in the house. I went in through the front door, following Asuka's energy because she was closer. I found her in the kitchen, in the pantry, cowering in the back corner trying to make herself invisible. She saw movement, shrank back, but then came to me crying tears of relief. She said she was so glad to see me… MoSh had been infected with dark energy, he was trying to kill her, and she hadn't been able to do anything for him. She said she had tried to get out of the house to get help, but he was always waiting there with his huge knife, saying which parts of her he wanted to cut off first… "Please help him," Asuka said, "It's not his fault… it's dark energy, I'm sure…"

I checked Asuka for energy corruption. I found none, but I did a Touch My Heart healing spell on her anyway. Golden energy flowed into her. I then followed MoSh's energy. It was downstairs in the basement. I found him there. He seemed to be sneaking along the back wall, trying to blend with the shadows, getting closer to the stairs. He saw me there and apparently thought I was Asuka. "Come on, Asuka," he said, "Try to fight it! You need healing! Just fight it for a bit… I really don't want to hurt you!"

"I'm not Asuka," I said. He heard my voice and recognized it. He came running over to me and put his arms around me. He said he was really glad to see me, Asuka needed healing… and she needed it bad. He motioned to the far side of the room. Shawna came out. MoSh said Asuka had tried to kill both of them, and neither Shawna nor him had been able to heal her. But she needed help badly… I would help, wouldn't I? I said I already had seen Asuka and I had used a healing spell on her. I used Touch My Heart on MoSh and Shawna, though they didn't look infected, either.

When MoSh and Asuka were in the same room, I told them what illusions I'd had to break through in order to get to the reality of MoSh's inner world. The psycho version of MoSh trying to kill Asuka and the psycho version of Asuka trying to kill MoSh and Shawna weren't real, they had just been illusions. Very convincing, very hard to penetrate. I told them there had been a strange fog all over the place, the fog of illusion. They seemed to understand and accept that, now everyone was pissed. Who the fuck had put that there? How had they gotten in? I wondered if it was something L had done when he was inside before, or if he had used another dirty trick to come back and do it… because if he had come back after the incident last night, he was apparently looking for a permanent playmate in Walms. The idea that L secretly finds being beaten to a pulp to be a turn-on crossed my mind briefly, but I got rid of that because it would make me sick very quickly…

Asuka, Shawna, and MoSh were all hugging now. MoSh pulled me into the hug. We all hugged there for a couple minutes, everyone was relieved that things seemed normal now. MoSh was thanking me for helping. I said I would be there to help any time, I was glad he and Asuka and Shawna were all ok. The dream slipped, and I woke up, disappearing right out of the group hug.

I was in bed. I rolled over and stroked the furry animal beside me. Soft and silky fur. The cat started to purr. So sweet… I stroked her for a couple minutes before I realized I had to get up and use the bathroom. I got out of bed and looked over at my bedroom door. There was someone in the doorway! Wtf? I grabbed a sword I had beside my bed. I know it is a cheap sword, but it is at least pointy… I held the sword towards the person at the door and asked who it was. The person, a man, said I sure am jumpy when I'm not lucid. He turned the light on. It was briefly blinding, but my eyes adjusted quickly. I recognized him. It was Walms. Wait a minute… he's in Mexico! I did a RC and found out I was dreaming.

I put the sword down and asked Walms how long he had been there. He said not long. I said that was good, having people coming into my room and watching me sleep is a bit creepy. He said he was wondering how long it would take me to notice him there. He said if he had been an enemy, it wasn't nearly fast enough. I said but then again, he's not an enemy. Hostiles put off entirely different energy… even if he was looking to attack me for a training fight, he would still be putting off different energy. Ok… remember the goals… I was going to take Walms to see L. At the same time I thought that Walms said it. I opened a portal while focused on getting back to L and both of us went through it.

On the other side we were in the same place where I found Asuka. There was a beautiful pool with a lot of women swimming and lounging around the pool in string bikinis. I spotted L almost right away, too. He was sitting in one of the chairs watching all of the women. He was practically drooling. The women seemed to be deliberately showing off their bodies to him, all laughing and giggling like they were having a great time. I wondered how brainless they must be to enjoy the pool with that piece of shit lounging on the side of it… or if he was in the pool, the pool would then become a toilet with a piece of shit floating in it. Yuck!

L got up when I arrived. I hadn't been trying to hide my energy or anything, so he no doubt saw that I was there. He got a big grin on his face. He said he was glad to see that I had changed my mind about coming back. Now for some more appropriate attire… my Assassin's robes changed to a blue string bikini… like the one on this woman in the photo… and then go ahead and enjoy the pool and the refreshments. I looked at the bikini I was now in, but I didn't bother changing it. There were more important things to do here than argue over my outfit.

I told L I had brought a friend. L said that is great! He said he hoped I had brought Tigress… she is the cat's meow. I frowned at the comment and wondered if he could manage to make himself sound any lamer. I said I had brought a friend who wanted to play with him. He said that sounded great, where is she? Walms was there with me, and L didn't look pleased to see him.

"Nope," L said immediately, somehow getting his women to gather around him as if to prove this point, "No way. No guys. Girls only. There is no way I'm going to bother playing games with any guys. No way, it's women all the way for me. Women only. No…"

It seemed like L was protesting a bit too much… Walms interrupted L. He said maybe he would just have to get rid of these distractions then. I didn't object to that… those women were clearly illusory DCs and not real people. That was proven even more when Walms cut a few of them open with his claws and instead of bleeding they deflated… like blow-up dolls. Walms deflated all of the women dolls around L, which seemed to piss L off. I wondered why he cared since he can always create more DCs. Either way, the goal of getting L pissed was working. They got into a brief fight, L summoned up some armor. He said nothing could penetrate that armor… and in just seconds Walms had shredded it all off of him, leaving L looking shocked and yelling expletives… Walms appeared behind L, beat on him a bit, and then threw him down on the ground, saying something about L being too pathetic to offer any kind of a decent fight… Then Walms was on top of L… it sounded like he was threatening him. I didn't hear everything that was said, but I got the basic gist of what was said. The basic idea was that if L ever bothered Ranma (what Walms calls MoSh) again Walms would come back to have some more fun with L. L was trying to look pissed off, but I think he was hiding fear… I think he was about to shit his pants. I was just about rolling on the ground laughing. Walms tossed L aside, apparently not seeing him as worth any more of his time. Walms looked back over at me. I think he said something, but then I woke.

Note: Still no luck with my WILD attempts. I am not sure why that is happening so rarely now when it used to be so common. I had one primary goal for this night, and that was to track down Asuka and bring her home. Q found a fake Asuka in MoSh's inner world, so the only conclusion, or most likely conclusion, is she was kidnapped. Other than that there is my usual list of goals…

I was lying on the living room couch. My mother woke me up. She said I had slept through half the movie. She suggested I go to bed if I was that tired. I told her I didn't feel tired. She said if I wasn't tired, I wouldn't have slept through so much of the movie. I thought a minute and realized I couldn't even remember what movie we had been watching… ok… she must be right. I must be tired, even if I didn't feel it… or maybe the nap had been all I needed. I got up from the couch and went into my bedroom. Something didn't look right there… there was a desk with a desktop computer on the far side of the room. I thought there shouldn't have even been room for that desk… I did a reality check… and found I was dreaming!

Now fully lucid, I focused on remembering my goals. Asuka! Yes, I had to help MoSh get Asuka back. I used my bedroom door as a portal for a change of pace, and I opened it and walked through into MoSh's inner world. I turned around just in time to see the doorway behind me fold up on itself until it became too tiny to see… and it was gone.

I looked around for MoSh. I saw I was standing in the living room of his house. MoSh looked over at me. He said he had been wondering if I wasn't going to make it. I said I had, and now we had better get going. No time to lose in getting Asuka back. I was pretty sure I already knew where she was, but I figured I would let my tracking guide my portal anyhow… just on the off chance we were wrong about who had taken her. I focused on opening a portal and on finding Asuka. A portal opened, MoSh and I went through it…

On the other side of the portal we were in a strange place. It looked rather nice. There was a swimming pool there, and it was a beautiful pool. There were several women with perfect bodies lying out on lounges sunbathing and a few more in the pool. I briefly felt ashamed of my large belly and second chin before I reminded myself that it is a dream, and in dreams I have neither of those. There was a man standing on the patio surveying the scene, practically drooling over the women in the pool. He looked like a faker biker, dressed in leather, but somehow it looked like he was trying so hard to look cool that he really just wound up with an epic fail. I knew who that was, it was L. I also saw there was one woman sitting on a chair on the patio, she didn't look happy to be there. That was Asuka. I went over to Asuka. I hadn't even reached her before L spotted me and seemed pleased. He said there is always room for one more bathing beauty in his place… I saw in my reflection that I suddenly had on a string bikini that left little to the imagination. I was about to curse at L, but I got distracted admiring how nice my dream body looks compared to my waking body. L told me to help myself to a drink at the bar or dive into the pool, the water was always the perfect temperature. Wait a minute… I wasn't there for a pool party…

"Asuka," I said, "I have come to take you home."

"She is very happy here," L said, "Now go ahead and enjoy yourself. Don't worry about the others."

"I think Asuka can answer for herself," I said to L, I was a bit annoyed, "Asuka? Let's go home. MoSh is worried about you."

Asuka looked up at me with a rather blank look on her face. She stared at me for a few minutes before she finally answered. She said she didn't want to go back. She said she wouldn't force herself on MoSh any longer. I asked what she was talking about. She said she knew everything now. She MoSh doesn't want her back. She said he had willingly turned her over to L, not once, but twice. He had willingly given up to L in a contest where she was the prize, and then when he had the choice between her and the alternate Asuka, he had chosen the other one. She said he had been hoping she wouldn't survive the battle to get her flame back. He had been counting on her dying so he could have the better version of her. She said she understood why. She said he had tried to, but he had never been able to forgive her for lying to him. Right now this was the only place she belonged.

I noticed that the whole time Asuka was talking she basically showed no emotion. It was as if she was rehearsing a script. I had no doubt in mind that L had put those exact lines into her head. L said the fact MoSh had sent me to get Asuka and hadn't come to get her himself. Wait a minute… MoSh had been with me to come get Asuka… where was he? Had he woken up? This wasn't a good time to wake up… I looked around and headed back in the direction I had come from. I reached the place where I had entered through the portal. I looked around. I saw MoSh. He had wandered off in the other direction. Wtf? I went over to him and asked what he was doing. He looked over at me. He looked a bit puzzled. I asked if he was even lucid. He looked at me. He looked at his hands. He pointed at me with his pinky… and then announced I was real.

"No shit, Sherlock," I said, "Now let's go get Asuka." MoSh was wanting to know if Asuka was ok. I said she was fine apart from the lies L had been filling her head with… which he hadn't been there do dispute just now… MoSh followed me over to the pool, seeming much more alert and lucid. Asuka was still sitting in the same chair. L was watching me bring MoSh back. He didn't seem overly concerned about that. I wondered if he had a plan up his sleeve. I figured it didn't matter. Whatever his plan was, it wouldn't work. MoSh saw Asuka and went over to her and said he was there to take her home. She started repeating the rehearsed lines she had given me. MoSh interrupted her before she was done. He said none of that was true. After MoSh's protest, Asuka just continued with her lines. I told MoSh I was sure she was under the influence of mind control. I would have to break the control.

"Breaking the silence of the night, can't you hear me screaming?" I focused on the song Breaking the Silence by Queensrÿche, "I look for your face in the neon light, you never answer… I could make all the wrong seem right if you were by my side, I'd gather all the tears you cried and hide them deep underground!" The song played through. L's certainty that we wouldn't be able to do anything to get through to Asuka seemed to be wavering. The song had its effect on Asuka. Her eyes cleared, and she looked over at MoSh. She looked on the verge of tears. She looked at me and then at MoSh. She said everyone kept saying MoSh hated her now.

"That…" Asuka stammered, "That's not true, is it?"

"Come on, Asuka," MoSh said, "You know I love you!"

Asuka got up, looked a bit dizzy, and walked towards MoSh in an unsteady manner. She looked kind of drunk.

"Why don't you two just go home?" L said, "Asuka wants to be here with me. Although Raven, if you want to have a swim you are certainly welcome to stay…"

"I'd sooner swim in a sewer than in a pool with you," I said, "And if Asuka wants to stay with you, why does she look like she's about to puke?"

I used Master of Puppets on L. If he is so fond of mind control, let's do a little on him. "Master of puppets is pulling your strings, twisting your mind and smashing your dreams, blinded by me you can't see a thing, just call my name, I'll hear you scream! Master! Master!" I ordered L to release Asuka. He did. She came over to MoSh. L snapped out of the mind control, I hadn't meant for it to last very long. He got mad at MoSh and me for forcing him to do things against his will. He said no one forces him to do anything! He is his own man and…

"And there is an alien pulling your strings," MoSh said. He created a hologram of the alien in this picture. "It's a Reptilian, or a Draconian… and I saw one of them draining your energy.

L looked at the picture briefly, having been completely interrupted from his yelling at MoSh and me. He looked at the hologram, then at MoSh, at the hologram, at MoSh…

"Are you on drugs?" he asked MoSh, then he looked at me, "He's on drugs, isn't he?"

I didn't really have a chance to answer. MoSh was answering. "I saw it," MoSh said, "It was draining your energy. It is controlling your every move. Maybe that's why you're such an ass."

"You're making excuses for me being an ass?" L asked, sounding thoroughly confused, "Now there's a new one. Now why don't you just leave these two lovely ladies here with me, and go on your pathetic way?"

"I'm not staying with you," Asuka said, "Go back to your stupid DC bimbos," she looked at me, "They are all DCs, you know. Just illusions. He couldn't get the attentions of a real woman if he paid her…"

"And if I have to look at your face for one more second," I told L, "I think I'll vomit. So we'll all be going. Have fun with your DCs… which is like using blow-up dolls, right? So have fun with your blow-up dolls." I opened a portal to get us all back to MoSh's inner world. The three of us went through. On the other side of the portal, we were all in the yard in front of MoSh's house. I closed the portal before L could consider following us. MoSh had his arms around Asuka, who seemed happy to be there. I was going to ask if Asuka was ok. I didn't have a chance to say anything.