Battle Hardened Veterans

I dreamed I was playing a table top game using  rules I created. War Hammer style orcs (Battle Hardened Veterans - 10 each squad) and an alien menace, played by TC, comprised of rubber BEMs from local vending machines. The orc miniatures were each identical in stats, but his force was individualized down to every item on every squad member. I remember I had done this to test the real-time duration of the game, could you have a miniatures game that took place in just two to three hours using my rules?

We set the game up on my tall table, and pulled it out into the center of the front room so people could stand at the table and watch the game.

You'll Slip There.

Apparently. I have no idea where "there" is, unfortunately.The concerned voice was loud and insistent.

Courier

I dreamed I was working as a courier, flying with a locked silver case handcuffed to my arm. I had no real idea of what was in the case, but the actual item I was carrying was a small SD card tucked into a business card in my wallet. The case was essentially a distraction.

Sure enough, whoever it was who wanted the data I was carrying managed to cause the cuffs to pop open during an "unexpected" layover. I was knocked down and the case was stolen. The police were polite by ineffective, which was fine, I am sure the wildly extravagant but pointless activity gave the thieves time to think they had truly gotten what they wanted. I quietly slipped away from everyone and booked myself on another shuttle to get me to my destination, hopefully before my antagonists could figure out they had several terabytes of encrypted garbage. I would arrive before my scheduled time, as I was taking a sub orbital shuttle, for a rather princely sum of cash, which would alert my employers to provide extra security as the bait had been taken. I was glad we hadn't surgically implanted the data chip, as that would have been messy and possibly fatal.

As I boarded what was essentially a rocket ship, I realized that I may not actually have any real data, and could quite possibly be a full on decoy mission. I wasn't too happy about that. At least whoever was after the data I carried wasn't willing to commit a very public murder to get it. I decided that I needed to make sure I had lots of company when I reached my destination. I looked out over the super modern airfield with actual launch towers (Mag-lev tracks that accelerated the rockets up over the city before the on-board boosters kicked on.)

I don't think I've ever seen so many acres of "don't hit me orange" and titanium white. It was much a "yes, we're living in the future, right now!" moment.

Moon Two of the Tetrad Disco Party.

Getting up for the second moon of the Tetrad allowed me to wake mid dream, something loud and raucous with lots of dancing folks and disco lights.

Unfortunately there wasn't any sort of plot, just the sweaty teen dance floor smell, that funky combo of sweat, deodorant, wood floor wax and rubber dance mats. Flailing arms and legs, slinky dresses and shiny jewelry, bell-bottom polyester pants. One cool thing, was when the alarm sounded, I stayed in the dream for a bit, and the conversations in the dream turned to the "Blood Moon" and why it was the cause for this celebration. I don't, of course, remember any of the specific details of the reasons for celebrating other than "reasons."

I did snooze a bit before getting up for work, but the dream was just one of those frustrating ones where I was reading something printed and was awake enough to realize that it didn't actually make any sense. That and the singing cat (which may well have been real, Ms Ember sings the "I'm a mighty hunter" song while she's putting all the cat toys away.)

Giving it the Old College Try

After much bouncing around and short bits of flying, I arrived at a college campus. I put away the gaffer's tape cube I had been using to fly, noticing that my hand had rubbed off one of the symbols on the cube. I chatted with a couple of young women as I headed to one of the larger lecture halls. The conversation was actually about their studies and it was a refreshing change from whatever I was used to.

When I arrived at the lecture hall, I knew the lecture was in one of the Balcony theaters, so pulled out my cube and levitated up to the lecture platform, dropping down over the rail just as my friend, the lecturer, was concluding his opening remarks about levitation and flying. I set my cube on the podium and we turned the document camera onto it.

I had to borrow a marker to re-label the sides. I then explained how the piece of alien technology that allowed the flight effect was also very sensitive and potentially dangerous, thus the thick layer of tape. Its effectiveness at reducing both the sensitivity and the micro slashing of the mechanism made the device usable and safe. The labels were really for user convenience, and didn't have any actual effect on the use of the device, other than to make sure you didn't accidentally shut it off in mid air.

There were larger devices found, and they were going to be the focus of the class. Their job, as graduate students in alien technology, was to figure out the principles that underlaid the devices' functions, in hopes that we would be able to replicate the devices.

All in all a successful lesson, and finally we emphasized the dangerous nature of the devices by setting the classroom's version on top of a ham and activating it. It chewed its way down through the ham until it was surrounded by the flesh. Apparently the devices were found in the remains of alien beasts, whose battered exteriors seemed to indicate that they'd been involved in some sort of aerial gladiatorial contests.

I then flew off to a party being hosted by a patron who had become a good friend. I was staying at a nearby hotel, but most of the artists and writers that had been invited to his mini-convention were staying at his home. (Which was the size of a college dorm, and in fact may have been one at one time.) I was pretty frothy by the time I arrived, as using the flying device required a great deal of physical activity, about the level of a good run. I went up to the second floor so I could use one of the showers to clean up before the late morning events.

I bumped into N, her hair was now red with blond and white highlights, very frizzy similar to when I first met her, but about mid back length, what little of it actually hung down, it mostly framed her face in a poofy cloud. It wasn't a particularly attractive look, but it was certainly dramatic. She was back to her insulting self in this dream, but it didn't really bother me. When she pointed out how sweaty and disgusting I was I just shrugged, "I just ran over from the college, so yep, I need a shower and a change of clothing."

Someone asked me why my condition was such a big deal as I headed to the showers. I explained that she was my ex, and they just grunted in understanding.

When I got cleaned up my patron was meeting with the attendees. Someone was talking about the wide variety of attendees to the event, and it was obvious they were vying for the patron's attention, and probably support. The F's were in the front row, and when a group of folks decided to illustrate a point made by another speaker by breaking into song, Phil turned around and asked them to pipe down as they couldn't hear the speaker. He seemed to recognize me so I waved.

I still had a towel over my head, trying to tame my hair into something reasonable looking before I had to speak. I didn't succeed, as the patron introduced me just as I was drying out the inside of my ears. "Sorry, I just ran over and needed a quick cleanup."

"You could have stayed here, you know."

"I'm at the college all week, though, so the hotel was closer."

"I have cars, you know."

We bantered back and forth a bit. N was decidedly unhappy looking when it was revealed that I was the Patron's new publisher and managing editor. Some of the others I knew were much happier about it. Since my publishing house was co-branded with my patrons, I had no intention of letting my personal feelings get in the way of publishing anything that my editors and test readers liked, so no one had any real reason to worry. (Except me if my final choices proved to be unpopular.) I explained what "Un-Conventional Proceedings" was going to be, and there was applause and excitement in the room about the concept.

After the announcement my patron started meeting with individual creators. When the F's sat down I told him he should give them whatever they wanted. Even if it didn't make us all money, it would be entertaining. "Good enough for me!" was his response.

Kinda wish that dream had continued, it was just about the most fun I've had while asleep in some time.

Too Much Diablo IV

Been playing a lot of Diablo III, so it really isn't a surprise that there would be a Diablo IV dream, the VR version of the game. Nice lightweight headset and gloves made up the VR rig. There was only a little noticeable delay - but only on character movements, the backgrounds were rock solid for the head tracking. There were some polygon lighting oddities but overall it looked pretty darned good. The camera position was fixed and the game itself was still pretty much the isometric view we're used to, but closer and thus more immersive. There was, oddly, still no first person view. The game controls involved hand movements and finger gestures or touches. The gloves had the pressure points in them, and the item you held in your hand was just there to provide some weight and resistance.

Cool game play, and this time the game was focused on less world shattering fare, recovering reputations for your DIII companions, finding lost relatives, freeing imprisoned sisters, and going up against a corrupted order of Paladins intent on storming the High Heavens and taking control from the Angels, some of whom have been less than supportive of humanities newfound importance. In other words, it carried on right from DIII's middle stories. The one thing I found missing was going after Chen's jewel, (to be fair I haven't played the new acts and it may be covered there....)

In the dream I worked up quite the sweat swinging around and attacking things with spells and weapons both. There was a lot of voice chatter from other players, and that was disorienting, as the sound wasn't as well coordinated as the video for some reason. I was using five pound weights as my resistance grips, which made for a pretty aerobic game session. I was not completely blown away by the graphics, but they were certainly well done, with lots of variety that helped make each location stand out in a way that made navigation without the map possible for some of us, anyway, a couple of my companions kept asking me to drop a flag so they could find the rest of the group. (In real life that would more likely be me, I always seem to be the slowpoke in the MMOs I play.)

Where the game design really shone was in the Special Effects, amazing fire and smoke as well as other elemental effects. Also, Combat Engineers! Yes! I was able to build Golems, like the old Necromancer, beef up peoples' weapons and armor, make barricades, bridges and weapons of mass destruction- bombs and traps ala Demon Hunter. There was also stealth, and rapid transit (Zip lines! Hooty hoo!) I was a happy camper. (Note to Blizzard - you can completely steal the Combat Engineer idea, and I'll still gladly pay you to play it!)