Diablo IIID, All Downhill

My first dream (that I can remember) started with me waking up to the "You've died" sound in my headphones. I had nodded off while playing the new Diablo IIID game and my hardcore barbarian/ninja (class mixing was now a thing, apparently) had just been killed. Except what I was seeing wasn't the normal death screen, the center was periodically lightening and opening up and I could hear the chanting of my character's name, "Imhotep, Imhotep, Imhotep, wake up, wake up, breathe, time is running out..."

Sure enough, there was a timer down in the life orb, ticking down from 13 seconds. I reached for the controls, struggling to see what was happening to the red misty "death haze" it didn't look good, I was surrounded and the beasts were still milling about hammering on my ancients, who were going to return to their afterlife in just a few seconds. I didn't remember summoning them, but figured I must be wearing an item that did that, and saved me. I looked at the timer bars on my skills, there was only really one chance, jump over the ravine I'd parked myself at, because it looked like a safe place to take a breather. I just had to survive long enough to get my heroic leap charged up then I should be able to jump away.

The timer hit zero, just after the Ancients vanished. My health rocketed up to 50%, then immediately began falling. I tried to move out of the bad stuff, but I was immediately hemmed in. I switched over to an area of effect melee attack, just for the life steal, it helped, but not enough. The jump skill button lit, and I flicked my cursor over to the shelf on the other side of the ravine, hoping against hope that the rift was jumpable, and not the actual edge of the map.

I jumped out of the mass of attackers, and sailed across the ravine. I gulped down a healing potion and moved as far away from the milling mass as I could. Several of them broke off and flew across the gap, chasing me. At least now it was only four on one and not twelve on one. I discovered that there was a cliff face half a screen away from the ravine, and that was the edge of the map. There was, also a group of about thirty mobs, not elite, fortunately, but so many that I was going to find myself unable to move again if I wasn't careful. I looked at the timer on my Ancients, and realized that if I jumped into the middle of the mobs, I could probably fight long enough for them to act as sort of a meat shield, assuming the flying beasts had to land to attack me, which they did. A few hits and I was down a third of my life. I jumped away into the middle of the regular mobs, and the elite critters bunched up outside the edge of the mobs, apparently not able to launch and land in the midst of the mobs like I could. Lucky break for me. I switched over to single target attacking, only using the AOE when my health dropped down to fifty percent or so. Every time I used the AOE, a ring of mobs would die, and the dangerous ones would grow closer. I felt like I actually had a chance to make it.

All Downhill

This morning's dream (after getting up at the first hint of light to rattle the cats' food around in their bowls) I was more a silent incorporeal observer, though the woman did seem aware of my presence as she was talking to me much of the time. She was dressed for adventure, heavy pants and shirt, lots of pockets, a thin pack on her back and a pair of shoulder satchels, though I'm pretty sure one of them was essentially a purse, just adventure grade. She was also wearing a pith helmet, covered in the same heavy material. Her long dark brown hair was tied back and mostly trapped under her pack. She had a survival knife, which she was using to stop herself from sliding too far.

We were apparently lost.

We had spotted flowing water at the bottom of a steep slope, and rather than follow the edge of the slope, and looking for an easier way down, the woman had decided that she wanted to refill her canteens, and get cleaned up now. So, she immediately began climbing down the slope. I tried to keep her from anything that was really cliff-like, but since I was incorporeal, I really couldn't know how slippery some of the soil was, nor how sturdy the vines were that she was using to climb down. At a couple of points she used a rope looped through a root to lower herself twenty feet or so, then would pull the rope loose and coil it back up in the big pocket on the side of her pack. When we got within about sixty feet of the water, I flew out to see what it looked like.

There was steam coming off of it in places, and there were some pretty big crocodiles lounging down stream. Nothing near the steam vents, though. I tried to get the information to the woman, but couldn't actually communicate to her, so was forced to fly close and then away towards the safer choice whenever she moved towards the crocodiles. She moved her climb to come out at the edge of the water across from a fumarole. She did stop and look, as I placed myself at the edge of the shore and bounced up and down, and she slipped back into the brush quietly when she saw the crocodiles. There were lots of little animal skeletons there, but no sign that the big crocodiles came this close to the hot water. She moved upstream a bit and the water was actually cold, downstream, the water had an odd smell and was nearly boiling (we could see it boiling further out in several placed in the middle of the stream.) She decided to fill her canteens and take a bath in the cold water. She waded in fully clothed, unfortunately. I did notice a lot of dirt came off of her and out of her clothing. I circled around and up the slopes on either side of the stream. There didn't seem to be, with the sixty foot radius I could travel, to be a very clear path out of here, and following the stream down past the crocodiles didn't look like a very good option. I didn't find any signs of the crocodiles upstream as far as I could see.