Druid Civilization Game

I dreamed that about a dozen couples had gotten together for a long gaming weekend in a secluded park area. There was one main cabin, with lofts and four full bedrooms, so a couple of couples would have to share the pull outs in front of the large fireplace in the sunken living room. We got ourselves settled in and I retrieved a card game. It was a civilization building game, that had a Celtic or Druid centric theme.

The goal of the game was to build a series of villages and then to link them up in a way that made them, as a whole, self sufficient. The world you played in was different every game, as there were cards that determined the layout of the world you had to settle. It was a competitive/cooperative game, as there were certain thresholds that needed to be met by all the players in order to survive the sorts of catastrophe's that might be pulled up out of the deck. We played a round, then everyone went outside to enjoy the woods and the various rocky hillsides nearby. As we were exploring the area, several of the people pointed out that the layout of the rocks and hills and cabin and little stand of woods was very much like our game. We decided to play a live action version of the game so broke up into teams of four. One team took the stand of woods near the house, another a nearby hill, and our team took the stand of rocks and the rocky caves in them about three hundred yards from the house and hills.

We used our cell phones to show the other teams the challenge cards, and ran back to the house to get new hands when needed. The first game went pretty well. So well we decided to do a second game, even though it was coming up on sunset. When everyone got back to the house, I collected up the cards to shuffle them up and redistribute them. I dropped them into one of my bags accidentally, and we started to gather them back up. Multiple hands in a tupperware tub at the bottom of a small bag made the process far more difficult than if I'd been allowed to do the task alone.

Sunset was rather faster than we anticipated, so we ended up working from flashlights. The cards had swollen up in the humid air, and the stack seemed to be nearly twice the size it was earlier. Fog started rolling in, and the group decided that we were hungry. I noted that there was a nice fire pit near the stand of rocks we'd taken as our village in the previous game, so we agreed to gather there and heat up dinner over an open fire. I decided that sitting around an open fire with greasy fingers wouldn't be good for a card game, so started packing the game up. The swollen cards wouldn't fit back in the box. I ended up taking my breakfast cereal out of its bag and using that to hold the box and all the extra cards. I agreed that we might need to find a different printer to make the next set of cards.

I remember next to nothing about the actual play of the game, other than the cards controlled resources, messengers, and challenges. The number of cards in your hand was based on the population of your village. In the live game, the players took the messenger and resource cards from group to group across the actual countryside. (Which is why we decided not to play after sunset.)

Cave Clanks and Werewolves

I was running on all fours, chasing through the forest with a lovely yellow Afghan looking (but much larger, still with the same slender proportions) companion. I could feel the leaves and branches crumple under my calloused paws, feel the saddle bags bounce against the mesh harness. We raced along the open paths, sometimes me leading, sometimes her leading. We'd occasionally catch wind of something interesting and would crash through the ferns and berry bushes to investigate. I could see the fur on my front legs and paws, it was thick, about two inches and mostly grey-brown with black patches.

On one of these little side forays we came upon a round opening in the side of a cliff. I transformed back to my human self and stooped down to see into the cave opening better. The opening would have been completely obscured were it not for the thick bat smell coming from it. I pushed aside the vines and roots and stepped into the entrance. The Afghan, Lydia I think her name was, transformed next to me, delicately sniffed the air. She bounced her breasts at me playfully, adjusted her harness and then transformed back, saying she was going back to bring the rest of the pack. I dressed and, using my wind up flashlight, proceeded deeper into the cave.

The bats only occupied the first large chamber, clinging to the roots and vines along the ceiling. I found that the cave continued past that chamber, a small rocky alcove contained a chiseled opening that headed down some narrow stairs. There were the remnants of wooden stairs in a couple of places, but it was only about four to six feet of a jump down to pass to the next rocky part of the path, so I proceeded by jumping over the wooden stairs, not trusting them to hold my weight even where they looked okay. I kept scanning the walls with the flashlight, hoping to spot some markings that might explain what I had found. I could feel air flowing gently down past me, so knew there must be another opening, perhaps at the bottom of the hillside where the spring pools on the opposite side of the mountain were located. We didn't spend much time over there, as that was Bai Yun's pack's range.

I came to a large chamber, split level, a large rectangular slab of material on one wall, with a square slab inset into its base. The square slab looked like it had been some sort of seal, but was now very pitted and scarred, as though something had been working at it. At the opposite side of the upper level was an adobe building that looked to be connected to the side of the cliff overlooking the lower level of the chamber. I could smell water at the bottom, and it very much smelled like the waters of the spring, so I knew that there must be another entrance somewhere below. I used the flash to try to pick out a path down to the water, but it seemed that the only way down was to jump, and hope the water was fairly deep, or to risk climbing down through the adobe building.

I turned back to the slab, and tried to make out what was etched into the surface. The slab was about fifteen feet high and ten or so feet across at the base. It was narrower at the top, about eight feet or so. It wasn't perfectly symmetrical, so I guessed that it had been carved out of something that was already here in the cave. I didn't recognize most of the languages on the slab, but about a third of the way down, discovered that I recognized some Latin words. I could tell the carvings were not literate Latin, as there were many case and number disagreements, and the verb tenses were all over the place. It was as though someone like myself had tried to put something together from memory, and oddly, it looked rushed. The whole thing looked rushed. There was a large pile of rubble at the base of the monument, and I could tell from the size and color of the chips that they were the debris from the carvings.

I could hear my pack coming down the trail, so headed up to greet them.

There was a huge thundering crack behind me, I turned to see the square chunk of stone pulverized and flying out of the base of the slab. Something mechanical stepped out on six legs, whirring and clanking. It lifted its middle legs up over its head, and lights flickered to life, it scanned the cavern, fixing a light on me. The other arm began to spin, like a Gatling gun. Lydia, still in Afghan form, with the rest of the pack behind her was highlighted on one of the slopes. The machine appeared to dismiss the wolf pack, but swiveled its gun back towards me, I instinctively shouted "RUN!" and turned back down the path as the machine opened fire.

A couple of the bullets hit me in the upper legs and right buttock, I rolled on the ground, transforming as I did so. The flashlight tumbled onto the platform, and the bullets followed its spinning path. I picked myself up, glad that the ammunition didn't seem to be made of silver or salt. I kicked the remains of my pants off, angry at losing them, as they were one of my favorite pairs. I heard my pack leaping up and away, I didn't want to go after them and lead the machines to them, so dashed from behind the rocks I was hiding behind for the adobe building. I glanced over to the opening, and two more clanking machines had scrabbled their way out of the monument, they lifted their middle legs and lights shot into the darkness, helping illuminate my path. I dove through a window into the adobe building, the ancient mud walls cracked and splintered as a fusillade of bullets tried to chew through it. I ducked down, feeling the heat of tracers as they sizzled through the air overhead. The building was essentially a stairwell, so I raced down the stairs, not really concerned about the possibility of a fall.

The metallic creatures made their way across the upper cavern floor, Each window I passed, I could see their sweeping lights, and hear the gravel crunch under their feet. Apparently they were looking for me, and even though they'd seen me go into the building, they didn't associate my wolf form with my human form.

The bottom of the building was bricked up, so I had to go back up two flights to a window. I squeezed through, and dropped the nearly twenty feet to the ground. I was really angry about losing my flashlight, as there was really no way to replace it. As I scanned the path along the underground pond, a light from above picked me out, and hesitated on me, I crouched to leap away, but the light swept on, apparently dismissing me. I headed back along what looked to be the freshest trail, though that was old enough to be nearly indistinguishable. I found myself in a twisting turning set of narrow tunnels, only one of which had any signs of traffic in it, though, again, those were old signs. I came to a curve in the tunnel where I could smell the outside, and thought I could just begin to see a glimmer of light. and there in my path was Bai Yun. He growled. He did not look happy.

I transformed, "Run, gun-clanks have come out of the cave."

I transformed back, he growled low, but nodded and waited for me to finish, then led the way out.

Minecraft

I had to sell the house and I moved into a motorhome that I had to keep moving to avoid getting ticketed. I found myself parked outside a crime scene one morning. I overheard the detectives talking about a serial killer. I decided that I'd better go buy a gun to protect myself.

The police wanted to question me so brought me to the house, which I assumed was the scene of the crime. There was a basement access in what would be the closet of my office. We climbed down the stairs, and I noticed that instead of a basement, we were in a vertical shaft that continued down quite a ways.

We passed a waterfall, the steps damp and slick from the mist. "Are you sure your person isn't just lost down here?" I asked, pointing to several side passages as we delved deeper.

"Quite sure," one of the detectives stated. We came out in a large chamber, and I could see that the rock in part of the cave floor was glowing red. I warned them that there was lava there and we should go around. But, they continued on, making me hop over the lava area as fast as I could to keep from melting the bottom of my shoes.

Someone had used sandbags to guide the flow of water over the lava to make a wet path of sorts. Although the water was very warm, it wasn't melting my shoes so I stayed in it. I warned the detectives to stay in it as well, because there might still be lava to either side.

"You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

We came around a large pillar of crystal studded rock to find a huge steel tube plunged into the center of a twenty foot diameter lava pit. There was a glassy stone walk all the way around it with safety rails to keep one from falling in. It was hot, but there was a cool moist breeze from behind us.

"We were hoping you could tell us."

"A geothermal power thingy?" I guessed. By this point I was thinking that you would have to tunnel a ways, and very carefully, to get around the lava lake that was below our feet. I explained that I didn't live here, I lived in my vehicle and was just parked on the street until a spot opened up at a nearby campground.

The layout of the house was similar to my old house, so I wondered if it had been made by the same contractor.

They then wanted to know where the rest of the family was. I didn't know, of course, as I wasn't involved in their case. I just happened to park outside their house last evening when I couldn't get a spot at the local campground. I showed them my reservation for tonight through next weekend.

"Is that time accurate?"

"As far as I know, you could check the campground computer to make sure."

"We'll do that."

"Do you mind if we take that," the detective said in a way that indicated that he didn't care if I minded or not.

"Of course not, they emailed me a copy at the same time"

"He could have been here before going to the campground."

I could tell from the detective's face that he was sure the campground receipt completely ruled me out as his most convenient suspect. I also knew that I had dinner and gas receipts for the times leading up to the point where I made reservations, and I wasn't a stranger to the people in either place.

"I 'd like a receipt for that." I pointed to the receipt in his hands, but he just handed it back.

We started back, but almost immediately came to a split in the tunnel up, and it wasn't clear which shaft to take, as both had LED lights along the walls.

One tunnel had the lights on the right and the other had them on the left. I was pretty sure the lights had been on the left as we'd come down, but the detective led us into the tunnel where the lights were on the left. At least we had a source of water and the cops all had flashlights.