| "Adventures
in Dreamland" is the story of Sir Palpatine's quest to rescue Cecily, his
lady love, from the clutches of a villain known as King (Night)Mare.
As it was set in the realm of dreams, I decided to toy around a bit with
the reality of Aeric, who was still a squire at the time. With the
permission (and cooperation) of the story's author, Toni Amende, I introduced
a couple of premonition-like elements into the story, including his status
as a knight (and the swords which did not yet exist In Matrix), the temporary
loss of his right eye thanks to an assassin's blade, his tragic love affair
with Karissa, and even his death at the hands of a mysterious woman.
Sadly, most if not all of these points were lost on the other participants.
"Adventures
in Dreamland" was the first short story I ever went on, way back in the
early spring of 1998 (O.P. XVIII). Because it was so long ago, my
memory of the adventure is sketchy at best. The following account
is from an email to Erik Ravenwood, to help him script a puppet show based
on the adventure:
Aeric and Marduk went to Glastonbury, as they were asked by Palpatine to
meet him there. The Aeric in the dream was a little older than the
Aeric in Court at the time; he was clearly a knight and was wearing two
Japanese swords, one long, one short, and he also had an eyepatch covering
a nasty scar on one eye.
Palpatine explained that he knew where his lost love Cecily was, and that
he had asked them there to help rescue her. Both knights agreed to
do so.
Travelling up the hill from Glastonbury, the trio encountered a man in
a darkened path/alcove behind Windsor Castle. He told them some stuff,
and then a couple of Dead Chameleons attacked. The trio managed to
fend them off, but Aeric was mortally wounded and needed a moment to pop
a "life pill" and recover.
The next encounter was with a man who seemed to be dancing with an invisible
partner. I have no clue what the interaction was, because Aeric and
Marduk kept their distance--and their eyes out for more assassins.
From there, we went to the Melee Field, where we encountered Cecily's pet
tiger. He had a thorn stuck in his paw; Aeric suggested knocking
the tiger out before trying to remove it, but his attempt to sap the tiger
with the butt of his dagger didn't seem to work. So he showed his
usual compassion and wrenched the thorn out of the tiger's paw, spurting
blood all over the place. After that, the tiger was more cooperative
and told us what we wanted to know.
The next thing I remember is climbing the stairs to the dorms directly
above Glastonbury. We were talking to a couple of characters there
and basically getting nowhere when a mysterious person rode by in a chariot
and shouted what we thought was "Go to Barden!" Being the idiots
that we were, we had no clue where Barden was, so after going in the wrong
direction for 15 minutes, we gave up and went to Marduk's abode to get
his Pages' Scroll and look it up on the map!
We finally got to Barden and looked all over creation, but could find nothing
and no one. Somehow (Warwickian Transit?) we got on the right track,
and were taken to the vicinity of the Emerald Plateau. There we encountered
a young woman who recited a poem for us. We then continued down the
ramp to Stone Garden, which is actually what the mysterious charrioteer
had shouted at us....
Halfway through Stone Garden, a black-clad woman stopped us and wouldn't
let us pass. She asked each of us if we had ever been in love, and
we answered appropriately (Palpatine: yes, Marduk: no, Aeric: "once, but
that was long ago" [angst angst]). She then stepped forward and put
a little skull made from black wax into my hand, at which point I died.
The woman fell to the ground on top of me, and the other two knights were
free to continue on.
The
End--for me, at least.
That was the
end of the short story for me; the final scene was right around the corner,
but I didn't get a chance to see it on account of my being dead--that,
and Toni (the woman in black) was still laying on top of me and neither
of us was in any hurry to move.... ;) |