I don’t have normal dreams. I could’ve had a dream about Christmas, holiday spirit, or even the games (not to mention people) I’ve been obssessing over. Instead, I get some freakish conglomeration of…well…lots of things.

This dream isn’t as clear as my last major one. I’m not sure how it started, but it involved me walking into Stuy through the second floor entrance and coming upon the senior bar. For those who don’t know what it looks like, picture a square area around twenty-five feet on each side. I’m coming from the southwest corner, there is an up escalator at the north side, a hallway perpendicular to the north side at the northwest, ac opening to a larger hallway/locker area to the northeast, and an opening to offices to the southeast. But the most distinctive feature of the senior bar is the senior bar: a row of lockers arranged in a quarter-circle whose ends point towards the eastern and southern walls. People (usually seniors) sit on the bar, and it acts as a general hangout spot considering almost all students have to pass it to get into school.

But this time it wasn’t a hangout spot; it was the location for some bizarre event. Bizarre Love Triangle bizarre. People were arranged in two lines leading from the escalator to the senior bar so that there was a walkway coming down from the escalator. People were coming down the escalator in pairs wearing very fancy, sexy clothes, strutting as the lines of people cheered them on. I didn’t know what it was for, but I remember walking down the northwestern hallway in disgust.

That was when someone walked alongside me and asked why I hated them so much. I replied that no one there was really happy for anyone else, but that they just wanted to see people in hot clothes and be part of something lively. The other person seemed to take offense to this, and motioned over to a friend to walk beside us. I sensed the tension as they flanked me, and that’s when things totally went to hell.

The first person pulls out a bow on me. Like, a freaking huge composite longbow at least 2/3 his size. No idea where he was hiding that thing. I stop for a moment, staring him down, before I burst into action, drawing out a knife and spinning around behind me to put his companion at knifepoint. I’m not sure why, but I kept thinking of it in Dungeons & Dragons rules terms: I had rolled a successful tumble check to move through an enemy space without provoking an attack of opportunity, then successfully initiated a grapple as well as another grapple to pin the person and ready an action to attack her. I also knew that he’d get a penalty for firing into melee, and that I’d get cover bonuses to my AC because of the human shield. To top off the craziness, this random bystander pulled out a sword and held it ready at the longbowman.

I then saw the encounter through his analytical perspective. He knew that his crazy bow skillz (probably had some crazy upgraded version of Point Blank Shot) would be enough to take down the swordsman, but I’d stab his friend in the heart. There things get stranger: he knew that I was a wizard, but that my current repertoire of spells was very limited. He considered the possibility of me chucking the dagger at him, but he knew it’d do only 1d4 damage, and was a last resort considering I’d lose my weapon without a guarantee of taking him down.

He finished his analysis, and decided that he’d rather taste some combat. He kills the swordsman with an arrow as I thrust the dagger through his companion. As he’s firing a second arrow at me, I chuck the dagger at him while holding the body for cover. The dagger glances off him but distracts him enough for me to deflect the slightly off-target arrow with the body. I then whip out this relatively small glowing white bow named Hohenheim of Light. Man, talk about strange Full Metal Alchemist references to end a strange dream.

(Yes, I know that technically my grappling stunt would have taken at least two rounds, that I wouldn’t have gotten a cover bonus, and that I really would have been MORE vulnerable considering I’d lose my dexterity bonus to AC when in the grapple. Not to mention that attacking someone 5 feet away with a bow would have provoked an attack of opportunity. But come on.)