I woke up screaming just now.

I hope I didn't wake my roommates. It's just after 2:30 in the morning.

I had a nightmare, though. I don't even remember what it was, but it was intense. I just need to think for a second.

Now I remember. It wasn't a nightmare in the technical sense. It was a vivid memory of something that actually happened yesterday, playing across my mind in dream format.

I'm still shaking. So I need to just write out what I've experienced. That'll help me calm down. First with the worst, which I experienced around 5:00PM yesterday evening, the most traumatic event I've ever experienced in my life.

I was "ripped" from the Arturian Realm; and I think "ripped" is the proper term. It was so fast, so sudden, so intense. I had been immersed as my avatar, Rendo, in Evernorth, the forgotten block-world linked to the Cresca Sector on Planet Arturia proper. I was with our team re-populating Evernorth for the big Underground Card Project, which was high-stakes enough.

Then suddenly...I just can't describe it...I was just ripped from my avatar immersion and thrust back out into my bedroom in Fleming House. It was so shocking, like I was violently thrust through some sort of special space-time barrier that no living being has never been meant to pass through. Not thinking twice, I re-immersed. But I was fearful that it was the Dungeonmaster intervening, that she had discovered us, and that now we were in trouble.

How silly I was to think that, I now realize. I didn't realize what was happening out in the real world, the reason for what I now know was some sort of shockwave. It was a lot worse than my mindset last night was capable of conceiving.

The Project consisted initially of myself as the avatar Rendo, Peteron Former as Krefdan, Richard Mythers as Aydray, Motteran Krome as avatar Lefda, and Valian Pherran as Erlian. We had been in the early stages of the great plan where we were casting large numbers of daemons to re-populate the Five Kingdoms of Evernorth. Without these daemons, we would not have been able to carry out the next phase. With the goal in mind to make these daemons capable of existing independently of us for long periods of time, it was essential that we crafted diplomacy to be just right between them, that is to make certain daemons get along with each other when they were supposed to and have others rival each other when they were supposed to. That was, of course, challenging and required team effort from all five of us. And for me, I was presently working on fixing an intense and ongoing rivalry between a town jeweler and town baker. I had both daemons deactivated, as symbolized by that Book Icon image that shows up in the immersion world when an avatar is altering the scripts of a daemon.

That was what I was doing when I was thrown back into my bedroom in Fleming House.

When I re-immersed, I found that just two of my co-avatars, Aydray and Erlian, had re-immersed as well. Krefdan and Lefda were not there. We waited for a few moments, but then determined that they were not coming back for awhile. So we continued our part of the Project. I went back to the jeweler and baker daemons, and found that some of the scriptwork I did was either jumbled up or missing. It was technical work, and since Krefdan and Lefda were not there, we decided to put our part of the Project on hold and see if we could pick up their part of the project: fixing the weather.

Evernorth was originally a temperate climate, just like in Gentry County in the real world, with summer, fall, winter, and spring. The Evernorth blockworld had been abandoned for awhile, though, leading to "script decay," which led Evernorth to turning into a year-around winter wasteland. The full seasonal cycle in Evernorth runs its course for every week in the real world, so it was supposed to be late summer or early fall. Most of Evernorth was cleaned up in terms of having appropriate weather at the appropriate time. However, there had still been year-round winter patches.

And now after this shock, there were more widespread winter patches to clean up again.

So here I was, along with Adray and Erlian, tasked with recovering the progress lost with the weather. It has a bit of hard work, made worse suddenly when Adray stated that he, as Richard, had to step away and "check on something." That left just me, as Rendo, and Valian, as Erlian, to continue on our own.

And then Krefdan re-immersed, but only to come to me and say, "Jeo. Stop what you're doing and come down to Fleming Lobby. Something is very wrong."

I did as I was told, fearing the worst. I stepped back out into my bedroom. I changed out of my gym clothes and into something more casual. I left our suite and went down the corridors, down the staircases, and into the Lobby.

There was a large crowd of Cabotton students here. And I mean the room was packed. Everyone was in a state of panic. Near the entrance, someone had a device tuned to the news radio and projecting sound across the room. It was the national radio, and they were describing apparent bombings that occurred in the cities of South Masonia, Hasphitat, and Retun. Listening more closely, I learned about how they were apparently something called "Red Desert Bombs," and that they each left a patch of total devastation about a mile in diameter at each of those three cities. And then I learned about how it was the Lykians that did it, and that we were at war with them.

Now that utterly terrified me. I thought it was some campus-wide crisis. Nothing could have prepared me for this. The Lykian Republic is the largest and most powerful country on the landmass of Canticula. And I had heard stories about how they had taken over the other nations with absolute brutality.

I have also been enraged at the incompetent Prime Minister, Arthur Cummings. Ever since he took over from Jackson two years ago, he had been making absolutely the wrong decision with every issue that came to his desk thus far. First, with making diplomacy with the Lykian Republic, in the beginning. For him to do that after hearing about what the Lykians did to South Canticula...I just cannot fathom the reasoning. Some people say that was the result of pure corporate greed, especially with the John Waysworth scandal. I don't know, myself. I don't understand. But I know that Cummings is the worst leader this Republic has ever had. Quite frankly, he may be the last.

I was thinking of that even while I was in the Lobby. But I was also panicked, as was everyone else. It really did feel like the end was coming. And maybe it will later today. But in any case, I just happened to look down at my watch, and, I feel really stupid about this in hindsight, I had a panic when I saw that it was 6:16PM. I didn't think that the University would be closed at this point, so I thought that I had nearly missed my Lightfire Internship Preparations Class. This is the most important class for my major: Lightfire Crafting and Studies. In fact, this is the capstone class that you must pass in order to have a shot at working for West Horizon. And University Policy dictates that any student with a total combination of three or more absences or tardies will automatically fail this course. This, of course, results in removal from the course roster and permanent removal from the Lightfire School.

And this was my third time.

So I panicked at that. Richard slapped me on the shoulder and told me that the University was closed, and that tonight might not count. But the class started at 4:30PM and the University officially closed due to the mass panic at around 4:58PM. So I am not sure, even if Valian and Richard have re-assured me. Rex Louton, the Professor, is one of the most reasonable teachers I have ever had in my life. So maybe I have a chance. But then again, even Rex isn't above University Policy.

In meantime, I realized then and there that I had another pressing matter: Cray Fenton. He is a key player in our Great Underground Plan. But part of that plan involved him going with another key player, Tom Pero, to visit family in the city of Daylram in the Great North, then to return to North Kempton. When I overheard that the national borders were closed, I realized that Cray was stranded. So I had to make a phone call to him to figure out some important re-planning.

I ran back to my bedroom and picked up the phone to dial out to Daylram. When I did so, I got the signal that the line was blocked. So I called out to Cray Fenton's residence in North Kempton, hoping that Sari or Meona would pick up, because I knew they were staying there to keep an eye on things while Cray was out of the country.

That line was blocked as well.

I tried calling out to Cray in the Great North again with the same result. I then sent a flurry ticker messages to both Daylram and North Kempton. I waited a few hours, but even now, there has yet to be a response.

I will have to try to sleep out the rest of the night, and handle everything when I wake up tomorrow...actually, today now.