Extremely long vivid dream. I don't have the time to recount all the details but I'll hit the major points.
A friend of mine from my 20s reached out to me. He and a lot of other people I knew had formed a club to do martial arts and stunts and things. It was extremely cool. I couldn't because I'm forty and tired so I was moping and ended up on a TV competition show. You had to ride a raft down a lazy river while other people and contestants tried to knock you off - only crossing the end in a boat counted as a victory.
I got in an argument that escalated into a fight with one of the other contestants, and despite my ridiculous anime prowess with numerous weapons I was carrying (???) I was outmatched. He had magical powers that resurrected him from a deathblow. I had to flee to the campus library at my old community college as he pursued me, trying various ways to delay him. In the library I finally stopped running, and challenged him one last time with the strongest weapon I had - my fists. For a moment things seemed to be going my way but I was running out of steam, and was defeated. He just kinda patted my shoulder and let me go instead of beheading me with the samurai sword. This is the dorkiest thing I will ever dream.
Afterwards I walked off and met back up with my partner, and we paused at a house in the desert where the owner asked me to help water his plants, in exchange for showing us his Pallas' cat. In the dream it moved and looked wrong but it didn't ring alarm bells for me.
Things are getting fuzzy at this point but then it turns out the homeowners were ghosts(?) Fleeing from Eastern Europe(?) Where they were being used as labor(?) Capital extraction even from the spirits of the dead, jeez
They left us with magical powers to instantly refurbish someone's home with no need for money. We helped a friend move into his new apartment and magically made it nice.