Glieuaeiel's DJ

Gaming for Health

An elderly man is playing a video game, because it'll be good for his mental health. It's a story-based FPS: he has to break into a compound and prevent the men inside from setting off a bomb. I'm watching. I hope he does well.

Stuff happens. By the time he reaches the bomb, the timer is counting down from seven or eight seconds--far too little time for it to be defused, especially since there are still people running around trying to shoot him. Instead he dashes over to a small but deep pool (I think it's connected somehow to a nearby lake or river) and dives in. From several feet below the surface, he looks upward to see the air above the water turn red and orange, blossoming with fire. I think that was a good decision: if you can't stop the bomb, at least save yourself. But it was only half a success, so he has to come back tomorrow (in game time, not real time) to try and stop them again.

Somewhere along the line, I start playing instead of the man. As I approach the complex, I see that there's been a flood. Most of the parking lot is covered in water. But as I look more closely, I realize that the pool in front of me isn't very deep: there's still a road under it. So I splash across.

Black Dragon

A girl my age is playing some kind of Minecraft/Skyrim/Portal hybrid. She's opened some portals to travel away from the base of operations to the island where the black dragon sleeps. At first, they're not sure if the beast is there or not, but gradually they realize that they can hear it breathing on the other side of a long, low ridge. They try to carry out their job quietly.

Suddenly the dragon wakes up! The girl dashes back through the portal, knowing that the dragon will be intent on killing her. She goes through a second portal, then pauses to catch her breath in a hillside cave miles away from where she started. She's hidden from view, so it's all but impossible that the dragon will find her here. And yet, with a roar, it soon thrusts its head through the entrance to the cave. It knew exactly where she was. They must be bonded somehow in a way she did not understand. Wasting no time, she runs farther back into the cave, considering taking out her pickaxe to dig even deeper. The dragon will soon reach her, so she decides to go into a dungeon--right into the middle of a battle. Other explorers like her are fighting against a band of skeletons. A couple of the skeletons come at her with swords, and she fights them off. It's dangerous in here, but less dangerous than trying to fight a dragon on your own.