InVale of Gems, you have limited energy and pass out at 2:00AM.
Knowing my luck, I’ll run out of energy well before I can break through the mess. At this point, I’m desperate enough to accept passing out in Samson’s giant tattooed arms, but early-game tools will not be on my side where it concerns reaching him at all.
There are other paths to his farm, but he’s surrounded by forage land. At the beginning of the game, devastation similar to this wreckage overruns all the forage land, and this muck looks far more treacherous than it did on my computer screen. Not to mention, it’s so much harder to navigate my mental map without top-down privileges, or a functioning M hotkey that brings up my location in the world.
I’m not exactly seeing a way to open my menu. Even when I thinkreally, reallyhard about it.
Gasping, I remember I’m wearing a backpack! If it functions like the one in-game, I just need to convince my brain to let me pull diamond tools out of it. With them, reaching Samson’s farm will be no problem. They eat far less stamina than the starter equipment no doubt in the rat-infested territory. Swinging my pack off my shoulders, I flick back the leather flap and discover a gaping void.
The darkness swirls, leeching into my very soul.
Bode well, this does not…
Clearing my throat, I mumble, “Is there, perhaps, an inventory menu in here?” Hesitant, I slip my fingers into the cool dark, find a solid object, and pull it out.
As far as I can tell, it’s the journal that composes the game’s menus. Which means…
I flip open the glossy pages to an assortment of empty slots, ten in total, surrounded by other useful details—like the date: Sunday, 1stof Spring, 10:35AM; and my poverty: 0 coins.
Wow.
It’s just like real life.
Fantastic.
My inventory is empty, and I have nothing to my name, save this book, my bag, and what I’m wearing. Anxiety, too, I realize as it builds in my stomach, rioting to remind me I’m never alone. Kind of it, truly.
Wishing I could waterboard it, I flip to therelationshippage and find Lazul listed with a stupid heart outline beside his name, indicating that the jerk can be romanced. Because ofcoursehe can when Samson can’t.
Life is too cruel.
Adding insult to injury, one of Lazul’s marriage requirements is a fully upgraded farmhouse, because he moves out here with you—for some reason—and chafes at poverty.
Save for the fact his picture is a lifelike rendition, instead of the pixelated portrait, everything else on his profile aligns with the game UI I know: Our relationship status—designated with ten empty hearts; his biography—the benevolent lord of Gem Ridge, who seeks to do well by all in his fold; liked gifts—empty; disliked gifts—empty.
Flipping forward, I discover a list of question marks accompanied by dark character outlines.
My heart stops upon the obvious visage of my husband.
“Hello, darling,” I croon at the shadow.
To put things simply, Samson is a man who has shoulders befitting a silhouette, and I would know his big, broad, beautiful muscles anywhere.
Just like I would know the absence of a heart outline by his name anywhere.
I don’t know how I manage it inside a dream, but I glare at the spot where a heart outline should be and fruitlessly will it to appear until a tension headache crawls up my neck.
It is a miraculously real-feeling headache if ever I have felt one, and the beat of the sun crawling toward noonday does not help. Technically, people aren’t supposed to be able to read in their dreams, which I have just disproven, but I’ve never heard whether or not people are supposed to be able to get headaches in them.
Maybe it’s the body’s natural defense against reading in a dream.
I broke the unspoken rule. Now I must ache.
When, however, I find myself on thequestspage, reading:Prepare farmhouse for the night, a niggling awareness takes hold of me.
The quietestWhat if thisisn’ta dream?settles in the back of my mind.
I’m delusional, of course.
