Dreams.

I dreamed last night about being immersed in a game that I would probably enjoy playing in real life. Almost all the events of the dream took place in that game, with rare deviations from it. The game had two modes: one from a third-person perspective (where the character appeared small against a large map, similar to Diablo, Baldur's Gate, King's Bounty, etc.), which was not very interesting and was used very rarely, while the second mode implied complete immersion in the game, as if all actions were happening with the player (I don't remember any helmets or wires, just either one mode or the other, with a constant awareness that it was a game, not reality). Another feature of the game was that you could only play as a boy (or maybe everyone chose boys because of a useful game feature that I will mention later). Apparently, the genre was horror or some kind of mystery, because the action mainly took place in gloomy catacombs with monsters that seemed to be copied from Diablo (well, the graphics weren't as bad as in the old game, everything seemed very realistic and creepy). In both modes, the battles took place differently: from the third-person perspective, I saw a couple of beautiful combat scenes, as if the characters knew a lot of martial arts, while in the realistic version, everything was clumsy, difficult, and with greater HP loss, no one was jumping around, they just barely defended themselves and preferred to run away. Although there were very few battles, mostly just exploration and travel with frightening effects. The game started with some kind of gathering of people in a large building (I experienced all this in "full immersion" mode), and it seemed that you could play online, because my husband was participating (I don't know what the other characters looked like, I was a cute blonde with a bob haircut). I also remember at least a couple of ХВ players, Ment and Sivy were running around, and someone else, but I don't know who. When the player gets bored, they leave and start exploring the game. So, my husband and I didn't stay in the starting location for long and went further. Downstairs, we were met by an unpleasant, hunched old man in a robe, whose appearance made it clear that he wanted to sacrifice us to Satan. He told us a short story about some terrible events that had happened in a school, a couple of houses away from us, and even promised to take us there if we wanted. My husband became very interested in this story and decided that we should go and see what interesting things had happened there (well, it's a game, so his actions were logical), while I, for some reason, hesitated and tried to refuse, slowly following him and dissuading him from visiting the school. All that remained was to cross the road, and we were already near the location. I hesitated and missed the traffic light, but my husband and the old man ignored it and went on. While I was standing and waiting, they both disappeared behind the school door, which made me even more nervous (I'll say right away, I have no idea if this game had a mode in the spirit of "die in the game - die in reality," this question was not raised at all, because I don't remember any fatal outcomes). I remember that at the moment of waiting for the traffic light, I gave up and briefly disconnected from the computer to run to the door from the third-person perspective, spit, and then re-engage in immersion. From the outside, the building looked quite ordinary (I can't call it neat, but our local schools don't look perfect either, and some of them are quite creepy), while inside it was a complete mess. Dirt, stench, a lot of scattered garbage, in general, a slum (however, according to the description, it was just a normal average school). I started running around and calling for Lesha to join me, but it didn't work. First, I tried to stay in places that were illuminated by windows (because I could forget about other sources of light), so after running a little, I returned to the street. There, the old man met me, asked why I was hanging around and not inside, and then explained that Lesha was on the lower level and that I should go there too, otherwise I would miss all the fun. He also added that I should not forget to leave "marks" along the way on the map so as not to get lost (at that time, it was not clear what kind of marks were meant and how to leave them). Again, I didn't like his words, but I had to listen to his advice and go further until I found a staircase leading down. And so, I was in the dark catacombs, where everything around was illuminated by torches (you could probably pick them up if you wanted, but I didn't touch them and just kept going). From everywhere, I heard various rustling sounds, creaks, sometimes squeaks, and rats were squeaking. At first, all this seemed creepy, but then I remembered that this was normal for the game, so I went on. At some point, I got bored, I switched to the third-person mode, distracted Lesha from the immersion, and started asking him where he was. My husband calmly said that I should open the map (it is better to see and explore it in the third-person mode) and look for his marks. And that he was not far from "number n" (I don't remember it, but each subsequent mark had a certain number. In the dream, there were about 20-21 of them). I also looked at his game and saw him fighting a skeleton with a sword, and he was actually too busy to pay attention to me. And so, I re-immersed myself and started following the mark. We met Lesha, and while I was in simple and boring clothes without anything useful, he had already found a sword, some light armor, and generally looked good. I started asking what kind of marks they were and how to put them, I didn't understand anything. In short, I was a complete noob, which annoyed him. He explained that in order to put a mark, the character needs to urinate in a certain place, then a mark or stain with a certain serial number will appear on the map and at the point where it all goes. I was slightly taken aback by this feature, but I quickly adapted and learned to navigate the map. True, until I woke up, I just kept running around with bare hands, exploring the map, and looking at monsters (I didn't encounter many of them, because, hearing unpleasant noises, I avoided their source). Occasionally, I also switched to the third-person mode and discussed the game with my husband and chatted a couple of times with the ХВ players. It's a pity that I didn't kill anyone with a sword myself, and Lesha often chose to run away from high-level monsters. But overall, it all looked pretty good.