Thursday 16 November 2000

Pic of the day: Temple in the night. Screenshot from Daggerfall.

Return to Daggerfall

It is the dead of night, closer to daybreak than midnight, when I arrive. I can see the building complex vaguely in front of me, its blue walls a dull gray in the night. Only starligh, but my eyes are accustomed to the dark now. I fight the urge to look behind me, to break into a run. I am no creature of the dark - and I am tired. Even a rat or a bat would spook me now; and there may be worse things out there - thieves, assassins, perhaps even a werewolf. I silently hope they won't be right here, right now. Only around the corner now, and the door should be on the right hand side. Almost there! And suddenly a weird sound reaches me from somewhere behind me ... like the fluting of a wading bird, melancholic and yet alarming. I dive into the temple, heart pounding. That sound ...

That sound, what was that? I look up from the computer monitor. The part of the room where I sit is in shadow, I have not yet turned on the lamp, even though it is hours after dark. Dark comes early in Norway now, even here on the south coast. A growing part of me realizes that yes, I am in Norway, not in the Alik'r Desert. And that the unfamiliar sound may come from somewhere outside my headphones. I get up and look in the general direction. My heart is still beating a bit faster than usual. Night in Daggerfall has that effect on me. Despite its somewhat rough graphics, the game has a certain realism that makes it all too easy to believe you're really there.

Ah yes. I fish my pocket PC out of the jacket. It displays an alarm, reminding me that the Infinity concert is in ten minutes. I really wanted to be there, you know. I'm quite a fan. But not enough to hang out in town until 9 in the night when I was horribly sleepy (I slept in my chair before playing Daggerfall) and besides, it's raining cats and dogs and the concert was supposed to be in the Wergeland Park. So, no thanks. I click "dismiss" and the screen cheerfully return to the latest read page of Edgar Rice Burrough's Eternal Savage, detailing the life of Nu of the Niocene.

***

One of the nice side effects of not being a responsible adult, parent type person: I can retreat when reality becomes too cold and cruel. Retreat into a good book, or a computer game. Daggerfall in particular is such a place where I take a vacation from myself sometimes. Instead I put on the persona of some adventurer: In this case an armored cleric, wearing elven plate protectinge the vitals and steel over the limbs, and wielding a daedric mace. My armored clerics are slow learners, spending a lot of time as a low level character fighting giant rats and the occasional skeleton.

Responsible adults spend the time watching TV instead, which simply does not give the same satisfaction as beating a skeleton about the head with a golden mace until it collapses in a heap of bones.

I've played a bit each evening this week. Now my right hand is starting to hurt, so I have to ease up a bit. I guess my mouse hand is somewhat out of shape. I used to play Daggerfall several times a week for years, but now I'm only playing it occasionally. Being the overly nice guy that I am, I don't have it in my heart to set my Sims on fire or drown them in the pool. But the giant rats of Daggerfall get to feel my righteous wrath!

***

In utterly unrelated news, of course, the results of the local (province level) salary adjustments are in. Seems that nearly half the office got some kind of result. Some got more money, others just a finer title; but that's supposed to give them more money in the future, as there is some kind of ceiling on each title. I think that's how it works, at least. I'm not into that kind of thing. I never participate in the local negotiations. I'm not a union member, and I feel that they have no part in a modern society. If I don't get enough money, I'll just work somewhere else. If I can't get a better job, I don't deserve more money. It is that easy.

I wonder if those who are unionized but didn't get any more money, if they sleep well this night. My personal impression is that money and friendship get along about as well as wolves and sheep. Or skeletons and armored clerics ...

Then again, I have on good authority that the lust for money is a root of all evil. We brought nothing into this world, and we'll get nothing with us where we go.