Operation Heathrow

Chapter 10: Sorting Hallucinations Out

I know it's dangerous to self-diagnose, but because I might not be able to get a therapy appointment for weeks, I need to get more sleep until the end of this week off, an exhausted Karine falls on her bed, but somehow not visited by her characters that night, who are just as exhausted as she is. Then again, I called my characters hallucinations at times. Is it because I'm playing this game too much lately, as I always seem to do early in tiers' life cycles?

The following day, after sleeping much more than in the previous days, she starts reading about potential causes of hallucinations. But since she doesn't take alcohol, drugs or medication, she can rule these out. However, she doesn't feel like she suffers from some neurodegenerative disease since she doesn't feel like her intelligence has been affected.

"I guess, that's as far as I can go in an attempt to determine whether I was hallucinating lately" a well-rested Karine sighs, feeling powerless over what she feels are hallucinations.

Speaking of hallucinations, both of her characters appear to her under the form of astral projections. Which makes her start streaming, hoping that maybe some viewer would help her determine whether these are hallucinations.

"Welcome to this new post-RWF stream, brought to you by Monseigneur Tanking. Today, we'll have both characters I played during the race to world first" Karine opens her stream while she has yet to log into the game.

"Have you realized yet that we're real people, but in a different world?" Clavet asks Karine, visibly annoyed.

"Yeah, we have killed Belzebuth, and infernal forces have left Gatwick too..." Monseigneur comments.

Viewers from around the world gasp in horror at Clavet's statement regarding her claims about MAA players controlling residents of another world. As Karine logs into the game but has yet to choose a character:

"Karine, no! Don't pick me!" Clavet pleads with her player.

"Me neither!" Monseigneur begs Karine not to log in on her.

"What you must realize is that what people in your world call dungeons or raids are actually inhabited by ghosts, with all the mannerisms and strength they had when they lived!" Clavet adds before Monseigneur whines.

"But these ghosts look so real to us!" Monseigneur retorts, before Karine logs on Clavet.

"Something doesn't add up. Your world's ghosts might hoard treasure, but where does the loot come from?" Karine asks her characters before choosing on whom to log in.

To that, even Clavet draws a blank, oblivious to the fact that both Monseigneur and herself are being watched.

Upon Karine logging in on Clavet, the latter's astral projection disappears as Clavet's angelic beacon is activated. Damn it! What's happening to me? Clavet questions herself, quietly, as she loses control over her mind while, on Karine's computer, the loading screen is active.

She realizes the alcohol witch is not at her player home, but rather at some hangar southeast of runway 9L/27R at Heathrow. And with some more Perserian rebels in tow.

"What's going on here? Hangars on either side of Heathrow's runways are supposed to be off-limits to players! On top of that, my character is not where I left her off!" Karine screams upon seeing Clavet in one of Heathrow's eastern hangars.

Often hallucinations seem to lack coherence; here it seems like my characters are much smarter than I would have expected out of mere hallucinations, Karine muses, while she seems to open up to the idea that maybe she didn't hallucinate after all. Thank God intellect isn't a stat of the game. Sure, Clavet makes me feel like she's a genius by her world's standards, but in other games where intellect is a stat, it seems like characters don't actually act smarter as you go through their stories, or at least not at the pace gearing and leveling would imply.