Chapter Text
4:03 AM
4:03 AM
4:04 AM
The soft PC glow washed over Dream’s exhausted face. His green eyes lingered on the rectangular alarm clock flashing by the monitor, watching minutes fly by as the red letters blinked angrily at him. Mundane clicks echoed from his mouse as he pushed forward, unbothered by his twitch chat flying by. The words of his commenters blurred to the left of the screen, yet he focused his tired attention on the mission at hand.
Stream Title: Mysteries of Kinoko Kingdom.
It was some sort of fantasy game he found a while back when scrolling through Steam. The reviews were good and people generally seemed to enjoy it. Graphic-wise, the content was astounding: when Dream first loaded it up onto his computer, the scenery itself blew him away.
The UI looked so real it was unbelievable.
He went blindly in with a play through, the hook of the story capturing his attention causing him to spend hours upon hours advancing through quests and missions. His entire conscious was pulled into the mesmerizing screen.
He fought sirens and dragons, traveled on pirate ships and pegasi, fell in love with mermaids and nature spirits. Hours were spent harvesting materials to craft phenomenal weapons, bosses were defeated to level up experience points and skills.
The creativity of this fantasy game was endless, almost feeling like it were a world of its own fabrication, made by the magic it held instead of endless strings of code.
Out of everything it had to offer though, there was one small character Dream loved to play as.
He called it George.
From hundreds of magical creatures and fey archetypes the game let you choose from, the dirty blond gamer picked the overlooked, scrawny human.
A pop up description spread across his screen when hovering the mouse over each character, and “George’s” outline read the following: “A human adventurer from the Kingdom of Kinoko. He stands at a whopping height of 5’5, his skinny form gives a boost when rolling for agility, and as a fun cosmetic feature, this human possesses a heterochromia coloration to the eyes. A major disadvantage this character offers is a colorblind condition- when playing from his point of view, the graphics display how one would view the world with red-green deficiency. His favorite color is blue, his favorite animal- cats, and his prized game items are various mushrooms that can be found all throughout the game.”
Dream could see why this short, brunet human was passed up for other better, and stronger characters. Along with his gameplay differences, “George” only specialized in three weapon types- those being bow and arrow, small daggers, and a very short assortment of magic staffs that required attuning in specific pathways through a level up in skills. He didn’t possess nigh vision like most non-human species, or any special powers linked to abilities or traits. He was unable to fly, and couldn’t breathe underwater without brewing a potion first. There were no chances of channeling mind strength to obtain telekinetic properties, or pyrokinesis capabilities. He was simply the raw definition of humankind in a big, magical fantasy world.
And Dream absolutely loved him.
As the early A.M. stream continued slowly, the dirty blond groggily tapped the neon arrows of his keyboard, making “George” move around the mystical forest they were passing through in order to reach their main quest. It was currently dark in the game, little fireflies zoomed in and out of the screen’s view. A frog burped in the background as a symphony of crickets lulled him to sleep.
Dream could tell that “George” was also tired, seeing as characters had to rest in order to restore their health bar and stamina. “Sleeping” helped complete tasks at a faster rate, and affected the tiniest of in-game experiences such as weapon accuracy. You couldn’t defeat a big boss if your screen was disoriented and hazy.
Carefully, Dream directed “George” to sit down in a patch of yellow grass, clicking a button on the side screen reading “REST” in big blue letters.
“Well chat, I think it’s time to end stream,” he says softly, a long yawn echoing into his microphone. The hastened replies of his fans rolled endlessly, and Dream smiled to himself as he read their responses.
“Say goodnight to George now,” he mumbled.
Chat ramped up excitedly, quickly responding to their streamer’s request.
Night George!
Rest well!
Can’t wait to see you again!
❤️ ❤️
Night
Sleep well!
Dre, say gn to Gogy as well
The dirty blond chuckled as he carefully read through the messages, letting out a light sigh while fighting sleep.
“Goodnight George,” he whispers.
Dream saves his progress before exiting the silly fantasy game and promptly ending stream. He leans back in his comfy gamer chair and tiredly smiles to himself once more.