"In the strange limbo of the early pandemic, when time blurred and uncertainty reigned, I found solace in an unlikely place: a digital world filled with strange creatures, pixel deserts, and the occasional loyal and silent companion."
— André Almo
The 2020 pandemic was a dreadful time. News were always depressing and terrifying, and work-life boundaries dissolved into a blur. The glow of the screens curiously became both a comfort and a torment.
Right at the start, though, we had a few weeks of what I like to call ‘pandemic limbo’. No one knew how long COVID would be around for. Should we hit pause or just switch to remote working as soon as possible? Things were hazy. Everyone was confused.
During these ‘limbo days’, putting off work (or taking it really slow) was acceptable. So I took the opportunity to include some gaming in my daily routine.
Finding friends to play with wasn’t a hard mission, as many people were going through the same limbo as me. We had several sessions of manipulation, lies, betrayal and digital murder thanks to Among Us. To balance things out and keep us from hating each other, we needed another, more cooperative game.
That game was Terraria.
Terraria is an action-adventure sandbox game where you have to craft, build, and survive. It has a unique procedurally-generated world open for exploration, and Terraria invites its players to roam the earth after resources and battling quirky creatures. This alternate digital realm became our unlikely refuge — a world just as chaotic and stressful as the one we were trying to escape from, but somehow more bearable.
For a while, our group would meet to explore almost every evening. We gathered resources, geared up, and defeated creatures here and there. Soon, we were slaying big monsters and building even bigger structures. This warranted a search for rarer items, ores and materials that we needed to use. Our adventures got more dangerous, and our journeys, longer. Discord was our HQ, where we were always on voice calls, communicating, planning and attempting to be the most efficient we could.
One of our friends — I will call him by his online name, ‘Ollorb’ — was an avid and talkative explorer. He would always join incursions into caves, long walks through forests, and perilous hikes climbing steep mountains. He excelled at guiding the group and pointing out the best items to collect and the biggest dangers to avoid. All his adventurous attitude, however, was overshadowed by one little problem: his mic.
Many times, as soon as Ollorb started speaking, unintelligible, ominous sounds would drown out his voice, creating a cacophony that forced us to mute him or Ollorb to mute himself. Paradoxically, the sound seemed like a futuristic robot was trying to communicate with us through an ancient computer it had found underwater. Please listen to this beautiful artistic rendition below.
He would then promptly proceed to somehow fix the microphone, and announce that on the text chat; soon, everyone could hear him again. This cycle was repeated ad infinitum on virtually every call.
During one of our sessions, I was gearing up in our base, getting ready for a long expedition. I would need to travel through deserts and forests, climb mountains and crawl deep into caves to find resources for a new construction the team was working on. As I was leaving, I let the rest of the group know; none requested to join me, too busy with their own tasks.
Running after me was Ollorb, who then stopped abruptly as soon as he reached me. This was, for me, a sign that I would have at least one companion.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
Ollorb didn’t say anything in the voice chat. I didn’t want to open Discord to check the text chats as well, so I quickly assumed that he had muted himself because he couldn’t fix the problematic mic; a reoccurring issue. I said that I would go forward, and he jumped. I somehow understood that it was a sign that he would be following me in that journey.
We started our epic adventure. Time flied as we took long walks, hiked through difficult and dangerous terrain, battled against all kinds of creatures, and even established a few extra bases along the way, so we could rest and replenish supplies.
All this time, Ollorb was my quiet and loyal squire, aiding me through any difficulty. Although not a single word was spoken through the voice chat, I could understand him perfectly through his actions, jumps and creative signals. We created a language all our own, a testament to the power of silent cooperation.
In the middle of the night, when we were almost back to the base, another friend addressed me in the voice chat.
“Hey, André, why are you ignoring Ollorb?”
“What?” I asked. I didn’t get it. “I’ve been exploring alongside him all this time.”
“Well, yeah, but he just said you’ve been ignoring everything he’s been saying for almost four hours.”
His mic had been working just fine from the previous day, but I had kept him muted. I couldn’t even imagine that Ollorb would, someday, manage to fix his mic.
So in the end, he was talking the entire time…
— The not-so-quiet ghost who murmurs through the night,
almoghost.exe (or André Almo if you’re feeling serious) 👻
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Sometimes swords and shields speak louder than words…