My dream starts with normally logging in to ESO, selecting my character, and arriving in Reaper's March. I collect my hireling mails and a few sales that came in the previous day, then check the endeavors. They're the usual fare; a crafting one, a sell-item-to-merchants one, a complete quests one, a specific speed-run, no-death trial, you know the sort. But the last one was, 'Get permanently banned with a guildmate.' Now, my waking self would have guffawed at such an endeavor, but my dreaming self instantly and inexplicably thinks, "That's easy! Crafting, questing, banning; be done in less than five minutes."
I subsequently group up with eleven of my guildmates for our weekly normal trial we had previously planned (that was unfortunately not the same as was requested in the endeavor list). However, nobody else is ready to start yet, understandably wanting to do their daily writs and inventory tasks first. So, ten minutes later, we are all zoning to Craglorn in somewhat eager anticipation of a pleasant evening together.
None of us make it though; each of us are simultaneously kicked from the server, and even the login screen. Each of our desktop and taskbar shortcuts for ESO are gone...and, to our mutual horror, so is the game itself: completely vanished from our hard drives. Amidst the cries of outrage, the Discord connection starts to crackle, soon booting me from all communication with my guildmates, and also mysteriously erasing itself from my PC.
Panicking now, I try to login to the forums and my account, but am met with a red-lettered warning message reading, 'You don't have permission to enter this site.' I am catapulted back to the default page of my browser with favorited bookmarks for anything ESO-related missing. In feverish desperation, I check my email and discover a correspondence from ZoS with the subject line 'CHEATER and EXPLOITER' claiming I have willfully and maliciously earned 110 seals of endeavor I was not entitled to, and that the information from this heinous event will be sold to every third party entity at once in order to protect the pecuniary interests of their business partners, whether affiliated or non-affiliated, as per the Terms of Use and Code of Conduct.
Next thing I know, I am standing in a long line of disgruntled people, in a warehouse the size of that one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, stretching for miles in each direction with no visible walls. I clutch a filled-out form in my hand, with the title, 'Generic Application to Rejoin MMO Community'.
I ask the furious person in front of me, "Where are we?"
They snap, "The Unenjoyment Office, of course."
This is instantly refuted by the despondent individual behind me, "Technically, it's the Disenfranchised Gamer Restoration Office... ...but if you're here, your record is permanently scarred by your conduct, whether intentional or not, and no one returns to the glory of cooperative or competitive companionship again. Rehabilitation is a lie."
Suddenly, there is a flurry of activity to my right, as a wild-eyed miscreant aggressively snatches several forms out of unsuspecting hands, tearing them to shreds, scattering the remains and stomping on any that fall close. "Pwned!!" they shout as they sprint away into the miasma of pale grey fog. To my further surprise, no one tries to chase them, or even complain; they just shrug their shoulders and shuffle their way to a distant counter where stacks of similar forms, piled toweringly high, are placed.
During my interminable crawling pace, I pass several signboards posted atop the spiked. metal barriers guiding the stagnant, serpentine stream of discontented people. Several flash a queue time remaining of 2:32:41, counting slowly down then resetting higher at irregular intervals, and one in particular even promises refreshments at a Colovian Brandy stand. When I finally arrive at this beverage station, the liquid's pentagonal container curiously has a rudimentary painting on its side of a Guar. Lengthy observation is unnecessary to realize that anyone with a cup in their hand looks visibly ill, some even emptying their stomach contents as quickly as they can possibly manage. Yet they keep drinking it, some even cracking smiles as they do so.
I do eventually reach the end of the line, finding a single employee of the establishment leaning its ample tummy against a blood-red velvet-upholstered table with ornately-carved marble legs. I timidly look into the face of one-who-must-not-be-named, its head mounted atop a six-foot-tall Banekin's body. It glares at me, seething with resentment at my tiresome presence before snatching my form and tossing it in a blue-flame brazier. As the paper smolders into brownish-black cinders, the creature smirks and contemptuously snarls, "You know you don't have to be here, right?"
I awoke with a start, a little freaked out of course.
What, in the name of Akatosh, can it mean?