Random Encounters

While driving home from work the other night, I happened across a number of deer. Deer crossing the roads isn’t exactly an uncommon sight in my neck of the woods, in fact if you see one deer on the road it’s more than likely that others are near-by, but this particular night it was the distance between them that caught my attention.

I cross two county lines during my hour long commute across sparsely used highways and while seeing a whole herd of deer crossing isn’t surprising, three different deer crossings miles apart was noticeable.

With lives, and more importantly my car, at stake I slowed down each time, because as I said, where you see one there is a good chance there are others you don’t see. By the third time this happened, I was struck by an oddly familiar sensation.

Maybe it was because I recently started a new game of Golden Sun in celebration of the announcement of the long awaited third installment of the series, but I could almost hear battle music playing as I again went through the motions of breaking and examining the fields to either side in search of potential threats.

Like virtually every enemy in every RPG ever made, these deer broke up the tedium of an otherwise eventless drive between Point A and Point B. But with such excessive numbers the solution to one problem becomes another problem and you just wish they’d stop bothering you.

Especially since the deer usually run away before combat even begins, denying you even the chance to defeat them and loot their bodies of gold and items.