by A. J. Markam
“No.”
“Well, good. I’d hate to get a call from them in 30 minutes saying somebody registered a complaint about a gusher.”
“Well, it won’t come from me.”
“See? You managed to get ‘come’ in there, even if it wasn’t sexual. Good job.”
“Totally unintended.”
“Yeah, I gathered.” She leaned back in her seat. “So – what’re you doing now? A threesome? An orgy? An orc-chick gang bang?”
I really, really didn’t want to admit to just having come from a threesome.
Especially one that had been as meaningful as what I’d just shared with Alaria and Eluun.
So I deflected.
“Are you sure you’re playing the adult expansion pack enough?” I asked. “Or maybe too much?”
She laughed. “Okay, fine, dodge the question – although I’m guessing from your evasion that you were just having sex of some sort.”
“I’m taking the Fifth.”
“That’s a ‘yes.’”
“You know, we could talk about something other than sex.”
“Like what? Intrigue me,” she said.
“Uh… well…”
I groped for something to say.
Actually, maybe ‘groped’ was the wrong word to use there.
“Waiting,” she said good-humoredly.
“Actually, in my most recent quest, there’s a villain – probably one of Alaria’s ex-masters.” I realized she probably had no idea what I’m talking about. “See, we’re on this quest – ”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“There are many, many dweebs in the art department,” she deadpanned. “I know things about Alaria even you probably don’t. Actually, I take that back – all I hear about is her cup size, and I’m sure you know that one, so proceed.”
I actually didn’t officially know her cup size, but I wasn’t about to derail the conversation into sex talk again, so I continued.
“She has a psychopathic ex-master who’s slaughtering towns we’ve been to and leaving behind riddles.”
“Ooooh, dark… what kind of riddles? ‘There once was a man from Nantucket’? Because that’s a limerick.”
“Thank you,” I said sarcastically. “No, the first one was, ‘He who is coming after me is mightier than I.’”
“See, even the bad guy uses ‘come’ more than you do.”
“Very funny.”
“I try. What’s the second riddle?”
“‘I am a voice crying in the wilderness.’”
“Ohhhhh,” she said, as though she recognized it. “John the Baptist.”
“What?”
“John the Baptist – you know, the Bible? Cousin of Jesus? Baptized people in a river? Both are quotes from him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ohhhh yeah. My grandmother dragged me to her hellfire and brimstone church every Sunday as a kid. I know all the stories.”
“You must have loved those protestors, then,” I said, referring to the people who had picketed Westek for months over the adult expansion pack.
She glared at me. “Don’t get me started.”
“Why would the game be using John the Baptist quotes?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Although…”
“‘Although’ what?”
“I think your city-destroying psychopath is implying that the guy next in line after him is even worse. In the Bible, John was talking about Jesus. So, y’know – better, in that particular case. Here, I’m assuming your psycho’s talking about the ninth ex-master being a real bastard.”
“…shit…”
I must have had a shell-shocked expression on my face, because she said, “Penny for your thoughts. Or a nickel with inflation.”
“I just… I’m facing down a warlock with a fleet of airships who can kill 50 demon pirates on a whim, and destroy entire cities and murder all their inhabitants… and the ninth ex-master is supposed to be worse than him?”
“Mm,” she said, nodding. “Sucks to be you.”
“Yeah.”
“Although you get sucked off a lot, so it really doesn’t suck to be you, does it?”
“Back to that, are we?” I asked with a grin.
“Alright, alright. Are there any more riddles?”
“Yeah… the only other one was ‘One in nine, number eight… forged in shadow, cast in hate.’ I think it’s a reference to him being the eighth ex-master, but I don’t know what the rest of it means.”
“Could just be window-dressing to sound cool.”
“That’s kind of what I thought.”
“But it sorta sounds like that Jim Morrison song.”
“What?”
“Jim Morrison? The Doors?”
“Yeah, I know who Jim Morrison is,” I said acerbically. “What song are you talking about?”
“It starts out with something like ‘one in five,’ but the memorable line is ‘no one here gets out alive.’”
“…great,” I muttered.
“Why’s he doing it, though?” she asked.
“What do you mean? The riddles?”
“Yeah – why do it in the first place? Is it just to make him seem like the Riddler in Batman or something?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. I mean, we already know he’s one of her ex-masters. The ‘one in nine, number eight’ thing just confirms it. Although…”
“‘Although’ what?”
“The game’s concealing his name. Normally you see all her ex-masters’ names on a list, but number eight and nine are blanked out.”
“Huh… so you have to guess their names, then.”
“Yeah, but why?” I suddenly had a thought. “Maybe he’s like Rumpelstiltskin or something, and if you guess his name, you beat him.”
“Or Mister Mxyzptlk, and you have to say his name backwards.”
She said Superman’s goofiest villain’s name exactly right: Miks-yez-pittle-ik.
“You know Mister Mxyzptlk?” I asked, surprised.
She gave me another Give me a fuckin’ break look. “I’m an art geek who works at a video game company. Of course I know who Mr. Mxyzptlk is.”
“Touché.”
“Naughty naughty,” she said with a playful waggle of her finger.
“We’ll keep it in the game,” I joked. “By the way, what’s your name?”
“Luna.”
“Like ‘Harry Potter’ Luna?” I asked with a bit of disbelief.
She rolled her eyes. “My mother… Jesus. At least she didn’t name me Hermione. I can thank her for that much, at least.”
“Luna and Hermione are cool, at least.”
“Yeah. Thank God I wasn’t a boy, or I’d be Harry or Ron.”
“Or Severus or Albus.”
“Well, at least those names would be cool.”
“You know, I’ve been hanging out with a character named Eluun.”
She looked at me like, And?
“Eluun, Luna – both based on the Latin name for the moon – ”
“Wow,” she said in a deadpan voice, “that’s amazing.”
“Okay, smartass,” I said with a grin.
“And are you really hanging out? Or… ‘hanging out’?” she asked as she pumped one arm obscenely in the air.
“Uhhhh… I’m gonna take the Fifth again.”
“You taking the Fifth is better than a lie detector test – you know that, right?”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So, are you going to think of me next time you’re banging Eluun? Excuse me, ‘hanging out.’”
Well, shit – NOW I am.
“Or do you want to take the Fifth again?” she asked mischievously.
“Why don’t we get back to your name?”
“Oh, let’s,” she said drily. “Did you have another Harry Potter joke to make that you didn’t get around to?”
“Not Harry Potter, just pop culture. Considering your Mom likes character na
mes from books, it’s lucky she didn’t name you when Game of Thrones was popular.”
“Oh my god – do you know that ‘Khaleesi’ and ‘Daenerys’ were really popular girls’ names for a couple of years? Their mothers got a very unpleasant surprise when the last couple of episodes aired.”
“Yeah… naming your kid after a kickass woman and then finding out she’s a mass murderer has got to suck.”
“Yes, but not as much as those final episodes. They sucked harder than… well, your succubus, probably,” she said with an impish grin. Then she went serious. “But in a bad way. Since I’m sure your succubus’s sucking is delightful.”
“Delightful,” I agreed with a deadpan expression.
“‘Succubus’s sucking…’ now there’s a tongue twister. Try saying that five times fast. Succubus’s sucking… succubus’s sucking…”
It was really weird hearing oral sex jokes about Alaria from a girl I wouldn’t have minded sleeping with.
‘Wouldn’t have minded’ –
Who am I kidding? Before I met Alaria, I would have given my left nut to sleep with this chick.
It was nice being a lot more chill in real life around attractive women. When you’ve got a fantastic thing going in the digital world, you tend not to freak out as much in the real one.
“Well, you ready to go?” Luna asked.
For a second I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
I almost thought she was propositioning me, after all that ‘succubus’s sucking’ talk.
“Uh… what?” I asked.
She pointed at my empty plate. “You’re finished, so I just assumed you needed to get back to work.”
“Oh… yeah, I guess I should get back.”
“Yeah, the corporate overlords want me chained to my desk, too.”
We got up. Standing, she was much shorter than me – over a foot shorter.
She was really, really cute, too. Thin… tiny waist… tight jeans…
I forced myself to stop looking at her, mostly in case I was gawking.
As we walked out of the cafeteria, I yawned. “Actually, maybe I’ll go home and take a nap. I haven’t been back to my apartment in, like, a week.”
“Is that an invitation?” she asked in a deadpan voice.
I looked at her in shock. “Uhhhh…”
“Kidding,” she said, then glanced around and whispered loudly, “HR’s watching.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced she had been kidding, though.
“I guess never seeing your apartment is one of the downsides of living in a long-term immersion pod, huh,” she commented.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you just, like, live out of a suitcase and stay in a hotel when you log out? It’d be cheaper than paying rent, right? Especially when you’re probably only home four or five nights out of the month.”
“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have anywhere to take my hot dates,” I joked.
“Yeah, cause nobody ever has sex in a hotel,” she deadpanned.
I laughed at my own stupidity. “Yeah. Nobody.”
“You don’t take any hot dates back to your place… do you, Ian,” she said, like, We need to have a serious talk.
I laughed again. “No, I don’t.”
“You don’t even have any hot dates, do you.”
“Ow,” I said with a grin.
She shrugged. “Why would you, when you can bang the hottest women in the world inside the game?”
I just looked at her, not sure what to say.
“No judgment,” she said, lifting up both of her hands. “I certainly do my fair share of sleeping around as Eldalasia.”
“Eldalasia… is that your tag?”
“Now you know,” she said with a slightly naughty look.
I was getting turned on again.
We stood there facing each other in the hallway.
The silence was a little bit awkward…
…but mostly it was the sexual tension between us.
I had the powerful urge to lean forward and kiss her – and had to restrain myself.
“Well,” she finally said, “if you find any more interesting riddles and want to hash them out, I’ll be in the art department. Or, y’know… if you just want to hear some more wildly inappropriate workplace talk.”
“Okay,” I said with a grin. “Try to keep out of HR’s crosshairs until I see you again, though. Maybe go easy on the orc dong.”
She pointed one finger at me like a gun and made a chk sound with the corner of her mouth. “Keep it in the game.”
“Keep it in the game,” I agreed with a laugh. “See you.”
“Bye.”
As I walked away, I wondered if I should look over my shoulder –
Fuck it, why not.
I glanced back at her.
She was looking back at me over her shoulder, too.
She gave me an enigmatic smile, then disappeared around a corner.
I went back to the long-term immersion lab with a spring in my step.
Rather than go back into suspended animation, I used the screen and keyboard built into the side of the pod to check my avatar’s stats and surrounding environment. It was a nice way for players to monitor their characters without having to go through the whole log-in process.
Alaria and Eluun were still sleeping peacefully on the furs.
But it was weird seeing them on a flat monitor, like I was watching security camera footage or a TV show instead of seeing them with my own two eyes. Kind of reinforced the whole notion that it was a video game…
…which was really easy to forget when you were in it.
Meera’s and Stig’s stats were both still fine. Apparently the warlock hadn’t hit Exardus yet.
So, with there being nothing left to do but wait, I went home for the first time in a week and slept in my own bed.
But when I woke the next morning, I was a little discomfited by the fact that my dreams hadn’t been of a gorgeous succubus or a blue-skinned frost elf…
…but an art chick with pigtails and an indie rock t-shirt.
13
I got back into work the next morning around 9AM. I thought about going by to see Luna, then decided, Naaah.
Something about going to see another woman before I saw Alaria didn’t feel quite right.
So I logged back into the game instead, and came to stretched out on the furs.
Alaria and Eluun were still sleeping, so I pulled up my stats to check on Meera and Stig.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Stig was dead. His icon was completely greyed out.
And Meera was hanging on by the barest sliver of a thread. Her icon had a health bar beneath it, and it was down to just a hair above zero.
I leapt up from the furs. “Alaria!”
“Mrm?” she grumbled sleepily as she lifted her head. “Whaddisit?”
“Something happened in Exardus!”
Her eyes immediately opened wide. “What?!”
“I don’t know, I’m going to find out!”
I hit Stig’s icon, and poof!
My imp appeared in front of me.
“AAAAH!” he screamed, and covered his eyes with both hands.
“Stig, what’s wrong?!”
“Put on some CLOTHES, boss!”
Oh yeah.
I’d forgotten I was naked.
He’d reappeared right at eye-level with my junk.
I hastily threw on my pants. As I did, Krug peeked around the corner of the cave wall.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Boss’s pork sword,” Stig moaned, his eyes still covered.
“I’m dressed now,” I snapped. “You can look.”
Stig peeked out from between slightly spread fingers as though he didn’t trust me, then relaxed and lowered his hands.
“What happened?” I asked.
He winced and pointed at my crotch. “I saw your – ”
“I know that. What
happened in Exardus?”
Stig stared at me blankly, then looked down at the floor. “Oh yeah…”
“‘Oh yeah,’ what?”
“I don’t know. There was a loud noise and a bright light, then… nothin’.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, Limbo. Until you brought me back here.”
Limbo was the holding spot where demons bound to a Warlock went when they died, until they were resurrected. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly… except that there was nothing there. Literally nothing. So it was unpleasant in that regard.
“Where were you?”
“The Underneath.”
“Drinking?”
He looked at me with an expression of contempt, like, No, underwater basket-weaving.
“You seem fairly sober,” I remarked.
He cocked his head like he hadn’t realized that, then scowled. “I musta been in Limbo awhile…”
Time passed differently there, so it wasn’t always easy for a demon to figure out how long he’d been dead.
“So – you have no idea what happened?”
Stig shook his head.
“Did it happen just to you, or to the whole Underneath?”
He looked off to the side as though remembering, then looked up at me. “I think it was the whole bar, at least.”
“How do you know?”
“Last thing I remember was the bartender lit up by the big light, and bottles went flyin’ off the shelf.”
A bomb, maybe?
However he’d done it, the warlock hadn’t killed just Stig.
“Everybody get dressed,” I said. “We need to – ”
“I’m dressed,” both Stig and Krug said at the same time.
Which was true for Krug, but Stig was almost always naked unless he was wearing a disguise… so I guess it was technically true that he was as dressed as he normally was.
“I meant Alaria and Luna.”
“Luna?” Alaria said with a frown. “Who’s Luna?”
Oh shit.
“Slip of the tongue. Look, get dressed – Meera’s in trouble.”
Alaria and Eluun immediately started pulling on their clothes.
“Can you cast your spell yet?” Alaria asked.
Oh shit…
I’d forgotten about that.
I checked the cooldown meter on my portal spell –
“In five minutes,” I said happily, then turned to Eluun. “You’re coming with us, right?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
