by Rachel Ford
“Mother trucker. You’re kidding me?” He tried to take a step. Nothing happened. He loosed a long, aggravated breath. “How much do I have to drop?”
Ten pounds.
“Ten pounds? Are you joshing me?” He scowled at the substituted word but brought up his inventory anyway. He started to go through the items.
He had eight pairs of trousers by now, weighing in at three pounds each, and eight tunics, weighing two and a half pounds each. He frowned. “Since when do pants weigh three pounds?” It was worse when he got to the baubles. The rings weighed a pound a piece. The amulets weighed anywhere from half a pound to two pounds each.
“My sword literally weighs as much as two pairs of pants,” he fumed.
“The village is just up that way. We should head out. You don’t want to be caught in these woods when the sun sets,” Migli told him.
He scowled at the dwarf. Then, an idea occurred to him. “Hey Migli, can you carry something for me?” He was a companion after all. And other than added firepower, that was basically the whole point of in-game companions. Not that Migli seemed to offer much in the firepower department.
“I would be honored to share your burdens, Sir Knight.”
Jack smiled. “Good man, Migli.” He handed over three pairs of pants and a shirt – eleven pounds. And as soon as he finished, he could move again.
“We need to find a merchant, so I can sell this stuff. I don’t need all these clothes.”
“There’s a merchant in Dragon’s Run.”
Jack nodded. Migli’s conversational skills seemed to be getting better as the game progressed. “Cool. Let’s head there first.”
“As you wish, Sir Knight.”
They covered the last leg of their journey in relative silence. Now and then, the dwarf broke into song. He sang about the kinds of things dwarves would sing about, at least as far as Jack figured it. He sang about gold and dragons, and faraway halls and deep caverns.
The songs were pretty good, too. I’ll have to get the soundtrack, when this thing is released.
They reached Dragon’s Run just before the sun set. The merchant’s stall was still open. Whether he remained opened all night or not, Jack didn’t know.
He was an old man who introduced himself as Blake Stoutheart, and promised to deal fairer with them than any merchant in the seven kingdoms. His wife worked at the hearth preparing dinner. Odors of roasting meat and potatoes filled the air.
Jack felt his stomach growl. He didn’t know if that was actual, real life hunger, or in-game hunger. But if the in-game food tasted as good as whatever she was cooking smelled, well, he might be spending a lot of time beta testing the inns and taverns.
He planted himself close enough to interact with the shop keep, and then he took back his trousers and his tunic from Migli. Here was a point of realism Jack was glad the game omitted: the clothes had only recently been on smelly bodies. They would still reek, and be splattered in blood in some cases, and pierced and torn in others.
But the game presented them without any such blemishes. They remained old and worn looking, but clean and blessedly odor-free.
One by one, Blake accepted the garments and boots, and in turn gave him one gold coin each. He paid two coins for the rings – less than they were worth – and ten for the amulets. But Jack cleared up his inventory and brought his purse up to ninety-eight gold.
He felt like he’d done alright.
“We should stop by the tavern,” Migli said. “I could use a mug of ale.”
“You and me both, my good dwarf.”
“And – you have proved yourself a valued ally. I will tell you where we’re going.”
They settled at a table in the corner. The tavern had a decidedly – and delightfully – seedy feel. Smoke hung thick in the air, and every other patron looked like he’d had his skull cracked more than once – and cracked skulls, more than once.
Migli ordered “whatever’s on tap, fair maid.”
The buxom barmaid giggled and glanced the pair of them over with unreserved interest. “And you, sir knight?”
Jack flushed. “I’ll, uh, have the same I guess.”
She flitted away, and he fidgeted. That was a bit of realism he could have done without too. It was bad enough to be nervous around pretty women – okay, all women – in real life. Did it really have to carry over to the videogame realm?
Migli clearly missed his discomfort, because he launched right into his tale. “Where we are headed, there will be dangers like nothing you have seen before.”
Jack snorted. He’d played every videogame he could lay his hands on. He doubted very much that Dagger of Doom had something he hadn’t seen before.
“It will require every bit of your ingenuity and strength to survive – not only your physical strength. But your heart and spirit must be strong before we leave here.”
Jack yawned. “Yeah, yeah.” He’d heard speeches like this one a million times before.
“Forsooth, if thou dost stray from the path before us, the entire world will suffer in fire and ash for a thousand lifetimes.”
He groaned. They really needed to get that bug taken care of. “Hey, bud, can you hold off on the story until I get my drink?”
Migli nodded. “As you desire, friend.”
Jack nodded. He figured this flipflopping between modern English and faux old English might go down better with a pint. Or ten.
The barmaid returned and set the tankards down, declaring, “First round’s on the house.” She winked, at him he thought, though it might have been Migli. He shifted nervously in his seat and felt stupid for a second time. “See you around, adventurers.”
“A fair maid, that,” Migli said.
He ignored the scent of perfume that trailed behind her and sipped his ale. “Wow. This is danged good.”
“Aye.”
“It tastes real. I wonder if I’ll get drunk if I have too many?”
Migli ignored his musings. “At the end of the forest, there’s a great sea full of monsters. In the center of the sea is an island, and on the island is a mountain. The tallest mountain in the world.”
Jack drained his mug and nodded. “Awesome.”
“At the peak of the mountain sits a solitary fortress, a castle hewn into the living rock.”
“Righteous.”
“In this castle is a keeper.”
“Do I get to fight him?”
“He has lived there for a thousand years. He is the keeper of the dagger.”
“Awesome. I do get to fight him.”
“He will slay anyone who tries to take the dagger.”
Jack cackled. “He will try, anyway.”
“Unless they carry the key.”
Now, Jack hesitated. He reached into the pocket on the inside of his tunic, the one that served as his magical inventory. He sifted past the one enchanted amulet he’d held onto, past the cloak, and finally settled on the key Eorl had given him. “This key?”
“That key,” Migli confirmed as he drew it out.
“Wait…if he will fight anyone who doesn’t have the key…does that mean he won’t fight me?”
“He will not fight you. This burden was Eorl’s, and all of ours by extension, as we served him. But he has passed it on to you. Now it is your burden. And as long as you have the key, the keeper will give you the dagger.”
Jack pouted. “So I don’t get to fight him?”
“The way will be dangerous. But we must get to the dagger before the enemy.”
“So someone else is coming for the dagger?”
“Iaxiabor’s servants search for it even now. They will stop at nothing to get their hands on the blade. It is the only way to free their master and bring back his reign of terror.”
Jack flagged the barmaid down and ordered another mug. “Make it two, my fair lady.”
He heard the clink of coins as his purse automatically deducted the fee. She returned quickly with the two ales, and he took a long draught. He wa
sn’t much of a drinker in real life. He liked to drink, but he was a little bit of a lightweight, the kind who could be blackout drunk on a few cheap beers. But this was a videogame. So why not indulge his wild side, when it tasted as good as that? “So…riddle me this, little guy,” he said after he drained the second glass. “Why would anyone, evil minion or otherwise, want to bring about a reign of terror?”
“Who can understand the depths of the depravity of our enemies?”
Jack barked out a laugh. “Now that’s just lazy writing. No one does diddly just because it’s evil.” He frowned. “Did I just say diddly?” He tried again, trying to say shit. “Diddly. Son-of-a-biscuit, I did.”
Migli regarded him oddly for a second. “The strain of the day wears on you, my friend. Perhaps you should rent a room, and we may resume our discussion tomorrow morning.”
Jack waved this away. “Alright, tell me more. So our lazily written bad guys are all after The Great MacGuffin. And we got to beat them to it, because – reasons. Right?”
“Forgive me, sir knight. But I do not understand your query.”
Jack waved this away too. “What I’m saying is, we’re all chasing this knife-thingy. Right? You, me, and the bad guys?”
“Correct.”
“And we need to get to it first.”
“Correct.”
“And to get to it, we need to get through the spooky forest, cross the sea of blablabla, climb the tall mountain, reach the keeper. Right?”
“Correct,” he said for the third time.
“Cool.” Jack finished his third mug. He ordered a fourth and a fifth and made it most of the way through the fourth.
Then, he started to feel bad. “Heck. I think I’m going to be sick. I need to get outside.”
He stumbled his way to the exit and covered about half the distance when he bumped into a burly man who stood a good foot and a half taller than him. “Sorry,” he slurred.
“Sorry? You spilled my drink, maggot.”
“Sorry.” Then, his stomach started to roil, and he turned on his heel with a, “Got to go.”
The other man growled and grabbed him by the shoulder. Spinning him around, he readied a right hook.
Jack had been trying to spare him, though, what he knew was coming. And, unfortunately for the bellicose NPC, it came at that precise moment: Jack barfed, all over his attacker.
He tried to apologize. He tried to promise that it had been an accident. He tried to explain that he had no idea fake ale would affect him the way real ale did.
The NPC wasn’t amenable to reason. He grabbed Jack by the shoulders and the seat of his pants and ran headlong out the door with him. Then he tossed him, like a football.
Jack careened through the air and landed with a heavy thump. His world went dark.
Chapter Four
Twelve hours passed before he opened his eyes again. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. He groaned and gazed up at a wooden ceiling. Then he moved his head and looked out at iron bars.
Iron bars. What the hell? Am I in prison? He got out of bed and raced to the bars. He managed to stick his head out. He could see rows of similar cells up and down the way, on both sides of the hall. “Mother trucker.”
He threw a frantic glance around his own cell. Aside from some hay on the floor, a pail of stagnant water, and a rough cot, there was nothing else there. “Help,” he said. “Hello? Anyone?”
No one said a word, and Jack started to panic. The place had a medieval flair to it, so he guessed he was still in the videogame. But he wasn’t entirely sure. Everything looked real. It felt real. But everything he’d collected over the last day was gone – the enchanted jewelry, the sword, the clothes, his gold. Everything.
“Uh…speak to supervisor?” If he was still in the game, well, that’d be a surefire way to tell.
“Hey,” Jordan’s voice, or Migli’s, or whoever the hell it was, sounded in his head. “Looks like you got separated from your companion, so I have to do the god-mode thing. What’s up?”
“Um…am I in jail?”
“Uh…” Jordan trailed off, then laughed. “Oh wow. Yes you are.”
He scowled. “How the heck did that happen?”
“Looking through the log…looks like you got in a bar fight. Village watch picked you up afterward.”
“I didn’t get in a fight. I accidentally bumped into a guy.”
“This says you puked on him.”
“Yes. By accident.”
“How did you even do that?”
“I don’t know…I think I got drunk. Is that possible?”
Jordan laughed again. “Sure. Your brain reads chemical influence, it reacts the same way it would in real life. But this says you only had like what…three beers?”
“Three and a half.”
“You get drunk on three and a half beers?”
“You can go now,” Jack snapped. “Actually, wait. How do I get out of here?”
“Migli will find you. He’s on his way now, actually.”
He sighed. “Fine. You can go, then.”
“Right. Hey, by the way, I don’t know what time you wanted to be out of here, but I’ve got a note that says to remind you of real life time when it hits four.”
“Stuff and nonsense. Is it really four already?”
Jordan laughed. “Man, you got to get that temper under control. And no, not yet. In about fifteen minutes.”
“Well, pull me out when my time’s up. I got to get home.”
“Right. Big client meeting.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright. Oh, and one more thing.”
Jack sighed. “What now?”
“I told the team about the language bug. You know, switching between modern and medieval vernacular?”
Here, he perked up. Maybe Jordan wasn’t purely a pain in the backside. “Oh?”
“Yeah. They got a fix all done. They just rolled it out…two minutes ago or something? So you should be good to go.”
“Wow. Quick turnaround.”
“Hey, you don’t get to be the best by sitting on your duff.”
He smiled. “Ha. It got you too.”
“What did?”
“The profanity filter.”
Jordan laughed again. “No it didn’t.”
Jack frowned. “You mean…you deliberately said ‘duff’?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “Okay, puking after three beers may be weird, but that’s straight up messed up.”
Jordan started to say something, but then cut off. “Oh, Migli’s almost there. I’m checking out. Have fun.”
Jack raced to the bars, but he could see no one. “Where?” Jordan didn’t answer, which he took to mean he was on his own. “Migli? You there?”
He waited for a long time, growing more impatient by the moment. He only had a little playtime left before his self-imposed end of the shift. Where the hell was he? Prince of dwarfs? Pain-in-the-ass, more like.
But eventually, Migli did show up. He wasn’t alone. A scruffy human with a badge emblazoned on his tunic and a set of keys in his hand walked alongside him. As for the dwarf, well, he walked with a spring to his step. “Ah, good sir knight, a fine morning to ye.”
Jack rolled his eyes. So much for that bug fix. “I need to get out of here.”
“Your friend here,” the man said, “has bailed you out. You owe him some gold. The fine for drunk and disorderly is one hundred gold pieces.”
Jack blinked. “That’s…literally more than I have. Even before my drinks last night.”
The guard didn’t seem to hear him, or care if he did hear him. “And you should know, stranger, we’ll be keeping our eyes on you.”
“Who is we?”
“The village watch.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll take that under advisement.” He was at the beginning of the game, in some kind of provincial backwater. He wasn’t particularly worried about a bunch of village watchmen. It was the gold that bothe
red him more than anything.
“See that you do. If not for the word of this fine dwarf, you’d rot in here until the magistrate deigned to hear your case.”
Jack cast an annoyed glance at Migli. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Just after ten in the morning.”
“Ten in the blessed morning? What in tarnation took you so long?” His frown had become a full-grown scowl now, when he heard the substitutions from the profanity filter.
It only got worse when Migli grinned and said, “You remember that fair maid from the tavern last night? Well, she needed rescuing.”
He snorted. “From what?”
“A cold, lonely bed.”
Jack wrinkled his nose as the dwarf laughed. “Ew. You’re like…three feet tall, dude. How did…you know what, never mind. I’m not interested. Just get me out of here.”
The guard shuffled through his keyring, inspecting the keys until he found the right one. “Here we are then.”
He fiddled with the lock, and it turned with a loud, mechanical sound. The door squealed as it swung open. Jack shivered at the noise. “You might want to grease those hinges.”
“Here are your items back.”
A flood of alerts hit Jack’s brain, telling him that his various possessions were once more in his inventory. Everything was as it had been – except for his gold. That was forty-two pieces in the hole now.
“Wait, where’s my money?”
“I told you. Drunk and disorderly comes with a one hundred gold piece fine, or an extended tour of the prisons. Your friend here sprung you. You had fifty-eight gold on your person when you were apprehended. Your friend supplied the other forty-two pieces. So you owe him.”
Jack ran the numbers in his head quickly. He’d had ninety-eight gold after visiting the merchant. After the fine, he should have been two pieces in debt, not forty-two. Unless… “How the heck much did those ales cost?”
“Eight apiece. You got five of them, remember?”
Jack’s scowl only deepened. “You’re telling me a single drink costs more than two pairs of pants? Almost as much as three pairs of pants? What kind of messed up monetary system is this, anyway?”
But the NPC’s had no answers for him. So they tromped through the village’s prison – a rather large prison, he noted, for a small village – and emerged in the full light of day.
