by Charles Dean
“Ah,” the man said. Several others nodded along like Ling had done earlier when Lee explained the mechanics of the world to her.
“Look, I can answer all of your questions in due time. I’ll be more than happy to go over the finer points of the afterlife, of what it means to serve Augustus, and how great fried chicken and waffles are. I’m sure there are plenty of questions, but the first and most important thing you need to understand is that this religion isn’t one you have to follow. I am not the Herald we just killed. I won’t lock you up in chains, force you to work or beat you if you don’t listen to me. I only ask that you at least follow the tenets of what it means to be a good person and what it means to help others out, even if you don’t follow Augustus.”
“And not to blaspheme Augustus. ‘Cause then I’ll kill you,” Miller added. Rather than take him seriously, however, several people just chortled and laughed while the newcomers all seemed nervous or scared by the statement.
“Now, if you do choose to join, you’re welcome to pack your stuff up and head back to Satterfield with the rest of us. There is a bar with plenty of full kegs, lots of fried chicken and a little bacon. We can talk about the religion there.”
Lee turned without waiting for the crowd’s reaction and began the walk back to town. He knew that he was going to have to address the rest of the big topics eventually, but for now, he was going to put it off as long as he could. Procrastination would provide the last-minute answers he needed like always.
You two are so spoiled. Lee shook his head at the two rodents when they flew down and crawled into his backpack, but the two mice only chuckled back at him. Fine. I’ll treat you well this time since you worked so hard earlier. He wasn’t sure what a smug mouse face looked like, but he knew they had one on.
——-
It didn’t take much convincing to get Miller to sideline the ‘More experience! More killing!’ urge and settle for drinking instead once they made it back to the bar. Not many were in the mood to party or joke around, but the Firbolg managed to find his groove anyway. All Lee had to do to get the Firbolg off his case was remind him that it was customary to have a drink for each person who died, and then after five drinks, the friendly giant forgot all about everything else.
The townsfolk were kind enough to make some space and living quarters for the Herald’s hostages that chose to follow Lee back to Satterfield. Most of them went to the new homes they were offered and slept, but some of the more fit and healthy ones gravitated toward Miller in the pub and went to drink with him.
Within an hour though of getting back, the news had spread. Lee didn’t jump on the opportunity to do any more speeches, didn’t bother with preaching and was only having a beer with a few people, yet somehow his Faith had crept up to 452. Even though a good portion of that was from the other Herald, it was still impressive. What was even more impressive was that he had managed to boost his personal zealot score up to 11, and the number of personal followers he had jumped up to 29. He had half-expected some type of halo to appear over his head whenever this happened, or at least some type of boost to his stats, but he got nothing. There wasn’t a single change at all despite having 95 Personal Faith.
As much as he wanted to spend time celebrating with everyone else, he still chose to head upstairs rather early in the night. The day’s events had taken their toll, and it all seemed to catch up with him as soon as he sat down. He didn’t even make it up the stairs, however, before Amber came up behind him.
“Sleeping already?” she asked as she crept up to him.
“That was the plan, though I thought about a shower first,” Lee said, rubbing his arms pointedly. They were still covered in dirt and blood, and he hadn’t even taken the time to wash up yet.
“Shower?” She looked at him confused.
Ah, that’s right. “I mean a bath.”
“Oh, yeah. I suppose that now is the best time to go if you didn’t want to deal with dirty water in the bathtub.” She nodded, her eyes looking back down over to the room. “I think they’ll have to change the water entirely after your friend takes one,” she laughed as she eyed Miller. “I think the fighting turned out to be less messy than eating and drinking.”
“Yeah . . .” Lee shrugged. It was kind of funny, but he was still worn out from this world. He needed to figure how much time he had earned so that he could go back to his own world. Once there, he’d be able to take a really nice, long, hot shower. He was even looking forward to pigging out on some Chinese food and playing games with his buddy, Wolfe. He wasn’t sure how any of it would pan out, but he knew that any amount of time in the world he had come from was going to be a glorious break from the stress in this one.
“It’s not like you, though. You eat with an aversion to mess like I’ve never seen before. The fork and knife are commonplace, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one insist on using them for everything like you do,” she said, continuing her stray observations as the two walked up the stairs.
“So, if I’m going to sleep, are you joining me again?” Lee asked, not making light of her issue even though he really wanted to give her a suggestive wink and throw in a crude pun.
“If you don’t mind. I was hoping to slip into something more comfortable this time,” she said, actually winking at him.
Lee felt bad now for missing a chance to make a rude joke himself but didn’t pass up the opportunity twice. “You don’t have to put anything on at all if you don’t want to,” he chuckled.
“Well, well . . . So there a man in there somewhere.” She laughed as she leaned into his arm as the two walked down the hallway. “I’ve heard that holy men have thoughts as dirty as their faith is pure.”
“Who told you that holy men have dirty thoughts? Did that Herald before me ruin my reputation?”
“Nah, just some of the poems and ballads that the bard sang when he made his trip through our town. He told me that I need to be careful of any Herald or religious figure because they’re all perverted con men,” she explained. The words were clearly accusations, but her tone was so playful that Lee didn’t mind at all.
“Well, then I don’t have to worry about warning you ahead of time before you come to bed with me tonight.” Lee’s pushed a little into her as she leaned against his arm, knocking her slightly off balance. She adjusted by actually grabbing onto his arm.
It was a sensation Lee liked, but the hallway was small and those short exchanges were more than enough to fill the time needed to reach the bathroom. Bathroom . . . The name actually makes sense when there is a bath inside.
“I’ll let you do your thing. I’m going to . . . I’m just . . .” She looked over at the other bathroom. “I’m just . . . Yeah. I’ll see you in a bit, but don’t mind me if I don’t sneak in until after you’re asleep so you don’t get any perverted ideas.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lee laughed and stuck out a hand to pat Amber’s head. “You just do your thing and relax. You worked hard today. You did good, and you helped a lot of people, so you deserve to be comfortable tonight.” What kind of creepy line is that? Lee wanted to kick himself for saying something so awkward, but it made Amber smile. He didn’t know if she was just humoring him, but it was a beautiful enough smile that melted his heart a bit.
Alright, bath time to scrub off all those dirty thoughts. Lee fortified his willpower and headed into the bath.
His feet had no sooner touched the water than he heard the familiar voice of the shapeshifter. “So, you going to take my advice and warp back now? Or are you going to wait for Amber to warp-block you again?”
“How long do I have this time in the other world?” Lee had to ask. Please don’t be a month or two at most, he thought.
“You can take as long as you want this time. You’re not going to age anymore, so it doesn’t matter. Take a day, a month, a year. It’s fine,” Augustus answered. Based on his tone, Lee imagined a monkey shrugging at him while spinning around in an office chair.
“I’m . . .
not going to age?” Lee found this news both amazing and frightening. Immortality was both a blessing and a curse and one he never thought he’d have to contemplate outside of a drinking game.
“You’ve awoken your divinity seed. I can pull you back to this world anytime you want. It’s not like the timelines are connected between this world and yours,” Augustus explained. “You just have to pick a date when you want to come back, let me know while you’re sleeping, and I’ll rip you back into the game world. You’ll be sitting in a tub stark naked like you never left at all.”
“Sickness? Health issues? What about those?”
“Look, you’re not going to have any of those problems. In fact, unless you do something incredibly stupid, I can’t imagine a single possible way for you to get killed. So, as far as I’m concerned, we can wait as long as you want once you get to that world to come back to the War of Eternity. Now, are you going to go or not? I mean, I understand if you don’t want to go. Beautiful women want to join you in bed. That alone seems promising enough that I’d be hard-pressed to leave if I were you.”
“No, I’ll take your advice about leaving while I have the chance this time . . . so long as you make sure I have another pair of clothes when I get to the other side. I’m pretty sure I’ve still got a family member or two near me in that hospital room.” Lee tried his best to remember. It had been so long, and so much had happened, he couldn’t quite remember what he had been doing when Augustus pulled him back to this world.
“Fine, fine. But you’re taking the fun out of this. I was hoping to send you into a bathroom stark naked and force you to awkwardly flash a few family members just to get out,” Augustus laughed at his own idea.
“Yeah, that does sound like you,” Lee agreed. “In fact, maybe I should specify that you should return me in the same attire I left in.”
Augustus laughed at whatever diabolical idea he had. “So, I can’t send you back in a pink tutu that was meant for someone much smaller than you?”
Despite himself, Lee laughed as well. “Same outfit you warped me over in, thank you.”
He didn’t even finish his sentence before he was back in his hospital bed and saying ‘thank you’ to his parents while laughing at a joke they didn’t get and had never heard.
Epilogue
“Are you listening to me?” his mom asked. “Hello? Lee, are you there?”
I am now. He had only started listening to her because she said his name. Before that, he had been thinking about the world he came from, the religion, the Herald, and how to handle everything if and when he went back. I don’t age in this world anymore, so I have to go back eventually. But, for now, he said that I had as much time here as I wanted. That means Augustus was lying to me when he mentioned the time limit, or there is a difference between a Herald and a deity and keeping them here.
“Oh, sorry, Mom. I’m just . . . not all here,” he admitted, looking around the room. He had been lying on the hospital bed listening to his parents talk to him for close to forty minutes.
His eyes went between his mother and father. I guess the guest list for hospital patients dwindles as time goes on. Oh well, it’s time to leave, Lee thought, standing up. “Mom, are there any pants around? I’d like to change out of these if I can,” he said, tugging on the exposing gown.
“Hey, take it easy there,” his dad called out. “Your injuries weren’t minor, and you don’t want to hurt yourself any more than you have to, so just lay back down and get some rest.”
“No.” Lee didn’t feel like wasting any time in this place. “Just call the doctor. He can check me himself if he needs. I’m fine, and I’m leaving tonight.”
“Honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea. With your ribs and your condition,” the mother said, joining the father in trying to gently urge him back onto the hospital bed.
“It’s fine. Just call the doct— Oh, there he is. Hey! Doctor!” Lee shouted at the doctor walking by in the hallway. “I would like to be checked out. Can you press on my ribs to make sure they’re okay?”
The doctor studied him strangely. “That’s really not a good idea. In your condition, you really need to— That’s not right.” The doctor stopped talking when Lee started beating a fist against his chest where the broken rib had been. The doctor’s curiosity overtook him, and he extended a hand and pressed it on the spot too. “This is not right at all.”
“What is it?” Lee’s mother and father both asked at the same time.
“It’s perfectly healthy. It’s like it was never injured in the first place.” The doctor’s mouth just hung open as he felt the rib. “I worked on you. I saw your chart. I . . . This shouldn’t be possible. Let me get . . .” He paused to look around. “Let me get someone else in here. We need to check out what happened and see how this is even possible. We need to schedule an exam and have you x-rayed as well.”
“No, that’s fine.” Lee rejected that idea quickly. “I have to get home. I’m leaving now.”
“Let us at least take an x-ray of it,” the doctor insisted, but Lee wasn’t having any of it.
“I’m really just not feeling it,” Lee maintained.
——-
It took a little while, but by the end of the night, Lee was happily lying in his own bed. Oh, man, nothing beats this. This is the best bed ever. “Minus the fact it’s empty,” Lee said aloud as he rolled over. Even if the itchy bed at Ramon’s was about as uncomfortable as sleeping on hay, Amber was there. That was a nice treat he didn’t have in this world.
——-
Lee went straight to work in the morning. He hadn’t used up his entire vacation—he still had one day off—but he figured that there was no point anymore in stalling things out and pretending like he didn’t have responsibilities if he was going to be in this world for a long time.
When he got to work, however, it felt like an alien world. He hadn’t been in the other world long, but this one didn’t feel right. Everything was calm and serene-like, and that left him feeling uneasy. He had actually grown accustomed to the dirt and blood and fifth in the other world, and he was used to looking over his shoulder through a second set of eyes for danger.
He knew that time hadn’t passed in this world while he was gone, but he was still surprised no one even really noticed or talked to him when he came in. His boss gave him an evil glare, like she wanted to stab him through with an ice pick, and a few co-workers patted him on the back and took a selfie with him to celebrate the man who had been saved by a gorilla, but past that, they went back to their desks, and he was left there with his work.
Data entry. His job description was actually technically ‘Data Engineer,’ but he wasn’t that. He remembered reading the requirements when he first got the gig: be familiar with SQL, service architecture and data integration. He remembered thinking about all the creative solutions he’d have to come up with that would challenge him intellectually. His first gig had actually been really difficult. It required him to redesign the entire database and program the data management interfaces. But, those days were long gone, and in the end, he turned up being a glorified and overpaid data entry clerk. They would occasionally need him to change the information stored about a customer, and he would get to write some SQL, but that was it.
When he sat down at his computer, he expected to have a ton of work setting up new customers. The work orders usually piled up whenever he was on vacation until they reached the point that his boss would call him up and drag him back in and ruin whatever free time he had. This time, though, there was nothing. As he started opening up images and getting to work on his copypasta, he found himself more bored than ever before. It wasn’t exactly quiet in the room, but he felt as if there was an oppressive silence pushing down on him.
“What’s the point?” he mumbled aloud, quite sardonically.
“What?” the man in the cubicle next to his asked. “Having trouble already?”
“No, nothing. Never mind,” Lee answered disinterestedly.<
br />
The man was trying to be nice and make conversation, which was more than anyone else in the office had ever done before without wanting something, but Lee zoned out almost as quickly as he started talking.
Wolfe was waiting for him when he got home, talking about all the raids he wanted to do. The first thing he noticed when he logged in, however, were all the annoying little question marks above people’s heads in the starting area indicating quests that he had previously ignored because they didn’t give good loot, EXP or reputation. They were essentially worthless to his character’s progression, so he had walked right past them when he first started playing, but now he clicked on every single one.
“Yo, bro, whatcha doing? Don’t tell me you’re going to go full completionist and knock every single one of those out?” Wolfe asked as soon as Lee finished setting up his microphone and logging into the voice communication server.
“Oh, umm . . .” Lee stared at the story of the girl in the quest box in front of him. She wants me to rescue her dog, huh? His story with Ling had started the same way, except over a cat. “Maybe just one or two before the raid just to kill time.”
“You do you, bro. I’m just gonna go make some stuff in town, check in with our homegirl and see what PVP can be had.” Wolfe chuckled at Lee as he left to join one of the other guild members who was organizing some PVP before the raid. And, just like that, a night disappeared before Lee realized it. He hadn’t joined Wolfe at all for the raid. He had just worked on every small quest as he went through the game, exploring it in a way he had never done before—learning the NPCs’ stories.
The next day came and passed as quickly as the first day. Everything seemed hazy. He wasn’t even sure of what was going on or what he was doing.
