The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 3

by Charles Dean

  “You are fire. You recognize that it is your nature, but you don’t understand it. The heat is generated by the wood it burns. If you rely strictly on your own soul, you’ll wither away and die. You must consume others.” Kitchens extended a hand. Darwin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to shake it or return the extra-large, oak-colored bokken, but he figured the latter was a good bet.

  “What am I supposed to do about it then? Just go ahead and eat other people’s souls? I am a Demon . . . but even I think that seems excessive.” Darwin wasn’t making heads or tails of this advice. Not to mention, I was explicitly warned not to let NPCs in the game die, not to continue NPC on NPC bloodbaths like I had previously been doing, so what is he trying to tell me to feed off of?

  “When man gave up using wood, there was electricity, oils and other plants to burn. We went from burning year-old dead trees to exploding million-year-old dead dinosaurs and all the way to using giant streaks of lightning captured in cheap, finger-nailed-sized storage devices. If you don’t want your own soul to burn up to feed the flame, you don’t need to burn someone else’s. You just need to feed it somehow, and there are plenty of ways.” Kitchens had finished storing both bokken and pulled out his real sword.

  Wait, he’s not going to start fighting me with a true blade, is he? Darwin felt a bit nervous, but also a bit excited. “So if it isn’t souls, what is it?” Dreams? Ambitions? Should I . . . Darwin began to understand the warning perfectly. This hadn’t been out of the blue. Kitchens was never worried about my bathrobe or concerned about the flap . . . Well, maybe he was, but more importantly, Minx’s complaint gave him the opportunity to split away and get out of sight of the others so he could explain this.

  “There you go, fire. I can tell from your look that you’ve already started figuring it out. Now, when Justin comes back with your new bathrobe, let’s change and get moving. If I know my daughter, she’s already paired us off to go figure out who this quest giver is. So, since there is no changing that stubborn girl’s mind when it’s set on scheming, we might as well be prepared to flow with it,” he softly chuckled.

  “Any reason why she paired us in particular?” Darwin hadn’t realized that Minx was a schemer, but Kitchens would obviously be the authority on all things Minx. So behind that overly-cutesy, fake personality is yet another plotter. He tried to think of what machinations Minx might have carried out upon him already. Why does this talk of a super-cutesy personality being used to cover up a mastermind suddenly remind me of Stephanie . . . Actually, no, don’t think about it. Darwin stopped himself before that thought went too far. After the dinner party with Charles, he knew something was up, but a bit of ignorance was bliss.

  “Oh, well, she’s still been trying to get me a new friend since I lost my usual fishing buddy.” Kitchens put his hands on his lower back and popped his spine all the way down.

  “You lost your fishing buddy? Is it because you spend so much time on the game with Minx?” Darwin took a stab in the dark at what the reason might be. He knew that, between work and gaming, it was unlikely Kitchens had much free time to hang out with anyone.

  “Hmm . . . No, what happened was that we were playing a shoot-‘em-up on the big TV. Then Minx walked by, his whole head turned, and he locked his eyes on her rear end like steak was being dragged in front of a starving dog. I punched him out and then threw him out of the house. Haven’t talked to him since.” Kitchens said it with such a flippant tone that it sent chills down Darwin’s spine.

  Note to self: Don’t even look at Minx below the nose. He carved this rule into the very core of his memory. Don’t even look at her juicy, well-formed, bouncing bubble b . . . NO! Oh no, just thinking about how I shouldn’t think about it is making me want to think about it. You twisted human psyche, what’s wrong with you? Kitchens can’t tell I was just imagining his daughter’s . . . Can he? Darwin hoped for the best, closed his eyes and counted to three.

  “Don’t worry, Darwin. You haven’t looked at her once. That’s why I like you: You’re safe and have plenty of other girls to keep you occupied.” Kitchens patted him on the back.

  Other girls? Why is ‘girls’ plural? I only have Stephanie right now! Wait, was that in response to my inappropriate thoughts or my silence at the fact he had knocked out his friend over just looking at her caboose? I never thought a callipygian woman would be so deadly. Darwin chortled to himself. “Alright,” Darwin said, wanting to change the subject. “I’m not good with tracking people through the forum. Do you want to just head right there and let one of the Demons tell the others where we’ve gone, or do you want to stop and make sure that Daniel and them give us the best directions?”

  “For starters? Make as many of those Blue-Drakes into slaves as possible while we wait. After that, I say the two of us just head out and not worry about the others. There will be plenty of time to spend with them when we get back, right? You’ve understood my lesson, correct?” Kitchens pointed to a spawn camp that was about to reappear. There were already five spear-wielders waiting to finish them off as soon as they were tangible enough to stab, but Darwin called out for them to hold off and let him do it.

  “Yeah, I get it.” Darwin ran over and shoved his burning zweihander right between the eyes of a Blue-Drake as soon as the materialization had completed enough for it to take damage. There would still be time before the dragons’ AI booted and they fought back, but, by then, they would all be his pets. I get that you’re saying that, if I’m to control this beast in me, I don’t just need the self-confidence. I also need to feed off my people’s hopes and dreams, their need to survive and their will to live on peacefully. They are my strength. I guess I wasn’t really a hundred percent honest with Alex. We do have an infinite number of recruitable defenders that aren’t players, but I can’t be doing this all day, every day, and still advance enough to protect them.

  “Good,” Kitchens said as he watched Darwin go on his Blue-Drake farming escapade, slaughtering camp after camp.

  When Justin finally came back, he had an extremely anxious look. “Oh, thank goodness!” he exclaimed when he saw Darwin converting another one of the flying azure lizards.

  “Hmm?” Kitchens and Darwin both looked over at Justin’s frantic face.

  “We already put the design for Darwin’s new logo on his bathrobe when we heard from a scout that he saw Darwin fighting in the cave with you using a different weapon, a wooden one with an entirely different shape. Considering how hard we had worked on the new logo--we had started preparing it long before the new bathrobe request came in--there was concern that it would have to be scrapped before it was ever worn,” Justin explained.

  Why does he care about this logo so much? Is this an everybody-but-me thing or just an NPC thing? Does Kitchens think it is that important as well? Ugh. When it comes to this stuff, I could give less F's than an Asian printing T-shirts in English.

  “So when do I get a custom logo?” Kitchens asked, answering Darwin’s question almost immediately with the good, old-fashioned, Kass-like response.

  Even if she’s not here, someone will always step in to fill her place and have status envy, Darwin thought, mentally accusing Kitchens before the man elaborated further.

  “I mean, shouldn’t there be separate designs for those who fight, those who build and those who cook or fill other occupations?” Kitchens’ line of questioning repainted itself as acting less like Kass and more like Daniel.

  “Hmm . . .” Justin thought for a moment.

  A scout with a tense but contemplative expression on his face came up to his side. “There is much wisdom in what you say. I think we shall consult Alex about this after the two of you depart,” the scout nodded.

  Crap. This is supposed to be a fighting fantasy game! Not a dress up game! The words would have come across as scolding had he said them aloud, but he was actually just happily joking to himself about the whole ordeal. It appeared that, no matter which companion he got slotted with for a mission, they’d still be conc
erned about appearances. Then again, he too had spent a lot of time checking out black armors when he was in Valcrest because they looked cool. Wait, would Fuzzy Wuzzy also be concerned about this type of stuff? Would he, if he could speak, be demanding top hats, monocles and bear-sized tuxedos? Maybe he would want one of those dancing bear costumes instead . . . Or worse, no costume at all, just like a certain child lov-- Darwin silenced the awful thought before it reached completion. While the first steps down that trail of thought made him laugh, Fuzzy Wuzzy’s over-familiarity with Minx definitely gave him pause to worry about the dark place to which that path led. After all, Minx was the youngest-looking one in the group, and her exact age wasn’t clearly discernible. She looked like she could be somewhere between thirteen and twenty, and Fuzzy Wuzzy was definitely attached to her. We can never let Fuzzy Wuzzy see anime, Darwin quickly decided, pushing the subject out of his head yet again, hopefully once and for all.

  “Hey, Justin, one more note really quick before you head out,” Darwin called out to Yoo, who had turned around and was already deep in conversation with the scout. They’re already trying to figure out which emblems would look best for each role, aren’t they?

  “Yes, Great Lord Darwin?” Justin turned around sharply, immediately straightening out his posture.

  “Can I trust you to send word to Kass and the others that we departed to find out who assigned the quest? They’ll understand what I mean.” Darwin turned to Kitchens. “Let’s get a move on. All that fighting made me want to kill something fully tangible.”

  “Can’t run out of firewood, can we?” Kitchens laughed. For someone who had spent most of the time Darwin had known him with a very calm and unmoving expression, this change was almost unsettling. It wasn’t exactly chill-up-the-spine creepy, but rather that weird-guy-on-the-bus-with-the-funny-odor-who-you-think-may-or-may-not-be-looking-at you-or-out-the-window-behind-you uncomfortable. “Anyways, make sure to drop off the shield bots we picked up earlier with Alex. They’re definitely going to need them in the battles to come.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to drop them off without us being here to protect them from being eaten?” Darwin joked at Mclean’s expense. She may have been generous enough to eat only certain monsters, saving the best for the rest of the guild, but she had still chain-eaten snow cones all the way from the dungeon back to the mountain.

  “It’ll be fine,” Kitchens said and then paused a moment. “It should be fine. . . Right?”

  “Hey, speaking of snacks, if we’re going back to the main town, we should really look into getting some more of those chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Indeed. We should get enough for the whole group.”

  “We’re not going to have to share with them all though, are we?”

  “Of course not. I won’t tell if you don’t.” Kitchens and Darwin laughed as they began their adventure back to the city that had lost its best men trying to kill them.

  Chapter 5 – Cape Not Included

  Valerie:

  Valerie couldn’t help but worry a little as she sat quietly listening to the group of players who were eating and chatting around her. They know. They know that you’re different, a voice seeped through Valerie’s thoughts, seeding anxiety. Yeah, maybe they do, she thought back. You can try all you want, but you’re not the same quiet girl they’ve gotten used to talking to, came the reply. Well, maybe so, but I’m managing to be pretty quiet right now, she shot back at the nagging voice. Her new, unaccounted-for confidence won out, and her worry was replaced by a constant unease that sat humming like a low buzz in the back of her mind. For some reason, the reticence and self-consciousness that usually kept her on edge and made her doubt herself seemed like they just took too much effort at the moment. She wasn’t used to feeling relaxed or in control, but for some reason, she did now. She had her ups and downs in Tiqpa, and they were often rather extreme ones, but this was neither a high nor a low. She felt unusually collected--as if her companions were more under her observation for once, and she was less under theirs. Ever since she had woken up with a moving leg, she had felt different. It was like her thoughts had changed, like she wasn’t quite the same person. Before, it was like she had been drunk and tired, worn out and dazed by self-pity and an unshakeable hyper-awareness of her disability. Each thought had been strained and competed with too many others, most of which were born out of unrelenting self-assessment.

  Now, however, things were strangely clear. She was finally sober, awake and alive. Daniel, your arm is not a napkin, Valerie thought as she noticed Daniel wipe his mouth off with his left arm. He didn’t even get all of the mess off his lips either. Maybe a pig snout would suit you better than bird wings. Valerie’s lips curled up into a slight grin, which she hid by pretending to rub an itchy nose as she continued watching the people sitting around her.

  “So, serious question: Why is it that every time you see lasers in a movie, you actually see the laser?” Daniel asked, continuing to whittle away at some Drake meat on a stick while the gang waited. They hadn’t exactly made a campfire in front of the fortifications, but they had set up some chairs and were just staring out at the woods, holding fast until any signs of danger were reported by the scouts circling above the woods on their riders. “Shouldn’t the laser, you know, move at the speed of light? Be nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye?”

  “Oh, you mean those sci-fi movies where the lasers all look like fat Nerf bullets traveling as fast as a well-kicked soccer ball?” Mclean asked, enjoying her own stick of meat. “It’s for the space cowboys, galactic Indians and movie-goers.”

  “Huh?” Kass, the only one not eating anything besides Valerie, snapped back into the conversation. While everyone else was focused on watching the woods for a sign of danger or some mysterious bad guy that might pop out, Valerie couldn’t help but notice Kass wasn’t. She kept nervously turning her head and glancing at the Demons who were steadfastly laboring over the fortifications around the city.

  Something's wrong with her, she guessed. Remember, Tim always warned you to watch the ones who were watching closest--not that it saved him from being stabbed in the back . . . or stopped you from getting him killed. Her mind betrayed her with another jab at her heart.

  “When it comes to movies, space is just another setting where we can tell our stories and pretend like mankind matters.” Mclean paused to take another bite. “Like heroes could make the difference between life and death in some epic journey of discovery or redemption.”

  “What does that have to do with the cowboys and Indians though?” Kass asked, not getting the picture that Mclean was drawing.

  How does Darwin like you when you’re this simple, Kass? You react more than act. If you had just waited, Mclean would have explained it. She’s that type of person. You’d have gotten your explanation without having to needlessly broadcast your inability to connect the dots. Valerie sighed and squinted her closed eyes. The real question is: How has Kass not given me a headache before today? She laughed to herself, the frustration fading as she smirked at her own joke.

  “Well? Isn’t that what it’s all about? People don’t want to go to a movie theater and see real space combat where computers calculate everything that is and will happen. It amplifies the useless and utterly inconsequential nature of humanity. They want to see the epic story of good versus evil, their favorite handsome-faced protagonist saving the day through a string of lucky feats, quick wits and serendipitous timing that only he could pull off. They want to see the ragtag band of cowboys save the world from a wave of angry Indians with a good quick-draw scene--except this time in space and with lasers.” Mclean took another bite. “It’s much better than the reality, than the helplessness that they have to endure on a day to day basis as they trudge through an existence where death, progress and the future are neither controllable nor predictable.”

  “Isn’t that why we are playing fantasy games?” Daniel said, reinforcing the point.

  “True, but i
t’s also why the lasers in space move so slowly that a professional soccer player could block almost all of them.” Mclean looked disappointingly at the bare bone where a full leg of meat had once been.

  “You don’t eat that much in real life, do you?” Valerie asked, laughing at her winged friend.

  “Oh, God, no! Calorie counting is hell though. I thought I’d have fun here. I want to try every beer they have!” she exclaimed excitedly and then looked around. “As soon as we get out of this situation, I guess.”

  Now that’s the right kind of simple. Know what you want and know when you’re going to get it. Valerie smiled. She’s a reliable person with a good understanding of the world. I can use her. She found herself slightly taken aback by the last three words at first, but then slightly amused. ‘Use.’ Yes, ‘use.’ Isn’t that what I’ve been doing anyway? Just using these people for emotional and experiential crutches? It’s a bit psycho-bitch, I guess, but there is no need to feel depressed if there are people I can maneuver to avoid it. Her grin began to spread wider, but then stopped. No, control your emotions. Don’t let them see that you’ve changed. People hate change, people need things to move so slow they don’t notice it until it’s far enough along that they can’t miss the old. Valerie, you’ve gotta boil the frog nice and slowly for these guys. Don’t want to suddenly end up in hot water yourself, do you? She forced a timid and weak expression back onto her face. Let’s hope this is how I would normally look, she thought as she consciously made small micro adjustments to her face.

  Kass opened her mouth to say yet another stupid and simple thing when Valerie heard something that caused her to ignore her vapid guildmate. They’re in the woods. They’re coming for us, she thought, looking to the mounted scouts flying above. They were still gliding through the air, circling over the surroundings. How did they not see anything? There are a lot of them coming to kill us, she thought as she found herself listening to the sounds of crunching leaves. It wasn’t that monsters didn’t also produce that sound, but when a monster did it, it was haphazard and bore no rhythm or set beat. This was planned stomping, the crushing of the fallen leaves and grass in a systematic fashion, the beats organized in a way that only man produced.