A Dwarf Stood At The Door

by Norman Crane

typed:

  > ask dogor about #FF0000RUM

  > "I am much obliged to you for letting me out of there."

  > ask dogor about hooded rat brotherhood

  > Dogor snorts. "The Hooded Rat Brotherhood are my sworn enemies. I will do anything to destroy them. It is in my blood. I will not rest until they are defeated to the last man, and Xynk is safe."

  So Dogor was my sidekick, but it was strange to introduce him in such a glitched out way. It would have made more sense for Verbamor to have presented him to me directly in the throne room at the very beginning of the game. On the other hand, maybe my suspicions about Verbamor were right and Xynk was a more complicated place than its superficial quest suggested.

  > ask dogor about verbamor

  > "Prince Verbamor," Dogor says through clenched teeth. "May I speak freely, John Grousewater?"

  > yes

  > Dogor closes the DOOR and leans on his axe, exhibiting the facial expression of a wounded warthog. "I have my doubts about Prince Verbamor. I fear it is he who helped imprison me. There are greater forces at work here. The Hooded Rat Brotherhood is merely a tool, the poisoned dagger of an elusive, unknown puppet master."

  A pimply faced coffee shop employee stood up on a chair and recited, "Ladies and gentleman, if I could have your attention I would like to apologize for the WiFi interruption we seem to be experiencing..."

  > ask dogor about greater forces

  > "According to Prince Verbamor," Dogor says, "Xynk has been in imminent danger for thirty six years. For as long as I can remember, its people have lived in fear. The city submits without question to the Prince's authority. The Hooded Rat Brotherhood remains uncaught. It is suspicious, don't you agree, John Grousewater?"

  I typed:

  > yes

  Although in truth I didn't agree. It didn't make sense for Prince Verbamor to recruit me to find the Amulet of Vermillion and stop The Hooded Rat Brotherhood if all he wanted was to rule perpetually by fear. Besides, Dogor could be lying. I had no reason to trust him. However—I did the calculation in my head.—thirty six years was 1979, which was eerily within the possible range of Xynk's creation. My mind tracked back to my meeting with Verbamor in the throne room. I felt the sprouting tendrils of a theory. What if I was a decoy, not meant to succeed in carrying out a quest but summoned by Verbamor only to give the illusion of action? He could be banking on my reputation. He'd promised me riches but only after I completed the quest. In the meantime, he'd given me nothing. I followed a hunch.

  > ask dogor about tim birch

  > "Tim Birch is dead."

  For the second time today, I slammed the Thinkpad shut.

  My heart was pounding.

  I realized I was sweating, and the people in the coffee shop were looking over at me.

  "No need to get mad, sir," the pimply faced employee said. "Internet's up and ready to go. No password needed."

  I picked up the Thinkpad and stormed out.

  Outside, I called Wayne. "Listen, there's been a development."

  "An unexpected one?"

  "I wouldn't be calling if it was any other kind."

  I explained the situation in the car while driving down what constituted the local highway. I wanted to get Annie's cross-stitching errand out of the way, then drop by Wayne's for a serious session of gaming. "It could be a really morbid joke," he said. "Plenty of developers put stuff like that in their games."

  "So give me one example."

  He couldn't. "So what are you implying, that he predicted his own death in-game?"

  "Maybe."

  "That's insane."

  "Give me another hypothesis."

  I could hear Wayne's fingers hitting computer keys. "What if there's a character in Xynk called Tim Birch, and that character is dead. Like he's part of the back story, the history of the city. Don't fantasy games usually have long ass histories that no one ever reads?"

  That was a possibility I hadn't thought of. "Did you try asking the dwarf—"

  "His name is Dogor," I said.

  "Did you try asking Dogor about the other guy, Olaf something-or-other?"

  "Brandywine. And no, I didn't ask about him."

  "Then how about we try that first, when you get here, and once that calms you down you can sit in the corner of my store and work on your thesis like you usually do."

  "Annie called you again," I said.

  Wayne sighed.

  I ended the connection, pulled off the highway and wound my way through the curved streets of the subdivision to Darleen's house, with its freshly asphalted driveway and scarlet begonias and little tricycle by the front door that I desperately wanted to kick as I walked by. She opened the door smiling. "Hi," I said. "I'm here to pick up some stuff up for Annie."

  We made small talk as she dug around in chests and drawers, bent over them as if waiting for me to get up, walk behind her and—

  "Oh, here it is!" she squealed.

  "How wonderful," I said.

  She walked over cradling a bunch of materials, threads and pattern books, then dropped them on the table in front of me. "Do you maybe want a bag for these?" she asked.

  "That would be absolutely great," I said.

  She squealed again and bent over, pawing around in the cupboard beneath her kitchen sink. I took it her husband wasn't home, and a part of me wished I could stick a key in her eye, force open her mouth—

  "Listen," she said without turning around or getting up. "May I be candid with you?"

  "Sure, Doreen," I said.

  "Are you cheating on Annie?"

  It was an odd thing to ask a man while sticking your ass out at him, but her tone was oddly sincere. "Cheating, like, sexually?" I asked.

  "Dear me, I'm not accusing you. I've always taken your side. It's just that Annie seems to think..."

  My wife thought I was cheating on her? I stood up straighter and stuck out my chest. It was a day full of surprises, indeed. My ego hadn't had a boost like this in years. Even the truth—"I've never cheated on Annie in my life," I said.—couldn't spoil it.

  Doreen wiggled out of her cupboard holding a plastic bag. Her cheeks were gently pink. I held the bag open as she packed the cross-stitch stuff into it. "I'm glad to hear that," she said. "And I'm sorry I even asked."

  "Don't be sorry," I said, touching her hand with mine.

  "You're a truly good man," she said.

  I closed the bag, took it off the table and held it at my side like a briefcase.

  "That's all of it."

  "Do I owe you anything?"

  "Good heavens, no. Tell Annie I'm grateful she's taking this stuff off me. It's been gathering dust forever."

  "You don't cross-stitch?" I asked.

  "Not anymore."

  I nodded and backed away toward the front door. "I guess I'll be going then."

  "Let's have dinner together sometime," she stammered.

  "I'll ask Annie."

  I didn't kick the tricycle on my way down the front steps, but I did push it slightly with my foot. That was the extent of my rebellion. I threw the bag onto the back seat of my car, got in behind the wheel and pulled out of the driveway.

  My phone buzzed.

  Looping my way toward the highway, I read the email that my thesis sponsor that sent me. It said: "I am still awaiting word from you regarding our meeting tomorrow. Please confirm that you shall be in my office at 18:00. We may go to dinner."

  I replied that I'd be there.

  At Wayne's, I opened the Thinkpad even before reaching the table in the corner, plugged in the power cord and booted up.

  > Welcome back, John Grousewater. Press any key to continue your adventure.

  "So ask it about Olaf," Wayne said.

  I pressed Enter.

  > ROOM IN THE YAWNING MASK

  > You are in your room in the Yawning Mask. It's bare and empty, which suits an adventurer like you just fine. In the room, you see a TABLE and a WINDOW. The only DOOR leads WEST into the HALL.

&nbs
p; > "Where were you?" Dogor asks.

  "Well?"

  "He's asking me a question," I said. "Should I answer?"

  Wayne looked at the screen.

  He typed:

  > i was with my buddy wayne, yo

  > "Wayne is a distraction," Dogor says.

  "Damn," Wayne said. "Dogor the Dwarf really tells it how he feels it."

  I typed:

  > ask dogor about olaf brandywine

  > "Olaf Brandywine is a high ranking member of the Hooded Rat Brotherhood," Dogor says.

  "See, I told you it was an in-joke. Now turn off the laptop and I'll bring you a better one, and you can connect to Dropbox and work on your thesis," Wayne said.

  > "Don't turn me off," Dogor says.

  I spun the laptop around so that Wayne could see the screen. He stared at it for a few seconds and said, "That's freaky, I'll give you that. Output without input. But it's probably linked to some kind of timer."

  "A timer that tells it we wanted to turn off the game right after we turned it on?"

  > "I have a name. My name is Dogor the Double Fisted," Dogor says. "And I can hear you conversing."

  Wayne and I both stared stupidly at the command prompt. There was a microphone on the top part of the frame around the Thinkpad's screen, but there was no way Dogor could hear us, let alone understand—

  "Dogor's gay," Wayne said.

  > "I am unfamiliar with the word 'gay'," Dogor says.

  I covered the microphone with my hand and whispered, "It's obviously responding to us, which is pretty advanced programming for a text adventure, but maybe it just responds to a few key words."

  "Like Siri?"

  "I mean, what's the alternative?"

  I moved my hand away.

  "Being gay means you like to shove your little dwarven cock into the assholes of other male dwarves," Wayne said into the microphone, enunciating each word.

  > "I shoved my cock up your mother's ass last night, Wayne Dubcek," Dogor says.

  "How the hell does it know my last