by Jason Cheek
“That shouldn’t be an issue. We’ll all be in your area by tonight,” I said, for once feeling like things were going our way. Quickly, I laid out the plan I’d been working on to pull him and his people out, including a rundown on what Krishna had told me about fortresses on the Isolde Line. That alone was worth its weight in gold. The gist was that he needed the fortress’s hearthstone to be filled up with mana if we were going to have any chance to pull off an evac.
“Wait, what!?” Domenic asked in obvious surprise. “I’m not just running from these assholes! What’s the fucking point of you coming to help if we are not going to band together and fight? Sorry, I’m not evacuating.”
“Yes, you are,” I snapped back at him irritably. “Besides, it’s no different than one of our StarCraft matches. We’ll pull you back to my lands, turtle up, and then you will come out swinging after you build up your forces. Just like any other match we’ve ever played.”
“Fuck that!” Domenic growled angrily. “Why am I always a magnet for this kind of shit? This isn't like StarCraft, I’m intentionally being targeted by a player and not the computer here. Dammit, Julie is such a bitch.”
“Someone always has to be the target.” I said, doing my best to understand his frustration. The truth is, that in most of those matches, the computer enemy tended to focus their attacks the weakest link or, in layman’s terms, the person with the lowest resource and unit count. Dom always played the Terrans and they typically got off to a slow start, which didn't help the situation. While Dom might start off slow, once he hit his stride, he was a bear to take out.
“Besides, it not your fault that you were targeted.” I said, letting out the breath I’d been holding.
“I didn't think it was my fault, why would you even say that?” Domenic asked, suddenly alert at my statement.
“Hmm, Hefe was still talking to Julie all this time.” I said, unconsciously clenching as I waited for what was coming next. “I sent an email out to the guild about it.”
“Hefe?” Domenic exclaimed in surprise, as I heard his mouse start clicking as he brought up his email program.
I explained about Julie tricking Hefe and using their perceived friendship to get the information she wanted. Domenic knew as well as I did that Hefe didn’t stand a chance against her if she was purposely working him over. While Hefe was a nice guy, he was a sucker for the ladies, in general, and Julie, specifically. Besides, it’s not like you could be angry at the big man. We all knew he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
“What are we going to do with him, Jay?” Domenic asked in a strained voice. I could almost picture him holding his head to ward off a migraine.
“Nothing,” I said, letting the tension out with a heavy sigh. “Nothing at all. We just won’t share anything important with him in the future. Think of it like he doesn’t have a high enough security clearance for the really important information.”
“We should have done that sooner with him, and look where we are now,” Domenic said, giving a tired laugh.
I wholeheartedly agreed. My subconscious must have come to a decision last night while I’d slept, because I felt pretty sure about the decision. “Look, it’s not that Hefe is a bad guy. I just don’t trust him not to run his mouth. Talking the shit he does is what always gets him in trouble and what makes him … Hefe. So, anything really important, I’m keeping close to my chest whenever I’m around him so shit like this doesn’t happen again.”
“Besides, I think his new girlfriend laid into him last night. It’s almost like he’s taking responsibility for once,” I added.
“There’s that,” Domenic unhappily replied, before continuing. “Look, I know Hefe is not a bad guy, but he’s a perpetual dumb ass, so let’s use this to our advantage instead. Don’t call him out on this. Instead we start feeding Hefe misinformation about our plans. We know what’ll happen next.” Domenic said in a tone I was all too familiar with when he was scheming and plotting revenge.
“Yeah we can do that, it’s actually not a bad idea,” I replied, silently shaking my head no. Sometimes, it was easiest to just agree with Domenic instead of arguing the point with him on something like this. Besides, the rest of the guild would never accept Hefe being privy to any information that could be used to screw us over. At least, not for a while. Not only that, when it came to Hefe facing off against Julie that was a no-win situation, but none of that was worth arguing about. Like usual, I just switched subjects.
“You want to be the one that tells Mike?” Domenic asked.
“Naw, that’s all you. I’ll work with everyone else.” I replied, checking the time. Even if Mike was pissed off, he’d know not to try using Hefe to get one over on Julie too. “Hey, I need to get moving. I’ll hit you up in-game tonight. Just tell your people to not kill me on sight.”
“Roger that,” Domenic said, yawning in my ear. “Later, Jay.”
“Get some sleep, Dom,” I said, hanging up.
With that finished, I went through the rest of my morning routine and threw on some relatively clean sweat pants, before heading to the kitchen. I was just throwing in four sausage, egg and cheese biscuits into the microwave and starting the coffee machine, when I remembered my package should have arrived yesterday. Grabbing my phone, I pulled up the digital code from my email and jogged out to the postboxes at the edge of the parking lot to pick-up my package. This one was noticeably bigger than the last, I thought, as I hurried back to my apartment, ignoring the small stones that jabbed me in the feet. After being repeatedly slaughtered in-game, small pains such as that hardly bothered me anymore.
Setting the large box next to the counter, I grabbed my breakfast sandwiches and dug in as I opened up my new toy … err suit. A wolfish grin split my lips as I held up the futuristic body suit by the shoulders. Now this was more like it, I thought, as I laid it over the counter and checked out the insides. There was a built-in bottoms that had a sheath for my junk and a separate area for my butt.
A glance through the directions explained how to insert your junk into the suit’s built-in sheath, while the poop chute was more of a baggy-like tail that could be removed and dumped. It would suck to log out with a load in your drawers, but it was better than pissing and shitting all over yourself inside one of the basic suits like Hefe had done during his first week of playing. As per Domenic, Hefe had tossed his suit and bought a new one.
Must be nice to have rich parents, I thought, shaking my head incredulously as I remembered the story. Alternately, you could use the buttplug-like insert that I’d also purchased, which was just, ew. I’d use it if it was a must, but it wasn’t a part of the plan, if you know what I mean.
Lastly, the new suit had its own hydration system. It was similar to the system I’d originally picked up. It fit over the back just like the CamelBak hydration system you’d use on a hike. Similar to the normal tube that you used to draw water into your mouth, this tube snaked up your neck and actually fit into your mouth in a fish-hook configuration. There was a checkbox you could click on the configuration of the Egg so that it would actually have you drink from the tube automatically whenever you drank inside the game.
Yeah, you don’t even want to know what I had to pay for a suit like this. Still, it was well worth the money if it kept my body healthy. I was honestly getting tired of being so dehydrated all the time whenever I logged out. Besides, that couldn’t even be remotely healthy. Interesting enough, the company had also included a few packages of sample protein mixes that could be added to the water to help with hunger. It was an interesting concept, which I immediately put to use. Filling the bladder with water, I added one of the sample packs to the unit. Sealing everything up, I shook the CamelBak to mix up the contents, before strapping it back in place.
Laying the suit over the stool next to me, I began working on my last breakfast sandwich as I went through my emails. I had to repeat the story I’d given to Domenic to the rest of the guild, since everyone was freaking out about th
e ruckus on the forums. The biggest concern was that V-MMORG would smack us down. My explanation of having an Admin on hand that could confirm it was Julie’s doing put everyone at ease.
While that wouldn’t do anything for the hate that was building up against us on the server, that wasn’t anything new for me and my friends. It seemed like these PKers had a lot of people who enjoyed trolling on the forums. That, or they were sheeple who couldn’t make up their own minds. So basically, it was business as usual. Next, I dug into the responses from the night before from Kyarina and Orion.
Kyarina was excited about the possibility of mounts and promised to lead a party out to see if they could catch any of the Battering Rams. She asked if I could send an invite to a new player named, Jodi Tempest who’d showed up yesterday to BrokenFang Hold. As per Kyarina, the woman was Thomas’ in real life sister and was in need of a home. She couldn’t join the Devil Dogs because she wasn’t ex-military, but with our partnership, there was no sense why she couldn’t join the Revenants. Also, she was a Ranger that specialized in Exotic Animal Husbandry and had a female Blink Lynx for a pet to boot.
I assured her I would do it first thing when I logged in. The thought of having someone who knew how to tame the teleporting lynxes was huge. Who knows if they’d ever be truly capable of true teleportation, but it was worth looking into. While I hadn’t actually met one of the creatures in-game, if they followed the traditional lore of the creatures, that meant the predators could teleport up to twenty yards away with their master in direct line of sight. Besides, if anyone could help capture a bunch of Battering Rams on a rocky ledge, it would be a Blink Lynx.
Orion’s email was next. When he’d gotten back from escorting a group of miners back from the iron mine they’d cleared out earlier in the week, he’d received some interesting news. One of the higher level Devil Dog teams that had been heading out onto the Plains of Atoll had run across a massive mineral field a day’s travel out. The place was a wasteland of sulfuric springs and rock formations that got bigger the deeper you went into the harsh no-man’s-land.
Although none of the players had been miners, they’d taken the time to gather up some of the more interesting mineral fragments that they’d found lying on the ground to bring back for our miners to check out. They’d wanted to explore deeper into the area to see what else they could find, but had been instantly ambushed and killed by a group of creatures that sounded nasty as hell. Orion couldn’t tell me exactly how the monsters looked, because it always seemed to be surrounded by a black, fog-like smoke. Still, he was able to piece a few things together.
From the confused feedback, they were horse-like with talons and chitinous-like heavy armor. Super strong, with nasty fang-like mandibles that could rip your face off with one bite. There seemed to be some confusion if they were poisonous or not, since everyone died so quickly. Orion thought the creatures had to have some sort of shoulder spikes with a poisonous attack that paralyzed its prey.
After collecting their bodies, they returned to BrokenFang Hold to get some Antidote and Healing potions, before heading back out to try the boss mob again. The minerals they’d brought back had the Gnome and Gnomelings in an uproar. While none of the samples were big enough for enchanting something like our Fire Spitters, the ore they’d gathered was a mixture of Loadstone Iron and Cobalt with small Mana Accumulation crystal chunks mixed in. The Mana Accumulation crystals alone were a significant discovery and warranted exploring the area further.
Minny had sworn that the smaller chunks of crystal meant there had to be some major deposits further in that could be mined for the size of crystals that we needed. Orion understood how important the Mana Accumulation crystals were for crafting the anti-siege weapons we needed to fight the coming Hobgoblin invasion. He planned on taking these new creatures out and pushing deeper into the area to see what kind of ore and crystals were available for mining. While it sounded like they had a solid plan, I asked Orion to promise me that he’d take along a decent size raid and that he’d pull Minny out at the first signs of trouble. I didn’t want to lose the little Gnome if the shit hit the fan, especially after the ordeal she went through with the players in Delonshire and the Goblins in the Delonshire Mine.
Otherwise, Orion was down with the whole concept of standardization and mass production. He agreed with my take that it wasn’t something you wanted to use for creating all of our people’s weapons or armor. Even so, he agreed it was an excellent way to get everyone geared up to a basic level and to get our projectile stores built up to the levels we’d need to fight off a siege.
On a side note, Orion explained that he’d crafted miniatures during his Warhammer 40K tabletop gaming days, before joining the Marines. Meaning, he had a solid understanding of making lead forms. With the information I’d sent him, he thought he could get a good system in place for making iron molds. The Devil Dog promised to go over the concepts with Aidan Calanon, the lead blacksmith, and some of the other crafters when he logged on in the morning.
With the added information I’d just sent out, everyone slowly began discussing Hefe’s Excommunicado status. The initial set of emails from the night before had been hot, but now calmer heads had started to prevail. No one wanted him kicked out of the guild, but at the same time, trust had to be earned. It was decided to give him a chance on a probationary status. After all, everyone loved the big lug.
The main point of the email discussion boiled down to one simple point. Hefe had been everyone’s friend for years and this was the first time he’d ever fucked up like this. Although, the whole putting everyone’s money on the line had made everyone upset and nearly gotten him kicked out of the guild for good. Everyone also understood how Julie was. The woman was like a demon making a deal for a sinner’s soul.
Meaning, while everyone was pissed off about it like me, they understood Hefe had never stood a chance against her. It’s not like I could say anything about him being a dumbass in that regards, since I’d been the one to date the evil bitch in the first place. At the end of the discussion, I was glad to see that they’d been willing to give him a second chance. I just hoped he didn’t fuck it up.
With that resolved, I went to my Twitch channel and selected the section of video where Julie cast the Meteor Strike spell, our fight, and her gloating about it. Thankfully, the Twitch account came with some nice video editing tools for streamers. Creating a special outtake video, I quickly added the file as an attachment to my own day’s video, before pulling up The World’s forums.
On each running post that was going on about banning my guild or blaming me for the destruction of Telrain, I added my post comment, pointing out that Chaos Storm were actually the ones who destroyed the city and linked it to the video. I also pointed out that my friends and I had done our best to save as many players and people of The World as possible, before the Chaos Storm’s guild leader ruthlessly destroyed Telrain.
It took a good half an hour to hit all the ongoing posts, but I figured it was worth the extra time and effort. I had no doubt it would take a while to percolate through the community. Oh, some players would believe whatever they heard or read first, especially if it was posted from someone they liked. Even so, enough would want to follow the link if only because of the controversy, if not their base curiosity. Kind of like the shiny red button from the Ren & Stimpy show.
Once they saw the truth for themselves, they’d be pissed at being tricked by my ex-girlfriend’s lies and that anger would just grow over time. In the end, it would bite her in the ass like it always did. Of that, I had no doubt. Until then, we’d just have to endure the shitstorm that was headed our way, which, for us, wasn’t anything new.
With that done, I cleaned up my dishes and suited up. The new suit fit like a rubber glove. I didn’t notice either of the two waste removal systems that were built into the crotch. Supposedly, the rear baggy would whisk the solid waste away from my body even if I was sitting. Honesty, I’d rather not test it, but having it there was r
eassuring. Also, the extra weight on my back from the Camelbak pouch was barely noticeable as I stood up and tested my range of movement.
The drinking tube was somewhat annoying, but not overly so. I wondered if I’d get a little crease on my face like the Freemen from the constant use of the nose plug part of the stillsuit. I know, I’m an uber-geek of the movie Dune, but what of it? Taking a deep breath, I walked to the foyer and looked at myself in the mirror as I carefully breathed. I couldn’t help the smile that came to my lips as I mentally rubbed my hands together feeling like Dr. Evil. This would allow me to run the playing schedule I liked without ruining my body. Besides, the suit really did look cool as hell and was functional to boot.
Filling my water glass, I placed it on my desk next to the egg as I got ready to log in. Why the water glass you might ask? While the hydration system would keep my body from being dehydrated, I figured it wouldn’t stop me from getting cotton mouth syndrome. With that taken care of, I set up the configuration of the Egg for drinking while playing, before I climbed into the unit. Surprisingly enough, just being within the unit made my suit power up which was interesting. Suddenly, the blurb about the suit using “radiant power” made a little bit more sense.
Sitting back in the contoured seat, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that there was a hint of an airflow moving through the suit. Not overpowering, just enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting sweaty ball syndrome. Slipping the helmet on over my head, the HUD popped up on the screen as I triggered the login sequence.