by A. J. Markam
“SHIT,” I hissed, and sat down quickly at the nearest open spot at one of the long, wooden tables. Then I gestured to Soraiya and Stig. “Sit!”
Soraiya sat down opposite me, and Stig sat beside me. His eyes could barely see over the top of the table.
Fugly flapped down beside me, and I grabbed him and shoved him under the table.
“Stay down there,” I ordered him.
“nah,” he said, and struggled to get up onto the bench.
“Stay down there and I’ll feed you,” I whispered.
“yah,” he agreed, and sat back on his haunches as I reached into my back for some food.
“DUDE!” a raucous voice laughed right next to me. “It’s like the Handmaid’s Tale, Afghanistan, and a Jawa all walked into a bar!”
I looked over at the speaker, who sat across the table to my right. It was an orcish Warrior in chain mail with a goofy grin on his face and a huge beer stein in his hand.
“What?” I asked, perplexed.
The orc laughed again and pointed at Soraiya, then Stig, then me. “Afghanistan, Jawa, Handmaid’s Tale… you know, that old Hulu show? All the chicks are wearing red?”
“Yeah, that’s great,” a woman’s voice said drily. “Reduce a show about women’s struggle in a male-dominated theocracy to ‘chicks wearing red.’”
I looked over to see a very pretty elf with light blue skin, long white hair, and glowing yellow eyes. She was wearing silver robes.
A Frost Mage.
“Hey – now it’s gettin’ poli’ical!” a cheery Cockney voice said. “An’ if it gets poli’ical, you know what that means!”
The Cockney was a goblin dressed in plate armor. From the ornamental shape of his helmet I was guessing he was a Paladin. He had to stand up on the seat next to the orc to reach his stein of beer, which was almost as big as he was.
“No talk about you having sex, please,” a dry, posh British voice said to the right of the elf. “You’ll put me off my drink. Again.”
I peered over. To the right of the Frost Mage sat a thin troll dressed in a Priest’s robes. He also wore a tiny pair of spectacles clipped to the bridge of his nose. Which was odd, since everybody had 20/20 vision in OtherWorld – so I guess he did it to look more like himself in the real world.
The goblin Paladin addressed me directly. “See, mate, yer not supposed to talk about religion, sex, or politics, but if they break the rules first, then I get to talk about whatever I want!”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like he’s actually having sex,” the Frost Mage assured me.
“‘EY! I’ll have you know I had a threesome last night!” the goblin Paladin whooped happily.
“What, with your left and your right hand?” she shot back.
“EX-actly!” the goblin cheered as he raised both his hands and wiggled the fingers of his armored gauntlets. “Don’t worry, I used a glove! No glove, no love! Lovely birds – I think I’ll keep ‘em around!”
“Oh god, it’s happening again,” the troll Priest said with a shudder, and pushed his much smaller beer stein away from him.
“As long as there are no demonstrations like last time!” the orc said with his goofy, gravelly stoner’s laugh.
“I still have nightmares about that,” the troll murmured.
“Wot? That was a perfectly beautiful demonstration of my love for a bird!” the goblin grinned, then looked at me. “Completely consensual, mind you – and the bird loved it!”
“The bird in question being an actual bird, not merely slang for a female,” the troll said to me. “A chicken, as I recall.”
“You… fucked a chicken?” I asked the goblin in shock.
“A roasted one, mate!” he shouted gleefully, then pantomimed grasping an invisible rotisserie chicken in front of his crotch and humping it. “She basted my todger in her delectable juices!”
“She was hot, too,” the orc laughed.
“So hot I had to let her cool down first before I stuck it in!” the goblin grinned.
Clearly I had chosen the wrong table to sit at.
Actually, it probably would have been the right table if I were drunk and chillin’. After all, people who made Star Wars jokes out of nowhere were generally my kind of nerds.
But I wasn’t drunk and chillin’. I had shit to do.
However, I couldn’t leave. The palace guards rushed right behind our table on their way to the coliseum.
I lowered my head to the table to avoid any chance they might see my face.
The Frost Mage noticed, though she waited until the guards were past to say anything. “Somebody looking for you?”
I peered at her face, trying to gauge her expression. “…you might say that.”
“Don’t worry – we won’t give you up,” she assured me.
“Yeah, we’ll just pull some Jedi mind shit!” the orc laughed, and waved his hand like Obi-Wan. “These are not the Muslims, Handmaid’s Tale chicks, and Jawas you are looking for!”
“Narc,” Stig suddenly spoke up out of nowhere.
“Oh-HO, the Jawa speaks!” the orc chuckled. “No, man, I wouldn’t do that to you!”
“That’s what she said,” Stig answered.
“What?!” the orc frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
“That’s what she said.”
“He doesn’t really get how to do it correctly,” I explained.
“That’s what she said.”
The orc and goblin burst into laughter.
“Now THAT was a right good one!” the goblin snorted.
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s enough,” I said to Stig, “you’re wearing it out.”
“That’s what she said.”
The orc and goblin continued to howl with laughter.
I looked at the Frost Elf and pointed to her stein of beer. “Can I have that? I’ll buy you another.”
“No need. He driving you to drink?” she joked as she pushed the stein over in front of me.
“No, I’m going to drive him to drink,” I said as I slid it over in front of Stig. “There you go.”
Stig jumped up on the table, straddled the beer stein with both legs, and then tipped it back and buried his face into the foam.
“That looks almost obscene,” the troll Priest commented.
“As long as he has something in his mouth he won’t talk,” I said.
“Bblthat’s bwhat bshe said,” Stig burbled through the beer.
“I think that’s a gay ‘that’s what he said,’” the orc suggested.
“Bblthat’s bwhat bshe said.”
“That doesn’t even work!” I snapped.
“Bblthat’s bwhat bshe said.”
“So much for not talking with something in his mouth,” the troll said.
“Bblthat’s bwhat bshe said.”
“Ignore him,” I said in exasperation, then looked over my shoulder to verify the guards were gone. “We should probably go.”
“You still owe me a drink,” the Frost Mage said with a smile.
“Oh, yeah – sorry,” I said, and looked around. “Where’s the waitress?”
“Relax, it was a joke,” she reassured me. “It was, like, three coppers.”
“Here, I’ll pay you – ” I said, reaching into my bag for some money.
“Dude, chill,” the Frost Elf said.
Stig pulled his head out of the stein long enough to yell, “CHILL, BITCH!” at me, then stuck his head back in the beer.
The entire table erupted into laughter.
“You let a Jawa talk to you that way?” the orc laughed.
“He’s an imp, and I don’t have much choice,” I grumbled. “Stig kind of does what he wants.”
“Stig – cool name!” the goblin enthused, then pantomimed fucking a rotisserie chicken again. “Kind of like ‘stig it in!’”
Stig stopped drinking long enough to look at the goblin, shake his head disapprovingly, and then went back to chugging the beer.
“I agree with Stig. That was fowl,” the troll said in a deadpan voice.
It took me a second before I got it: ‘fowl’ and ‘foul’…
“Ohhhhhh,” I groaned. “That was bad.”
“At least you understood it. My humor is rather wasted on at least two of my companions.”
“Naaaah, we just ignore it!” the goblin said cheerfully.
“The imp’s name is Stig, and your name is – ” the orc said as he peered above my head, a sure sign he was accessing my ID tag. “Ian? That’s it?! ‘IAN’?!”
“Imaginative,” the Frost Elf teased me.
Players normally came up with Tolkien-appropriate fantasy names, but I wasn’t about to reveal that I was a quality control employee for Westek and that my boss made me use my real name in the game. I didn’t want a thousand questions about ‘When’s the next upgrade?’ and ‘Can you get me a +1000 Critical Strike ring, dude?’
“Perhaps it’s all in the pronunciation,” the troll suggested. “Eye-an, for instance. Or Eye-EH-en.”
“Not everybody does retarded shit with their name like you, dude,” the orc said to the troll.
“How dare you,” the troll said in the most unoffended voice ever. “My name is a commentary on the ridiculous lengths players go in their efforts to roleplay.”
I accessed the troll’s ID tag.
R’i’c’h’a’r’dus. Priest. Level 28.
“Ri-CHARD-us?” I said, trying to sound it out.
“Rih-IH-ch-A-r-dus,” he answered with a straight face.
“But we jus’ call ‘im Dumbass,” the goblin grinned.
“Or Richard,” the Frost Mage said.
“Or Fuckin’ Wanker,” the goblin added.
“Richard will do fine,” the troll said to me.
“I’m Rotgut, but you can call me Russell,” the goblin grinned as he stuck out his hand.
I winced a little as I shook it, thinking of masturbation and rotisserie chicken-fucking.
But at least he had his plate armor ‘gloves’ on.
His ID tag said he was a Level 28 Paladin, just as I’d suspected.
“I’m Jevari, but you can call me Jen,” the Frost Mage said, shaking my hand, too.
Level 28, too.
The orc spoke up last. “Real name’s Seth, but everybody calls me – ”
I saw his ID tag before he finished, and I laughed out loud.
“Slothfart?!”
“Awesome, right?” the orc grinned.
I laughed again. “That’s quite a name.”
“I know, right?! Fuckin’ administrators keep tryin’ to make me change it, so some days I’m Slot Fart, or Sloth Art, or Fart Sloth, but I always come back to the original. Can’t fuck with a classic.” The orc looked to his right. “So who’s the Muslim chick?”
“Soraiya. She’s not really Muslim, though.”
“Give us a peek, then, love!” the goblin leered, wiggling his eyebrows lasciviously.
Soraiya lifted her hand up from beneath her burqa.
FWOOOSH! went a fireball in her palm.
“Or not,” the goblin said, retreating.
“Whoa, shit,” the orc muttered, scooting away a foot. “I guess she’s Muslim at heart.”
“That’s entirely inappropriate,” the troll scolded him. “Making terrorism jokes about other faiths is not – ”
“DUDE, I was talking about her not wanting to lift up her – whatever that is she’s wearing!” the orc yelled back. “Her hijab, or – ”
“Burqa,” the troll corrected him.
“Whatever!”
“She could give me a ‘hijab’ any day of the week,” the goblin grinned as he made a hand motion over his crotch.
“That’s what she said,” Stig burped.
“That’s – no, that doesn’t – no,” the orc said, annoyed.
Suddenly my gargoyle poked his head out from under the table between Soraiya and Slothfart. “yah.”
“WHOA!” the orc yelled as he backed up three feet, smushing the goblin between him and another drinker. “What the hell is THAT?!”
“It’s Fugly,” Stig announced.
“Yeah, I can see that, but – ”
“No, his name’s actually ‘Fugly,’” I said.
“A bit on the nose,” the troll chided me.
“I guess,” I admitted.
The troll turned to his friends. “And you people have a problem with R’i’c’h’a’r’dus.”
“Naw, Richie,” the goblin said cheerfully, “we jus’ have a problem with you!”
“Thank you so much.”
“Is that, like, your pet or something?” the orc asked as he pointed at my gargoyle.
“nah,” Fugly snorted.
“I’m a Warlock, so he’s – was – my demon.”
“What do you mean ‘was’?” the Frost Mage asked.
“I freed him.”
“So now he can do whatever he wants?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Oh shit,” the orc said, and backed up another foot.
“Why did you free him?”
“It’s a long story.”
“What else have you got under there?” the orc asked.
“I don’t know – there’s a fairy around here somewhere,” I said.
Suddenly a golden blur zipped over our heads and squeaked, “I is right here, Big Thing!”
“What the hell?!” Slothfart yelped as he watched Wylla hover like a hummingbird. “Dude, you got a chipmunk and a badger hangin’ around, too?”
“A virtual menagerie,” the troll said. “You see, ‘virtual’ because we’re in a virtual reality – ”
“Yeah, yeah, we know yer smart, Richie,” the goblin grinned. “Now shut yer gob.”
As my companions squabbled amongst themselves, I looked back over my shoulder. Now the soldiers were running out of the coliseum in another direction.
Time to make my exit.
“Well, this has been fun, guys, but I better get going.”
“Gotta get your Muslim chick to morning prayers?” the orc chuckled. “Gotta get your Jawa back to Tatooine?”
“No, I need to go find some people to do the dungeon with.”
The goblin slapped his chest with both hands as though to say, Here I am! “Well, Ian, I’d say you’ve found ‘em!”
“Uh, it looks more like you’re drinking.”
The Frost Mage looked over at Stig. “Looks like some of your people are, too.”
“Yeah, well, not for long.”
“We’re pretty much finished,” the orc said. “We could go in with you again – we need a fifth.”
“‘Again’? You’ve already run the dungeon?”
That could be a huge advantage, having experienced guides…
“We’ve run part of it,” the Frost Mage cautioned. “We got through the first ten floors, but there’s got to be at least 100. It’s HUGE.”
“That’s what she said,” Stig piped up.
“HAHA!” the orc laughed. “He got it right that time!”
“That’s what she said.”
“Yeah, it was funny the first time, dude – ”
“That’s what she said.”
“No, I have to say something first – ”
“That’s what she said.”
“NO!” the orc shouted at Stig.
“That’s what she said.”
“That last one was somewhat disturbing,” the troll pointed out.
“That’s what she said.”
The orc wasn’t having any more of it.
“That’s what she said!” he yelled back at Stig.
“That’s what she said!” Stig yelled back.
The orc leaned over in Stig’s face. “That’s what she said!”
Stig stood up and put his forehead right against the orc’s and shouted, “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!”
“The intellectual cream of the crop, right at this very table,” the troll commented.
&
nbsp; “You sure you really want to go dungeon diving with this?” I said to the Frost Mage.
She shrugged. “My friends are annoying all the time. At least it’s a new kind of annoying.”
“Hold on a second,” I said, and turned aside to whisper, “What do you think?”
- I think she’s hot, Alaria answered.
“No, I mean – ”
- If you can get her away from the three dorks, try to get her into bed.
I didn’t tell Alaria that what she was suggesting was impossible. I was beta testing the adult version of the game, but regular players didn’t have access yet – so no matter how much I might have wanted to have sex with the Frost Mage, there was no way it could happen.
Rather than go into all that, though, I just whispered, “Would you focus on what we’re doing?”
“That’s what she said,” Stig and the orc said at the same time – looked at each other – and then burst into drunken laughter.
I guess there was nothing to bring people together like a good ‘that’s what she said’ joke.
“Who are you talking to?” the Frost Mage asked with a frown.
- She’s interested! Hit on her!
“You could hear me?” I asked, embarrassed.
“Yyyyeah?” she said, like DUH.
I sighed and pulled out my necklace. “Look, it’s a long story, but the short version is, this is a baby dungeon core – ”
“What’s a dungeon core?” the orc interrupted.
“A sentient crystal that runs the processes of a dungeon,” Richard the troll said. “They’re somewhat rare.”
“That’s what you were talking to?” the Frost Mage asked.
“Yes.”
“Is this part of a quest?”
“You could say that. I’m trying to find the BIG dungeon core here in Vos to help me out. So… I’m not really interested in XP, loot, or gold – well, gold is good, and I can always use better gear – but what I really need is to find the dungeon core as soon as possible.”
The Frost Mage raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Okay… you want to beat a hundred-floor dungeon ‘as soon as possible.’ Not an unrealistic goal at all.”
“Look, I realize that may not be what you guys want to do, so I can go find somebody else if you want.”
The Frost Mage shrugged. “No – I’m down.”
“Fuck, I’ll do it!” the orc said –
And at the same time, he and Stig yelled in each other’s faces, “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!”