by Charles Dean
“ . . . I must confess,” Darwin said as he shook his head clear of the disturbing visuals, “I was so busy trying to keep myself and everyone else alive that I never actually thought about it.” Pieces began to click together inside Darwin’s head. His hands began to move on auto pilot, slaying drake after drake as his mind began searching for an explanation other than the conspiracy that Daniel was laying out.
“Look, I’m not going to press the matter,” Daniel explained. “I did my homework. We know for a fact who sacked Valcrest and why they did it. It was players, not NPCs. I’m not trying to blame Stephanie for some terrible crime, and I don’t think even if she did kill the Mayor or the Village Chief or whoever was in charge, it was for the worst.” Daniel did his best to keep his voice gentle. Darwin could tell he knew he was walking on eggshells with each syllable, “Hell,” Daniel’s voice continued shakily, “I’ve been sent on so many missions to kill NPCs whose only crime was not being part of the reigning faction in an area that I couldn’t even count the number of sentient bodies I’d piled up before I realized they weren’t just mobs in a game. At a certain point, it was just a fact I couldn’t ignore: the way the Fire-Walkers plotted, hated and schemed and the way Valerie’s superior had such a weird, self-sacrificing, romantic end. There was just no way they were simply mobs. ”
“I know the feeling. Even now I’m left wondering: how real were the things I’ve killed in the game before now? How intelligent are the rest of the mobs in this game? If Fuzzy Wuzzy can think and show emotions, can the other bears?” Unlike Daniel, Darwin said this all with a steady voice. It didn’t shake or even hint a change in emotion. “I kept wondering that for a long time. The thought ‘I just killed a regular guy playing poker with his friends or a harmless hare making breakfast for himself just because I needed their EXP and items’ stayed with me longer than I could have imagined.”
“But then?” Daniel managed to look at Darwin for a moment even as he continued his murderous work. “What changed?”
“Responsibility. If I don’t kill the boss making breakfast, he either kills me, or I go home too weak to protect my people. Since the moment I landed in Tiqpa, someone has been trying to kill me off. So at first, I didn’t have time to think about why I was stabbing the crazy idiot charging me in the field. After that, I had an entire people to worry about. By the time I realized what impact I was making, I already had too many reasons to ignore it. I had too many burdens to also carry the weight of my enemy’s sorrow.” Darwin hesitated and then decided to let the sentence end there.
“So that’s it? The StormGuard Alliance is why you are okay with it?” Daniel’s wry smile betrayed his eyes. “There is nothing more?”
There was, though, a fact that he couldn’t escape. A fact that he knew deep down from the very first moment his foot crushed the burglar’s face in. “No, that’s not it,” he admitted. It wasn’t something he should admit, but it was no longer something he could lie to himself about. “It’s also the fact that I like the thrill of the fight and the rush of the kill,” he said with a frown. Just saying it out loud felt like he had ripped a bandaid off all at once. It stung, but it was a relief to get it off his chest. “I like it. I’m good at it, and I honestly don’t even feel anything when I cut a man’s head off--except sometimes joy.”
Daniel stopped setting up the Blue-Drakes for a moment and turned to face Darwin. His eyes wide and his mouth half agape. “You . . . like killing?”
“Yeah,” Darwin sighed. “It’s like, I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I can’t separate it from the fun I have in video games, from the thrill I used to get when playing a really tough game. Like I was made to kill, like every kill brings me closer to some understanding of myself.”
“Boss, I don’t know how to put this politely, but that’s kind of scary.” Daniel just stared at Darwin, who never stopped slaughtering the newly-spawned mobs..
“Yeah, for you and me both. I do the right thing. I always do the right thing, but am I doing it because I want to, that it’s what my gut is telling me what to do, or just because I know I should? It is scary.” Darwin didn’t know why he divulged so much. He was having a conversation less with Daniel and more with himself at this point. “It’s terrifying because it means that maybe, just maybe, one day those lines will get blurred, and I won’t know the difference.” He paused the mayhem for a moment and turned and faced Daniel. “One day, I might not just kill because it’s the right thing to do; I might just kill because it’s what my gut tells me to do.”
“Let’s hope that never happens.” Daniel awkwardly shifted about then jumped back into the battle.
Have I alienated one of my few friends? Darwin began to worry, but Daniel put his mind at ease.
“Let’s hope that I don’t reach that day before you.” Daniel pushed his daggers into another foe, switching so that Darwin could follow up. “Because I understand exactly what you mean.”
An eerie silence filled the air between the two as they finished farming the route that Kitchens had pulled. When they reached the end, there were no mobs left on either side. The Blue-Drakes along the route previously pulled by Kass and Minx had already been slain by ZombiDrakes, and the respawn time wasn’t fast enough for there to be any Blue-Drakes on the side they had just come from. All that was left was the uncomfortable, awkward quiet as they stood at the entrance. Fuzzy Wuzzy popped his head around the corner, but seeing that neither of them were speaking, he didn’t even bother to growl an acknowledgement before he walked back outside.
“So, earlier conversation notwithstanding, what now?” Daniel broke the silence.
“I suppose we wait for the bandits or Alex,” Darwin looked around. “I mean, we could go clean out another dungeon, but I don’t know where any are, and I would rather be here to greet the bandits if they get here before Alex arrives.”
“Good point. Well, in that case, I’m going to take a tip from the rest of our friends and log off,” Daniel said, waving goodbye as he signed out.
“Thank God he’s gone.” Stephanie crept out of one of the shadows. “I thought he would never leave.”
“Were you waiting a while?” Darwin wondered how long she had been listening.
“Long enough to know your dirty secret.”
“Not sure how much of a secret it is if I’m telling people.”
“The thing that makes it a secret is that you told someone, but not everyone. A secret untold is just a thought or memory.” Stephanie smiled.
Darwin noticed that Stephanie’s tone and dialect had changed. It was slightly more serious, slightly less teen and more adult. This was the Stephanie that showed for only a few moments when something important happened, when her guard was down. “What’s going on?” He thought he might as well take a stab in the dark with the question.
“Well, I’m just excited is all. I’m actually super happy!” Stephanie seemed to channel Minx for a moment as she clasped both her hands in front of her and her mouth shot open with joy. “You won’t believe the good news I have!”
“Good news?” Darwin was still too busy trying to figure out what she was talking about to be excited with her.
“Yeah! Great news! Amazing news! Fantastic news!” She grabbed one of each of Darwin’s hands, looked him in the face, smiling, and then said one more time, “Darwin! It’s the best of news!”
Darwin, starting to get swept up by her enthusiasm, did his best to moderate his emotion until he found out what was going on without coming off as rude. “Yes, you have said ‘news’ several times. What is this good news? Come on, I’m dying to find out.”
“Well, I found it!” Stephanie’s excitement was spilling over, but it was still hard to share it with her given he didn’t know what ‘it’ was. “I found it! It’s, like, totes awesome!”
“Stephanie! Suspense! Come on!” Darwin was having trouble controlling his own curiosity as he shook her hands even more than she was shaking his.
“A way home!” Stephanie surprised
him by switching from holding his hands to holding him in an impromptu hug while Darwin, stiffened and pale like many of her stoney-eyed victims, tried to digest what she just said. “I found a way home!”
“A . . .” Darwin found himself frozen, unable to move. Half of it was because she was squeezing him so tightly that it would actually require a struggle for him to move, but the other half was just because, even after he understood what she said, it was just unbelievable.
“Yes, Darwin. A way home!” Stephanie released him from the hug and backed up, giving him and his lungs enough room to draw in air again. “We can go back to the real world! We can go back to the land of Internet and video games!”
“We?” Darwin didn’t know the exact scope of that word in this situation. Me, me and her, me and her and someone else?
“What? Were you planning on leaving me behind after I worked so hard to find us a way back?”
“You’re from the real world too?” Darwin tried to grasp what she meant.
“Of course I am! Do you think they sell Tetris and Game Boys down here?” Stephanie laughed at Darwin’s expense. “How did you not put that together?”
“Well, you said to be careful about Kass because she was a player . . .” Darwin searched for the right words to mount his defense; but, even after starting the discussion, he had the sinking feeling in his gut that let him know this was a lost cause. “I just thought that . . .”
“And here I thought I was dating you for your brains,” Stephanie reached up and patted Darwin on the head in the most patronizing way possible. “She is a player, but we aren’t. We’re real, and she’s just a loaded digital figment of this world’s imagination.”
“A world can have an imagination?” Darwin scratched his head.
“This one can, and it’s extra dirty,” she winked. “I mean, ‘cause it’s a world, you know, made of a lot of dirt.”
“Well, how do we go there?” Darwin asked and then immediately felt a pang of guilt. It was like he was already abandoning Alex and the rest at the first opportunity.
“Hey, it’s okay. We’re not leaving your people behind,” Stephanie said as she put her hand on his shoulder, answering his concern before his words even had a voice. “We can bring anyone who wants to come with us. It won’t be a problem.”
“We can bring NPCs from this world into ours?” Darwin’s mouth started creeping further and further open as his brain slowly overloaded from the influx of information.
“Darwin, we’re going home!” she said again and then gave him an overly exaggerated smooch. “We’re going home!”
“Wait. Will we be together when we leave, or will it split us up to where we were when we first came here?”
“We’ll be together, but somewhere different entirely. It doesn’t matter though. In the real world we can get around without all the stupid walking and horses. Ugh! I think, after Tiqpa, I’ll have hiked enough for a lifetime,” Stephanie said with a frown.
“I just want to find my way home, kick off my shoes and crawl in bed.” Darwin started thinking about it.
“Wow, you’re awfully forward there.” Stephanie faked a blush, bit her lip, and lifted one leg. “You sure you don’t want to, you know, go on a proper date first?”
Darwin blinked again. “I meant sleep. Sleep--that’s all I’ve been wanting to do since I came here.”
“I know. Just thought I’d tease you for a laugh,” she said with a wink, “make you blush a bit.”
“Did I actually blush?” He felt his cheeks to see if they were warm.
“No, you totes didn’t. Phooey. But you should have! It’s too bad this wasn’t like one of them animes! Then you would have not only blushed, but your nose would have turned into a blood jetpack strapped to your face, and you’d be flying like a pig,” Stephanie grinned, then latched herself onto his right arm. She continued talking before Darwin could point out that pigs don’t actually fly. “Anyways, we’re going home, Darwin. We’re going to the real world! With pasta!”
“You mean ramen, right?” Darwin gasped excitedly. The food in the game world was good, but nothing beat the taste of freshly cooked ramen over some hot MMO grinding. “Oh man, what are you going to eat first? Pizza? Chicken Fingers? Ramen?”
“Ummm, how about we just go buy up like fifty desserts and then get a bunch of different red wines and sample every one,”
“You’re a genius!” Darwin’s mouth watered as he imagined different edible delights. “And let’s not forget about extra-glazed donuts with a ton of sugar. I know the greatest baker ever, a guy who works down the street from my place. He’s named Haikai or some other weird Asian name. Not sure how to pronounce his name right, but the guy makes the best donuts. Like, he must have studied the ancient Asian art of perfect donut sculpting from the great sages of La Patisserie Temple on Mount Pastry.”
“Ahh, that sounds so delicious, but if he’s really that good of a donut maker, we’ll probably get stuck behind an incredibly long line of cops,” Stephanie teased, fulfilling the cliché cop-to-donut connection required anytime donuts are mentioned.
“Well, I’d much rather deal with a line of cops than muggers or robbers,” Darwin said with good reason. He had already had one bad experience with a robber.
“Alright. But after getting some good, old-fashioned, over-glazed American donuts from an Asian guy, we should probably go get some Asian food from an American guy. Maybe Thai or Chinese?” Stephanie hugged tightly onto Darwin’s arm as the two talked about food.
“Yeah, and then we can go home and watch hours of boring Netflix stuff while eating popcorn.”
“Netflix and chill. Sounds good. Maybe we can even go out and actually see a movie!” Stephanie squeezed his arm again. “I haven’t ever been on a date to a movie theater!”
Movie theater dates? Wait. Don’t those cost like . . . Darwin facepalmed. “We’re forgetting something.”
“What’s that?”
“Money?”
“No, we aren’t forgetting it. Let’s just get a bunch of in-game gold before we leave.” Stephanie gave him the same ‘are you being dumb on purpose’ look that she had given him earlier when he didn’t realize she was from his world.
“Well, if that will work, we need to farm a lot. I want to go swimming in the coins like my last name was McDuck.” Darwin grinned an honest ear to ear smile. This was the best day he had managed to have since he first got to Tiqpa.
“Yep, it’ll be totes the best.” The two started to walk towards the entrance of the cave, Stephanie still holding tightly to Darwin’s arm.
“So when can we go?” he pressed. The anticipation of finally being able to go home was almost overwhelming for him. “Should we leave a note for Alex? ‘Be back later. Here’s how to come join us’?”
“Actually, about that . . .” Stephanie slowed their pace until they came to a dead stop. “See, it’s going to take me around a day or more to get the entrance set up. When I said, ‘I found the entrance,’ what I meant to say was that I had found the last component we needed to complete the portal.”
“Should I even ask?” he sighed.
“You’re welcome to, but it would take far longer than I have time to explain.” Stephanie reached into her own imaginary inventory and started pulling out scrolls. “The long and the short of it is that there is a platform under the boss chamber you were just in. It’s hard to spot at first, but, at the back, there is a set of stairs leading to it. Don’t let anyone go back there while I’m working.”
“That sounds easy enough,” he said, nodding.
“Oh, and one more thing: there is going to be an attack on us that will very likely happen before we go through the portal. Also, once I get the portal set up, we have to defend it. If the portal ever closes, I can’t promise that we’ll be able to set it up again should we end up back in this forsaken land somehow. So when that big grumpus Panda King comes with his army, you have to stop them at all costs, understand?” She waved her scrolls around
in gestures Darwin didn’t exactly pick up on.
“I got it. Defend the wall, keep the portal open, pull the Gold out of my inventory before going through the portal so we will have all the proper credentials to buy fancy monocles.” Darwin did indeed understand it, but he had to sigh again. This would be another epic battle with his life on the line. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew that the Panda King was currently stronger than he was. The only way he would have a real chance of defeating him was if he could get the large boss dragon as a mount so that he would have an overwhelming advantage, and that was going to be real hard now that all of his faction members had logged out. Even if he did manage to do it, however, the entrance to the cave might never allow it free, and he’d find himself short a lot of the valuable time he could have spent preparing other tactics. A strategy borrowed from the history books would be an option, but it was going to be tough to put together a perfect one when he wasn’t entirely sure of the enemy’s capabilities or how many faction members he would have before the attack happened. Was the Panda King going to attack him personally? Would it be another neko ninja assault? There just wasn’t enough information for Darwin’s liking.
“Great, and before I forget, I still have something supes imports to totes tell you, but it’s a secret, so. . .” Stephanie leaned up like she was about to whisper in his ear, but as soon as his face got close enough, she just kissed him on his cheek instead and turned to leave. “Dont let any of the other players find out about the portal, not even Kass. One of them walking through it could be disastrous. Anyways, have fun!”
He knew he was supposed to ask her something as she walked away, but his eyes were fixated on her departure, and it wasn’t until she was gone that his brain kicked back into full gear. Crap! That’s right! I was supposed to ask you if you knew anything about the Golden Goddess! He kicked himself mentally. Then he remembered what she looked like walking away.