The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 (5 page)

So is this where I finally get my training montage?
Darwin mused to himself as one minute of fighting off Alex’s relentless attacks melted into ten and then twenty and then forty. He was amazed that with the game’s core endurance and fighting systems he never ran out of stamina or got tired.
Should I expect to have to run up some stairs, jump rope, do a few ridiculous workout routines and get a theme song after this?

Once the two hour mark had passed though, Alex suddenly stopped his attacks without warning and bowed his head. “With your permission, I’d like to excuse myself, Lord Darwin. I temporarily lost track of time, but I need to complete my duties and make sure everyone is still accounted for and properly taken care of.”

“Of course,” Darwin said, a little disappointed that the training was over. He had actually enjoyed the adrenaline rush he got from warding off and parrying the deadly attacks. “Do what needs to be done.”

“Yes, Lord Darwin.” Alex turned around to leave, but instead of just vanishing as he frequently did, he looked back at Darwin one more time and said, “I can’t remember if I’ve said it, but thank you, Lord Darwin. Captain Elmont really was right about you.” Then he darted off to handle more pressing tasks.

At first, Darwin couldn’t help but feel a little touched but then a little guilty for the thought that came immediately after.
Welp, off to go play pirate on the high seas and see about plundering me some booty.
Whatever guilt he felt, however, only lasted until he realized he still hadn’t asked Stephanie about what was going on between her and Eve and why Eve had wanted to stop them from getting together; instead, it was quickly replaced by concern. 

Kass
:

              Kass yawned as she opened her eyes and stretched her arms above her head.
Eugh
. . .
Why does it taste like a stray cat pooped in my mouth? I don't own a cat, do I? Dad never let me keep a cat,
she wondered groggily, smacking her lips as she sat up and looked around for the glass of water she typically left on her nightstand. She knew first hand that the awful taste she was experiencing usually only came as an unfortunate side effect of drinking the night before. The only problem was that she had spent the better part of the night in Tiqpa gaming, not drinking.
Not that a vodka tonic wouldn’t have been amazing to take the edge off,
she thought, remembering all the tedious traveling she had been doing in the game lately--and not to mention all of the awkward conversations with Darwin.
But if I wasn’t out at the bar last night,
she puzzled,
what caused me to have such awful dry mouth so early in the mor . . . Oh.

              Rather than having to waste more time trying to figure out why her mouth had the smacking taste of an ashtray filled with stale cigarettes, she realized that the culprit was right there in front of her. Or, rather, underneath her: the outline of a rapidly drying pool of drool on her pillow. She self-consciously glanced both ways with a quick jerk of her head and darting of her eyes as if she were checking to make sure no one saw her. She knew no one would be in her room, especially while she was asleep, but that didn't stop her from checking anyway. Reaching down, she unceremoniously flipped her pillow over to hide the evidence and smoothed down the top of the pillowcase as if nothing had ever happened. She then checked herself in the mirror and, much to her relief, was pleased to find that the drool pool demon had left most of her face and all of her hair unaffected.

              As she was wiping off her face, she realized she had a yellow sticky note stuck to the back the sleeve of the t-shirt she had slept in.
I must have rolled over on it in the night,
she thought, looking at the quickly scribbled memo containing the media company's hotline number.

             
She still wasn't sure what she was going to do with it. On one hand, as an out of work college graduate with a bad gaming habit that ate up more free time than watching sleepy kittens on YouTube, the money it promised was definitely a desperately needed bonus. On the other hand, however, she felt like calling the number would be betraying everyone. They had spent so much time together and gone through so much. The whole act of talking about Darwin’s guild and divulging information felt like it would be a stab in the back to the entire faction.

              She tried not to think about it as she grabbed her fluffy, pink bathrobe from the closet, threw it on, and began meandering towards the kitchen downstairs.
12:00?
Noon?
She questioned herself as she passed by the clock hanging on the wall beside the stairs.
Did I actually sleep past noon? When is the last time that’s ever happened?

              “Don't tell me you're just now waking up,” Robert said as she plodded into the kitchen. He stopped typing and looked up at her over the laptop he had set up on the kitchen table. “Well, at least the coffee's fresh. I just made it.”

              “Well," Kass grumbled in return as she tried to focus on getting her head to stay squarely on top of her shoulders until she could get some proper caffeine in her, "you can blame your stupid game’s traveling system.”
Mornings are the worst. It gets harder to wake up every year. It’s like they’re trying to ease you into sleeping forever so death doesn’t come as a shock.
“Whoever came up with the idea of 'Hey, let’s make a fully-realized, life-sized world for the player to navigate’ should have been made to walk across it himself and spend time considering how annoying it would be to traverse before even having a real mount.”

              “So, you want the game to contain a system that lets you always magically appear wherever you need to be without having to travel?” Robert chuckled, “What would be the fun in that?”

              “Well, maybe not always allow me to instantly get everywhere I want, but at least let me skip the areas that are tedious and
only
built for travel--like boat rides, for example.” Kass poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table next to her father.

              “That doesn’t sound so bad, but there is still a problem with that,” Robert said, closing his computer and turning to give Kass his full attention. “You’d lose over half the world, ya' filthy landlubber.”

              “Landlubber?” Kass looked at him, blinking in confusion. “Do people still say that?”

              “Yeah. Do you think that boat rides are all smooth sailing? Don’t you remember that
Pirates of the Caribbean
movie franchise? The ninjas vs. pirate memes? Those days when
yaaaaaarrrrrrrg
was okay to say in public? And, most importantly, the times you could say
landlubber
to your daughter without her looking at you like you just said something like
YOLO
,” Robert explained as he got up to get himself another cup of coffee.

              “Ewwww . . . Isn’t being stuck on the ocean awful enough as it is? Don’t tell me that I have to worry about getting attacked by a bunch of smelly pirates who haven’t taken a shower in three years or something. Wait . . . I don't, do I?” Kass frowned as she considered the idea of having a bunch of flea-ridden pirates suddenly attacking the ship with everyone on it.

              “Kass, you’re the only person I know who gets that sick from a simple boat ride. Don’t act like we’re going to change an entire game function that we spent years developing just because the daughter of someone who works at the company gets seasick so easily.” He shook his head as he poured his coffee. “You shouldn't even be experiencing sea sickness in the game anyway. It's all just in your head. Although," Robert paused dramatically, "I suppose there is at least one form of nepotism that might help you . . .”

              Kass already knew what he was going to suggest before the words even came out of his mouth. “Dad, come on, you know I can’t do that.”

              “Hey, I’m just saying . . . Paying a little rent and helping out with some of your expenses  sure as hell wouldn’t hurt my feelings,” he grumbled. “It’s been a while, Kass. It’s a cushy job that most people would kill for the opportunity to get.”

              It was also a job that actually meant she would have to give up playing her beloved video game, a game designed by her dad’s company, forever. The contract an employee signed when they joined said that they could only play on the test servers and that they weren't allowed to interfere or interact with the public servers at all.
“Dad, we’ve already talked about this. Do we have to have the same talk again?”

              “No. No, we don’t. Do you have any other job prospects?”

              Kass’s hand instinctively squeezed the piece of paper with the number on it that she had held on to for some reason. “Yeah, you could say that I've got an iron in the fire. I’m just trying not to jinx it by talking about it.”

              She was confident this would get him off her back, maybe for a week if she were lucky. Her dad wasn't the kind of guy who was superstitious enough that he wouldn’t pester her about the details, but she knew he wouldn't want to mess up her chances of getting whatever vague job she was referring to if
she
thought it would. That having been said, he did have some kind of magic dad-power to know when she was lying. She hadn’t been able to get away with just vague answers like that very often in the past.

              “Alright, Pumpkin,” he said with a wicked smile. He knew it would irritate her to be called that. “I won’t pressure you, but you better not go at this half-cocked.”

              “Fine, fine,” Kass grumbled, resisting the urge to get mad at him for calling her ‘Pumpkin’ when he knew how much it bothered her. “Now, where is my breakfast?”

              “Do I look like your personal chef? And don't you mean lunch?” He feigned indignation, but took another shot at mocking her for waking up so late in the day.

              “You’re missing an apron with something silly like, ‘I’m not getting older; I’m marinating,' but, other than that . . . Yep. You do!” Kass laughed as she sipped her coffee again. She wasn’t fully awake, but the caffeine was definitely starting to kick in.

              “Sorry, sweetheart, I have to get back to work. After everything that's gone on lately, things are really starting to get a little hectic and pile up again.” He took another sip of his coffee and stood up. “Someone in the fight went around casting a petrification spell that was way more powerful than anything a player in the game should have access to at the moment. We had to dedicate a ton of time and resources to try and fix the problems it created.”

              “Wait, a petrification spell?” Kass almost spit out her coffee at that little bit of news. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a Gorgon?”

              “No," Robert shook his head with a small laugh. "It was definitely a petrify spell, but whoever cast it used such an advanced version that it permanently froze NPCs and turned players to stone for a full twelve hours.” Robert was doing the best he could to grab his coat and pour his coffee into a travel mug at the same time as he began moving around the kitchen. “Even the hardest bosses in the game shouldn’t be capable of freezing a player for more than a few hours; and, even then, they can be countered with high level magic. Those spells don't even last longer than a three- or four-hour timer when used on players.”

             
Wait, Stephanie was the one who froze everyone. Isn’t she a Gorgon? Why would she need to use class-based magic?
Kass’s brain scrambled for a second. “Are you sure it wasn’t a Gorgon?” she asked again.

              Robert stopped moving about getting ready and looked at his daughter questioningly. "Yeah, I'm almost positive. Why would there be a Gorgon? Oh, don't get me wrong, they're in the game alright, but only much later on. How would it get to the starter islands and just happen to show up at the moment that huge fight broke out?"

              “Just . . . Just call it a hunch and look into it for me. Please.”

              "I'll . . . See what I can find out." Robert promised, but he still looked curious. "I'm supposed to have a meeting with the illustrious Grand Poobah Charles this afternoon, but I'll try and work in some time to check it out afterwards. The last thing I need is to be late for my first private meeting with the mysterious owner of several multi-billion dollar corporations and have it be under bad circumstances. Not very many people have ever had the chance at a private meeting, and, even then, they wouldn't say much about what was discussed. It's almost like it was a very taboo, clandestine meeting or something.”

              “Wow, and you want me to sign up and work for him?” Kass laughed at the horribly cliché TV boss figure.

              “Well, the dental is pretty good," Robert flashed a big smile showing lots of teeth to prove his point as he reached for the doorknob on his way out. "Not to mention, you’d have the best carpool buddy, and he comes pre-equipped with all the cool dad jokes.”

              "Yeah, okay, Dad, whatever you say."

              Robert had just begun to turn the handle he was holding and leave when there came an abrupt knocking from the outside of the very door he was about to open. He paused, clearly shocked and uncertain about the unexpected surprise.