The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 (9 page)

              Darwin looked at the ‘opposite gender’ part of the ‘Broken hearts make smaller bites!’ skill, then at one of the turtle wolves and frowned.
How would I even tell what the gender of most monsters are? Would I have to awkwardly check? Do most monsters even have a gender?
Darwin sighed.
If I was a girl, that skill would be pretty overpowered for large group combat, but as a guy I feel like it’s pretty useless.

Tiqpa, I pick ‘With a Cherry on Top!’
Darwin thought, causing the skill to glow for a minute while the other turned gray and then the two went to their respective places on a large tree that wasn’t visible earlier. Unlike the first choice, the one about which specialization he wanted to pick, he was actually rather confident that he made the right choice this time. As the abilities went to their place at the very bottom of the skill tree, he noticed that below them, already glowing like the ‘With a Cherry on Top!’ skill, was the passive ‘Hunger’ that had been mentioned earlier. While he couldn’t see it himself, he could feel from the blood rushing out of his face as he read the skill’s properties. He had somehow managed to grow even paler than before.

Hunger
(Passive) - Hunger causes the Soul Fiend to lose 1 soul charge for every five minutes he is out of combat. If the Soul Fiend has no soul charges to be consumed, then the Soul Fiend will begin to lose hit points at a rate of 1% every hour. Magic, items and natural health regeneration can not restore hit points lost as a direct result of Hunger. Consumption of a soul charge will restore all hit points lost from Hunger. Fatal Damage received by Hunger will not trigger the activation of Soul Devourer.

“The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

             
One percent per hour . . . that means, I have to kill something roughly once every four days or I’ll die, and the longer I stay out of combat, the harder my next fight will be.
Darwin suddenly felt panicked. He had capped out his Soul Charges during the battle at the beach, but all fifty of those charges would only buy him four hours at most before his health started draining away from Hunger.
Why did it make me take this specific specialization? What was the point of forcing this curse on me?

Kass
:

              As Kass stood in front of G.O.R.N studios, she couldn’t help but feel both underwhelmed and confused. The parking lot was huge. In fact, it seemed like the entire building was only a parking lot. Flanking the building on all sides were parking decks ten and twelve stories high, yet there in the middle of them was a simple, old-fashioned, two-story house with a double-car garage that looked like it had been transplanted straight out of a late 20th-century subdivision. It even had a nice wreath on a giant wooden door and a cute pathway leading up to it. That said, as she stood there dazed and staring at it, several dozen people had already gone in and out of the big door with the wreath on it. In fact, there were so many people going into the building that she started to wonder how they all were able to even fit.

             
Is this even the right building?
She started to wonder as she walked closer to it, double checking her address to make sure she was in the right place.
Yep. Looks like the right address, but how come there isn’t a giant skyscraper with G.O.R.N written all over it? Where is the big tag stating it’s the Gamer’s Official Review Network?
She nervously walked towards the big door with the wreath hanging on it at the front of the suburban house.
I’m going to look like an idiot and be in the wrong place, aren’t I?
she was starting to complain to herself when someone else saw her lost expression and offered some help.

              “Hey there! Are you lost? Can I help you?” the full-suited man with a ridiculous Looney Toons tie said as he turned to face her.

              “Um, yeah. It’s just my first time and . . .” she began, but wasn’t able to even complete the sentence before he interrupted her.

              “But you weren’t sure if you were at the right building? No, you’re in the right place. You can follow me in. I’ll take you to the front desk so they can get you sorted and help you out. By the way, name’s Rainer,” the dorky-looking, clean-shaven man said as he stuck out his hand.

              “Kass. Um, yeah, nice to meet you,” Kass took his hand and shook it as best she could. He wasn’t handsome or any of the qualities that would normally make her nervous enough to be self-conscious when shaking hands, but there were two key details she quickly noticed that were making her wonder if her palms were going sweaty. One, it was an overly formal setting she just wasn’t used to since she had never gotten to the interview stage for jobs that required suits anywhere near the Armani level. And two, after quickly glancing around, she was becoming painfully aware of the fact she was drastically underdressed compared to every other woman who was walking in or out of the building.

              “Likewise. Now, I’m guessing you don’t work here, so I can probably skip the front desk and just take you straight to the intern office. They are the ones in charge of showing around guests and big wigs, so it should be the right place anyways,” he said in a jolly, chipper manner. Kass was kind of surprised to see someone going to work with such a big grin.

              “It’s where they take the big wigs to be shown around? Maybe I need to go to the area where they take people who can’t afford wigs, or just to the front desk and see where I need to be.” Kass tried to make light of the difference in formality between herself and the rest of the people. She definitely didn’t want to call unnecessary attention to herself when she was just trying to get in, set up an interview and walk away with enough cash to keep her dad happy for a year so she could keep playing video games.

              “Nonsense. My girlfriend Kerrigan is one of the few paid interns, so they always stack her with stupid work. She’d love a break to show someone around. Not to mention, she was really mad earlier when I told her I was coming into work late. So, yeah, she could definitely use the break.”

             
Kerrigan? He’s dating Kerrigan? His name is Rainer? Crap, I’m the cause of her being angry, aren’t I?
“Why was she so upset?”

              “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “She said someone had called in and spent a bit of time on the phone making fun of her name. I have no idea why she gets so sensitive about things like that though.”

              “Someone called in and made fun of her name? That sounds odd. Kerrigan doesn’t seem like a bad name,” Kass wanted very much to just leave it at that and feign complete ignorance about the subject, but she couldn’t help herself. “I mean, it’s not a super silly name like Tassadar or anything.”

              Rainer, unlike Kerrigan, clearly enjoyed the reference and seemed to perk up even more as if his smile could actually get bigger. “Right? You think people would zerg her to compliment her name. Totally surprised she ended up brooding over it.”

              Kass almost burst out laughing.
This guy is as silly as Darwin,
she thought. “Well, at least her boyfriend appreciates her good fortune.”

              “Absolutely! Then again, isn’t it the man’s job to appreciate the woman who doesn’t appreciate herself?”

              “Eww . . . Should I tell her that you think appreciating her is like a job?”

              “What? NO! Don’t do that! Don’t even kid! It took me two months to get out of the dog house the last time I messed up!” He panicked visibly, his face turning so white you could slap a Hellmann’s label over it and pass it off as mayonnaise.

              “Really? That bad? Did you kill her cat by accident?” Kass felt relieved as she walked with him into the building. She had gone from nervous to chuckling as soon as she saw him go stiff and white like a giant chalk stick.

              “What, no. How would I even do that? Leave it in the oven? Lock it in the freezer? Set it on fire? Toss it in the bath along with a toaster, accidentally, of course?” he kept listing off suggestions as the two went through the big, wooden front door.

              Kass awkwardly came to a halt. On the outside, the building had looked exactly like it was from a 1990s subdivision, but on the inside it was entirely different. It wasn’t two stories tall. The whole thing, from where the double car garage should have been on one side to where the master bedroom might have been on the other, was all melded into one giant, empty white room except for a single large white circular desk with two secretaries in the middle. There were also three very large sets of see-through elevators. Each was set on a wall other than the one with the entrance door. The whole thing felt like it was out of a futuristic sci-fi movie and was enough to leave Kass momentarily stunned.

              “Kass, relax. I didn’t kill her cat. She doesn’t even own one,” Rainer said, turning around to face Kass, who had gone from a brisk walking pace to a dead crawl as soon as the surroundings shocked her. “All I did was forget a birthday.”

              “Oh. Isn’t that a bit cliché?” Kass pulled her head back to earth and quickly walked to catch back up to Rainer. “I always thought the only place men forgot a girl’s birthday was on TV--where that trope belongs. Although, if I had a boyfriend who forgot mine, he’d have to do something big to get out of the dog house after only two months.”

              “I didn’t forget her birthday though.”

              “I thought you just said you did?”

              “I said I forgot a birthday, but it wasn’t hers. It was mine. I forgot all about it and spent the entire night working in the office. I even passed out at my desk. The real kicker to the whole thing though was that the text message I sent her saying that I was going to stay late working didn’t go through. So, when I came home the next day to find out that she had gone the whole nine yards, made me a nice dinner, baked a cake, picked out some . . .” Rainer’s eyes glazed over for a moment before he shook his head clear of inappropriate thoughts. “Yeah, she wasn’t happy. Didn’t forgive me until I pulled off something big for Valentine’s Day.”

              “Ouch, but you work in the same place. She should have understood how demanding your boss is,” Kass remarked.

              “Oh, it’s fine. I’ll put up with the dog house so long as I get to keep my Kerrigan,” Rainer said as they passed by the front desk on their way to the back elevator.

              “So, what’s the deal with this place?” Kass wondered aloud as she followed Rainer across the white marble floor. “Why does it look like a normal house on the outside, and it’s just a bunch of elevators, all going down, I guess, on the inside?”

              “Ah! That’s a fun little story. You see, this wasn’t actually an office building at the start.” Rainer leaned forward and pushed the elevator call button as he told the story. “The owner, a huge Trekkie, made his fortune without ever leaving his man cave. Since he never left the comfort of his home to spend his allowance, he was able to save all of his money and make a killing on the stock market when he hit 18. By the time he graduated college, he had more money than he knew what to do with, and he decided to start a company. So he started one in his mom’s basement. Then, since his entire life had been spent playing games in his mother’s basement, and being told jokes about how serious gamers are just people who live in their mom’s basement, he decided to just keep expanding his mother’s basement. When he got around to setting up this office, he gave his mother the deed and made the whole thing underground so it could still be called ‘his mom’s basement.’”

              “So I’m not really entering an office building. I’m just going downstairs into some dude’s mom’s basement?” Kass clarified as she got into the elevator.

              “Yes, but I’m going to have to stop saying mother’s basement. I’m starting to feel like a broken track record,” Rainer chuckled.

              “What was that?”

              “I said I’m going to have to stop . . . You heard me the first time, didn’t you?”

              “Yep,” Kass smiled. It was easier to pull jokes on Rainer than it was to mess with Darwin. He always twisted her words around until the joke was on her.

              “Ah, this is us,” Rainer said, holding the door as Kass stepped out of the elevator and into a weird and still overly-white hallway.

              “This guy sure has a very specific theme,” she noted.

              “Yeah, for some reason every science fiction movie seemed to associate the future with big empty white spaces, so the boss just ran with it.” Rainer’s pace picked up a bit as they approached a room on their left almost immediately after they had gotten out of the elevator. He swiped his card, and the door opened to reveal a bunch of young, college-age people sitting around glass circular tables with their laptops out.

              “Hey, Kerrigan! How are you, sweetie?” he shouted loudly to a girl all the way across the room that was stuffing her face with a piece of pepperoni pizza. “I missed you so much! Now, tell me, when does this--how did you describe her--awful, rude, bitchy, loud-mouthed, sassy, sarcastic, spoiled, greedy, little brat show up for the interview about the battle?”