The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 3 (3 page)

“Darwin, do you know why we’re called demons?” Stephanie probed, obviously knowing that he didn’t.

“Because we have red eyes and horns?” He poked the bones protruding from his head. “Kind of seems like an appropriate term, actually. The only thing that could make us more demonic would be is if we were given accountant visors,” he said, trying to make light of the situation as the tense atmosphere started to feel like it was closing in around him.

It worked. Stephanie smiled, but then she went further. “Hmm. That is one way to look at it, but you’re one of the first to have horns in centuries--and the truth is a little more gruesome. You see, our father, or rather our creator, was once hailed and praised as if he were a god in our world--a world that already had religions almost identical to the ones this one does. We even had similar concepts of good and evil supernatural beings, which is how the naming ended up being so convenient. But, as those religions faded, he ended up being a god to the people there in his own right. After all, thousands of years before you were born, he had already achieved something incredible. He created the perfect human: a being who didn’t age, get sick, grow fat or suffer from any health problems. It didn’t matter what this new man ate or what he did or didn’t do. He would always have the perfect body, sculpted like a Greek deity. Our father’s creations, modeled and perfected from the DNA of normal humans, were also almost infinitely kind and patient with humanity. It caused people to jokingly call them ‘angels’ as they stood above man in every way. Of course, there was still a hitch. You have watched B-movies from the science fiction genre, right?”

“Yes . . .” Darwin already knew exactly where this was going. It wasn’t hard at all to guess what would happen next, but he still needed to hear the details. “But go on. Please do explain how this leads to me going insane.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, taking a deep breath.

Both he and Charles were listening intently to the story she was telling. He had a feeling from the way Charles didn’t react at all that this wasn’t the first time he had heard the story, but the man’s eyes still gleamed with curiosity. It was as if he were searching out the wording for any new pieces of information that he didn’t pick up on during the last however many telling’s.

“You see,” she continued, “the first two or three hundred years, these kind, immortal beings raised families, built homes and integrated themselves slowly into every community. They did everything they could to make the world better. But as time passed, one by one, they eventually returned to the country of their creator. Years passed, and the population of the country naturally shifted until it was comprised almost entirely of angels. Procedures were even done to gradually convert the children of normal human citizens of the country into angels.

“Then, after centuries passed, the people of other countries started to covet the angels’ wealth, prosperity, and immortality. Cursing them, people began to say that the angels’ charity was nothing more than misguided pity, and that, if they really wanted to make a difference, they should share everything. People said that if the creator could make himself and his children immortal, he should do the same for them too.

“When it finally reached the point of war, it was disastrous for the angels. They weren’t the type to commit violence at all. In fact, the idea of ending a human life was so offensive to them that the first angel to kill someone in combat ended up shooting himself later out of guilt. That’s when the creator used something in his technology to tweak the angels. He made them into killers. After the adjustments, every angel over thirty years old, which was an incredible number of them, became faster, stronger and better at warfare than any of the best-trained military personnel from the opposing countries. At first, these modifications resulted in the angels slaughtering their enemies . . . but then the war took a dark turn.

“What started out as small tweaks became big changes, and the men who had gone to battle, who had tasted blood for the first time . . . they became cursed. They started to kill each other after the battlefield was cleared of enemies, and what began as a one-sided slaughter of humans, slowly turned into crazed angels murdering anything and everything in sight. When a group of young male angels who hadn’t gone insane yet saw what was happening, they went to the creator to seek guidance and help. Unfortunately, he was already affected by the curse and ended up killing several of his own children before dying in a brutal fight himself. That’s when our title of angels was stripped. We had fallen from our heaven, cursed by humanity to suffer the carnage of war. Our people had gone from being peaceful, perfect beings to demons, and our god was damned as a devil by his own kind.”

“So . . .” Darwin began adding up pieces of the information. “We came from a different world?”

“It’s the easiest way to explain it, but yes. It became a world where we demons were almost non-existent. We did our best to hold on, but a lot of things were hard. The humans hunted us, year after year, wearing away at our dwindling numbers. Then, as if it wasn’t hard enough to keep our numbers up already, reproduction also became very hard. When our men hit thirty, the hunger would take over, and they would kill indiscriminately. They had to be exiled so that they wouldn’t butcher everyone in the tribe-like groups we were living in. It was like an unspoken race to have males father as many children as possible before that happened.

Sometimes, out of every few thousand men that were kicked out, one would turn into a special kind of crazy: He’d grow horns, his skin would strengthen over time to the point that bullet wounds would only slow him down, and he’d hunt us down like an animal hunts prey. He wouldn’t go after humans at all: he’d only come for us. Your father, Darwin . . . he almost killed half the neighboring tribe . . . or so we heard.”

“I’m a genetically-altered immortal that was modified to transform into a bloodthirsty murderer sometime after I turned thirty years old just so that I can take part in a war that my ancestors apparently lost horribly?” Darwin suddenly wished that his soda was actually something stronger--like a scotch and cola. On second thought, however, he decided he didn’t need the cola. He had never seriously drunk alcohol before, yet this somehow felt like the perfect time to try it out.

“That’s about the sum of it.” Stephanie nodded her agreement.

“But if the genetics were changed to make me into a killer, couldn’t they also be undone? Couldn’t the change be reverted?”

“Well . . . theoretically? Absolutely. The problem is that the one who first initiated the change is dead, and no one else knows how he did it. That’s exactly why I’ve been working with Charles for the past few decades: to develop a way to study your brain, figure out exactly what was changed and how we can save you.”

“Can one of these guys bring me a handle of bourbon?” Darwin asked, finally giving into the sudden allure of liquor.

“Won’t do you any good. We don’t get drunk. It’s kind of a health problem, and we don’t suffer from those, remember?” Stephanie laughed as Darwin’s face fell.
Immortality without the ability to enjoy alcohol.
Despite never having thought booze was necessary before, he somehow felt like this was a huge downside to the entire being immortal thing.

“So going back to one of the earlier topics of the conversation . . .” Darwin dragged out his pause. The mood had been a little too heavy for him to lift, so he felt the need to make a joking attempt at lightening it. “Stephanie, since you’re so old, do I have to call you grandmother?”

“Hey! You better not! You’re the old man, remember? Ignore the age. I’m a woman. It doesn’t count,” Stephanie immediately protested Darwin’s line of inquiry. “Darwin, I’ve been around longer than most people will ever live, and I’ve never met a nice demon guy . . . Well, not until now, anyway.” Stephanie took a moment to coquettishly wink at Darwin before continuing. “So while Charles and I can’t force you back into Tiqpa, I’d
really
like you to give it a try,” Stephanie pleaded, stretching out the word ‘really’ a few more counts than necessary. “After all, when you go insane up here, and we have to kill you, the death will be for real.”

“And if I lose it in the game, what’s to stop me from staying in that state? Would walking back through the portal help?” Darwin remembered the feeling of wanting to kill very clearly. It was like being forced to eat nothing but stale, leafy food for a year and then coming face-to-face with a juicy hamburger--except a hundred times stronger.

Charles smiled reassuringly. “Well, that’s also one of the beauties of the game. If you die while going berserk in the game, it won’t let you fully revive until the condition passes. Hopefully, even if you stay in Tiqpa permanently, that will just mean that we have more time to research and more data to draw from. During your first forty levels, we were able to isolate the condition and label it as ‘Hunger,’ a name of my choosing.” Charles was still in the middle of his explanation when Stephanie shot her hand up as if she were the brainy kid in class who couldn’t help but show off.

“Actually, I named the other skills! Every time we started to identify conditions related to our race and its natural development in the game, or came up with skills for your class, I got to name them! The boss was only insistent about Hunger since he said the name I picked was too vulgar,” she excitedly interrupted him.

“Yes, and it was,” Charles continued. “Anyway, we have isolated key parts of the neurological pattern, chemicals your brain seems to release when it goes into a rage, and we marked them so that the system we use to control Tiqpa will hold you until it fades. Regardless, you may still want to avoid being around non-respawnable NPCs or anyone you invited into your faction that isn’t a player. While the players will respawn without any problem, the NPCs won’t. Given your predilection towards saving them, I am recommending that you stick to player-only groups during battles and let the NPCs in your faction live out peaceful lives.” Charles looked over at one of the staff before finishing. “I am also highly recommending you keep this between us.”

“Is there any reason we can’t tell Kass and the others? Would it jeopardize something?” Darwin had to ask. The whole ‘let’s keep huge, important pieces of information a secret until a huge misunderstanding results in something awful’ trope was so aggravating to watch on television that he didn’t have much of a desire to live it out.

“Well, you can tell them about Hunger,” Charles answered, “but we’d rather the information not go public. I don’t see your guildmates Minx or Kitchens telling anyone, and if they’re going to fight next to you within sword's reach, it might be best for them to know. But Kass, well . . . Just recently, we had to stop a live interview on G.O.R.N. where she was talking on camera, and you were the subject.”

“She was doing an interview on me?” Darwin’s mouth hung open.
What the-- Kass was doing an interview about me on national TV? What was she trying to tell them? There is no way she would tell them my secret . . . is there?

“If you don’t believe me, you can ask her in a minute. She’ll be here very soon.” Charles nodded his head towards the door at he finished speaking.

“I see.” Darwin waited for a moment, staring in the direction Charles had indicated.

“Darwin, I am not sure why you’re looking so intently at the door. It’s not going to make it open any sooner. Frogs don’t boil faster if you watch them,” Stephanie laughed.

“I think you mean water,” Charles corrected.

“Did I?” Stephanie just brushed off his correction. “Anyways, the choice is yours, but you don’t have to make it now if there is too much pressure. I mean, you and I discussed some plans earlier in the cave if I’m not mistaken. You owe me some donuts and TV in our underwear.”

Charles didn’t say anything at Stephanie's mention of scantily-clad couch-potatoing, but Darwin, still somewhat naive in regard to certain subjects, shifted uncomfortably in his chair again. “Well, since you all have worked so hard on Tiqpa for me” --Darwin had already decided that he didn’t want to sound ungrateful to people who had clearly spent a great amount of time and effort preparing a reality for him that didn’t involve him dying from insanity-- “then I’ll be taking you up on that offer. Just let me know what I need to do to make the experiment a success.”

Charles grinned, his pearly-white teeth flashing as Darwin conceded. “We can go over it all in the morning. For now, just enjoy the night. Stephanie has already set you two up with a room, unless you want to stay in Tiqpa or here instead. We can provide any type of bed or accommodations you might need.”

“No, I think I’ll be fine in Stephanie’s room.” Darwin smiled as he reached out and grabbed Stephanie’s hand on top of the table. It wasn’t that he fully trusted her--there had been a lot that she hadn’t told him--but none of it sounded like she had hidden anything for the sake of harming him, and he needed to trust her because right now his world was about to spin right off its axis. He might be free from the fear of being stuck in a game for all eternity, but he still wasn’t home, sitting in front of his computer eating ramen. He knew that place was long gone and lost to him. “I’m sure she’s got some fun games too.”

“Yes, she is really into them. One time, she made an entire board of directors wait and watch for an hour while she played some weird game about stacking differently-shaped boxes.” Charles chuckled at the memory. “I don’t think anyone in that room had ever taken five minutes off work to even play a game, much less been forced to watch someone else play. Most of them spent the entire time staring awkwardly at the floor.”