Sherbie is feeling emotional after our encounter with the Iron Claw guild, and now he’s being clingy, which is annoying.

  “I can’t believe you gave up the chance to join Iron Claw just for me!”

  “It wasn’t just for you, I stayed for the guild!”

  “You’re my best friend, Rev, Iloveyousomuchbwaaaa!”

  “Alright, alright. Hey, weren’t you going to go fishing, or something? What happened to your rare catch?”

  “Well, I was going to do it, but if you want to do something else—”

  “Not at all! Go catch your fish and we’ll meet up afterwards. Sound good?”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “Yeah, I’ve got some stuff I want to do, anyway.”

  Sherbie looks at me suspiciously. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you? You’re not going behind my back to join them when I’m not looking?”

  “Well I wasn’t going to, but if you keep up with this codependent bullshit—”

  “Alright, I’m going! I’m walking away, see? Trusting you completely…” Sherbie trails off, looking mournfully over his shoulder like a dog who’s just been shooed by his owner. I smirk and give him a wave of reassurance. Sherbie perks right up and waves back at me before disappearing excitedly into the crowd.

  Is it me, or are there a lot more people in this small village than there were before? It seems like most of them are players, and all in the same guild, I realize.

  Iron Claw. Logi and Chimichungus weren’t wearing it, but I see a lot of them have on the guild tabard, a deep scarlet with the black silhouette of a flaming hell hound. It looks pretty cool, I admit begrudgingly. And every single one of them looks strong.

  They must have come to farm the giant, I decide after watching them for a bit. I wonder if they’re here for the Robe of Fruiting Bodies. What did Chimichungus say? That it had a 0.2% drop rate? How many times will they have to kill the giant for them to get their loot?

  Deep in thought, I decide to get comfortable by leaning up against the wall when a sharp little voice cuts into my thoughts.

  “Get your ass out of my face!”

  I jump forward and turn, startled to see a female gnome already standing in the exact place I’d been about to occupy, smoking a cigarette. It’s no wonder I didn’t see her sooner—she’s so tiny, she doesn’t even come up to my waist.

  “What?” she sneers up at me. “You think just cuz I’m crotch height I want to make out with your asshole? Get yourself another gnome if you want to act out your sick fetishes. And a room, too, pervert!”

  “Sorry, I didn’t…” I trail off, finding myself just staring at this rude girl.

  Unlike most of the other fantasy coded players I see, this one’s gone for more of a real world look, with a baggy black teeshirt half tucked in, booty shorts and fishnet stockings. She’s got piercings all over and she wears her bubblegum pink hair in messy pigtails. Her eyes, which continue to glare up at me, are a fierce robin egg blue.

  BellissimaBaby’s her name, and more than anything else about her, it’s what I can’t seem to get over.

  BellissimaBaby. I know that name.

  Where have I seen her before?

  “Glitched out? Isn’t your immersion helmet working?” she asks with a smirk. Then she grows annoyed when I don’t immediately answer. “The hell do you think you’re staring at?”

  “I was just—are you in Iron Claw, too?”

  “Ugly and stupid, a double threat. Can’t you read?” She indicates over her head with a finger.

  Yeah. I guess she is with the others in Iron Claw. Still, that doesn’t answer my question.

  “Have we met somewhere before?”

  BellissimaBaby smirks. “That the best pickup line you can come up with? Sorry, I’m not looking for a knight in shining armor, I’m not even looking for a loser in a suit of tinfoil, though you’d certainly fit that description.” With that, she drops her cigarette, pushes herself off the wall and saunters away, leaving me staring after her, flabbergasted.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “The hell’s her problem?” I murmur, shaking myself.

  I can’t think why meeting that girl has my skin crawling, has me wanting to climb into a hole somewhere and disappear. I mean, her insults were clever, but nothing I haven’t heard in other games.

  What was it about her that’s got me so riled up?

  No matter how I rack my brains, I just can’t think of it. Instead I do my best to put the unpleasant encounter from my mind, and focus once again on my surroundings.

  It looks as though Iron Claw is moving out. Curious, I make the impromptu decision to follow and watch their fight from a distance.

  They’re a group of nearly fifty players, I’m kind of surprised they brought so many just to fight a ten person boss. Then, halfway to the giant, the group splits into two, with most of the players continuing on while around fifteen stay back to fight the giant. I follow the second group, eager to see how they handle the boss monster. All the while, I’m thinking of my exchange with Logi, and his offer to have me join his guild.

  Was I always the kind of guy who’d pass up opportunities like that just to stay loyal to my friends? Well, I guess that’s not really a fair question, since I never had friends before. But I guess it is fair to admit I’m changing somewhere, deep down. Sherbie changed me, and Gramps and Link and Bruiser. Somehow the thought of being able to play the game with them means more to me than advancing solo to one of the best guilds in the game.

  Or, is it more than that? Is it just my own pride that wants to beat that guy Logi as leader of my own guild? To prove to all of them I can accomplish with just a handful of competent players what none of them could accomplish with their fancy schmancy ‘top guilds.’

  White Striders, Iron Claw, who needs ‘em, anyway?

  So I say, but as I settle down to watch the Iron Claw party engage the giant, I’m blown away by their perfectly executed strategy, and the swiftness with which they reduce that terrifying boss to 0 HP without even a single party member falling under half health.

  Ten seconds, I realize, letting my breath out with a whoosh. They took him out in under ten seconds. I watch him fall like Goliath, watch a few of the members run over to the cave to gather the loot. Meanwhile the others settle down to wait, camping the respawn point.

  So that’s a top level guild…

  I’ve seen enough, I decide abruptly, rising from my position to stride away.

  I’ve seen more than enough…

  Leaving the scene behind me, I make my way deeper into the mountains, without any real goal other than leveling up. I try not to think of what I just witnessed, try not to think of how it left me feeling about two feet high.

  Did I seriously think I could compete with those guys? Did I really let myself get a big head just because Logi paid me a few compliments?

  “You’re a joke, Rev,” I murmur to myself as a pack of bugbears falls in my aura, all ten of them dead in just one minute. “What did that girl say? A loser in tinfoil…”

  I hear a noise then in the distance. A scream—a cry for help! A girl!

  Roused from my gloomy thoughts, I race ahead, down the side of the mountain into a ravine. That it could be a trap is of course at the forefront of my mind. A ruse of bandits, or maybe some terrible monster that’s learned to mimic human speech. Perhaps I should slow down and rethink this—

  “Help!”

  That’s when I spy it, a flash of pink just ahead, at the bottom of the ravine. I burst from the trees into a clearing. I can see at once it’s been saturated by all the recent rainfall, and the loose sand and silt have turned the ground into quicksand.

  And there, at the center of the pit, is an all too familiar figure.

  BellissimaBaby?!

  “You?” She seems just as disappointed to meet her rescuer as I am to meet my damsel in distress.

  “Sorry,” I say, straightening where I stand off to the side of the quicksand. “I was under the impression there was a lady in trouble. I’ll just be on my way.”

  “Wait!” she cries, looking desperately to me. “I’m completely stuck in here. It’s pulling me under!”

  “Don’t worry, mountain quicksand is never more than a few feet deep. Oh, but I guess for you—”

  “Shut the f*ck up and get me a branch or something.”

  “You’ve got a foul mouth, your mother ever tell you that?”

  “No, she was too busy whopping my ass, now get me a branch before I forget my manners and barbecue your balls!”

  It’s really no way to ask for a favor, I think, though I can’t help but grin at her audacity. Deciding I’m feeling generous, I poke around a bit and return with a long length of willow branch which I toss to BellissimaBaby. She catches it and holds on with all her tiny strength while I haul her in from the other side.

  “That’s it,” she grunts. “A little more!”

  The sucking mud makes a great squelching sound as it finally releases her, sending her flying straight into my belly and me sprawling backwards in the grass.

  “You did it!” she gasps, sitting up on my chest and grinning down at me. I stare up at her, momentarily dazzled. She’s kind of cute, I think distractedly. For a foul mouthed midget. “I could kiss you!”

  “Yes, please.”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” I say quickly, mortified. I sit up abruptly, fairly launching her tiny body right back into the mud.

  “Ack!” she screams. “Help me up! Quick, it’s pulling me under!”

  “Right!” I scramble over to help her out a second time. BellissimaBaby tolerates my grasp just until she’s out of the mud, then she pushes me away the instant she’s back on dry land.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she says, eying me warily. “I’m grateful and everything, but I’m not just gonna suck your—well, you know—just because you helped me out.”

  “Of course not! No one expected you to! Except—” I say, looking at her more closely, the way she’s suddenly blushing just a bit and avoiding my eyes. Why, she’s almost acting like a—

  “Hey, you’re a girl, aren’t you?”

  “What the f*ck? Are you blind?”

  “No, I mean, in real life. You’re not just some perverted old man living out his fantasy by making a female character just so he can play with his boobs whenever he wants?”

  “Why do I get the feeling you have actual experience with these kind of people?” she says, looking definitely disturbed.

  “Don’t ask…”

  She smirks and starts to wipe some of the mud off of her arms.

  “Alright, yes, I’m a girl irl. Or a woman, rather.”

  Gulp.

  “W-woman?”

  “Female of the species. XX chromosomes, the whole shebang. I’m young, too. And I’m hot,” she adds, glancing up at me with a smirk. “That answer your question? Big guy?”

  Gulp!