Having a lot on my mind and no longer in the mood to grind side quests, in the end I take advantage of the room I rented for Charis, who’s just left. Removing my armor for the first time since I put it on way back in the labyrinth, I lie down in the surprisingly comfortable bed and pull up the system screen, setting an alarm for 7 AM. Then I close the screen, and stare up at the darkened ceiling, thoughts swimming.

  I think I know what’s going on here, or at least part of it. I don’t know who my quest giver is; Tamiel with a split personality or someone using her image to trick me, but I’m sure of one thing. She is not an angel.

  But these details don’t matter to me. Right now, I only want to think of Charis. Her ice queen visage, her supermodel body, the heat of her kisses against my neck…

  Before, I thought I was in love with her, but I see now that love was really lust, nothing more. Yet I meant the vow I made to her. And I intend to keep it. For lust’s sake. And for simple curiosity. I want to see where her story goes…

  We’ll have to abandon the main quest chain for a bit. The churches Charis asked me to rob are all east of here, and unless I’m mistaken the main quest will take us further north. If I were on my own, this wouldn’t be an issue, but I’ll have to convince my healer to go along with it, somehow—without revealing the truth of my errand. It’s not that I’m ashamed of what I’m planning to do, so much. It’s just that I want to keep this between Charis and me. It’s none of Sherbie’s business anyway.

  I’ll lose the third wheel when it comes time to raid the church, and to meet with Charis. I’ll send him off to shop somewhere by himself, or to sleep. He won’t mind. He won’t even notice…

  Sleep. It feels so foreign to me after so many weeks without a wink of it. I’d forgotten what it feels like to be still, to rest with my eyes closed, and wait for the inevitable slip over the edge of consciousness into dreamland…

  What does it mean to sleep inside a capsule game? To dream within a dream? Will my dreams be full of more monster fighting? Or will I dream of nothing, and wake as though I never slept at all, only to find eight hours of my life have passed me by?

  Well. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

  I dream. I can’t say of what. The visions fade with the sound of the alarm, leaving behind only the impression of time having passed leisurely. Pleasantly. And now it is morning.

  I rise and don my armor. It feels a little strange to wake and not have to pee, or shave, or do any of the typical morning rituals. Convenient, but strange.

  I quit my room and leave the key with the man at the front desk. Then I find a seat in the corner and wait for Sherbie to come down.

  Five minutes pass without sign of him. Ten. It’s past the time we planned to meet. I begin to feel anxious. Pulling up the map, I can see the little orange dot symbolizing my party member is located inside the building with me. Thank goodness—he’s still here. Just running late. What’s that guy doing?

  Following the zoomed-in map, I head upstairs and stop in front of room number 9. He’s in here.

  I knock.

  “Who is it?” Sherbie asks in a singsong voice.

  “It’s Rev.”

  “Come in! It’s not locked!”

  Not locked? I roll my eyes. This guy…

  I let myself inside. To no one’s surprise, I find him in the corner of the room on the floor, facing a tiny rodent-sized hole in the wall.

  “Don’t tell me you’re making friends with another mouse.”

  “Not a mouse,” he says, turning with a grin to reveal an obese, patchy looking gray rat. I recoil automatically at the sight, but Sherbie clutches him with childlike fondness and enthusiasm. “This is my new friend! Say hello to Professor Ratigan!”

  “You can’t adopt a wild rat! You have no idea what diseases it could be carrying!”

  “Ratigan’s not wild, he lives with people. Anyway, I’ve already adopted him so there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Well send him to the stable,” I say, disgusted with the creature. “And pray he’s not carrying bubonic plague fleas.”

  “Tch. Fine. Can’t even be happy for a guy finding a new friend…”

  Sherbie interacts with his system menu and Professor Ratigan disappears. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “We should get going. You got all your stuff?” I ask him.

  “Got it. Did you have fun questing last night?”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Yeah,” I say, choosing not to correct him. “What about you, get a good night’s sleep?”

  “I did, though it was a bit strange.”

  “What was strange?”

  “Well the innkeeper gave me the key to what I thought was number 6, but turns out it was actually number 9. This nice man heard me struggling with the key to his room so he opened the door and invited me inside…”

  Oh, god.

  “It was fun. A bunch of players and NPCs were having some kind of party, so I stayed for a while. Then they started taking off their clothes, and they were doing things to each other that I’d only seen in movies. Then these girls came up, they stole my glasses and started kissing me, and well…”

  A swinger’s party? This guy accidentally stumbled onto a swinger’s party?! While I was stuck all alone after failing to score with Charis?!!

  I’m so jealous!

  “And, did you…become a man?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m already a man,” he looks at me, confused and a tad annoyed. “Anyway, it was getting late and kinda gross, so I excused myself. The girls protested but I explained my Mama doesn’t like it when I stay up past my bedtime. They let me go after that, though they never did give me back my glasses. Anyway, that’s when I realized I’d had the wrong room, so I I found the right one and went straight to bed. Slept like a baby after that.”

  Oh, Sherbie. You are too pure for this world. I must protect his innocence, I vow. I must protect it at all costs! Also, note to self: next time follow Sherbie all the way to his room and make sure there are no weirdos inside when he gets there. Oh, and make sure he locks the damn door! Good grief…

  Walking down the hall together, Sherbie stops in front of room 6.

  “I should see if they’ll give me back my glasses.”

  “Better not,” I say, pulling his hand back from knocking. “I think those guys will, uh, want to sleep in a bit more.”

  “But I can’t go out into the streets without my glasses! You don’t know what it’s like for a pretty boy like me! What if that gang of lady loving orcs catches me again?!”

  “Don’t worry, you have me now, remember? I’m not going to let anyone sexually harass you anymore. And I’ll buy you new glasses, too, so come on.”

  Leaving the Pigeon Spire Inn, I prove myself to Sherbie by taking him straight to the same shop where I bought his glasses before, and purchase him a new pair, exactly the same as the old ones. My anxious friend perks up after that, his worries gone, and he’s eager to find a café where we can have breakfast. I’m impatient to get back to questing, but I understand these kinds of breaks are important to Sherbie, so I go along with it.

  Unfortunately it turns out the cafés in the mining town of Pitola leave something to be desired. Everything’s a bit grubby and run down, so Sherbie’s idea of having breakfast at a lovely street side café is sadly dashed. Still we manage to find a place that’s clean at least.

  We find a seat by a big sooty window and order. I get egg on toast and black coffee, while Sherbie orders a cheese soufflé and custard filled croissant with a foam art latte, and gushes over the cute hedgehog design. It seems though the atmosphere is sub-par, the food at least is still appealing to the modern palate.

  After a leisurely breakfast I somehow manage to dissuade my friend from window shopping. Instead we stop by a general store and sell all the mundane monster drops we picked up after leaving the guild base. Then I pull him along to Silas, where we finally turn in our Root of Evil quest.

  “You performed admirably, gentlemen. In the end, I’m glad to report the militia wasn’t needed. The military crackdown made a huge difference; the sabotage has slowed to a mere trickle. Most of the miners have been able to return to their jobs, thanks to you. Though we’re still having some problems with a few rogue groups of occultists…”

  “I’m bored of fighting cultists,” I say to Sherbie, ignoring the NPC’s speech. “I don’t want to be a pawn in a faction war. What do you say we forget the main quest, strike out on our own?”

  “Oooh, that sounds fun!” Sherbie is enchanted by the notion, as I knew he would be. He’s too easy. And now I can follow Charis’ quest chain without rousing my friend’s suspicions in the least.

  “Don’t take this quest. We’ll find others, and eventually make our way to the next city, when we’re ready.”

  “Alright!”

  “Ah, but first, let’s learn how to ride.”

  After that, with my help, Sherbie finally makes it to meet the riding trainer, this time without any mishaps.

  “It’ll cost ya 250 sp a piece for riding lessons,” says the cabellero with his leather vest and gray wide-brimmed hat. “I can teach ya like that,” he says, snapping his fingers in front of Sherbie’s eyes.

  “Ooh, like that,” Sherbie echoes him, trying and failing to snap.

  “Well? Whaddaya say?”

  “After you teach us, where would we be able to buy mounts?” I ask.

  “Right here at my Pa’s stable. He’ll sell ya a horse, cheap.”

  “Ahem, how cheap?”

  “Check the sign board, hombre.”

  The signboard he gestures to is actually a referral to the system menu. Here I scroll through a whole long list of horses, coming in a wide variety of breeds and colors. Chargers, race horses, warhorses, work horses, there’s quite a lot. And not one of them is what I’d call cheap.

  After checking and double checking the menu, I slip inside the stable to break the news to Sherbie.

  “We can only afford one.”

  He stops petting the horses to look back at me nervously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even if we pool our money, we’ll only be able to afford one mount.”

  “But, then, that means...”

  Gulp.

  “Yeah…”

  Silence.

  “We still gonna do it?”

  “I mean…yeah.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah…”

  Ten minutes later, after paying to learn the Ride ability and haggling with the salesman to no avail, we stand in the street beside our mount, a plain brown work horse.

  Shuffling his feet, Sherbie speaks first.

  “So. What are we going to name him?”

  “Horse.”

  “That’s boring.”

  “Good.”

  A tumble weed blows across the street in front of us, and Horse’s ear twitches.

  “I really wanted the white one.”

  “It cost five gold more.”

  “Ah…”

  We stand in awkward silence for another minute. Then at last I speak up.

  “So unlike a real horse, Horse can carry up to two times his weight. That means we can ride double without a problem.”

  “D-double?”

  “Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

  “N-no.”

  “That’s fine, then. We’ll ride double,” I say, mounting jerkily. I look down at Sherbie and offer my hand. “What?” I demand sharply when he doesn’t immediately take it. “Got a problem?!”

  “No, its just—”

  “Just what?”

  “Can I be big spoon?”

  “Hell, no.”

  What are you looking at?? I want to challenge the NPCs as we make our way out of town, those ignoring us as well as those looking on. Is there something funny about two bros riding a horse together? What could be more natural? Just two bros heading out into the wild, questing together. Sharing a horse.

  Who’s insecure? I’m not insecure, you’re insecure!

  Just f*ck off!