I sat at the table laughing and drinking as I often did. It was good to laugh, not like the old days when there was no laughter. Only fear and desperation. Back when we were all just starting out in this hostile world. My mind immediately went to launch day. All if our group had the latest Cerebral Gaming Apparatuses (CGAs). And we were ready to go. We all logged in and friended each other. We were fascinated by the MMLS, and the new features to the glorious land of Skyrim. It was breathtaking. Then it all changed. The fist thing we noticed was pain. We had grouped together and fought a bear. We were wearing very basic and weak armor. As we were all attacking the bear from it's sides, I made an attempt to run in front of it. I got slashed across the chest. I collapsed on the ground as blood poured out.
"Fuck!" I clutched my chest. Everyone stopped to look at me. "Don't stop!" I shouted. "Kill it!" They all went back to the bear as I crawled away to lay on the ground, my hit points were dangerously low. As the bear went down I slowly felt myself regaining strengthens the wound began to close. As I recovered I was able to stand and I saw an icon blink before my eyes. "Achievement: first battle scars" Everyone ran to me, Trenton was pissed.
"What the fuck dude? We're all fighting and you decide to act like a bitch and pretend to be hurt."
"Fuck you dude!" I retorted "I was just slashed by a bear!" Trenton slapped his palm to his forehead.
"It's just a game dumbass" at that moment I was so enraged that with the slightest movement I slashed my sword across his bare arm, the cut was deep. Trenton yelled out and grabbed his arm as the blood dripped down. He looked at me with the same astonishment as everyone else.
"It... It hurts," Trenton managed to get out.
"That's not supposed to happen," said Brandon.
"I'm pretty sure that pain software is illegal," said Tyler.
"It is," Kevin responded "a bunch of bitches sued after being shot on Call of Duty." We all pondered this. Over the next few hours we just tried to make sense of it all. We talked to other villagers and trying to access the internet. We decided to just log out and wait for the news stories, but when we entered our menus, the log out button was gone. At the end of the day everyone had gathered in the various towns and meeting points of Skyrim. We tried to make sense of it until a notification flashed before our eyes. It said simply "Welcome to Skyrim, your new home. Do not try to leave. If you die in the game, you die for real. Good luck.
-Bethesda."
Our group had been traveling for days. It felt good to take off our armor and relax a little. We earned it. We all clinked our metal mugs together as the foamy mead dripped down. We talked about our encounters, our failures, the hilarious glitches we used to encounter (which are now all but eliminated due to the constant maintenance of the servers).
The men across the table of us laughed and could hardly keep down their drinks as we spoke.
"Okay, okay stop!" said an elf with tears running down his eyes from laughter "you guys are insane!" He began to regain his breath and spoke "Where did you even find each other?" We glanced at each other. Kevin spoke.
"We're all friends from the real world. Once the game began, we made a pact to level up and protect each other as much as possible."
"Wow, so you must be really close then," said a khajiit.
"Yeah," I said, "hell, we parked next to each other at school, we had parties, game nights, we even had a call."
"A call?" One of the men said. All at once, everyone in the group chimed in making a sound that sounded like a combination of celebration and... growling? The whole inn filled with a combination of "wtf?s" and laughter.
"Shut the fuck up!" called one very disgruntled child.
"Ah, go fetch the mead faggot," yelled Kevin. There was more laughter as the little prick sat down angrily.
The conversations resumed. At the moment, Kevin and I were the only ones talking to the other men. Tyler, Branden, Michael and Samuel were deeply engaged in some sort of argument about how you would fuck a crab with a bow and was talking to a pair of questionable girls. The khajiit commented, "You know, if you look past everything that's happened, this game is actually pretty awesome."
"I'll drink to that!" yelled the elf as we raised our glasses once again.
"Yo, what do you think is the best part of the game?" said the elf.
"The MMLS," Kevin and I said at the same time.
"You know, I've heard about that. I know we all have, it but I don't exactly know what it is." The elf admitted.
"It stands for Muscle Memory Learning System," said Kevin.
"You remember in the real world how you'd catch a ball?" I cut in.
"What?" The Khajiit was confused.
"How do you catch a ball?" I rephrased the question. Kevin looked at me as if to say "you're on your own for this one fucker."
"I... I don't know. You just catch it," said the elf, almost frustrated.
"That's called muscle memory, it-"
"They know what muscle memory is dumbass," Said Kevin, he continued my explanation for me, "the CGAs are able to implant things like the feeling of repetition which transfers to muscle memory. That's how we're able to learn combos and level up our ability in virtual reality."
"Wow, that's pretty legit," said the khajiit.
"It's pretty genius, it'd be so lame if they just let us loose to hack at each other like a bunch of retards. Took us a long time to get to where we are now," I said.
"Wow so you guys have been doing a lot of grinding then, huh?" asked the elf.
Yeah, and a lot of fighting too. We've had to get used to, like, always fighting. We used to be kinda- I don't want to say timid, we just tended to avoid confrontation," I said.
"Now we're fuckin crazy," said Kevin.
"Like, we were fighting a dragon, and Trenton just stopped for some reason. We asked what was wrong and he said 'Where's Tyler?' right at that moment, fucker jumps off a ledge onto the dragon and stabs it in it's goddamn neck! Lucky for all of us, that was the killstrike," I said.
"And remember the time Samuel slapped a bear? He slapped a bear!" said Kevin.
"Jesus, do you guys have a death wish?" said the astonished khajiit.
"It's not like we want to die, we just stopped giving a fuck." Kevin said again.
"Well, not so much Michael, or Brandon. They're still damn good fighters, but sometimes it seems like they're the only ones who still have a bit of common sense. If one's not around then it's the other's job to be the voice of reason. If they're both gone then may the gods help us," I said.
"And anyone in the immediate vicinity," added Kevin.
"I can tell, you guys are pretty high up there. Like, your levels I mean. It takes a crazy motherfucker to do what you've done," said the elf.
"We just opened a shop and decided to make a living here. I mean, we can fight, but we prefer not to," said the khajiit.
"A lot of people did that. I don't blame them, I know some guys that did that. They hung back and became master blacksmiths while we leveled up," said Kevin.
"So, what brings you to Rifton?" the khajiit asked.
"We live here," I said.
"Really? We haven't seen you around, and we moved here a few weeks ago," said the elf.
"Yeah, we've been questing. It's kinda what we do. Sometimes people pay us to go on missions for them. You know, acquiring goods, assassinating politicians, that sort of deal," I said.
"So you're mercenaries," said the elf.
"Eh, we prefer the term, 'militarized contractors,' 'mercenary' carries a bad connotation," said Kevin.
"So wait, you said you acquire goods, right?" asked the elf
"Yes," Kevin and I spoke in unison.
"What do you do when the item is more valuable than what is being paid?" he inquired.
"It never is, we have members of our group who research items and estimate their value, if a potential client tries to low-ball us we either deny them or demand more," Kevin said.
"Who are your clients?"
"Not to name names, we usually sell out to large business owners, some military organizations," (One of the other upsides to human interaction in Skyrim was the incorporation of modern day business and trade. Some people have become rich from their business) I said.
"That's pretty bad ass."
"Damn right it is," Kevin said with a grin.
"Does your business have a name?" asked the elf.
"We call ourselves the Dyec clan," I said.
"That's not a Skyrim term I recognize, what does it mean?" asked the khajiit.
"We were all in a clan together in Clash of Clans. Our clan name was Do You-" I was interrupted by Trenton.
"Hey! I wanna see some more drinking going on!" I looked over and saw Jason on top of the table with a pair of intoxicated elf girls. They were all wearing considerably less clothing than when I last looked in that direction.
"We have our duties," I said to the gentlemen.
Kevin and I ran over to the table and grabbed the nearest mug. We forced the faucet of a barrel open and filled our mugs to the brim. We clinked glasses and chugged. That was my last memory of the night...
I dreamt of when I was just starting out in the game (when we dreamt, it was often the game replaying quests and battles). It was not a memory I liked to think about. Michael and I were running as fast as we could. We were both covered in blood. I'd been bashed over the head and Michael was impaled. All we could do was run, there were too many to fight, the NPCs were hot in pursuit. They were blind with rage and their weapons were coated with mine and Michael's blood. We got to a cliff overhanging a lake. We looked in each other's eyes and jumped. The water felt like razor blades on my skin. We surfaced and swam to a muddy beach, gasping in the icy air. We could hear the villagers above yelling, but they couldn't get to us. We were safe. As our wounds slowly began to close from the potions we were drinking, Michael looked at me and said in a raspy voice, "I told you not to kill the fucking chicken."
I was awake but I didn't open my eyes. My head was throbbing. I tried to assess what was happening.
"This is pain, it hurts," I told myself. I was making progress. What else was going on? There was a pounding, but not like the pulsing throbs that plagued me. Something was physically hitting my head and causing a gong-like sound and vibration to reverberate through my head. I heard Brandon's voice, "Ginger, wake up." He was knocking on my head with his unforgiving knuckles.
"Fuck off, I'm hung over," I managed to say.
"We have stuff to do."
"Fuck off!"
"Michael threw Trenton out the second story window."
"I'm up."
I sat up, if I had anything left in my body, I'm sure I would've vomited it all out at that moment.
"Open your eyes," said Brandon.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"The light wants to hurt me."
"I don't have time for this. Just get up and put your pants on." I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was wearing nothing but a single boot that wasn't mine. Brandon slammed the door (that's something else we never saw in the real world, pissed off Brandon). I opened my eyes and took the scene in. I closed the curtain so that I didn't blind myself. The room was relatively intact. A broken vase, a messed up carpet, a topless woman laying on the floor. Apparently I almost got laid but was thwarted by sleep. At least I made it to the bed. I brought up my inventory, I put on some buckskin pants and a loose, cotton shirt. I wasn't planning on there being any action today, but just in case, I equipped myself with a short-sword. I picked up the woman and placed her on the bed, and in case she was a prostitute, I left her a few gold pieces. I walked downstairs and everyone was sitting at the large table eating breakfast groggily. I hobbled over next to Trenton and sat down.
"Do you remember what happened last night?" he asked.
"Last thing I remember was when Kevin and I drank from that-" I looked back to see the barrel completely decimated.
"You yelled 'Michael smash' and that happened," said Samuel, who was sitting across from me.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"You pierced your ear... With a dagger. It closed up, but you looked kinda cool with a dagger as an earring," Trenton said.
"God damn... Hey, what's the deal? You guys were drinking too, none of you have hangovers." I said.
"It's called self control," said Trenton.
"And to answer your question from last night: no, vodka does not count as water," Said Samuel.
"Hey, listen." Said Michael to everyone. "We have some business to take care of. One, someone needs to go to the market to trade, two, someone needs to go to the house to drop off gear. Oh, and those elves Trenton was with robbed him blind so if you see them, go after them. Alright, whose going to the market?" Michael, Samuel, Trenton and Brandon raised their hands. "And who will go to the houses?" Trenton Tyler and I said we'd do it.
"Alright, let's go. All those who have things to trade, give them to Brandon, Samuel, and me. All who need to drop stuff off can give their stuff to Trenton, Adam, Justus or Tyler."
With that, we exchanged our items and headed on our way. We mounted our horses and rode into town. I wore a cloak, not to look mysterious or anything. The sun was in my eyes.
"Oh gods why?" I thought to myself. The movements of the horse were pounding throughout my body. Decided to mess with Trenton. I knew that making him suffer would make me feel better.
"I heard Michael threw you out a window," I taunted.
"Yeah, dude he was pissed."
"I figured. You kinda started this. And you were robbed."
"Fuck you dude."
"What did they take?" Asked Tyler.
"A few hundred gold, my best armor and my axes," he said.
"Oh my gods," I said.
"I hope we find them," Said Tyler. We were talking about Trenton's custom forged, magically enhanced hand axes. They were works of art crafted to incorporate abilities that made them effective equally in offense and defense. Those axes been with him for years and have served him well in many battles. My own sword is just as good, with a few tweaks here and there based on my ability. If I had lost mine, I have no idea what I'd do.
A half an hour passed and we arrived. It would've been sooner, but given our conditions, we could hardly move. I got down off of the horse and proceeded to unlock the door. This was a long process. Our door had a system of locks which combined a series of keys with magical bindings. In order to pick it, you'd have to had maxed your lock picking abilities as well as be really good at cracking codes. As I finished the final chant and pulled out the final key, the lock system clicked and the door began to creak open. I walked inside and breathed a sigh of relief. It was time to relax. But when I smelled the inside my heart skipped a beat. There, sitting on the armchair in front of the fireplace, was an man. His eyes gleamed in the poorly lit room.
"Finally decided to show up huh?" he taunted. I grabbed my sword, prepared to fight. Then I was stopped by Tyler grabbing my shoulder. Just then my eyes focused on the face and I immediately recognized the intruder.
"Justus?" I asked.