An hour passed and I sat on the pier, watching as night settled into Booty Bay. All around me, goblins, pirates, horde and alliance adventurers passed by, going about their business. I was enjoying the scene, the feel of the city. It was as if the entire city was buzzing with an innate energy, full of excitement and adventure. If this was going to be my dream, I was going to sit back and enjoy it.
But after an hour, I began to get bored. How long was this dream going to last? I glanced at Whisper. She was staring at me expectantly and when I met her gaze, she meowed. She didn't look happy. I blinked. She pawed at my bags. "Oh!" I laughed, "Are you hungry?" Digging through my food bag, I pulled out a bowl of thick stew and eyed it. "Let me guess. Jungle Stew." Whisper didn't seem to care, she just wanted it. I barely managed to keep my hand intact as she claimed the food and devoured it. "Alright, alright! Careful!" She just kept eating.
Snorting, I let the large cat alone and begin to explore more carefully the rest of my belongings. And that's when I noticed the headset. I'm not sure what else to call it. It looked like the kind of headset and microphone used by the receptionist at work, except that it had no cord and it was completely, absolutely transparent. No wonder I had missed it the first time. As I inspected it, I found several tiny buttons on the side of the ear piece. Four of the buttons were labeled with numbers. A fifth one was labeled with the letter g.
"Curiouser and curiouser," I commented softly. "Do we want to take wagers on what these are?" Whisper ignored me, but I think she'd learned by now just to smile and nod. On a whim, I unpressed the numbered buttons, leaving the g-button pressed. And then I put the headset on.
"No, I didn't see it," came a female's voice through the headset.
"It said something weird, but I didn't catch what," another female voice replied.
"Keli!" said a third.
"Uh… hi."
"You made it." The second voice said. "This is Brecki."
"Tori, here." Said the first voice.
"Vrand!" Said the third.
I smiled. Of course I recognized the names of three of my guildmates. Kelirien, Brecki, Tori and Vrand were all members of the Sisters of Faith, an all girl's guild on our server. I had never heard their voices before, but somehow they fit. Tori's voice was higher pitched, like the voice of a young girl – or the voice of a short, bouncy (and squishy) gnome warlock. Vrand's voice sounded exotic, a lot like mine, I realized. Perhaps even a bit moreso. But then, she was the resident elven druid. Brecki's voice was… well, normal. Perhaps a little formal. Exactly what you'd expect from a human paladin.
"So, what's going on?" I asked, glancing around to see if anyone was staring at me, the idiot noob talking into thin air. No one seemed to notice. Even Whisper was ignoring me, pawing at my packs in search for more food.
"It was the patch. It sucked us into the game," Tori replied.
"You're joking, right. That's impossible. We're dreaming."
"Okay, so the patch entered our subconscious and took us into the dream, then." Brecki replied.
"More like our addiction caused us to go crazy and withdraw has us hallucinating," I retorted, skeptical.
"Whatever you call it," Brecki replied, "We're here. And hey, it's the best dream I've ever had."
I couldn't argue with that. "So, we're just playing, then?"
"We're meeting in Stormwind tomorrow morning," Tori explained. "Hopefully we'll have gotten in touch with more guildmates by then."
Hopefully we'd be awake and able to play normally by tomorrow morning. But I didn't mention that little detail. "Okay. I guess it's business as usually until then."