Note: I apologize for offensive language in this chapter. And it's a very short chapter. It just happened that way. I apologize for that, too!
"Excuse me?" I said, clearing my throat after a moment of silence. "What was that?"
"You're players, aren't you?" Varian asked. "Brought here by the patch."
"How do you know about the patch?" Tori demanded.
"Ah." The king nodded. "I do owe you an explanation. Very well." Settling himself down against the cave wall, he motioned for us to sit as well. The others sat. I stood until Brecki elbowed me in the shins. I sat.
"My name is Kent Broadwen," the king began. "I was one of the early alpha programmers for the WoW project."
"Oookay... you're starting to spook us out," I commented. "You are a computer program. A mob."
The man shook his head. "I am now. There was an accident during the alpha testing. I had come back to the lab to work on a special AI program that my team was in charge of. Something happened and the program backfired. And I ended up as part of the game."
I wanted to laugh. Really I did. But, there's something about totally unbelievable stories. They are kind of hard to laugh at when you are already staring at the impossible evidence.
"Are you saying that's how we got here?" Vrand asked. "From an AI patch that backfired?"
Varian... or Kent, I suppose... shook his head. "No, the patch you used did exactly what it was supposed to do. You see, I programmed it. I brought you here."
"Why?" Tori demanded.
Varian's expression turned even more serious. "Because I need your help to get home."
I jumped up. I had just about had it. I was tired and cranky. I was an elf in a computer game, for crying out loud. And now I was being told that I had been plucked out of my life, away from my pets and my job and my friends, without asking, because some computer programmer was tired of being the king. My mouth opened and closed several times, but in the end only two words came out.
"Fuck. You."