"So? What do you want to talk about?" The young man, probably in his thirties, disappeared in the kitchen for a brief moment, followed by the sound of crashing plates.

Only after Bao had explained that he was a novice player, who had only just started, the mage let him enter his house while grunting something about 'always these damn noobs'.

"Did you encounter any other players, besides me, that came here to ask for your help? At least it didn't seem like you were surprised by my visit." Bao looked for a place to sit but he had a hard time finding anything, in a room that looked like a hurricane had just passed through.

"Right under that pile of clothes should be a chair," the mage pointed in the direction of what should be called a tower, more than a pile of clothes. The head which appeared for a brief moment in the doorway disappeared again. "Is that the question, for which you came here in the middle of the night?" Githmo appeared again, this time with a cup of tea in each hand and put them on one of the many accumulations of books and documents there were in the room.

They both introduced themselves with their avatar names for the sake of discretion, nothing uncommon in the gaming world.

"Not really, I only wondered why I encountered so few players until now." Bao stared at the long black hair of the mage in front of him and how they swung back and forth with every movement.

"Well that's quite a stupid question to ask given that," -he put away some books which rested on a chair in order to sit down on it- "VR has become illegal. As a consequence, the number of players has obviously gone down drastically, after all, who wants to go to jail or into a rehab centre just for playing a game. In addition, production has been stopped and those VRs that have been already produced were either confiscated or destroyed. It's sad to say but... playing has become a high-risk hobby." With the hand, Githmo threw his hair behind the chair lean. "And to answer your previous question, I encounter a few potential players but to be honest I didn't care if they were some or not."

"You didn't get to make your own avatar either did you?" Bao noticed that pustules and scars were well hidden beneath the curtain-like hair, which covert part of Githmo's face.

The mage's hand twitched for a brief moment.

"Yes... yes, I too couldn't create my own avatar."

"Is this mage the only one you have?"

"Hmm, this is not necessarily a mage character but more like a hybrid between a mage and something like a tamer, I guess and yes, this is my last remaining avatar." Githmo took a big sip from the tea smelling of freshly cut pines. "What about you? What's up with this weak-ass looking character?"

"Last remaining? So you had more of them before..." Bao scratched his head ignoring the cup offered to him. "Well, I too didn't have much choice on my avatar, it was neither smart nor strong."

"Just a simple mob character"

"If you want to put it like that... yes, a simple mob."

A long pause followed their conversation where neither of them spoke but instead stared into the depths of his teacup. The green substance in Bao's cup seemed to never stand still, forming small bubbles which popped on the surface.

An awkward silence, for both of them.

"Tamer huh," Bao mumbled. "So, is it a skill of yours that caused the stampede or did you use an item?" He didn't know how to ask the question, so he did it the only way he knew. Short and direct.

"Aaah, so that's what actually brought you here?" A drop of tea ran down Githmo's equally black beard. "I won't stop the stampede if that's what you came here for. And just in case that you're thinking of attacking me to end it, I warn you as a fellow gamer, you don't stand a chance."

Bao's face must have revealed a lot since Githmo raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm, so you want to save the city, don't you... Is it because of a quest?" The mage cleaned his beard from the tea.

"Yes." Bao knew there was no point in lying. "And why do you want to destroy the city? A quest too?"

"No. I'm just sick of playing the stereotypical good guy. It's just boring and I don't need another boring life besides my real-life one. Trying to take over a city if not even a kingdom sounds sooo much more fun."

"So it's about fun."

"Like every game yes."

Bao started to breathe air in small portions just before sneezing as loud as he could.

"Bless you."

"Thank you."

"Well, I guess this will be a conclusive farewell from Nelenia for one of us"