Despite his recent woes, Rich smiled. When Norm said stuff like that, he usually had the most awesome stories. He almost wished he had some popcorn for the next part.

STORMANORM: So I'm going after goblins, right?

RUTGER: Wait, goblins killed you?

STORMANORM: STFU, no! I mean they almost did. Even low-level monsters in this game are dangerous. But I kicked all their asses. I went down the coast to this sea cave where the aquagobs were trying to set up a dungeon or something. It took me using Lay of the Land to find it. and I attacked at dawn because that's when they sleep, the sailors on the docks told me about that.

RUTGER: Makes sense. They live in the dark, so they probably hate the light, right?

STORMANORM: Who's telling this story, frosted bitchnuts flakes? Let me finish!

RUTGER: Sorry.

STORMANORM: All good. Anyway, I get in the cave and they've got two sentries waiting. I use my Ambush skill and get one with my cutlass but the other's on me, and he's screeching and howling, and those fuckers have like little crab claws that hurt like dick punches.

Rich, who'd just survived some really really bigger crab claws, held his tongue.

STORMANORM: And I know surprise is blown so I gut his ass and kick him backward into the cave and I yell ding dong drop your bongs!

RUTGER: Did they, in fact, drop their bongs? Were any bongs dropped?

STORMANORM: No bongs were harmed during the making of this massacre. So there I am standing in the opening to the real cave, and it's dark as fuck because the light doesn't reach down there, so I pull out my lantern and light it up and what do you think I see?

RUTGER: Going out on a limb here... goblins?

STORMANORM: Fuck yeah I see goblins! Like dozens of tiny eyes looking up at me from this big pool in the center of the cave. They've got like nets spread over it and corpses rotting in it and bones hanging from those pointy stone things in the ceiling

RUTGER: Stalactites.

STORMANORM: Whatever. And it occurs to me that I might have maybe been a little hasty.

RUTGER: You got your balls pinched off, didn't you? Little crab claws, clack clack squishy squish...

STORMANORM: Shut up! As it happens I did NOT. Because I'm a clever Bandit and I bought pirates drinks until they told me their weaknesses. Not pirate's weaknesses because pirates are awesome, but goblin weaknesses.

RUTGER: And you attacked those for massive damage?

STORMANORM: I attacked them for massive DUI.

RUTGER: What?

STORMANORM: Aqua goblins can't hold their liquor. And before I came to the cave I stole a keg of extra-strength grog.

RUTGER: It made it to the cave without you drinking it all?

STORMANORM: Dude you don't drink that stuff unless your constitution is in triple digits and you got your last will and testament ready. And even then you need a cleric around to remove the blindness condition.

RUTGER: Clerics can remove conditions?

STORMANORM: Focus, man. So I take that keg that I've been breaking my back carrying around this whole damn time, and I smash it and yell “Drinks are on me, boys!” and I dump that fucker right into their little pool.

RUTGER: You made them drunk?

STORMANORM: Fuck yeah! About half a dozen make it out of the pool but they're moving slow and I've got mad agility. It was Jax Parrow style swordfights all over the cargo nets they had up there, and they almost took me down, but I won. Got like three levels! And unlocked the Alchemist job, too. Don't know if I'm gonna take that one tbh. The readit says it takes a lot of money to get the good stuff going.

RUTGER: You can unlock new jobs in this?

STORMANORM: Dude, didn't you see the tutorial?

RUTGER: No. Uh, long story there. Why don't you finish yours first?

STORMANORM: So I loot the lair and they've got shit all for treasure but that's fine. I go back to the old man who gave me the quest with a string of ears and he pays me. In gold!

RUTGER: Whoa.

STORMANORM: Yeah, it's rare you see that. Which... uh, well, it ended up causing problems.

RUTGER: Yeah? How?

STORMANORM: So I told you I'd made an appointment to see that prostitute again, right? She invited me back to her place. Well it turned out her place had four very large men with clubs waiting for me.

RUTGER: Didn't know you were into that.

STORMANORM: Dude, she set me up. Once I was down to my undies she called them in. All my gear was on the floor, and they told me to leave it and walk out of there. I almost made it to the door when one of them found the gold.

RUTGER: Uh oh.

STORMANORM: Yeah. They tried to torture me to find out where I'd gotten it, but shit man, we don't feel pain so I don't know what the game was expecting. It was hilarious! They'd like cut stuff off or burn me and I'd laugh in their faces and tell them how much I was gonna make them pay!

RUTGER: Dude. That's... even for a darknet game that's kind of hardcore.

STORMANORM: Yeah. I know, right? But I will. Once respawn is up I'm gonna go right back to Barobadass and find them and kick all their asses. Send'em to Gravy Jones' meatlocker.

RUTGER: The who to the what now?

STORMANORM: Some local undead pirate boss. Used to be a ship's cook or something. I'll hunt him when I'm higher level.

RUTGER: Are you... are you gonna kill that prostitute?

STORMANORM: I thought about it. But she told them not to torture me and caught a punch for it. So... nah. Gonna get my gold back in cash or ass or grass though. Hey, that reminds me, you had a chance to dip your wick yet?

RUTGER: Uh... that plan kind of... changed.

STORMANORM: Dude, don't pussy out. It's easy! Hell, if you get good charisma you don't even have to pay for it!

RUTGER: I kind of got lucky in a way I didn't plan to get lucky. If you get what I mean.

STORMANORM: What, you got raped by roaming warrior women or something?

RUTGER: Oh hell no! Wait, can that happen?

STORMANORM: Fuck if I know but I'm hoping. Death by snoo snoo!

RUTGER: What?

STORMANORM: Nevermind. So how did the plan change?

RUTGER: I'm a dragon. Please don't tell anyone.

STORMANORM: LOL, good one!

RUTGER: No. Seriously. My race is “High Dragon Hatchling.”

STORMANORM: You're not lying?

RUTGER: No. I got stupid lucky.

STORMANORM: Dude. Holy shit dude. This is... I know geeks that would give their kiwis for that.

RUTGER: Yeah and every one of them would find me and grudge kill me for getting something they couldn't have.

STORMANORM: Wait. Hatchling?

RUTGER: Yep. My first task was breaking out of an egg.

STORMANORM: Dude, what was the rest of the tutorial like? You have to learn to suck milk from dragon nips or something? That's fucked up.

RUTGER: No! I didn't have a tutorial and a party killed my mom before I could... wait, do dragons even have nips?

STORMANORM: Shit I dunno you tell me.

RUTGER: I don't have any but my dragon is male.

STORMANORM: So you've got dragon junk instead?

RUTGER: Um... I don't think so? There's like scales everywhere and I haven't had much time to stare at my crotch.

STORMANORM: Maybe it's like frogs where you don't actually do it but just blow your load together with a girl.

RUTGER: What?

STORMANORM: Or maybe it's like snake dick where you have two but they only pop out when you're ready to go.

RUTGER: WTF?

STORMANORM Or maybe—

RUTGER: Dude shut up! I don't wanna think about that shit.

STORMANORM: Then why'd you choose dragon?

RUTGER: The chained dragon said I'd get what I wanted if I took that route.

STORMANORM: Oh yeah, him. I think I gave him a headache when I told him my desire. I wanted booty and BOOTY if you knew what I meant.

STORMANORM: He uh, didn't know what I meant. Had to explain it to him. It was like trying to explain flurching to your grandma.

RUTGER: What's flurmching?

Stormanorm explained it.

RUTGER: Fucking gross. People really get off from that stuff?

STORMANORM: There's porn of it so yeah I guess. Hey! There's dragon porn too! So you might get laid, don't give up hope!

RUTGER: Uh... Dude, not only am I a dragon, I'm an underage dragon. I don't want to fuck dragon-fetish pedos.

STORMANORM: Shit, you might not have a choice if freaks like that catch up to you. This game's hardcore.

RUTGER: I had a feeling. Which is why I asked you to keep this a secret. No rapey!

STORMANORM: Relax, dude. I will protect your virtual virginity. Unless you find a hot chick then that's on you and I want pics. Not of you, of her.

RUTGER: I don't want to lose my virginity as a dragon. I'm not a dragon-fetish pedo!

STORMANORM: So what are you gonna do?

RUTGER: Just play the game normally, I guess. Alts are too expensive, so maybe if the dragon doesn't work out I'll reroll.

STORMANORM: Um... got some bad news for you there.

RUTGER: What?

STORMANORM: You can't. Once you make a character it's forever.

RUTGER: What? Why? That makes no sense.

STORMANORM: It's a business decision, I guess. They wanna sell those expensive as hell alternate character slots.

RUTGER: No, that makes no sense. For characters this complex on an all server-side game, they'd just take up storage space. You'd end up with databases full of stuff. If this game's being played on the scale I think it is, you'd need hardware upon hardware upon hardware. There has to be a way to delete characters.

STORMANORM: If there is we can't do it. Maybe they get wiped if we're idle too long, or unsubscribe?

RUTGER: That would make more sense. But you'd still have storage issues for the people that made alternates. Even if that price means only the really rich players get to.

STORMANORM: I thought so to, but it's not that way, actually. It's just a lot of money for us in the Ministry. For places like Cascadia and Neobrasilia it's pretty cheap.

RUTGER: Wait, what?

STORMANORM: I ran into a player from Neobrasilia in Barobadass. Turns out GO is so big in his country, the government's given up trying to crack down on it.

RUTGER: Dude, you're gonna get the Ministry knocking down your door. You gotta report foreign agents, you know that!

STORMANORM: What am I supposed to do? Go to the cops and say “Hey I've been playing an illegal game and there's an alien on there?” Besides, he wasn't trying to recruit me or anything. He was cool, we just drank rum and killed monkeys together.

RUTGER: It's weird that you ran into him at all. Neverquest instances a world for each nation, so nobody gets in trouble. Like there's Cascadians playing on Cascadian servers, and we just play on the Ministry servers, so there's no contamination.

STORMANORM: Well I guess the game designers figure they're doing illegal shit anyway so what've they got to lose? Just one server for all the world. Probably keeps hardware costs down anyway.

RUTGER: No, no it wouldn't. It would actually make it worse. If you've got everybody from the entire world playing in the same spot, that would make for a huge strain on the servers. It would be... they'd a server room the size of a small city to make it work. At least. I'd need numbers and math and help to figure out how much exactly.

STORMANORM: Dude, who cares how they do it? You've played it now. It's fucking awesome, right?

RUTGER: Yeah. Yeah, I just gotta nerd over some of this. It's how I'm built.

STORMANORM: You overthink things. Okay, so fucking's out of the picture for you. Oh well, more pussy for me.

RUTGER: You are what you eat, I guess.

STORMANORM: STFU Noob! But seriously, what are you gonna do now? I mean, the tutorial gave me some ideas and a contact to figure out how to learn how to do my job, but you got nothing, right?

RUTGER: I got like a helper servant guy, maybe. If the crawmammy didn't eat him.

STORMANORM: Crawmammy?

RUTGER: Big lobster thing. I beat it but it junked me up so I killed myself to get the bits it snipped off back.

STORMANORM: Dicky snippy? Ooooh...

RUTGER: It didn't chop that! I lost like a wing and broke some ribs.

STORMANORM: Yeah, death's a good idea then. Shit doesn't grow back unless you find a Cleric or resurrect. And broken bones take like weeks or months to fix. That's what I hear, anyway.

RUTGER: I guess I'll try to figure out my job. I got Cultist, and I have to find a dark power to pledge to before I unlock any skills.

STORMANORM: The fuck kind of class is that?

RUTGER: I think it's my race screwing me over. If I had a tutorial I bet it would have pointed me toward several dark powers. Now I'm stuck with a lame class and no idea what it does or how to even find a dark power. Whatever those are in the first place.

STORMANORM: I dunno. I had the option to blow off the tutorial, and if I'd done that then I still would have been around bunches of other Bandits. I could've learned from them easily.

RUTGER: You chose Bandit?

STORMANORM: I said I wanted to be a pirate, and chaindragondaddy recommended Bandit. And he started me out in a pirate town. I already learned that I also need to learn Mercenary and Sailor and mix all three together until I become a Pirate.

RUTGER: You can combine classes?

STORMANORM: Kind of. The readit has all the details. Well not all of the details, there's a lot people don't know still. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that the game wouldn't drop you in a place where your job was totally useless. Look around some, and see if there's another Cultist around.

RUTGER: Not a bad idea. I'll do it when I'm back alive.

STORMANORM: When will that be? I want to friend you, and you can only do that when we're both alive.

RUTGER: Um...

Rich checked the timer.

RUTGER: Twenty-three hours and 48 minutes.

STORMANORM: Lame. I was about to token out of here, and you should do the same.

RUTGER: It's... my dad had to go to hospital. I don't know if I should spend on tokens right now.

STORMANORM: Oh shit man is he okay?

RUTGER: It's... yeah. He'll be fine.

STORMANORM: Look, I got my allowance today. My dad gave it to me early when I got “sick” this morning and called off school.

RUTGER: That's why you're playing? Seriously?

STORMANORM: Stuck my finger down my throat. Totally worth it, though. Well it would have been if I hadn't gotten robbed and murdered. Gonna fix that, though.

RUTGER: Cool for you. Let me know how it goes next time you're back through here.

STORMANORM: Ah... shit. It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!

RUTGER: What?

An icon flashed before him. Six golden coins glittered and danced, oversized tokens with G.O printed on each side as they twirled.

STORMANORM: I bought the bulk pack. Best value for the price!

RUTGER: It actually isn't. If you break down the costs—

STORMANORM: Dude just shut up and take the tokens.

Bemused, Rich looked at them, and they slid neatly away.

YOU HAVE RECIEVED SIX GOLD TOKENS!

DO YOU WANT TO PAY (1) TOKEN TO RETURN TO GENERICA?

The words hung set into a button before him. All he had to do was touch it, he knew.

RUTGER: Dude... thanks.

STORMANORM: On the house, man. See you on the flipside!

It was good to have friends. And Norm was one of the best.

Rich willed the button to push, and the gray nothingness faded away...