Chapter 7 Exploring

I stumbled to my feet with my head still full of the fog of sleep, the dream of being a crow and spying on Langshank and the King still real to me. The vividness and the casual way they had been discussing me had me believing the dream to be a reality. Taking a moment, I cleaned up and went downstairs to the pub and ordered something to eat and a drink of ale.

The room began to fill up with a mixed crowd, both workers and merchants came and ate. Some lingered on over drinks, others headed home or perhaps to work, the city slowed down during the evening but I suspected it did not really ever stop. Looking around the room I noted that several men of the city watch had appeared and while they had made their way to the bar and were having a mug of ale one, in particular, was observing me. When we made eye contact he looked down and then made sure to avoid looking at me.

Not sure what the hell that is about, I thought as I stood up and started to leave. Once I was clear of the door I made my way to a nearby alleyway and stood in the shadows and waited. Was I paranoid, yep I sure am, maybe? I know the game had several story arcs to assist in progression, and a few hidden things as well to keep the game interesting, but I felt that my free choice of progression in the game was being compromised. I had not been offered a quest to accompany Langshank to the city, and now I suspect I won’t find many quests here. As I waited I sent a game-master a message detailing what had happened and that I was wanting to get some quests and play the game I wanted.

Once that was sent off I waited for a few more minutes, but the city watchman who had been eyeing me did not step out of the Inn to follow. He might have been strolling for some companionship. The game was very advanced and relations between npc’s and players could develop. Unfortunately for him, I did not roll that way. In real life one of my friends was gay, he was athletic, good looking, well dressed and charming, the girls flocked to him, and when they discovered he was not interested, I the ever-loyal wingman had received more than my fair share of phone numbers. Sadly, I was attached to Mandy back then and I trashed them all.

Memory is a funny thing, I had no idea that I would be standing in an alley and thinking about my old buddy Charles. He had moved to Boston and married one of the city counselors. He was hobnobbing with the rich and powerful while I was playing a game wondering why it was glitching. Turning I made my way down the alley, following the directions displayed on my map. I had been walking for about two hours getting a general idea of the city. Seeing something on a map just did not give you a feel for what a place is really like. You have to take the time to walk around, smell the air, see the sights and talk to people. After all that is done you will begin to understand and feel what a city is about. This city was full of energy, it had a feel of determination to it, but it also had a feel of secrets, of old things untouched and unseen.

Eventually, I made my way over to both of the Weapon Masters and after spending some gold I now had several skills. They had both taken the time to explain how it all worked, first, you read the scroll and when the understanding of the weapon skill was gained you would know the basic forms of fighting with that weapon. The hard part came afterward, the practice, in order to achieve any measure of competence, you needed to practice. Thankfully this was a game and not real life so if a player would spend a day on the practice dummy the skills would develop into muscle memory and your ability to use the weapon would become much greater. The same went for strength and agility, really all of the stats could be improved on. Each level would increase the player's baseline stat but with the extra effort that baseline could grow.

I would imagine that most players would ignore that fact just as they did weapon skills, once they had learnt a class based attack that is what they would use, eventually almost all of the damage per second would be class based attacks with basic weapon damage, commonly known as white damage only contributing a small amount to the overall numbers.

In a lot of the other games, people would spend a lot of time going through what they would have to do to get top dps from what they called a rotation. I was not interested in being at the top of a dps meter once I started doing dungeons and raids. The fact was I just wanted to explore the game world, do some buying and selling, run a few dungeons but most of all have fun. I was hoping that the fun would continue once I had heard back from the game-master. In the meantime, I was enjoying exploring the city and I appreciated the basic weapon training I had received. I would have to make sure that I spent at least three hours each day on training.

As I walked along the canal located in the middle of the city I noted that most of the people were fair skinned and had blond or red hair. My dark complexion and short curly hair stood out, it was interesting that most people changed their appearance after they had successfully logged in. We all started with a digitized image of what we looked like in real life but then could access a beauty panel and change our appearance. It looked like most people had changed their appearance to look like an Olympic athlete with the face of a Gentlemen's Quarterly (GQ) male model.

What was really interesting was that they were all white, no darker skin tones visible anywhere. I am not racist, at least I try not to be, but what I was seeing showed a very interesting demographic developing. I wondered if the game studio had allowed this to happen on purpose, as all of the npc’s I had seen so far were all fair skinned not one was dark complexioned.

Putting the thought I might be playing in a racist game on the back burner I found that the canal had begun to wind through a graveyard. It was a lovely looking graveyard with lanterns lit and flower beds spaced around a well laid out walking path that meandered past gravestones, tombs, and fountains. I continued to walk down the path, and to my surprise, I saw a small boy sitting on a tombstone, he looked up as I approached and waved at me, I waved back but he was gone and in his place, a statue of the boy was sitting on the gravestone.

I glanced around and saw that there were several other people walking around but when I blinked they all disappeared. This was somewhat startling and I was not sure how I felt about this strange turn of events. I was turning to leave when I saw her, she was the girl from the bank and she stood there looking sad as she stared at the gravestone beneath her. I approached and once close enough I called out, “Miss are you alright, you seem upset?”

She turned to look at me and I could see the tears on her face, clearly this was an emotional time for her. Looking at me with surprise she said, “I am fine, just feeling the regrets of the past roll into the present.” She then stared at me as I stared at her, she was not the girl from the bank but looked a lot like her. I could feel my heart begin to race, I was not sure why I was feeling this way, but as I looked at the girl I knew I wanted to know her.

After a minute the girl spoke, “My name is Tavana, and I am surprised that you are talking to me. Most people just look right through me and ignore me, it has become lonely for me these last few months.”

Before I could engage my mouth, it began to speak and I listened in amazement to the words that came forth. “I can’t believe that people would ignore you, you have such a presence, in fact, you are beautiful. It would be easier for an elephant to climb a tree than for me to walk away from you.” As I was speaking I had slowly walked closer, reaching out I grabbed her hand and held it. It felt slightly cool and I felt a thrill go through me as I held Tavana’s hand. She looked startled and then a blush came to her face as we stood there. I watched as her other hand came up and softly rubbed my cheek and then she said, “I can feel you, you are real, you are alive.”

I watched as she began to cry and then I pulled her to me and let her cry on my shoulder. We stood for several minutes with me holding her and breathing in the scent of her hair. I finally looked up and saw that we were surrounded by several figures, mainly women but a few men stood there also. I must have stiffened up for Tavana asked, “What is wrong?” as she pulled back from me and looked around. Seeing the small crowd of people gathered around us did not seem to bother Tavana she simply looked at them and then looked at me.

“I am sorry, these folks are protective of me and seeing me here with you, they are simply concerned for me.” She turned and waved at the crowd and said, “It’s alright, I am fine, please don’t worry.” Turning towards me she smiled and said, “We all have too much time here and have a tendency to be curious about new things.”

I was hearing her words but my gaze was focused on the people as they began to disappear in a very literal fashion, some faded away while others slowly sunk into the earth and a few floated up and began to fly towards different parts of the graveyard. There was no doubt they were ghosts that lived in the graveyard. It all made sense in my mind, why would ghosts not live in a graveyard. That meant that Tavana was probably a ghost also. Suddenly my mind shut down and I turned and looked at Tavana.

She had a tentative smile painted on that was covering up a face that was afraid to show the pain of rejection. As I stared at her something in my body gave off a jolt of electricity and I knew what to do. Reaching out I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close, then I kissed her. She stood silent, surprised, maybe shocked but then she kissed me back. Boy, that girl could kiss, I know it had been a while but the passion and emotion in her kiss felt like I was being splashed with cold water, it was invigorating and as my hands began to drift down on her back I knew that this ghost had a power over me that I had never felt with Mandy. I managed to stop myself from doing more that rubbing her back but it was hard. Still, I managed and I finally broke the kiss to say, “Tavana, there is something about you, I want you to know that I normally don’t run up to girls I do not know and kiss them. But you I would kiss anytime.” What the fuck, I thought as I stared into her dark gray eyes. I am falling for a ghost, but how the hell can I touch her, how can I feel her breath on me. I had no answers just a feeling about what I was doing and it felt right.

We stared at each other for a moment and then Tavana said, “Somehow you have entered the Kingdom of Death while still being in the Kingdom of Life. I have never heard of such a thing, but here you are.”

I held her hand as we talked for the rest of the night, it seemed that she had been attacked and robbed a few month ago, and before the assailant fled he had used a poisoned dagger on her which had caused her body to freeze up and then as her lungs and heart finally stopped working due to the poison she died. She was sad that she had died, but the kicker was that she had recognized the thief. It was her boyfriend and standing at the corner was her sister, the girl from the bank. The last living sight she had was the two of them looking down at her, kissing each other and then walking away while holding hands.

Tavana began to cry as she recounted the story, and I could understand her feelings, both her boyfriend and sister had betrayed her.

Suddenly my message icon flashed and opening up the message I read,

You have found the hidden quest, revenge is best-served cold, help the ghostly girl show the truth

You have stood on the line of life and death, now is the time to show the killers the line they crossed

Exact revenge on Tavana’s killers, for a ghostly reward

I accepted the quest and turned to look at Tavana, she was lovely in the early morning light, but I was aware that she was fading away, taking her hand I said, “I will return at night if I am able.” Before I could finish she smiled at me and gave me a kiss as she faded away and then was gone.

I stood up and made my way to my Inn, I needed some sleep and the perspective that a bit of time would bring. I could not deny my feelings, but somehow, I felt like I was being manipulated. Also, how the hell could I see ghosts? Once at my room I was asleep in an instant, my dreams haunted by a crow that was trying to guide me through a maze of tunnels that ran under the city. We were being chased by something large, something that had no use for the living and not much use for the dead. It had a special interest in me, it could tell that I walked between the Light of the living and the Shadows of the dead.

Fucking crazy dreams, I thought as I woke up. Deciding that I wanted to have a long soak in the hot water I went to the Inns bath and asked the attendant to heat me some water. He spoke in a guttural language and the said, “Give it ten minutes and it will be hot.” It was near lunchtime and he left the room to collect a bowl of soup and a mug of ale. I meanwhile had undressed and was sitting on the bench watching the large tub. As I glanced down I was surprised to see a small red figure, he had two horns and a tail and was red. It was an Imp and he stood about one foot tall and was glaring at me. He began to speak and I heard a garble of sounds that suddenly became clear.

“You big Fookin dummy, look at ya, sitting there with ya dong all hangin out like ya think ya gonna win a prize. Humans, ye all make me sick ya shithead ya.”

Wow, I was not going to win his popularity contest but still my dong was not on display, I was simply sitting waiting for the water to heat up. “Listen up you ugly little two horned bitch, stop the insults or I will give as good as I get, you understand?” I had not raised my voice but there was no doubt that he had heard what I said and was surprised, in fact as he dove under the tub I could hear him ask me, “How the Fook did ya see me, ye is no Warlock?”

It was another question that I would be searching an answer for after I had my bath. “Listen is that water hot enough yet, or do you need to do something?” I was sure that the Imp was how the water was heated and after hearing a moment of cursing I was told the Fooken water was good enough for the likes of me. Sweet, I had an Imp with an attitude about to watch me wash my jiggly bits. Does life get any better than this? I had to admit that the water was perfect and that by the time I was ready to come out I was feeling pretty relaxed.

I had even had a talk with the Imp, his name was Wazzic and he had been captured when the junior Warlock had summoned him and the tricked him into his service. I do not know anything about Warlocks or demons but something seemed fishy. Once the Warlock came back I hopped out of the tub and began to dry off while listening to the Imp tear the Warlock a new one right beside the old one he had torn into the Warlock a minute ago.

I turned to the Warlock and asked, “Does that Imp never shut up?”

“Only when there are people around who can’t see him, then he hides.” The Warlock looked tired as he explained that Wazzic could not control his tongue and he was actually thinking of getting rid of him to summon a new Imp.

Upon hearing this I had an idea, speaking to the Warlock I asked, “Why don’t you sell Wazzic, and then get a new Imp. I would hate to see a sentient being sacrificed. Tell you what I will give you one gold for the little bugger, but you must bind him to me and my commands.” The Warlock looked startled and then nodded, licking his lips he asked if I was serious, when I said yes, he grabbed my hand and then rubbed it on his hand while chanting a brief spell. My hand felt like it was on fire for a moment and then a black mark appeared. Looking somewhat like a tattoo it was the mark of ownership and by its power Wazzic now had to obey my commands.

Thanking the Warlock, I paid him and then went to leave, I told Wazzic to attend me, and watched him fade from view, I knew he would be close by, invisible to all but other demons. It was time to find some quests.