"Are you having a party?" came a sultry voice as I slammed the door behind me.

I blinked and shook my head. What was this shit? I still have to interact with the other humans? Or, NPCs, as they were now. I glanced at the direction of the voice and decided I didn't mind interacting with this NPC. She could N my PC any time she wanted hahahahaha.

Turnip > That doesn’t even make sense.

BDJ > FU

It was Mandy. The Girl Next Next Next Door (that means she lived three doors down). She was a young yoga instructor and massage therapist and the subject of the fantasies of every dirty pervert who went to her classes or lived in this building. At least, I assume she was. She was also the occasional subject of my fantasies, but that was different. Obviously.

"Eh? Party? What?" Goodness, I got flustered even around NPCs. I’d have to work on my charm, I thought.

"Yeah I heard the shouting and thought it sounded fun," she said with a smile, flicking her black hair over her shoulder.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. It was 11 .a.m. on a Wednesday morning.

"Err, no. No party. It was... the radio," I lied, because sometimes you have to protect people from the truth, dammit!

"Wow!" said Mandy and touched my upper arm, squeezing it with her firm fingers. Did she think I was muscular? Although I didn't work out, I had done a bunch of pushups the previous Friday after watching Rocky again.

I gave her an encouraging smile. Touch me all you want, baby. She was running her eyes up and down me, appraisingly.

I took the opportunity to do the same to her. She was equipped with a tight sports top that amplified her rack (+a million to whew factor), but left her flat stomach bare, and yoga pants that hugged the curves of her ass in ways that I had only dreamed about. And this chick was staring at me.

"Your aura! It's really violet today!"

Wait, what?

"Thank you," I said, because what else do you say to that? I couldn't see any aura around me and I hadn't even cast a protection spell or anything. In fact, I didn't even know how to cast an aura of protection or whatever the hell they were called in the 'real world'.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Ooh. Maybe she was one of those NPCs that help you out!

"I'm going to the pub to collect something from someone. Do you want to come?"

"Which pub?" she asked.

"The Collywobbler," I told her.

She wrinkled her nose like a kitten.

"The Collywobbler? I've always been too scared to go in there."

I let out a laugh like the very notion of being too scared to go in there was absurd for a tough guy like me. This was precisely and completely antipodean to the truth.

"I'll look after you," I said magnanimously.

She let out a giggle.

"Well, okay then."

Before I knew what was happening she slipped her arm under mine and, arms interlocked, we walked past the broken elevator and then down the not-too-broken stairs.

On the way over Mandy pointed out the different auras of all the people we passed — all completely invisible to me. I was 95% certain she was full of crap, but this was the first date I'd been on since university and I was more than willing to listen to crap for, oh... I'd say thirty or forty years if it was coming from a pretty girl.

"Look, his one is shiny," she said, pointing with her whole arm extended toward a man in a business suit whose face was adorned with a particularly twattish beard.

The man cocked his head and raised his eyebrows at me. Apparently he wasn't used to being pointed at by an Adventurer's strange hippie traveling companion. I shook my head in an it's nothing gesture and hurried her into the Collywobbler.

I held the door open and let her go in first, and it wasn't just so that I could check that her ass was still ridiculous. And it certainly wasn't so that I could gently place my hand on her back as if to guide her in and feel the warmth radiating out from under her spandex top. And it definitely wasn't because I was just as scared to go in there as her. It was, of course, because I was a gentleman, and a gentleman always lets ladies go first. Okay, okay, okay... maybe it was a little from columns A, B, C and D.

The Collywobbler was the kind of place that people who enjoy getting stabbed in the face frequent. And those who enjoy doing the stabbing too, of course. It was also popular among the I-love-getting-glassed crowd as well as the Pool-sticks-are-for-beating-people groups. Oh, and the Britain First white supremacists were also regulars. Quite an eclectic mix of people, really.

We made our way over to the bar. There were three gentlemen — gentlemen! Ha! — already sitting at one end of it, all of them with shiny, bald, tattooed heads and pristine white England football shirts. When Mandy started making her way over to them I gently placed a couple of fingers on the side of her waist and gently guided her to the other end of the bar.

"So do you come here often?" asked Mandy after we'd sat down.

"Umm. Not often," I said. For once I was telling her the truth.

"It's got bags of character, doesn't it?" she said, looking around with shiny wide eyes.

"Oh, yes. It's a quirky little place isn't it?"

A barman who was probably about forty but could have passed for a rough sixty walked up in front of us and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Then he stared at me. No raised eyebrow, no lift of the chin, no ‘what can I get you?’. He just stared.

I turned to Mandy.

"What can I get you?" I asked, because the barman clearly wouldn’t.

"Ooh I always have a double vodka Red Bull in the pub."

I glanced at the time on my phone again. It was still before midday, which was unsurprising since it was only a few minutes since I'd last checked when I met Mandy in the hallway of our flat.

"Right. A double vodka red bull, and—"

> Inv

You have:

Nothing of interest.

Gold: 8.50

"— how much is that?"

The barman lowered his head and raised his eyebrows.

"Eight fifty, love."

Love!? Did he just call me love? I'm a man! A hero! An adventurer! A warrior!

>stat

Name: Jamie

Level: 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

SP: 10/10

Attack: 5

Defense: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Strength: 5

Charm: 5

Hmm. Yeah. I guessed I probably wouldn't be winning any fights with this guy. Not until I leveled up a bit. A lot.

"Ok, right. A double vodka and red bull, and a, umm, glass of water please."

"Mineral?"

I shook my head.

"Tap," I said, and turned to Mandy, "tap water is just as good as bottled water you know."

"Oh it's much better, no plastic."

"Right. Yes. That's what I mean. Better." While I was speaking I was nodding my head seriously, as if this was a topic I deeply cared about it. Chicks dig it when you pretend to share their interests.

"Plastic has a terrible aura," she said, tapping her acrylic nails on the bar counter.

He prepared the mixed drink for Mandy first, placing it in front of her and generously giving her three ice cubes and a straw as well as the vodka and Redbull.

"Thanks!" she said to the barman. Then she turned and squeezed my forearm. "And thank you!"

"My pleasure," I said.

The barman grabbed a half-pint glass, held it in the sink, turned on the tap, and filled the glass three quarters full before slapping it down on the counter. Some of the water sloshed out onto the bar top. The landlord made no attempt to wipe it up.

I handed the barman the 8.50 I had with carefully hidden regret.

"Cheers!" said Mandy, raising her glass.

"Cheers!" I said tapping our glasses together.

"Wanker," said the barman, shaking his head and wandering off back down the other end of the bar.

I took a sip and tried to force a smile. The barman had not run the water before filling up my glass and it was warm. Not a nice, comforting warm. More the sickly, off putting warm of someone else’s spit.

"You are a good boy, aren't you," said Mandy squeezing my arm again.

Boy!? I’m a man baby. That’s what I was thinking, anyway. But I wasn’t quite man enough to say it.

"Err..."

"Look at me!” she announced self-deprecatingly, “On the vodka red bull and you're on the water. Very admirable."

Admirable? I don't think I'd ever been called that before. I should try being skint more often, I thought.

"Thank you. I'm trying to, umm, improve myself at the moment."

I checked my stat sheet again

>stat

Name: Jamie

Level: 1

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

SP: 10/10

Attack: 5

Defense: 5

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 5

Strength: 5

Charm: 5

I really did want to level up. And my stats were crap at the moment. They really were. It was kind of depressing to see my life reduced to a stat sheet in fact, thought I did at least now know that I could improve it. Seeing a physical representation of yourself like that was, in a way, a motivator. So although I got the tap water because I had no money, I kind of did want to improve myself, I realized.

"Do you do any exercise?" she asked.

"I, uh, umm," I stalled, and stalled, and stalled, "I'm thinking of starting a new protocol. Any suggestions?"

She grabbed both my hands and looked into my eyes. I felt my cheeks begin to flush. I hadn't had a girl do that in a long time. Her eyes were green, I noticed. I suppose in the past I only ever saw her from a distance in the building hallway, and mostly I noticed the delicious shape of her ass and the perkiness of her chesticles. I hadn't had the chance to really look into her eyes.

"Yoga. You need to do yoga. I can see the tension in your shoulders, and your neck. You work too hard, Jamie, I can tell."

Turnip > Work too hard. Fuckin' LOL.

I went to type something but all I got was:

*You have been muted*

She laughed like I'd made a joke.

“Do a lot of typing, huh?”

She saw me typing! Was she supposed to react to that? Well, whatever. She thought it was a joke so I played it cool.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Can you put your ankles behind your neck, Jamie?” she said, reaching out and squeezing my shoulders with iron-like fingers that both hurt and felt like the best thing since my cup of tea earlier.

“Umm, can’t say I’ve tried.”

"You probably can’t, can you? I can put my ankles right behind my neck. It’s easy for me.”

I thought about putting her ankles behind her neck. Thought about it very, very hard.

She punched me on the shoulder. Shit!

“You’re so serious!” Whew. She wasn’t reading my mind.

“You should definitely do some yoga, Jamie. Flexibility brings all kinds of benefits."

"Oh?" I said, and took another sip of my warm tap water which I immediately regretted. The glass was greasy, I realized.

"Oh yes. It's great for your sex life too," she squeezed my shoulder again and giggled, "not that I've got much of a sex life right now."

"Ha ha! You're kidding!" I said quickly, trying to be cool. "I bet you have sex all the time!"

She frowned and removed her hand from my shoulder.

"Do I seem slutty, Jamie?"

"Oh! No! That's not what I meant. I guess I was just saying you were—"

"A nympho?"

"Umm beautiful. I meant to say that you're beautiful, and so you could, you know..."

"Have sex with whoever I wanted?" she said.

"I, err," I said. I wasn't used to talking to girls who were so open about things. I also wasn't used to talking to girls who were closed about things either. Ok, ok, I basically wasn't used to talking to girls. Sue me.

She reached out and squeezed my hand.

“I’m just teasing you. I know what you mean. Who are you here to meet, anyway?"

"Oh. I'm just collecting something, from someone. I don't really know them. I should do that now, shouldn’t I? Yes."

Embarassed by my pisspoor banter with Mandy, I stood up and made my escape by walking to the other end of the bar with the three rough looking bald gentlemen and the bartender.

I cleared my throat politely to get their attention.

They ignored me.

"Umm, excuse me?" I said to the group of them. The only one who paid me any attention was the barman.

"More water? If you're not going to buy anything else you can fuck off," said the barman.

The three skinheads clinked their glasses together while the barman smirked.

"I did buy something,” I justifiably complained.

The skinhead closest turned to me. Since they were all wearing England shirts and they all had shaved heads and they were all slightly overweight they could have passed for brothers. The only way I could tell them apart was by their tattoos. This chap had a particularly scary looking double dragon tattoo across his otherwise smooth head, the two dragon heads meeting right in the center of his shiny dome.

It was the kind of tattoo that would be awesome on, like, a Barbarian Raider or a Viking Marauder or even just a good old fashioned Warrior, but on the streets of Croydon it was just a little... much for me.

I checked my stats again:

>stat

Yeah. I probably wouldn't beat this guy in a fight.

"The lady got a drink. You didn't. Why don't you fuck off and leave her for us."

The skinhead’s companions mumbled and swore in agreement.

The barman slammed his palms down on the counter.

"Oi. This is my gaff. I get first dibs."

"Why don't we all have a go?" said Double-dragon.

I'd had enough of that conversation. I didn't need to listen to NPCs talking shite. If I was a few levels higher, and if I had a Mace of Face Smashing I would have attacked them all. But I was still too much of a newb to have a chance of beating these four ruffians.

"I'm sure you're all very charming. I'll be off soon, don't worry. Now, I was wondering, do any of you know a guy called Schizo? I'm looking for him."

Four pairs of eyebrows raised themselves in incredulity, skepticism, astonishment and wariness in turn.

"Why do you want to see Schizo?" asked the barman.

Before I could respond I felt a welcoming sensation. Mandy had slipped behind me and put her hands back on my shoulders. Her fingers began to dig in.

"Ooh, that's nice," I said and let out a moan.

"I said, 'Why do you want to talk to Schizo?'. You best answer."

Mandy's fingers dug into my shoulders again releasing a bit of tension I didn't even know I had it was so deep inside my knotted shoulder-muscles. I gasped.

"Just a minute, this is..." I let out an appreciative moan. "lovely."

Mandy slipped her fingers around my throat and began to squeeze. It was a new massage technique to me, one I hadn't tried before. The barman stared at me with a bemused look on his face. He'd probably never seen a girl like Mandy being quite so flirty with a guy like me.

I took a quick glance around the bar to make sure everyone else noticed the attention I was getting — I'd never had a hot chick be so in to me before and I was going to soak up the jealous stares and envious glances of every man there. I put my hands up and gently ran them over Mandy's hairy fingers. When my head turned to the right, Mandy squeezed my throat really fucking hard. And, at the same time, I saw her still sitting at the end of the bar, her luscious lips still wrapped around the straw in her drink.

>Combat Engaged!

The words flashed in front of my dimming vision.

It wasn't Mandy massaging me.

"Argh!" I yelped and snatched my hands away from the man whose hands around my throat. "Ughhmmgm," I said as I was choked. I put my hands back up to my throat and this time tried to pull the 'massage' hands away. But they were locked tight like a vice. This guy must have an insane strength stat, I thought.

I began to see stars while the other four men looked on.

I put out my hands and typed a message.

>*You have been muted.*

Fuck.

And...

Something else… came to me.

Hadn't Barry said I was supposed to see the names of the NPCs? And their stats? I'm sure he said that just before I met Mandy. What was going on...

For what seemed like the millionth time, but was in fact only the third time that day, everything went black for me.

But only for a moment.

*Smash*

The fingers disappeared from around my throat, my vision came back, and I span around. Mandy was behind me. At least, she was now. And on the floor was the man with the hands. Well, obviously most men have hands, but this was the man with the hands that had been wrapped around my throat just a few moments before.

Special hands, if you will.

Around his head, like a beautiful crystal halo, were the shards of the glass that Mandy had smashed into his head. A few of them were buried in his skull too, sticking out like little sharp thorns, surrounded by little dots and rivulets of blood.

>You have defeated Schizo

>You gain 30 exp

>Level Up

"Are you okay?" asked Mandy.

"What? Me? Oh yes, I'm fine," I said, "we were just messing around."

She tilted her head skeptically, but then shrugged her shoulders and giggled. I'm not saying that that was the wrong response to give when standing over an unconscious thug ten times your size after smashing his head in with a glass, but it was a rather surprising one. I'd usually expect tears, or perhaps running — not standing and giggling.

"Uhoh," I said.

"What'd you do that to Schizo for? He was only messing around," said Double Dragon.

"Yeah, just fooling. You're nasty," said the bartender. "I try to run a nice, friendly establishment — have a bit of banter, you know," he said staring at me to indicate that the way he'd been acting toward me before had been mere banter, not the cuntishness that I had taken it as.

"Uhoh," I said again.

Schizo had opened his eyes. You can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes, so I looked deep into his. He had vicious little piggy eyes, so round and dark I thought that if I dropped a peanut into one of them it'd just sink into their black oblivion.

"Right!" said Schizo, loudly and firmly and, above all, terrifyingly.

He slowly sat up. I slowly stepped back, crashing into the bar.

"You alright, Schizo?" asked Double Dragon.

He didn't answer right away. He stood up, brushed the glass and blood off of his head and looked at me. Then he turned, and looked at Mandy who had a hand over her face to suppress the giggling she still hadn't got under control.

He turned back to face me, shook his head from side to side, then raised his arm...

...swung it...

...

...

... and clasped me on the shoulder.

"Nice teamwork, son."

I blinked and stared at him.

"And nice bit of totty you got there," he said, waving his other hand to the still giggling Mandy.

Excellent, I thought. Excellent indeed.

Turnip > WTF are you doing?

> *You have been muted*

Turnip > Hello? HELLLO!?

> *You have been muted*

"What the fuck do you keep doing with your hands?" asked Schizo.

"Oh. Nothing. Just..." I waved my hands in the air as if to make the question disappear. I couldn’t exactly explain to a thug like Schizo that I was communicating with my friend Barry aka Turnip via an invisible and imaginary keyboard.

"He's thinking about work. He's a workaholic," explained Mandy, entirely incorrectly.

Turnip > You were muted you idiot! You should have said something.

I didn't reply because, well, apparently all of of the NPCs were reacting to my typing and none of them seemed to like it much.

Turnip > There was a mixup before. You weren't set up right. You should have said something when you didn't see Mandy's stats, numbnuts. Lucky Schizo didn't kill you. It would have been for real LOL.

"Motherfucker!" I said.

Schizo held up his hands. "Whoah, whoah, calm down."

"Not you," I said.

"Sorry!" yelped Mandy.

"Not you either! I just.. remembered something. Anyway, Schizo is it? Nice to meet you. I'm Jamie. I'm here to collect something from you?"

"Thought so. That's why I was messing with you before. Is it alright if we go in the back, Hammer?" asked Schizo.

The bartender nodded his assent. Hammer? What a name. I briefly considered asking how he got it, but I could probably guess.

"Is that your real name?" asked Mandy.

The men all laughed. I fake-laughed along with them to fit in.

The laughter ended when Hammer reached under the bar and came out holding a chicken. Just fucking with you. He was holding a large claw hammer.

Turnip > Check it!

There was a slight flickering and suddenly everything became more vibrant. Floating above Hammer and the rest I could see their names, their levels and their HP.

Hammer and the three customers who were sitting at the bar were Level 10 with 200 HP. Schizo was Level 18 and had 280HP.

"Well, I think Hammer is an adorable name," said Mandy and gave a flirtatious smile.

I took her arm. "Come on, let's go."

And so, it came to pass, that Mandy, Schizo and I went into the backroom of The Collywobbler and lived happily ever after.

Just kidding. What actually happened, was...