Sherbie and I are startled from our conversation by an unfamiliar voice. We turn to find not one, but two players, both from the same guild, Iron Claw.

  The first, a big fella with a square build and canine features resembling a cross between a man and a bulldog, is named Chimichungus.

  “Damn,” I say aside to Sherbie. “That’s one ugly motherf*cker…”

  “Gear looks nice though,” he replies, and I have to agree. That’s definitely rare armor he’s wearing, it’s evident from the design alone. Heavily segmented and red orange in color, the armor has an almost lizard-like flair, with crests and frills appearing on the helmet and gauntlets.

  His companion’s name is Logi. He should be human, though it’s difficult to say for sure from the deer skull mask he wears. Rather than an adventurer, he looks more like a mob, a cultist leftover from the last area. He wears fur boots and a leather kilt; no shirt, but he’s covered in runic tattoos, and the deer skull mask he wears sports a pair of very intimidating flaming antlers. Another rare piece.

  “How did you get that?” Chimichungus demands of Sherbie, flipping up the edge of his robe with the corner of the shield he carries.

  Before I can tell Sherbie he doesn’t have to answer a rude guy like that, he’s already mid-response.

  “We looted it from the giant’s chest.”

  Chimichungus rolls his eyes. “Where else? But how? But you must have killed him a hundred times to get a drop that rare.”

  Sherbie and I exchange glances.

  “No,” Sherbie answers. “We only killed him once.”

  “Once?!” The big guy is flabbergasted. “That robe has a less than 0.2% drop chance in the giant’s chest, the highest place it can be found anywhere in the game!”

  “How do you know that?” I ask him, and his drooling bulldog mouth snaps shut. He glances nervously at his companion, who only stands silently beside him.

  “This game hasn’t even been out for a month yet—” I point out, “—most of the map is still unexplored. How could you possibly know the drop chance of a rare item like the Robe of Fruiting Bodies?”

  Chimichungus is still looking to his companion, who I begin to suspect is studying our character screens. I seize the opportunity to do the same.

  “I see you have two items for luck,” Logi remarks in a soft voice with a heavy Scandinavian accent, and Chimichungus laughs nervously.

  “So that’s how you two nobodies managed it. I thought it was strange…”

  Chimichungus is a Defender class, like me, with a Shieldmaster subclass. He has skills for Greater Shield Bash, Improved Shield Boomerang, Whirlwind Strike and Aggrovating Aura, among others. His stats are high, not as high as Bruiser’s, but high, with most of the points going to Strength and Constitution. In all, he looks like a solid Defender with good gear; not anything special.

  Meanwhile, his companion—

  “The minotaur key chain,” Logi interrupts my examination of his character screen, and I look up. “Where did you get that?”

  “A boss monster dropped it,” I answer cautiously, not wanting to tell these strangers about the special area where Ari had me level up.

  “Which boss monster?”

  “I forget.”

  Logi studies me silently a minute. Though the masked man’s scrutiny makes me uncomfortable, I stand my ground and stare right back. Actually, while I’m at it, I’ll just double check his character screen.

  Yeah, that’s what I thought. This guy’s build is insane. A Sorcerer, subclass Pyromancer, other than a few stat points that I’m guessing he has from gear, he’s put every single point into Intelligence, for a total of 125. My Constitution is 63, a number I’ve been so proud of all this time, and here this guy is one point short of doubling that!

  Aside from the skills that increase his Intelligence and a few basic attack spells, his skills don’t make much sense. Here’s one called Spellboost that strengthens all skills used within the next 0.9 seconds, when all of his spells have a longer cast time than that. Here’s another skill called Lunar Covenant that increases the caster’s damage during the night and decreases it during the day. Why would anyone want that?

  “Anyway, it’s clear you’re a second rate druid—the Robe of Fruiting Bodies is wasted on you,” Chimichungus cuts into my thoughts, and my attention snaps back to his ugly face. Beside me, I feel Sherbie stiffen at his off-handed comment, and I bristle.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  “Yeah? Well I’d take this druid over a third rate defender any day.”

  Chimichungus snarls at me and yellow foam comes out to fleck across his glistening lower lip.

  “Trade the robe to the Iron Claw guild.”

  “Get stuffed.”

  “We’ll give you 100 gold.”

  “I said get stuffed, Fido, it’s not for sale.”

  “200 gold.”

  Sherbie balks at the amount, but I only scoff. “You think you can impress us with money? We’re The Whales, for crying out loud! Go find some broke bum to flash your coin at, we don’t need it.”

  “But, Rev—”

  I shush Sherbie with a sharp elbow to the ribs. It’s not about the money or even the robe at this point. It’s the principal of the matter! The principal!

  Chimichungus sneers at us. “Do what you like. F*cking retards.”

  “Wasn’t aware I needed your permission,” I reply before Sherbie can fire back with ‘Your mom’s a—,’ or something even worse. “Let’s go, man,” I say to Sherbie, and start to turn when Logi’s next words catch me off guard completely.

  “Join my guild, Revelator.”

  “What?!” Evidently, this invitation caught Chimichungus off guard as well, though he quickly changes his tune when he realizes Logi didn’t misspeak. “I mean, yeah! Join us in Iron Claw! You must have heard of us—we’re numbered in the top five guilds of TC!”

  “Top five?” Somewhere behind his glasses, Sherbie’s eyes are sparkling. I can tell he’s impressed.

  “Yeah! And you’d better believe we’re aiming for number one. We’ll get there in no time!”

  It had never occurred to me to check guild ranking before. I pull up the screen and sure enough, there’s Iron Claw in the number four spot. How did the computer calculate that, I wonder? Here’s a list of qualifications.

  Guild ranking is based on the total number of members, their level and calculated build strength, total gear score, and on specific guild achievements. With these qualifications, it looks as though The Whales is ranked…

  Never mind, we’re not ranked at all. The computer stops calculating after the 1,000th place…

  “I need you in Iron Claw,” says Logi. “Join my guild.”

  “Your guild?”

  “Didn’t you know? You’re talking to the founder and leader of Iron Claw,” Chimichungus announces proudly, as though the achievement were his own. “It’s a tremendous honor to be singled out by the leader himself. What do you say?”

  “I appreciate the offer,” I say to Logi, ignoring his loudmouthed companion, “but I’ve already got a guild.”

  “The Whales?” Chimichungus scoffs. “This pathetic guild no one’s even heard of? Please. You have an opportunity to join the Iron Claw guild. You’d be a fool to pass up such an opportunity. Or are you afraid of competing with me? Our top defender.” He puts his hands on his hips with his feet splayed wide and throws his head back with a boisterous laugh. I watch, disgusted, though my disgust is quickly traded for mortification as one by one the pieces of his armor disappear, leaving him standing there in a leather loincloth, laughing while his big hairy belly jiggles and shakes.

  “Wait, why do I feel a breeze? What the—!”

  “You signed the contract when you entered my guild,” Logi says in his quiet, but somehow suddenly very menacing voice. “All armor attained by the guild remains guild property, which may be loaned out or redistributed as the guild leader sees fit. You’ve been going around in borrowed gear, Chimi. And now, I’m taking it back.”

  “But—you can’t! I’m a valuable member of Iron Claw!”

  “Are you?” Is Logi’s soft reply, and the big guy’s eyes fairly bug out to realize he’s just been booted from the guild. “Once you were passable—barely—and so I let you in. But my standards for a Defender have just been raised, and you no longer make the cut. Now get out of my sight.”

  The dog man is irate, fairly shaking with fury. “You can’t do this to me! I joined you on every raid while we were tracking down the pieces to the Sacred Lizard set! That armor’s mine by right!”

  Just then I could swear I see the glint of Logi’s eye in the shadow behind his deer skull mask. Suddenly the very air around him seems thick with a dark aura of palpable menace.

  “Get lost.”

  Whimpering, with a literal tail tucked between his legs, Chimichungus takes off naked through the streets, inviting laughter from every direction. I watch him go, not sure whether or not I should feel sorry for him. Then Logi recaptures my attention.

  “It was Ari who brought you to the Minotaur, wasn’t it?”

  I blink at him, not sure how to answer. The part of his face I can see just beneath the edge of the skull, I spy the faintest cynical smile.

  “Did he also show you that place? Alucinor…”

  “How do you know that name?”

  “I left it in the game, buried where no one would ever find it; a symbol of their betrayal.”

  “Wait, you left it in the game? Then, does that mean—”

  “I’m no one,” he cuts me off. “Just a player. Just like you.” But I can see his eyes twinkling from behind his mask, surely mocking me. The same way Ari used to mock me. “You, you were hand crafted by the god, made for something greater than the game you’ve been playing till now. The world itself, no, even more than that—you could not imagine what’s at stake. You must join me in my quest, Revelator. I have need of you.”

  I look to Sherbie, who I can sense is truly enchanted by the idea of being in a top level guild. Indeed, it would be something, to be part of such an elite team, especially now that Chimichungus is gone from their ranks. Though, when I think of leaving behind The Whales…

  “Before you ask, it can be only you,” Logi cuts into my thoughts with a stern word. “I can see you have a friend here, but you must leave him behind if you’re going to join Iron Claw. We are a finely honed machine. There is no room for…superfluous parts. Even a single sub-par character slowing us down would be detrimental to my purpose.”

  “Then I must refuse,” I say, bristling once again to hear a second person talk down to Sherbie.

  “I’m disappointed. My pride won’t let me beg. Though for you, I’d almost make an exception…”

  “I’m sorry. The Whales is my guild. I won’t leave it for anything.”

  “You are loyal,” Logi acknowledges. “There is virtue in this. I only wish I’d gotten to you first. Farewell,” he says, and with that, he turns, and strides away through the crowd. I watch his flaming antlers disappear with mixed feelings. Then I glance to Sherbie.

  “You should follow him, Rev. He said something was at stake—it sounded important. I can take over the Whales. I can—”

  “Forget it,” I cut him off, clapping his shoulder with a familiar gesture. Sherbie looks to me with shimmery eyes and I grin at him. “I don’t need that guy and his fancy guild. If I’m destined to save the world or whatever, I’ll do it from right here in The Whales guild, with you and all my other friends by my side.”