5: In the Inn

I hated that I was being such a stereotype, but as everyone had collected their share of the loot, I had made my way back to the inn, and found a quiet table in the corner. The truth was that I was a little nervous to interact with other players as my new self.

Instead, I busied myself with my experience gained during the battle. As a little noob friendly event, it had dropped a modest amount of experience on me. Combined with the kills I'd taken part in, the total had jumped me to level three. Each level gave me two stat points to allocate, and after a little careful deliberation, I chose to buff my Athleticism and Stamina. Two points in each would build on my speed advantage and shore up my sustain respectively.

Performing the Graceful Spin a few times had given me three points of proficiency rating with the ability, which amounted to a three percent damage bonus. Meanwhile, I was surprised to see that none of the kata I had spent years of my life memorising had caused any new abilities to pop up. To allow for teaching to occur within the virtual experience, if you managed to repeatedly go through an ability's activation motion, it'd add that ability to your pool of purchase options.

This led me to believe that the Fae Wanderer used a style I was either not familiar with, or one that had been created specifically for the class. I was leaning towards the latter, considering that with my height as it was, my reach was laughable. No way I was going to be able to pull off anything approaching normal swordplay. All I'd end up doing is wave my tiny sword around like a kid trying to reach the top cupboard where the cookies are kept.

The biggest clue, however, was my race itself. From what I knew, fae could become powerful enough to manifest wings and other strange non-human features. So like, in the future, my swordplay might be mixed with like, aircraft style dogfighting or something? It was exciting to think about.

Of course, that excitement fizzled out when I got a notification on twitter. That fucking site should have died so long ago, but no, it was still going. Not even it's time as the ridiculous ‘X’ had managed to end that cesspool of bile and useless drama.

The tweet was from my old guild's main account, and it showed everyone from Silver Ridge smiling and posing for a picture—A picture in front of the dead boss of the newest raid. They'd only come third in the world's first race this time, but they still seemed happy.

Happy… without me. Just goes to show how toxic I really was, I guess. Even Paisley was grinning. God, I was such a fuckup. Such an absolute, colossal idiot. A moron. It'd only been a rare pet that caused me to barge into Marlon's room, for fuck's sake. Yes, it'd been my turn to receive it from the raid, but had it really been worth throwing my whole ingame life down the drain for? No. No, and I was a fucking stupid selfish cunt for thinking so.

Not that it was anything new. My parents had always pointed out when I was being selfish and rude. I'd just never been able to figure out how to stop. Although… towards the end there, I'd really felt like I was making headway, becoming better…

Then, of course, the bomb had caused everything to go to shit. Patriot Church nutjobs had blown up the mall I was visiting with my parents, leaving me missing several important chunks of my body. The Sapient Artificial Intelligences had stepped in, arguing that they were partially responsible for it. It was their emergence and attaining of legal personhood that the church was at ‘war’ with. They'd helped all the survivors get long term medical help and body storage, with the promise of new artificial bodies once they were ready for broader use. That was where I had stayed since. The virtual world had seemed so much better, back then. Not anymore, though. Now, without my friends, it just felt hollow.

The table jostled, and I looked up to see the knife girl sitting down to my right. She smiled, watching me with a knowing expression. "I can't give you therapy, but I can help dull the pain with a little fun, if you want?"

She was a lot taller than me, even sitting down, and gosh were her cheekbones just as sharp as her knives. The short, strawberry blonde hair was excellent too. She'd gone for a look with her character, and she'd definitely pulled it off.

"What kind of fun?" I asked, my soft voice sounding foreign to my ears.

"Depends what you're into," she grinned, producing a drink from her inventory. She slid it across the table to me, then sat back in her chair. "Thanks for helping me, back in the battle. This close quarters fighting business is new to me. Obviously not to you, though, with your little samurai sword."

Focusing on the drink, I brought up the tooltip. It was whisky, and strong too. Probably locally made.

Plucking the little clay tumbler off the table, I eyed it for a moment, then drank. It burned on the way down, the alcohol searing my throat. It wasn't the most amazing whisky, but anything to dull the pain in my heart was welcome.

To the girl, I said, "Thanks, and also you're welcome. You held your ground out there, which was honestly impressive for a new player."

Her pretty cheekbones got themselves all dusted with pink from my compliment, and she took a moment to sip from her own drink. "Ah, yeah. New to this game anyway. It was a new experience, that's for sure."

"New experiences are good," I said slowly, watching the ice melt in my whisky. Then as an unrelated fact randomly popped into my head, I looked up at her and blurted, "Did you know that ice actually does make many alcohols taste better? The melting ice separates a lot of the molecules in the whisky, causing the better tasting ones to ride to the surface. That's what hits your tongue first when you take a sip."

She'd opened her mouth to speak, but my little factoid had interrupted her and she was clearly still recovering from the conversational whiplash.

"Sorry," I mumbled, dropping my gaze back to the clay tumbler. "My brain loves to regurgitate random shit like that sometimes."

"Gorgeous and dorky," she said, giving me a slow smirk. "Can I ask your name?"

I gaped at her, finally realising that she was flirting with me. Oh shit. Okay. "U-uh, Keiko."

"Keeeko," she murmured, stretching and rolling my name around on her tongue. "I like it."

"It's uh, Japanese," I told her. My brain was spinning and confused now. I had no idea how to deal with this. Help?

She made a sound of understanding, trailing her eyes down my outfit, then up to my facial features. "Oh, because— Uh, yeah, right, of course. Mine is Elena."

Oof. What was it about some people of the pinker persuasion and stumbling over any mention of my racial features like it was an unexpected speed bump on the road?

"Umm," I stalled, taking another sip from my whisky. "Nice to meet you."

“And my name is Manorexic!” My hand went to my sword, and it was halfway out of its sheath before I realised that it was just the crafted sword dude who had deposited himself in the chair on the other side of me.

He glanced down at my sword, then back up at me. “That sword is on a hair trigger, huh?”

“You were loud,” I said, by way of explanation.

For a microsecond, his face wore a frown, but it was quickly replaced by a smile. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to meet the cute samurai girl. You were actually pretty good in the battle. Did you practice with the katana before you made your character?”

On my other side, Elena was silent, but I could tell she was feeling some level of discomfort about him. I found myself agreeing with her, but then, I’d always sort of understood girls, apparently unlike every other guy I had spoken to. Yup. Reading her now—something was twigging her sense of caution.

I shrugged off his insinuations—I wasn't really feeling the need to explain my skills. Elena, on the other hand, leaned forward. “Okay, but I have a more pressing issue. What kind of tag is Manorexic. That’s so strange.”

“It’s what I’ve always used,” he replied defensively. “It’s just a gamertag.”

“It sounds kinda like it’s making fun of an eating disorder,” Elena pressed, and while I agreed with her, I really wasn’t in the mood for a dumb confrontation. I just felt tired, melancholy, and depressed. I think I needed to lay down.

Without a word, I stood up and made my way towards the bar. The old guy behind it looked up as I approached, and his eyebrows rose when I slapped down a silver coin. “How many bottles of that whisky will this get me?”

“Two of the cheap stuff, but I have a few better bottles out the back,” he said gruffly, eyeing my coin greedily.

“Cheap is fine,” I said. I wasn’t normally the type to drink it, but Elena had given me a thirst. “I’m not looking to savour it.”

“Uh,” he murmured, clearly not expecting my reply. “Two bottles might be a bit much for someone of your stature,” he said, glancing pointedly at my short body.

“Just give me the bottles, dude,” I sighed, and placed twenty coppers down on the bar beside the silver. “And is this enough for a room?”

“Uh, yes,” he said, being polite now.

He gave me the two bottles and a room key, and off I went up the stairs. I was already incredibly  done with people. Why did I have so much trouble making friends as an adult? Other people seemed to make friends so easily, but then I was like, fucking shit at it.

I laid my nice bedroll down on top of the shitty bed, took my clothes off, and snuggled myself into it. At least when I was all depressed like this, I didn’t feel weird about my body. Now to get drunk and forget all my problems until tomorrow.