Gaming

Huntley

“My brother’s joining us,” Oren says as I log into the massive multiplayer online game, Second World, which we’ve been playing together since we were teens. I glance at our chat as it pops up, taking up a third of the screen to the right.

[OntheHunt has joined the chat]

Before that is a series of the same for Dauntless, Ornate, and SheltheGreat.

“I’m still shocked that you two somehow have this strange connection,” Oren says.

I shift on the bed, fixing my headset so that the microphone is comfortable. I hate this headset, but I’m not sure where the one I like went. It never made it to Oxley’s apartment when he picked up my belongings from my apartment. I bet Reese borrowed them while I’d been gone.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” I agree. “I was shocked when I saw him standing up there.”

“You’re both dating Van Dorens,” Albie says. “That’s basically like dating royalty.”

“Says the man married to an actual prince,” Shelton says.

“We’re not married.”

“Details,” I say.

It’s nice to be able to play games with my friends again. With all our life schedules and different time zones, it’s proven difficult for all of us to play together. I know that we all grow up and move on in life, but I hate that we don’t manage to do this more often. I miss my friends.

The notification in my ear makes me look at the chat screen, and I see OrangeHaze has joined the chat.

“Hey,” Oren greets. “You finally get away from Imry?”

Haze snorts. “No. He’ll be home soon.”

My character slowly rotates in front of me on the two-thirds of my screen that’s not the chat. I click the little bookshelf icon, and the chat is replaced with my inventory. Tapping out of that, I hit the chalkboard, and my inventory is replaced with the quest board. Daily, weekly, monthly, ongoing events, and personal offerings. Then there’s the unending quests of upgrading your character, expanding inventory, and home, backpacks, etc.

“Where’s Adak?” Albie asks.

“Hockey. Where else?” Oren answers.

“Partner roll call,” Shelton says.

I snort. “Oxley is working,” I offer. I’m not sure what he’s doing exactly. I don’t want to know. He kills people, cleaning up the nasty hate off the streets of Anaheim. As much as I worry about him, I’m not upset at all that those who are so willing and ready to hurt others are getting some karma.

“Henrik is doing his best to denounce his claim as heir,” Albie says. “This week, we’re trying to convince the world that I’m carrying his baby.”

“Oh my god,” Shelton says, laughing.

I snort as I sort through the quests. I’m newly level ten, so I’m barely beginning to gather the items and accomplish the quests needed to reach level eleven. There’s a reason so many people stop leveling up after level eight. It’s fucking time-consuming.

“Is it working?” I ask.

“No idea. It’s pretty funny how thorough he is at explaining the science behind how we made it happen, though.”

“Still single,” Shelton says, “so I have nothing to report.”

“What’s on the agenda today?” Oren asks. “What quests do we want to try?”

“I’d like a new helmet,” Shelton says. “I still hate the look of this one, but it’s the strongest one I have. Or maybe just a design spell to modify its appearance.”

“I have nothing specific, but if you look at the weekly quests, there’s one about hunting down some river nymphs that escaped the troll dungeons in Abrinax. The rewards are pretty nice,” I say. “Otherwise, let’s work on getting Haze stronger.”

Haze only began playing with us a few months ago. We’ve gotten his character to level three right away with all the things we have in our own inventory. The quests are pretty easy in the beginning, too, so we managed that within the first month. We just got him to four the same day I managed level ten.

“Cool. Let’s do that,” Albie says. “Everyone has it activated before we head out?”

I click the ‘Accept’ button and read through the directives before packing my satchel in the game. Then I hit ‘Meet up’ and I’m transported outside of my home and into a thicket that the game determined is the middle of where all our homes are located. Oren is already there. Shelton blinks into existence a second later. Then Albie.

“You have to click meet up,” Oren reminds Haze.

“Right. Sorry,” Haze answers. A second later, he materializes with us. “Ready.”

“Cool. So what’s new?” Shelton asks as our characters begin walking. Oren is in the lead, so we’re following him. He usually has an idea of where we’re going.

“Not a lot,” Oren says. “Still debating what I want to do with my life. Enjoying the peace I have now.”

I imagine I’m not the only one who feels relief that Oren is out of his shitty situation.

“Are you going to come back for Frankie’s trial?” I ask.

“Not a chance. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I’m probably not going to go back to Anaheim—ever. Too many bad memories there.”

“That’s fair, but we’re here,” I say.

“I’ll fly you all to me. Or we can meet somewhere outside of Anaheim.”

“It’s cool,” Shelton says. “As much as I miss you, I’m really glad you’re out of here. There’s a new episode of violence reported almost every day. There was a report that people are moving out of Anaheim to get away from it.”

“Seriously, are the police doing anything?” Albie asks.

“They need to hire vigilantes to clean up and be done with it,” Shelton says.

I smirk because that’s basically what Oxley is doing. I’ve determined the problem is that his organization is rather small, and there seem to be new groups and individuals popping up all the time, contributing to the hate rising in the city.

“I’m glad his trial is finally taking place, though,” Shelton says. “Took them long enough.”

“I’m not needed at the trial,” Oren says. “But I agree.”

“What about Dane?” I ask.

“Dunno,” Oren answers. “Haze? You know?”

A second passes before Haze answers. “No. Last I heard, he was living with some couple, and there was speculation that he’s with them romantically. There’ve been whispers that the three of them have actually left Anaheim, too.”

“I have so many questions,” I say.

“For real,” Albie agrees.

“You know, I don’t think Dane was ever happy,” Oren says. “I think he was just there. Like… he hedged his bets and chose the biggest bully on the playground to align with. When Dad died, he was released from that prison.”

“Not an excuse,” I say.

“It’s not,” Oren agrees.

“I recently read something that was talking about all the reasons that people joined Hitler’s Nazi cause. To protect their family, to save their lives, because they supported one part of what he was doing and ignored the rest. That kind of thing. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t excuse the fact that they supported and contributed to the cause. They aren’t any less guilty of the horrors that happened, regardless of the reason,” Albie says. “On a much smaller and different scale, the same goes for Dane. If that’s true or even something remotely similar to what you think, he’s still an abusive bully who contributed to the nightmare that you lived through. If you’re not working against it, you’re either working for it or enabling it by looking away and letting it happen.”

“Lessons for life,” Shelton says.

I nod my agreement.

“There’s one of the nymphs,” Oren says.

Our conversation stops as we coordinate our capture. As a group of five, it’s relatively easy to overpower a single character, especially a game character without a person behind it. Nymphs aren’t incredibly strong, but they can hypnotize if you’re not paying attention.

“Kill or capture?” Albie asks.

“Capture. I think we need to return ten,” I say.

Albie creates a spell that transmutes the nymph into a stone and then pockets it. Once again, we’re moving throughout the game.

“I agree,” Oren says after a minute, returning to the conversation we abandoned as we captured the nymph. “I don’t care what his reason is. He made a choice.”

Oren’s told us how guilty Haze feels and how many times he’s apologized. I imagine this conversation only adds to that guilt. He doesn’t say anything, though I suspect he’s muted. Haze is almost always muted.

I’m not sure if he realizes, but we can see when he’s muted as long as we have the chat open. The little mic with a strike through it announces to us that he’s muted. I pull up the chat, and sure enough, that’s the case.

“So what’s new with you, Hunt?” Oren asks.

“Nothing. I’m considering a campaign to speak out loudly against hate crimes, using their own religious rhetoric against them. But seriously, it’s exhausting just thinking about it,” I say.

It was something Oxley said the other day that put the idea in my head. Something about all these idiots acting on ‘what the Bible says’ while cherry-picking what they want to scream about. They’re going to hell regardless of whether what they preach is right or wrong. Their actions toward others assure that outcome.

“That’s cool,” Albie says. “I’ll get a prince to endorse you.”

I laugh. “Thanks.”

“No, but really, that’s cool. You should do it.”

“There’s a lot of energy and effort, and it means I’m going to actually become a target, you know? Like, there’s a face and a voice to a movement of resistance against the assholes of Anaheim. I’m not sure I have it in me,” I admit.

“You can find a cause to support. Be the brains behind it,” Shelton suggests.

Our conversation stops again, but this time it’s because Haze falls down the side of the cliff we’re walking along. We all move close to the edge and gaze over. It’s a tall cliff. All I see are clouds and the disruption of his body falling through them.

“Haze?” Oren asks.

I watch the little icon beside his name in the chat. It’s a second before it goes away. “Yeah, sorry. Hit the wrong button.”

It’s several seconds later, during which he’s muted again, before he comes back to say, “It says I’ll respawn in an hour. I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Oren says. “Want to hang out, or you want to come back? Or done for the day?”

“Give me just a minute. I’ll be back,” Haze answers.

“Okay.”

The chat announces that he’s left, and I smirk.

“How long are we going to let him believe we don’t know that he’s having his dick sucked while he’s playing with us?” Albie asks, giggling.

We figured out quite a while ago that Haze is almost always distracted. Based on the grunts and sudden inhales we overhear between his being muted, it’s not hard to figure out.

Shelton laughs. “I feel like we should play it up somehow.”

We spend the time Haze is offline debating how to have fun with this.