Chapter 11: She’s Auctioning What?
I returned early enough on Saturday afternoon, affording me a rare chunk of time to blow off steam on DE alone. I was still stewing from Mom’s snappy behavior, particularly her assertion that I didn’t have a life.
And instead of trying to figure out how to go out and actually get a life, I licked my wounds at home on a Saturday night by gaming. By myself.
Luckily, I wasn’t alone for long. FallenOne logged on about an hour after I did. I guess he had nothing better to do with his weekend, either.
Our two missing party members, however, had not hesitated to inform us previously that they were going to enjoy themselves. They actually had social lives—and sex lives to boot!
I wondered what had happened that Fallen was hanging out with me. He’d been hooking up with someone fairly regularly. Until recently, he casually mentioned going out with a “friend” or having “a date.” And, as usual, he’d been mysterious about it. Only an occasional pronoun clued me in that it was a woman.
Or maybe because he was in the Eastern Time Zone, he’d already gone out and come back from his dates before gaming with us… Who knew?
*You tell FallenOne, So why aren’t you out on a date tonight, too, leaving me to grind my dailies alone?
*FallenOne tells you, Shrug. I dunno.
Me: Did things fall through with your “friend”?
Him: You’re nosy. And why would you put friend in quotes?
Me: I guess it’s just my way of abbreviating Friend With Benefits.
Him: Well, we used to work together. She recently moved on to something else. Haven’t seen her much, and, honestly, we never hung out a lot…
Me: You just got together to hook up?
Him: Not *just to hook up, no…but…more often than not.
Me: Hmmm.
Him: What, hmmm? I take it you disapprove?
Me: Me? No…I’m just wondering how something like that comes about…a friends with benefits type of situation. Like there’s someone you’re hanging out with as a friend and you just decide to start sleeping together? Does it just happen or do you have a conversation about it ahead of time or…?
Him: You’re overthinking it.
Me: I overthink *everything. I am the queen of overthinking.
Him: I can see that. What’s got you so interested in all this?
Me: I dunno. I think it’s time to …move forward and experience new things—so to speak. But I have zero interest in relationships or dating. You seem to have a convenient set-up, so I was just trying to figure out how you did it.
Him: I’m sure you’ll figure something out with a little of that brainpower.
I could see that he was typing, but nothing was coming through. It was as if he were typing and deleting the lines—more than once. Finally, a message came through.
Him: But you know, what’s the rush, right? You’ve got tests and medical school and all that…
Me: The rush is that I don’t want to be an octogenarian virgin, tyvm.
Him: Well, there’s quite some time before you become an octogenarian.
Me: Oh, whatever. Let’s just go kill stuff.
Him: Like you just killed that conversation? Okay, fine. How about we try out that new fireworks quest? Word on the street is that people are having a lot of fun with it.
Me: Blowing crap up is almost as good as killing stuff. I’m down for that.
***
*Elosia has entered the world of Yondareth
FallenOne and Eloisa are scrambling around the crater of a steaming volcano, dodging random pools of lava as they collect pockets of sulfur for their wicked concoction.
Hassim, the quest-giver, has provided them with a special collection container, along with a list of ingredients that they will need in order to help him with his magical—and explosive—creations. Once finished, they’ll have to venture into the deepest, darkest caves of Yondareth to collect saltpeter…
“I hope this quest is worth it,” Eloisa murmurs to FallenOne, holding her nose to block out the rotten egg smell of the sulfur. Even so, she manages to reach her scoop into a pocket of the yellow substance hiding under a rock and dump it into her clay container, corking it up tightly.
“Hassim makes beautiful fireworks,” replies FallenOne, nodding. “I’m sure it will be a sight to see.”
After arduous days of trekking across the land, the two adventurers end up in a dwarvish mining camp, where they trade their labor—repairing the minecart tracks—for lumps of raw copper. The metal is a vital ingredient to produce the fireworks’ blue sparks, among the many other colors of the display.
It’s a long and tireless quest, and finally, with all necessary ingredients gathered, they return to Hassim. The exotics chemist will assemble them into his famous creations in time for the Great Gnomish World Festival.
Both FallenOne and Eloisa are full of excitement and can’t wait to participate.
“Aside from getting our own personal fireworks to set off whenever we want, I can’t wait to help assemble the display for the Festival.” FallenOne combs his hand through his snowy beard thoughtfully, a dreamy look in his eyes—it’s as if he’s picturing what it will be like.
Eloisa, however, has been silent ever since turning the ingredients over to Hassim. While the two adventurers wait for him to assemble his fiery rockets, they’ve been asked to create a clearing, build a platform and, once the rockets are ready, set them up properly. She’s beginning to think that this is a lot of work for very little gain.
As the tasks have mounted, Eloisa has become less and less amused.
“This is a great deal of trouble for nothing, I think,” she pouts.
FallenOne straightens from his backbreaking labor, having assembled the platform and stands for the rockets. “We’re almost done. You’ll see! Once the sun goes down, there will be such a sight to be seen, and we’ll be the great heroes who brought the special magic of Hassim’s creations to all the inhabitants in these parts.”
But there are still more tasks to be completed. Hassim is very specific about the layout of the rockets, which must be arranged in a particular pattern, as does the black powder that acts as a fuse.
Eloisa’s cheeks grow red with frustration and even a little anger. She’s at the end of a too-short tether of patience. And she’s not going to suffer fools gladly.
She’s going to fight back.
She grabs the majority of the rockets and the barrel of black powder before FallenOne even realizes what she is doing. Hauling them to the platform, she piles the explosives in a high mound.
“That’s not how Hassim told us to do it!” Fallen protests when he finally catches up with her, still a little stunned that she can move so fast.
“I don’t care,” retorts Eloisa. “That’s what he’s going to get!”
Then she uncorks her keg of black powder and begins to spread it across the ground in intricate patterns and shapes. She also spells out words in a mysterious foreign tongue that FallenOne has never seen before.
He watches, eyes growing wider at the pictures her patterns seem to form. “That’s not—you can’t be—what—?”
“Watch me,” Eloisa bites out as she throws down her empty barrel of powder and pulls out her flint and steel. “I’d advise you to stand back.”
Eyes wide and jaw practically hitting the ground, FallenOne complies, backing as far away as he possibly can while still in a position to witness what is about to happen in this tiny hapless hamlet at the edge of the woods.
When she’s ready, Eloisa ignites a spark at the end of a long and twisting trail of scattered black powder, which leads directly to the gigantic mound of fireworks, sure to explode once the fire reaches them.
“That’s the last time I do their monkey labor all for a damn reusable firework that will sit in my backpack and take up room until I decide to destroy it!”
FallenOne can only shake his head as the fire follows the trail of black powder, meandering around the intricate shapes and foreign alphabet letters, wending closer and closer toward the heap of explosives at the center of the platform.
“I’m going to give them a show they’ll never forget!” Eloisa shouts gleefully.
***
I watched the display on the monitor, a fist pressed to my mouth as I suppressed a cackle. I could sense Fallen’s annoyance from here.
The powder ignited from where I’d set fire to it, and flames erupted, lighting up the patterns. I had no idea what was going through Fallen’s mind as he witnessed my rebellion, but it sure was funny as hell to me.
Flames wound around two giant circles, stretching into an elongated shaft of light. A flare of white stars streamed from the very tip. Lights flickered in patterns and spelled out words.
“Fuck off, Hassim” was one. “You suck, Draco,” another. And other fun little messages.
FallenOne remained noticeably quiet until the trail of flames led to the grand finale—a giant-ass mound of fireworks heaped into a pile that all exploded at once, nearly burning my retinas with the on-screen obnoxious display of light.
The entire village—had it existed outside the realm of pixels and bytes—would have been demolished.
I giggled like a child as I witnessed my devastation—the giant smoking crater in the clearing, all tinged with black. In just a quarter of an hour, it would all go back to looking as it did before, for the benefit of the NPC villagers and the players who would venture there with their own quests to complete.
But I’d likely burned my own bridges—in a manner of speaking.
That thought just made me laugh harder.
*FallenOne tells you, Cock and balls, Mia, REALLY?
*Eloisa tells FallenOne, It’s funny! Hassim’s quest *really was annoying af. Don’t you think?
Him: It wasn’t *that annoying.
Me: It was damn annoying. This game is full of annoying busywork quests like that. I’d had enough.
Him: Oh come on, it was an interesting quest. And a great reward! Not that YOU were around to receive it.
Me: Says you. I rebelled.
Him: So I noticed. You are quite the rebel.
Me: I like mixing it up, what can I say?
Him: I assume there will be a full and thorough review of this quest chain on the blog sometime soon?
Me: Of course, I took screenies and everything.
Him: Wow. You’re going nuclear.
Me: Meh. If I was going scorched earth, you’d know it. This is nothing. They’ll get over it. Maybe they won’t make so many busywork quests in the future. Win-win for all of us players.
Him: Are you actually trying to school the creators of the game with your snarkfest of a blog?
Me: I simply offer another perspective.
Him: Yeah, ya do.
I thought I’d get more of a laugh from FallenOne—or at least a mediocre “ha ha.” Maybe my humor was too immature for him or something.
Or maybe, just maybe, I needed to go out and get a life. I chewed on my lip and tried to squelch that prick of despair that threatened to blossom into something more serious. Even depression, maybe.
Sometimes a girl needed an escape from her worries and fears. Something safe rather than destructive.
And that was exactly what the game was providing.
Once we made it back to town, we gathered our items to turn them in to the quest giver for another quest. This time it was a ruffian named Dirty Deena, who had raided an armory and was prepared to give us—surprise!—shiny new breastplates in exchange for the random items she needed.
We handed over our hard-earned seashells, mollusk-encrusted dubloons and torn sails salvaged from a sunken ship. Dirty Deena laughed and sang and danced a pirate jig. FallenOne, as a spearman, received a polished, studded leather breastplate that gleamed in the sunshine. I quickly emoted my excitement to him, cheering and clapping and roundly encouraging him as he popped on that badboy. He looked GREAT.
Me: Show me the stats on the breastplate! I want to see how good it is.
Him: Yours will have the exact same stats!
So I checked my own reward. A noticeable improvement to the breastplate I’d been wearing for the last three levels. But what did the graphic look like?
I removed my old breastplate from the “chest” slot in my character screen and equipped it. Then, I switched back to the main screen so I could see what the graphic looked like on my character avatar.
Cue sad trombones. Wah wah waaaaaah.
It was nothing more than a glittery bikini top, perfectly tailored to show off Eloisa’s ample bosom and cleavage.
Cue female player RAGE.
Me: W.T. Actual. F.
Him: It, uh, looks good on you.
Me: Shut it, spearboy. Before I take that spear and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Him: Touchy, touchy.
Me: You would be too if all of Yondareth were conspiring to force you to go into battle wearing nothing but an armored loin cloth. You wouldn’t dig that, now would you?
Him: Well, no. But look on the bright side?
Me: Bright side? There’s a bright side?
Him: Yeah, our breastplates have the exact same stats. Same armor class, same hit points. Same protection all the way around, but yours weighs a lot less.
Me: That’s because it’s TWO MICROSCOPIC TRIANGLES OF ALUMINUM FOIL.
Him: But there *is a plus side…
Me: Yup, you’ve convinced me. I’m now all for showing the whole of Yondareth my virtual cleavage. NOT.
Him: This isn’t going to make you rage quit, is it?
Me: I’ve got my finger on the rage quit button even as I type!
Him: Deep breaths, Mia. DON’T do it. You know you love Dragon Epoch.
Me: I’d love it more if they remembered that not every woman wants to show their girls to the world.
Him: Maybe they are implementing changes even as we speak. Maybe they’ll give women a choice of the type of armor they want to wear…
Me: I can’t possibly be the only female who rails against this. I know Kat isn’t a fan either.
Him: They’ll take all our feedback to heart.
Me: You go ahead and keep hoping for that. Girls just want to look badass, ya know? More Joan of Arc and less Princess Leia in the gold slave bikini.
Him: But Leia killed Jabba while she was wearing that gold bikini. She was badass AND sexy as hell.
Me: Sigh. Maybe that was a bad example.
Him: Changes may very well be coming.
Me: OR more likely…. the next quest will give out skintight metal hotpants that match this bikini top!
Him: /sigh
Fallen continued to listen to me rant at length. First in chat, then when I’d gotten tired of typing, I turned on my headset and did it over the voice channel. Once I’d calmed down, we headed toward the town square, were we needed to do some housekeeping tasks to prepare for our next big quest binge with the group. There, we’d be selling our junk to vendors, buying food items and supplies, then putting extra stuff in the bank so we wouldn’t have to keep carrying it around.
On my way to the bank in Cormir City, however, I came across a curious gathering. A female avatar—a sexy elf with miles of flowing golden hair down to her ankles and clad in the skimpiest of shiny armor, jeweled breast cups and all—stood on a platform surrounded by quite a few other characters.
The dialogue being shouted out in the general chat channel made it sound like there was a live auction going on. And from the looks of the set-up, it appeared as if the subject of the auction was the elf avatar herself.
FallenOne appeared just as perplexed as I was when I sent him a message asking him what in Yondareth was going on.
Him: I have no idea. It appears that people are bidding on “alone time” with the elf, named LadyHaHa.
Me: Alone time? For what?
Him: Uhhh…
I continued to follow the proceedings for a few minutes as Fallen emoted shaking his head and feigning disbelief. Eventually, the innocent little virgin girl—that would be me—caught on.
The elf girl was auctioning off cyber time. As in cybersex. People were offering to pay to have virtual sex chat with this “hot” elf woman, whose double G breasts weren’t even real. Hell, she probably wasn’t even played by a real-life female.
Me: Holy crap. I can’t even.
Him: Yeah. And here I thought I’d seen everything in my years of gaming… I’m speechless.
Me: You’re always speechless. You only type in chat.
Him: Funny.
We bantered back and forth like that for a little while longer, but Fallen soon let me know that he had to log off. Me, I stayed to watch the shitshow for as long as it lasted. Eventually, a winner was declared, the agreed-upon fee was exchanged and the two participants filed off into a private room somewhere in the basement of an inn to emote sexually to each other.
Wow. The oldest profession existed even in Yondareth. Disturbing or ingenious? I guess it depended… on so many things. Consent and age of accountability being first and foremost.
With a shrug and a frown, I made a note to investigate this phenomenon further when I had some extra time—possibly as a future subject for the blog. There were so many things at play here, and it could become a rather complex issue—most especially for the people who ran the game.
Over the next few days, I had to admit that elf girl gave me a lot of food for thought. If she was of age and the other participant was of age and she needed the gold…then why not?
Was anyone being hurt, really?
***
Our gaming group stopped playing over the holidays. Christmas break led me back to the ranch, where the Internet was less than stellar for gaming anyway. Heath was going to spend time with Brian’s family in Northern California, and Kat had double shifts at work. Fallen had whatever the hell Fallen had, which he was not forthcoming about—no surprise there.
When I arrived home, not a word was spoken about our little spat. I was received with open arms, a hug and a kiss. And, thank all the powers that be, a more vigorous looking, if noticeably thinner, parent.
But… I was not dissuaded from getting to the bottom of her financial mystery. Only this time, I waited until she left the house on some errands before I began to snoop.
Her desk was completely clean. Suspiciously so.
It never ever looked that decluttered unless she’d purposely cleaned it to keep the contents out of my reach.
Undeterred, I went straight to her books. As I used to help her keep the books when I was a teen, I knew exactly what to look for.
I opened to the page that listed her outstanding bills and my jaw dropped. How could she be so far behind?
My mind raced as my eyes slid down the balance column. Mom still wasn’t well enough to re-open the inn, and even if she were, the busy season didn’t start until mid-spring.
Her bank balance was in the negative.
I went in search of her bill remittance notices. After about five minutes, I found them in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. I removed a fistful of late mortgage notices and a crapload of medical bills that I could hardly fathom.
Unpaid statements for her chemo treatment…charges for her prescription medications …bills for in-patient therapies. She’d had no medical insurance to cover any of them.
My hands shaking and my stomach in my shoes, I knew what I had to do.
Unlike Mom, I did have some money stashed away. It was only a few thousand that I’d been skimming off my scholarship and grant money by living frugally, in hopes of slowly building a nest egg to start medical school.
It was that money that I deposited into her bank that very day. When it cleared a week later, I pulled out her bills and balance book—while she was out watering and feeding the horses, of course—and mailed off the paid bills before she could protest.
That way, when I told her, it would be a done deal and she wouldn’t be able to undo what I’d done.
I was able to cover almost all of the remittance forms outstanding.
Except for the mortgage. I had no idea how far behind she was, and I could only do so much with my little nest egg. I’d have to figure out the rest later.
What this meant for medical school, however, remained to be seen. If I even managed to pass the MCAT.
But I’d find a way.
Minutes before kissing her goodbye, I told my mom what I did.
“Mom, um, check the balance book before you pay anything, okay? And please don’t be mad.”
She looked at me as if I’d just spoken Russian before understanding slowly dawned.
“Mia…what did you do?”
I smiled. “You can’t undo it. So being mad at me is not going to solve anything.”
She paled. “Mia…”
“Goodbye, Mom. Happy New Year.” I got into my car and shut the door.
“Stubborn goddamn girl,” she muttered.
I rolled down the window. “Totally heard that. If I’m stubborn, it’s because I inherited it from you.”
She watched me pull away with worry and guilt in her eyes. I had no idea if that guilt was borne from the secret she’d been keeping or the fact that she’d needed her daughter to bail her out. Anyway, it didn’t matter.
I tried as hard as I could to ignore that look of guilt. Maybe she still knew something that I didn’t. Maybe there was more she was hiding.
Maybe, just maybe, this dark weight I’d been carrying inside me for the past few months—for the past year, really—was about to get heavier instead of lighter…