I got ready to leave, but something made me stop. The witch’s spellbook was still on the counter. I imagined bringing it up and the familiar menu appeared. I heard the noise increase from the other room, but no one came out. I quickly tore through the book and clicked on the two other spells I considered using. I decided Explode Humanoid wasn’t a great option for my playstyle and chose another random spell I hadn’t even looked at. With Clairvoyance and Animate Object, I left the witch’s hut with a quickened pace. The memory of being brought to my knees when I learned the spell began to fade, gradually replaced by a new sense of drive. I stormed off in the direction of the castle.

I made my way back to where I started, the training grounds. I looked over and saw what looked like Sal, standing there and helping an adventurer train. I looked more closely and realized, it wasn’t him. I walked over to them and just stared. I looked at the player fighting him and his name appeared as “TheG0Truthith. I was immediately taken aback. Was he a hardcore player and died? Is he just a friend of the man I killed?

I stepped to the left and ducked behind a few barrels. I always assumed they were a decoration, but I could hear water sloshing against the sides of one of the barrels as I bumped into it slightly.

“Gah!” the player yelled as his sword clanged against the shield of Sal’s replacement.”

I sat and listened for a bit and then the player started talking to himself.

“Thank you stupid guard. It didn’t take long at all and now I’ve acquired the warrior class. My brother is going to be so proud. Now I can train up and hunt down that Kyogos guy. Hahahaha.”

I immediately thought that the kid was having an aneurism or something, but then he said something even more disturbing.

“Training Grounds Guard: Haha yeah! I heard that guy is twisted and stupid hahaha. He hunted down other players and then began an attack on a group of PKrs but then he just sat there and let them kill him. I can’t wait till I’ve trained you enough so you can kill him over and over again. You are so great!” the player said in as low of a tone as he could.

I instantly wanted to go back to the witches hut and listen to whatever freaky voodoo was going on over there. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want that at all, I just couldn’t stand how humiliating the guy was being.

He was pretending the guard was dissing me, and he well, he was just being ridiculous. What kind of kid talks to himself? I finished my condescending thought and I feel to my knees for what felt like the billionth time.

***

Everything had gone black again, like I was back in what was my hell for two months. Then slowly, my vision drifted from foggy to focused and I realized that I was looking down at a scene unfolding before me.

A player named ThatGuyKy was killing camp of goblins. He wasn’t equipped with much, a steel sword, a leather top and bottom, and a single gold ring. Following him though, was a golden retriever with a faint hint of red in its coloring. I looked at the dog and I felt what would have been a teardrop begin to form. .

Ginger, or TheGingo as I had named her in the game, was my IRL companion growing up. In the vision she was pixely and didn’t look much like what she did in real life at the time, but having her in the game had meant a lot.

I looked down and words appeared above the player’s head, “Oh? Yeah? Okay, GIngo! You can have the bone. *Tossed bone. Oh thanks Ky! You are the best. Let's kill more of these goblins so I can chew on all of their bones. But, hey, please leave more meat on them for me next time!

The labrador pet that was my only friend in the game caused my emotional floodgates to overflow, causing a spasmodic release of anguish and regret. Why did Ginger have to die right before I went to college? Why did I have to have no one? I could have got an off campus apartment that allowed dogs. If she just…

I knew the thoughts weren’t going to help me, but the vision brought back a wave of feelings I had been pushing back. It wasn’t until the vision faded and I was staring up at Sal that I questioned what the hell was going on.

“Hey Ky! Where have you been all day man?” asked Sal innocently as he pulled me to my feet.”

Both my heart and head continued to pound, but I decided that answering him was better than running off and being alone. “Oh, I think you know where I've been," I said angrily.

"Huh?" Sal questioned, looking genuinely confused. "I just strolled down from the bar; I've been there all morning. What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about?!" I shouted. Oh, let me tell you what I'm talking about."

***

“So, I banged a weird witch after demanding she give you free, high quality spells and then you had a vision of the virtual version of your now deceased dog?” Sal asked skeptically with his eyebrows raised. He began to laugh a little as he finished the question, but then he looked over at my blank as stone face and stifled a few more chortles.

“Yes, yes indeed Sal.

"I have no memory of that man... I was waiting for you at the bar and then I must have gotten really drunk or something because hours went by before I decided to go and get you. You weren't upstairs so I wondered around down to the training grounds where I found you on the ground."

"You serioiusly don't remember anything?" I asked skeptically, wanting to believe what appeared to be my only friend in all of Dragaria.

"No, I really don't.... Wait... I need to tell you something." Sal then ushered me closer and whispered in my ear. What he told me sounded almost like a cover, but will everything else that was going on it made more sense than the way he had acted with the wtich. Someone was playing mind games with us.

We both stayed relatively quiet until Sal looked over straight faced. “Wait..."

"Yeah?" I asked, hoping he came to some brilliant revelation.

"as she at least a hot witch?” Sal lost all control and let it go in waves of abhorrent laughter.

“No, not really." i said plainly. "But, We need to figure what’s going on fast because none of it makes any sense.”

Sal nodded and then began to walk towards the inn again. I called after him but he didn’t answer. It was only when I completely caught up to him that he answered.

“WE have some drinking to do. I may or may not havet actually been with a disgusting witch, meaning this is a perfect time to drink regardless.”

“You can drink your liver dead, see if I care, but don’t you want to deal with your wife and the prince?”

The man turned around and gave me a wide grin. “All you had do was ask. Let’s go.”

We made our way towards the castle. We passed Billy’s house, the bank, and the other stores housed in downtown Landalof. We took a right and looked up at the castle. It was the first time I had looked at it since arriving.

In person, the castle looked old and ominous, like the old man you see out in public that could be your best friend or your worst nightmare. Light lit up a window on the top floor and then it immediately went out, almost as if the castle was greeting me.

The base was the most crude and had the greatest variance in the types of stone used in its creation. Then long highways connected from the base to two large watchtowers. I knew from my experience that the castle had four main floors and a basement. The first floor was made up of a kitchen, dining room, and the guard’s room.

The second floor housed the guards, the third the castle’s workers, and the fourth housed the royalty. Landalof was old in both age and tradition, which was why guards and work staff lived in the castle. According to sal, there was a small room on the roof that could be reached from the fourth floor. A few guards at a time are assigned to take watch. Sal noted that the guards often checked on the royal siblings when necessary..

We made our way down up the steps and down the hall to the right until the meeting hall was on our left. Looking in, the hall was pretty crowded. A few players were turning in quests and some stock guards sat around.

Sal walked up to the guard with the most distinct armor of the bunch. It wasn’t the usual steel, it had to have been dragonsteel. Dragonsteel was a type of metal that was harvested from the corpses of dragons. Though modern dragons were less intelligent and made for an easier kill, they provided less power materials than more ancient ones like the six original dragons.

“Heeeey, John! How are you doing today?” Sal yelled loudly, breaking my focus.

The man turned towards us. He looked like he had just been greeted by a lost friend. “There he is! How were the training grounds today, you sick of that yet? I know you miss the old days, but maybe watching the castle sometime would give you a break. Eh? How about it?”

“Oh, well, maybe, but I actually have something to talk to you about. I was kind of just avoiding it, but I think that as one of two remaining brothers of the late Gillian Landalof you would want to hear what evil has been plaguing this great castle.

The men embraced tenderly, pausing a moment at the end before John began to answer. “I’m listening Salford, but don’t let this be some sort of prank, because I have dealt with enough of that to last me a lifetime.” The man chuckled but his eyes looked serious.

Sal stepped in closer to John and whispered something inaudible. The more Sal told John, the more questions John seemed to throw back at him. I began to look at the table, which was a long rectangular rendition of the lands of Dragaria.

Having become bored, I focused on a few pieces that seemed to resemble pawns and activated my Telekinesis spell. I focused on moving pieces into new formations, but didn’t do too much or else I might have messed up more than I could fix. The men finally stopped after what had felt like more than an uncomfortable amount of time.

The two walked towards me looking as though they had solved the dragonscale crisis or food shortage in some of the lesser kingdoms. “So this is that adventurer, erm, what did you call him? Ky?”

“Yes, that’s Ky alright, though I don’t believe he’s gone with name here yet,” Sal answered. “And Ky, this is my brother Sir Jonathan Landalof, younger only to our deceased king.”

I didn’t really know what to do, because I was essentially in a whole new world. It was then that I thought of how I had spent a large portion of my life in the lands of Dragaria, yet I knew very little about the actual customs of the people.

I went to bow down but the two men shook their heads and got a chuckle out of it. “There might have been a time back when our brother was at the height of his power that we would have accepted such honors, but times are dark and we have much to prove.”

Sal listened silently and then called for my attention. “Ky, I think we are gonna start fixing some things around here.” It was then that a noise alerted my of a quest update. I pulled it up to see what silly message the game was going to give me next.

Billy’s Bargain

You spent a greater part of your morning getting spells, passing out from pain, and witnessing something both disturbing and confusing. You have been offered assistance by the late king’s two brothers. How you choose to handle the situation is up to you, but don’t forget the two spells you gained.

I quickly read the notification and started assembling possible pieces of a plan. “Good! I think this is going to work out.”

John nodded in agreement. “Okay, now how do you two plan on doing all this without giving that snot nosed.. Uh, goblin, anymore power around here?”

“well , I’ve got an idea… Follow me.”

The brothers looked at me with eyebrows raised, but decided to follow me upstairs regardless. They shot me with an endless torrent of shushed questions, but I didn’t say a peep. I only stopped as we approached the last staircase. I thought about activating my newly acquired skill, but nothing.

John and Sal stared at me, but I was shutting them out. I focused on the name of the spell Clairvoyance and thought about the prince. Nothing. I then cleared my mind and thought back to the nothingness that was my home for two months. The utter solitude of it all. Then, after maybe two minutes of nerve wracking silence, it began to work.

I looked through the eyes, of whom I assumed to be the prince. He was riding a deep red stallion in the wild. I thought it was strange because horses weren’t common among players, but it still seemed useful; it meant he wasn’t upstairs.

I then let myself drift again and my vision changed to the Bensley twins down at the adventurer’s center. They sat helping some adventurers with random tasks like storing items and filing for a housing portal permit. My vision tore away from the center and back to the two guards that were waiting for an answer.

“We are all set, let’s go.” I said immediately, ushering them to follow me upstairs. At the very top were four large rooms on each side. “What one belongs to the prince?” I asked as my brain finished its transformation into detective mode.

“The second one on the right,” John gruffed, “and the one across from it, and the one on the left of it, almost all of them really.”

I looked over to gauge a reaction from sal, but he just nodded in agreement.

“I’m starting to think that we aren’t harming anyone by doing this…” I said, having had previous doubts about whether the quest was the right way to go about getting my stuff back, or if I should have even bothered going after it.

Both men seemed to be listening, but John looked like he had better places to be. “Well, that’s all fine and good, but let’s get to work. What do you have to show us?”

I pulled open my spellbook to get some more information on the spell and then said, “Well, seeing how you asked…”