Chapter 4 Sam The Armamentalist

I was drowsily brushing my teeth in the morning wondering if I should trim my beard, when I heard someone cough behind me.

I whirled around and there was my brother Sam with his boyish grin. I was so surprised that I swallowed the foam in my mouth. The last few visits he had informed me beforehand.

“Sam?” I said.

“Come on!” Sam faked dramatic disappointment. “Show some happiness on seeing your brother!”

“You never told me you would come." I spit out the remaining foam into the basin.

Sam clutched his face and fell on his knees.

“Next time, I will never come to visit you, even if you ask me,” he said.

While I was happy to see Sam, the shock outweighed my happiness.

“I am happy that you have come.” I gargled and swished water in my mouth. “But I was just not expecting you.” I grabbed Sam's arms and pulled him up.

“From now on you can expect me on any random day,” he said.

“Huh?” I said, as I wiped my face with a towel.

“Let me show you,” Sam said and he pointed to a wall. A door seemed to have appeared where there should have been no door, leading to a room that should not have existed. “Ta da!”

The towel dropped from my hands.

“What? How is that possible!” I said. My mind went round and round in circles struggling to make any head or tail out of what I was seeing.

The new door wasn’t rectangular as most doors tended to be. Instead it was a poorly made ellipse. And were its edges sparking like fireworks or were my eyes deceiving me?

Sam guffawed. Taken by his abrupt coming and the new 'door' I had missed how odd his attire was. He was wearing a leather tunic slightly fitted with a high neck and long sleeves. Below he wore breeches and thick boots. His outfit would make heads turn if he went out. The only place he would fit was a fancy dress competition.

“What is all this Sam?”

“I am supposed to be an Armamentalist. Come with me." Sam dragged me towards the new circular door. My resistance was to no avail.

There were all kinds of fancy objects littered about the room that the door led to: long swords, gold goblets, brass scabbards, helmets, shields, sheepskin hats with peacock feathers and a variety of items that you wouldn't usually see people carrying around. There was an open window on one side of the room and through it I could see a street below. Somehow we were on the first floor.

Other people dressed like Sam were moving outside. Horses pulled carriages briskly. I gasped when I saw some tall people with pointy ears and almost artificially youthful faces.

“Sam, what is this?” I said. “Where have you brought me? And how did you bring me here?"

“This is the game world of Dharti,” Sam explained. “I am sure you have heard about that?”

Yes, I had. Dharti was a virtual world where people could log in through expensive high tech pods and have otherworldly experiences.

Dharti had launched just a few months back, and although other virtual worlds had preceded it, Dharti was a groundbreaking development and provided ultra realistic experiences. Dharti was all over the news, being hailed as the new great invention of humanity. It was however severely criticized for being accessible only to the wealthy. The cheapest pod had a price tag of $100,000.

“But that can’t be possible,” I said. “You need to log in through a pod to be in Dharti.”

Sam leapt onto the only bed in the room. It creaked dangerously under the assault of his weight. He let out a laugh.

“Everything is possible for me!” he boasted theatrically.

I looked at him with suspicion.

“Are you doing something that's not allowed?” I asked.

Sam twisted his lips in thought. Then he shook his head.

“Nah,” he said “Taking advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself is just considered a smart move. Now, you don’t need to worry about how I have brought you here and all that bullshit. Let me take you on a tour of the game world.”

“Tour?” I said. “I don’t think so, I am going back.” I turned but was dumbfounded to see that instead of the door there was just a small hole hovering in the air, a tiny portion of my room visible on the other side. And even as I watched the small hole shrunk in size and disappeared.

Sam laughed.

“That portal only remains open for a short while,” Sam explained. “The fabric of reality and the fabric of the game world keep pushing against one another and eventually the old barrier is re-established. I am afraid, my brother, that you are stuck in Dharti unless I permit you to leave. Now don’t be lazy, there are some clothes in the wardrobe that you can wear to mix with the population of Dharti.”

After some reasoning, I guessed that touring the world of Dharti for free would not be a bad idea after all. Sam looked confident enough that he could transport me back home later. I opened the wardrobe and browsed the clothes.

“That would look good on you,” Sam said as I took out a black tunic from the wardrobe to wear.

“How did you get the money to buy the pod?” I asked once I was fully dressed in the new attire and feeling rather odd.

“Well, I am a rich man. A few bucks for a pod is a fair deal for me." I narrowed my eyes on him.

“What are you doing these days?"

“I gave up whatever I was doing earlier because I am finding Dharti more lucrative,” Sam said. “Anyway, let’s get going!”

The two of us went downstairs.

“I recommend you stay silent unless I ask you to speak,” Sam whispered. “I don’t want people finding out the alternate way you came here.” There was a crowded bar below. Sam waved at the bartender.

“Won’t you have a flagon of ale today?” the chubby bartender asked. He was not tall, but had pointy ears and a clean chin that had never known a strand of beard.

“No, thanks,” Sam replied. “Not in the morning anyway.”

“Is he your friend?” the bartender pointed towards me with a glass bottle.

“Good old friend,” Sam replied.

“Well, I hope you don’t die.”

“He is not a human, right?” I asked Sam in an undertone as we exited out through the main oak door.

“He is an elf,” Sam said. “Elves are helpers of the players. You will see quite a few of them in this town.”

“Why did he say he ‘hoped’ you won’t die?” As I said this a bald woman in colorful robes suspiciously squinted at me as she passed us.

“Will tell you later. We need to get out of here first.”

Many people in the streets were carrying weapons. Guns and swords were common, and some had mechanical arms with iron claws that could rip flesh from bone. Nobody seemed to be in a violent mood, thankfully.

Sam stopped a carriage. The animal that I had first thought to be a horse was a unicorn and it even had wings, but the wings were too small, incapable of flight.

“Where do you want to go?” the elf driver asked.

“To the West bridge,” Sam said. “I can show you a secret of mine,” Sam added in a whisper to me.

“That bridge’s rottin’ by the day,” the skinny coachman mumbled.

“As long as it helps me cross the river, I got no problem,” Sam said.

Along the way I took in the bustling town and estimated the population at least to be in the tens of thousands. The carriage rattled down the stone paved road, taking this turn and that. There was a giant water fountain at a place Sam told me was the town square.

Water sprouting vertically in the center was encircled by a myriad of sculptures. At the lowermost level were some really hideous looking humanoid beings. Some of them had horns, while others had two heads. Still others had spines on their backs. There was a giant too. Situated at an elevated position from the monsters were the elegant elves. In the top most level was a man and a woman doing a high five. From their unified hands the water was shooting to the sky.

The carriage driver was not even holding any reins. Apparently the unicorn knew its way around town. Occasionally the carriage driver would speak to the unicorn and the beast would nod as though it understood what the driver was speaking.

After a while I realized that we were in the outskirts of the town, with fewer houses and buildings. Eventually we reached a desolate area from where a great wall and a gate were visible. Groups of players were moving to and fro. The unicorn neighed and the carriage halted.

“So there you go,” the carriage driver said, “we have reached your destination.”

Sam and I got down from the coach. Sam paid a coin with the head of an elf king on the obverse. Game world currency. The driver made a small salute and left.