“Hey, Buffy? Can you maybe. . . let me get up please?”

. . .

“Pretty please?”

. . .

“. . .are you asleep?”

. . .

“Wow, you are.”

She is literally wrapped around my waist, arms cinched up like a noose lightly snoring. Which seems fairly improbable. Who tackle hugs somebody yelling their name and then immediately falls asleep? Last I checked, she wasn’t a narcoleptic or our raids would have gone much worse in game. Unless the VR pod was managing that somehow, but that seems a bit much. Who would truck a narcoleptic MD across space?

“She has been up for days, taking tiny naps and waiting for you to respawn, of course she goes out like a light when you finally show up.”

Hearing that voice the hairs on the back of my neck start to prickle. I may have been a bit lost when Buffy popped up earlier, but with the clues all here and the number of times I sat through hours of lectures for “misbehavior” there is no way I’m going to be confused on who is sneaking up behind me.

“Oh, hi Hera, fancy meeting you here, right?”

“Considering you kept both Buffy and myself waiting more than a week, I would say this meeting is preordained.”

Her tight lipped smile translates over to reality surprisingly well. Somehow, the fact that it still scares me on instinct even without her glowing red eyes doesn’t surprise me one bit.

“So, Omni, now that you have been thoroughly trapped, I believe that you are due for a lecture on dereliction of duty costing the guild immeasurable losses in gold.”

Yup, there it is, the icy tone of judgement and fun-vampirism. The fact that the world has gone crazy and she still thinks that the dragon attack is important enough to grill me over is both her blessing as a guild master and my curse. The way things are looking, I’m due for around four hours of lecture before we get around to anything new.

If I were less pinned down, I might have even made a run for it to postpone this lecture indefinitely. As it is, sleeping women are harder to dislodge than you might think.

“. . .have to say for yourself, Omni?”

“I’m sorry, Guild Leader, It won’t happen again.”

. . .

“Despite the fact that this is the third time it happened again, we can leave it at that. Now, on to less important matters, what bonus did you get?”

That’s less important? How is our new reality and what magical powers I got less important to a lecture about skipping out on guard duty?

. . .

“You did get a reward, right? Baron didn’t find anyone who hadn’t yet, but you always have been one to throw a wrench in patterns. . .”

“Well, it’s. . .complicated?”

“Meaning embarrassing or meaning complicated?”

“Bo. . .the second one.”

The squint in her eyes tells me she doesn’t believe me.

“Is it at least useful?”

. . .

“Dangerous or otherwise detrimental to yourself or others?”

“Wellllllll. . .”

“Why am I not surprised. Tell me that you are still a competent scout in this world?”

“I probably am. Even without vision mods I spent years learning.”

Which is mostly the truth. After I hit mid level in game I always was able to dive out into the wilderness with a perception based dex-build and find all the entertaining locations for the guild to raid. If I didn’t get good at taking advantage of the monster AI and having a good game-sense I wouldn’t have made it into the guild at all. Even if I had, I would have been booted after the first few. . .unfortunate accidents.

“Great. What can we do to stay out of the blast-zone of your ability then?”

That’s a really good question. Is there anything that I can do that makes the little imp less likely to be an asshole and screw with people? If he really just wants to do his own thing, then there shouldn’t be too much. I wouldn’t even mind if they offed him on accident, really.

“No, it already ran its course, I think. If something changes and it becomes. . .a problem again. . .I will let you know?”

“Make sure you do. I do not want a repeat of Phrank and the slime.”

Ah, yes. She still blames me for that one, huh? Wasn’t really my fault he had to go to counselling afterward. It’s not like she didn’t let me in the guild after that either, so why does she always bring it up?

“There is no chance of a repeat of that. No chance at all.”

I haven’t even seen any slimes in this world yet, so they might not even exist.

“I’ll have Baron come over and tell you what we found out by now and explain the rules in a minute. The rest of the guild is going hunting. Try to stay out of trouble Omni.”

And with that, she walks out toward the entrance of the cathedral. Presumably the rest of the guild is out there where the light of fires and the smell of food is coming from. People have even wandered inside with carved bowls of what smells like soup while the lecture was going on, but Hera whacked me on top of the head any time my attention started to wander so I didn’t get a good look.

Looking out that way from my seat on the stone floor, it seems like night has fallen. I hadn’t noticed since the ceiling lights were constantly illuminating the windowless hall. Kind of a dumb time for a hunting trip in my opinion, but she has her own reasons. I can call her a taskmaster, slave-driver, or endless lecture-machine, but she leads a guild like a fish breathes water. Not doing something stupid like taking people hunting when they can’t see and get ambushed by predators is not her style, which means that she knows something I do not.

. . .

Maybe something to do with the giant flash of light from outside? Either somebody just found a few spotlights or that’s Hera’s plan for hunting. I’m not sure what it is yet, but it’s part of an answer.

Hot on the heels of the light, piping hot even, is a pair of carved wooden bowls filled with delicious delicious food making their way over to me. Also a short man with a bored expression that happens to be carrying the bowls. He really didn’t change his avatar in-game, so I can immediately tell who this is. I almost think that he really is a dwarf in real-life seeing him like this. I had always thought that Baron overplayed the stereotype and was possibly the greatest role-player in the guild, but looking at him now. . .

“Omni.”

“Baron.”

“Rabbit stew.”

“Thanks.”

. . .

. . .

“Delicious”

“Perspective, Omni.”

“Fair, what’s going on out here in alive-land?”

“Killer, mutant animals. Supernatural powers. Various forming factions.”

“Alright, I knew about the first two. How is the third bit coming?”

“Mostly guilds from in-game and one faction led by the captain.”

“No interesting news?”

“Nothing that tops your every-day.”

“Alright, anything I should pay attention to so Hera isn’t breathing down my neck?”

“Follow the rules the factions agreed to. Specifically for Hera? Nothing that you wouldn’t do anyway.”

“It’s like she hates the idea of me having fun. What are the rules?”

“Observe basic human rights and do not player kill. If you bring back food some goes to the stew pot to feed everyone, the rest is for yourself. There is also a ‘no greifing’ clause.”

“Punishments?”

“Prison time or execution with kill on respawn, but nobody has been given the second.”

“Seems about right.”

“Some things translate over to this world easily.”

I can’t help but chuckle looking sideways to my short, dwarven friend. He may have rolled his eyes at me, but if he did it was very quick.

If this really is reality for us now, it doesn’t seem that bad. Free immortality is nothing to complain about. Maybe I’m just happy to have some food, but things seem to be looking up, finally. Maybe tomorrow Buffy will be awake and I can go exploring some more without death-by bunny.