“Come on down to Sausage Town!”

The smell of sizzling breakfast sausage and hash-browns hit my nose. The inn’s common room was redecorated in bright colors. Happy children holding breakfast burritos chased a giant breakfast sausage the size of a grown man. “Try the new hashbrown sausage crunch supreme. Only at Sausage Town.”

My mouth crunched down on a divine potato crust surrounding a layer of cheese and breakfast sausage with a hint of some kind of spicy tomato salsa or ketchup.

The screaming children disappeared along with the anthropomorphic sausage, replaced by the normal automated hustle and bustle of the inn's morning common room.

"Why do I feel like I've had nightmares like that?" I asked myself as I scanned the room for Argyle; he was not where I expected him to be, wandering in and out of the main door to the tavern. Instead of continuing to view and review the morning's advertisement, he was sitting in our usual spot, despondently pushing scrambled eggs around his plate with his fork.

"What's up?" I asked, dropping into a spot across from him. His head swiveled slowly, like someone had attached weights to his dreadlocks. It looked like it took him a considerable effort to bring his eyes up to meet mine. "Why the long face? Is it because they changed the bacon ad?"

"No. No bacon for me this morning."

"Yeah, but I mean, they changed the ad."

"Did they? Dang! I really loved that ad."

"What's got you so down?"

"No, it's really not your problem," said Argyle, dropping his fork and pushing his chair back. "What are you up to today? Leaving town to traipse through dungeons again?" There was a resentful tone in his voice. Like a well-to-do mother saying it's fine that you're giving up on your scholarship to pursue your heavy metal band.

"Look, Argyle, did I do something wrong? You were in a pretty bad mood yesterday and today again; it just seems like something's up."

"No. Nothing's up."

"All right then," I said. "Good luck crafting."

"Go on." He gestured toward the door. "Have fun spending all day killing monsters. I'll just be here. Crafting, like I always do."

"Look man, you've got your subscription; you can come with me if you want."

"Well, did it ever occur to you that I don't want to?"

It honestly hadn't occurred to me that he would be in a game like this and not want to go exploring, but maybe it should have. I couldn't help but feel like I'd done something wrong. Something was clearly upsetting him and I had no idea what I could possibly do about it. Regardless, I didn't want to spend breakfast dealing with this kind of attitude. I might as well just leave and let him sulk. I pushed away from the table and stood up, walking towards the door.

“Wait, no.” He called and I turned around. He was half out of his seat. “Look, I'm sorry. How do I put this? I haven't been square with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean... oh hell. I mean I haven't been totally upfront with you about my situation.”

“What situation? You're not in a deep-dive capsule for six months, trying to earn enough money to get an apartment when you leave?”

“Oh no, that's real. That's very real. Look.” He took a deep, steadying breath and looked at the floor. “It's about my sister.”

“I didn't know you had a sister.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yeah, well, I do. She's, well, she's kind of sick. Okay, not just kind of sick. Really, really sick.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, well. I found out around the same time I was getting kicked out of my girlfriend's apartment, a few days before I joined the game.”

“Is she going to be alright?”

“That's hard to say. It looks like it's the same kind of cancer that took our dad, so I'm kind of worried.”

“Well, so you're worried about your sister. That's nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yeah, but look, it's not just that, you see. Oh, how do I put this? I figured I'd be spending six months in the game, and it'd be cheaper to sell everything than pay for a storage locker. So, I kind of sold everything I had to help her out. It wasn't enough. I basically only paid for her initial treatments. Part of the reason why I couldn't afford a subscription is because I've been sending her money.”

“Good for you, man.”

“Yeah, every month, a big chunk of my profits just go straight to her. The first month of my prize even came with a subscription, I just didn't read the fine print and didn't realized that I needed to pay for the remaining months. So, last month it was a choice between a subscription and paying her bill.”

“Oh, man, that’s... I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“Well, yesterday I got the next bill. I've got a week to come up with the money and after buying my subscription, my accounts are practically back to zero.” He looked up at me then, watery eyes catching the light from the street. “I don't think I can do it. I don't think I could raise enough money in a week.”

“Oh, come on, man. With the 12-to-1 time compression, that's going to be almost three months of subjective time. You could make it. I mean, with the all of things we got from the jackalopes, you could totally do it.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence. I really do, but I can't do it without you. I… I can't do it.”

It's starting to make more sense. Why Argyle had been so angry with me going off adventuring. And I guess we had planned on crafting when I left. I just got caught up in the game. Hadn't been thinking; got swept away. Then I thought about the gems I'd collected in the mine, especially the one I'd gotten from the boss.

“No, this is it. This is perfect.”

He looked up at me. "My sister being sick is perfect?”

“No, not that.” I took out the Low-viathan gem and set on the table. “What's perfect is you and I working together.” I could feel a familiar itching in my palms. The thrill of impending adventure, maybe? “If you and I spend a little bit of time every day crafting and a little bit of time every day adventuring. And we keep on pushing forward into new places. We collect better stuff, and use it in crafting. We’ll be able to make all the money your sister needs. It's perfect.”

Despite my enthusiasm, he didn't look fully convinced “I don't know, it's only one week IRL. Every time we go out, we risk losing time and money. We might get stuck again like you did with the first quest. I mean, I get what you're saying, it could work, but I would feel a lot better if we just focused on crafting until we earn enough, and then go adventuring. After we pay this next bill that is.”

Argyle’s words seemed to fill my head with fire ants. I wasn't thinking. Or more accurately, I was thinking too many things at once. I didn't know how much money we needed to raise, but the idea of putting the game on pause for weeks, if not months, just felt so boring. I liked Argyle, and I wanted to help out his sister, but he was asking too much. I needed to get out there. This wasn't the game talking. This wasn't the game manipulating me. I mean, I knew it was manipulating me in many different ways, but I had to be out there adventuring. The more emotional Argyle got, the more I felt the extreme desire to throw myself into the game, grind mobs, take quests, get loot.

At the same time, I didn't wanna be an asshole. I knew I was Argyle's only hope to help his sister. He needed me and he had been a friend to me. I would help him. Sure, I would definitely help him. But not if it meant giving up on the game. I had lived for games like this once and I wasn't gonna give up this opportunity.

I had a moment, then, thinking of Kara. Had she left me over something like this? Where was she? The uncertainty was killing me and I needed to distract myself. Going out and adventuring was practically a coping skill right? How could I get Argyle to see that my plan was the best plan? I could make demands, I could beg and plead. But what if I got the game to help me? I had seen the way the game manipulated our emotions to get us to play more. “The whammy,” Fez had called it. Could I use it?

“Look Argyle, man, I feel for your sister, I really do. But I'm not going to drop everything for you." I turned towards the door and started walking, and immediately heard the rush of footsteps behind me.

“Please Finch! Please? I need your help.” A note of panic crept into his voice. “I need it!” I just looked at him, cold and impassive, trying to convey with my eyes that I was unfeeling and unmoved by his begging. “Please!” His breath got fast and ragged. His eyes went wild. Then out of nowhere, a long, slow, deep breath. A goofy smile.

I felt that smile being echoed on my own face. “You know, man, we could just do both. We could go out right now, and rack up a bunch of loot. Then we spend all day tomorrow crafting. After that we split days start off crafting, and adventuring.”

“You know what, that sounds brilliant. I feel like smashing some heads.” He pulled out his drum and his hammer, “Let's do this!”

I felt like a complete tool, and I didn’t care… I didn’t care. Did I?