The potion shop NPC-actor was a little more composed when I entered. The two players that were currently browsing the NPC’s menu, however, were not. They noticed me immediately.

“Bro, bro!” one of the players said, slapping his friend’s arm. His friend had a distant look in his eyes, like he was scanning the shopkeeper’s inventory. He turned to his friend in annoyance.

“Why you smacking me, dude?” he asked, slapping his friend back with a touch more force. His friend was struck silent, just silently pointing at me.

I froze in the doorway, debating on just backing out. But there was less than an hour left before the quest event began, and there were still some things I wanted to check out.

I read their nameplates. The one that had noticed me first was:

Name: xXxDamienRocksxXx

Class: Druid

Race: Troll (M)

Level: 43

Allegiance: Consortium

And his friend was:

Name: GitSum2027

Class: Warrior

Race: Hobgoblin (M)

Level: 45

Allegiance: Consortium

It would be more conspicuous to just back up and leave, so I decided to head in and play dumb. My understanding of the damsel companion was that it wasn’t strange for players to send them off on errands. But there were a couple of factors that seemed to be clueing folks in on the fact that I wasn’t a normal damsel. First, my nameplate read as a player rather than an NPC. So that level 100 was front and center, screaming out to the world that I was a combat character. Apparently, damsels didn’t have levels next to their name, the way these NPC shopkeepers also didn’t have levels. The next thing that made me stand out was my gear. I was wearing full mail armor, and the semi-translucent poleaxe strapped to my back was still visible, even when it wasn’t in my hands. But even with all that, I still felt there was a chance for a fake it till you make it type of approach. If I just pretended to be a damsel companion and stayed in ‘character’ as any good NPC-actor would, perhaps I could distract these two dummies. The last thing I wanted was for them to blast out a message in some chat or forum that they had seen the rogue damsel S&S Crawler had been blabbering about.

So, I strolled into the potion shop like I had no idea what they were talking about. “Good evening, brave adventurers,” I said with a respectful nod. To the potion NPC, I said, “Whenever you are done with these fine young gentlemen, my master has sent me to inquire about your stock.”

The player that had been browsing the shopkeeper’s inventory - GitSum2027 - slapped his friend’s arm again. “Not her, idiot.”

The idiot - who I decided to think of as Damien - examined me closely. “But look at her! She doesn’t look like any damsel companion I’ve seen.”

GitSum2027 - fuck it, Git - just shrugged. “Maybe it’s one of those fancy add on packages, y’know? The ones that let you get fighting companions and shit. She’s probably got a high-end actor riding her,” he said, giving me an appraising look. “That true, honey? You one of those top-dollar slaves?” I felt the heat rise to the back of my neck at the word ‘slave.’ I turned to regard Git, all pretense of deference draining from my face. He visibly flinched at my look, and I suppressed a smirk. Whoa, that had felt good. Like…really good. That moment of fear that had flashed across his eyes. But it only lasted a second, and then he straightened his back, looking down at me with an upturned chin. “You have to answer me, you know? It’s in your employee contract.”

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I thought about a couple of responses. Snarky, biting, and even imagined myself threatening them with my weapon. But sense prevailed. It just wasn’t worth the hassle. Worse-case scenario, they alerted the entire Eastern hemisphere of S&S that I was currently in Hope’s End. The more likely scenario was they just didn’t back down, in which case, I couldn’t do anything about it, given we shared the same faction. So, I stayed in character. “I am a mere companion, running errands for my master. If I have offended the young masters in any way, I beg forgiveness.” I bowed my head, waiting for a response. It didn’t prickle me as much as I thought it would to be demure. That flash of hesitation and fear I had seen in Git’s eyes was enough fuel to get me through a few minutes of bullshit. I briefly wondered if it was sick of me to relish that feeling. But then I remembered what he had said. He, and so many other players in S&S, thought of us actors as slaves. They paid for the privilege of having a real-life human being serving as their companions, their shopkeepers, the dungeon bosses that were fodder before their swords. They didn’t think of us as people, so why should I take the high road?

Git examined me, looking me up and down with disgust. I recognized it for what it was - he was compensating for flinching earlier. He wanted me and his friend to know that he didn’t think much of me - of actors in the game in general. After a moment, he scoffed. “It’s just a regular damsel slave,” he said, turning back to Damien. Over his shoulder to me, he said, “Wait outside till we’re done.” Then he turned back to the shopkeeper, as if he didn’t need to pay me anymore mind.

I stood there for a few moments in defiance, imagining my poleaxe spearing through his back, his body lifted in the air just as I had done with the feral gorilla earlier. I shook myself out of the demented reverie before they noticed, turning to leave the shop. Git and Damien had completely dismissed me by this point, both of them looking at the shopkeeper. But as I glanced over my shoulder at the two players and the actor-NPC, I noticed the shopkeeper watching me. He gave me the slightest tilt of his head, and I did a double take. Had he just acknowledged me? Was that his attempt at some sort of camaraderie, as if to say: ‘We’re all in this together.’ But when I looked back a second time, his full attention was on Git as he explained the properties of his wares.

Still, it warmed me a bit to know that I wasn’t alone. Obviously, my situation was unique. But we actors shared a common suffering, and that in itself bred a common unity that was oddly comforting.

I thought about that as I left the shop. By all estimates, there were millions of actors employed for S&S, all in service of the hundreds of millions of players. Shopkeepers, bankers, guild masters, combat and non-combat companions, dungeon bosses, raid bosses, and on and on. Did Al have the ability to break all their chains? What would happen to the game if he did? I couldn’t even imagine.

I cleared my thoughts - there was too much to do to daydream. I thought about waiting my turn for the potion shop, but I knew Git’s type, and I was almost positive he would take his sweet time now, just to make me wait. So, I said fuck it, and started over to my third planned stop.

It was the strange icon with the two warriors locked in combat. There were no names over the icons, so I could only imagine what it was. As I neared the destination on my map, a large training ground appeared ahead.

It was a giant sand pit, ringed by wooden posts marking a waist-high fence. All across the sandpit, fighters were engaged in sparring. There were melee fighters wielding swords, axes, spears, and more on one side of the pit. On another side, there were magic wielders throwing spells at wooden dummies, or against each other’s shields. And in a third section, there were healers working on injured soldiers that must have been brought over from the nightly war waging outside the city walls.

Was this a training ground, then?

As I approached, there was a small hut leading to an entrance into the pit. Above the hut, a sign read: ‘Combatants for Hire, Inquire Here’ with a giant sign pointing down at the hut in question.

“Oh, hell yeah,” I said to myself.

It was a mercenaries-for-hire location.