Gertrude sat morosely in the classroom as her math teacher droned on about various algebraic problems. Normally she would have been studiously taking notes but Gertrude just wasn’t feeling it right now. Not after one of her best friends just died. She had already done all the crying she could and more when she had first gotten the news and attended the funeral. Now she just felt drained and didn’t even have the energy to listen to her teacher. Thankfully Mr. Clarks was sympathetic and chose not to bother her today although Gertrude was sure that would change in a day or two if she started letting it affect her grades. After all, Gertrude was a hard working student with a bright future ahead of her.
The class bell signaling the end of the period and the start of lunch rang, startling Gertrude out of her daze. Wordlessly she grabbed her school issued smart pad and stuck it back into its special carrying pouch. Being packed with every information packet necessary for an education, the smart pad was a much more convenient teaching tool than the textbooks society used to use in the old days. It certainly cut down on the weight, at the very least. Gertrude ignored the people passing her by in the hallway as she went to the lunchroom. A few had offered half-hearted condolences as a way to break the ice to start a conversation, but Gertrude paid them no mind. She had learned they only wanted to hear what exactly happened to Riley. Never mind the fact that the entire school already knew because of all the gossip, Gertrude didn’t want to talk about such painful memories to complete strangers that never really cared for Riley in the first place.
Eventually, Gertrude left the long corridors and finally arrived at the lunchroom. She went straight to her customary table in the far corner where Franz and Luke were already seated, their expressions showed they were just as sad as she was. As she approached, they both gave her half smiles. Even if Riley was gone, they still had each other. Gertrude smiled back as she sat down and opened her lunch box. A simple tuna fish sandwich and apple was inside and she wordlessly chewed her food. Luke broke the silence by clearing his throat before saying something. “Guys I don’t know how to phrase this less crudely because that just ain’t my thing so I’ll just come out and say it. I think we need to do something to break ourselves out of this depression we seem to have locked ourselves in. I was thinking tonight we meet up in dreamscape online and have our own little vigil to help remember the good times with Riley.”
Gertrude’s first reaction was ambivalence. She desperately wanted to stop feeling so sad but she didn’t feel like going through with it. She quickly squashed those feelings though. She was stronger than this, that’s why she had picked the troll in the first place. She hated it when people saw her as a weak and fragile little girl. What was she doing now, if not being exactly what she hated?! A weak and helpless little girl! “I’ll do it! We can’t stay depressed forever. I will always remember Riley and I’m sure I’ll be sad for a long time but I refuse to let that sadness rule me.” As if her words had sparked something in him, Franz’s expression changed to appear more determined as well. He nodded when Gertrude finished speaking. “Gert is right. What happened is a tragedy but Riley would be angry with us if he knew we let that tragedy stop us from being happy. I have to ask however,” Franz looked at Luke, “What made you decide to do the vigil inside of Dreamscape Online?”
“Well a few things, really.” Luke responded. “We only have a limited amount of time during lunch to eat and talk so that rules out doing a vigil during school hours. Curfew prevents us from visiting each other during the night shift without special permissions which would make trying to meet up after school a hassle. And having a vigil through something like our palm drives seems to impersonal to be appropriate. That leaves Dreamscape. We can meet up in person… well sorta. We can take as long as we want to, and we can go to an isolated location and not have to worry about someone walking up and interrupt us with stupid questions or some other inane bullshit.” As if to punctuate Luke’s point another student chose that moment to approach them and barge into their private discussion. “Hey guys! I heard that guy that used to hang out with you died or something, is that true?” As one, all three of the tables occupants turned towards the intruder and stared at him, their faces blank of all expression. After a few seconds passed the tension in the air increased exponentially. “Uhh. I was just hoping you could, uh tell me what happened? You know, like how did the guy die or something?... I uh… heard he got… zapped… uhh…” after another silent staredown the student got frustrated and turned to leave.
“Ugh! Fine! Don’t say anything! Fucking dicks. I was just curious.” Before he got too far Luke quickly said, “SociallyAwkwardIdiotSaysWhat?” As if on reflex the student turned around and said “What?” only to realize the trap he walked into a few seconds later as Gertrude, Lucas, and Francis all burst out laughing. The confusion quickly turned to anger and the person stomped away from the table to the sound of their continued mirth. They all had a hard time catching their breath as everyone enjoyed the moment of levity to the fullest. When it finally ended the air hanging around the table seemed different than before. Not lighthearted like it used to be, but certainly the atmosphere was less oppressive than it was just a moment ago.
Gertrude smiled at Luke, the smile was also more genuine than earlier. “Thanks, Luke. I needed that. We all did.” Franz nodded in agreement. “Yes. I myself certainly feel better. I think I could almost look forward to this vigil. Should we meet up today after school?.” After they all reached an agreement on where to meet up in the game, they got up and left for their classes as the bell rang again to signal the end of the lunch period.
……
The trees crackled and shivered violently as a hulking behemoth of muscle shoved its way through, sometimes turning sideways to squeeze through the tighter spaces when the trees were to close to walk through normally. The large and imposing figure easily dwarfed the slender man walking next to it. The fact that they were walking together was unusual. Their very existences seemed to be exact opposites. One was slender and of average height and moved with an uncommon amount of grace. The other was large enough that fitting through a doorway would prove to be a rather daunting challenge not even counting the fact that every casual movement spoke of its unused strength.
Only after one spent enough time taking in the contradictory figures did you finally notice the last person, and even that was after much effort was spent looking for him. A fairy was sitting on the shorter person’s shoulder. When observed, your eyes seemed to want to slide off of the diminutive creature and once you lost sight of the fairy, you needed to look for him all over again as he almost seemed to disappear right where he sat only to reappear once again when you finally spot him.
The tall figure could be heard grumbling to her traveling companions as the dappled light occasionally streaming through the forest canopy revealed her to be a troll. “Are you sure this is the right way, guys? I don’t know about you but fighting my way through this damned forest is getting annoying.” The Fairy spoke up from his shoulder perch. “Of course I’m sure Gert. We should be reaching the clearing any moment now actually.” “I told ya to stop calling me Gert when we are in the game. My character’s name is Tanyargh!” The fairy waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll stop calling you by your real name when you start calling me Puff. That’s MY ingame name.” Tanyargh lets out a world-weary groan. “FIIIIINE! Geez! I can’t believe you named yourself Puff though! It’s so stupid!” “And Tanyargh isn’t?” Instead of replying Tanyargh just stares at Puff but he just ignores her.
The man standing in the middle of the argument due to the unfortunate circumstance of being the chosen traveling method of a certain fairy decides now would be a good time to speak up. “As entertaining as it is to hear a troll arguing with a fairy, I would like to mention that even MY patience is starting to wear thin. Lets just call each other by our ingame names. It makes more sense to get into the habit of doing things like that anyways. Otherwise you just end up confusing other players that happen to be with us.” Tanyargh couldn’t keep herself from grumbling out the last word. “At least Franz had the sense to pick a name that wasn’t stupid.” Of course, Puff likewise snapped out a response. “It’s Delric not Franz. Get it ri-” “Enough! One more word out of the two of you and I’m not going to make you dinner when we make camp!”
The last statement immediately put a lid on any further debates from Tanyargh and Puff. After all, neither of them learned how to cook in the game and their rather extreme size differences made handling the necessary tools of the trade with any notable dexterity an arduous task. No one expects a good meal out of someone with hands as big as melons or a body so small that any blade used to cook could be used as a greatsword. Instead, they all chose to lapse into silence.
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The silence didn’t last too long though when a few minutes later they arrived in a wide clearing. Tanyargh let out a sigh of relief as she finally was no longer being hit with a constant bombardment of limbs and branches. The general mood improved as the trio broke apart and performed the various tasks required to get a campsite going. Tanyargh went to grab wood for the fire since she could make fewer trips before they had enough while Delric unrolled the sleeping bags and unpacked the supplies they needed for that night’s dinner. Puff cleared the space of debris where the campfire was going and once that was done he flew off to gather herbs and other alchemical supplies. Some of the ingredients would be used for cooking, but most were for his own use in less savory concoctions such as poisons or powders.
By the time everyone had gathered around the freshly built campfire, it was just reaching the twilight hours and the sky was turning dark. The three of them were silent as none of them knew how to start the conversation they had all come here for. Puff shifted uncomfortably on the log stuck upright in the ground to let him sit at eye level with the others. A small smile crossed his face before he finally spoke up. “Hey, guys. Do you remember how we each met Riley?” They all smiled and nodded thinking of the past. Tanyargh spoke next “I remember. For me, I met him back in... 5th grade? I was around 10 or 11 years old I think, and school had just started. I had a really bad case of the chicken pox and had just started attending classes and stuff. There was a kid who had heard I was sick for a few days and started making fun of me.”
Tanyargh grabbed her stick of rabbit meat from the fire to test it. Trolls liked meat on the rare side so she found it was cooked enough. She took a bite before she continued with her story. “He was saying stuff like ‘eww that girl got sick with cooties you don’t wanna touch her or else you might catch it.’ you know, kid stuff like that. None of it really made any sense, but it didn’t need to make sense to fool little kids. 3 days later and no one in the school would sit near me. Things went on like that for about a week. Then one day, our teacher said that there was a new transfer student who would be joining our class that day. Standing next to the teacher was Riley. He seemed a bit shy standing a little bit behind her but after introductions the teacher asked Riley to take a seat. There were plenty of open seats but for some reason Riley chose to sit next to me. I had asked him a few years later why he sat there and he just said that I looked lonely, but at the time I didn’t understand it at all so I chose to ignore him. I figured he would learn soon enough and tomorrow he would be sitting with everyone else.”
“When lunch came around Riley surprised me by sitting next to me in my corner of the lunch room. Things were a little awkward at first but then we started to have a pretty nice chat. It wasn’t long though when the same kid that had started the whole mess walked up to us with his little group of buddies and started pestering me. He told Riley all about the so-called cootie disease that would make everyone super sick. I was starting to get sad again because I thought he would leave me like all the others had, but when I looked at him, I didn’t see any of the disgust the other kids showed before. After a while Riley finally spoke up. ‘What are cooties?’ he asked them. The lead kid was stumped for a second because no one had even bothered to ask that before. They all just took him for his word. Needless to say, the kid did the natural kid thing and started making stuff up as he went along. He started spouting nonsense like ‘You would start puking blood’ and ‘you grow purple polka dots if you have cooties’. Riley just said ‘Well if you grow polka dots when you have cooties than I should be fine than. SHE doesn’t have any Polka dots at all.’
The lead kid was stumped for a moment since he was caught in his own lies and Riley was quick to turn the tables on him. ‘You know, now that you mention it, I think I’m starting to see a few purple dots on your face. Maybe you’re the one with the cooties, huh?’ After that, the kids standing near him were quick to leave him and spread the word that he had cooties. Ironically 2 weeks later that kid actually got hit with some chicken pox of his own. Turned out his little brother had them and he got them from him. As the days passed by, Riley and I kept hanging out and when no sudden outbreak of cooties happened things at school settled down and everyone stopped avoiding me. Riley and I have been friends ever since.”
Puff and Delric shared in the laughter of the memory. Puff decided to tell his own story now that the ice was broken. “My story isn’t as good as yours Tany, but it still means a lot to me. I was there at the school with you and Riley, but I never really met you guys until about halfway through the school year. I had always been somewhat of a class clown and was always getting in trouble with the shit that I sometimes pulled. I was in the middle of doing exactly one of those pranks when I had met Riley. I was about to light off a stink bomb in the boy’s bathroom and he walked in just before I was about to light the fuse. I was so sure he was gonna run out and tell the teachers so when he asked me what I was doing I don’t know why I told him. I guess I was just scared and I thought if I was honest he might let me go without telling anyone.
Instead of busting me, he does the opposite. He gave me the most brilliant idea ever. We had these old antique hand dryers in our bathrooms that would blow hot air when you activated the motion sensor. He showed me how to pop open the tops of these things and took one of my stink bombs and wrapped it around the heating coils inside the thing so that the next time someone used it, the heat would light the fuse and instead of blowing out hot air, it blew out the stink bomb’s stench. He also suggested I do the same thing in the girls room so the teachers couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl. They would probably assume it was a boy, but they could never be entirely sure if we did the same thing to both genders. The prank went off without a hitch and the whole school was talking about it for a week when the bathrooms got blocked for ‘maintenance’. Since than, we haven’t exactly been partners in crime, but we have been close friends ever since, and Riley wasn’t shy about helping out in the occasional practical joke” Luke stood up on his stump and bowed when he finished his story prompting the others to sarcastically applaud him and his shenanigans.
Now, it was Delric’s turn to tell his own story and even though he hesitated at first he made himself comfortable on the ground and got the ball rolling. “I don’t think that there was really any first time that Riley and I actually met. He was one of those people that you were aware of in class but never went out of your way to talk to with anything further than a brief greeting before going on with your business. He asked me for some help with notes once or twice because I was very organized with my work and he appreciated the tidiness when he had sick days to make up for. If there was any one event that triggered close companionship, I would say it was the day that he had saved my life.
I had been walking home from school. The school I was at was a short walk from the bus stop but there was a shortcut through a secluded area that went behind a few houses. It didn’t cut down that much on time, but for any kid impatient to get home it was tempting enough to lure the occasional traveler. I myself had gone through several times before. This time though was a little bit different. I had been finishing up a class assignment before leaving school so I was a little behind the usual foot traffic that went through there and by the time I made it to the shortcut I was the only one there. Any other time I should have been fine but that particular day I was unfortunate to meet with a down-on-his-luck mugger who was quick to take advantage of a little kid to gain his untold riches. Before I knew what was going on, I had been backed into a corner with a knife at my throat. I was so sure that as soon as the guy had my credits in his account he was going to kill me. At that moment… I thought I was going to die.
Before things could get to out of hand Riley had snuck up behind the man and knocked him out with a brick he had picked up off the ground. We took away the knife and the police were just arriving. When I asked him how he knew where I was he told me that he had been following me when he had seen me go into the shortcut alone. He was worried something might happen so he had been ready to call the authorities at a seconds notice. He had always been smart like that. Any school test would give him a pretty hard time, but when things got hairy and you had to make the right decision on short notice Riley was the kind of person who wouldn’t fumble things. He was good at making tough calls during a tough situation. Thankfully, Riley’s gut reaction saved my life and since then I had endeavored to stay close to Riley and help him out whenever I could.”
Delric shivered when he finished his story, despite how close to the fire he was. Thinking about how close to death he had come at that moment alway brought a chill to his spine but he was thankful for all the years that Riley’s act of heroism bought him. He looked up to see both Puff and Tanyargh were smiling at him and he couldn’t help but smile back. The three of them sat there enjoying their dinner and speaking late into the night about the past and the memories they all enjoyed together. The hours passed by without being noticed and laughter and tears alike abounded throughout the clearing as time slipped away. Oddly enough nothing bothered them the entire night. Wolves kept their distance, bears wandered elsewhere for their prey, and the nightlife played a soothing background noise to their conversations.
Nearby though hiding behind a tree, back pressed to the trunk, stood a tall and beautiful woman. Her face remained almost expressionless as she stood there but if one were to look into her eyes you could see the waves of emotion swimming just under the surface throughout the night as she listened to the three adventurers tell stories of the past, unaware of the women’s presence.