It was Crawford. Just seeing him made me want to log out. With him, it was the worst of both worlds. Not only was I treated to his sparkling personality in Infarna, but he also worked in my office. 

Crawford didn’t really know me, and he certainly didn’t know I worked in his office. Added to that was the fact that I changed character every week or so, after selling them. Despite that, he always stopped to talk to me. He was a lonely guy.

“Having fun levelling with the imps?” he said.

“And I suppose you came straight into the game at level 30?” I answered.

He folded his arms. The stuffed heads across his belt shook, and I heard the bones rattle. “Actually, I did. I paid some chump to grind for me.”

I hadn’t considered that before, but it made sense. Of course Crawford would buy his character from a reseller! I just hoped it wasn’t me. I’d hate to have done his work for him. I thought about it. I’d levelled a hunter a couple of years back, but that was for a woman who wanted to stalk her husband in-game and make sure he wasn’t flirting. No, I hadn’t sold a hunter since then.

Crawford stood with his hands on his hips. With the bun on the center of his head and the flowing hair at the sides, he looked so ridiculous that it made me angry. He puffed his chest out.

“Shadow walker, eh? Never seen one of those before,” he said. “And I’ve seen a lot. Killed the Dostoon Basilisk last week. Took five NPC mercs with me, and two guys I found on a message board. I was the only one who made it through without a respawn. Took 6 hours, but I got through.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. Dostoon was a city I’d heard of, but I had no idea about a basilisk there. Why was he telling me this?

The thing about Crawford was as much as he annoyed me, I felt sorry for him. It was obvious to everyone who knew him that he was desperate for his dad’s approval. Being ignored all his life had turned him into an ass.

In lots of ways, it wasn’t even his fault. His dad had divorced his mum when Crawford was only 3, and then he’d beaten her in court to get custody of their son. Only, once he had custody, he’d let a nanny raise Crawford. He had barely spoken to him.

How did I know this? On a staff evening event, Crawford had gotten drunk and spent thirty minutes spilling everything to me. The day after, he’d walked by me in the corridor as though we’d never talked.

The thing was, he had a kind side to him. Whenever we were collecting for birthday or wedding presents in the office, Crawford would drop in a few coins. Then, when everyone had left work, he’d go over to the collection, open his wallet, and put even more money in. I don’t know why he needed to hide it. It was like he thought that being kind was something to be ashamed of.

Crawford carried on. “So, I whipped its head off and got the trophy. That makes it 296. You know what that means?”

“That you can count?”

“It means I only have 4 more to go. Impressive, isn’t it? Four more creatures to kill until I get the achievement. I know where three of them are, so soon that’ll leave one.”

The smug edge to his voice was back. Even knowing what he was like, I couldn’t help but get annoyed. For his own good, someone had to teach him a lesson one day.

“It must be great having money do the work for you,” I said.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Crawford glared at me. “You think I don’t know about the game? How about this, then. Just east of us there are 4 imps. Combined HP of 478, an attack power of roughly 8 DMG. With their size and speed, they can probably hit me 2 times per 5 seconds, meaning I’d lose 64 HP before I can attack. If I move back into parry mode, that gets halved. But if I step out of reach and use my bow, I can take down all 4 in one shot, if I score a critical.

“But at that range, and with my luck stats taken into account, I’d get a critical roughly every 1 in 38 shots. My reload speed is around a second with the bonus I’ve gained from using my crossbow. It’s a four bolt, meaning I can shoot 4 arrows at once. So, while they can probably score 64 DMG per 5 seconds with perfect hits, I can score 400DMG. In 5 seconds, staying out of range, all four imps will meet their maker.”

“Great,” I said. “But you haven’t seen the spider snakes in the tree next to the imps. They have a 1 in 20 chance of scoring a poison effect. Plus, their sneak attacks would make you move back further, slowing your reload speed. Maybe you don’t see everything, after all.”

He stared at me. He put his hands out in front of him, as if the words were appearing in mid-air in a big font.

“Whatever,” he said. “Picture this. Crawford the Hunter – the 3rd person to get the Every Creature achievement.”

“Great. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

He scoffed. “Well, you clearly aren’t. Listen, if you need to get help killing imps, you can always ask your daddy to hold your hand.”

I was going to answer him (and trust me, it would have been an amazing comeback) when I heard yelling from the distance. Far away, near a tree that stretched out of the ground so that it looked like a hand, Loria was fighting three rats. One of them tried to bite her boots, but she crushed its head with one strike of her staff.

I walked away. I headed toward a pack of forest imps, who turned and sneered when they saw me. I pulled my sword from its sheath and held it in an attack stance. With the right hit, I could cleave two imps at once.

It was time to use one of my cantrips. I activated Minor Illusion, creating a hologram copy of myself. I sidestepped, leaving the hologram in the place where I’d stood. One of the snakes turned its attention to my replica. With its attention diverted, I cleaved the remaining snake with my sword. It took two hits before I was rewarded with EXP.

The other snake coiled up, then sprung on my copy. As soon as it touched it, the hologram disappeared. It gave me enough time to strike the snake, slicing through its scaly body with a critical hit.

I felt a stinging pain on my calf. I turned to see that three more snakes had dropped. One of them had hit me for 5 HP, but thankfully I wasn’t given a poison debuff. With my Minor Illusion cantrip on cooldown, I would have to fight them the old-fashioned way. Blade Turn wouldn’t be good here, since the creatures weren’t using weapons. There was no point casting Glowing Lights.

Instead, I waited for one of them to strike. As it leapt toward me I took a step back and let it fall in front of me, then sliced it. The snake jerked back, and my blade missed.

Another snake went to my left, the other to my right. It was yet another example of how advanced the AI was in Infarna. It was amazing that low-level beasts like these could use a pincer tactic to fight me.

I sliced to my left, striking one snake on the mouth and killing it instantly. I felt a sting of pain as the one on my right hit me. I waited for a poison debuff to appear, but it seemed I had gotten lucky again.

Four swings later, and all the snakes lay dead. I kneeled and looted their bodies, earning three snake skins and 4 GD coins for my trouble. I would sell the skins to a pelt trader in the village later. After that, I’d bank the GD in my account, ready to be transferred to my real-life bank.

That was the beauty of Infarna. Money earned in the game could be sent into the real world. Of course, it lost a lot of value in the process. 1 GD in Infarna was worth around 0.20GD in the real world but hey, it all added up.

As I stood up, there was a flash of light. I felt a surge of energy run through me, soaking into my arms and legs and then settling into my chest.

The forest began to fade around me. The air shimmered, and my body felt light. I heard a noise. It sounded like a dire wolf was growling, but the sound was stretched out, as though someone had taken both ends of it and was pulling it apart.

I wondered if I was experiencing a computer error. Infarna servers went down from time to time, but that was rare. These days, you were more likely to have problems with your water supply than your internet connection.

For a few second I was lost in nothingness. I felt as though I was standing on something solid, but there was nothing but darkness around me. I heard a clap, and then white lights flickered above me.

I was in a room. Bare white walls and flooring, with not a mark on them. There was a metal table in the center of the room, and two chairs around it.  Sat in one of them, there was a man.