Miguel and David were sitting on the couches when he returned to their guild hall. The replay of their encounter with the red dragon was once again on the conjured screen. This time the perspective appeared to be from Miguel’s point of view. A variety of spells were shooting out at the monster as the edges of the field of view crackled with energy. 

This must be about the point he’s hitting the Mana Depression threshold.

“Hey man, we’re just about to the good part.” Miguel waved him over to join them. 

“We about to kill it?” He asked as he moved a pillow to sit next to David. 

“No, it’s about to—“ The dragon on the screen lashed out with its claws and destroyed the replay Ethan’s shield. “Destroy your shield.”

Ethan hurled his pillow at Miguel as his friend laughed. 

“I had been meaning to ask: you didn’t check it’s durability before we went in?” David looked up from his notepad. After any major encounter, he always replayed what had happened from as many people as he could, looking for any weak spots in their tactics. 

“It was barely damaged before we went in. I caught that fire breath and then the claw attack right after.” Ethan shook his head. “Completely wrecked my shit.”

He watched another few seconds. 

“Have you been able to see where Daniel was the entire time? I still don’t see him.” Daniel hadn’t contributed much if anything Ethan recalled. 

“Miguel had eyes on him right before his pet pulled. After that I think he pulled his wolf back to him and just hid.”

The entire feed started to get blurry as they watched Sam leap at the injury Ethan had just caused to the beast’s eye socket. 

His Mana Depression was worse than I realized. If we hadn’t killed it just then, he would have blacked out. 

Almost on that thought the screen went completely dark for several seconds. 

Ethan looked at Miguel.

“I didn’t realize you passed out.”

“Yeah, just for a couple of seconds. It wasn’t the first time it happened, and probably won’t be the last.” Miguel looked somber at watching himself lose consciousness. 

“Just be careful when you’re healing us. Call out for Leah to back you up if you need it.” Tact wasn’t always a strong suit for David, but his words always came from a place of caring. 

“Will do. You got any advice for going Holy?” Miguel was stepping into the role that David had just left. “You made it look so easy.”

“Don’t focus too much on your Int. That’ll help your heals and mana pool size, but if you neglect your spirit it won’t regen for shit.” He thought for a second, trying to remember how he’d distributed stat points early on. “I think I alternated 2-0 Int and Spirit for the first 10 levels and then split evenly for a while in each until I was comfortable with my regen. Then I started dumping into Int.”

Miguel nodded and he eyes glazed over as he swiped in the air, trying to allocate the saved points he had. 

“Still no word from Sam?” David looked at Ethan next to him. 

“Nada. I tried a PM but he wasn’t in a town so I sent him a message.” He checked the in game time. “We got about two hours before everyone is supposed to be back, so I’ll hit him again in an hour. If he still isn’t getting PMs then I doubt he’ll be here in time.”

“What’re you going to do if he’s not here?” Annoyance tinted David’s question. As a whole, there weren’t too many disagreements in the guild, but David and Sam were often the exception to that. 

“Not sure yet. He hasn’t missed a meeting before.” Ethan got up and walked over to the kitchen. Unlike a kitchen in the real world, there was no cabinets or refrigerator. All food items were stored in the kitchen’s inventory and kept fresh the same as they would in any bag. 

He selected one of varieties of ales David kept stocked and returned to the couch. 

“You drinking already?” David glanced at him as he sat down. 

“Dude, this entire digital world has either water, juice or alcohol to drink. I would kill for a soft drink.”

Beside him David took a sip of his own flagon. 

“I wasn’t judging.”

Before Ethan could reply, the door opened behind them. 

“Finally!” Tae-Won, Daniel and Leah thundered through the door. Leah immediately crashed face first onto the couch next to Miguel. 

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“The bed in our Grassmere instance was so hard.” She rolled onto her back. “I’ve missed softness.”

Daniel waved at everyone as he made a beeline for the stairs to his bedroom. 

“How hard was it to carry Daniel through?” David gestured in the direction of the departing man. 

“Not bad. The bullywug quest felt like a slog.” Tae-Won pushed his wife over and sat next to her. “The mobs scale with the party and so we had to deal with an extra person’s worth of damage and health without having the actual person to kill them.”

“What do you mean ‘carry him’?” Miguel looked confused. 

“Oh shit, I forgot we didn’t tell you.” Ethan took another sip of his drink. “Daniel is no longer going to be actively grouping with us. He decided it would be better if he took a crafting class and supported us like that.”

He tried to keep his statement as neutral as possible, but Miguel didn’t let it go. 

“He decided, or you decided?” He asked, looking at everyone else. 

“It was a mutual decision.” Leah answered. “David actually suggested it and Daniel agreed it was the best possible idea.”

“What were the other options?” Miguel continued pushing for information. 

“That I gkick him.” Ethan’s statement had a finality to it that shut down Miguel from asking anything else. “We’ll talk about what it means for the guild when Sam gets here.”

“If Sam gets here you mean.” David added unhelpfully. 

“What do you mean ‘if’?” Now it was apparently Tae-Won’s turn to ask unhelpful questions. 

“Sam hasn’t checked in since he told me he rolled a cleric.” Ethan was starting to get annoyed, this was all information that could cause squabbling and put off everyone’s mood before they met. 

“We just saw him on our way here.” Leah waved her hand at herself and Tae-Won, who nodded in agreement. “He was going into a tavern a few blocks away.”

Ethan sat upright at that information and sent a PM to Sam, if he was where they said he was he’d get the message instantly. 

To Sam: Hey man, Leah just said she saw you. Good to know you’re okay, you going to be here in time for the meeting?

Several seconds passed in silence as he waited for a reply. 

From Sam: shit. Yeah man, I’m at Old Hog’s. Had some trouble on the road. I’ll be there in time. 

Ethan felt both relief and annoyance. Sam should have checked in earlier. As it was Ethan felt completely unprepared for any discussion on group composition and that would just drag out the meeting. 

To Sam: cool cool. See you soon.  

From Sam: Going to stop to get a haircut. Fucking game thinks that because I’m black I need to start with either dreadlocks or an afro. Can’t a guy just get a decent fade?

He laughed as he relayed the information Sam had just shared with him and sipped his drink. Sam was a consummate perfectionist. His appearance matched his play style: sharp and orderly. Miguel may show up in wrinkled robes, but Sam was always clean cut. 

“Your outward appearance is a reflection of who you are on the inside. If you’re messy outside, you’re messy inside.” He’d drunkenly told Ethan one night at Tara’s. 

Ethan agreed with him, it was the same on the line. A cook with a messy station was more likely to get weeded. A clean cutting board and everything in its place made a dinner shift go smoother. 

“What do you think he meant by trouble?” Leah looked conceded, by all accounts the route between Grassmere and Startesgarde was supposed to be safe. 

“He didn’t say. But,” Ethan hesitated, remembering his own delay on the caravan ride to town. “On my way in, some guys from the Blood Dragon guild were harassing wagons. They tried to make the NPC in charge pay 10g a wagon to pass through.”

That got everyone’s attention. Griefing wasn’t uncommon in other areas of the game, but it was generally understood that the Planes of Aranor were off limits. 

“What?” Miguel looked concerned for his friend. “You didn’t tell anyone that. What did you do?”

“I haven’t really had time to bring it up, I was going to say something when we’re all together.” Ethan pulled from his drink again. 

“I flashed my name and guild tag and told them that if they didn’t let us through, Donovan would hear about it.” Ethan finished the story as nonchalantly as possible without looking anyone in the face. 

“So essentially you went and told mommy.” David’s retort generated a little laughter from Tae-Won and Miguel. 

“Hey, what was I supposed to do?” Ethan’s indignation was mock. After all, that was exactly what he’d done. “They had over 20 levels on me, were raid geared and there were six of them.”

“What did Arianna say?” Leah still sounded concerned. His guild all knew of the relationship between Ethan and the Coordinator. They also knew that it meant when they applied to join the Raid Clan everyone would need to be above reproach so there wasn’t any issue of favoritism. 

“That she was going to let Donovan handle it.” He finished his drink and stood up, slightly light headed from drinking on a mostly empty stomach.

“Okay, I’m going to lay down for a few minutes before Sam gets here.” He looked individually at everyone present. “We’re still meeting as a whole down here, and I want to see everyone in their gear. We need to see what we’re working with before we start diving into the vault.”

Everyone nodded their agreement. 

“What about Daniel?” Tae-Won chimed in. “He doesn’t really have any armor or weapons. Crafters don’t have many proficiencies.”

Truthfully, that hadn’t occurred to Ethan. Fuck, what does a Blacksmith wear? Or use?

“Just tell him to show up. We’ll figure it out then.” Ethan said as he went back up to his room. 

His bed was warm from the sunlight coming in through the window. As he lay in it, his mind wandered to his conversations with Miguel and Tara. The guild was his family in the game, but he also had a family that was being kept from. 

At least Miguel had someone he could be close to. I’m alone here. 

No. He forced himself away from that thought. What they have works for them, but I don’t want that kind of distraction. Not with another player or with an NPC. Better that I’m alone. 

He stretched his arms and legs out, determined to enjoy the fact that he had his bed to himself. But as he dozed off, he dreamed of someone unseen and unknown in the bed next to him and that thought, that feeling of not being completely cut off comforted him. And he wondered, in a sleepy haze, if he wasn’t lying to himself.