Collide Gamer

The first thing that hit John was a keg. As one object it met Particle Skin, and in a shower of wooden and metal splinters, it bounced back into the open room. Rambunctious laughter echoed in the air, filled with the scent of grilled meat and sweat. It was hot in a way that only open fire places could create. Red light from unnaturally tinged flames basked every surface.

The décor was primitive. Everything was handmade and done so without care for uniformity. Edges were jagged, corners uneven, and wherever the architects were able to add spikes without creating an immediate threat to someone’s life, they had. Years of playing video games had taught John to expect a certain race within an environment like this. The stereotype was proven entirely correct.

Tusked humanoids, musclebound regardless of sex, laughed and drank and wrestled. Most had green skin, some brown, a few even red. They were covered in tribal paint and scars. The shortest among them still stood at equal height with John.

They were inside some kind of orc structure. “I TOLDZ YA THAT DOOR OPENZ!” one of the warriors shouted, pointing in their direction. “HUMIEZ!”

“OYLROIGHT! GONNA GRANT YOU THAT ONE!” some woman shouted over the general noise and the aggressive beat of the nearby drum circle.

That was the most overt reaction they got from the orcs. The quartet of humans were treated as a curiosity, pointed at and laughed about, but otherwise ignored. John advanced with the self-certainty someone of his calibre could afford. Truthfully speaking, 500 levels ago, he would not have agreed to this being his Bachelor’s night. Even 200 levels ago, he would have been concerned. Only because he now was where he was in both power and reputation did he dare spend the night getting drunk in unfamiliar places.

‘Well, probably going to stay low on the liquor until we settle back in the Palace,’ John admitted to himself.

A railing fashioned from sawed off tree branches and stretched hides separated one edge of the room from a drop. The room they were in turned out to be one of several half-open segments overseeing a fighting pit. It was octagonal, about 10 strides across, and had a floor of compacted, red sand, no doubt tinged by the blood spilled on it over the years.

It was currently in use. Two enormous orcs were beating the crap out of each other. Neither seemed to care for their defences, though their biology meant they didn’t have to either. Though John did not interact with the various fantasy races that existed in pockets of the Abyss much, he did know that orcs benefitted both from a very thick skull and an accelerated healing factor. It wasn’t to the degree that one could actively watch their wounds heal, just enough that they could afford their berserker rages without much consequences.

“Not usually my kind of venue,” Magnus remarked, ducking just in time under a flying mug. The fight in the pit was far from the only one. The orcs in the crowd guzzled down entire kegs of some frothing brew.

Maximillian took a look around, his expression split between a decadently raised eyebrow and a smile. “We can leave. Up to the groom.”

“The groom.” John chortled. “Ah, so close, so close…” He hopped excitedly from one foot onto the other. “I think we can stay for a bit, at least.”

“Good,” Ted weighed in with a smirk. “This is a rare kind of place.”

They wandered to an adjacent chamber in search of a table. Each room was flat, so the only way to keep an eye on the fighting pit was to stand or sit by the railing. The combat seemed to be side entertainment at best. Finding a seat was surprisingly easy.

Each of the chambers had its own bar. Alcohol was poured out in concerning quantities. An orcish wench approached them with thunder to her step. She was far beyond John’s preferences for muscles, toned in a way that made Metra look merely athletic by comparison. The tusks didn’t help. They were the one variety of sharp teeth that John knew that he found actively ugly.

All of those were thoughts he kept to himself. He was too occupied with four mugs of frothing mystery brew that the orcess put in front of them. With a meaty thud, she then put her hand, palm up, on the table. “Pay up. None of that shitty paper money that you humiez use.”

“How about this?” Maximillian pulled a Token from his personal pocket dimension.

The orcess bowed down, her yellow eyes inspecting the metal coin for a moment. “Yes, that’s good,” she grunted and pulled it out of the king’s hand. “Coin from… what’z dat place called? Meldin’?”

“Fusion,” John corrected.

“Roight.” The orcess turned around without further comment. “Don’t die from the rotgut.”

“…Rotgut?” Magnus eyed the brew in front of him with growing distrust. All four of them tilted forwards, taking a whiff. It smelled bitter like beer and yet had the stinging note of pure ethanol. Each mug was easily over half a litre as well. “I am uncertain if I am brave enough for that.”

“Then I will forge ahead,” Ted declared and grabbed the handle of his mug. The other three men watched with concern as the soldier put the froth to his lips and took a deep gulp. “Aaaaahhh!” he let out the held breath when he placed it down. “Tastes kind of sweet. It is weird. Some kind of mead, maybe?”

“I am not taking my chances.” Magnus pushed the mug away and pulled a glass from his backpack. “If I am about to commit a social faux-pas, I will bear that cross.”

“Same,” John agreed and pushed his own mug back.

“The cowards shall drain their reserves then.” Maximillian raised his mug, clinking it against Ted’s. They drank once, then a second time when John and Magnus joined them with their own drinks. “So, John, gaining the ire of the world aside, what recent adventures of yours can we use as a conversation starter?”

“Hmm…” John looked around, considering what he wanted to divulge in this environment. Contact with the outside world appeared to be quite limited. “I think Remus is trying to spy on me.”

“Oh, that is dramatic.” Maximillian would have reclined in the chair, but one of the spikes on the backrest jabbed him in a wrong way. “Any proof of that?”

“No, it’s just that someone is spying on me that covers their tracks so well that not even the Horned Rat or Lorelei can find them. Rather limited list of possibilities.” John sipped from his orange juice (the percentage of vodka in it was negligible). “Of course I do have someone who is even better at it, but employing her help has… difficulties.”

“I assume you mean Layla?” Magnus asked.

“Indeed.”

Ted continued to down the rotgut at a concerning rate. “What is the status on her, anyhow?” he asked, alcohol loosening his tongue. “Still cumming her brains out when she’s around you?”

“Indeed,” John repeated. “Interesting problem to have, isn’t it?”

“Honestly, when it comes to you, buddy, it’s a problem I expect you to have.” Shaking his head, the gravity king gestured at the Gamer like he was some kind of exotic animal. “The power of a game engine that gives you the tools to realize all of your wishes and you use it for orgasm auras.”

“I’m just a man,” John retorted.

“No, you are an exceptionally horny man,” Maximillian drawled. “Are you or are you not about to expand your harem by adding a stalker to it?”

“…I’m thinking about it,” John confessed, to the collective groans of the men at the table. “I can fix her!” he declared. “Momo and Lorelei already made great strides in that, okay? Plus, it might be good for me to have someone in my life who will stare daggers at women who approach me. It’ll help with future temptations.”

Maximillian continued shaking his head. “’Hey, guys, let me just fix my pussy addiction by rewarding a woman for stalking me by knocking her up and making her an empress.’” He paused for a moment. “That’s you, buddy.”

“She is a security risk,” Ted gave a simpler comment.

Magnus just nodded.

“Yeah, yeah.” John waved off. “Lay it on all you want, but I am the emperor with the massive and successful harem. In the end, y’all don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“‘Y’all?’” the Fateweaver at the table quoted. “Are you being absorbed by Hailey now?”

“Don’t they say that you pick up speaking habits from the ten people you are closest to?” the Gamer wondered. “My speech has definitely drifted here and there over the years.”

“Except for the ‘well’,” Maximillian teased.

“Well,” John’s voice dripped with sarcastic intention, “I think we talked enough about me… Ted, what’s new in your life?”

“Contemplating whether I want to try to have my arm grown back,” he responded.

“That’s an option?” John asked. The limb had been lost to Hellfire during Siegmund’s invasion of the Little Maryland. The Contender had severed others, but those had been recovered and re-attached by the wonders of the Apothecaries.

“I have the means now to look into it. You have made me important enough.” Ted raised his mechanical arm, testing the motions of his fingers. “Not that this hand has treated me poorly.”

“I don’t think it’d be worth your time. Delicia has looked into it extensively, for obvious reasons.” John tapped his cheek, right beneath his eye. “If she can’t fix it, I doubt you’ll find someone who can… then again, we live in a Re-Aligned world, so what do I know?”

Ted acknowledged his thoughts with a grunt, then emptied the rest of the rotgut.

The table turned quiet for a moment, their collective gazes focused on the arena. After minutes of back and forth, the fight ended with one fighter picking up the other, lifting him all the way over his head and then throwing him down. Wind knocked out of him, he remained on his back while the victor beat his chest.

“Do we want to take a spin down there?” Magnus asked.

“Feels kind of a waste not to,” John grunted. “Simultaneously, I don’t think it’d be very interesting. Only one of us who’d get a good fight out of it is you and I don’t think you want to risk rolling your jaw the rest of the evening.”

“Aye.” The long-haired man downed the rest of his whiskey. “How about we change venues then?”

“Works for me,” Maximillian said. He left half the rotgut in the mug. John swiftly drank the rest of his orange juice. Then, they were on their feet.

An orc stumbled into them by ‘accident’. The rough looking fellow was two heads taller than John and broad enough that he would have had to turn his shoulders to pass through most doors. Every attempt to antagonize the quartet into joining the constant scraps going on came to an immediate halt when John stopped the moving mass of muscle and scars with just one hand.

“Careful where you walk,” John reprimanded and shoved the orc back. He was caught by two of his friends, standing ready to join a brawl that they were now convinced not to start. Orcs loved a good fight. A stomp did not fall into that category.

They left the way they came, stepping through the dimensional door back into the Guild Hall. Once the door was closed, Maximillian pulled the Key of Surprises from the lock. Waited three seconds, then pushed it back in. When he turned it, there was a neutral, white light. “Let’s see what we rolled this time!” he declared.

Over the next hour, they repeatedly entered and left a multitude of areas. A gilded cage with man-sized birds, a massive go-cart track, a laboratory where an alchemist showed off his proudest creations, a saloon overlooking a simulated city, a medieval inn, a living tomb filled with undead, those were just a few among the places they saw. The longest time was spent in a large stadium where horse girls were racing, the shortest in what was clearly an exhibitionist’s personal masturbation chamber. It was like stumbling into something horrid on chat roulette.

Though he could have done without seeing that, John found the evening generally interesting thus far. As a ruler, he thought he had a pretty good overview of the various facets of Abyssal society, but the truth of the matter went much deeper.

There were millions of people in the Abyss, billions even. Having a community of hundreds with a degree of isolationism that made the Amish blush was pretty easy, especially since magic and Illusion Barriers allowed a degree of hidden self-sufficiency that doomsday preppers could only dream of. Among these isolated tribes and people, those that could afford to put up Wandering Barriers were either determined or eccentric or both.

It was a view into a lifestyle that John would never share. The idea of having a door through which strangers could come without warning made his introvert’s soul squirm with dread.

“Let’s see what’s next!” Maximillian declared.