CHAPTER 15: COMPARING NOTES

  WC:1577

  Carl and sat across from me at the table. Kailee was in a meeting with someone from HR, so we waited and kept a seat open in case she got done while we were still at lunch. Mel was up arguing with the coffee maker again. It was one of the pod machine ones and it didn’t love the generic pods someone bought.

  “I miss my companion,” I said. “Carl, you should have seen her. It was awesome how fast my skills went up while the mage was killing everything. I should have run around with her all day. Now that I know how slow levelling is, I wish she had followed me around a bit longer.”

  “Maybe there will be more opportunities?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. She fried everything with like one hit.”

  “You were in which town?” he asked.

  “Majah. I’m playing as Rahinn.”

  “Best race to pick for a rogue if you plan on stealing and solo questing,” Mel said, sounding unimpressed as she hovered over us with four or five wet, brown napkins stuck all over her cup and hand.

  I moved over a seat so she could sit next to me. “That’s what I thought too.”

  “Rahinn have the bonus health, magic, and stamina, and all three recovery. You could have gone with Tonzu for straight DPS. They have way bigger stamina bonus and stamina recovery bonus—you know, if you were going for highest damage per second. They have the same modifier to sneak detection range as the Rahinn.”

  “Yeah, I thought about that, but I wasn’t sure how the attributes worked out and we’ll just say that my first run through of the fake game during the interview didn’t help explain anything. Mr. Kranz had 20 Health, 20 Magic, and 20 Stamina.”

  “I think whoever made those toons for testing were either high or having a laugh,” Carl said. “I talked with Ronnie and he said the same thing.” Carl pointed out Ronnie at a nearby table. “His test toon was Schneewittchen, which means Snow White, and she was dressed in full dragon leather armor and had all the assassin skills maxed.”

  “Rogues are the best!” I couldn’t wait to get my skills maxed. “I want dragon armor.”

  “The Annai have a huge bonus to stamina too,” Mel said. “Are you planning on using a bow?”

  “I don’t know. Right now I’m using sword and shield.”

  “Gotta level all your skills up,” Carl said. You got time to get all the weapons. I started with sword and shield too.”

  “But you’re a knight. A Vánd knight.” Mel crossed her arms. “Yeah, and what’s up with that? What happened to making a healer?” Mel teased him.

  “I read the class skills and got excited about burning shit,” Carl said, sheepishly. “I’ll do a healer too, I guess. I think we got to finish a certain amount of the beginner stuff and they let us make a second toon, right?”

  Mel shrugged. “Something like that. I can’t remember. You’re planning on making him a tank, right?”

  “Guess so. I mean, I’m cool with that,” Carl said. “Right now, I’m level seven and have a lot of skills to raise. I need to get out of my first zone so I can get the skill points from completing main quest line objectives.”

  “How many skill points do you get for that?” I asked.

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  “One per quest completion.” Mel sipped her coffee. “But they’re long quests. We have to finish our noob zones first. You know, before they let us loose on the rest of the world.”

  “Oh shit,” Carl said. “Trust the girl with pig tails to take over the world.”

  “That’s right. You should run. Scared. I’m going to light things up!”

  “Heh,” I chuckled. “I don’t doubt it. I was telling Carl a minute ago about how I got a companion on my first day. A mage. I had to lead her to town and while she was following me she blasted everything with lightning and my skills all went up.”

  “That’s how I’m getting through everything too. Blazing through, with lightning burning down everything in my path.” Mel fake cackled. “I bought an ability at level four that turns me into pure lightning and increases movement speed, so I literally am blazing through everything. Bolts shoot from me and kill things.”

  “I’m level four too,” I said.

  “I’m level six, almost seven,” Mel said. “At level eight I get a passive ability that reduces health, magic, and stamina costs of my abilities 3%. So much more damage I can do! Aak, just one level and a little bit to go. I need about 800 XP to get LV. 7, and then just over 4000 to reach LV. 8.”

  “You almost done with your beginning zone?” Carl said, “I’m about finished with my zone. I started in Dramagh. I got one quest line left, I think.

  “Oh yeah, that’s the starting town for the Vánd too? I’m Kelden. Obviously I’m in Dramagh too, because it’s our home territory.”

  “Did you go to the Apothecarium, or whatever it’s called?” Cark asked Mel.

  “Like, first thing. I plan on using potions and poisons and wanted to start getting my skill raised as soon as possible.”

  Carl nodded and finished his sandwich. “I just ate all my ingredients I picked up. My skill went up to five.”

  Mel laughed. “I hope you did it somewhere safe.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, mentally noting that I could eat the ingredients instead of going back to Pradeep’s Potions and wasting everything in the cauldron that never seemed to produce an actual potion.

  “If you eat something toxic you get a bad effect,” Mel explained. “So you want to do it somewhere safe. In a farm field or something. No people around, but no enemies either.”

  “I went blind for two minutes,” Carl said. “That was one of the worst ones.”

  “Which quest are you on?” Mel asked. “I just got done with the graveyard. Did you do that one yet? I know how you love the zombies.”

  “Ooh, that’s one I wanted to get through as quick as possible. I hate that creepy stuff.” Carl shook his head. “I did it yesterday. Luckily fire is the key to taking out undead fast. I might be done with the quest I’m on too, just gotta return to the king. Guess I’ll see tomorrow. Unless they let us go back in this afternoon.”

  “The meeting is supposed to run until 3pm,” Mel said. “We should have an hour after unless they send us home early. I’d be okay with that. I have to help my friend move some stuff she bought at an estate sale. Her house looks like a hoarder home on that show.”

  I balled up my trash. “Yeah, I have some stuff going on today too. I guess it’d be okay to get home early.”

  Mr. Brewster entered the break room. “A reminder, folks. We have a mandatory meeting at 1pm in Conference Room 3. Make sure you are there on time, please. Corporate is visiting us today and we want to leave them with a good impression of our office.”

  When he left, I said, “I have to make a phone call, see you there.” I excused myself and threw away my trash. The office was a busy place, so I went out to the parking lot so I could use my phone.

  I let it ring and when it went to voicemail I hung up.

  I threw the phone into the passenger seat and laid on my steering wheel, covering my face with my arms. I really needed to talk, and Jess was the only person who knew anything about what was going on. About how our family was broken and damaged beyond repair.

  Summer was so lonely. As happy as I was that I had a job doing something awesome, I was also completely cut off from the things that felt normal. School, the people I knew and sat with every day at lunch, the teachers who I talked to and visited during study hall. I don’t know if I was ready for my last year to be over, but I also hoped it went by fast because I wanted to get out and be on my own. Anything to escape the feeling of being trapped in an unhappy and miserable place.

  Sitting in my car, worrying about going home and the looming weekend made my eyes sting. I used my sweatshirt sleeve to absorb any tears that might have leaked out, and waited, hoping the phone would ring. I really wanted to talk to her before the end of the day.

  There was a knocking sound and I ignored it.

  When it sounded again, I lifted my head slightly.

  I turned to see Mel peering in my passenger side window.

  The door opened and I sat up, startled. Mel closed the door and sat there, silent as I was for a whole minute. I didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t say anything. The awkward silence just stretched on and on until finally she said, “Tyler, are you okay? And before you answer, just…tell me the truth. Not some, yeah I’m fine, so I shut up or something.”

  She didn’t look at me, and so I turned back to face forward too and said very quietly, “No.”