Dueling Dungeons (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Nine

Meet Up

After about an hour’s worth of messaging and digging through his guild’s profiles, Scott Bayani had figured out how many POSes were within driving distance of LA, then mass-sent them a message telling them to meet him IRL.

It wasn’t until he was sitting in a corner of the Starbucks by his apartment with a venti caramel frappucino in his hand that he realized nobody might show up. There wasn’t any way to prove he was legit and not just a serial killer trying to lure them out where he could murder them or some shit. Probably the only thing going for his message was that it was a mass-send, so everybody could see they’d outnumber him.

If they showed up.

The man-bunned barista was already eyeing Scott like he was getting ready to bounce him so this big table would be free when business started to pick up.

“Balls,” Scott muttered and sucked some more icy caramel-y goodness out of the cup.

He adjusted the folded piece of paper he’d written Poser Owners on so that it faced the door better. Or maybe he should point the front toward the room. Shit. He should’ve brought the sharpie with him, then he could’ve put the Guild name on the back, too, cover both directions.

He glanced up at the counter again, wondering if Man Bun would let him borrow a pen.

“Um, excuse me.”

Scott turned back to find a short, thick girl with nerd glasses blinking down at him. A couple blemishes were spread across her dark brown cheeks, visible even though she’d obviously tried to cover them up with makeup.

“Look, sis, I’ve got a big party coming in,” Scott said. “They’ll be here in a minute. Go stick a couple tables together if you need more room.”

But the chick didn’t back off. She twisted her purse string around her fingers. The bag was printed with those little skull moths from Silence of the Lambs.

“This is where the Poser Owners are meeting, right?” She pointed a black-nailed finger at the sign he’d made.

“Oh, shit, yeah.” Scott straightened up in his seat. “Grab a seat. Everybody else should be here soon.”

She pulled out the farthest chair from him and sat down, shifting awkwardly and putting her bag on the table between them like a shield or something. Chick was obviously way shy.

Scott kept running through the list of people he’d invited, but he couldn’t guess which one she was. He thought he’d only invited one chick. The Poser Owners weren’t exactly rolling in high-level female players. But guys had been known to impersonate ladies online sometimes, so maybe this girl was from the flip-side, impersonating a guy.

“So, I guess we can go ahead and get the introductions out of the way while we’re waiting. I’m PwnrBwner, Guildmaster and all-around baller, and you are?”

“Oh, hey, Pwnr,” she said, smoothing a strand of hair out of the way of her glasses. “Nice to meet you.” She gave a girly shrug. “I mean, you know, in person. I’m GothicTerror.”

“Yeah, right.” Scott leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Prove it. Say ‘dickbreath.’”

“What? No!”

“Dickbreath or it didn’t happen.”

She shifted uncomfortably, then mumbled, “Dickbreath.”

“Yo, Justin, they’re over here!” A scrawny guy with thinning hair pulled up a seat. “What’s up, Nessa.” He nodded at her, then jerked his chin at Scott. “Hey, it’s Ya_Boy_Flappy_Sak reporting for duty.”

A fat Native American dude wearing a vintage Fate shirt came over and sat down, giving the girl claiming to be GothicTerror a wave.

“Hey, Justin.” She turned to Scott. “PwnrBwner, this is Flappy_Sak and Ninjastein. They’re in my DnD group.”

“Okay, wow.” Scott flopped back in his seat, shaking his head. “I guess I should’ve expected everybody to be the complete opposite of their avatars.”

Flappy_Sak sneered. “Sure, because you’re a totally ripped Ranger-Cleric. Do some Aragorn shit, man, I’ll wait.”

“First of all, screw you and the fat guy you rode in on. Second of all, I’m about to show you something that makes Aragorn and his crew look like a bunch of pansies—”

“Wait, why are we ragging on Tolkien?” a guy sporting a high-top fade and a button down with the tight tuck pulled up a chair. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic sucked.”

“Let me guess,” Scott said, “you’re 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses?”

“Nah, BusterMove99. But you can’t hate on the Tolkien. How familiar are you with his appendices?”

“The appendices?” GothicTerror let out a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a louder cry for help than that.”

Scott snorted. So she wasn’t a total wimp IRL, just one of those people it took a minute to get going in a crowd. That was good, because if these were the losers he had to fight a bunch of IRL Malaika Heralds with, he was going to need his Lieutenant Uber-Bitch set to hard mode.

In less than ten minutes, the last of the Poser Owners had shown up. Nobody looked anything like their avatars, and unfortunately a few smelled worse than an adventurer who’d never taken a shower before would have in the real world. Scott wrinkled up his nose. He’d at least taken the time to spray on a bunch of Axe on his pits before he came to this meeting. You’d think they could’ve done the same.

“All right, listen up, Poser Owners,” Scott said when they’d gotten all the introductions out of the way. “I called you here today because some serious shit’s about to go down, in Hearthworld and IRL.”

A couple hands went up, but he shook his head.

“I’m not answering questions ’til the end. You’re not gonna believe half the crap I have to tell you, anyway, so we’re gonna do this like Show & Tell, and if you’re good I’ll explain everything. Exhibit A.” He stuck out his hand and conjured his Shield Ward. Blue light flashed and a translucent tower shield flared to life. “I can do Hearthworld magic outside the game.”

“Whatever,” the real 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses sneered. “You’ve got a projector on your hand or something.”

“No, I don’t, numbnuts.” With his free hand, Scott pulled his sleeve back to show his empty forearm. “I legit used this thing to deflect a whole 64-ounce cup of Dew at work the other day. Didn’t get a drop on me. Throw something at it. Go ahead.” Nobody moved. “Screamotots, do it.”

GothicTerror frowned, then reached toward the blue tower shield. Her fingertips bumped against it, and Scott felt the bump resonate through his arm.

“It’s real,” she breathed. “How are you doing that?”

“It’s not real,” Hobbitses said. “This is just CGI.”

“In a Starbucks?” GothicTerror said, fixing him with a deadpan stare.

“Fine, you don’t believe that,” Scott said, letting the shield drop. “Exhibit B.”

He cast another of his Cleric’s spells, and blue arcs of electricity crackled between his fingertips.

“Holy crap,” muttered Ninjastein. “That’s Elemental Fury.”

“Bingo.” Scott tossed a little of the lightning at Hobbitses.

“Ouch!” The dude’s chair scraped as he jumped to his feet. “What the hell, man?”

“That’s what you get for doubting me.” Scott looked around the table. “Who still doesn’t believe I can do magic outside Hearthworld?”

“Fine, I’ll buy it,” GothicTerror said. “How’s it happening?”

Scott dropped his concentration, letting the spell gutter out.

“Roark the Griefer,” he said. “Settle in, kiddies, because now it’s time for the tell portion of Show & Tell.”

Over the next few minutes, Scott explained how the Griefer had come from an alien planet in another universe where crap was a lot worse than it was on Earth. Tyrant Kings using magic to take over the world and massacre people who stood up to him, legit dictator stuff. The Griefer tried to stop him, but ended up getting himself beamed to Hearthworld instead. Surprise, a douchey henchman followed him and was actively trying to take him out for this Tyrant King guy.

“You guys’ve probably all heard of him by now,” Scott said. “Lowen, the dude running the Vault of the Radiant Shield.”

“The other modder,” Ninjastein said.

Scott threw up his hands. “You people have got to drop this modder crap. Frontflip’s just feeding you that bullshit because they think we’re too stupid to see what’s really going on here.”

“I knew it!” BusterMove said, snapping his fingers like a total dork. “The angels killing people and the government trying to cover it up. I knew it wasn’t just some dumb conspiracy theory!”

“Exactly.” Scott pointed at him. “But Frontflip’s about to choke on the bag of dicks they made for themselves, because Lowen and his crew are on their way right now to attack their studio.”

“Why?” GothicTerror asked.

“Basically, they want the Devs who work on Hearthworld to alter the code so they can kill the Griefer and take back this Legendary-tier necklace he stole from the Tyrant King. Who cares, right? It’s not our world, it’s just a bunch of aliens. But here’s the thing: if this Douche King gets the World Stone necklace back, he won’t just stop at taking over his world, he’ll come for ours, too. So unless you guys don’t want to live through Independence Day Re-Resurgence III: This time it’s Earth, we’ve got to stop this shit now.”

Hobbitses scoffed. “If this is such a big deal, why don’t you just call the cops and tell them a terrorist was going to attack Frontflip? They’d deal with it.”

“With what?” Scott said. “Their Glocks and nightsticks? Do you think their bulletproof vests are gonna stop an Angelic Lance or Holy Wrath? The Herald’s will smoke them in about ten seconds. Cops don’t know how to deal with these mobs, but we do.”

“Yeah, in-game,” GothicTerror said, frowning. “We’re just as helpless out here as the cops would be.”

“You losers might be, but I’m not.” Scott let Elemental Fury crackle down his arm again. “And I can make it so you’re not, either. My boy the Griefer can make you his Vassal, and then you’ll be able to use your character’s magic in the real world, too.”

“Wait,” said Flappy_Sak. “If these spells are real, then the Heralds are going to be real, too. We could take real-life damage. We could die.”

“Yeah, you could,” Scott said, “or you could stop being a pussy and kick some real ass for once in your life. Stop living the daily grind waiting for your chance to clock out and log in to Hearthworld. You could be doing hero shit IRL instead of working your balls off every day to pretend to be a hero online. Plus, who knows what kind of sweet-ass loot mobs will drop on Earth? How much gold does a maxed-out Herald usually drop in-game? You can bet your tits it’s more than I made this year.”

Slowly, heads around the table started to nod.

But Hobbitses still wasn’t convinced. “You want us to swear some kind of fealty to this modder in exchange for supposed powers to fight overpowered mobs that are allegedly sneaking into our world from a fucking video game.” He snorted. “I can’t believe I got up early for this.”

“Nobody’s forcing you, dickbrain,” GothicTerror said in a harsh voice. “And frankly, nobody’s going to cry if you don’t show up. If this is for real, then we need people who are going to get the job done, not whine and naysay like little bitches.”

Her voice kind of tapered off to a mumble when she said “bitches,” but otherwise, Scott thought it was a pretty good effort. And now a bunch more of the Poser Owners were coming around.

“How cool would it be to be a legit hero?”

“Yeah, and if I could use my character’s Transmute Metal spell IRL, I’d never have to work again.”

“What if we can level up here, too? You could ’roid out without ever lifting a weight.”

“And max your combat skills to, like, Bruce Lee levels.”

Scott grinned. “Hell yeah you can! Now, anybody who’s done being a lame pussy and ready to step up to the plate, go home and log back in. Head straight over to the Troll Nation Marketplace—the Griefer knows we’re coming, so he’ll be waiting for us.”

GothicTerror nodded and stood up. “Let’s go kick some Earth-invading Herald butt.”

“That… didn’t sound as cool as it would have if you’d said ‘ass,’ but I like the enthusiasm,” Scott said, sticking his hand in the middle of the table. “Bring it in. Poser Owners on three.”

To Scott’s surprise, everybody brought it in, even the doubting 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses.