“We handle it like I always do. We both run into the room, swords out doing the slash and hack.”
“The slash and hack?” Hudson asks, not moving from his spot.
“Yeah, when you run into the room screaming, slash your sword, and hack the skeletons.” Is this a technique the military guy hasn’t heard of?
Hudson chuckles. “That is definitely not the proper procedure.”
“It’s proper procedure in Dragons Reborn. Are you with me?”
His character steps away from his small opening and gets closer to the hole I blew through the wall in the small room. “Always.”
“Okay, we’ll go on three.”
“Wait!” he yells, stepping back away from the spawner in the wrong direction. “Is yelling as I do it required or optional?”
I roll my eyes and step closer to the room opening. Four more skeletons appeared while Hudson debated his fighting formation. “Required.”
Reaching the room first, my character slashes at the skeletons as I jab the button with my index finger. My sword is better than Hudson’s — I’ve been playing longer than his thirty minutes — and it only takes one or two strikes for me to take each skeleton. On the couch beside me, he’s tense as it takes more effort to kill his attackers and Hudson sustains additional damage.
“Ahhhh,” he yells, leaning to the edge of the couch.
I laugh, using my sword to break apart the machine spawing skeletons. “See, screaming is definitely required.”
Hudson hits his skeleton foe two more times and then once more for good measure even though the pile of bones lies on the ground. “Yeah, I see how it may be effective. It’s definitely not a tactic I learned at boot camp.”
“Hey! What? You cannot open the chest!” I finish destroying the spawner while Hudson removes shiny objects from a chest in the opposite corner of the room.
“Oh, this? No one wants this. You already own an awesome sword. Let us poor guys get the good stuff too.”
“You don’t love your sword?” He traded in a few bags of grain I let him harvest from my field to buy it.
Hudson grunts. “My sword is a great sword. Men all over the world marvel over my sword.”
“Men, you say?” one eyebrow quirked higher.
“Yes, and women too. Women of many nations swoon when they see my sword.”
I laugh. “I’m sure they do.” I haven’t seen much of this playful side from Hudson, but when he does let it show, it’s pretty irresistible. Men are big kids at heart.
“So now what do we do?” he asks stepping back from the chest and letting the top fall.
I peek inside and grab a few pieces he’s left behind. He doesn’t think it’s important, but it will be good trading material. Pearls go to ship captains and you can never have too much wheat. “Well since you took all the good stuff, now you take your spoils of war back home and hide them away in your chest.”
“Will there be women along the way I can woo with my sword?” he asks, walking to the exit of the cave.
“Probably not, but I’ll tell you what. The whole walk back you can woo me with stories of how you defeated the mob of skeletons.”
Hudson repositions himself on the couch. “Only if you promise to swoon properly.”
I open the second chest in the room “I promise there will be lots of swooning.”
Hudson turns his attention to me and his expression cracks into a smile. “Well then let’s get back to your castle.”
I set the compass in the game and we both follow the coordinates home. Finn and the other guys from his company built a huge castle where Aspen and most of the other girls stay when they play the game. I’ve had a game subscription for Dragons Reborn since before it was cool and I don’t have a billionaire gamer husband, so on occasion I hang out at my own place. Normally when I’m playing alone. It’s not a castle as Hudson makes it sound, but it took me a ton of time to make it. I’m not leaving this place for anyone.
“Can we kill more rats?” Hudson asks after we’ve walked for a few minutes.
“Sure. On occasion the small animals drop good stuff and you don’t lose anything if you die.” Although if you die from a rat attack, you deserve to lose something good. Hudson needs more practice, and killing rats could help him get it. There is no way I’m losing my diamond sword because he doesn’t run into a room screaming properly. If Hudson gets me slaughtered by a massive skeleton raid or another monster, he’s in deep trouble. He may know his way around the battlefield, but we’re in my world now.
