Chapter One
Ginger
I know I’ve been playing this video game too long when I start to find myself attracted to the monster I’ve befriended in the game.
The warrior orc named Grak isn’t even close to my type. Typically, my crushes tend to involve, well, live humans. Not imaginary eight-foot-tall, muscle-bound behemoths with green skin, horns, and pointed ears.
My family knows me to be so picky that a man bun could be a dealbreaker. Yet Grak’s sleek warrior-style bun makes me inexplicably tingly.
It’s got to be his loyalty. And how he’s so charmingly literal. Also, the way he fiercely protects me in battle is so thoughtful.
The cherry on top? He’s an orc who loves Christmas as much as I do.
Okay, I admit it. The fact that Grak wears only a kilt made of fur doesn’t hurt, either.
And it’s fun to watch him fight. The guy can do more damage to a marauding band of zombies than I—a fierce sorcerer with anger issues—could ever dream to do.
Which is why, when Grak gets stuck inside a cramped animal cage with an angry mountain troll, I debate how long I should let him suffer.
As for me, I’m watching from the sidelines and laughing at the glitch—the business end of the axe pierces the sides of the cage but does no damage. God, this game is stupid, but I love it.
Poor Grak. At close range, the orc’s terrifying pole axe isn’t going to help. My handsome green friend swings his too-long weapon impotently while bellowing, “Where is the gate?!”
“It disappeared!” I tease.
“I don’t see you, Ginger468!” Grak cries out.
Man, this guy is so good at role playing, he actually sounds scared. He shouldn’t be. Grak is the best player I’ve ever seen in Deadsky: Survival.
And yet, Grak thinks it matters whether he can see me in first-person mode, even while he’s battling someone twice his size and three times mine.
I crack under the guilt of watching him scream my name and press the “Ctrl” key and “V” key. The gate reappears.
“Behind you!” I shout into my headset mic.
Grak lets out a warrior cry that hurts my eardrums, and I have to move my earpiece out of my ear temporarily. On the screen, his player sticks the pole axe’s handle through one of the gaps in the mesh wire cage, then kicks open the gate. His fur kilt flies up while he kicks like this, but alas, this game is PG-13. All I get is a pervy peek at his bare thighs. And they are outrageous. It’s enough to make me squirm in my cozy gamer chair.
Welcome to the depths of my lizard brain.
Together, Grak and I use our combined skills to defeat the trapped mountain troll. My sorceress uses a level one time-bending spell and fireball combo. My fighting style needs work, but it slows the monster down and keeps him from destroying the cage that separates my character from a very stupid death in this side quest.
Meanwhile, the orc brutally spins the blade of the axe, using the mesh wire as leverage. It’s like watching a maniac foosball champion destroy his competition. Only, you know, with sharp metal and a whole lot more blood. This move is wildly more effective than my attacks.
“Pretty ingenious use of that weapon at short range. Didn’t know you had that in you, Grak,” I joke.
Never breaking character, he rumbles in my ear. “I’m surprised you used your trickery on an ally, sorceress. Should I be worried?”
“Just messing with you, buddy. I wanted to give our enemy a fighting chance for once.”
Grak gives one powerful thrust, and the noise he makes in my headset is borderline pornographic in contrast to the blood spurting on the screen from our victim. We end the troll with one final slash of the axe from the orc and a fireball from me.
“I could not find my way out,” Grak says once the battle is over and we begin looting all the gems and tools in the area. “I couldn’t see you.”
I feel bad about that. “I was right behind you the whole time, Grak.”
He hums thoughtfully as I use a found pickaxe to dig up a magical wish shard. Strangely, a lot more wish shards appear in the game when Grak is with me. No complaints here—I can use them to advance much faster in the game or save them to make a potion for magical healing.
“I would like to move to your region so we can always find each other, but I have not unlocked that hemisphere yet.”
