moments when GtA-L came mind-bendingly close to working. Prendar gliding through the suburban gloom, elf ears glimpsed for a moment under a streetlight, then just a shadow as he rounded the corner of a Safeway and disappeared. Lorac closed his eyes a moment as he rolled down the long hill toward downtown, felt the sun on his face, set aside, for the time being, his long years of study, the price of his arcane knowledge, the doom waiting for him. He ollied to grind the curb, nollied into a 360 to land clean. He grinned.
When Leira managed a handplant on the edge of an abandoned public pool to the cranked-up sound of surfpunk guitar, it almost made sense of the insanity, her body extended almost vertically in the last light of day, her arm straight on the lip, supporting her body, her back arched against the sunset, orange light glinting liquid off the centuries-old katana strapped to her back and pouring over the grass that was poking through the concrete, over the trash piled against a sagging chain-link fence.
“Skate! Skate, or taste the wrath of the arch-lich!”
That night as I was falling asleep I noticed a light through the crack under the cheap door dividing my apartment’s two rooms. At first I thought the refrigerator door hadn’t closed, but when I looked, I found that the Four Heroes of Endoria had showed up to visit.
It was unexpected, and I wasn’t set up for company; in fact, I had exactly one card table and one folding chair, which Lorac the wizard had claimed. They were a striking quartet, larger than life, angular in the way of computer models.
Their glowing, pixelated forms took up a surprising amount of room. Brennan was nearly seven feet tall, and his broad shoulders seemed to swallow up the entire kitchen.
“What are you doing in my kitchen?” I asked them.
“My friend, the time has come to embark on our quest,” he said in the smooth baritone of the semiprofessional voice actor who recorded his dialogue.
I guessed, sure, we were friends, in a way.
“You are the chosen one,” said Princess Leira, who leaned against the sink. She had the requisite Amazonian figure, full red lips, and jet black hair. She had bright eyes and a mouth that drooped at the corners, which gave her smile an appealing, sheepish quality. She wore a traveling cloak, which was a relief; some of her costumes were pretty revealing.
“Chosen for what? What quest?” I asked. “I don’t understand. Am I supposed to find something?” We were always finding things in games. Rings, books, crowns.
“You’re the one we need,” said Prendar the thief, a tall, pale half elf with sandy red hair and black eyes. “A man of courage and strength, but also guile.”
I’d never seen an elf up close before. From a distance they were graceful, elegant beings, but from a few feet away Prendar was vibrantly inhuman. You’d think an elf would have a cute snub nose, but his was long and beaky. Maybe it was his human father’s. I’d never heard the word guile used in a conversation, either.
“Russell, we entreat your help,” intoned the magus. “Our worlds are in great danger, and only you can save them.” His cloak stiff with whorls of gold thread, Lorac spoke with a theatrical old-guy quaver. He was an Arabian Nights character, an exotic older man with a Levantine cast, a thin, crooked nose, and a neatly trimmed beard. His staff was too long, and he brushed the dusty lighting fixture with it. “Sorry.”
“But you’re the Heroes,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense for you to talk to humans.”
“We’re all in the game, Russell,” Leira said. “We’re characters, but you’re the player. We need you.”
“A great danger is coming,” said Brennan. “Greater than any we have ever faced.”
“Beware Adric! Beware the grieving blade!” Leira whispered breathlessly.
“Just play the game, asshole,” Prendar snapped, and drew on a cigarette.
“Wait… what game?” I said. “Realms VI? VII?”
“The Ultimate Game,” sing-songed Lorac. He began to laugh. They must have gotten a really good voice actor. Looking closer, I saw that his staff had a small animal skull on the end of it. It might have been a ferret’s. The ferret’s eyes glowed.
I fell asleep again, and this time dreamed I was still at work but there was an extra office marked Secret Projects, and I went in and found Simon there where he’d been all along and he told me how he’d built the Ultimate Game