“So, it’s ten trees per mile,” Sara said, looking up at the massive town in the distance across a vast ocean of rolling green fields. “And twelve trees to reach the Teradyn Fields.”
“Sunnydale is a lot smaller than it seems like on paper,” Simone said, staring at the town. “At least we’re close, though. We’re supposed to meet the guys there.”
“Yeah, but we need to mark the way back somehow,” Sara said. “This is just a big line of the same trees. If we pick one even a couple in the wrong direction, it could send us right past the shop.”
“Why do we want to go back to the store anyway?” Simone asked. “Didn’t we do all this to get away?”
“Yeah,” Sara responded. “But we also didn’t anticipate it coming with us.”
“Fair.” Simone scanned the tree line that went for some way in both directions, but the trees weren’t even. Some lines had several extra trees connecting the fields and some lines had less. “I guess we can use it as a base for now.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Sara said.
“Natural Explorer,” Simone said, tapping her temple. “My favored terrain is forest. I can’t forget my way back.”
“No shit?” Sara asked.
“No shit,” Simone confirmed, a smug little grin on her face. “I can never be lost in a forest.”
“Well, that’s just fucking…” Sara scrunched her nose up and grinned. “Handy.”
“What the fuck was that?” Simone asked, looking thoroughly beguiled.
Sara looked over one shoulder, then over the other. Nothing. “What?”
“Did you just try to…” Simone scrunched her own nose cutely. “Flirt with me?”
“Umm…” Sara didn’t even think about it. The gesture had meant nothing to her, but something about the way Simone called her out so boldly turned her on. “Yeah.”
Simone’s face broke. “Aww! O.M.G!” She swooned, her hands flying to her cheeks. “That’s so cute!”
Sara’s eyes went wide. She’d never seen this side of Simone, but she really liked it. Though it left her a bundle of nerves. This wasn’t a typical answer. “Heh. Thanks. You’re cute, too!”
Simone’s face instantly lost the cheer and returned to resting. “Sara, I am painfully straight, but I am so incredibly flattered and… EEEEE!”
Sara didn’t know what to think. She was rejected, that was for certain, but straight? “So you—”
“Like dick,” Simone said flatly, turning and scanning the path ahead. “Yes. Now, let’s go.”
Simone marched toward the dirt road down the embankment they were on, leaving no room for discussion. “What do you think Mark and Cody are?”
“Well, given that I got exactly what I wanted, and you didn’t,” Simone said, hopping down onto the well-worn path with effortless elven grace. “I would say Cody’s the rogue, and Mark's the DM.”
Sara burst out laughing as she hopped down after her, but the sudden, heavy sway of her thick tail threw her center of gravity completely off. She stumbled awkwardly upon landing, her boots catching the edge of the dirt path, and she nearly toppled face-first into the dirt. “Holy shit, burn!”
“You okay?” Simone asked, reaching a hand out.
Sara regained her footing, dusting off her leathers, but found that what she tripped on was no mere root or wheel rut. “What the fuck, Simone. Look what I found!”
Simone dashed to her side, looking down at the half-covered, shining golden plate gleaming in the dirt. “Is it them?”
They dropped to their knees, moving dirt and brushing it away until finally they revealed a large wood and gold chest. Carved into the heavy lid was an image of an angry octopus holding and riding a giant, bulbous ball sack.
“Octo-Nut!” Sara cheered. “How do we open these?”
“We have to have all four,” Simone said, scratching her head. “That thing’s pretty big. How are we going to carry it?”
“Bag of holding, of course,” Sara shrugged.
“Where are you keeping that?” Simone looked her up and down. “All we have is these mods to rip some sick clouds with.”
“You sound so stupid saying rip some sick clouds,” Sara chuckled. “You’re starting to sound like Rob.”
Simone scoffed at the comparison to their top customer from Earth. “Don’t get me started. The way he just… sits there… all day… every day…”
“It’s just under two miles back to the shop. Wanna bring it back there and keep it safe?” Sara scratched around the base of her horn. “If anyone else gets this box…”
“Then what?” A voice startled them both from behind.
Before either of them could react, the fuzzy white rabbitfolk shoved them aside, grabbed the heavy box, and started running.
“Craig!” Sara screamed, scrambling up and running after him.
Simone bolted, nearly catching up to him in seconds with her innate elven speed, her boots barely kicking up dust. Just as she was about to snatch his jerkin, he jumped high and long. This time, he didn’t fall. He stumbled on the landing, caught his balance, and then continued far faster than they could keep up.
“FUCK!” Simone picked up a rock and hucked it in his direction, but he was already halfway to Sunnydale. “We can’t let Craig keep that fucking box! We have to get to the capital and find Mark and Cody. Now.”
“Agreed,” Sara panted, taking off in an uncomfortable, heavy sprint, fighting to keep her balance with the foreign weight of her horns and tail dragging her momentum. “Let’s go.”
It didn’t take long for them to cover the distance, but Craig was long gone. Likely vanished into the city somewhere. As they neared the massive stone outer wall, they could hear the sound of commerce and life happening inside. It was a lot less noisy than a big city on Earth, likely because of a lack of combustion engines. But as they rounded the wall to the front gate, a thick, sickly-sweet scent filled the air.
“Is that…” Simone sniffed the air, her face scrunching as she looked at the front gate. “Strawnana Dream?”
Sara’s eyes went wide. “Holy fuck! It is. But how?”
Just as she asked, the gate guards came into view. The one on the left held a bulky GeekVape up to his mouth and pulled, releasing a billowing, dense cloud of sweet vapor. The other guard stood in his own personal weather system, the cloud dancing in the air around him. Beyond them, the entire town was covered in a low-hanging vape fog.
“How in the hell did they get these vapes?” Simone looked around at the citizens inside the gates. Everyone from the eldest man to the youngest child was ripping and blowing thick clouds into the air.
Sara closed the distance to the guards. “Excuse me. Where did you get that?”
The guard stared her down silently for a moment before bringing his mod to his face, inhaling deeply, and puffing a massive, obnoxious cloud directly into Sara’s face. “Alwayswinter.”
Sara backed up a few steps, coughing on the synthetic strawberry. “They have these in Alwayswinter?”
“Yep,” he answered, his voice gravelly. “Now, get out of my face or you’re gonna take a trip to the stocks.”
Sara nodded and moved through the gate and into the miasma of lung butter, Simone close in tow. “We need to figure out what’s going on here.”
“We need to find the boys.” Simone looked skittish, her eyes darting around the foggy streets.
“Are you okay?” Sara asked.
“The city,” Simone tugged at her hair nervously. “It feels way different from the forest. It’s… loud, but not sound.”
Sara considered her friend adjusting to the sensory overload of her new biology, likely the elf side of her craving the quiet of nature. “Let’s try to find them and get the hell out of here. We need to regroup.”
“Heard.” Simone’s leafy clothing tightened around her defensively. “We need to get to the tavern. I have a bad feeling.”
Ahhhhhh! A scream rang out in the distance, followed by a loud commotion of voices, clattering wood, and more screaming.
“What the fuck is that?” Sara put her head on a swivel, trying to find the source through the fog.
Before she could take two steps, a massive Minotaur wearing a grease-stained Pizza Hut crew shirt crashed into her, knocking her back into a vendor stall of cabbages. The beast plowed straight through the guards just behind them, running out into the field and over a hill. He was gone before a group of four people dressed as giant, foam-headed mascots of various vape companies she’d never heard of rushed past, brandishing actual, lethal broadswords. A massive crowd of swooning men and women chased eagerly after them, all sporting new, stylish-looking vape mods and lanyard pods.
Sara, in absolute shock, held stock-still in the cabbage stall until the noise died down. Simone gripped her shoulder, lightly. “Hey. We really need to talk to Mark. Seeing all of this in real life is… taxing.”
“I don’t think this is him,” Sara said, snapping out of it and brushing a crushed leaf off her tail. “Mark is unhinged, for sure, but his unhinged is always pop-culture related. That was… have you heard of 'Buffy Puffy' brand mods?”
“No,” Simone smirked. “It was like… square. I didn’t like that.”
“Tavern,” Sara said, leading the way. “Now. We need to roll Gather Information.”
A few moments later, they arrived at the town square. Sara stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the sign hanging over the largest building in awe and absolute horror. “Umm, what happened to Tom’s Tavern?”
“Hot Wangs?” Simone cocked her head and raised a delicate elven eyebrow.
A large circular wooden shield, charred at the edges, hung from iron chains. Painted on it was a cartoonish, overly masculine rooster standing proudly on two massive, heavily-veined drumsticks. He was holding a flaming, dripping chicken wing directly at waist level, oozing at the end with what she desperately hoped was ranch dressing. The rooster was giving a deeply uncomfortable and knowing wink. Arcing over the rooster in thick, fiery orange dripping letters was the word HOT. Directly below, flanked by two not-so-subtly phallic chili peppers, was the word WANGS.
“I… I don’t know if I want to go in here,” Sara said, her stomach feeling uneasy.
Simone took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. “I’ll go. I’ll sacrifice myself to see if the boys are in there. You can count on me, Sara.”
Sara shook out of her stupor and looked at the elf, who was practically leaving a trail of cartoon slug-slime as she eagerly slid toward the door. Shit. She sighed and followed.
As she stepped inside, the layout was exactly what she would expect for a medieval tavern they had been in thousands of times in-game. Wooden tables, creaky chairs, a long polished bar, a hearth for performances. But it was the people… the scene that had been set was entirely corrupted.
“Welcome to Wangs!” Behind the host stand stood a male elf wearing a tight green tunic, cut off drastically above the belly button. A bright orange bowtie accentuated the perfect, glowing smile framed with golden hair. “Your friends are this way. Come, follow me.”
As the elf stepped from behind the counter, Sara noticed it. He was wearing impossibly tight denim daisy dukes and displaying a… frankly impossible bulge. He took them across the moderately busy tavern, swinging his ass like he owned the building. There were only male servers. Would they still be called wenches? Why do they still use wenches for the game? Every single one of them wore the same reverse-Hooters attire. Sara didn’t know whether to be horny or to file a labor lawsuit.
Simone sat at a high-top table in the middle of the room, right next to two other tables full of rowdy men. There were perfectly good, quiet booths on the outside walls—why couldn’t they sit there?
Then Sara saw him. Shit! It was Craig. He was sitting in a dark corner booth. He was facing away, but his long white rabbit ears twitched. If he turned, he would surely see them.
Sara sat down quickly, pulling her hood up, and waited for the waiter to go away.
“What can I get you to drink, ladies?” the elf asked, leaning over the table seductively.
Sara, still in shock, did the best she could. “I need a minute, please.”
He winked, wordlessly strutting away and leaving a massive void of himbo energy in his wake.
“He’s right behind me,” Simone whispered, entirely unable to tear her gaze away from the retreating waiter's daisy dukes. “Why the fuck did he have to be here? Why now?”
“Simone,” Sara reached out and gripped both of her friend's hands tightly, pulling her attention back to the table. “You’ve checked me twice today when I lost the plot. My turn.”
“What?” Simone blinked, struggling to focus.
“Twice, so far, you’ve asked me to move on,” Sara said, her tone dead serious. “And, I have. Graciously, and willingly. I am asking you to move on.”
Simone blinked rapidly, the glazed film receding from her eyes as her leafy clothing tightened snugly back around her shoulders. “Thank you for that. This is a dream, but we have to stop him.”
“Ok,” Sara said, relieved her friend was back online. “Let’s just go confront him. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Don’t horror movies start that way?” Simone chuckled nervously.
Just as she asked, Craig stood up. But he didn’t turn toward them. He carried the heavy golden chest under one arm, walked confidently around the end of the bar, and disappeared into the back-of-house areas.
Sara looked around. Everyone here looked like standard NPC commoners, except maybe three guys who looked completely lost in their mead. The toughest-looking guy here was a massive half-orc server who was an absolute unit. The himbo host was far too absorbed in flirting with a dashing patron to notice them. “Let’s go.”
Without waiting, she got up and strolled quickly toward the bar, thankful that Simone followed suit without hesitation. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Simone whispered.
As she slipped behind the bar and pushed through the swinging double doors into the back room, she found it empty. “There’s just… kitchen shit. Sacks of flour. Barrels.”
Simone looked around, her gamer instincts kicking in. “Back door.”
Sara powered through the heavy wooden door, stepping out into the alley, only to stop dead in her tracks. Simone bumped hard into her back.
Craig was climbing up onto the buckboard of a massive, heavily armored wooden transport cart. Strapped into the harnesses at the front were two draft-horse-sized roosters. They were entirely featherless, their skin a raw, fleshy pink, covered in thick, pulsing blue veins. Heavily armed Bugbear and Owlbear guards stood at the perimeter, their arms crossed over their massive chests, snarling back at the girls.
Craig looked back as he put his foot on the buckboard. He raised the golden box in one hand, and shot a single middle finger up with the other.
“You losers are less here than you are on Earth,” Craig cackled. He tossed two small, glossy cards at them that fluttered to the dirty cobblestone as his entourage—and their deeply disturbing mounts—rode off down the alleyway.
“Shit,” Simone said as she bent down, picking one up and handing the other to Sara. “Ten percent off coupons. One-year anniversary sale. Are you fucking kidding me?”
Sara flipped the glossy card over. “Vape Much, My Friend?. Alwayswinter.”
Simone sighed heavily and flopped backward onto the dirty alleyway, staring up at the sky. “I did not come to another world to work fucking retail here, too.”