Life is Not a Game - Chapter 13 - Read Online & PDF

Chapter 13

Retail Therapy

CHARLOTTE

A few months had passed since my first sleepover at Tracy’s place. We had grown incredibly close, spending almost every weekend at each other’s houses. I often bumped into TJ at her place—not literally like the first time —but he was always around.

He must have gotten the message from Tracy because he never tried to strike up a conversation with me. He just smiled, waved, or said hello before moving on. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy; I wished I could talk to him more.

Right now, I was on my way to pick up Tracy. We were heading to the mall to shop for Christmas presents. I wanted to get something for each of the guys but didn’t want to brave the mall alone. It was too crowded for my anxiety to handle.

The only address I had was Plut’s, and that was because I would be staying there in March for the tournament. My mom had insisted on knowing exactly where he lived before she agreed to let me go. I planned to send Jup’s and Nep’s presents to our manager to forward on. I could have asked the guys for their addresses, but I wanted the presents to be a surprise.

“So, what exactly are we shopping for?” Tracy asked as she hopped into

my car.

“Gifts for three guys,” I replied.

“Would one of them be your little text lover boy?” she teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

“He’s not my lover boy, but yes. One is for him.”

“So, what do these boys like?” Tracy asked.

“Hmm. Video games and girls?” I suggested, making Tracy burst into laughter.

“So, typical males, then. I swear, if my brother isn’t sleeping with some girl, he’s playing a video game,” Tracy said.

“Your brother sleeps around a lot?” I was taken aback. I had never seen him with any girls.

“Well, usually. But to be honest, I haven’t seen him with many girls recently. He does have quite the reputation, though,” she replied thoughtfully.

“Oh, I didn’t know that. I also didn’t know he liked video games,” I added. I had never seen him playing any games. I wondered what he played.

“I think all guys like video games. It seems to be a given, at least with all the guys I’ve met,” Tracy said casually.

“So, girls and games. Are we going to a ‘toy’ store or a video game store?”

“A toy store? I don’t think they sell games for teenage guys, just kiddie stuff,” I replied.

“Not a toy store, a ‘TOY’ store,” she said.

“I don’t get it,” I confessed.

“Never mind. We’ll go to a video game store then.”

Once we arrived, Tracy linked her arm with mine, leading me to the video game store. She must have known that being around a crowd of people would make me nervous, so she was trying to help me stay calm.

“So, what do they like?”

I scanned the store, pondering her question. I didn’t want to get them an actual game, since we could get all the games we wanted from our sponsor for free. I was looking at the figurines they had on display; I thought those were pretty cool. I also liked the necklaces—designed for guys, obviously.

“I’m leaning toward one of those,” I told her, pointing to the figurines and jewelry.

I walked closer and noticed that they had some from a few older games, but not as far back as Watchtower. I was hoping I could find something from that game to get for Jup, since it was how we had met.

SEVEN YEARS AGO

I had just logged in to my favorite MMORPG (massively multiple online role-playing game), Watchtower. It was the latest online game that everyone was playing. I was only ten, but I had already reached the top level in the game as both a white mage and an assassin—although I preferred playing my mage character.

After sitting in the center of town, crafting armor for about ten minutes while I waited for a group, I received a party invite. I clicked on it and found that the group was full of level seventies and consisted of a black mage, a monk, an assassin, and a warrior. It was a pretty standard party makeup for this game, and most of the members seemed to be in the same guild, so maybe they wouldn’t be awful.

I clicked to accept the invite and was immediately added to their party

chat.

Hector08

Tidal

Mars301 Hey

Mars301 Thx for the invite

SeanTheMan Waiting on 1 then we’ll go

SeanTheMan He’s joining now. Meet at the East gate

I quickly put on my XP gear and ran toward the gate to meet the party.

My character was a female light elf with long pink hair and a bluish tint to her skin. I thought she was pretty, but I mainly picked the race and features because they gave a bonus of mana and white magic. I had just made it to the gate when the last member of our party joined up.

LordoftheSky What up

Tidal Nice of ya to join us kiddo

LordoftheSky Can’t all be old farts like you

Hector08 If you two are done, let’s go camp the rock boss, we can kill mobs there while we wait

Sweet! The rock boss dropped an awesome crystal that could be used to craft a staff for a mage, although the drop rate was pretty low. He also dropped some more basic stones that I could use as crafting mats. Maybe we’d get lucky with drops.

We made our way to the underground entrance and fought groups of lower-level worm mobs without much heartache until the boss finally spawned. I waited for the paladin to get the full attention of the boss before I cast my buffs on our players and the monk cast his debuffs.

I noticed that the black mage cast a few DOTs (damage over time) for the boss, but he didn’t bother with DOT attacks during the smaller mobs since they wouldn’t last long enough. For the boss, he cast poison and a slow fire attack that would constantly burn him over time. Since the boss was so much stronger than us, I had to closely monitor the health of the party.

When someone’s health would get down to about one-third, I would cast a large healing spell, careful not to pull hate away from the paladin or warrior. Apparently, our warrior also had some taunt skills, so he would swap tanking with the paladin. At one point, our black mage got a little trigger-happy and blasted two large spells in a row, drawing the hate.

The boss quickly went to him and one-shotted him. Great! I waited a bit for the paladin to use taunt again and gain enough hate, then I cast my revive spell on the mage. If I die because this idiot pulled hate, I will be so mad.

Luckily, as soon as the boss turned to attack me, the warrior taunted, taking the hate back. Whew, that was a close one. I healed up the black mage, and he went back to attacking, still a little overzealous. I had to work twice as hard to try to keep him alive since he kept pulling hate.

LordoftheSky What’s up with this n00b

I was surprised he messaged me that since he didn’t know me.

Mars301

Yeah, pretty annoying

After another fifteen minutes or so, we defeated the boss. The black mage almost made us party wipe, but I was able to scrape by and keep the group alive.

LasloLarks

Thanks for the party, gtg

SeanTheMan

Thanks man, bye

LasloLarks has left the party.

Hector08

Wow, that was a close one

LordoftheSky

Yeah, that dude was horrible. Why wasn’t Bennie on?

Tidal

Said he had a date. Some of us are actually old enough for that

LordoftheSky

What a poser, picking some girl over us. You won’t see me doing that

Tidal

Not until you hit puberty anyway

SeanTheMan

Guys, why do we put up with this kid?

LordoftheSky

Because I’m the best paladin in the guild

Hector08

Sorry about them Mars. We’re gonna grab another black mage if you want to keep going

Mars301

Count me in

Tidal Thank goodness, finding a decent white mage is so hard

LordoftheSky Mars, are you a grandpa like these losers or still in your prime?

Tidal

and by grandpa, he means 22, dang kid

Mars301 Um…younger than Tidal

· · ·

I joined their guild that night and quickly became fast friends with LordoftheSky, or Jupiter, as he would change his name to later.

This was the reason Watchtower would always be special to me. It was how I had met my best friend. I knew I wanted to get him a present that represented that meeting. He had really changed my life and helped pull me out of the depths of loneliness.

I did a quick search on my phone to see if anything still existed from that game. I was flooded with items being sold since the game had been so popular. I quickly found a figurine that resembled my old white mage character, so I ordered it and had it shipped to my house. Once it came in, I’d make sure it looked good in person, then send it to our manager.

Having purchased Jup’s gift, the one I was most concerned about, I then went back to looking for things for Plut and Nep. I found a shirt that said “Gamin and Bangin” with a picture of a stick-figure man with his head on the keyboard, like he just banged it down.

It cracked me up, and I instantly thought of Nep. Of course, I wouldn’t get it for him since he’d never wear it, but I totally had to send him a pic of it. I quickly pulled out my phone and took a pic, then texted it to the group

text.

Jupiter

Nice Pluto

Odd, somehow I pictured Nep with a little more muscle

Neptune

and a lot more girth

Mars

Guess I asked for that sending the pic, huh

Jupiter

You really did…

Mars

Oh, any suggestions on what to get a girl for Christmas?