Polynya

“And so the ultimate quest becomes even more intriguing.” Once Ryuk is finished eating, Hajime looks at down at his plate. “Are you going to read your note card?”

Ryuk moves his plate to the side and flips the placemat to find a card with a phrase written on it: the most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten – breathe.

“So breathe more?” He takes a deep breath to make a point. “How’s that?”

A rare grin spreads across the humandroid’s face. “Before you log in, I’d like you to join me in the living room for ten minutes of breathing. Turn everything off. Disconnect from your world. It’s a breathing exercise.”

“Hajime … ” He stops his protest. The person just about to protest was the old Ryuk, the Ryuk that didn’t emphasize differences, the Ryuk who was weak and feeble. “Sure,” he finally says. “Give me a second to disable my iNet feed.”

(0)__(0)

That was troubling, is the only thing Ryuk can think as his avatar takes shape in their room at the Mondegreen Hostel. He had done as Hajime instructed, and he’d been able to maintain his relaxed breathing for a good five minutes until the image of Tamana came to him, hovering over him holding her ironing board of a sword.

It was too hard to concentrate after that with his “monkey mind,” as Hajime put it, running rampant in the jungle of his skull. Still, the breathing exercise was good while it lasted.

“Phew!” Ryuk shudders as the wretched stench of goblin meets his sniffer. Hiccup snores loudly, his arm hanging off the bed and the blanket barely covering his dimpled ass. After a squeaky poot, the goblin blinks his eyes open for a moment, turns, and falls back asleep.

Damn goblin, Ryuk thinks, for old time’s sake.

Hiccup has grown on him, and however vulgar he is, the goblin always seems to come through at the very last moment. And even if he can be quite critical of the guild members – Ryuk especially doesn’t like being called “emo” or “snowflake,” whatever the hell that means – Hiccup seems as if he would literally die for the Mitherfickers.

The Mitherfickers.

The guild’s stats appear and he swipes them away as he sees a flashing message from FeeTwix.

FeeTwix: He has arrived!

Ryuk: Let me guess? The room upstairs?

FeeTwix: Close, but no cigar. We’re in the lobby.

Ryuk tiptoes out of the room, careful not to wake Hiccup. He finds Zaena sitting on the couch while the Swede stands before her, twirling a staff. Jim the Hostelier is behind the front desk, reading a Hotel Managers Quarterly scrollazine.

“Isn’t that the … ?”

“Yes,” FeeTwix says, “it’s the shaman staff we got from the Tuskarr back in the Hills of Hillshire. Our very first hard fight! As you know,” he says, his eyes black as ever, “my subclass is Mystic, something which I haven’t really done anything about. My fans sent me tons of suggestions – pretty sweet stuff, really. So I figured I’d work on enhancing those skills.” He shrugs. “Or I’ll just stick to firearms. We’ll see. It is nice that all the mystic abilities are natural extensions of an avatar’s being, meaning they don’t use Mana, which is useful as fick. Speaking of fick, we let the goblin sleep in.”

“I noticed.”

“And we’re out here because of the smell in there.”

“I noticed.”

Zaena laughs. “I don’t know how I ended up in a guild with two commoners and a goblin, but as we say in Thulean, chekchek tranaikh roonana marfakh.”

“Which means?” Ryuk asks.

She thinks for a moment. “The best way to translate it would be a scar is a success story.”

“Wonderful.” FeeTwix claps his hands together. “Now, how we practiced … ”

Zaena looks him dead in his black eyes and slowly parts her lips. “I know what many of you are thinking, I know that you’re worried that Valentine’s Day is less than a week away and you have nothing, nothing, to give your sigother. Well, your problems are solved!” Her orange eyes twinkle as she crosses one leg over the other. “TwitchTube Red is partnering with the Proxima Company to offer you and your sigother matching TwitchTube Red NV visors that come with a two-year discounted streaming membership. These limited edition visors will surely be collector’s items.” She gives FeeTwix the double thumbs up. “They’re kind of cute too.”

“Great work, babe!” A mirror appears in FeeTwix’s hand and he angles it at his face. “Okay, everyone! I’m stoked to see you all here, ready to venture with us to Polynya in the next hour or so. Keep the mystic hints coming in – I want to be full-on trancing out by the end of the day! Oh, and don’t forget: I’m announcing the winner of the TwitchTube Red lifetime membership at the end of the day, so get your entries in now while I discuss a few things with the guild.”

The mirror disappears and he claps his hands together. “All right, team, how should we wake the goblin?”