carl@fire

After an impressive amount of persuading and stubbornness, Carl finally managed to hand over the money. And rather than a "hand over", what he'd ended up doing was sort of turning his cupped hands a little at a time while the older woman had swept the coins into another vase once she'd been "roused". The shopkeeper insisted on splitting it with the young shopper woman, giving him a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. She'd also made him take a little mug of his own with a neat swirly design on the side. She was so nice! I can't believe they even share the money from tutorial scenes like that! Who'd have guessed there'd be a thriving acting-based economy in the world's most popular video game. I hope Bobby likes the mug. Well, the story'll probably make her like it since she'll be laughing so hard at how…

Maybe I'll leave some parts out.

He strode along the street that he'd been told would—after many twists and turns along a route indicated by a certain signage—be the quickest way to old Ingrid's shoe shop, which was apparently located across town and he shouldn't go anywhere near…

The young woman had trailed off as she was about to finish her warning after he'd asked for a second set of directions to confirm the ones he'd gotten from the blind old woman previously. She once again glanced at the spear that remained embedded in the poorly-coded cobblestones. The shoddy paving material reeked of Engineering cutting corners again. Greg was probably furious—or would be when he found out. Can't be cutting corners like that just because it's a starter t—city, Roger.

Carl was already planning to write himself a note in his to-do file. That reminds me… He ducked into a nearby alleyway. Checking to make sure that nobody was watching him break character by using the game's systems so openly, he set about putting his new mug and his stupid weapon back into his inventory before hurriedly updating his todo file.

With that completed, he walked back out and accidentally bowled over a very young city guard—one of the pair who'd been following him. Oh boy. He glanced around, noting how the crowded market street seemed to have conveniently cleared out a bubble around them with a conspicuous number of eyes spectating.

Great. Another tutorial-y scene. Three in a row. Hoo, this is starting to get exhausting. How do people do it? Staying in character all the time is so hard! "Um," he began.

"You!" shouted the still-standing guard, a stocky, armored man in his mid-thirties—possibly a little older since it was hard to see how worn his face was under the stubble of his red beard.

Alright, so this is where I've gotta have some kinda reason for pushing that gatekeeper around a little bit outside, I guess. Shoot, this would be way easier with—Oh, wow, that's clever. They waited until I put my spear away from the last one, and now…

Carl rolled his eyes. Very funny, picking on the new guy. This is suddenly reminding me an awful lot of my first day at the office. Fine, let's see how you like it when I absolutely don't break character for any reason, no matter what.

He entered the latest tutorial-y scene by stepping over the small, prone guard girl, ignoring her attempts to retake her feet as he moved to loom over the man who was, predictably, also much shorter than him. "You have business with me?" he asked, keeping his voice low and even. He reluctantly admitted to the annoying, told-you-so part of his brain that having seen a lot of anime with creepy, soft-spoken antagonists and villains was paying off today, even if Annie had been right when she'd made him give it up.

The guardsman looked up at him, seeming to finally realize that he wasn't just talking to any noob.

This was Carl Weathers, former power-gamer, and a man who'd once played an MMO for forty eight hours without stopping for sleep or even to get up and use a real toilet, having prepared a number of emergency bottles beforehand, solely for the purpose of grinding out the last of his PVP rank in the days leading up to the end of a season; he'd spent too much time being a great boyfriend to Christina for the few weeks prior when she'd been having a never-ending series of final exam-induced panic attacks, and he had dropped to ninth place on the leaderboards as a result.

The almost-bearded man shook his head, then scowled. "I—" he began, but obviously Carl wasn't about to let him get away with speaking.

Carl wasn't a total noob. Obviously he had to go completely over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall overboard with how overbearing his character was in order to finally get everyone to freaking lay off of him for a while. He had to make them believe that he'd learned from this tutorial stuff.

"You took issue with my conduct as I walked peacefully through your city?" Carl asked, maintaining eye contact to try and make the other man uncomfortable.

It was a game of Stare Chicken that Carl had won many, many, many times against employees who thought they could just come and see him in person, and maybe he'd be nicer, and he didn't really expect them to follow all of these draconian security policies, did he?

Of course he did.

He was Carl Weathers.

Security was his business.

Except now, when he was trying to intimidate the city's security into letting him go about his business. He struggled to avoid chuckling as the notion occurred to him and mostly succeeded, allowing only the tiniest of smiles to show through.

"We—" the soldier tried again, taking a step back to get out from under Carl's loom.

This is like I'm replaying the same scene as with the god-tier gatekeeper role-playing guy, except this guy's acting isn't nearly as good. C'mon, guy, don't go hassling new players if you can't even keep up. "You found fault with the manner in which I compensated the shopkeeper for a vase that I did not personally break?"

"We just wanna know what you said to my dad!" came the loud voice of a young girl. The younger guard came into sight, having walked all the way around him after he'd stepped over her rather than break the scene. She scowled at him. "You don't have to be so mean about it!"

A challenger appears! Carl did his best to affect an expression of boredom. It wasn't difficult; he just imagined how much time he'd have to waste explaining Roger's monumental screw-up to HR when he got out of the game. "Am I supposed to know who that is?" he asked.

The girl blushed.

Uh-oh, I think I might be outclassed.

"Um, he's the gatekeeper you talked to outside the city," she said, her tone much less aggressive as she looked down and fidgeted with her gloved hands.

"Oh," Carl said, not expecting her to try such an angle. He thought back. Did she talk about it with that gatekeeper guy before she set this up? Like, if I break out some outrageous lie is she gonna call me on it? The idea gave him pause until he realized the obvious loophole for his character. He harrumphed and turned as though he was about to begin walking away. "A discussion like that needs no eavesdroppers, daughter or not." He started walking away, taking an unfortunately-circuitous, not-quite-as-cool-as-he'd-hoped route around the stand of a fruit seller to make his exit.

Nailed it. Absolutely destroyed. I'm gonna be ready for the next town in no time at this rate. These people are so good at making you think about how your character would act! He almost pumped his fist in the air but managed to stop himself.

"Whatever you said to him," the young girl called out, "um, I just wanted to say thank you. I haven't seen him this happy in a long time!"

Carl came to a stop. This new route of attack left him more confused the more he thought about it. So he stopped thinking about it and started walking again. Alright, maybe I've still got a bit more to learn here. That was a clever one. What the heck would my character say to something like that?

Carl had walked for some time. He'd taken main roads, he'd taken side roads, and one time he'd even hitched a ride on the back of a tall, passing carriage for a short while when he got bored of walking down an incredibly long, wide avenue.

It wasn't that he'd gotten turned around or lost.

Carl wasn't bad with directions.

The city's just too darn big! Why is this a starter zone! So tedious. All the buildings are just this same stupid brick without any variations, the market streets are all the same with all these stands and stalls and carts and occasionally a couple actual stores with more stupid brick buildings, and the roads are all this garbage cobblestone that Roger probably coded the physics for himself. It's like everything he does is perfectly planned to annoy me to the maximum possible degree.

How does anyone play long enough to even get around this place regularly? None of the carriages have been moving that fast, and this place is huge. Do they just live here and never go out to do quests?

And now that I think of it, I haven't seen a single person with a quest! How does that even work? Is this some kinda low-key slice of life MMO? Feels like I should be getting XP just from walking at this rate. Really wish I had a map so I could at least see how much progress I've made towards this stupid shoe place. Can't believe there's no freaking maps. Seriously, that's just insane!

He came out of yet another side street that cut through a row of brick buildings and into—

An ancient-looking, two-seated car ran over his foot at a speed only somewhat faster than he was capable of jogging, then belched smoke in his face as it continued driving past him. A well-dressed—possibly over-dressed, even—man sat in the driver's seat with one hand on the steering wheel, and a pointy-eared, pink-collared, naked woman was leaning over from the passenger seat with her face pressed to the man's lap. The seats were freely exposed with neither windshield nor side nor overhead covering.

There weren't even any doors on the stupid steampunk-looking car.

Carl blinked, standing unharmed but still incredibly disgruntled and annoyed.

Am I a joke to them?