“Hi, I’m Jenny.” She said it to me, but quickly moved on to look at everyone else. “I was wondering if I could join your group.”The others awkwardly introduced themselves, at the end of which she turned back to me, obviously expecting me to do the same. I should make clear at this point, despite my general social ineptitude, there are two types of people I have no problems talking to. The first are those even more socially awkward than me (so, everyone sitting around the fire) and the other is pretty girls.What? How can this be? Simple, really. I have absolutely no illusions about my chances, so there’s no pressure to impress or come off cool.I can only go by my own experiences, but I’ve always found that if a pretty girl talks to me it’s because she wants something. If she flirts with me, it’s something she definitely has no right to ask for, and she knows it.I can’t be bothered with people who are happy to use others like that. In fact, when it comes to pretty girls, I have a
“What I said about killing to survive is true. I know it’s not what anyone of us wants to do, but pretending we can get through this by being decent, reasonable people isn’t going to work.”They all looked at me like I was telling them they had to kill puppies and strangle kittens. Which I was.“If we come up against anything like that ogre, we’re dead. We can run away, but eventually we’re going to have to fight, or starve to death. We have to learn how to kill. None of us is particularly strong or even sporty, which means we have to use a different approach.”“What approach?” said Claire. None of them seemed to have any idea what I was talking about.“We have to be ruthless. And mean. Monsters aren’t going to want to talk things over and find a compromise. There won’t be any trade negotiations on Naboo.”Flossie raised her hand. “Ah don’t know what you’re talking about. What the fook is a Naboo?”“You’ve never seen the Phantom Menace?” said Maurice. “I’m so jealous. Wish I coul
The blacksmith wasn’t in front of his place banging away. The forge still burned fiercely but nobody seemed to be about, or so I thought until I saw a young guy sitting on a stool near the back, dozing. I really wanted to have a proper look around the place, but the guy looked pretty beefy, and I didn’t fancy getting caught snooping.I moved on to the leather store a little further along. This place also seemed deserted. Maybe everyone was off having lunch, or possibly they had a siesta type culture like Spanish people, afternoon nap and then back to work in the evening when things cooled down. Either way it was very quiet, although I suspected the girls who had been working in the back were probably still around.What I was interested in didn’t need me to go inside. I casually walked closer, scanning the floor for any off-cuts or strips of discarded leather. There were actually quite a lot of them. I took a brief look around, dropped to one knee like I was tying my laces (hard to do
The blacksmith’s apprentice folded his arms. “Making a weapon without a hammer won’t be easy. What sort of thing were you thinking?” He raised his hand and rubbed his chin with a calloused thumb.The truth was I wasn’t thinking of anything. I had come up with the idea he could make me a weapon just so I could get something for free. I certainly had no plans to go looking for a superior beast. I had visions of talking gorillas hunting me down on horseback with nets.“Erm, well, what about something with a sharp point? If I could stab it in the eye or the ear I might get lucky and kill it in one shot.”He nodded. Apparently he knew what I meant, even though I was making it up on the spot. He moved over to a box on a table and clinked and clanked through it until he found a metal rod. It looked pretty old and worn, roughly the length of my forearm. A railing from a garden gate or something like that.Over the next half hour he heated up the middle of the rod in the forge, pulling and
Just before I walked through the shed door, I had a sudden urge to make a sharp 180 and go off on my own. Whenever I played an MMO on my computer, I chose to play solo. Online games are designed to be a social activity. You can speak to people as you play, plan out and coordinate your attacks, chat about this and that. You share the highs and lows, the laughter and the tears.Not me. I liked to explore alone and try to deal with monsters on my own. It took longer, but it was just a lot less stressful that way. Of course, I would occasionally join a group to do a dungeon or a raid, but more often than not you’d run into a bunch of arseholes.People who took the game too seriously, swore and screamed at anyone who made a mistake or didn’t already know the mob attack patterns, and generally used the game as their personal venting platform. And then there was the whining when it came to rolling for loot...Playing solo meant you could do what you want, make as many mistakes as it took,
We left the shed and headed east. Everyone was very impressed I knew which direction east was, but I told them how I found out, quickly lowering their expectations.I could have let them believe I had an innate ability to know where I was going, but then they might have started relying on me to tell them what to do. Some people like that sort of thing — being looked up to, asked their opinion, admired. Best way to make yourself look an idiot, in my experience.We quickly came to the fields of wheat Kizwat had mentioned, ringed by a wooden fence. On the way into town, Grayson had made it clear fields were to be walked around, not through. Apparently, only in movies is it considered acceptable to run through a field trampling all the crops.It meant it would take us longer to get to the other side, but we needed the time to get used to the slings.The person who had most problems was Flossie. She would get it whizzing around her head and then be unable to get it to stop. She would tr
We finally worked our way around the wheatfield and reached the other side. A fallow green field on a gentle slope led to the top of a low hill, beyond which there was a huge open area of grass, completely flat and disappearing into the distance in all directions.The country was called Flatland, and I guessed this was why.And everywhere you looked there were rabbits. Hundreds of them.They didn’t look exactly like the rabbits back home. They were about the same size — brown, black and a few white ones — with long, floppy ears, but they had elongated faces, and instead of a pom-pom tuft, a pinkish stub for a tail. They didn’t hop, either. More scurried about.“Aw!” said Flossie. She walked up to the nearest one and picked it up.She picked it up! I was stunned. If it was going to be this easy we’d have five daggers each by sundown.Of course, it was not going to be that easy.The rabbit turned its fluffy face to look at Flossie and then snarled at her, revealing not a cute Bugs
As soon as we got back to Probet, we headed for the tanner’s store, proudly carrying our one rabbit like it was a great accomplishment. Which it was for us, so not surprisingly we felt a little pleased with ourselves.The tanner soon brought us back to earth.“We don’t take the whole thing, just the skin.” He was outside his shop, slicing up a stiff looking piece of leather that had come from some huge animal.“How do we skin it?” Maurice asked. The fact someone spoke other than me was an indication of how far we’d come. At this rate, we’d hit normal in a couple of months.The tanner paused long enough to give us a disparaging look, then continued with cutting the leather with an incredibly sharp pair of shears.“If you show us how to skin this one,” I said, “you can have the skin for free.” It seemed a fair trade. We wouldn’t get any money (although I’m not sure we’d be able to buy a whole lot with one chob), but we’d have learned a new skill, and that was much more important in