The Ballad of Doghair

Jordan stood alone in the crowd around the PCs running the Kings and Conquests demo. He watched intently as others selected options for their characters and then launched themselves into the game world itself. Each found themselves in a rustic medieval-style Inn. By the looks of the in-game outside sky, when each demo started it was only minutes from dusk.

Finally one of the composite folding chairs opened up and Jordan sat next to a group of kids perhaps old enough to have started high school. They were enthralled by every moment of what was happening on the screen. They had chosen a character from a humanoid amphibious race capable of shape shifting into an adaptable ooze-like substance which changed colors depending on its consistency and natural defenses.

“Ooh! Take the bubble punch ability! Splat!”

“Make it so his face can turn into a sword!”

“Green goop!”

The kids jeered and shouted while the member of their group nominated to operate the PC desperately tried to keep up with their frantic suggestions. After ten minutes of teenage litigation, they managed to produce a level one character named “Doghair.”

Jordan didn’t speak. He simply observed, watching the group playing a single character in Kings and Conquests. He knew there was no chance these kids had the time or the skill to find anything of value in the game in the short interval they had before the next group took over. It was well past one in the morning, which was probably half the reason these kids were having so much fun. Jordan wondered if Mom and Dad had sent them off to GamesWest as the digital substitute for a week of summer camp. Or, he thought, maybe Mom and Dad are here too? Video games certainly weren’t limited to kids any more. Who else besides the full-time employed would be able to buy $100 in-game upgrades on a regular basis?

By now the heroic Doghair was speaking to what looked like a guardsman with the village watch. He was holding a lantern and speaking in hushed tones as if he didn’t want to be inadvertently heard. The game interface indicated the guard had three quests available. He was telling tales of disappearing livestock and bite marks infected with a terrible disease. When pressed, he said he dared not speak its name for fear the dark ones would descend on the fair village of Dayshire. Jordan concluded the disease had some kind of magical source.

Once the first of the three quests was collected from the guardsman, Doghair made his way north towards the abandoned steads where the last villager to escape said they had seen a beast in the night. The level one character was carrying everything he owned, which was to say he had a cheap lantern about half-full of fuel and a dagger scarcely wide enough to butter a dinner roll. Jordan anticipated a scene of complete higgledy-piggledy the moment anything threatening appeared. Surely the image of a ravenous werewolf attacking ten gallons of snot would be worth the wait.

“There’s a clue!”

“Where!”

“Over there!”

“Where it’s glowing!” Three fingers each attached to a different kid’s hand pointed at the screen. The fourth member of the unlikely band of adventurers guided the heroic Doghair off the road towards what looked like some kind of light source on the ground behind a scarecrow. Jordan guessed it might be an abandoned campfire. Everything else in the field was pitch black, silhouetted in the strange glow. The stars glittered overhead. On the horizon the harvest moon shone like a bronze platter suspended in a dark monarch’s throne room. Jordan had to admit Wyland’s graphics team sure could set a mood.

“It’s a lantern just like ours…” one of the kids said.

Jordan actually felt a chill. He hadn’t been this riveted to a video game in years. Like it or not, he was part of Doghair’s journey. And now the journey had a missing man.

“Which way do you think they went?” another kid asked.

“Without light?”

“Maybe they were eaten right here,” the one operating the PC said. “I’m drawing the knife.”

On the screen, Doghair shifted from the standard “wait” animation cycle to a combat stance. In his hand, his inadequate weapon caught the light from his own lantern and gleamed briefly.

“That knife won’t damage a werewolf.”

All four kids turned to look at Jordan as if he had just kicked over a birthday cake.

“How do you know?” one of them asked.

“Werewolves can only be damaged by silver. That knife is made of steel.”

“What are you, some kind of wolf expert?”

“Played too many tabletop role-playing games.”

“What’s a tabletop role-playing game?”

“I need a drink.” Jordan got up and wandered off. Doghair was on his own.

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