Gaming Life Ch. 01

Chapter One: A New Player

I wouldn't call myself an addict, but it was always on my mind, even at work, with my family, or friends. I couldn't help myself. I loved the game ever since my friend Gregg turned me onto it, I just couldn't stop myself, but it wasn't just the game.

I liked the guild I was in; they were a bit childish at times, but we were outstanding, second best on the server when things came down to it.

The Tears of Trigon was our guild name; we had over seventy members. In the MMORPG gaming world, we were good. We did raids together, dungeons, and quests.

We were like a family; some of them I hated, some I liked, and others I would give my right arm.

'Can't believe Natalie turned me down,' Gregg texted me as I got off work.

'Dude, you were trying too hard, as usual,' I replied, throwing my stuff to the floor.

Natalie, or KillerInstinct, was one of the frost mages in our guild.

'Well, fuck her!' Gregg said.

I knew he didn't mean it; he had been chasing Natalie for over two years now. When she divorced Ken or Tiamat, every guy in our guild had been on her to get with them.

She had only met Ken once in the three years they were together, and she had to find out that he was married with three kids from some other guild member that found a picture of him and his family.

That's why I didn't date anyone online. It was the perfect cover for all the losers and cheaters.

'You don't mean that, and you know it,' I replied as I popped open a beer.

'I do this time,' Gregg said. 'She acts like her shit doesn't stink, just because she has great looks!'

'Well, you and all the others gave her that big head,' I sent back.

It was true from the moment Natalie joined the guild and posted her first picture onto the member's discord; every guy was on her like white on rice.

Natalie had dark brown hair that was long and green eyes. The rest of her we wouldn't see until the guild meeting, but when we saw her, all the guys and girls hovered all over her.

Natalie was a bombshell with perfect teeth that glowed brightly as she smiled. A set of E-cup breasts that she didn't mind showing off. They made themselves known behind anything she wore, add on to that, she was in great shape and was every gamer's dream girl.

On the other hand, I paid no attention, not because she wasn't my type. It was because she got away with a lot of stuff because of it.

Natalie was horrible at DPS (damage per second), and it hurt us in many raids, but everyone let her get away with it because she was beautiful.

'You can't say she isn't hot,' Gregg said.

'Never said that,' I responded as I put my feet up and turned on the television. 'I just said she gets away with too much because of it.'

'Seriously? You are still mad about that?' Gregg replied.

I looked at the text, it had been four months, and I was still upset. We should have been number one on the server. In the last raid, we were on the final boss. We were about to kill it when the server announcement came up. Our rival guild had defeated the last boss, making them first.

If we hadn't wiped on the last try, we would have got it, and we only wiped because KillerInstinct's DPS was way too low, so the enrage timer went off, and the boss killed us all.

'She told us all the reasons, her internet was acting up. She did much better the next try,' Gregg said. 'You're the only one with a problem with it, these things happen!'

I shook my head. 'Anyone else and they would have been booted out and replaced. Gundrak has shown he has better DPS than she does.'

'Gundrak stands in fire, and he dies too often,' Gregg said.

I decided the talk was over. They all made excuses for Natalie because of her looks and because she was 'nice.'

Even the other women in the guild stuck up for her, even when they fought among themselves.

'I got things to do,' I said as I ended the conversation.

Gregg was my friend; he knew me well enough to know I was competitive. I hated being second in anything. For me, it was first or nothing. As my uncle used to say, 'second is the first loser.'

I watched some television and then decided to hop on. I was greeted by the usual chorus of hi's and welcomes, but then the typical questions came.

As I was one of four geared tanks for the guild, everybody wanted to know what I was doing, and if I wanted to do this or that, I just wanted to do some of the daily quests and maybe a dungeon or two.

Two guild members talked me into doing a lower dungeon for a new member.

'You hopping on voice chat?' Icarus asked me.

He was one of the other officers of the guild.

'Sure,' I replied.

I connected to voice chat and was already regretting it. While the guild was an adult guild and we only recruited twenty-one or older members, sometimes I wondered if some of them lied to get in because sometimes they acted like children.

Today's debate was about how many popcorn kernels could fit in one nostril.

Then I heard a voice I hadn't heard before. It was a female's voice, and she sounded annoyed.

"Is anyone coming to the portal to help me summon?" she asked.

"Cool your panties," one of the other guys replied.

I looked at the chat and saw the name Galadriel.

'Must be the new healer,' I thought.

Once the group was together, I saw her name and looked at her gear. 'Not too bad,' I thought, but she needed some gear for where we wanted to be in the next patch.

I was impressed by her healing skills. I usually went easy on pulling large groups with new members to the guild, but I decided to go for it after a few pulls, and I hadn't dropped in health. Each time she came out with flying colors.

'Trying to keep me on my feet?' a whisper came through. It was from Galadriel.

'Had to see if you could handle it,' I replied.

'Thanks, I used to play often but took a break, so wanted to get back in the swing of things,' she responded.

'Great,' I thought as I shook my head. Another casual player.

Since Natalie broke up with Ken, he left the guild right afterward. He had been our best healer. The new patch was just over a month away, with it, a new raid. We needed a dedicated healer.

'Some of us are doing another run, did you want to come?' Galadriel asked. 'I need to get geared before the next raid.'

That perked my interest. If she was willing to push herself, we could get her some good gear before the next raid.

'Sure,' I replied.

'I have to do something quickly, then I will be back,' Giladrial said.

I flew to the portal on my mount and grabbed a beer and a snack.

By the time I came back, the group had already formed.

'Waiting on you,' Giladrial messaged me.

It was an eventful night, and she got a few key upgrades.

I called it a night, then went about my night and prepared for the day ahead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I seriously could care less," I said as I talked to one of my coworkers.

As usual, he bragged about the night before as they went to the bar. He tried to impress me by saying he went home with some woman he met at the bar.

"Dude, she had huge ones," Jerald said as he put his hands out from his chest in an imaginary attempt to show how big this fictional woman's chest was, and he was over-exaggerating as usual.

"If she had a chest that big, she would fall over," I said, shaking my head.

"You weren't there, so you can't tell me what I experienced," Jerald said as he walked faster and caught up with some of the other guys.

I was sure he was going to tell them his fishtail story to them.

This is why I preferred my game; I could easily ignore someone in the game, but these were my coworkers, and as much as I wanted to ignore them, I needed them to work with me to get the job done.

The day rattled on, and as much as I hated the people, I knew the paycheck would be great. I had worked two double shifts this week, and today was supposed to be a short day, but my shift manager asked me to do a complete shift.

All I could think about was the new keyboard and mouse that I wanted to buy, and with the upcoming paycheck, I might be able to buy it quicker than I thought.

"Have you seen Tyrone?" my shift manager Jason asked.

"No," I told him as he looked annoyed at me.

Tyrone was always getting himself in trouble, and I was sick of covering for him. I knew exactly where he was, what he was doing, and with whom, but I was no snitch.

As soon as Jason was out of sight, I went to the far wall. Our building butted up to another, and right between the two buildings was a fire walkway.

The alarm on the fire door had been broken for years. It used to go off with no one near it, sometimes even when no one was in the building, so the uppers just shut it off.

I opened the door and immediately regretted it.

The sight of Tyrone's fat ass bucking back and forth as he fucked Emily greeted me as they were fucking on some old equipment.

"For fucks sake!" I said as I slammed the door shut. "Jason's looking for you," I said through the door.

"Give us a few minutes to finish," Tyrone said.

"A few seconds," Emily said.

I shook my head. Emily was the work slut, and she was proud of it. I didn't know anyone on the job that hadn't fucked her at least once, except for myself. Even though she had tried many times to get me to nail her.

"Told you," Emily smiled after less than a minute as she popped out from the door, pulling and adjusting her clothes as she passed me.

Emily always flaunted she could get a man to bust a nut within seconds, not minutes. She said she had the best skills, and no man could last long with her.

I knew she was trying to get me to bite, but I just agreed so she could move on.

"Seriously, I was close," Tyrone said as he patted me on the shoulder.

"I could give two shits," I said, taking his hand off my shoulder. We walked towards our stations. "One of these days, it won't be me opening that door. It will be Jason or Paul."

"Like I give a damn," Tyrone said. "It will give me a reason to leave this place."

Tyrone, just like many of the others that worked here, always played the tough role when I or any of the others got on their cases, but whenever I told them that the door swung both ways. That it could let them out, just the same as it let them in, they always backed down.

They knew they had it good here. Even though she could be a pain sometimes, our boss gave us free rein, she only cared about numbers, and we were doing well above the average in our district. Several times we had got the number one spot, so once the numbers didn't drop, she could care less about what we did down here.

I returned to my station and thought about heading home in four hours.

It was like this most of the time. The work was tedious:

Hit this button.

Wait for the light to turn green.

Take the sheet of metal out.

Put it on the next machine.

Push another button.

Rinse, and repeat.

Sometimes I was on another machine or station, but today was this one. It was the reason we could listen to music. We were good if we had one ear open and always kept our safety goggles and other safety gear on. I had seen many people handle these parts without gloves and lose fingers or worse.

Sure, it was boring, but injuries would happen quickly if we ignored what we were doing and the other people around us. Too often, we had to call the hospitals because of new people treating the equipment like toys or not paying attention to things around them.

If not respected, every machine down here could cause severely harm a person or even cause severe casualties, one warehouse even had a death because of a machine.

I felt the vibration of my phone and knew it was either a text message or my Discord app.

I smiled as I saw it was a message on my Discord app.

Galadriel had come on and messaged me asking if I was on and wanted to do some dungeons.

'Sorry, at work,' I messaged back quickly.

'Shoot, that means I got to find a good tank, thanks for nothing, lol,' Giladrial sent back.

I laughed at that message.

'Or you can wait for four hours, and I will be on,' I replied.

'I can nap for four hours,' Giladrial replied.

'I was joking,' I responded.

'I wasn't,' Giladrial replied. 'See you when you come on. Be safe.'

I put my phone back in my pocket.

"Heather wants to see you," Jason said as he tapped me on the shoulder.

"Okay," I nodded.

I took off my gear as I got to the stairs that led up to the offices. I slowly walked up the stairs and down the long hallway with offices on both sides.

This is where most of the people that we called the higher-ups dwelled or worked from, cozy in their air-conditioned offices. Never caring about us down on the floor that had to work in the steaming heat of summer or the cold of winter.

The floor was always either too hot or very cold, never regular. This time of year, it was cold, but I preferred the cold over summer's heat.

I knocked on Heather's door. She was the warehouse manager.

"Come in," Heather said as she looked through the glass door.

"Hi," I said as I sat down in the chair.

"How are you doing Rick?" Heather asked.

"Doing okay," I nodded.

"So, I will cut to the chase," Heather smiled.

I nodded.

"I know you turned down the shift manager position the last time," Heather said as she stared at me.

"Right," I nodded.

"Jason has asked to be transferred," Heather said.

"Not a surprise," I replied.

"Agreed," Heather smiled.

Heather and Jason had butted heads many times. She liked the relaxed atmosphere. Jason wanted something more rigid and more by the book.

"Well?" Heather asked.

I sat back and thought about it. I had turned it down before because she had asked while I was dating someone, and things were going well, and I didn't want the long hours and random shifts to get in the way. Now I was single.

"Sure," I said.

"Really?" Heather beamed.

"Why not?" I shrugged.

It meant more pay, and I could make a few changes. Being a lead, I could only go to Jason or Paul for things. Being a shift manager meant I could do something like show Tyrone the fucking door.

"You got that look," Heather said as she leaned back.

"Got a few things I would like to do," I said.

"Here," Heather said as she passed over a folder.

I looked at the folder. It was Tyrone's portfolio. I was glad to see he had three write-ups and four warnings.

I had no idea why Jason kept Tyrone around, but I was sure it was because Tyrone had something on him.

Heather passed another folder over to me.

"Seriously?" I asked.

Heather nodded.

"Wow," I shook my head.

It was Jason's portfolio.

"So," I said.

"Not a word to anyone, you're going to be a manager now, you need to keep things professional," Heather smiled. "There is no room for personal feelings in management. No matter what you may think or feel about a person, personally. You must do the right thing, professionally."

I nodded. This was going to be fun.

We shook hands, and I went downstairs.

I looked over at Tyrone and then Jason, and I couldn't help but smile.

'This was definitely going to be fun.' I thought as I went back to my station.

"You look like the cat that got the bird," Emily said as she was closest to me.

"Just thinking," I said.

"Anything good?" Emily asked.

"Nope," I shook my head.

Emily didn't believe me. She walked over from her station to mine.

"What?" she asked.

Telling Emily anything was like putting it in the air in bright neon lights.

"Yeah right," I turned away from her.

"What I can keep a secret," Emily said as she stared at me.

"No, the fuck you can't!" I laughed at her.

"Fuck you, Rick!" Emily said as she started walking back to her station.

"Hey Emily," I smiled. "You should really think about where the dicks you have been sucking have been before you put them in your mouth."

"What does that mean?" Emily asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all," I laughed.