Wanderlust

To use the words of her co-worker, it had become her guilty pleasure. Well, she guessed it was just friend now as the company shuttered its doors and windows with most of the rest of the world.

She clutched in her hands her drug that emboldened her wanderlust that a many a facet of life had tried to subdue. With a giggle of all things, she slipped it over her head and laid back onto her bed.

Her eyes opened just as her simulated breath puffed into the air that should have been freezing. Nigh impossibly tall, snow-laden pines towered above her, and with a push of a button, she veered up and up past their canopies.

Before her stretched out towards all horizons was one of the worlds she had modded. A world made vast and lush and varied by her own skill and determination (and a great many coding references). A sanctuary of her own design.

But it was all still a semblance, wasn’t it? That thought always nagged her when the lack of smell and touch became too stark to not notice or when the discrepancy in gravity and her position befuddled her brain and eroded the illusion to near total shattering.

She had filled her world with fanatical creatures and randomly generated dungeons to explore. Vast deserts and plains and dimly lit forests and deep oceans that effectively never ended.

Her sanctuary, so lush and empty.

She flew south by east towards her original reason to come today, towards the vague forms clustered across the mountains in the distance.

Taller and taller, the towers on her fortress grew as she worked, and when she finally needed to take a break, she sat down on the tip of the tallest one and watched the shadows of her creation stretch and shift across the land with the quickly setting sun.

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When she plunged in again, she chose a world much livelier and took on the name "Orchid". Around her, others – true others, “true” people – bustled around her. She didn’t linger or explore, however, for she had a date to keep and she hurriedly “galloped” on her own four hooves past the shops and mount stalls.

Her adventuring party had set up camp near town behind a waterfall down in a ravine, so obviously, she took the fastest route down and laughed as she jumped without looking and dropped into the water below.

Brom, their current leader, a brawny “dwarf” with as many braids in her beard as she could get to render without it turning into a glitching, clipping mess that obscured her field of vision, took on a dramatic tone as she described the new area that had generated far to the north past the Bleaks.

To exploring, to wanderlust, they all cheered!

(“For treasure!” the “gnome” added)

The way north was difficult, and their pace slowed by creatures hungry and sharp-toothed.

There is a stark contrast between the Bleaks and the grand forests that border it to the south and even one who had never been so far north knew they had reached that border as soon as they laid eyes upon it. Before them, to say the land was barren was an understatement. It was nothing but dark sand that stretched on for “miles”, the monotony of the landscape only broken up by solemn mountains and drifting morning mists.

It took many turns of the sun just to reach the Ruins of Skaar’lel which was the closest structure from the southern border of the Bleaks. They were most dangerous ruins, as well, as both desperate souls and ravenous creatures hunt the area. Often times it was only the number of your party that would deter bandit attacks or save you from the hordes.

More turns of the sun, more of one foot then the other, more sun that should have burned them and nights that should have chilled them till finally a grand gate loomed before them in the distance – and of course there was a puzzle that you needed to solve to enter.

Things are never easy.

The party had never been this far north so it took a while to scout an appropriate area to camp for who knows how long the puzzle would take. They chose a smaller cave nestled between two large hills and did what they could to secure it with no resources but dirt, sand, and magic in such a barren land, and all were hyper aware of exactly how many food and water items they had left. Ultimately, they may have to take this trek again.

They took turns between standing watch and debating the puzzle and it was nearly half a turn of the moon Selun’mere when the lookout spotted not just monsters in the distance but the creatures’ prey for that night. Below them, down into the flatlands, a torch darting across the sands illuminated at least two figures that ran from a shadowy horde with many glowing red eyes.

(Sometimes… you do things not because they’re smart but because they’re good, even if no true stakes are in play.)

That clearly in mind, their leader called them to arms and brandished a torch from the fire and ran up to the neighboring hill. They gathered around their leader on its peak, took aim, and fired towards the night creatures. Howling and unnatural shrieks reverberated across the land as arrows and magic bolts struck true. The horde dispersed for a moment but were quickly rounding back from many more angles.

The figures that were to be their prey for the night started up the hills towards the party. “Be ready!” the leader called as she threw down the torch and took up her battle axe for they may have more than night creatures to fight tonight.

Orchid could see that the figures actually numbered three as the light of both the torch of the party leader and the strangers merged, and for the briefest of moments, both parties stared down the other before ultimately merging to face the mutual threat.

The battle raged around that small beacon of soft torch light and it was only the morning sun that finally drove away the monstrosities. Each party gathered their number and surveyed the damage. None had died but all were injured and three had been sickened by the Blight. Healing all nearly exhausted their entire joint supply of bandages and antidotes items, but in the moment of tense calm – you never know when another monster would suddenly spawn – the two parties were at least able to merge the voice channels.

Only the two warriors and the mage remained of their once larger party, the strangers explained. A bandit ambush had split them. The other half of the party hadn’t been fortunate in getting away and had become surrounded by blade-things and killed. They had received word that the others had respawned and were safe again back at their headquarters, but it would take a fair number of turns to regather supplies before even trying to make the trek back north. Instead, they explained, the remaining party was to scout out as much of the area as possible for any advantage for when they all eventually returned here.

As they all continued to talk, though, she found herself strangely drifting back to school camping trips. She remembered exploring actual caves and the smell of the pines in the mountains. Remembered, she did, of how on that freezing desert morning she had picked up a frozen-stiff scorpion and accidentally terrified a certain curly-haired boy.

“Hey,” the mage with that voice said as he walked over, “so what’s up with the fluffy centaur model?”

“… Ranger?”

“… No? What? … I’m a mage.”

“No, I mean…” Her model mimicked her as she cocked her head. “Ranger?” she asked again but she couldn’t will herself to say it stronger.

“… Space Cadet?”

Neither noticed the others now quiet and staring.

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When she sat down at her desk this time, she didn’t slip on her goggles. Instead, they remained on their shelf as she brought up the messenger. The clock stuck the hour and a different but still familiar face appeared on the screen.

“Hey,” she said as a smile slowly broke through her awkwardness and anxiety to fully form.

“Hey.” His slight chuckle, equally awkward, was accompanied by his gaze wandering to anywhere but the screen but that silence was finally broken as he thought of something to say. “So, you never answered my question?”

“Hm?”

“What’s with the model?”

“Oh! Because I wanted to. I’m the floofiest type a centaur. A llama-taur!” she replied to which he snorted hard to, and her smile grew. “So… what have you been up to lately?”

That first day, they talked long into the night. She told stories of college and after. Stories of trouble finding housing and her new dog’s antics. His stories, on the other hand, elaborated on how he hopped onto several career trains before finding the one he was on now.

What were the other’s newest favorite movie, each asked the other as the conversation continued. Did you ever get to that observatory like you wanted to? Have you been able to work at a zoo yet?

How she wished to go camping again, she expressed as the night grew so late that both were barely awake. He agreed that it would be awesome as well as to just go out with friends to eat like he used to. This was enough to stick pins in each of their hearts but they both sleepily agreed that they did have an alternative for now while the world shuttered itself away. (Only for now for each, unknown to the other, was already scheming adventures to warm beaches and fields of fragrant wildflowers that they hoped the other would join them on.)

You can’t hold hands (yet) in that other world but they stood side-by-side surrounded by both their parties as they all finally solved the puzzle and took the first steps into that new land both difficult and wonderful.

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Author’s note: The age-old question: do female dwarves have beards? I really don’t know.