*You tell Eloisa, Right.

*Eloisa tells you, You aren’t working too much, right?

*You tell Eloisa, Ummmm.

“So, what are we doing?” I asked the group. “Just hacking on trolls for hours on end? Let’s do something productive.”

“We’re working on that shitty quest,” Kat said. “I read on Gamer Garden that they’ve found evidence of a key to the first part of the dungeon system to rescue the princess. It drops when you loot a random dead troll. But it’s super rare. So we are killing them by the hundreds to see if it drops.”

I sat back, trying not to laugh. I hadn’t seen that article. What a load of bullshit. I’d have to ask the developers on Monday if they had planted that bogus clue themselves.

“What do you think, Fallen? Is it a waste of our time? I’m really, really curious to get your opinion on it,” Heath asked.

*You tell Fragged, Fat chance.

“I dunno. I’ll go with the flow. If you guys are having fun, let’s just keep at it. Hopefully Em—Mia is feeling less cranky?”

“Wreaking murder and havoc on the monsters of Yondareth always brightens my mood,” she said in a breezy, distant voice.

*Eloisa tells you, Nice almost-slip, genius boy.

*You tell Eloisa, Can’t *always* be perfect.

Yeah, I’d almost slipped and called her Emilia. As far as I knew, I was the only one who called her by her full name. I’d started out doing it as one of my many ploys to throw her off track as to who I really was. But it had stuck. She was my Emilia. Mia was what everyone else called her.

*Eloisa tells you, Yeah, so…really…you aren’t working too much, are you?

*You tell Eloisa, Define “too much.”

*Eloisa tells you, Adam…

I sat back, my fingers hovering above the keyboard. My chest seized again. I was touched by her concern while at the same time resenting it. God, I missed her. And we’d only been broken up for a few weeks.

*You tell Eloisa, I’m mostly fine.

*Eloisa tells you, Why only “mostly”?

*You tell Eloisa, I figured that would be obvious.

“Incoming one badass motherfucker! It’s Grubious the Great. Get him! He’s got loot!” Heath yelled into his mic as his character appeared out of nowhere, chased by one very large and angry troll. Our group jumped into action and a few minutes later the troll’s corpse was dead at our feet, his virtual loot split between the four of us.

*Eloisa tells you, Sorry. I meant, like with the lawsuit and stuff. The bloggers aren’t being very kind.

*You tell Eloisa, So I noticed. Glad to see Girl Geek has stayed out of it.

*Eloisa tells you, Of course I’d stay out of it. I spend my efforts on important things like raging about chainmail bikinis, not lawsuits.

We spent over an hour working our way through those trolls, which generated (in gamer speak we used the word “spawned”) as fast as we could kill them. The mythical key never appeared, as I knew it wouldn’t. I was almost tempted—almost—to log in on my other rig and code something that looked like a key for them to find as a joke, but decided against it as too mean.

I figured I’d throw them a bone instead, even if it was a very, very subtle bone.

“So guys, this is getting extremely boring and we aren’t getting anywhere,” I said. “How about we go make some new characters and run around the starting area?”

“WTF, Fallen. Newbies? Um, no. I’m not in the mood to get killed by a first level bat over and over again while picking yellow daffodils for General SylvanWood’s lost love,” Kat said, referring to one of the basic first quests ever given to a new character in the world of Dragon Epoch.

*Fragged tells you, What’s the matter…are we getting warm? I have a feeling we’re on the right track and you’re trying to reroute us. It *is* the key, isn’t it???

I laughed again. Like I would tell him. I hadn’t even told Emilia anything helpful and I’d slept with her every night for months.

*You tell Fragged, Ooops, I guess you caught me.

A little while later, Katya logged off to go to work. Heath stayed for another few minutes before signing off and Emilia and I were on, alone. Instead of sending text chat, we could actually talk.

“So…” she said.

I cleared my throat and stared at her avatar on the computer monitor. “I’m glad you decided to come back to work,” I began lamely.

“I don’t think William would have forgiven me if I hadn’t.”

“Not true. He wouldn’t have forgiven me.”