He put the phone down for the first time in hours, taking the empty plate of cookies to the sink and opening the cupboard with Luigi’s selection of pouches.
“Salmon?” he asked, glancing down at the cat. Luigi’s excited trill was confirmation enough. Oscar smiled as he squeezed the chunky bits and thick gravy into Luigi’s bowl, relishing the infinity signs Lu kept rubbing around his feet. “There you go.”
Oscar bent down to give Luigi his luxury plate. He’d certainly come a long way since the first time they’d met. Both of them had.
Oscar’s phone lit up again. His eyes followed.
2
WELL, THAT’S [Y]ARN CUTE!
The prospect of another day tackling the same tedious level wasn’t very stimulating, but when Oscar had confessed that he was supposed to be testing the game late the previous night, Aaron had felt so guilty, Oscar had promised he wouldn’t waste the day.
Not that he considered the previous day wasted. Where there’d been an empty chat, Oscar now had hours’ worth of texts to scroll through.
Aaron had been adamant, though. He’d known what kind of carrot to dangle before him, too—a five-minute text break every hour and a special secret reward if Oscar actually managed to beat the boss.
“Time to rip you to shreds,” he muttered, leaning forward, controller in hand like a weapon.
By the sixth text break of the day, Oscar still hadn’t managed.
Spikey: I don’t know why they make boss levels this hard.
CowBoy0705: Maybe to increase playtime? I mean, if you finish a game in ten hours as opposed to a hundred, you’ll feel cheated of your money, right?
Spikey: I don’t have any money to be cheated of. This is cheating me of my life. T.T
CowBoy0705: Sending you good luck vibes, if you believe in that kind of stuff.
Oscar had long before stopped believing in anything, but he liked the idea of Aaron sending good vibes his way. He heart-reacted to the last message and turned back to the game.
The monster loomed large, webbed feet stomping on the broken churchyard tiles, each step sending vibrations through Oscar’s controller. As it screeched, another crack formed in the ground. Oscar had played the level enough times to know to step aside.
The screen would light up in just a few seconds, and Oscar had been meaning to try something new. Quickly swapping out the axe with the magic staff, he slammed it into the ground just as lightning flashed. The controller vibrated as power surged into the staff. The character wielded it like it was nothing, twisting and twirling it in her grip. Oscar crossed to the middle of the courtyard, knowing the harnessed power would fade away soon. He charged at the monster, cutting a blow to his fleshy shin before a wad of venomous slobber could drip onto his character’s head.
The monster screeched loudly, the vibrations throwing Oscar’s character back a few paces. The axe came out, replacing the now fairly powerless staff. Oscar aimed it at the gooey leg, burned by the power of lightning. The blade lodged into the skin, the monster’s health bar flashing as the hit registered.
Retrieving the axe would mean certain death. Being thrown back had taken his character’s life down by half, and if she drank the health potion, then she wouldn’t be able to use any others for thirty seconds.
“You don’t have thirty seconds,” Oscar muttered as the monster began to sway. He flicked through the flasks in his inventory and picked the Molotov cocktail, throwing it directly at the damaged leg.
The hit felled the monster, melting the leg clean off and stopping him from moving any closer.
“Yes!” Oscar equipped himself with his bow and arrows and started aiming at the monster’s most exposed body parts. Each hit was small, taking down only a few health points, but with every arrow lodging into him, the monster remained pinned, unable to stand and attack Oscar’s character.
When the monster craned his head at last, Oscar aimed the final arrow straight into his large, veiny eye. His final screech sounded damning, but to Oscar, it was the sound of victory at long last.
The character cheered, the music finally fading into a background track and giving way to ambient noise. Oscar retrieved the axe and passed through the arched door into the abandoned church, where the Quest Master awaited with his reward.
“Our thanks, Fair Rogue,” said the man, his robes in far better shape than his church. “Now that you have slain the monster terrorizing our sacred place, the villagers will once again feel safe.”
“I’m glad,” Oscar’s character said. “But I didn’t do this out of the goodness of my heart, Priest.”
“I am a man of my word.”
The coin value shot up by a hundred, and the inventory opened, the new addition blinking. Oscar hovered over the reward, a chalice. He pressed it.
“What is it?” the character asked.
