Chapter 4 The One with the Slutty Vampire
four
the one with the slutty vampire
But when Wednesday rolls around, I can’t sleep.
I’ve mostly been able to keep my excitement under wraps the last few weeks, but as the hours tick closer, it starts bubbling to the surface more and more.
Even the flaming pit of rage in my stomach after the whole speedrun debacle isn’t enough to dampen my spirits anymore.
Besides, I’m pretty much over it by now. Sort of.
It’s been over a week since that stream and people aren’t talking about it as much—and Scones continues to say nothing about it, which is fine. Totally fine.
Instead of sleeping all day Wednesday, I spend most of the day playing The Stones of Ayor 3—and yeah, maybe I tune into SconesOfAyor’s stream this afternoon, but it’s just background noise while I tackle one of my favourite dungeons.
I hardly pay attention, and I almost don’t even laugh when he says something funny.
I certainly don’t care what he has to say about the SOA4 release, anyway. Or how he’s going to be waiting in line to get the Deluxe Edition at midnight. Of course he is, that’s not news. It doesn’t make him cool.
“Shit, I’m out of health potions,” he says, and I glance over at my other screen to see his character jumping up and down, trying to avoid getting attacked by gremlings gathering around his ankles. “How do I get out of this, folks? Asking for a friend.”
He continues hopping around from stone to stone, but he must be reading the chat at the same time because he responds to someone suggesting that he light them all on fire.
“See, that’s a great suggestion,” he says calmly, not at all frazzled by his character’s predicament, “but then I would also be on fire. Also, Charles here is a vegan pacifist, so killing grems is not really his thing.”
I pause my game and tab over to the chat before I can think better of it.
OddlyAdored: Toss them some food to distract them, then cast a smokescreen and run the other way.
The playful smile that’s barely visible on his face vanishes, though his character keeps bouncing on the spot—the space bar rattles with each jump because he really needs to upgrade from stock stabilizers, jeez—while Scones is, presumably, reading my message.
Which I immediately regret, especially since I hardly ever comment on anyone’s streams, let alone his.
But he’s not the only one who can offer unsolicited advice.
(Although I guess he did, technically, solicit advice for this.)
“Uh, right,” he says, straightening his posture. “Good idea, Oddly.”
I nearly choke on my sudden inhale and start coughing, reaching for my cold brew to chug it until I can clear my throat. I was not expecting that.
Not only did Scones just acknowledge me for the first time ever—mansplaining looting notwithstanding—but hearing him say my name like that catches me completely off-guard.
The only time anyone on a stream ever mentions me is when Helmi is gushing about how amazing I am, in which case she refers to me as Audrey.
And on the rare occasion I comment on someone’s stream—and they actually respond—they say the entire username.
But Scones just called me Oddly, like we’re on a first-name basis—or first-word, at least. (Then again, I call him Scones.)
Really, I picked a terrible username. That’s my problem.
It seemed great ten years ago, when I changed my Play’N username to reflect my new favourite game, The Stones of Ayor 3.
I thought it was brilliant, at the time.
Not only is it a reference to a line said by my favourite NPC, Hadley, near the end of his romance arc, but my best friend had been calling me Audley since we were kids.
He had trouble with Rs at first, so Audrey was a struggle, and then it just sort of stuck for a while.
Cameron was the only other person who’s ever really understood my obsession with SOA in high school; he played almost as much as I did. But by that point he had gradually stopped calling me Audley—and then eventually stopped speaking to me at all.
Still, I could have changed my username after Cameron cut me out of his life like a rancid tumour, but I was used to it by then. It honestly never made me think of him anymore; it reminded me more of Hadley than anything else.
But Scones says the name Oddly so easily, as if we’re real friends who talk about each other all the time. As if it’s his nickname for me. As if he knows me. Which he absolutely does not.
And okay, yes, I have referred to him as Scones with Victory from time to time, but that’s different. I’m a fan of his channel—sort of. I’m allowed to first-word him. I’ve put in the time. Whereas he didn’t know I existed until last week and has probably been trying to ignore that fact ever since.
The worst part of all of this is that he actually takes my advice, and it works. I’d sort of hoped he’d be stuck in that gremling pit all afternoon.
With any luck, a bearwolf will maul him as soon as he steps out. One can only hope.
My stream tonight is uneventful. Just a bit of Paper Plains to keep things relaxed and low-key, in an attempt to settle my nerves.
The anticipation of the release combined with the shock of Scones acknowledging me has me all muddled up inside, and I need to tune all of that out for a couple of hours.
Thankfully I have drinks with Victory to look forward to afterwards.
She’s standing in front of my grandmother’s house when I step out from my side entrance, but she’s not alone. Pal is next to her, with an eager grin on their face.
“I hope it’s okay if Pal comes with us tonight,” Victory says, taking Pal’s hand in hers and giving it a squeeze.
I hesitate for a moment, if only because I’m afraid of Pal judging me for being this excited about a video game, but if Victory thinks they will be cool with it, then I trust her. “Yeah, of course.”
We head to the pub at the corner of the block to grab drinks as we wait for the release. The two of them squish into one side of a snug booth and I take the other, the faux-leather seat sticking to my hand as I scoot along the bench. (Gross.)
Pal raises a skeptical eyebrow at me when I order a vanilla porter to start, and at first I think they’re judging me for my choice, until they order one as well. They cheers with me when the drinks arrive and I feel like I could almost be cool if I hung out with them more often.
“Tell me again about this midnight thing,” they say to me after a large gulp. “Your pumpkin turns into a sweet potato or what?”
“It’s, um, just a video game release…” Maybe I’m not that cool, then. “There’s this limited edition box set that I want to get my hands on.”
“Right on,” they say with a nod. “What game is it?”
“Are you familiar with The Stones of Ayor series? It’s a fantasy RPG thing.”
Pal squints their eyes and considers this for a moment. “Is that the one with the dragons or the one with that slutty vampire guy?”
“Uh, neither.”
“There aren’t any dragons in Stones,” Victory says, “which is why I refuse to play.”
“Well, the fourth game in the series is releasing tomorrow,” I explain to Pal. “Or tonight at midnight, I guess. B.A. sometimes does a special event like this when big games are released.”
“Should we be wearing costumes?” Pal asks eagerly.
“I don’t think it’s required,” I say, and they laugh.
“Who’s that elf lady, the one who throws knives?” Victory asks me, sipping at her ginger ale. She doesn’t drink, but she loves coming to the pub for the ambience. “I would dress up as her, for sure.”
Pal raises an eyebrow at her, like they’d be interested in seeing her throw knives, too.
“That’s Mona,” I tell her. “She’s pretty badass. Although most of the companions in Three are kind of useless, except for Hadley.”
“Can’t forget Hadley.” Victory nods. She’s not familiar with much about the game, but she does know its most popular NPC. Everyone knows Hadley.
“Oh!” Pal points at me excitedly. “I know that dude! With the hair and that fucking giant sword thing? Built like a Greek god, looks like he’d be played by an actor named Chris?”
I nod and sip my own drink. That’s Hadley. “The previews of the fourth game make it seem like the companions will be better, at least,” I continue. “Everyone already loves Cartwright because he has, like, one line of dialogue in one of the trailers. I think there’s already fanfiction about him.”
Pal snickers at that.
“To be clear, I didn’t write it,” I add quickly, and they laugh out loud.
“That is definitely what I would say if I had written smutty fanfiction about him.”
“I never said smutty—”
“How’re things going with the guy, by the way?” Victory asks me, before I can start babbling nervously.
Both of Pal’s eyebrows go up this time. “There’s a guy?” they say with a wolfish grin.
“Not like that.” Victory laughs gently. “There’s this other streamer who’s sort of like Audrey’s, I dunno… Nemesis?”
“Wow. Intense.”
“He’s not my nemesis,” I tell them. “He’s not cool enough for that honour.” And I’m not cool enough to have a nemesis either.
“What’d he do?” Pal asks, watching me expectantly, like they’re actually interested in the story. I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint them.
“Well, nothing, I guess.” I sigh, swiping my thumb through the condensation on my glass. “I mean, he sort of let his viewers verbally shit on me and did nothing to stop them.”
“Oh, not cool,” Pal says, shaking their head.
“And then the other day he commented on my stream,” I add hesitantly.
Victory snaps to attention. “He did?”
“Yeah, he was telling me what to do in my game. As if I don’t know how to loot a dead body.”
“Everyone knows how to do that,” Pal jokes.
“Why was there a dead body?” Victory asks, scrunching up her nose.
“I was playing Steampunk 1877, and I had to kill a guy trying to rob me at gunpoint.”
Pal exhales dramatically. “Heavy.”
“Normally I don’t play really violent games on my channel,” I explain to them. “Just cozy and cutesy games.”
“Like that farming one…Starfield Valley?”