The King and Queen

The Place Where Promises Aren’t Kept [Chapter 4]

It had become my and Jakey’s habit to head to the computer lab every day at lunch. It didn’t even seem like any of the teachers or yard duties cared about us not going to the cafeteria to eat. That place was always loud and always packed. Playing outside was kind of hot, too. Summer break ended the week before, but the actual summertime goes on for several more weeks. It doesn’t make any sense.

At home, my mom asked if I was enjoying school and if I managed to hang out with Jakey. She knew we didn’t have any classes together. That was a given since he was in eighth grade. I told her that we did manage to hang out at lunchtime, but I never told her that it was inside the computer lab. I think she would have said something about spending too much time on the computer. That might have led me to getting less time online at home.

She would have also complained about me not running around at lunch and getting exercise. I knew that didn’t matter since we had P.E. anyways. While it was still hot, we were playing basketball in the gym. With me being smaller than most other kids in the class, it was hard to chase after the ball, let alone hold onto it and make a shot. Everything was bigger in middle school, especially the basketball hoops.

My mom also asked if I had made other friends besides Jakey. I mentioned the names of a few of the people I had sat by in my classes. Middle school classes make it harder to sit and talk with people. That makes it harder to make friends. That isn’t my fault. The teachers talk and then we do work. If we talk while doing work, that means we aren’t doing work. All of this happens in the space of an hour and then we move to another class. That means we sit by more people that we can’t talk to or make friends with. If we can’t talk to them, then we can’t make friends with them. Again, that isn’t my fault.

It was the third week of school then. The computer lab had gained a few new patrons since the beginning of the year. Most people kept to themselves. That included me and Jakey. By then, everyone had their assigned spots, even if we were never technically assigned them. There was still the black girl by the door, watching her cartoons. I think Jakey called it anime, and it was from Japan. I wonder if she understood what they were saying.

The pair of guys still sat at the back wall. They seemed to play a different random game every day. They sometimes worked together on the same keyboard, groaning (and sometimes cussing, quietly) when failing, and exchanging high-fives and cheers upon a victory. I worried for them in case Mr. Tate got mad at them for being loud.

There was a chubby, dark-haired girl that sat in the far corner. I think her hair was dyed that dark color. I could see some of her underneath hair was blond. Jakey said she was a goth. Jakey knew all the types of people you saw at middle school. People had types, which was a thing nobody in elementary knew about. The ‘goth’ girl played games on a website that was mostly colored pink, which seemed strange. I probably wasn’t ever going to find a way to talk to her either way.

There was another pair of guys that started coming during that third week of school. They didn’t immediately choose a set of computers to make their own. I guess they had been there before since Mr. Tate didn’t bother telling them about the rules. Well, the guys wandered around for a bit, glancing at other people’s screens. They even passed behind me and Jakey that first day. I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder at them. I thought, at the time, they just wanted to know about what was fun to do.

I don’t know what they played finally on the computers they chose. I only heard them talking about random stuff. They were louder than anybody else. I’m really surprised Mr. Tate didn’t get upset at them.

With Rune Quest out of the question, Jakey and I played whatever wasn’t blocked through the school internet. In those days of the web, many copycat sites were sharing and posting a lot of the same things. Finding one that was usable wasn’t that hard. I can’t remember the name of the one we went to a lot back then, but I remember the endless pages of games, short videos, and funny pictures with random captions on them. I must also remind you that I never would have seen such things at home on my slow dial-up internet.

It was a Wednesday. Just as we had logged in Jakey called out to me. “Look, my companion. A great find!”

I pulled my eyes away from my screen. He had pulled up a website that almost fooled me into thinking he had gone to Rune Quest. I almost yelled out way too loud, “Wait… what? How? What is this?”

Jakey leaned back in the seat, causing it to creak under his weight. He cracked his fingers and nodded. “It isn’t the promised land, but it is close enough. These could be called Rune Quest’s own ‘Tomes of Knowledge.’”

I studied the web page. The design was a lot like the page where you logged into Rune Quest, but instead of any sort of game, it was made up of blocky sections of words, some bold, some italic, and some colored blue like they wanted you to click on them.

“I don’t get it,” I said. I almost felt betrayed.

“This is the Rune Quest wiki,” Jakey began to explain.

“Wiki?” I repeated. It didn’t sound like a word.

Jakey nodded and scrolled up and down the page. “Like… do you remember those big sets of books your mom used to sell?”

“Yeah…” I said and nodded. I remembered them. We had our own set of encyclopedias at that time, still. They took up a whole shelf in our den. They each weighed like ten pounds. They were covered in something that looked like leather but was much cheaper. The cover and the pages also smelled funny. It was like glue and old tree bark. Most of all, nobody in my family had ever opened one, at least not in my memory. “Those are useless, dude.”

Jakey closed his eyes and nodded. “Indeed, my companion. Anyone could tell you that the internet has made those useless. Tell your mom I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. Well, this wiki is made by Gamex. The Gamex company that runs Rune Quest.”

I was almost beginning to understand. “And what does it do?”

Jakey placed his mouse cursor in the search bar, decorated with the picture of a magnifying glass. “This is the entirety of the knowledge about Rune Quest. Every quest, every crafting recipe, every map and dungeon- it is all here. Even pages on pages of lore.”

“Lore?” I asked. It was another word I had not heard before.

“The history. Everything that has happened in the world, why the kingdoms exist as they do. The people and the places, too.”

“And it’s not blocked?” I asked, surprised at the thought of it.

“It is not,” Jakey said. He lowered his head and glanced in the direction of Mr. Tate’s desk. “We best keep the secret away from the more powerful sorts, let it be put behind bars like our other pleasures.”

I nodded and shrugged. “Sure. How did you find out about this?”

Jakey raised a finger in the air. “I had heard of it before. But just like you, I have the curse of dial-up internet at home and it loads so slowly. I just thought of it today to see if it was blocked. Look at our luck, my companion. You can see the link to it at the very bottom of the page when you’re logging into the game. You can also just search Rune Quest Wiki, of course.”

I found my way to the homepage of the wiki just like Jakey. I read through the bold words on the screen. I found myself understanding better what we had discovered. I couldn’t make up my mind on what to click on first, on what to discover.

“Players can add to this themselves,” Jakey said. He was already scrolling through one of the articles. “I mean, Gamex probably wrote most of this. They know everything since they made it. But you can leave notes for other players to read. If you type in junk, it gets erased though. I don’t know how they do it. Look, they have a page for the new area they’re expanding into.”

I was suddenly even more interested than before. “New area?” I asked, leaning over to Jakey’s computer.

“The Goblin Stronghold,” He said proudly, reading off the article’s title. He continued down the page, reading off more of the notes. “The slaying of goblins by the human kingdoms has not gone unnoticed! The homeland of the goblins has made a declaration of war. Fight your way into their lands and seek out their rulers. Help us defend our lands!”

I had only ever heard such a phrase in one of those big Hollywood movies where they used real swords and armor. Those sorts of movies also have big monsters made with special effects and computer graphics. Also lots of loud, epic music. I tried to read along with Jakey, or even figure out a way to get to the same article.

Jakey nodded as he read more to himself. He took time to glance at the pictures too, showing off the spiky walls of the stronghold and the collection of heavily-armored goblins. “Look here, Mike. The boss at the end of the area; the Goblin King!”

There was a picture to the side of the words that had just loaded. The Goblin King looked a lot like the other weird green enemies that I had taken down in my early days of the game. The King, however, was twice, maybe three times as big. He had his own set of armor and a helmet with great big horns sticking up into the sky. In his hands was a massive war hammer, a great big stone block on a stick, looking like it was ready to squash any puny human that came close.

I heard a snickering behind us. I glanced back. It was the two chatty guys who had started to come in that week. They were standing behind Jakey, quietly watching as he scrolled the pages. Jakey didn’t look back.

“The goblin king,” the taller one said, his laughter growing louder.

The shorter one grabbed Jakey’s shoulders and shook him back and forth. “We have our own goblin king here!”

They both laughed. The tall one poked Jakey in the shoulder. “Don’t get in his way, or he’ll roll you over.”

“This one must be the goblin queen, then,” The short one said. They both looked at me. His hands were on my shoulders next. He yanked me in Jakey’s direction.

I shook my shoulder free. My teeth were gritted tight against each other. “If you knew how strong the true Goblin King was, you wouldn’t be messing with us!” I blurted out.

The two rude guys stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing, leaning back on the sets of chairs behind us. “The true Goblin King, he says! Look at this kid!”

I saw the teacher, usually ducked behind his monitors, shoot up from his seat. “Hey, Eric, Brett,” Mr. Tate said with a harsh tone. “Too loud. Move on out of here until you can learn how to not disturb others.”

The teacher’s glare followed them as they shuffled out, giggling and poking at each other the whole time. Mr. Tate descended back to his desk without another word. Jakey was leaned forward in his chair, eyes fixed only on the screen.

“You good, man?” I asked.

Jakey shrugged his shoulders. He sat back slightly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about those idiots.”

“Well, hopefully they won’t be back?” I said with a sigh.

“You just gotta’ ignore people like that, Mike.”

I nodded. “The… the goblin king will probably drop something cool. I mean, the real one.”

“Yeah.” Jakey nodded. He still didn’t look my way.

“Does it say what level he is? I might still need to get stronger.”

Jakey shrugged. “You can keep leveling up your fighting, but your armor-making still will also help keep us alive. Maybe… tonight, you can check how many more levels you need until you can make us stronger stuff.”

“Yeah…”

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