A meeting with a big game hunter

John was baffled. Hemet Nesingwary wanted to meet him. Wanted to meet him about something he did in the past. John recalled accidentally killing a few of the guards at his camp when he was still a game character, but he would not come looking for him for that, right?

As John was fidgeting in his seat, Ilis pulled something of of her pocket that John somehow did not expect to belong to a dwarf, it was a cellphone. Ilis’ fingers worked over the buttons rapidly sending a message, no doubt to Hemet.

Ten minutes of waiting in which Old Fred pulled a tea set out of his beard and poured four cups later.

A spatial anomaly formed in front of the people present. The anomaly grew till it was about two meters in diameter; the anomaly whipped the air around it into a small tornado, scattering the contents of the workshop into an even bigger mess than it already was.

John looked at the anomaly, holding a hissing Jack back in his lap; the leopard’s fur stood on end, and his claws dug into John’s pants.

With the sound of a gunshot, a dwarf got launched through the anomaly, rolling over the ground for a bit before coming to a halt against some half finished machine in the corner.

“Aye! Still getting the hang of this godly teleportation thing,” the dwarf mumbled as he got to his feet, putting the monocle back on straight with his left hand while the right hand combed through his beard.

John recognized that voice, and when the dwarf turned around, the white bearded face smiled.

“Jihan of the Fluffy Goblin guild. It has been a while, boy!” Hemet took a seat opposite of John, taking up one of the cups of tea.

“Lord Hemet,” Ilis knelt on one knee, bowing her head towards the white haired dwarf. It was only the second time she had met this man, a young god, young in terms of time he spend as a divine being, that is.

Hemet looked like a rather old man. The top of his head was bald while long gray hair hung down from around his temples. He had a short beard and a mustache with two braids in it. His torso clad in what looked to be a tuxedo shirt, and his legs covered by rough, brown fabric. On his hip, a small one handed sword was firmly attached. On his right, eye there was a monocle, golden edge with finely cut glass at the center.

Hemet nodded at Ilis. “You did fine, lass, this is indeed the one I was looking for.” With a wave of his hand, a scroll appeared in his hand. “As promised, a new schematic,” he placed the scroll on the table, Ilis’ eyes locking onto it with glee. The look of a scholar finding a new book.

“So, you remember me? From when I played the game?” John asked incredulously, not even fazed anymore by the fact that he was talking to a game character that could magically create scrolls out of thin air.

“Yes, lad, and every single character you played on. You completed those quests what was it, twenty times?” Hemet asked with a smirk, lighting a cigar that once more came out of nowhere.

John nodded. “They gave good rewards, good exp and were done quite quickly. All in all, some of the best quests in the game,” John said honestly.

He had always liked doing the quests, he was a completionist, and the gear those quests gave was not half bad, well, until he was fully heirloomed, but even then. It had spoken to his imagination to hunt for someone, kill a few dangerous animals and get rewarded. Never would he have imagined that his life would take the strange turn it had and made that into his day to day life.

“So, Lord Hemet, Ilis told me you wanted to see me?” John asked with a small voice; while Hemet seemed nice and cordial at the moment, he was still a god after all. And if Wombatton’s story told him one thing… Gods were fickle creatures.

“Aye. I wanted to speak to you. I am still getting used to this whole god thing, barely able to teleport without creating a mess as you saw before,” Hemet said with a grin.

Old Fred, who had said nothing so far, asked politely, “Sir Hemet, ‘tis an honor to meet you. Could ya please tell us what this is about? I hope this laddy has not offended ya, I mean, he has barely learned how the abyss works.”

John gave Old Fred a thankful look, then turned to face Hemet once again.

“Offended? Are ye daft?” Hemet asked while scratching the top of his head. “Ooooh, wait, you three think I... “ Hemet pulled out a cellphone, scrolling through it quickly as he looked for something. “Aye. Okay, I get where this misunderstanding came from,” he said while blushing slightly. “I don’t have a problem with you Mr ‘The Gamer’, quite the opposite. I wanted to thank ya for, you know, helping an old dwarf appear into this world.”

John, Old Fred and Ilis looked flabbergasted. A god was actually looking for John to thank him?

“What have I done to warrant such thanks?” John asked seriously. He could not think of anything he had done for the man except quests in the game.
“You are one of the people that took such great pleasure in helping me, in completing quests, spending time, toiling away for me that you helped me reach divinity. And for that, I have come to thank ya. You already joined Artemis, which is a good choice as far as I know; in the past two years that I have been a god, she helped me here and there. And it’s not like you would want to join a group with only dwarves right?” the old dwarf rambled.

Hemet took a deep breath. “As a little thank you for being one of the few in the Abyss that helped me reach divinity. You would not believe how low the amount of people playing World of Warcraft in the Abyss is. Guess it’s not really exciting if you live it for real the entire time. Ah well. Right, I wanted to give you a little gift.” Hemet patted his pockets, finding nothing. He then patted his other pockets. “Oh, left it back… At the… DnD table... “ His face paled. “The DnD game! Ok, so here’s the deal. Ilis, how about you help John here, keep an eye on him for me. Do some engineering work for him and stuff until I find where I left the gift for John here. I need to go!”

Ilis nodded. “Yes, my lord,” she bowed again.

Hemet got up from his chair, clearly in a hurry, casting one last glance at John. “Good meeting ya, lad, work hard for that beautiful lassy, I’ll probably see you another time. Bye!”

Another spatial rift formed, Hemet jumping into it and disappearing soon after.