The Dragon's Wrath: A Virtual Dream

Chapter 12: Return to the Face

(Wednesday, February 10th Game Day / Thursday, January 14th Real Day)

As the login process commenced I soon found myself in the bitter cold, shaking and freezing on a random ledge somewhere along the mountainside.

Maybe if I had slept near a fire I would have been alright, but there were no trees on this side of the mountain.

There was no shrubbery at all.

Just rock, a little bit of snow where it could accumulate, and more rock.

Looking down at the rest of the rocks below I could only help but think that the entire thing looked like a series of steps for a giant. The rock faces were staggered about in such a way that the designers must have been aiming for that kind of look.

If one came from the north and viewed the mountain while facing south, you would have seen what looked like massive stone walls hundreds to thousands of feet high in a stepping stone formation. If you came from the easterly slope and faced west, you would see the gradual slope of a normal mountain... nothing too out of the ordinary.

But if you were on the western side of things, it looked a bit like a dragon's body that was curled up with the tail extended out through the river.

It was a beautiful mountain really; beautiful but deadly.

Looking up against my better judgment I soon saw that I had quite the distance to cover and less than four hours of light to do so. In the dark of night it would be impossible to scale the mountain, so I had to press forward as fast as I physically could while the daylight burned.

Tossing a piece of jerky into my mouth I soon started pacing along the ledge that I was on, looking for the best route to ascend.

Lucky for me, this time I was able to spot a nice crack nearly thirty feet up that would serve as a great spot for my hook. I quickly pulled out the hook with an attached rope and tied all three ropes together, giving me some added length. Tying one end around my waist and securing the bag as well, I started to swing the hook-end of the rope around.

Building momentum I eventually released my grip as the hook flew towards the crack.

With a clang clang clang it bounced harmlessly off the rock face and fell back down to the floor beneath.

Repeating the process four more times until I finally heard a chink instead, I tugged and found the hook had secured itself.

What took a minute would save me at least five.

Testing the rope I found it had been excellently wedged in place and felt I could safely ascend with it. Grabbing the rope with both hands outstretched I quickly pulled myself up using the muscles of the back and then let the rope hang between my legs. Using one foot to bring the rope up and the other to step on the rope between the insets of my boot, I created a hold I could slide with or rest with.

If I was in a hurry I would simply use my back and pull myself up with my arms alone, but this was an endurance race and not a sprint. So, instead I used the brake and squat method of climbing rope, by raising my knees to my chest and then squatting up, standing on the rope as it was locked between my feet.

It was a simple method and an effective one that could be done quite rapidly and without any real effort once you had some experience with it. A few seconds later I had reached the crevice where my hook was wedged, thirty some feet had been scaled in a matter of moments.

I loved ropes.

I missed climbing them.

As the day progressed I had ended up doing a mixture of rope climbs and free climbs along the varying 70-80 degree walls, with the occasional 85-90 degree or worse walls with overhangs. But, by the time the sun had started to set nearly four hours after I began, I had managed to climb roughly five-hundred and fifty feet and stood at least 1,350 or so feet above the base. I was getting closer, inch by inch to the top.

With darkness settling in, it was now time for my much needed break.

Once I had finished the log out process I soon found myself using the restroom, getting a glass of water, and then looking for food. It had become an oddly habitual recurrence that wasn't anywhere close to a normal schedule.

I was still playing with my four-hours on, four-hours off schedule and was sleeping in three blocks of roughly three hours each. It was a shitty schedule, but I wanted to make sure I did everything properly for the "Event."

There would only be six real-world days left after tonight, so I needed to be careful and I needed to continue to push. Carefully pushing the tempo isn't something that should be said together, but it was a necessary necessity.

Attempting to heed my own words, I ended up skipping the third day cycle to get some solid sleep. I had been noticing slight performance declines over the past few weeks as my sleep had become more sporadic and less frequent. The last thing I needed was a clouded mind and sloppy judgment when I was over a third of the way up the mountain.

Yeah, it was bed time for me.

Staring at the bed in front of me I plopped down and closed my eyes with my face buried in the pillow. I couldn't help but think about the blind girl that I had met at the meeting.

I was unusually attracted to her; infatuation would probably be the better word for it really. I mean, she had everything I looked for in a girl… tall, intelligent, confident, pretty.

Shame it went the way it did.

Oh well.

Things don't always work out the way you want them to anyhow.

They rarely do.

Well, maybe I can at least find some comfort in my dreams.

Opening my eyes and glancing out the window I could see that the sun was nearing mid-day. It seemed I overslept considerably.

In truth, I had woken up hours prior but was in the middle of a rather enjoyable dream with a beautiful brunette, so I decided to go back to sleep. Though the contents of that dream were definitely of a more PG-13 nature than a rated R one, it was that feeling of closeness that I had been longing for.

It was sad thinking about it, but that was the truth. Years of bad health had destroyed my self-confidence and I had stopped dating completely. I always believed that if you couldn't be happy with yourself, you wouldn't be happy with someone else. It was imperative that you fixed yourself before getting into a relationship… less you just want a broken one.

That and I had also become extremely picky from years of bad experiences and I held myself to the same standard.

If I wanted an attractive, intelligent, and healthy girl with a good personality then I would need to bring the same to the table. I felt I could match all but the healthy part, and by extension I wasn't reliable or able to provide in any sense.

I wouldn't want to date a deadbeat, but I was certainly one of them.

Thinking about the dream as I lay on my back, eyes closed with my forearm resting above them, I tried to remember the contents of the dream but found everything had started to blur.

Strangely though, I ended up recalling the previous dream that was quite strange. I was dreaming of dragon's fire before it switched to a beautiful brunette.

I couldn't help but wonder why, why dragon's fire of all things.