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Chapter 13 - Men, Orcs, Dwarves, Elves and Teenagers

World: Tolkien World, Middle Earth

Location: Hobbiton, The Shire

We appeared at the beginning, meaning the town square of Hobbiton in The Shire. Everyone stepped back from me. Wanda was dressed exactly the same, in her elegant white silk. She had pointed ears and was a full two heads taller than the rest of us. An elf – of course, she'd be an elf.

Sunny was a female human archer. Teepee was a Hobbit. I looked inside of the highly polished shield I carried. I was an Orc – Half-Orc, to be precise. The leather armor I was wearing stank to high heaven. The blood-stained sword at my side weighed a ton. Note to self: pack toiletries next time. I started to let fly an invective against the unfairness of things when I heard laughter – familiar laughter at that.

It was Coyote in human form, sitting on a beer barrel. Dressed in the immaculate leather pants and green jerkin of a ranger, with a longbow and a jaunty feathered cap. Surrounded by women of all races and ages. Looking at me and laughing. I gave him my middle finger salute. And then he stood up, turned around, and waggled his coyote tail at me.

"Oooh, where'd you get that skin, hobby homie?"

"I want a tail too!"

"You just want his tail, period!"

"So snarfing cool!"

"Tail, schmail! I want all of him!"

"Supernovian, dude – how much did that cost you?"

"Does it give you any stat bonuses?"

"He's Aragorn, you stupid dwarf! Who needs stat bonuses when you're the next king?"

"Damn rich people playing main characters...that's cheating!"

"Yeah, well, subscriptions are expensive. Main characters are for the mega-trillionaires, my good Beorning."

Of course, Coyote is Aragorn. With a fan club already, no less. Problem is – what's he doing here? And others can see him. What in the name of the Great Spirit is going on?

"You want to know how I got this tail? I told Radagast a really bad joke, and he cursed me with it." He then proceeded with: "An orc, a goblin and a barrow wight walk into a bar..." It was an epic stinker, and if I'd been Radagast, I too would have cursed him.

"Hey, Boss," Wanda whispers, "Does any of this seem off  to you?"

I looked around to see where Teepee and Sunny had gotten to, and they were buying a boar sausage the size of my forearm on a stick. It would have fed a family of four on Terra Veritas. Still trying to get my bearings, I answered, "What in particular is raising that red flag?"

"Those people hangin' aroun' that good lookin' guy over there. They ain't talkin' like they's livin' La Vida Tolkien, ya know? They sound like they's jus' visitors, same as us. This is supposed to be an afterlife – people thinking they belong here, an' when they die, they move on to another world, right? The Virtuaverse. New lives, new adventures eternally?"

"Report this to Les and tell me what he says." Wanda nodded. Sunny was talking with Coyote. No, make that flirting with him. A mixed group of hobbit and dwarven girls tried to crowd around her, but Sunny performed a martial arts pirouette, and scattered them very quickly.

"The nerve! I'm going to report her to a moderator!"

"That move was radioactive, though. Where'd she learn that?"

"Isn't there a monastery in the Misty Mountains?"

"No, you're thinking of Final Fantasy XCCC!"

"That purple hair is definitely not found in the character creation screen!"

"Shit, she must be a hacker!"

"You okay? She smashed into you pretty hard."

"Let's go to Rivendell. There's an elven orgy just after sundown."

At the mention of the words 'elven orgy' the group suddenly lost interest in the irresistibly sexy Coyote and took the fabled road out of sleepy Hobbiton. I walked over to Sunny. "We need to talk, young lady." Coyote, bless his divine behind, blew me a kiss and howled, "Hey, Danny! I had a really great time last week. I couldn't walk for days, ha!"

I managed to get Sunny back to where Wanda was deep in conversation with Les, and Teepee was looking very disappointed. The boar sausage was on the ground, being savaged by a pack of cats. "Tasteless. I tried ta get my money back, but the seller was gone," he grumbled. Sunny was looking at me with astonishment and no small amount of envy.

"You...and he...whoa, that explains a lot! You lucky devil! He is to die for! What? What did I say?"

I won't go into detail about all the things going through my head. We had a case to crack and so far, all we had were broken nutcrackers. "Sunny, honey – could you turn up the power on your chirp chip? I want to see if there's any Dromedaries chatting in the background noise."

Wanda looked worried. "Les says we should put on our glasses." When I did, all I saw was code. Massive walls of code stretching for miles. No halos anywhere. Just regular human traffic, mostly staying within certain parameters, with some strands coming in and some going out. With one giant exception.

I guessed that in the game – because a VR LOTR game was what we were inside of – the exception was where Mount Doom would be located. Home to Sauron, Murkerberg's favorite character. It's erupting.

"Danny, there's a constant stream of Dromian coming from..."

I pointed towards Mount Doom, which was too far away for her to see without her glasses. "There?"

"Yes. How'd you know?" said Sunny.

Mount Doom was erupting halos in a stream, skyward. Bound for somewhere outside the Milky Way. Bypassing the thousands of Virtuaverse worlds that are supposed to be here on the Moon, and on Mars and Titan. Which could mean many things, none of which, I now believed, benefited humanity.

"We need to rethink everything. I need to go over suspects, and possibly eliminate a few. And we need to finish our research on the Murkerbergs. Crow Mother..."

Wanda took offence. "Crow Mother? I'm not that old, you saggy-assed..."

"Native Goddess, Wanda. Look her up! Crow Mother told me in a dream that I should discover what it is that each suspect really wants. Most important of all, we have to find out where all that soul data is going! And my ass isn't saggy! Les, beam us up."

Teepee, in the Professor's voice, said with sarcasm: "Took you long enough."