It Started with a Lesson (closed)

TheRPGuru

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Tanner Mack was a typical nerd. Smart with the learning, dumb as bricks with people. Okay maybe he wasn't that bad. But his interests fell into line of video games, books, comics, and Dungeons & Dragons. None of these things made him a very cool person. But fuck it, what was cool away? So what if the cool guys got to hang out with all the school's hottest girls? So what if they drove kick ass cars, and got blowjobs under the bleachers.

Tanner thought he was a pretty cool guy. He had a level eight Rogue in his D&D game, and that meant he was strong enough to backstab and kill an Ogre. So if that wasn't cool, then he had no idea what cool was. Of course being a fairly smart guy, Tanner knew exactly what cool was. He also knew he was the shining example of how not to be cool. He would never have the hot girlfriend, the fancy car, or the buck loads of friends all voting him prom king. Instead Tanner had his little circle of fellow Wizards and Warlocks, and that was all he needed.

His biggest problem was that he just wasn't very outgoing beyond his social circle. Chronic shyness you could call it. His council in High School had warned him that it would be hard getting into a good college if he didn't show some sort of social capabilities. He was perfectly capable of being social, he just didn't want to. Yet he did want to get into a good College like BDSU or something like that, so he looked for options. None of the local social clubs were even remotely interesting to him, so his councilor suggested he simply tutor.

Tanner had the grades and he understood the teacher's lessons more than most people in class did, for whatever reason, so Tutoring seemed like a fine option. Turns out, Tanner really got along with tutoring. Not only was he good at dumbing down explanations for people, but it also allowed him to be more social with people. He found that he was shy about new people only went there were a lot of other people around, yet in a tutoring session it was mostly just one-on-one and he could speak to a new person with relative ease.

He took to tutoring so well, that Tanner not only got into BDSU, he kept tutoring there as well. He got to charge money for his lessons too, which was nice and helped by him extra video games, or a new dungeon book when those came out. College wasn't without it's challenges though, he had to meet up and incorporate himself into a new D&D group and meeting people was a bit different than it was in high school. A little easier maybe, but also harder in other ways. High school kids only cared about being cool, but college adults cared more about having similar interests and goals when they chose friendships.

Yet he managed to find himself a small niche of friends, and was happy with that. On top of his studies and tutoring folks, he didn't have a whole lot of time for other things. Having a girlfriend never once crossed his mind, at least, not until he met....her.

IT started as normal as any other day, the councilor's office arranged another tutoring session for him that evening after classes. He was to meet up at the Library and help a girl named Becca. He agreed and the session was scheduled. With a sigh he tossed his bag back onto the desk to pull out the Dungeons & Dragons books from the bag. He had a meeting tonight, but he would have to bail on the game. It was a small sacrifice though, Tanner didn't mind being a tutor and frankly tonight's D&D game would be boring. The group was in the Swamp of Dremor and they needed to search through a fog maze. It would be an awful slog. Tutoring would actually save him from that nonsense. He wanted to fight a fucking dragon anyway.
 
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Becca exhaled, trying not to let her frustration show in her voice.

“Yes, I know, it’s an important game, but I told you, I’m meeting someone.” She said, maintaining her pace across the quad. She had lost track of time in her dorm, and now she was late to meet her new tutor.

“You never said anything about it.” Luke insisted, his voice making it obvious just how angry he was.

She rolled her eyes. “I told you about it LAST NIGHT.” She said, feigning a smile an waving at a friend of hers that was walking in the other direction. “Hey…” she said softly, before returning to her phone conversation. “You said you didn’t like it, but that you understood…”

“I DON’T like it…” he said, cutting her off. “I don’t even know this guy.”

She sighed. Luke was a really nice guy, but he was so hard to talk to when he was upset. He was on the school’s basketball team; in fact, his scholarship was the reason he had gotten into college, and it was a pretty big part of why she chose to go here herself, since they had dated for most of high school. He was a class above hers, so she had to wait a year to follow him, but now she was here, and dating one of the school’s top players. It was an immediate bump to her status on campus, but at times like this she imagined she’d actually prefer it if he was a little less popular and listened a little better.

“Okay, but I still need to meet with him, Luke, we talked about this.” She said. The truth was, no one had TOLD her to get a tutor. She had gone to the academic advisement office on her own. She was struggling with some of the concepts in her calculus course, and she didn’t want it to hurt her overall grade. The tutoring services were available as part of her scholarship, so she might as well take advantage of them. So technically she didn’t NEED to meet her tutor, but it wouldn’t help for Luke to know that.

She had already spoken to her tutor over the phone… someone named ‘Tanner’. He had sounded nice enough. And even if he wasn’t, it wasn’t Luke’s concern, she could handle herself just fine. “I’ll make it up to you, okay?” she said, privately kicking herself for acquiescing to the idea that she even had anything to make up FOR. They HAD talked about it last night, after all. “I’ll come over after your game?”

He seemed to like that, which immediately indicated that he probably thought they would fool around. She sighed, and wished him good luck on the court as she finally arrived at the library. She tucked her phone into her pocket, and started up the stairs, pushing the door open and heading into the main sitting room. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but the young man sitting at one of the small collections of sofas didn’t quite fit what she had expected. He was lanky, which… okay… but he also had absolutely captivating eyes. He carried himself like he was awkward, but it it was kind of incongruous with his handsome features.

She pushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, walking around him to catch his attention. “Um… I’m sorry… Tanner?”
 
Tanner hated to be late, he absolutely hated it. So much, in fact, that he was chronically stupidly early for anything and everything. Which included this upcoming tutoring session with Becca. He found himself in the library a full hour ahead of schedule and groaned as he slumped into a seat at on of the empty tables in the center of the big room. He dug out the materials he would need to help Becca with Calculus that evening including, an old text book, scratch paper, pencils, a big eraser, and of course, a calculator. With so much time to kill before she was due to show up, Tanner pulled out his D&D character sheet, a Golith Barbarian named Grom, and double checks his stats and equipment. Using an app on his phone he began to plan out what feats he wanted to take for the level-up that would be owed to him within the next session or two.

Tanner always played melee characters in all his fantasy games, whether tabletop or virtual. He didn't know why, but he never felt a connection with caster types. While he wasn't opposed to using magic, he never liked being the kind of glass cannon type characters and instead prefered something that could take a hit if he fucked something up. Warriors, Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, it didn't matter so long as he got to smash something in the face with a sword or mace. Perhaps Tanner enjoyed feeling physically strong in his fantasies. It didn't matter, he enjoy his character arch-types and sometime he enjoyed playing the moron in the group. Like Grom for example. The Goliath was huge and strong, but dumber than a stack of bricks. Tanner almost always gave away group secrets or just said something stupid to the wrong person and lead his group into fights. It was a blast.

“Um… I’m sorry… Tanner?” A voice spoke above him.

He was so lost in his character planning that he didn't notice the cute brunette until she walked right in front of him. He jerked himself upright and looked at her, his first thought was that she was absolutely adorable. His second thought was to completely shake the first one from his mind. Blushing he scraped his D&D stuff back into his backpack quickly.

"Yes! Uh, Right. That's uh...that's me." He fumbled, brushing himself off and standing quickly to greet her. He held out his hand and shook hers. "You must be Becca. I'm Tanner and I'm here because you need some help in Calculus right?" He asked her, gesturing to the tutoring setup he had laid out on the table. "Bad news unfortunately..." He said frowning, "Calculus sucks." Then he grinned, "But good news, I think I can get you through it. Why don't you have a seat and tell me what's giving you trouble and we'll see if we can't help you get a better understand of what this cluster mess is all about." He said with a gestured to a nearby chair.

Tanner listened to her problems in the class carefully, making mental notes of things he could use to help her out. Tanner was a master at dumbing things down, not because the people he taught were dumb, but because sometimes the normal explanation of things was pointlessly complicated. As she spoke Tanner flipped through his old textbook to the chapter she was talking about and glanced through the formulas and problems that the book gave as examples. All the while, the back of his mind was freaking out over how cute Becca was. She was, easily, the prettiest girl he had ever tutored and clearly she was smart enough to get this stuff. He couldn't imagine why she was struggling in class, except possibly distracted by other things. Either way it wasn't his job to question why she needed help, he was mere supposed to provide her with that help.

Once he felt like he knew where she was, he began the lesson. He explained her formulas in a much cleaner way that most teachers did, breaking it down into simple bite-sized pieces for her. He wrote everything down for her as well, marking hints and tricks onto the scratch paper that he had already laid out. "In other words think of these Z's as zombies that the X and the Y have to wipe out right? In order to do that though, you have to make sure you keep your formula in balance, so whatever you do here, has to be done here as well." He explained making little circles as he spoke.
 
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"Bad news unfortunately..."

She felt herself tense at that. Bad news? Was he not going to be able to help her? After all she had to go through with Luke? “What’s the bad news?” she said, hesitantly.

"Calculus sucks."

She grinned at that, covering her mouth so she didn’t laugh out loud in the library. “Oh my god,” she muttered. “Yea, it really does, doesn’t it?”

He reassured her that he’d be able to work through it with her, and they got dow to business. She wasn’t having a specific problem with it; none of the specific principals were unclear, she was just struggling with putting them into practice. He seemed to discern that pretty quickly, and got down to the business of just putting them through the paces, finding new ways to explain how the various principals they had covered in class fit together.

He was pretty clever, actually, each time he came up with different ways to describe the movement of variables, defining them as different real-world concepts that kept the whole thing grounded and tactile. He was really good at this. He also made it look really good, too. She really liked how long and slenderly handsome his body way. He held himself with this decidedly awkward air, but it just seemed sweet and charming.

"In other words think of these Z's as zombies that the X and the Y have to wipe out right? In order to do that though, you have to make sure you keep your formula in balance, so whatever you do here, has to be done here as well."

She rolled her eyes at that. Some of his explanations were a little nerdy, but that one just took the cake. “Okay, yea, I get where you’re going…” she said leaning her chin on the palm of her hand against the table. “But let’s be real here, if this was an actual zombie problem, with this many zombies, you’re never going to be able to wipe them all out. At this point you need to be enacting your zombie plan and making sure you have enough supplies to survive the apocalypse.”
 
Tanner paused completely and looked at her. Her zombie analysis caught him off guard because it was a comment he would never expect from a girl that looked like her. Let facts be facts, Becca was adorable and while there are plenty of nerdy girls or gamer girls in Tanner's circle, the girl that could be called anything over a 5/10 were extremely few and far between. The likelihood of Becca being on of those girl was statistically impossible. He blinked a few time to come to his senses and remember what the fuck he had been talking about. "Ye...Yeah...I suppose, but it all boils down to mathmatical process. Whether you're talking about supplies or simply eliminating a threat, anything you do has to follow the same logic in order to solve the problem right?"

He turned back to the paper and pointed at her notes. Tanner explained what she had to adjust and where it seemed that she was making the same mistake in most of the problems. He showed her how to get around her error, using a metaphor to keep in her head so she doesn't accidentally revert to her own method which generated the mistakes in the first place. They worked over a few more problems over the course of another hour or so, until Tanner finally had to call time.

He sat beside her, his chair turned towards her and he smiled, "Well I think that about covers it, at least for this section. You got this Becca, just remember to not over think it." He told her grabbing up his folder and papers so that he could stuff them into his bag. "Oh I almost forgot..." He opened a side pouch on his bag and pulled out his personal business card and slid it towards her. He had made a bunch of cards in Business 101 last year and figured it would be a good move for his tutoring brand. "If you have any other questions or need a quick refresher, don't go to the councilor just shoot me a text or an e-mail." He told her, zipping up his bag.

Tanner stood and slung his bag over his shoulder, "Now if you will excuse me Becca, I have to go slay a virtual dragon. Hard work, but duty calls." He said with a smile. God had he mentioned how cute she was. He found her incredibly sexy and adorable. She was the perfect vision of that innocent girl next door that always seemed to drive Tanner crazy. As much as this tutoring gig had made him more social and open, he still could never muster up the urge to ever openly flirt or hit on anyone. Becca probably had a boyfriend anyway, Tanner's experience taught him that the pretty girls were never single very long as they literally had boys climbing over themselves to date them. Besides asking her out would be completely unethically, she had come to him for help not to be hit on.

He chewed his lip and waved at her, "Take care." He said, spinning on his heel to make his way out of the library. His face contorted in cringe as he realized he had just dorkingly waved goodbye to her. "God, I am a dork." He muttered to himself as he disappeared into the hallway.
 
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She really liked working with him. He wasn’t pushy, didn’t assume she was stupid, he just focused on the material. He would smile awkwardly when she made a joke, and she felt genuinely comfortable. When they wrapped up, she was actually surprised at how much time had passed. Luke’s game was probably already over. If she had been watching the game she would have been so bored out of her mind that this would have felt like days.

"Oh I almost forgot..." he said, giving her a business card. "If you have any other questions or need a quick refresher, don't go to the councilor just shoot me a text or an e-mail."

She turned the card over, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him. Was this a line? It felt like… well no, actually, it DIDN’T feel like a line. Under normal circumstances having a guy pass her his number and telling her to call him would have stood out like a red flag, but Tanner just didn’t seem to have that in him. He was legitimately offering to help her. She smiled at him as she stood up, gathering her stuff into her messenger bag, tucking the card into her back pocket. “Okay, I will.” she said, tugging her bag up over her shoulder. “You’re really good at this, Tanner, I’m glad I found you.”

He actually seemed to blush at that. Oh lord, she thought… some girl somewhere is crazy lucky. "Now if you'll excuse me Becca,” He said with a sheepish grin, “I have to go slay a virtual dragon. Hard work, but duty calls."

She shook her head as he took off. What a goofball.

As she stepped out of the library, she was mentally cataloging all the new information Tanner had given her. It was really neat, the more she turned it over. A lot of the help he had given wasn’t even specifically about calculus, it was just lots of different ways of approaching mathematics that would give her new perspectives she could apply when working with higher math problems. It was way better than just learning the equations, she actually felt SMARTER. If Tanner wasn’t planning on becoming a teacher someday, then he was definitely missing his calling.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. She reached into the outer pocket and sighed, seeing that Luke had been texting her. She slid it open and responded. Yes, she was done with the tutoring. Yes, she was coming over. She’d be there in just a little bit. She changed direction, heading toward Luke’s dorm suites instead of toward the freshman dorms where she lived… In point of fact, she hadn’t been heading his way at all, but technically she had told him she would make it up to him for not coming to his game, even though she absolutely had already told him she wouldn’t be there. She hadn’t planned on having to do it TONIGHT, but… well… that seemed to be what was happening.

Luke had his own room. He lived in an on-campus suite with three other guys; the front door opened into a living room with a small kitchenette, and a pair of hallways branched off in either direction, each leading to a small bathroom with a shower and two single bedrooms. All his roommates were athletes, and the place was always a mess; She and some of the other guy’s girlfriends had tried to clean their kitchenette a few times but at this point she simply refused to go in there. She simply went through the living room, waving to the guys that were all gathered around the tv playing whatever mindless first-person shooter they were currently obsessed with, and ducked into Luke’s room.

She had dated him for almost her entire high school career, starting all the way back when she was a sophomore and he was a junior. That meant that he was fifteen and she was fourteen, so obviously they had waited quite a while until the first time they slept together. They had both been virgins at the time, although Luke had claimed to have slept with an older woman before they had met. They had mostly figured out sex together, and while Luke had more or less learned how to get her where she wanted to go, she had gotten used to the idea that sex was pretty much about him. She would go down on him because he loved her mouth, and then he’d climb over her and push himself inside and thrust away until he came. She wasn’t such a bitch that she was going to say she didn’t LIKE it, of course she liked it… but she didn’t really ever expect that he was going to spend a lot of attention on her. Either she’d need to really focus on rubbing herself to orgasm before he groaned on top of her, or, like tonight, she simply let him do his thing and fall asleep.

She lay in bed, wearing Luke’s oversized jersey, idly thinking about her day as she flipped through facebook, listening to him snore. She had been apprehensive about getting a tutor, but she was really glad she did. She was excited to head to class tomorrow and approach it with her new understanding of the material. She wondered if Tanner was specifically a math major, or if he just had a knack for explanation…

She laughed softly to herself, a particular thought popping into her mind. ‘Slay a virtual dragon.’ That was what he said he was going off to do. What had he meant by that, she wondered? She rolled onto her side, smiling at the weirdness of it. After a moment, she decided it was actually worth finding out. She slipped out of Luke’s bed and found her jeans on the floor, digging Tanner’s card from the back pocket. She slipped out of the bedroom, long since over the idea of his roommates seeing her in her pajamas, and stepped into their bathroom, exhaling her frustration at the persistent ‘boys bathroom’ smell as she dialed the number. She grabbed up some toilet paper to drop the toilet seat and sat down on it, letting it ring.

“Hey… Tanner?” she said as he picked up. “Hi, it’s Becca? you tutored me today?” She said, not sure if he would need her to clarify who she was any further. “Yea… no, everything was great, you’re an excellent teacher. I was just wondering…” She turned her head a bit, enjoying the odd little moment. “What ‘virtual dragon?’ What were you heading off to do?”
 
Tutoring ran a little longer than he had expected, which meant he was late for his raid. He had simply lost track of time with Becca, probably too distracted by how pretty she was. He gritted his teeth as he rushed back to his dorm suite, ironically the same suite building in which Becca's boyfriend lived. Tanner lived on a different floor, and only had one roommate though. His suite did have two other bedrooms but they were empty this semester for whatever reason, but Tanner usually had the whole suite alone anyway. His roommate Scott Brickman was a party animal, brilliant like most students on this floor which consisted of those with full academic scholarships, but a complete party animal. It wasn't uncommon for Scott to be out all night and come back staggeringly early in the morning after crashing at some girls house.Tanner's suite was kept immaculately clean, in addition to being a playboy genius, Scott also was a complete clean freak. The suite practically sparkled, and Scott wouldn't even let Tanner help and only insisted that Tanner would fuck something up. It made Tanner feel weird about having his roommate clean up after him, but Scott insisted and assured him it wasn't a big deal.

None of that helped the fact that he was incredibly late to raid. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." Tanner muttered over and over again as he raced into his bedroom and fired up his computer. He threw his backpack into a corner and flopped heavily into his chair, putting his headset on and bouncing his legs in impatience while the windows logo spun on screen. "Come on and boot you slow piece of shit." He growled. Finally the system booted and Tanner logged into the game and voice com.

"Well there he is finally." A voice came from the teamspeak.

"Sorry sorry guys, I caught held up tutoring someone." Tanner explained.

"Hurry up man we've already cleared trash." The voice was Ragtart, the raid leader for Tanner's guild. He didn't know the guy's real name, but he knew that he was a lawyer in New York and also a very good player. One of the things he loved about online games was the sheer dirversity in the people he played with. Everyone thought MMO's were for losers but in his guild alone there were lawyers and doctors and bankers, all kinds of people on the high end of the success spectrum. How could anything think these were losers. MMO gaming was a hobby like anything else, but because of the stigma behind it, people just assumed the worst.

Tanner was summoned to the Dragon's Lair dungeon and they started the battle after a moment of going over their strategy for the fight. Three hours later, things had not gone well. "Hellbiscuit, you need to move the debuff to the outside of the room. How fucking hard is that for you to understand? Move out! I don't give a fuck about your damage if you are killing the goddamn raid. Fuck up again and I will replace your ass." The rage from Ragtart was epic, but he had a way with people. Even though he was vulgar and harsh a lot of the time, it seemed to work with people. Nobody wanted to lose their raid spot, and that threat almost always worked to fix people's bad play. By calling people out, it also made the whole raid aware of that bad person and they all forced whomever was bad to step up as a team. Nobody wanted to be held back by one guy after all.

Still despite the best efforts, four hours passed without a dragon dying. "Fuck this you people are idiots. I'm calling it." Ragtart spat. "Spend the next few days running dungeons, reading guides, jerking each other off, I don't give a fuck. Do whatever you have to do to back back here on Sunday and not suck donkey dick." Then he logged out of Teamspeak and logged off the game.

Tanner sighed and slowly removed his headset, giving his ears a rest from what had been a pretty terrible night. Though Ragtart was raging, the guild actually didn't do terrible on the boss. After all, they were fighting him on the hardest difficulty mode and had gotten the dragon down to sub 20% health a few times that night. If they got a little more gear or just came back Sunday paying more attention, they could defeat the boss no problem.

Suddenly his phone rang and it made Tanner jump. He never got phone calls, let alone phone calls this late into the evening. From numbers he didn't recognize. He frowned and picked his phone off his desk slowly, "Hello?" He answered.

“Hey… Tanner? Hi, it’s Becca? you tutored me today?"

Becca? Tanner's mood brightened tenfold in an instant. "Oh hey Becca! What's up, are you having trouble with a problem?"

“Yea… no, everything was great, you’re an excellent teacher. I was just wondering… What ‘virtual dragon?’ What were you heading off to do?” She asked.

Tanner paused and stared at his computer screen for a moment. For a second he was conflicted about telling her that he played an MMO seriously like that. He didn't want her to think he was some loser who only sat and played video games every night. Sometimes he played table top games too. Then again, she had taken the time to not only call him, but call him this late at night specifically to ask him about it.

"Oh that....uh." He bit his lip and sighed. "I had a raid in Dragon's Online. My group was fighting Synimara, but it.....didn't go very well actually." He told her, not expecting her to know anything about it. "Why do you ask? I mean, I'm happy to hear from you, I just don't get a lot of calls in the middle of the night....from girls...about a video game." He chuckled with his statement. "Not that I mind, but you are either hitting on me, which I doubt, or you must be incredibly bored." His smile could be heard easily in his voice.

Tanner them said something that he never expected to come out of his mouth. "Hey Becca, if you're like....bored or can't sleep, I'd be totally down to...maybe show you the game, or chill or whatever. I'd in the Grant Tyson suites dorm, room 704." He said tentatively.
 
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There was a brief moment of silence on the other end of the phone. She actually wondered if she might have overstepped a little bit.

"Oh that....uh… I had a raid in Dragon's Online.”

OOOhh, she said, raising her eyebrows. He actually meant it literally, he had gone to slay a virtual dragon. She smiled at herself, and the fact that such an obvious explanation hadn’t occurred to her. “Right… that… probably should have been a little more obvious, huh?”

"Why do you ask?”

She inhaled. Why HAD she asked? It suddenly dawned on her just how completely out of left field this call was. She had only just MET him earlier that day, why would she call him to ask what he was doing with himself? Why would she call him right after she had just had sex with her boyfriend? She was sitting in a bathroom in his jersey, for heaven’s sake...

“I mean, I'm happy to hear from you, I just don't get a lot of calls in the middle of the night....from girls...about a video game."

“Right, right… no, of course you don’t…” She said, shaking her head, feeling a more than a little ridiculous. “I just… I don’t know…”

"Not that I mind, but you are either hitting on me, which I doubt, or you must be incredibly bored."

She laughed at that. He was clearly just playing with her. She pressed her hand over her face as she blushed in embarrassment. “Do I have to pick just one?” She said, feeling herself flushing. “No, really, I was just going over your lesson, and I remembered what you said, and it just struck me as funny, and…” She sighed, shrugging her shoulders. “I guess I just… thought you wouldn’t mind if I called?”

There was some silence on the other end of the phone. What was he thinking? For that matter, what was SHE thinking? This had to be the single lamest thing she’d ever done. She doubted he’d ever want to tutor her again after this. Lord, how many of his clients wound up being weirdo stalkers after he’d helped them?

His voice finally sounded again. "Hey Becca, if you're like… bored or can't sleep, I'd be totally down to… maybe show you the game, or chill or whatever.”

She raised her eyebrow. Really? Just… just like that? She exhaled, thinking about it. “I ah… to be honest, I’m not super into MMO’s…” she said tentatively. But the fact was, she really didn’t want to just lie there in Luke’s sloppy bedroom listen to him snore after he had just so completely skipped over the idea that he might try to make her cum. “But… you know...actually… yea.” She finally said, switching her phone over to her other ear. “Yea, I think I could do with a little video game time. I don’t think I’ve really given DO enough of a shot. Is it cool if I come over now? I’m actually already in Grand Tyson…”

She smiled at his response. “Okay… okay cool. See you in a bit.” she said, sliding the phone closed. She stood up, looking at herself in the mirror. What… exactly was this? She wasn’t doing anything romantic with him, she made that clear to herself right away. She was NOT that kind of girl, and she never would be, thank you very much. Still, that hardly meant she couldn’t make friends, did it? Luke’s jealousy aside, Tanner was just a nice guy that she had enjoyed hanging out with, and she was a grown woman, she could hang out with her friends if she wanted to!

With that in mind, she stepped back into Luke’s room, biting the inside of her cheek as she watched him snore away. She pulled off his jersey, dropping into what she called his ‘hamper pile’; the clothes that needed to be washed the most. She pulled on her underwear and bra, and then tugged up her jeans, t-shirt and sweater. She ran her hands through her hair, and used a scrunchie from her bag to tie it back, not wanting to have to deal with her post-sex hair. She pulled on her shoes, pulled her bag over her shoulder and stepped out into living room. One of his roommates was out there, and she asked him to tell Luke she had gone over to a friend’s if he asked where she was. Lord knew, he’d be texting her anyway. Tanner was two floors up, and the hall had exceptionally big stairwells for some reason. She went up, and found herself on the far end of the hall from her destination. She wound down the corridor, checking room numbers, until she found 704. She knocked, reaching up to pull a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. After a moment, the door opened, and She found herself facing Tanner again.

‘I… should probably say before I even go it…” she started, wanting to make sure she didn’t lead anyone on. “I’m actually seeing someone, I just… I actually wanted to hang out and play video games for a bit, is that okay?”
 
A couple of things swarmed through Tanner's mind as she agreed to come up and chill with him. The first was the fact that a very pretty girl was coming up to spend time with him late at night, alone. The second was that Becca had sounded familiar with not only video games, but she seemed to have a grasp on what DO actually was. Which meant she was not only pretty but was also nerdy, at least to an extent. Tanner quite possibly may have stumbled across a unicorn. Unicorn was a common term among nerds which referred to women who should exist. Beautiful, yet down to Earth and interested in dorky shit like video games, comics, etc. Again Tanner knew plenty of girls who shared those interests, but he had never met one in person who was as beautiful as Becca was. There were many girls on the internet, famous cosplayers like Jessica Nigri and Joanie Brosas, but girl like that weren't a common thing.

Then Tanner realized that he needed to get dressed, or at very least changed so it didn't look like he was still wearing what he wore during tutoring. He scrambled, not knowing how far away she was or how much time he had before she was knocking at the door. He opted for the casual late night look, throwing on a new T-shirt with DO's logo on it and a pair of black sweats. Casual enough to fit the time of night, but also decent enough that he wouldn't look shitty in it.

His timing was perfect too as a soft knock came on the door and Tanner darted out to the living room to answer it. He mentally thanked Scott for being such a clean freak, because it meant Becca wouldn't be introduced to a random warzone of a dorm room. He opened the door with a smile noticing that Becca had pulled her hair back but was still wearing the same outfit she had on before. That made Tanner like her even more, it meant she wasn't a fussy chick who needed to constantly look perfect. Besides she looked fantastic as she was, little on the tired side though.

‘I… should probably say before I even go it…” she started, wanting to make sure she didn’t lead anyone on. “I’m actually seeing someone, I just… I actually wanted to hang out and play video games for a bit, is that okay?”

Tanner blinked as Becca came right out and dumped that bombshell upon him. Did she expect him to creep on her like that? Well this was college, so maybe. But Tanner hadn't even considered "hitting" on her as even a thing. He was perfectly happy being friends, as he never considered "friendzone" a bad word.

"Well golly Becca," He said sadly, "What ever shall I do with the industrial sized box of condoms I just bought?" He let his face break out into a grin and waved her into the room. "Come on do I really come across that creepy? Come on in and enjoy some games."

Tanner smiled and led her through the suite, back towards his room. He noticed that she glanced around at it, probably noticing that there wasn't even anything dusty anywhere. Thank you Scott, he thought. Tanner's bedroom was also kept clean, yet he did that himself. His bed was made, his desk was organized, and even the kick ass dragon posters on his wall were tasteful and not excessive. He was a nerd, but he did have at least some taste. He even kept all his dirty clothing in a hamper. With a lid!

Tanner gestured to his desk and said, "Here you can use the big comfy chair, I'll grab a fold out from my closet." He told her, "I already have the game loaded and logged in so feel free to either make your own character or you can check out my level 100 Lynchmage." He explained as he opened the small sliding closet door and began looking for a folding chair that he swore he had hidden in there somewhere.
 
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"Well golly Becca, What ever shall I do with the industrial sized box of condoms I just bought?"

She rolled her eyes at that. Okay, maybe it was a lame thing to say, but lord knew how sensitive guys could be. “Alright, you don’t have to be weird about it.” She responded with a smile.

He seemed to let it go without much of a second though, inviting her inside. "Come on do I really come across that creepy? Come on in and enjoy some games."

She followed him inside, immediately breathing a huge sigh of relief when she saw how clean the space was. “It’s not creepy, you’re just a guy!” She said as seh took off her coat. “I’ve been called a cocktease just for walking in the same direction with a guy after class. Your average male ego is so fragile I have to walk on eggshells just to make sure I don’t hurt any feelings.”

She hung up her coat in the small closet by the door. As she walked past the living room and kitchen she was further blown away by how clean it all was. It defied all her experience with guy’s dorm rooms. She hated that the stereotype came up in her head so quickly, but her very first thought was ‘one of them must be gay’. She followed him into his room, and looked around at all the dragon posters. “Wow… fanboy much?” She said playfully… but then spent a few moments going from poster to poster and examining them. The artwork was awesome, and she was trying to figure out if she recognized any of the books or movies or games or whatever they were from.

Tanner was grabbing up a second chair from his closet, and she smiled at him, getting ready to take it when he surprised her by suggesting that she actually take his chair. "I already have the game loaded and logged in so feel free to either make your own character or you can check out my level 100 Litchmage."

She raised an eyebrow at that. “Really? You’re… just going to let me try it?” She asked, a little shocked. She’d never seen a guy be so up front about letting someone try their stuff in her life. When he had said that he would ‘show her the game’, she had assumed that he had meant just that. Instead, he was actually going to let HER play. It seemed kind of unfathomable to her.

“Wow…” she said, smiling at him. “Okay, thanks! I'll just poke at your make for a minute, but I'd love to make my own character once I figure this out...” She sat down, and reached for his mouse. It took her a second; she used a scrollball on her own computer, and every time she had to adjust back to a mouse it threw her off. She clicked through a few menus, looking at the breakdown of the character and how it’s powers were distributed… She understood the mechanics of a fantasy role-playing game, obviously… she had played Durge since middle school when she got into it with her mom and dad. She tended to favor Rangers or light mages, but of course she had no idea how to play a MMO like this one. She tended to hate the way other players came out against you when they found out you were a girl.

She took control of his Litchmage, moving him around the map, exploring how his spells worked. “Huh…” she said out loud. “So all the spells AND abilities are accessed the same way? Are any of them passive?”
 
Tanner immediately got excited as Becca took to the controls of the game without needed any instruction. Her fingers hovered over the WASD buttons and while she struggled a little with the mouse, it was nothing she couldn't get over. Tanner sat in the shitty chair beside her and just watched. Even when she made mistakes or got herself into trouble, he said nothing. This MMO was pretty forgiving and she could do no real damage to his character outside a repair penalty for dying a few times, but even that was trivial to him. Besides he could direct her to where his dailies were and have her do them for him.

“Huh…” she said out loud. “So all the spells AND abilities are accessed the same way? Are any of them passive?”

Tanner nodded, "Yeah, press P to open the spell book. Passive's don't appear on the bar, they kind of just trigger when you cast the right active spells. But you can read what they do if you want. Basically the Litchmage is all about stacking spell weakness upon an enemy right? Each time you hit a bad guy you'll see this debuff that stacks with each spell. The higher that debuff gets, the more damage your spells do." He explained as she played. "Damnation is a spell you want to use once a mob gets at least 5 stacks, because it consumes the debuff to deal exponential damage to the target based on how many stacks it has. So build up stacks, cast Damnation, repeat." He said, "I mean it doesn't really matter for these quests because I have so much gear that you'll kill them before you can get more than a stack or two on them. But that's the idea for like big raid bosses, like the dragon I fought tonight."

He smiled as she played, "We spent four hours fighting that dragon and still couldn't beat it tonight. I'm so incredibly bummed."

It impressed him that she seemed so comfortable with the video game's controls. It was clear that she had played games before, or maybe still does. He thought it was strange because again, there weren't many girls that played video games. Especially pretty girls, for whatever reason their interests seems so shallow to Tanner normally. How anyone could spend ten hours at the mall and somehow only LOOK at stuff boggled his mind. Just go buy what you need and leave, why hang out?

Becca seemed different though, of course Tanner didn't know that for sure. She could only have a passive interest in games, enough to get by, but not enough to want to play them for any period of time. He glanced at her and said, "What do you think? You seem pretty confortable around controls, do you play other games?" He asked her, wanting to know if she had hidden layers of nerd under all that cute she was packing.
 
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"What do you think?”

She nodded softly. “The world looks like it’s a lot of fun, but…” She shrugged, saving his character and backing out to the main menu and starting a new character. “Well… it’s always the same thing in MMO’s… you’re never special, you know what I mean?” she toggled through the character creation screen, finding a cool looking tiefling race, and starting to build a cool ranger-thief. “You’re just one more character doing quests out of zillions… as cool as the world might be, how is that any fun?”

He watched her slide the toggles, altering the appearance of her character. “You seem pretty comfortable around controls, do you play other games?"

She nodded, feeling a little embarrassed. Generally, when guys found out she played video games, they started to fawn over her until they realized that she wasn’t talking about consoles. The same jocks that spent hundreds of hours playing madden or call of duty suddenly thought it was weird to spend the same amount of time on a PC playing King’s Quest. She never understood it, but she had learned to keep it to herself. Still, Tanner was clearly a different animal. He was a PC gamer, like her. But he seemed to be a little… she wasn’t sure how to say it. It seemed like he was a little… TOO… impressed? He wasn’t one of those insufferable gamergate assholes, was he? Thinking she was some sort of magical sex object just because she shared some hobbies with him? She exhaled. Lord, she hoped not.

“Mostly stuff like Durge… I’ve finished every version of it since Durge II… the first one was too old to work on my laptop.” She said, describing an early generation rpg that was now up to it’s eleventh iteration. “I like RTS games, but... I mean, like, the turn-based ones? Historyquest, not Space Horde?" She found a piece of her hair, chewing on the end absently as she fiddled with the stats of her character. "Oh, and adventure games… I’m a big fan of Teenage Chainsaw Mansion Party and all the Tentacle sequels, that sort of thing.” She looked back at him. “But, I try not to spend much time playing during the school year, for obvious reasons.”

She finished her thief, and was sliding back and forth between different starting equipment. “Is… the game is more about attacking stuff and damage per second than role playing, huh?” She said, her shoulders falling a bit. “I mean, you’d think there’s at least be a lockpicking function here…”
 
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Drudge? Tanner remembered that game, though he never got to play it much as he was more of a console player back then. He didn't get his first computer, real computer, until high school. Only then did he make the transition into PC gaming, and never looked back. He found himself delighted that she had just a video game pedigree behind her though, it showed that she knew what she was talking about and her excuses for not liking things had more weight.

Though he didn't agree about her opinions on MMO's though. He shrugged, "I never felt like I needed to be unique in every game though. I get why it feels weird from an immersion standpoint I suppose. But for me, MMO's aren't about the story or the lore, they are about playing with and meeting new people. The experiences I've had in this game are unlike anything I can get from any other game. The friends I have made, the feeling of fighting a huge dragon with 39 other REAL people all working as this huge team to take down an incredible foe. That's just a rush you can't get from anything else." He shrugged, "I mean I don't mean to belittle the immersive experience, but there are other games for that. I feel like MMO's get a bad rap because people just don't get it. On paper an MMO reads like a terrible game, but until you've been in groups and faced challenges together, you can never truly understand what calls people to these games."

"That's just me though." He told her with a smile as she worked on making her own character. She opted to create a thief and asked him about stats and core functions of the game as she looked at her character for the first time. "There's lockpicking. But you are a level one thief and you don't know shit yet." He teased. "Open your spellbook with 'P' and you'll be able to see the spells you'll get later and at what level. Lockpicking is....I wanna say forty-something?" He pointed out. "You use lockpicking for special treasure chests in the world that only thieves can open, so it isn't like a single player game where you can run around jacking everybody's shit. It has it's uses, you can also unlock shortcuts in dungeons if your skill is high enough."

He settled back into his seat and let her play around. "I probably play too many games during school time myself. But I figure if I keep acing my classes, then...fuck it. I must be doing something right if it doesn't hurt grades. But the worse is during Thesis time, like mid-term and finals. I have to write so many papers. You wouldn't believe the workload they dump on 104 level classes. Like the material isn't hard to understand, they just bombard you with work which I feel is dumb and hurts more students than it helps because it just wears people out." He vented as she played.

Suddenly he darted forward. "Oh shit level five girl! Grats!" He patted her on the shoulder. "Now you can go learn shadowstep. It allows you to teleport behind targets from like 30 yards away and get a free backstab."
 
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The fact was, there were elements of MMO’s that simply didn’t work for her. There was the fact that there was no sense of it being a immersive world; every single person you met was also a hero, so there was no sense of scale or purpose; the fact that the world was built specifically to service game mechanics was completely transparent. You were supposed to find your own relationships with people in the game, but the simple fact was that people that played these games tended to be kind of mean. It just wasn’t pleasant to socialize with them. She hated to stereotype; obviously Tanner was a nice guy, but even he seemed a little socially awkward for some reason. It just seemed that it might be easier for awkward people to build social groups in places like this.


Of course, she wanted to learn more about the game mechanics. Drudge had very specific mechanics for different types of actions; skills were very different from attacks, which were different from spells, which were different from feats. Here, everything seemed to boil down to cooldown bars, and every possible thing a character might want to do was all on one chart. That might have been excusable, but the simple fact that the game world was essentially an endless combat slog made it pretty clear that the game wasn’t for her. Still, it was fun to TRY, and Tanner’s obvious love of the game was fun. Maybe she could get him to try Drudge!

He got really excited once she achieved a specific milestone in the game. "Oh shit level five girl! Grats! Now you can go learn shadowstep. It allows you to teleport behind targets from like 30 yards away and get a free backstab."


She rolled her eyes, grinning at him. He really was adorable. “That’s cool… but I just… there’s no STORY.” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Wouldn’t it be fun to have to actually role-play?”
 
Tanner had to be completely honest with himself, he really really wanted Becca to like the MMO. But he also understood completely why she just didn't have interest in it. The game itself, and most MMOs like it, was a big grind and it took a certain patience to enjoy something like that. Tanner was that kind of person but Becca wasn't, and that was okay even if it was a little disappointing.

“That’s cool… but I just… there’s no STORY.” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Wouldn’t it be fun to have to actually role-play?”

Tanner looked at Becca a shrugged, "Well I understand completely. You want a story to pull you into the experience. Sadly I don't have any games that give a true role playing story. Actually that's not true, but the game I play for role playing isn't a video game." He looked at her.

"I hate to confess yet another epic level of my nerd to you, but I play Dungeons & Demons. D&D for short. It's a table top game where everything is done through deep role playing and dice rolls, it's fucking awesome....but epically nerdy." Tanner said with a shrug.

He got up and moved to his backpack and pulled out the character sheet that he had been working on earlier when she arrived at the library. "Here check this out. Look at all these stats." He set the paper on the keyboard in front of her. "Every character can be whatever you want it to be. You just have to stat the right way. Wanna be a Archer slash Wizard? You can. Wanna ride dragons and bash giant axes against your enemies? You can. On top of the stats you can also give the character a personality, any personality you want. I am a fan of playing really stupid characters and getting the part into trouble." Tanner laughed.

"Feel free to run away anytime you'd like." He told her with a smile. "Me and the guys get together twice a week. WE like to meet and play at a 24-hour diner for a few hours." He glance at her and blushed, "I also have Duty Calls on Xbox if you just wanna shoot some people."
 
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