Roland and Dave reached Dave's building. It wasn't 8 yet, so thankfully Dave didn't have to register Roland as a guest.
Dave took Roland up to his dorm and found, much to Dave's chagrin, that his roommate was in.
"Hey," said Brian. He was chatting on his laptop with his girlfried.
"What's up, playa?" Dave replied, then took a deep breath. "Uh, I guess there's no hiding it. I've got a visitor."
"Hi, Sarah," Brian said without looking up.
The gunslinger stepped in. "Who is Sarah?"
Brian's head snapped up. He saw the gunslinger and for a terrifying moment Dave thought Brian would scream. Then ... "Oh, hey. Nice clothes. You look kinda like ... a character in a book I've read."
Dave looked at Roland, hoping he wouldn't slip. "Yes," said the gunslinger. "I've always liked that story, and that character in particular. My name is .... Robert."
Dave loosened up a bit. "Okay. Well, uh, Rob, this is Brian."
They shook hands. Brian stood. "Yeah. I think I'm gonna go get some dinner, if that's cool. Robert, you can help yourself to some soda or whatever."
Roland nodded. "Thankee-sai."
Brian laughed. "You even talk like Roland. Anyhow, see you guys later." And he left.
Dave heaved a sigh. "That was close." He sat on the futon and picked up his laptop.
Roland sat next to him and watched the screen. He marveled at how when Dave moved his finger across a grey square at the base of the computer, an arrow moved correspondingly on the screen.
Dave clicked on a small blue and orange icon with the nonsense words "Mozilla Firefox" underneath it. Roland watched as Dave navigated to a screen with the words "Oddworld Forums" across the top.
"Okay, now I'm going to open your story...."
Dave clicked on the words "The Community RPG." The screen changed again, this time to a box of text headed by the words "Splat Slig Armored Popper."
Dave summarized the last few posts for Roland. "This is from just about the time Fisher arrived, right?" he ended.
Roland nodded. "Yes. Write of our encounter."
Dave wrote what would soon become the 309th post in the thread.
"Now what?" Roland asked anxiously. "Write more!"
Dave shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. I have to let everyone respond to this first."
---
Fisher had grown impatient with the anthro tigers. They obviously weren't Breakers; they would have been able to prod his mind and figure out what Breakers were if they were.
So he turned to the Eagle, Pseok. "I sent him to a little college town in Massachusetts. But you wouldn't be able to find him if you flew there - he's in a different version of Massachusetts. Please don't tempt me to send you somewhere less pleasant."
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