Chapter One: Skott's Precious Little Life

“And so, the great hero Auron did valiantly slay up to two thousand restive slaves on that day. Only to be stabbed in the back by a disloyal human outlander. With his death came a decade of humiliation and great dishonor upon all elvankind that persists to this day.”

- Elvan Maester Lurux VI: On Post-Emancipation Sociography and the Equality Problem.

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“Another day, another daydream. Eh, Skott?”

Skott, the mundane and unassuming office worker, snapped to attention. One of his bosses gazed at him expectantly from an oval-shaped meeting room table.

Keep reminiscing in the meeting, and it’ll cost you, he chided himself.

“I’m here,” Skott said. Yeah, here. On Earth. “Uh, the new Coopycoin idea is… well…”

It was vital to his further employment not to call Coopycoin, CoopCorp’s third pump-and-dump crypto token in a year, what it was: a scam.

“It’s… inspired.” The man spoke slowly. “But I feel it will cut into the market share of both Cryptstream-coin and Coop-Tokens, which remain in operation.”

The boardroom gazed at Skott intently. They hadn’t expected to receive even this minor constructive criticism. A dozen piercing eyes of senior assistant vice-presidents glared upon him.

In truth, Skott was the only ‘I.T. Guy’ left at CoopCorp, in the ‘unplug switches and desktops and troubleshoot if it works or not’ definition. Everyone else had been downsized, with new talent more focused on developing and upkeeping the many coins.

“Impossible,” said an executive mercifully not in Skott’s direct line of report. “We have a built-in user base of previous customers in the other two coins!”

Crypstream-coin and Coop-Tokens had each lost ninety percent of their value in a week. Nobody who’d bought those was in a situation to invest in scam number three. Skott didn’t say any of this, as he still wrung some small amount of benefit out of this job. He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his dark-brunette hair.

“We’ll see what we can do,” was his canned response.

Meeting adjourned, Skott returned to his modest and secluded cubicle. He sat down and collapsed. It had been over ten years of this career, and it looked like this long, slow slog was going to persist for another ten…

At least it paid well. He’d moved to a city with a significant cost-of-living increase and a surprisingly unfriendly job market. The money was worth the indignity… for now.

+++

While today Skott was a mild-mannered computer specialist, fifteen years ago he was Skott of Omaha.

He still remembered the distinct sensation of a portal opening before him on the last day of school. A strange, alien air had beckoned… as did the jungle of a world he’d never seen before. Out of curiosity, an eighteen-year-old Skott had stepped through… and the way back had immediately shut behind him.

While the other students at his high school had been walking the aisle and graduating, Skott had been lost in another world. The locals called it Aeirun.

‘Amazing! This new world is just like my favorite RPG!’ – a common refrain. Also, the exact words Skott had said once he stepped through the portal. In his case, it was ‘just like that one Bethesda game! You know the one!’

This first impression lasted until he stumbled upon a settlement. It was a copse of treetop plantations. Aeirun really wasn’t like that series at all, for no game could quite meet the scale and scope of the world he’d found himself in.

There were many peoples in this strange new world. Humans were relatively rare in that starting region. But there were many different types of elves. They’d welcomed him, at first, into their fancy treetop mansion. It appeared to be an idyllic, perfect life at first…

Skott had been gone for a full year. It was quite the educational gap year, and he’d returned to dusty old Omaha far wiser than he’d been as a mere teenager.

Having to return from being Skott of Omaha, Hero of Aeirun, to just Skott from Omaha, mild-mannered college student had required some adjusting. The freeform nature of a moderately-sized school allowed him to put the skills and life experiences he’d gained in Aeirun to good use.

But then he’d graduated into the same major he’d pursued before that life-altering portal had whisked him away to a fantasy realm. Years passed, memories faded, and so Skott had gone from hero of the realm to a moderately successful mid-level I.T. specialist.

By any objective measure, Skott had everything he needed: A job enough to own his own house, enough money to pursue any hobby he desired, and relative job security provided he humored a board room of vice presidents with more ambition than sense. Despite it all, he was unfulfilled…

He’d peaked just after high school! It was more eventful than most tales of washed-up high school sports stars…but he’d been a hero to an entire fantasy world. Skott of Omaha! The Great Liberator! The human from another world. Now he was just… Skott.

Visions of great adventures danced through Skott’s head. An invitation to his first elvan treehouse moot. Making friends with many a nice lord and lady. Puzzling out the intricacies of the new world’s language without even root-words. Casting his first spell. Being invited on the elvan’s regular recreational ‘goblin hunt’…

The mood soured. Skott glowered at his blank computer screen. He’d made many friends after that point among the less fortunate species of the realm. In his mind, he was back amidst a great battle. An uprising against the elvan High King Auron. He’d succeeded, but not alone. He’d had a party of like-minded adventurers, two fellow humans, a goblin, and… specifically, he’d had Lamora.

Skott sighed. If there was anyone he missed from the other world, it was most assuredly her. A dashingly self-confident and defiant orc priestess. They’d become close friends both during the rebellion and its aftermath. Over the years, Skott found himself with a mysterious and empty feeling in his gut even during his happiest moments. It was yearning. If only he could have stayed an extra month or two. But alas, the pair had to part ways, for there was no telling how long a portal back to Earth could be maintained. So, they were left with nothing but fond memories as they went their separate ways.

“Ah, I miss her,” Skott said to himself.

He glanced at the nearest clock. Work had ended thirty minutes ago. He’d just been sitting here reminiscing the whole time.

It won’t do to spend all my time in the past, he thought, rising from his chair. He had somewhere to be in the present! Pushing away these thoughts, Skott left CoopCorp HQ and returned home.

Aeirun was a lifetime ago. Practically a half-remembered dream at this point. Surely there’s use yearning to return.