The Bathrobe Knight by Charles Dean, Joshua Swayne

figured it out, and those who are catching on aren't making a big fuss out of it--yet. Most seem to think that it's still part of the game design for whatever reason.
    But here's where things get really interesting. Our design team member that was sitting in on the human council meeting was Nelson. He said that during the meeting something unusual happened. The summoning circle within the king's court suddenly lit up and a strange man appeared.  Nelson described him as a tall broad shouldered man complete with red eyes and claws. The king claimed that it was his 'prized champion' or something and sent him off to the front lines to conquer the invading forces. This champion, or whatever he was, said that all he wanted as his ultimate weapon was a soup spoon."
    Gary paused here watching for Robert's reaction.
    "Let me guess. He was wearing a bathrobe, wasn't he?"
    Gary nodded his head in response. "Sure was."
    "Why in the world wouldn't Nelson bother telling anyone about something like that? He knew as well as the rest of us how the Unity Arc was supposed to play out."
    "The guy thought we were messing with him again. He figures we just didn't feel like including him in on all the changes and were trying to pull a fast one. So he just kept his mouth shut and went along with it like everything was normal."
    "Yeah. Because we definitely decided to write in a spoon-wielding, bathrobe-wearing hero into the Unity Arc progression chain and then not tell anyone about it. Right." Robert's voice bordered on the edge of sarcastic incredulousness. "So what now? What happened to the guy?"
    "Well, that's just the thing. We aren't really sure. We can't track the player. There's no record of him in the database. No character ID and no game account. As best we can tell, it's a ghost in the system."
    "Ghost in the system? Please tell me you're joking."
    Gary just shrugged apologetically.
    I seriously need more coffee.
     
    Valerie:
     
                  Valerie extended her long brown and white feathered wings as far as she could and relaxed her flight into an easy glide. She was at least fifty stories above the ground, and the desert had gone from sands to sheets to one flowing, brown carpet. The only thing that ever interrupted the brown were the edges of the rivers. Valerie had never visited a desert in real life, but she wondered if they looked the same.
    Even after a week of playing, she couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by the sensation as the wind caressed the feathers on her wings. She could feel her wings. She could feel the feathers on each wing. It was amazing to her. Since the accident almost a decade ago, she hadn’t believed she would ever walk again, and here she was flying. It almost made her cry every time. The dive machine stimulated her muscles to do tiny micro movements so she could play all day everyday without ever having to log out, save for sleep and food. Her mom insisted on her eating breakfast and dinner with the family. Other than that though, the winds, the feeling of freedom--Valerie was hooked and never wanted to leave Tiqpa.
    “Have you spotted any enemy encampments yet?” her commander whispered to her using the in game notification system. It basically sent the message as a text notification that wouldn’t appear when enemies were present or a player was in battle.
    “No heretics have been detected. I’ve found two ore mines though and mapped them with my suggestion of where we should establish the harbor. If we spend a day or two grinding the right resources and hire workers to handle the mines, we should have enough to get a fully functional war harbor up and running by the end of the week. The voice of the Sun God will be pleased.” She knew the Sun God was only a part of the game lore, but the more you played the game, the more you bought into it. Everything was “For the Sun God this” and “for the Sun God that.” It was fun too. Valerie felt like she was a part of something when