Billy the Kid Lich Pt. 8
Sparring Session
"...Videogames, again? Seriously?" It had been three weeks of camping out in my lair waiting for news and new developments and Sobek was rapidly growing displeased with my go-to hobby. "Sobek, we've been over this a million times. Firstly, if there were something going on, be it good or bad, godly or otherwise, ranging anywhere from moderately to extremely powerful, the Lichen would have found it. It's never missed anything befo—"
"But how would you know if it missed something if you wouldn't catch wind of what happened otherwise?" Sobek asked. "...okay, you have a point there." And he really did. It had never occurred to me before that if something medium to big to huge went down and I didn't catch mortal coverage of its side effects (like crazy intense weather or weird behavior in large groups of animals or people) on the news, or else receive a tip from Iris (which ranges from unlikely to impossible due to our current situation), I'd have no way of knowing what I'd missed. I'd have to get on that, develop some sort of upgrade or secondary operating system with its own algorithm that looked for the side effects I mentioned instead of the only the root causes themselves.
"But, yeah, let's say, for arguments sake, it hasn't missed anything." Sobek looked aghast and very agitated. I hastily add "Not ever! Just in the past three weeks!" "Hmph. Alright." "Alright. So if that's the case then there hasn't even been so much as a godly sneeze across the entire globe. Everyone is just up to their own tame habits, responsibilities, and hobbies. So that being said it wouldn't make sense for us to leave the safety of the lair here when The Morrigan has eyes everywhere in the form of ravens and if one of them spotted us and eavesdropped on us strategizing about something we'd lose the only advantage we have."
"They don't know we know what they're up to." Sobek says, some confidence returning to his face and posture. "Bingo. Exactly, as it stands, if we stay here and wait for developments and then plan how to react we keep that advantage." Sobek still looks like something was annoying him. "Alright. That's all fine then, but that doesn't excuse you sitting around gaming almost all day every day for three weeks straight, only stopping to take meals and sleep." He glares at me, waiting for a response.
Crap. Right. I had hoped my long-winded explanation of our current situation would distract him from his original question. Ha. Not likely, as Ra's second-in-command military commander, only second to Set (before Ra retired to the heavens and he turned on his father Osiris), and the primary commander for tactics for fighting while the sun barge sailed through the Twelve Houses of Night and fought all kinds of powerful monsters, the guy did not lose his focus. Ever.
"Right. Sooo... yeah. To be fair, in my defense here it's not entirely a waste of time. I'm oftentimes playing top-down real-time strategies to practice strategic military maneuvers and how to plan them as well as how to react and adapt to changing enemy tactics. And I play on the highest difficulty, thank you very much." "I'm so impressed." He did not look impressed.
"Uh huh. I'm sure you are. (Aren't) Anyways, not only this, when I'm playing first-person shooters I'm improving my reflexes, hand-eye coordination, and my spatial awareness. I watched a TED Talk where a female scholar did a study and FPS gamers could follow ten to thirteen different moving objects in a room at a time, compared to just six to nine in regular people. So these are all skills that would be immensely helpful in an intense hand-to-hand combat situation, something it'd be good to be prepared for, seeing as that's what most godly duels boil down to in the end, even if a few weapons are involved."
After some contemplation, and me losing a few more coasters to Sobek's Anxiety and Contemplative Coaster Consumption Fund, Sobek finally sighs and says "Well I suppose you're right—" He stops and quickly adjusts his sentence as he sees the look of sheer joy and victory on my face. The look of a guy who's about to say I told you so. "—that they can be helpful here and there to a degree. That does not make it any substitute for real-life actual combat training, with real weapons, real consequences and real lessons learned. The hard way. The right way."
YOU ARE READING
The Kid Lich Awakens
Aventura#2 In greatstories! (At it's highest ever point) Everything was normal for Billy, or at least, as normal as life gets when you're a sapient undead. But when an angry and suspicious god comes knocking, Billy has to face the consequences of his wanton...
