Day 16 - Holy pizza

M. Troll had run to his house more frightened than he had ever been, on Friday afternoon.
He had to explain to his guildmates why he had not a headset, and he wasn't able to play as intended.
But he didn't blame anything or anyone but his curiosity. Why did he feel the need to get closer at all costs?

On Saturday, he went for a jog in the mountain near his apartment. A jog that was more some survival thing than a jog, to be honest.
He would have like to take his glittery pink rubber boots, but to run, it would have been foolish, so he had his orange sport shoes.

He decided to get a pizza later that day, after having taken a nice shower and played video games a lot.

On the way to his favorite pizzeria, someone gave him a flyer promoting a French Christmas market that was to happen the day after, on Sunday. M. Troll shrugged and put the flyer away in his pocket.
At the pizzeria, he took his pizza (he ordered online, as usual) and was to leave when he heard someone running behind him.
One of the heads took a look and he nearly ran away when he realized it was the salad. She looked very salady in a fancy colored dress.

"Hey!" she said. "Yesterday, you threw your headset at me! It hurt!"
She then obviously waited for an answer, without smiling.

All the three heads became as red as something can become red. The salad felt a bit guilty, because she could see this troll wasn't that used to talking to new people.

"OK! Don't worry about it!" she exclaimed, smiling happily again. "I'll forgive you if you come to the French Christmas market tomorrow!"

M. Troll remembered the flyer, weighted quickly his options, and was surprised to realize he was already nodding "yes" before the end of the weighting.

"Perfect! See you tomorrow then!" said the salad happily, before going back to her table.

The pizza M. Troll ate that day tasted like hope and happiness.

Will he buy smelly cheese at the French market? What is the salad selling?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 15 - Deception

M. Troll was devastated. He had put so much hope in this date. This Friday morning, when he woke up, he started to think love wasn't for him.
"Well, he thought, I've been alone forever after all, maybe I'm made to spend my life alone? Maybe if I wasn't alone, I would end up hurting the special person I would love and myself too."

It was a gloomy Friday. M. Troll was constantly on the verge of tears.

After work, to please his new guildmates, he went to the shop and chose a nice pink headset.
At the shop, he heard singing coming from the karaoke area (an area he looked at longingly, but with three heads...). The voice seemed vaguely familiar, even if he could not replace. He took a look and saw the singing salad.

The same singing salad as the day before. She was with her friends again, trying of the karaoke machine. M. Troll watched for a few minutes, fascinated. How could someone sing like that in a public place that wasn't designed for it and not feel ashamed?
He took one step closer.
"Haha! I'll sing the Sugababes next if you keep trolling me!" squeaked the salad happily at something one of her friends said.

M. Troll had no idea what the Sugababes were, but he suddenly really wanted to know.
He took two steps closer.

The salad turned and looked directly at him.
"Hi! Do you want to join us?" she asked with a big happy smile.

M. Troll ran away from the shop, throwing the unpaid headset in the salad's direction in his haste.

Did the headset hit the salad? Did it hurt if yes?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 13 and 14 - Dating!

The girls M. Troll talked to on the Internet, the ones who didn't play video games, didn't really understand why he liked this activity so much.
Nonetheless, he invited one of them on a date on Thursday (day 14), just in case.

On Wednesday he went to see one of his colleagues, a guy who had a lot of success with the ladies.
"What should I give her on a first date?" he asked.
"Well, what does she like?" asked the colleague back.
"She doesn't like video games," answered M. Troll. "But I think she likes swimming."

The colleague was at a loss with this information, and didn't know what to answer to M. Troll. Worse, M. Troll's three heads were looking at him with such hope he felt compelled to jump through the window. But it was Winter and snow was everywhere.
He turned away from the window, sighing, and said with what he hoped was a wise face:
"Buy her flowers. Pretty colored flowers."

M. Troll ran from the office to find flowers (which made his colleague relieved, since he wouldn't have to see M. Troll again this day).

The seller was very surprised when a crazed M. Troll barged in her shop, but years of seeing strange customers kicked in, and she smiled automatically.
"Hei, can I help you?" she asked politely.

M. Troll waved in front of her nose flowers he had just taken on a shelf.
 "I want these for a date!" he exclaimed, proud at having found pretty flowers.

The seller sighed, wondering once again why she bothered learning the language of flowers if she only had customers like this one.

M. Troll, forgetting entirely about his work, went back home to play with his new guild, full of nice people, mostly guys (sic) though. The only active girl was married to another player already. But that story made him hopeful.

***

On Thursday, M. Troll was full of joy. The girl he was to meet wasn't hostile to video games.

His day at work seemed to go so slowly to him he was in a terrible mood.
His colleagues were happy to see things go back to normal with him sheltered in his office.

When the time came, he went to the date with confidence, whistling in the streets, flowers in hand. He heard singing from one of the streets he had to cross to arrive to the restaurant. Curious and in advance, he took a look and saw a strange salad singing and laughing with people who appeared to be friends of hers.
"How weird it is," he thought. "A singing salad. She must be foreign."

He then resumed in confident walk.

The girl arrived five minutes late. He didn't like late people and told her so. She didn't seem really happy about that, but she squeaked and claped excitedly when she saw the flowers.

It started well, but it didn't end so.

During the dinner, he talked about things he knew: video games, his experience in the North with the young video games player, his work and, of course, his glittery pink rubber boots. She talked about things she knew, and they were really different.
When they talked about what they wanted in life, they realized they could have lived on different planets.

They called it a night after the appetizers.

M. Troll ordered japanese on the way home.

Who was that salad?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 12 - Back to work!

M. Troll fell asleep on his desk, still happy to have started everything he could to meet the special person he was dreaming of.

When he awoke, full of hope for the day to come, he prepared some brown cheese toasts. These days were celebration days.

  

He arrived at work with a big smile plastered on each of his heads and said hello to everyone.

His colleagues started to wonder what had happened in this troll life to make him so happy. They organized lot of meetings to see if he would talk about his private life at some point, and they even all lunched together.

For his lunch, he has brought two brown cheese sandwiches. The toothless head had a lollipop. It squeaked happily when it saw the candy, since it really was addicted to sugar, something M. Troll knew, but was ignoring as well as he could.

M. Troll's boss gave him more work and projects than usual, but he was still full of hope and happy. He answered some messages from girls that seemed nice enough, but didn't really play video games. And he got accepted in the guild he wanted to join.

Life was full of opportunities!

When he got home, later that day, he went to meet all his new guildmates.

Will the perfect girl be in that guild? Will she be somewhere else? Will he settle for a non-playing girl?

Stay tuned! :D

Days 10 and 11 - Out of the cave

On Sunday, M. Troll was ready to leave the hytte of his new guide in life. The young gamer was kind of relieved to see this nice but really weird person go back to his own life. Plus, his girlfriend was freaked out by the three heads.

M. Troll, during his trip back to his small town, realized he lacked something important that made people better and happier and more positive and more energetic and just more more more. Something that made people sing, scream, act crazy, etc.
He wasn't in love.

He had never felt the need to be before he met the young gamer, but he didn't know girls could love video games. Now that he knew that truth, he saw how beautiful the world really was.

He pictured himself with the most perfect girl he could imagine. She had to be a bit crazy, but good crazy, so he had fun all the time; she also had to love pizza, because pizza was another perfection of the world. He also wanted to find her the prettiest girl in the world, but he had no doubt that once in love, he would be able to see only her. He shyly wished their kisses would taste like magic itself.

He imagined himself and his girlfriend going to the movie theater, playing video games together, meeting each other for a lunch or a dinner...

He wanted to share the best moments of his life with someone special. He wanted to take care of someone and to be taken care of in return.

M. Troll was out of his allegorical cave. He was discovering the world.

***

The following day (since he got lost a lot on his way back and it took longer to get home), he arrived in the parking lot he shared with his neighbour and parked automatically. Everything he did, he did as in a dream. He was already living the perfect life with the perfect girl.

He wasn't even tired, he just wanted to meet her.
That special person meant to be with him.

He created an account on some dating websites, just in case, and also looked at guilds in his new favorite game, TSW, just in case. There can't be too many "just in case" where the perfect girl is involved, he told himself.

He spent all his day looking at pictures and profiles on the dating websites, then looking for a guild.
He sent several messages that got no answer, some that got an answer he liked and some that got an answer he disliked. He was pretty happy.
He also found a nice guild and applied. That made him happy too.

After this day that got him closer to his new dream and to new content in TSW, he felt more enthusiastic than ever.

Will he find a girl on the Net? When will he sleep?
Stay tuned! :D

Days 8 and 9 - An encounter

M. Troll spent the worst night of his life in his car. His only joy was to see his lovely boots when he woke up. But even that couldn't compare to the sadness he felt at not witnessing the apparition of northern lights.
And the cold. The toothless head was shivering on its neck.
M. Troll spotted smoke far away, but close enough so he could reach it with his car.

The smoke was coming from an hytte, a chalet in his country.

He knocked on the door, and a one-headed young guy opened it.

"Yes? I'm not interested in anything you have to sell," said the guy before his eyes widened at the sight of the sparkling M. Troll.
He wasn't used to visitors, especially not to sparkling ones.
"What the...?" he continued.
"Hi! I'm M. Troll, I wanted to see northern lights, but there wasn't any," said one of the heads. "How old are you?"
"Ah. Oh. You're lost. I'm 28. Please, come in," answered the young guy, who was very polite.

M. Troll discovered with pleasure the inside of someone else's home. He was a bit isolated and didn't have that kind of occasion often.

He saw a big computer with several screens and gaming gear in a corner of the room. A game was on.
"Oooh! I love video games! What are you playing at?" he asked.
"I'm playing a MMORPG," answered the guy. "It's called The Secret World."
"What's a MMORPG?"

The young guy was so surprised at this question he nearly broke the glass of water he had filled for M. Troll.
He spent several hours and a good part of the night explaining to M. Troll and showing him all the benefits of MMORPG, especially for people like them who weren't party animals.
M. Troll was in awe. He had to play this game.

The young gamer lent him a computer, so he could create a character. Unfortunately, the nickname he used was already taken, so he had to invent a new one from it, with an Italian sonority.

They both played for hours.

***

And then it was already the middle of the following day.

"Oh, I won't be able to group with you anymore today," said the young guy.
"Why?" asked M. Troll sadly.
"My girlfriend just logged in."

M. Troll didn't really know what a girlfriend was, even if he understood the concept of it all. The young guy took time to explain to him one of life biggest, truest and best lesson:
"A girl playing video games is the greatest treasure the world can offer. A guy has to be his best to win the heart of a girl who plays video games, and if she falls for him, he can consider himself the luckiest person ever. If everything else goes smoothly in the couple, the guy has a right to think it's the universe itself that is giving him the most perfect life anybody could dream of."

M. Troll thought a lot about it.
"Where can I meet girls who likes video games?" he asked.
"You can meet them in game. I met my girlfriend while playing The Secret World. The day we said we had a crush on each other will always be a magic day in my mind. And she says it's the same for her."

M. Troll played on his own while the young guy grouped with his girlfriend. He had a lot to think about after these discussions.

Will he go back to his life or stay in the hytte? Will he meet a girl playing video games, one of the world greatest treasures?
Stay tuned! :D

Day 7 - Luggage, finally, and a nice trip

M. Troll was oblivious to the policeman following him, and that is what saved him. The policeman understood quickly that M. Troll was innocent of a lot of things, among them harassing little girls.

M. Troll came back safely to his home, not knowing he had been close to get arrested. After eating some brown cheese with bread and jam, he packed everything he needed for his trip to the North and went to bed peacefully.

The following day was the D-day. He woke up more excited than ever and gathered all his things while whistling happily. He put everything in his blue car and drove off, singing as loudly as possible The Offspring's songs.
More than one bird wondered if it was the end of the world.

After several hours, after midnight but before dawn, M. Troll reached his destination.
He planted his tent in the middle of nowhere and got quickly into his sleeping bag, since it was so cold outside.
After a few minutes of shivering without seeing any northern lights, he gave up on the idea of sleeping outside in the tent and came back to his car, still a bit heated. There, he finally managed to sleep, wondering why he decided to do that to himself in the first place.

Will he die of cold before having seen the northern lights? What is this smoke from far away that seems to come from a nice chalet?

Stay tuned!