Destiny players on vacation forced to beg friends to buy rare video game weapon on their behalf

“Chris I may need you to go to my house and buy a thing for me in Destiny.” The text came around 8:20AM from my colleague, Polygon’s Griffin McElroy. “It’s an emergency.”

I don’t play Destiny, because I know it wouldn’t pair well with my addictive personality. My understanding is limited to headlines I see on The Verge and Polygon. Apparently, every week some guy named Xûr comes to Destinyworld, or wherever, and sells neat weapons for a limited window of time. This week, Xûr is selling the Gjallarhorn for 17 strange coins and this is big news!

The Gjallarhorn is the best because it fires rockets and has the power to unleash the wolfpack.

Xûr’s generosity has been met with celebrations in some corners of the Destiny community, but his timing doesn’t take into consideration that August 14th - 16th is the final weekend of summer vacation for many families, and that thousands of players will be away from their video game consoles during this momentous occasion. Suddenly people like me, who can appreciate Destiny without understanding it whatsoever, are being asked to visit their friend’s home, turn on their console, figure out who the hell Xûr is, and buy a fake weapon in a virtual world.

While I go do Griffin a solid, you should read a few top comments from the Destiny Reddit. Panic mode has commenced.