Trouble With Horns

Chapter 1: The Break Up

“Something just isn’t working!” Kristina told me in that frustrated tone people use when they think they’re talking to an idiot.

“Yeah um, I kinda realised that,” I sighed, crossing my legs and leaning back against the aging park bench.

I watched the park we were in fill with people as those who actually had jobs got off work. You could tell the ones with jobs from the ones without pretty easily. Their clothes were a better cut, their phones were the latest model and they gave those of us without jobs the side eye. At least the weather was nice today. Being dumped by my long term girlfriend in the rain wouldn’t have been ideal. Way too cliche for me.

“Terry!” Kristina exclaimed from next to me, evidently catching on to my loss of concentration.

I looked over at her for the first time since she’d broached the subject, trying my best to hold my heart together, “Yeah Krissy?”

“I’m breaking up with you and you aren’t even paying attention!” she cried, trying to keep her own tears from showing.

“Sorry. I get what you’re trying to say babe. You’re done with me. That’s fine I guess,” I shrugged, projecting a nonchalance I most definitely did not feel inside.

She ran her hand through her long blonde hair and made that sound I had learned so well in recent months. It was somewhere between a sigh and a growl, and it put my hackles up every time. We’d been together for three years now. Started out in our senior year of high school. Went to prom together, the works. She’d been the only girl to really pin me down in a while, I wasn’t really the long term type before that.

She stamped her foot in frustration, and glared at me, “I don’t want to be done with you, but you make things so hard! I love you Terry!”

“I love you too babe,” I said, my voice cracking just the slightest touch. She saw it though.

“Then why are things so weird between us? Why do you never put in any effort anymore? All we do its hang out at your place or in VR. Take me on a fucking date for fuck’s sake!” she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks for the first time in a while.

I wanted to lean over and wipe them away, to kiss her better and help her in any way I could. I really did love her. She had been the one point of stability in my life recently as my life rocked to an earthquake that I had no source for. I couldn’t tell her that though. How do you tell someone that you feel like something is wrong with your life but you have no idea what it is. How do you get someone to understand that one day, just randomly and out of the blue you felt a shearing in your mind and suddenly nothing was right?

“I can’t tell you the answers to those questions babe. I don’t know why. Although I should point out that you’re doing a great job reinforcing those ancient gender roles you hate. You could try taking me on a date,” I explained tiredly. We’d had this argument before.

“You’re shit!” she sobbed standing up and taking three quick steps away before she spun back to glare at me, “You don’t… you don’t give me anything I need in this relationship anymore! I need you! Why are you so distant?”

I stood up after her, but I didn’t make any moves towards her. If she was done with me, I was done with this conversation. I didn’t have answers for her, so why sit here and listen? We were over.

“I’m gonna go home Kristina. I hope you find a guy who can give you what I can’t,” I said, breathing evenly to keep myself together. I wasn’t going to fall apart in public. I would not. I took a few steps away, trying to put distance between us, between myself and the pain.

“Dawn was so right about you. She told me you were bad when we first started dating! I should have listened when she warned me about you! She said there was something off!” Kristina screamed from behind me as I walked away.

I spun on a heel, and surprised myself with a smile as I said, “Try dating Dawn then. You do seem to be close.”

I kept walking backwards and watched her face screw up in disgust, oh I had so hit a sore spot, “Ew! Gross! That’s disgusting Terry. You’re… eurgh!”

Performing the messiest two fingered salute of my life I spun back around and made my escape through the perfectly manicured park. It was odd, but goading her into showing that ugly side made me feel a hell of a lot better. That had always been a subject we avoided. The LGBT+ movement had stalled like fifty years ago when America “went weird” as I liked to call it. The boomers were long since dead, but their money was still talking, even after the last of their kind died. Kristina was one of those who listened to that shit.

We were on street level two right now, the park being suspended between two huge skyscrapers on large blocks of concrete that thrust down into the depths of the industrial park below. At least we’d gotten that right in the future. The slums weren’t underneath the skyways and shit like in the old movies. Nah, we’d managed to hide those in plain sight beneath the shining exterior of the residential towers. Our slums were also cleaner than the old movies, so I guess that was cool too. Robots didn’t get tired like human cleaners did.

It was a short trip across the park and into the magrail station. I walked past bustling wage earners, robots earnestly going about their business, and those like me who were stuck on basic income. I rushed into the nearest car before the train left the station. I was lucky it had been there because otherwise I might have seen Kristina again as we waited. That would have been just a little awkward.

When I got home, having navigated through another park and into the residential tower I called home, I moved straight to the couch after kicking my shoes off at the door and fell into it with a sigh. What a fucking day. I mean sure it was barely past lunchtime, but being dumped by your girlfriend turned any day into a “what a day” kind of day. Better tell Taylor I guess. My twin sister was going to love this, little gossip and drama queen that she was.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, a slab of black glossy plastic, and pressed my thumb onto the screen to activate it.

Terry: Yo Taylor. Kristina broke up with me.

Taylor: Whoa wait what? Hold on, I am so coming over. I’m not letting you relay another story like this over fuckin text. Do not spoil until I get there alright?

Terry: Suit yourself. I’m not cleaning up for you though.

Taylor: As if. Be there soon bro. Hold on.

With the conversation ended, I tossed the phone onto the coffee table and stretched. Fuck how did emotional pain lead to my back aching? Thousands of years of science under our belts and we hadn’t figured a whole lot out about the human body. We’d made significantly more progress figuring out how to break instead.

Taylor and I lived in the same building, so it wasn’t surprising when she arrived ten minutes later with chocolate and some sort of noodle dish thing. Not sure how well those two foods went together, but hey she was bringing me free food so I wasn’t going to complain.

“Fuck Terry can you at least make it so those of us who actually love you can make it into the apartment?” she grumbled as she almost tripped on something I had left on the floor.

I leaned my head back to get a look at what she’d managed to catch, and grinned as I saw my shoes. Exactly as planned.

“Keeping you on your toes sis, a big shot streamer like you needs her reflexes intact you know?” I laughed.

“You are a dick,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes, “No wonder Kristina dumped you.”

My face fell almost immediately, and she caught my expression shift straight way, “Ah fuck shit. Sorry that was the worst damn thing to say. I’m your twin, we’re meant to be on the same wavelength.”

“One of us is in tune with the other, and it’s usually not you,” I said, taking a little shot at her even as I forgave her yet again for her constant foot in mouth syndrome.

“Ouch. Alright I deserved that,” she said, then handed me the chocolate, “Have the chocolate while I get us some bowls and forks.”

“Thanks,” I said, eagerly accepting the chocolate, then asked, “Not going to use the chopsticks they give you?”

“I might use them, but I definitely don’t trust you with them,” she winked slyly, then turned and disappeared into my tiny kitchen.

She came back out with a pair of bowls, two forks and a compassionate expression. She placed the bowls down, dished out the noodles and then sat next to me. We liked to sit close enough so that our shoulders and thighs touched these days, but we’d been closer when we were kids. The point in our lives where I was meant to wear boy clothes and she was meant to wear girl clothes had put a few inches of space between us, and puberty had put a few more. I missed the days before then, when we were just twins up to no good.

My sister had become a tall fiery haired girl with a great figure and a winning smile. Perfect picture of a girl who was going to punch the world in the gut and make it dance for her. I had become an even taller dude with hair just as fiery, both on my chin and on my head, and a body that was the picture of masculinity. My smile was pretty good too if my track record was to be believed. Somehow though, my looks felt hollow. So what if I was a handsome guy when I still felt like shit?

“So what happened? You’d made a few rumblings about the relationship having issues, but I didn’t think it was this bad?” she asked after her first mouthful.

I shrugged, eating a few mouthfuls of my food to distract myself from the sick feeling in my gut that was refusing to be ignored.

“She decided I wasn’t being a dutiful boyfriend apparently. I wasn’t meeting her expectations. I’m not really sure because the whole thing was addressing problems that neither of us could put words to. You know when there’s something up with a relationship or friendship or whatever, and you both feel it but like, you’ll be damned if there’s actually words to describe it? It was like that,” I explained, waving the fork around for emphasis and sending a stray piece of noodle flying onto the carpet. I’d let the little robot mice deal with that. Yeah they are definitely a real thing.

My sister watched the little piece of noodle arc through the air, but otherwise didn’t comment.

“Riiight. I mean, I understand what you’re talking about, but that seems like the time to go to relationship counseling rather than just breaking things off. Three years of relationship is a lot to throw away,” she said, searching my face for my thoughts.

Putting the fork down, I stared into the bowl and tried to order my thoughts. The whole thing was a mess in my head. Kristina had been right on that one. We hadn’t had all that many fights, sure, but there had been a shitload of microaggressions. Little things we’d do to get back at each other for a petty slight. Things had been going downhill for a while.

“I mean, if we’d had the money we might have,” I said sadly, “Or rather, if I’d had the money. I doubt her parents would have let her spend money on that. But I don’t even think it would have helped... like, I think something had changed in who each of us were. We changed as people. I don’t know.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, and then my facade just kind of crumbled and suddenly I was crying all over the place. If all my friends could see me now I’d be the laughing stock, but this was my twin sister, and she reached out and placed her bowl on the table, then reached over and took mine out of my lap. She pulled me into a hug without a word, and just carefully held me.

Being held by her always pulled me back down to Earth and calmed me, so I was able to get myself under control pretty quickly, but I was definitely not done grieving. This was just the prelude.

“I need a distraction. Something to do in the college off weeks,” I groaned.

“If you let me pay for a full ride you wouldn’t have to do that crappy one week on, one week off bullshit,” she sighed.

“No, you worked hard for your money. I’ll make my own some day, and I want it to be my money. You know how I feel about this,” I said, shaking my head.

“Alright. Sorry, just had to give it another try,” she said sheepishly.

More moments went by as we picked our food back up and stared out the window of my single person apartment. Most apartments were one bedroom affairs these days, at least for those of us on basic. Little factory built living spaces all jammed together inside a shell of glass and steel. It felt like society was just storing us in case we were useful. A human “things” drawer.

“You know,” Taylor said thoughtfully, aimlessly pointing her fork out the window, “You could come play Cora with me. Get you on the stream and stuff.”

I opened my mouth to protest that I didn’t want her streaming money again, but she shushed me, “No no, I wouldn’t pay you, even if I want to pay you really badly. We can just play, twin duo taking a generic fantasy world by storm. It'll take your mind off all of this.”

She stared at me with big hopeful brown eyes, and I gave in with a sigh. Cora was a fantasy VRmmo that had released a few months ago. I hadn’t gotten on board because I’d been neck deep in another game at the time, but my sister had jumped on it. She’d been a pretty famous streamer before, but this game was making waves and she was riding them to the top.

“Alright. Yeah okay… yeah, that sounds like fun actually. I’ve missed hanging out with you,” I said truthfully, giving her a weak smile.

“Same here Terry, same here,” she smiled back, bumping our heads together like we used to do as children.

“So like, it’s free right? One of those games that turns the stuff happening inside the game into a big TV series for everyone to watch right?” I asked, making myself become interested.

“Yup! They have a ton of like, invis bots flying around getting shots of the battles and stuff. They tried to film the dirty stuff too, but people got real mad about that, so thankfully we can all… nevermind. Anyway yeah, it’s free. I could put together a few builds for you if you want. Min-maxing is a pretty big thing in this game,” she said, her cheeks colouring a bit as she mentioned the eighteen plus nature of the game.

It wasn’t that it was all sex and orgies like some porn games out there, but they had restricted the game to those above eighteen years old so that players would have a completely immersive experience. Well, up to a point. The VR laws that had been passed a few decades back to prevent some pretty awful shit from happening were definitely still a thing.

“Yeah alright. I’ll probably play some sneaky rogue character like usual. Rakish grin and a fast blade, that kind of thing,” I said, already dreaming of the tavern brawls and card cheating.

“Yeah of course you’d play that type of character. Is there any hope of persuading you otherwise?” she sighed, although I could see the grin she was trying to hide.

I reached over and messed her hair up with a hand, and she lurched away with a laugh, “Dick! You know I take time on my hair!”

“That’s why I love messing with it,” I winked, then added, “And no… I’m already giving in by playing the game.”

She laughed again, and cleaned up the last of her food, “Alright. I’ll stay the night, that’s not negotiable, and then tomorrow we’ll get you all set up?”

“Stay the night?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, I miss you Terry. Let’s try and make an effort to be closer again. Like old times,” she said hopefully.

I bumped my head gently into hers with a smile and a warming heart, “Yeah that sounds like a decent plan.”

Chapter 2: Character Creation

We spent the rest of afternoon poring over information about the game and coming up with ideas and builds for my new character. Taylor was part of a raid guild that was looking to push the boundaries of the PVE content in the game, but everyone was still currently in the leveling and gearing process so I still had time to catch up. Not to mention the PvP they’d gotten bogged down in. I was so proud of my sister for being such a total badass. I needed to figure out how to step out of her shadow, even if it was pretty damn comfy there.

When it was finally time to let my sister into my bombsite of a bedroom, she couldn’t help but laugh at me. Then she saw my wardrobe, which was currently scattered across the floor, and accused me of leaning too hard into the ginger lumberjack stereotype. She kind of had a point, there was a lot of suspenders and plaid everywhere. Lumberjacks hadn’t existed for a very long time, but their fashion continued to come in and out of style. It was very much not in style right now.

The next morning we went to my VR pod, which was in it’s own room, but Taylor stopped me immediately when she saw it.

“Oh gross! You’re still using a Samtil Dive? That thing is fucking ancient!” she said, her voice a mix of disgust and wonder, “This thing quite literally belongs in a museum dude. Oh my god you taped the nutrient tubes into the outlet?”

“They kept falling out and the pod was ejecting me when it realised I wasn’t being fed,” I said defensively.

“That could kill you! What if the pod didn’t realise you weren’t being kept alive?” she asked angrily.

Shrugging sheepishly I said, “Um… I guess I’d be dead?”

“Yeah! What the fuck bro! Take care of yourself, oh my god!” she huffed, grabbing my face by either cheek.

“I can’t afford anything more than this Taylor, so it’s kind of a moot point,” I said, tapping the coffin shaped device with a foot.

“Nah. No. Nope. This is where I draw the line. I’m buying you a new one right now,” she said, pulling out her phone.

“No! Stop! I’ll save up for a better one!” I complained, trying to get her phone out of her hands.

She placed a single finger in the middle of my forehead and raised an eyebrow. I sighed and pulled back. She was impossible to argue with.

“I’ll use my sponsorship with Kermant to get you a cheap high end one. That shitty thing you have right now isn’t even full immersion, did you know that?” she asked as she tapped away on her phone, then let out an excited sound as she saw something on her screen, “This one! The Kermant Epoch Ten! They just released it, and it has everything you need. Full immersion, a backup nutrient store in case you get cut off and need to finish a raid or something. Oh and muscle stimulation so you don’t have to work out in your off time to maintain muscle mass. Even has Artemis Module support if you want to customise it or something.”

“You’re spoiling me,” I said with a groan of defeat.

She pinned me with another one of those glares of hers, then went back to her phone, “Yup. I am. You’re my brother and I love you. I’m staying here until the new pod arrives and we have it set up. The distribution center isn’t that far away so it should only be a few hours.”

We waited no more than fifty minutes before the new pod arrived. The doorbell politely dinged when the robot arrived, and a pleasant voice announced, “Your delivery from Kermant Inc has arrived.”

Taylor rushed to the front door, kicking anything that was on the floor out of the way so the robot could wheel the pod into the room while I disconnected the old one and leaned it against a wall in the living room. I’d dispose of the thing later. It was recycler fodder now. No one would want to buy it off me.

The robot walked in with the new VR pod in a big plastic crate, Taylor walking behind it giving directions. Once the pod was out of the box and in place, the robot collected the crate for reuse and left the house. My sister and I stood and stared at the shiny new pod and I felt a mixture of apprehension and excitement. I’d never actually used a full immersion pod before. There was always something missing from the experience in those cheaper pods, but this one was intense.

“Thanks sis,” I said softly, pulling her into a one armed hug.

“Least I can do to help you deal with the break up Terry. You’re important to me,” she said, laying her head on my shoulder.

“You’re pretty great,” I grinned, then clapped my hands, “So I guess we get an account ready for me?”

“Yup! Let’s go to… where’s your holo projector?” she said, narrowing her eyes at me with a little grin.

“Um, in the living room like a normal person?” I asked, a little offended at what she might be thinking.

“Good, at least you have to get out of bed to watch shit,” she said playfully nudging my shoulder.

We made our way into the living room, where I activated the holo projector with the voice command. A holo projector is a kind of all in one computer and TV setup that lets you surf the internet or watch videos from different channels. Some people liked to joke that it was one of the most important inventions of this century because so many people had and used them.

We browsed our way to the game’s website and signed me up for an account there. I instantly set my privacy settings to only being allowed into a publicly streamed video if I was in the background. I didn’t want to be a main character in any of their damn tv series, only in Taylor’s streams where my sister was curating the content. The rest would be done ingame for now. Once that was all done, it was time for Taylor to go home and get into her own pod.

I had the whole week to play the game, since this was my off week at uni. I’d be in the pod for a long while and I was very much looking forward to it. The real world could wait.

Before she left, Taylor turned and made sure I remembered some things with a stern look, “Alright remember to choose Jingan as your starting country okay? I’ll be able to find you from there if you add me. My ingame name is LipsAndShades like normal. Got it?”

“Yeah! I’m actually really excited now,” I smiled, pulling her in for a quick hug.

“Me too,” she grinned back, “See you soon!”

Then she was out the door and it was time for me to get into the VR pod. I went back into the apartment and got into the spandex underwear most people wore when they were in VR, then went to the pod. It was made of sleek white plastic where my other one was all metal and aged plastic. I gingerly pressed the button to pop the lid, and it opened with a hiss and the smell of new plastic to give me access.

I awkwardly maneuvered my way into the thing and just lay there for a moment to let my excitement have some space. This was going to be a whole new experience for me. Once I was ready, I pressed the button on the inside and the hatch slowly closed. The hatch itself was made of an incredibly transparent material that was an attempt by the manufacturers to help those with claustrophobia feel at ease.

The VR link crown attached itself to my head and the chip within it like I was a princess asleep in a tower. A not so princess-like mask snaked out from somewhere and gently fixed itself over my mouth and nose. The tubes that were used to feed and water my body would come out of the mask and go down my throat once I was in VR and very thankfully not aware of it. It still gave me the creeps even now.

Once all the equipment was in place, I was pulled into the virtual world and no longer aware of anything around my real body.

****

When I arrived in the virtual space that was what really old people would call my desktop, I found myself staring down at my body. Or rather, my body from about five months ago when I had gotten it scanned for this purpose. What surprised me was the level of realism this pod provided. Taylor had been right, this was the good shit. I felt like I was in the real world. I did a few stretches, just to see how my body dealt with strain and movement. Pretty damn well.

“Play Cora,” I said aloud, and a pleasant voice replied with, “Beginning Application, Cora.”

My vision faded slowly to black, replaced by a dark void of starlight and shimmering aurora. It was beautiful, and I had to stop for a moment and just admire it. Unfortunately, my gawking was rudely interrupted.

Big bold letters announced, Welcome to the Cauldron of Realms Ascended.

Wow. No wonder everyone called it Cora. What a lame name. A black void surrounded me, dim stars blinking happily around me. Oh, a cutscene!

This is the realm known as the Cauldron, the plane of the lost. The Cauldron collects stray pieces of the many other realms when they are lost. New strangeness comes into being regularly, and will keep those that take up the profession of adventurer ever busy.

Several orbs with many different colours stuttered into being around me, with one a pure grey in the middle. Little wisps of colour detached from the coloured orbs and swirled aimlessly, but always being drawn inexorably towards the grey orb in the middle, where they collided and were absorbed. I felt myself being drawn in towards the grey orb at great speed, the sphere expanding until it enveloped me, taking over as the backdrop from the starry night sky I had seen before.

You will find yourself on Tellum, a region that surrounds the twin seas of Antvo and Derev. This place is home to many warring empires, kingdoms, republics and more. In the center, controlling movement and trade between the twin seas is the Empire of Pagutum. Their expansionist ways have kept the surrounding countries in a state of perpetual infighting and war.

A map spun itself into existence out of strings of light, showing me the world I was going to be playing in soon. It was a huge map just judging by the scale, and I realised that I would probably never see even a small fraction of it. That excited me to no end. A place to explore? I was damn excited. I’d never reach the end of the list of places and people to meet!

The map faded again, and a prompt came up.

Would you like to begin character creation? It should be noted that you will only be given a single character that cannot be rerolled or deleted for free. Character rerolls can be purchased from the website for $5000. Do you wish to continue?

“Uh yeah. Let’s go,” I said awkwardly into the air.

The scene around me shifted a little, and suddenly huge chunks of stone were phasing into existence around me, moving and shifting like a symphony of motion to create… a room. Within the room a series of objects began to take shape in a similar manner. Tables, chairs, a bed and more. Practice dummies and archery targets formed out of thin air until the room was equipped with everything someone would need to test their character.

I stared around myself in wonder until my attention was drawn to a floating mannequin made of a strange grey clay. Hovering next to it were a series of options menus and sliders. Character creation started now I guess. I knew what I was going to be doing, so I got to work.

My character would be a human male. Shorter than me by a few inches and less tanky, but far more wiry and quick. I gave him a clean shaven face, shaggy dark hair and darker eyes. I made his face just a little sunken in the cheeks and just a smidge gaunt around the rest of his body. I was going for that typical handsome rogue look. I know, cliche, but I was a sucker for that stereotype. I was halfway through when I noticed a button a little off to the side.

Random Character.

Using this option will randomise your character completely. All aspects will be random unless a game admin AI steps in, as well as being within parameters to keep the absolutely strange from occurring. Furthermore, those who select this option will be given a unique trait to their character that is only acquirable through this option. Several races, abilities, items and quests are within the pool of options.

Interesting. Not what I was after, but if I ever got the option or felt the need, it might be fun to choose that down the line. For now I was going to be stuck with one character, and I needed to make sure it was one that I would enjoy.

Once I had the appearance finished as much as I’d ever be happy with, I hit accept on it and moved to the next stage of character creation. I had never been able to get myself excited for how my character looked in a game before and this one was no exception.

Alright, onwards to choosing stats! This was something I was way more interested in than damn appearance. Although, I had no real idea of how this game worked except for what my sister had told me. I didn’t know how five points in strength actually felt.

Stats in Cora were a little different to those in more traditional games. You had two categories, Physical and Magical. The physical ones were separated into five, as were the magical. Strength and Speed were self explanatory, while Endurance had deviated from some interpretations and was not how much damage you could take but instead it was your stamina. How long you could move for. Constitution was your resistance to status effects, and Toughness was how much damage you could take. Your hit points.

The Magical side of things was a little less easy to read. Power was the magical counterpart to strength, while Urgency and Capacity were a match for Speed and Endurance. Anamnesis was the number of spells you could have slotted and ready to cast at any one time, and Intricacy was the level of complexity you could have in those spells.

I wasn’t going to be a mage, that was definitely not my thing, so I only invested enough in the magic stats to help me with my rogue aspirations.

There was a third set of stats for affinities to the elements. A high affinity for an element would increase both your damage and skill with abilities that used those elements, while also increasing your resistance to those abilities. Someone with a high affinity for Energy based spells like a fireball would take less damage from being hit with it, while also dealing more damage when they hit someone else with it.

Again, I knew what I was going to do here. As a human I had the ability to choose a single affinity instead of being roped into one or two if I had chosen one of the many races available. I chose the Dark affinity, because rogue. For the other stats, I threw most of my points into Strength, Speed and Endurance, with a few points into Urgency, Anamnesis and Power on the magical side. I was only going to be casting a few actual spells after all.

The next task was my starting abilities. This was something my sister had raved about to me ever since the game had launched. She loved getting right into the nuts and bolts of a complex system like this.

Abilities were pretty crazy, and where the true complexity lay. You would choose three trees out of a multitude of options, and that would be the equivalent of your class. Those trees contained hundreds of spell modifiers and options that allowed you to construct spells and abilities and then slot them. It was overwhelming, and I was very grateful that my sister had walked me through this ahead of time or I would have been lost.

The trees I ended up choosing were the Dextrous tree, the Short Blades tree and the Shadows tree. These trees would allow me to go down the roguish route that I was keen on. I selected a few key ability components for what I was going to do and then let the game generate some initial abilities based on my choices. I’d be able to customise them later.

All that was left to do once I was done was to test things out! I selected the option to assume the guise of my character, and got to work. The body felt strange at first, but everything was mostly where I figured it would be, so I ran around for a bit testing out all my choices. I was happy to note that I had kept my real body in almost as good shape as this one started out as. Nice going Terry.

Once I was satisfied with my choices, I walked back to the options menus and reached out to select Confirm Character.

Character Randomisation Confirmed!

Wait what? No! Fuck!

What I had failed to notice, was that I had walked through the holographic menus. The moment before I hit confirm, something caught my foot, causing my other arm to pass through both the randomise character option, and the resulting confirmation box. Shit! What kind of wild character was it going to saddle me with? I was so screwed.

Everything I had done was gone!

I watched in horror as my body, my stats and everything else changed to something else. My body became shorter still, my hands turned lithe and slender. Long dark hair enveloped my vision and I felt some truly strange sensations through my chest and groin.

Almost like I had struck a gong, my newly altered hand hit the confirm button and everything faded to black with a confirmation box.

Character Confirmed.

Chapter 3: Fire Haired Girl

My vision returned to the sight of a rusty blade swinging right at my face. Pure survival instinct saved me from a brutal death within seconds of spawning. It wasn’t just instinct however that completed the follow through. Before my rugged male body had made it harder and harder to do, I’d been pretty damn good at gymnastics as a kid, and whatever body that randomiser had given me was supple. My desperate lunge backwards turned into a backwards roll that took me right back up onto my feet with speed, and I got a quick look at my attacker before they were swinging at me again.

My attacker was hot. That was about as much as I got before I was throwing myself wide again, and bringing myself up into a twirl that was definitely not masculine enough for my usual tastes. Who the fuck was having a go at me this early? Surely the game wouldn’t spawn me in the middle of hostile NPCS?

A squealing growl from behind alerted me to a new attacker, and I spun, selecting a random ability from whatever had been randomly generated when I made that aggregious fuck up. My second attacker was really really not hot. Like holy shit this fucker was ugly. It was all hair and limbs and oh jesus it was a spider. A big one. My ability drew me forward, my hand connecting with like, altogether way too many eyes in an eruption of flame and burning spider bits.

“Oh! You’re not a spider! My bad!” the chick who had taken a swing at me called from behind.

“Yeah no shit lady!” I called back, ducking a sharp claw from the creepy giant spider in front of me. Oh damn my voice sounded a little odd, just what kind of character had I been put in?

I hit that same ability again, experimenting to see if a kick would do the same work. It did alright, but my foot was not nearly as long as I expected, and the spider watched with what I swear was an amused smirk as my foot sailed past. Alright you little shit, so I haven’t got the whole finesse thing down yet. New body, don’t understand it yet, time to get intimate. Wait no ew.

I rushed the dumb spider with fists-a-flaming and just shoved them into the eyes of the thing. It screamed and writhed, but my fists stayed on fire, and very soon the spider was on fire too as it struggled feebly on the ground. Yeah you unholy abomination! Burn! When it stopped twitching, I looked up and got a proper look at my strange would be attacker and now ally.

She was a pretty looking elf kind of chick, her skin was a little strange, like someone had taken your average pale skin and desaturated it. Kindof grey looking, but not all the way. She had middling length fiery coloured hair and bright orange eyes. Not glowing, but they may as well have been. She wore this weird robe setup with lots of slits in it for easier movement. Maybe they were just where swords had sliced it up. I don’t know.

“You going to stop playing with your food there little lady or are you going to come help me with the rest of the spiders?” she asked, driving her sword down into the head of another spider as she raised an eyebrow at me.

Right, more spiders, time to kill. I leapt at the next one and- wait… little lady? Oh dear. I crashed down on top of the thing with my fists on fire again, pummeling it with both hands at once like a dropped anvil. I got an incredibly satisfying crunch sound, and looked for my next target. There it was, let’s try another ability! I wonder what this one does?

It lurched me forward like I’d been yanked through the air by a dozen urgent hands, and I was very much not prepared to be that close to so many flailing hairy limbs.

I screamed. I’m not proud of it, but I did. The scream was high and girlish in that husky sort of way that sends little zipping goosebumps up your arms. Wow okay.

My hands caught the sharp legs around the ankles before they could put ragged holes in me, and I used that to throw the thing over my shoulder. Wait what do you call spider ankles? I’d google that later.

The spider squirmed behind me, squealing an ear grating squeal as it did so. I turned and tried to kick it, but my feet slipped in spider gunk and I only succeeded in straddling the thing. I could feel its gross hairs all up my bare hairless legs. I was going to have nightmares about that feeling for the rest of my life. Bringing my thighs together was almost a reflex at first, but then I realised with a smile that I could end the spider this way. There was a moment of strain as I squeezed, before it gave way with a wet pop that was as satisfying as it was disturbing.

I looked up to find the chick with the sword staring at me with a very odd expression. Was that… admiration and arousal? Nevermind, flirt later, kill spiders now. Or should those two things be the other way around?

I saw another spider coming at her from inside her blind spot, and I leapt through the air to intercept the monster in midair. It was as I connected with the thing that I realised I had wings, and apparently horns. I found out about the horns as they gored the abdomen viciously, unzipping it and spilling the innards all over the place. This was turning into the most disgusting experience of my life. I was totally covered in spider goo and I did not feel totally okay with that.

By the time I rolled to my feet after the midair tackle, the spider was dead and rolling across the ground. A quick glance revealed that it was now just myself and sword lady left standing in what I now saw was a clearing inside a pleasant, if webbed forest. Vibrant green leaves decked the trees and lush underbrush was scattered beneath their boughs.

It was so gut wrenchingly stereotypically MMO starter zone that if my eyes hadn’t been locked on a gorgeous girl they would have rolled out of my head. Her hair was intense, it wasn’t orange, or red… it was both, and my mind had a little hiccup trying to figure that one out. Fantasy girl, fantasy hair, chill brain, chill. It makes sense if you don’t stare too hard.

Her face, when I turned my admiring eyes onto it, was the perfect blend of sharp angles and soft curves that was doing an amazing job of entrancing my poor erratically beating heart. The weird thing was that for a vague second I thought I knew her.

“What’re you staring at, eh?” she asked, looking me up and down with a gaze that sparked electricity across my sensitive skin.

With my awareness returning a little more, I gained an awareness of just how tense and ready my body was to keep fighting. Almost felt like it was going to start moving on its own, and hastily I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax. It was a strange feeling when I got it right. I felt my wings shrink and retract into my back until I could no longer feel them, and the horns receded into my skull in a similar manner. Where the hell they actually went was beyond me, and I wrote it off as magic again.

“Sorry. That was a pretty wild way to spawn in,” I chuckled with a wry smile, then frowned when I heard myself, “Damn what is with that voice?”

My voice, now that I could concentrate on it properly, was very feminine, if a little husky. Damn though even if it was a chick’s voice I kinda loved it. It was hot.

“Uh, it’s a voice? I don’t really know what to say,” the other girl said with a confused shrug, although the corners of her lips curled up a little.

I ignored her for a moment and stared down at myself. The first thing I noticed as I twisted to look at myself was oh my god hips. I was like all hips below my thin waist. Well, apart from the part where I was all thighs and ass. Holy hell if this was a random character then the randomiser was thirsty as fuck. My legs were long and hot and built to kick things until they begged for mercy, while my upper body was the sort of thing you’d see in a korean phone game. Soft and limbre but with a hint of underlying strength that I was now well acquainted with.

My chest had boobs attached, albeit small and perky ones rather than giant balloons like you’d expect looking at the rest of my body. That was nice at least. The part that was confusing me was the complete lack of giving a shit I was feeling for being in a girl’s body. It felt really damn good to move around in, and I think I was more than slightly emotional about being able to bend the way I had as a kid.

“Well?” the sword chick asked, “Are you alright? You’re looking at your character like it’s the first time you’ve seen it.”

“Yup, I’m feeling pretty good. I did accidentally randomise my character though, so this is actually the first time I’ve seen myself,” I explained, looking back up into her cocky orange eyes.

We stared at each other again for a moment, something about her eyes making me feel a skipping tap dancing warmth in my stomach. It was like she was trying to impale me with them or something.

“So you just spawned? Right here?” she asked finally, cocking an eyebrow quizzically.

“Yeah. Sorta dropped in on you there didn’t I?” I chuckled. Ohh I liked that chuckle. It started off low and husky, and moved up into a high gentle lilt that made me smile a little more.

Seems she liked it too, because she looked away for a moment, her cheeks gaining the tiniest little flush.

“Well I more... need to more-” she started, then frowned and began again, “Well I need to do more grinding. Thanks for the assist I guess, or should it be you that is thanking me. Doesn’t matter. Bye.”

Then she was off, rushing into the underbrush like I’d just farted. This game was already shaping up to be an altogether more interesting experience than the last game I’d played, that was for sure. I was just about to smile again when I got a whiff of myself and almost dry heaved right there. Wow, maybe that's why she rushed away so quickly. These spiders smelled terrible when you opened them up. I needed a wash.

With a sigh, I shook some of the gunk off, and peered hopefully one last time into the underbrush where the sword girl had disappeared to. Well, guess it was time to try and find like, a stream or something. There was no way I was going into civilisation looking like, and smelling like... this.

Streams flowed downhill, so I figured if I just walked downhill I’d find somewhere to wash up. I was going to have to punch more spiders though, that I was sure of. The trees were covered in thick sticky webs.

I set off, discovering that my feet were bare when I almost immediately stood on a sharp rock. I almost kicked the damn thing, but then thought better of it. I did a lot of staring down as I set off again, making sure I was avoiding both the webs and any sharp things on the ground. That staring down constantly brought my unfamiliar figure into view. It was crazy honestly. I was trying to ignore it, but my mind was in a state of emotional overload.

The game had spawned me in wearing some sort of strange dress thing. It clung to my body from waist to neck, and didn’t have any sleeves. Below my waist though was a different story. The sides of the skirt portion of the dress had been cut out all the way up to above my hips. There was bare skin showing all the way from my toes to my waist. Thankfully I was wearing simple linen underwear. Being exposed there too would have been a little too much for me I think.

As I walked, I couldn’t honestly say I hated the looks that the random generator had given me. I was definitely attractive, or at least my body was. I didn’t know what my face looked like. I did hate this dress thing though. I needed some pants and a shirt as soon as possible.

Eventually I did find a stream, but only after punching my way through a great many spiders, who at least had the courtesy to come at me one by one.

The stream was a lazy little thing that was damn cold when I dipped a toe in it and I stared down at it with a sigh of resignation. Cold scrubbing it was. Now I just had to… wash. I took the top of the dress, which almost resembled a very tight T-shirt with no sleeves, and tried to pull it down, but it wouldn’t budge. It was like the damn thing was welded to me. Was this like my character’s version of underwear and I couldn’t take it off?

I felt across myself, trying to find a hidden clasp or something, and then realised what my problem was. The back was open, in a manner of speaking, but the two sides of the open back were tied together with a crisscross pattern. Thankfully this body was as supple and flexible as I could even dare to hope, so I was able to reach the knot at the top and get it undone pretty easily. I could soooo get used to this flexibility, my word.

With the top undone, I pulled it down, exposing my breasts in the process and leaving it bunched around my hips. Where it was definitely going to stay, because there was no way I was going to get it over those things. Birthing hips were an understatement here. I pulled it back up over my head, and that seemed to do the trick. I was now standing in the middle of a forest with just bottom underwear on.

The chill of the gentle forest breeze sent goosebumps rippling over my skin and I shivered involuntarily. Feeling a tightness begin on my breasts, I looked down to see my nipples becoming soft points. That was a fucking wild feeling. I stood there in that breeze and just watched my chest rise and fall with each breath. Strangely, I didn’t feel any sort of arousal. I mean sure they were nice tits, but it was calming more than anything. A strange emotion settled over me, one that I couldn’t put a name to. It was like calm, but different. Deeper and more potent.

I raised a hand and gently cupped one boob, then the other. It was a pretty intense moment, but I again struggled to identify why. Dropping them with a sigh, I looked down at the rest of me. Underwear time I guess? I was all too aware of what would happen if you didn’t wash between your legs as a woman.

I was reminded of a particularly haunting memory, a time when I was going to go down on an old classmate. She’d been hot, but her hygiene had not been the best. I’d very politely asked her to wash before I put anything near her. We’d had a talk afterwards about why. Poor girl’s mother was less than helpful for anything other than drinking and paying the bills. What was the girl’s name again? Gemma. I should flick her a message some time and just make sure she’s doing okay.

With that all in mind, I took my underwear off and looked at myself. Yup, that was a vagina. I was practically hairless down there as well, apart from the normal faint hairs one had everywhere. No giant bush of pubes. That was one less thing to worry about I guess.

When this moment has been described to me by other men who have used female characters in the past, they’ve described a certain wrongness about not having a dick. There was no such feeling for me, and I was a little confused by it. Shouldn’t I be feeling something? What I felt instead was more of that odd calm from before.

A gust of wind reminded me that I was now standing naked in a forest, so I quickly made my way down to a tiny pool of water in the stream and got to work rubbing all the spider gunk off my body with sand. The sand quickly turned into a bad idea, my skin was far too soft for that! So I just used my hands to clean instead. That was one hell of a strange experience all up, and my mind felt like it was a table tennis ball stuck in a barrel that was rolling down a hill at mach 3. I was thinking and feeling all sorts of strange things and I was totally not ready for them.

Once I was done with my body, I quickly rinsed my hair, which had been tied up in a ponytail since I spawned. With my hair wrangled out of the way once more, I walked back up on the bank and threw my dress and underwear into the stream. The dress in particular was filthy, so I had to dunk it a few times and scrape the gross congealing mess off with a stick. I got it looking okay eventually though, and pulled both garments back out of the water and threw them onto a rock to dry in a little patch of sun.

I laid down on the grass and basked in the sun for a while, letting the warm rays suffuse my skin after the freezing cold water. The warmth was incredible actually, and I found myself humming with happiness. While I enjoyed the sunlight however, I remembered that this character was random, and suddenly the urge to check out my character sheet overwhelmed me.

Calling up the menu I navigated to my character sheet. Let’s see what the damage was. I knew I was female, but time to check what my race was.

Race: Infiltrator Darkling Mk4

The Infiltrator Darkling Mk4 was an attempt by the Ruzian Theocracy to take Darklings and give them the ability to pass as a human in order to infiltrate the xenophobic Empire of Pagutum. The Infiltrator Darklings have since renounced the Ruzian Theocracy due to their harsh treatment and have escaped into Pagutum under their natural human guises. The Infiltrator Darklings now hide in plain sight amongst the people of Pagutum, although they have begun to move further west to more accepting regions of late.

The Infiltrator Darklings are able to take a human form, as well as an enhanced form that allows them to perform their old intended roles with greater ease. The Mk4 variant were designed as fast attack troops with the ability to hide among their enemy before deployment. The Mk4 variant’s enhanced form gives them greater speed, strength and the ability to fly.

This class is exclusive to the Randomise Character Function.

Wow that was a lot to take in. I was a persecuted minority on the run from another persecuted minority. If I remembered from the map though, I was a long way away from that whole shitty situation, so I figured I’d be fine. The enhanced form thing was like really fucking cool though. I was totally down for that.

I flicked to the rest of my stats page, and took a look at the damage there. My stats were all over the place, as I’d feared. On the physical side I had middling Strength, High as hell Speed and Endurance, low Constitution and Toughness. On the Magical side I had pretty good Power, Urgency and Capacity, while Anamnesis and Intricacy were a little lacking. The ability trees I had gotten were.. Self Cast Magic, Contact Magic and Unarmed.

Wow that was a lot to take in. I was fast in both my casting and my movements, able to do both for a long time and not very tanky. My Trees might actually synergise pretty well together if I kept doing what I’d been doing during combat. I would be a fast glass cannon punchy girl! Damn I already knew I was going to need to prove my worth to every public raid and dungeon group I joined. Another sigh. Oh! I wonder what my affinities were? Energy and Dark. Well that makes sense? Dark for Darkling and Energy for fire and other stuff. Sooo I was a punchy glass cannon girl that was also on fire. Boom, that sounded great actually.

I smiled to myself and dismissed the menus with the wave of a hand. I might have actually come out on top with that whole random character thing! Oh shit, I should try and contact Taylor too.

I brought up the menu with a thought and explored it all until I found the social tab. Using the virtual keyboard that popped up, I typed LipsAndShades into the friend request box and added a little message saying it was me. She must have been waiting for my request, because it got accepted straight away. Moments after she accepted it, I had a call come through.

Premium Call. Would you like to accept? This will open a voice and video call.

Oh shit. What do I do? Ahh fuck it. I’m not an anime character, I’ll just accept the damn call and explain the situation.

Call accepted.

“Hey Terry! How’s the ga-” Taylor started as her video window popped up in front of me.

Her Jaw dropped open and her eyes flicked down to my chest and back up again. Riiight, I’d forgotten I was a naked chick right now.

Chapter 4: Cheerful Woodchipper

“What the fuck Terry?! Alright, first off, please cover yourself! Second, why are you a chick? Third… why are you in Gienia?” Taylor exclaimed, covering her eyes.

I placed an arm over my boobs to protect my sister’s delicate eyes, and had to marvel once again at the incredible softness that even my small boobs provided.

A laugh escaped as I covered myself, and still chuckling I said, “Okay it’s safe Taylor.”

She slowly uncovered an eye, then when she saw I was covering my boobs she pulled her hand away from her face entirely. She looked me up and down for a moment in a confused kind of awe, then shook her head in bewilderment.

“You are a shit magnet like literally everywhere you go. How did this happen?” she asked, smiling despite her accusations.

My sister’s character appeared to be similar in appearance to her normal self, except with a bit more muscle. I kind of admired what she’d done. I had known she played a tank, but I didn’t know she’d based her character off her own looks. Being a little buff suited her.

“Well, I had my character all set up. The one I mentioned I was going to make, but I uh… I accidentally pressed the random character button right before I pressed the confirm button,” I said, grinning. I loved my sister’s reactions to my antics. It was one of the top ten things in my life.

She rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, “Yup, total mess. Well, that explains the resemblance to mum then. The random character thing likes to use your genetic profile to help keep your character from being too outlandish.”

“Wait I look like mum?” I asked, a little horrified. I didn’t want to be walking around in a naked body similar to my mother’s.

Taylor laughed at my panic and shook her head, “Not that much! Like a mix. I can see some dad in you as well. You look like my sister. You can check you know, there’s an option to show your own camera to you in the call.”

I haven’t hammered a UI button so hard in my life. I really wanted to know what my face looked like. I was rather intimately aware of what my body looked like, so my face was the last step. The option came up to display my face in a smaller window next to Taylor’s, and I pressed it.

The window popped up, and my breath was taken away. Wow. When Taylor said I looked like mum, she was kinda right. I did also look like Taylor’s sister… but the main thing, the main thing was that I was drop dead fucking gorgeous. If I had to describe myself to someone, I’d say I was Taylor on night mode. Where she was all bright hair and an honest beautiful face, I was dark hair and mischievous eyes. If I’d seen myself in the bar and made eye contact, I’d be both scared and turned on. If she smiled at me, I’d start preparing to fight a boyfriend. Holy shit. It’s official, the randomiser was thirsty as fuck. Damn AIs always were I swear.

I watched my shoulder length dark brown hair shift beneath my head as I moved my head around to get different angles. My eyes were just black, unless you looked really closely and saw the pupil in the center, and my lashes were like stupid long. I found myself smiling as the person in the little screen followed my movements, part of my brain recognising that she was me. I felt a surge of weird butterflies in my stomach and quickly shut the second screen off. Damn, why was this such a rush?

“Well holy fuck,” I said finally, a little out of breath.

“Yeah holy fuck. You better be careful around guys um… Terry. Even if they can’t do anything terrible to you, you’re still going to have them buzzing around you like insects,” she warned me, then added, “Also, no one is going to take you seriously when you have an opinion, so get ready for that lovely new source of frustration.”

I frowned at that, what did she mean? Everyone knew woman should be listened to as much as anyone else. We buried that problem decades ago, or so I’d thought. Guys buzzing around me like flies though? I knew that was going to be a thing the moment I saw myself in that dress.

“What do you mean?” I asked, “Like about the opinion thing?”

“Come on Terry, that’s like womanhood 101. Girls get treated differently. Especially pretty ones like you and I,” she explained, and I think she was actually a little annoyed with me on this one.

“I thought that like, wasn’t a thing anymore? The news likes to say so at least,” I said, already knowing I was digging a hole for myself.

Taylor put a hand over her face for a moment, then shook her head with a defeated kind of laugh, “Nope. Just because you’ve always treated women and their words with respect, doesn’t mean other guys do. It’s still just as bad as it’s ever been.”

I grimaced and looked down at myself for a moment. That didn’t sound promising. At least it was nice to know I hadn’t been part of the problem, at least when my sister was looking.

“Damn,” was all I could say to that.

“Yeah. So what’s your character like? I hope it’s not too messy, although it would be fitting,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“Pretty good actually, I’m a glass cannon melee damage dealer by the looks of things. My race is amazing though! I’m a Darkling Infiltrator Mk4! I have a human form and a crazy demon form with wings. I totally beat a bunch of spiders to death earlier with my fists. Oh! The magic too. So I have the Self Magic, Contact Magic and Unarmed combat trees. I’m actually a bit excited to play this character,” I gushed, getting more and more excited as I explained what the game had given me.

“Nice! I’m actually really glad you aren’t playing the character you originally wanted to play. That would have been so boring,” she grinned back.

I nodded in wholehearted agreement, “Oh definitely. That wouldn’t have been half as fun as this has already been.”

We grinned at each other through the call for a moment, before Taylor’s face turned a bit more serious.

She seemed a bit hesitant for a moment, there, but it passed and she asked, “So uh, are you feeling the Dysphoria yet?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, a little confused by what she was trying to get at.

“Well when guys usually play women characters in full immersion like you are, they start to feel uncomfortable in the body. Doesn’t feel right to them. I know a lot of people who had to pay out of their teeth to reroll their character a few days after launch because they decided it was too much,” she explained, searching my face with her eyes.

I thought for a moment, but couldn’t think of a time where I was truly uncomfortable with the body I was in now. There had only been the weird sense of deep calm. Was that dysphoria? I highly doubted it.

“Nah. I haven’t felt anything yet. I have felt like, really calm since I got into this body. Well, not calm exactly, you can’t really be calm when you’re crushing a writhing hairy giant spider between your thighs, but you know what I mean,” I said, smiling fondly at the feat of brutality I had inflicted on the hateful creature. I hated spiders, but more in a death to my enemies kind of way.

Taylor looked troubled and thoughtful as I explained myself, until I mentioned the spider, and then she guffawed, “You did what?”

“I was fighting a bunch of spiders, and somehow I ended up straddling one. Rather than like, get off it and punch it, I just squeezed it with my thighs until it popped. That’s why I’m naked. Had to wash the goo off myself,” I said proudly.

“Oh jesus,” she laughed, “Oh my god you are… wow. You’re my b-, my twin that’s for sure. Fuck you’re funny.”

I winked at her through the call and laughed along with her, “Yup. Damn right I’m funny.”

“Alright well, I guess it will be a while before we meet up ingame. So I should… Oh wait, what name did the game give you?” she asked, “I should call you by that in the game since everyone will look at us funny if I go around calling you Terry.”

“Um, let me check,” I said, already bringing up my character sheet. I didn’t know why I hadn’t already looked.

Character Name: Tamipesagniyah

I blinked. Several times. What the fuck was that monstrosity I had been saddled with? Did the AI sneeze while it was typing my name out or what? It looked like the sound someone makes when you tickle them mid sentence. Even my angry horned demon form wasn’t as demonic as that abomination.

“Um,” I started, my mind still trying parse how you were meant to even say the random string of characters, “It says, Tami... pesa… guh.. gin.. gyen… yah? I am vetoing that right now though, you’re calling me Tami.”

I felt another strange little feeling after I said my name, but this time it was like… excitement? Excitement and fear, intertwined in my gut.

“Wow what a mouthful! Tami it is then!” Taylor said with a smile, and it seemed like her eyes were extra attentive all of a sudden.

When she said my chosen ingame name, I felt the strange feeling in my gut surge, and I had to take a deep breath to try and calm myself. Wow I was all over the place today. Maybe I was experiencing that dysphoria after all?

“Thanks,” I said, trying to laugh off what I was feeling, “So um, I guess I should level and then come and join you later?”

Taylor was still watching me like a hawk for some reason, but she nodded, “Yup. We’ll meet up once you’re high enough level to travel to me. Try and get some gear too.”

“Aye aye captain,” I said, giving her my best roguish wink.

“Oh geez. The AI don’t know what they’ve unleashed on this world do they?” Taylor laughed, raising her eyes skyward beseechingly.

“What’s that meant to mean?!” I asked in mock outrage.

“Bye Tami! Talk later,” she chuckled, cutting the call.

I laughed as my sister left. She was right, I was so ready to have fun. With a happy sigh, I leaned back into the grass and basked once more in the light of the sun.

****

An hour or so later I checked my clothes, if you could call them that, and found them to be dry. Time to struggle my way back into the dress I guess. Once my underwear was on, I maneuvered my way in the same way I had gotten out of it. There was no way I was keeping this look for anything other than like… parties or something. It was beyond impractical.

With my clothes on, I was ready to follow the river and hope I found my way to civilisation. I needed to do it today too, because I was getting hungry and foraging for food was not something I knew anything about, especially in an unfamiliar place like this. Judging by the position of the sun, I had like four to five hours of daylight left.

The stream meandered its way through the forest with a frustrating habit of turning back on itself, and I was almost ready to give up and just walk in a line when I heard the distinctive sounds of fighting. Was it the hot girl again? I’d kinda like to see her again.

I moved through the underbrush, making sure that my nonhuman nature was hidden from view. If I was a minority like that, I’d rather not advertise it until I knew more about the region I was in. Hopefully I’d be useful without my wings and extra strength. The fighting sounded like it involved more than just one or two people, and I could make out shouting pretty clearly now.

Vaguely seeing a dirt road ahead of me through the trees, I slowed and crept forward with as much stealth as I could muster. When I could see it properly, I saw that the road had been cut through the forest recently, at least by the time scale of nations. The forest was about five meters away from a ditch, then the road itself was a hard packed dirt affair.

On that road was a mass of people fighting. One side was pretty uniform in the bland generic way that NPCs are, while the others were obviously adventurers. The adventurers fought with a multitude of varying and unique styles, and while the bandits all held a mish mash of weapons, it was all pretty standard spears, swords and bows. The bandits appeared to have their sights set on a handcart full of goods that were being protected by the adventurers.

Well, this one was almost stereotypically cut and dry. Time to use my abilities. On my walk over, I had taken a quick peek at the rest of them, and I seemed to have four. The fire punch one I already knew, same with the one that sped up my movements for a short time. That one was a bit finicky. It didn’t really help me move with any more finesse, just raw speed. Another ability was made up of components mainly from the unarmed tree and promised to partially paralyze whatever limb I punched. The last was a passive boost to perception I could toggle and it would drain mana to sustain itself.

My first victim was an archer. I rushed him, activating both my speed boost ability and my flame ability. My flaming knee hit him in the back with a shitload more force than I was expecting, and I heard a visceral crunch from his spine on the impact. He went down with a scream, and I drove that same flaming leg into his neck to stop him from screaming because holy shit that was kind of awful. NPC bad guys had it rough.

Another archer noticed my brutal takedown of his friend and turned to try and put an arrow into my body. I disagreed with his desires, my body was far too gorgeous to be perforated, and so I dove to the side to avoid his shot. He swore and fumbled for another arrow, succeeding in getting it nocked just in time for me to sweep his legs out from under him with one of my own. I put him down for good with a crack to the throat.

Having taken out two of their ranged dudes, the bandits decided I wasn’t allowed to keep doing that, and two disengaged from the main fight to come and try to take me down. I actually wasn’t incredibly confident about taking on two at once, especially since they had swords and wooden shields instead of nothing but a knife for close quarters fighting.

I turned around the other way and dashed off, circling the fight to look for more juicy targets. That turned out to be the wrong idea. Leaving the safety of the melee allowed the rest of their archers to get juicy clear shots. I dodged one arrow, and was just barely nicked by another. Damn, I needed to get back into the fight! My gorgeous skin must be defended!

I rushed in, and used my speed dash thingy to slide between the legs of a particularly big brute who was probably half giant or something. He was like nine feet tall at least! I may have punched upwards with my paralyze ability as I slid in, connecting with a set of sensitive organs. The big dude howled in rage and pain, but it was too late for mister popped berries, because one of the defenders put the biggest spear I had ever seen through his chest.

The guy, who I now found myself chest to chest with, was wearing a very sturdy, if a little rusty, armoured plate across his chest, while his arms were bare. He was definitely also half giant. His beard was tickling the top of my head.

“Hello there miss!” he boomed happily, laughing as he moved me to the side like a child so he could disintegrate the head of another bandit with the butt of his spear, “I saw you zipping around out there! Quite the display, come to help I hope?”

“Um, yup!” I said, grinning back up at the big man. I aspired to be as happy about breaking things as he seemed to be.

“Great! I want you to punch that other giant in the balls for me too! Make him squeal! I will finish him!” he said with an evil conspiratorial grin.

Oh this guy was great. He was top notch.

“Aye aye captain! Two popped grapes coming up!” I said cheerfully, already dashing off towards my target.

I dashed with tiny bursts of speed, almost sliding across the ground as I did so, then as I came up on the offending giant he noticed me. Oh fuck! The mace he was swinging around was literally just an anvil bolted to a log! I was saved from pulping by the spear of the giant that was on my side. It had been thrown flat side towards the enemy, causing the strike aimed for me to go off course.

That was all I needed, triggering my dash ability and my paralysis ability in the same instant like I had before. The blow connected right where it needed to be, and the big man did indeed squeal as he dropped his weapon to protect his jewels. My giant friend grabbed the enemy by the sides of his head and yanked it down into his knee into a heavy disorienting blow.

What proceeded after that was what I thought it must be like to watch two kaiju just go ham on each other. The impacts of their blows almost seemed to cause shockwaves as they laid into each other. The fight became very one sided when I punched the enemy giant in the back of the knee with a flaming fist. I was forced to dodge to the side when my new friend jumped forward and rode the enemy to the ground, grabbing his spear off the dirt in the process and driving it into the other guy’s chest with both hands.

He grinned at me in triumph, then gestured around him, giving another friendly booming laugh, “Why are you standing there girl! We have more bandits to crush and maim! Let us enjoy ourselves!”

“You got it big dude! Crushing time!” I said with a giddy laugh. I was having fun? Damn I was having fun!

On we went through the crowd of bandits, me distracting and incapacitating while he… well he broke them. He broke them and he smashed them and he stabbed them. I felt like a gardener throwing off cut branches into the world’s most cheerful woodchipper.

It was over pretty quickly after that. Almost terrifyingly quickly. I loved it though, holy shit this game was good! I found myself laughing and almost skipping from one target to the next. I don’t know what that says about me as a person, because that’s kind of like horror movie material, but whatever. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

As the dust settled and everyone stood around staring at each other in triumph, the big giant man clapped a hand on my shoulder and asked, “Tell me miss, what is your name! You fight well!”

“Oh um,” I said, trying to get my mind to figure it’s way through the deceptively simple question, “T-tami!”

“Well Tami, where are you headed?” he asked, “We are trying to get our loot to our guild hall in Motregarnon. Will you join us? We need to get a drink to celebrate this victory!”

The others all nodded agreement, and I smiled around at them happily, “Sure!”

“I will send you a friend request and add you to our party Tami!” the big guy grinned.

Friend request received from Aurugm.

I accepted the friend request, but frowned up at the big dude and asked, “How on Earth do you say that name”

“Like you’re gargling a slurry of rocks and mud,” a woman said, coming forward.

She was obviously the group’s healer, dressed up in priests robes and even carrying a crazy staff thing. She looked a bit older than most people would make their characters, with a few wrinkles and laugh lines across her face.

“I have a name that is actually pronounceable, unlike the brick laughter house there,” she said wryly, “The name’s Jill.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Tami,” I said warmly.

“I know dear,” she chuckled, then pointed at my arm where the arrow had nicked me earlier, “Do you want me to fix that or are you going to let it bleed a bit longer?”

I looked down at it and she was right, it was actually a pretty nasty. Damn I guess they had the pain dialed down a bit in this game.

“Um, yeah if you could heal it that would be cool,” I said.

She lobbed a little ball of water she summoned from her hand at me, and is splashed over the wound and healed it in moments. My arm relaxed as it was healed and although I hadn’t felt the pain too much, I definitely felt the relief.

“That’s an interesting outfit you’re wearing too,” she commented as she nodded at my unspoken thanks.

“Oh yeah that reminds me! Totally stealing some clothes off the dead. This dress thing is shit,” I said enthusiastically running to the second of the archers I had downed.

I unceremoniously yanked his button up shirt off, then his pants. His simple moccasin boots came next. The shirt was a plain and undyed linen, with all but the top few bone buttons still attached. Pretty good condition if you asked me. The pants were this dark, almost black leather that seemed to be stretchy. I was about to put it on when Jill stopped me.

“Let me cleanse those for you,” she said, walking over and taking the garments from me.

She summoned a bunch of water and enveloped the clothing in it, swished it around in the air for a moment, then dismissed the water like it had never existed. The clothing she handed back to me was clean and fresh and I accepted it with a smile and a nod.

“Get changed, I’ll shield you from the big hairy men,” she offered, turning her back and glaring at them all. Every one of them sheepishly turned their backs, while the women grinned and turned away too. Huh, I hadn’t noticed it in the fighting or the conversation, but those guys had been following me a little closely with their eyes. Interesting. I couldn’t totally blame them.

I quickly got myself out of the dress, throwing it away with disgust. Then put the pants on. They seemed to be pretty tight fitting, and I noted the guy I’d killed to get these was a little smaller than usual and had strange eyes. Must have been some other race. Lucky for me though, since the pants at least fit me pretty tightly. The shirt was a bit baggy though. I looked down at my naked chest and groaned when I realised something.

“Uh, Jill. The dress I was wearing had support built in. I don’t have a… bra,” I said, slightly embarrassed.

“Ah, not a problem. Take one of my bindings. Unfortunately us women are still teaching this backwards ass world about things like this,” she said, taking a strip of cloth from a pouch at her waist and handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it and winding it around my chest with resignation. Maybe I could cut the dress up and use the chest part as a bra?

Once I was all dressed, I felt much better. I felt like a proper adventurer instead of some exotic dancer. I also thought I actually looked kinda hot with the front buttons undone just a bit too far. I kinda liked the aesthetic if I was honest. Felt good. I twisted around a bit to get a look at my ass, and was satisfied to see it giving the fabric back there a run for its money. Nice.

“Alright I’m good. Thanks!” I grinned.

“Good good! You are dressed much more practically now! Crushing nuts will be much easier!” Aurugm said with a smile of approval, “We continue to the town now?”

Chapter 5: Dance Floor

The town of Motregarnon was revealed to be a moderately sized place that straddled a moderately large river, with two bridges connecting one side to the other. From what the others had told me, the town was an important pit stop for cargo barges bringing lumber down the river before they hit the capital further downriver. Due to the strategic importance of the town, it had a rather large stone wall compared to its population. The stone caught the red rays of sunset in a super pretty manner and I found myself smiling at the scene.

There were apparently three reasons for the existence of the walls, wars with other nations, keeping the wild tribes further inland from raiding and making off with precious goods, and the biggest one... The creatively named Bleaklands to the south. A range of low rough mountains that seemed to have a constant pall of mist flowing through its many broken valleys. Those mist soaked valleys brought horrors that kept even the hardiest of adventurers inside the town at night without proper warding.

The idea of the mist rolling out at night, hiding death and terror… well it made me very thankful I found Jill and Aurugm’s group. Being outside in that crap would have sucked. I did not want to be eaten by some eldritch horror.

The guards took one look at us when we got to the gates and ushered us through. They looked very bored, so I assumed there weren’t a whole lot of barriers to entering this town. Once we were inside, I was treated to a sight you see in a lot of anime about this type of thing. Directly inside the walls was a market square in the middle of lazily packing up for the day. Non-humans roamed around freely, so it looked like there was a high chance I could use my demon form if I wanted to, which was a relief.

“We’re going to go and dump the cart that Aurugm’s been pulling for two days at our guild house, then head to an inn to stay for the night,” Jill told me as I walked next to her.

I glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow at that, “You’re not staying at the guild house?”

She shook her head, “No. Our guild has been expanding too fast. The house is too small and usually only used for storage with a few guards staying there to stop break ins from other guilds. Most of us have spread out among the nearby inns, many of which we own. Which leads me to ask, you helped us today. Might have lost one or two of our people but we came out with only minor injuries because you helped with those giants. Would you like us to pay for your room tonight?”

I missed a step for a second as I realised that yes, I had no money and if it wasn’t for Jill’s generosity here I would have been sleeping in an alley. Damn, I needed a source of income!

“Please!” I said, nodding enthusiastically.

Jill smiled knowingly at me, but didn’t comment on my obvious lack of a plan in coming here.

Traveling through the town was pleasant and their guildhouse was pretty close to the gate we had entered. The guildhouse itself was a fairly standard medieval town house with a small warehouse taking up the back of the plot. A small passage led us into the warehouse where the party began to unload crates of goods from the small cart. It didn’t take long and once everything was stacked neatly against a wall we were off again in a hurry. They had been travelling for days and were eager to put their feet up and get a drink.

They chose an inn about a hundred meters down the street and we all piled through the door. I was last inside, and almost immediately I was taken aback by what I found. Now, normally when you imagine a medieval fantasy tavern setting, you think of a big wooden bar with a grizzled old man behind it. You think of rough wooden tables scattered around, straw strewn across the ground and pipe smoke trailing through the low rafters.

This place was none of those things, except the big wooden bar. It was as though someone had transplanted a downtown club into this world and then given it a fantasy flair. There was even a mirror behind the bar where bottles of expensive looking liquor were stacked on shelves. A stage was set into one corner, where a band was setting up. A dance floor took up a good chunk of the floor in front of the stage. There were even semicircular booths lining the walls and high tables with high stools in the center of the room.

The fantasy elements came in with the theme and decor. It wasn’t made of metal and plastic, it was made from wood and rough steel. Trophies from dungeons and boss kills hung from the high ceiling and walls. The lighting was provided via mage lights that wandered aimlessly near the ceiling like fireflies. The bar was a single huge chunk of wood carved to look like a chinese dragon.

I absolutely adored it. I adored the whole setup. This was my place!

“Whoa,” I breathed as I followed Jill and the others towards a large booth near the back.

“First time seeing an adventurer inn?” she asked with a knowing grin.

“Yeah. Oh yeah. First day in the game. This is so cool! Why is it like this though? I thought the devs were really into their immersion and lore and stuff?” I asked.

She chuckled as I was ushered into the booth next to her, “It’s like this because it’s owned by an Adventurer. Incredible woman named Darb. She decided that she was sick of doing things the immersion way, and made this place instead. It even has real toilets. She paid some mages a sweet penny to get those made, let me tell you. The idea has been spreading too, even down to the capital.”

“Wow! I totally dig it. I am so keen. What’s the music like?” I asked, eyeing up the band of people who were obviously adventurers too.

“Pretty good. Some songs you might recognise from outside the game, some you might not recognise from inside the game. They struggled for a while until someone modified a spell designed to do sonic damage into a sound amplifying spell. You’ll see it when they start playing. Big blue orbs that pulse. It’s all quite impressive honestly,” she said fondly.

“Yeah wow. I’m impressed that’s for sure,” I said, eagerly awaiting the music and drinks.

At that moment, Aurugm stomped up to the table where everyone was chatting and said, “I’ve paid for the rooms. Darb says hello Jill. Now I must go and find my chair.”

He stomped off again after his report shaking the room slightly with his footfalls. Grabbing a larger chair from a stack in a corner, he dragged it over to us and sat down with a thump. I thought it was kind of nice that this Darb lady had even thought to accommodate the larger races.

When he was seated and happy, Aurugm leaned forward toward me eagerly, “She has been telling you about this place yes? But has she told you that Darb is her sister hmm? They make an intimidating duo they do.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, directing the question at Jill.

“Yup. Not going to go around bragging about it though. That would be rude,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

We chatted away at the booth for a few minutes before an NPC waitress came and asked us if we wanted anything. The party ordered a bunch of the food that was on offer that day, as well as drinks for everyone. The drinks turned out to be another surprise.

There were one or two sweet drinks as well as the traditional mead, ale and wine. Jill promised more were in the works but would take a while to get into circulation. I got a half pint of mead so I’d be buzzed but not drunk for when the dance floor opened. Nobody wanted to dance with a drunken disaster like I tended to turn into when I was pissed.

Speaking to this group was incredibly interesting. Their guild was a strange hybrid of PVE and mercantile. They had an arm that was focused on meeting the modern needs of adventurers who found that actually, outhouses sucked, and toilet paper was a must-have. The solutions they were coming up with were incredibly interesting. The toilets were magic in a way that despite it being explained by an enthusiastic young mage many times, I still did not understand.

The guy seemed more interested in impressing me though, and in a strange way I appreciated his interest. I wasn’t interested in him because he was a dude, but the idea that I was worthy of being hit on by this polite, nervous mage was cool.

It was during his enthusiastic explanation of the lights above us that I saw someone that did catch my eye. The chick who had so rudely greeted me as soon as I had spawned into the game was now sitting at the bar alone and drinking one of those sweet drinks I’d mentioned earlier.

I watched with interest as she flicked her long fiery hair out of the way to get to her coin purse, extracting it from inside the many folds of her strange robe. My drink stayed halfway between the table and my mouth as I watched her take a sip, then place her drink down and unclasp her robe at the neck.

My heart did a little backflip for a moment as my imagination ran a little wild, but I was disappointed. She let the robe fall to her waist where it was stopped from falling off completely by a belt. She tied it out of the way behind herself with the clasp. Rather than being topless as my imagination had so dearly wish for, she had on a tight singlet, along with what appeared to be a real bra. I was jealous of the bra. Well, I was jealous of the bra for where it was, but also because I wanted real support for these new boobs of mine.

Her incredible orange eyes met mine with a spark as she looked up, and it was as though a string of hot lightning had just connected us. She looked away quickly, but I’d seen her eyes widen in recognition of the moment, just as mine had. Unbidden, the memory of her cocky attitude this morning caused my breath to hitch. Damn she was attractive.

When I managed to tear my eyes away from her, I found Jill watching me with an amused expression.

“Am I going to have to tell Chester that you’re not interested?” she whispered into my ear.

“Oh, his name is Chester?” I asked casually, trying to hide my embarrassment at being caught.

“Indeed,” she chuckled softly, leaning back with an amused expression.

“Don’t judge me,” I shot back automatically.

“Oh I am not judging at all. I have absolutely no problems with lesbians, and anyone who does… I’ll point Aurugm at them,” she said grinning evilly, then turned to Aurugm, “Right Aurugm?”

Lesbian? I was a guy in real life so I was straight right? Right? I had no idea how to be a lesbian. I needed like, a side shave for that right? And really big leather boots.

“Hmm?” Aurugm rumbled, turning in his seat to look at Jill.

“Anyone gives our young friend here shit for being a lesbian and you put that gigantic spear of yours through them,” she said with a gallows grin.

Damn this woman was scary!

“Aye. I’ll make sure of it,” he said, mirroring her expression for a moment before giving me a much softer one, “You have any trouble and I will fix it for you. With as much prejudice as they have shown.”

“Um… whoa. Wow, thanks guys,” I said, blushing a little at the way my new friends were closing ranks around me so quickly. They were good people.

“No problem sister,” Jill said, squeezing my shoulder.

After that I had a much easier time in conversation. Chester stopped trying to explain the minutiae of magical toilets to me and instead turned to a girl with a lot of knives who had been giving him periodic longing looks.

The food arrived, along with the drink and we got stuck in. It was good food too, not the best, but this was fantasyland and you couldn’t just order the spice you forgot and have it turn up on your doorstep in ten minutes via happy little drone.

Unfortunately for my new friends, I wasn’t the best conversation. I couldn’t help as my eyes and attention kept drifting over to the fire haired woman like she was exerting some gravity specifically over just me. I watched her rather cooly rebuff some dude who’d had a bit too much to drink, but otherwise she kept to herself, her food and her drink. I wanted to talk to her, but I was a bit too scared at the moment. This whole girl thing had caused my usual confidence to stumble a little.

By the time our food was finished and my drink was empty, the band had started playing and a few of the patrons had moved to dance on the floor in front of them. The music was indeed a mix of stuff I knew from outside the game and ones that had been created inside. I found myself smiling and moving slightly to a few of the songs. I had a problem with music. That problem was that if a track had a good beat, I couldn’t stop myself from moving and tapping along with it. If I didn’t catch myself in time, I’d be halfway to dancing in moments.

Jill noticed me bopping along with another knowing laugh and got out of my way with a joking bow so I could get out of the booth. I thanked her with a pleased and guilty expression, sliding out quickly to let her sit back down. I made my way down to the dance floor with apprehension and a large helping of excitement. I’d always had friends with me when I’d danced in a club or something before now, but I really really wanted to be down there right now, so I was telling the little knot of fear in my stomach to fuck right off. I wanted to see how this body moved!

I stood on the edge and closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the beat and letting my body move around a bit as it liked to do, then popped my eyes open with a grin. Fuck yeah let’s do this. I was hot, I was excited. Time to embarrass myself!

I lost myself in the movements, letting my new body show me how it liked to move when the thump of the bass passed through it. Some of my usual moves slipped in, but it all seemed to work, so I just let myself go. Fuck everyone else I just wanted to have fun! Within a song or two I found my rhythm and dancing happily by myself. It was odd how close the experience was to dancing at a club in the real world. Except, rather rudely, I found myself learning about the differences between being on the floor as a guy, and being on the floor as a girl. Some dude’s hand was on my ass.

I tried to move away, but the guy followed me, beginning to grind against me from behind. I stopped dancing, turned and glared up at him. I formed the universal gesture for fuck you in my fist and squished it against his nose, accompanying it with a challenging glare. His eyes widened and he looked like he was ready to escalate things and cause a scene, when someone pushed between us.

Fire hair girl was here, and she gently but firmly pushed him away with a hand to his chest, then turned to me and… oh. She had a broad self satisfied smirk across her face that caused my breathing to hitch. I felt a pressure on my lips, and realised I was biting them pretty hard. Damn she was so hot! I don’t just mean because her hair looked like literal fire. She had this attitude that made me… well it made me wet, which was an entirely new experience...

The guy was trying to figure out if he wanted to start shit with her now, when she pulled me by the hand further onto the floor. Making sure we had space, she looked into my eyes and gave me yet another cocky little smile, then placed a hand on my waist. I didn’t pull away, instead leaning into the contact slightly. I liked her hand there, although I was too overwhelmed by the warm intensity in my chest and stomach to have stepped away if I’d wanted to.

Finally getting control of myself, I smiled warmly into my savior's eyes and reached up to link my arms around her neck, starting to dance along to the new song that was being played. I got a pleased grin in return, and just like that we were dancing together, rocking and swaying to the music. My heart was beating wildly, in part because of the music and the dancing, but mainly because this chick was awakening something inside me that I had no hope of suppressing. Shit she was gorgeous, and not only that, but she was pursuing me.

She was good, better than me at dancing by a significant margin, but this wasn’t some choreographed thing where the moves were set in stone. I was here to have fun, and it seemed she was too. My arms stayed around her neck and the feeling of my soft skin against hers was incredible. My eyes drifted to her neck where my hands touched them. It was long and slender, with dips and curves that just needed to be kissed.

Meanwhile, her hands were firmly on my waist, making me very conscious of just how thin it was. This was so so very different to what I was used to. I loved the way it felt when I twisted or rocked my hips and there was a big of friction as her hands caught up. It felt wonderful. I was getting drunker off her than I ever would off drink, and I wanted more.

We moved closer as we danced, until we were deliciously pressed together from boob to hip. My nerves were singing with sensation and due to her slight height advantage over me I found myself looking up into those bright eyes of hers. When I saw them filled with a searing desire that I knew was mirrored in my own, I had a momentary surge of confidence.

My head tilted up the inch I need to in order to bring our lips together, and my awareness of the world narrowed with a snap. The contact between us sang to me with a soft raw stinging feeling that I desperately craved more of. She growled into our kiss, and pulled me closer against her body even as her warm lips gently moved against mine. I god what was I feeling? How could making out on the dance floor feel this damn good? Was this what chicks felt all the time, or was there something else going on?

I struggled to keep dancing as the sensations of our kiss caused my skin to burn with need for her, and I almost cried out in sadness when she pulled away. She turned, weaving through the shifting crowd of dancers to the edge of the floor. Had I done something wrong? I stood there, abandoned and feeling almost sick with disappointment when I saw her turn back to me.

Through the crowd I saw her cock an eyebrow and motion with her head towards the door that led out the back of the Inn. Oh! I felt a giddy grin bloom across my face in response, and followed her off the dance floor. I dimly noted Jill watching me from behind her drink back at the booth. She knew where I was going, good.

When I got out into the cool night air, I looked around for the girl with the fire hair, and saw her disappear into a nook behind the stable. I was a little apprehensive, maybe this was a trap? Was she going to try and stab me again?

As I cautiously followed her into the nook, she turned and smiled a little sheepishly. There was no sword, and I realised she actually wasn’t carrying any weapons at all the moment. She must have also known that I was an unarmed fighting player, so this was actually kind of brave on her part.

Advancing slowly towards me, she softly said, “I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but… you turn me on so bad. I want you.”

“Oh,” I chuckled warmly, “I thought it was just me this whole time.”

“Yeah, definitely just you,” she breathed, rolling her eyes and placing a hand on my stomach.

She pushed me slowly backwards until my back was against the wall and her hand on my stomach like that was sending lovely little sparks of warmth radiating out into my body. I reached for her hips at the same time that she pressed forward, closing the final distance between our bodies. Our lips connected with a fire to match my fists and her hair as we sought to know the other again with warm lips and teasing tongues.

I felt movement at my stomach as her gentle hands began to unbutton my shirt from the bottom up. Something about the way she was able to keep kissing me with such intensity while also concentrating on the buttons threw more fuel to the fire that was burning in my core. An involuntary whimper left my throat when her delicate fingers finally gained access to the skin of my stomach and hips. She began to trace swirling patterns across my skin that drove me crazy. I growled in need and frustration at how teasing she was being and took a firmer hold of her hips, using it to flip us so our positions were reversed.

Now pinned against the wall rather than me, she didn't lose any of her audacity. Instead she bit down on my lower lip with a breathy chuckle. Oh that voice of hers. It wasn’t as raw and sexual as mine, but it still sent little shivers of anticipation down my spine

She released my lip, gently running her tongue over where it was swollen ever so slightly, while her hands changed trajectory across my burning skin. They moved up gradually until they met my binding, finding it loose from the dance we'd shared earlier. Her fingers worked at it deftly, pulling at the wrap until she had my boobs free. Her mouth left mine then, and I groaned at their absence. Again with that low and throaty chuckle her lips landed on my neck, placing slow soft kisses across my soft skin and down to my collarbone.

She lavished extra attention on it, even stopping just long enough to whisper, "You're beautiful."

Something in my heart thumped like a bass drum when she called me that word, and one of my hands left her hip of its own accord to wind its way into her hair. Her hair was so soft and warm. It looked like a fire, and also seemed to be giving off a warmth of its own. Or maybe that was just how turned on I was.

With the new avenue of control I had in her hair I urged her kisses towards my breasts. That first flick of her tongue across my nipple changed my life. Changed everything. I would have dropped into the dust had she not reversed our positions again, once more pressing me into the wall. It's not that my nipples were overly sensitive, although the way her tongue and lips were working proved that was true, no it was the glow in my heart that almost dropped me to my knees. I leaned back and enjoyed her attention with heavy erratic breaths.

Oh fuck, she was moving again. Her hands were tracing the curves of my sides as she knelt in front of me. She looked up at me through dark of the evening with those fiery eyes crinkled into a sly smirk, then got my pants undone in one little motion. Oh god, it was all I could do not to beg her to go faster. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she pulled them down until she had enough access, then she looked up, her expression asking permission. I nodded eagerly, entirely done with words now, not that we’d exchanged many, and she gave me a bright cheeky little smile before she dove in.

Her tongue flicked teasingly across the outermost folds for a moment and I groaned, my pelvis lifting up of its own accord to seek more substantial contact. Another heat inducing chuckle and she pushed me back against the rough wooden boards, her blessed tongue following. She dove a little deeper this time, warming me up in a manner I was all too familiar with, but now it was me under that tongue. A circling motion around my clit brought a surprised giddy laugh from my lips, and she once again had to push my rebellious hips back.

My god I needed her to stop teasing me! I pushed my fingers into her hair again with both hands this time, but she resisted my initial push towards my pulsing need and I had to relent. Her hair was so incredibly soft, and I contented myself with the feel of it between my fingers even as she worked at me in earnest.

Her tongue moved nimbly, tracing a line here and pressing down there with skill I was almost envious of, until I was letting out short gasping, disbelieving gasps. Was this what I had been missing all this damn time? Was this what people spoke about when they told me of the loving sex they had with their partners? I'd always relished the giving, the worshipping of my partner as I brought her to climax, but I had never realised that this is what it felt like. I should have been charging by the hour all these years!

She pulled back for a moment to gaze up at me from between my thighs, a devilish little grin on her face for an instant before she moved back in and suddenly I had no time for thoughts of the past. It was just that sweet connection between us as she showed me how she adored my body. She showed me how much she'd enjoyed our dancing and our wordless flirting, she showed me pleasure, and then with a broad flat press of her tongue across my most sensitive of areas, I was gone.

Brilliant bursts of sensation rippled through me with abandon, and my mind was undone for a moment as I was lost to everything but my orgasm. I dimly heard myself moaning into the chill night air while she continued to gently coax my climax to new heights, until I had to wriggle out of her grasp to stop from completely passing out. My legs shook and my heart thundered in my chest. That had been… there were no words. She stood quickly when she saw how insteady I was, gathering me into an embrace to keep me from falling over as I was rocked over and over by the aftershocks of pleasure she had given me.

We stayed like that for what felt like an eternity while I slowly came down from the whole experience and my body slowly came back under my control.

With my face nuzzled into her neck like this, my words came out muffled, “Holy shit.”

“Careful, someone who looks like a demon when she’s mad shouldn’t be using words like holy,” she teased.

“Mmmm, whatevs. I’m a rebellious demon,” I said giggling and nipping at her neck with my teeth, “Your turn?”

She hummed with indecision and shook her head, seeming to deflate slightly. Carefully, gently, she propped me up against the wall and stepped back. Her expression was odd. She looked happy with the state she’d put me in, but her eyes hinted at something else beneath the surface.

She turned and walked a few feet away, then hesitated looking back at me with the flicker of a smile, “See you around.”

Damn. What a wild night, I chuckled to myself as she turned the corner. It had been… educational.

Chapter 6: Flammable

I managed to get back into the inn a few minutes later, my legs shaking and my face struggling with a grin. I politely asked Jill where my room was, which I would apparently be sharing with her tonight. She sent me off with a knowing smirk and a deceptively casual response. That woman was possibly the savviest person I had ever met. Street smarts for days!

I found the room and chose the bed that didn’t have stuff piled on it, falling into it face first. I was still struggling for control of my legs, and I was pretty sure I was flushed from groin to hairline. I didn’t care in the slightest though, that had felt so good. I needed to convince someone to do that to me again. Fire hair seemed to have problems or something. Maybe she wasn’t single? Anyway, I had a new mission, besides leveling up and finding Taylor that is.

Speaking of Taylor, it seemed she was keen to continue her tradition of awful timing. I had an incoming call.

I flailed around in bed until I had accepted the call and groaned, “Whaaat?”

“Wow, what happened to you? I see you’re clothed this time, and in a bed, so you found shelter!” she laughed, poking fun at me.

I rolled over and glared up at the screen above me, “I’m fine, thank you very much oh vaunted sister. I found a party to tag along with into town.”

“That’s good. I was a little worried about you after I read up on your starting region. It seems a little… intense at night,” she said tenderly, then squinted at me, “You’re really red, did you get sunburnt or something?”

I couldn’t help a snort of amusement when I shook my head, “Uuuuhh, nope.”

“Oh no I didn’t catch you masturbating did I? I mean I know you said you didn’t have the dysphoria so you might like-” she said, getting a little flustered and starting off on a bit of a ramble.

I interrupted her with mock outrage, “I’ll have you know I don’t need to masturbate, I found someone to eat me out instead!”

Watching my sister’s slightly stunned face as she computed what I’d just said was priceless. She opened and closed her mouth for a few seconds, then her face broke into a grin that was somewhere between grossed out and proud.

“Really? How on earth did that happen? You have to tell me! Well, not the gory details but, you know,” Taylor asked, leaning forward eagerly.

There it was, she couldn’t resist the story!

“So when I spawned into the game, there was this cute chick fighting spiders. She tried to stab me at first, thinking I was a spider. Anyway, fast forward to the Inn and we make eye contact. You know, the eye contact. So I don’t think much will happen, but I got down to the dance floor because I’m loving this body and I want to have a dance with it. Dude grabs my ass, and that chick swoops in and saves me. We have a dance, then we’re making out. She takes me out back and eats me out. It was the best fucking feeling of my life Taylor! It was only like five minutes ago, I’m still dealing with the repercussions,” I said, almost giggling my way through the explanation. I really did feel so fucking good. Holy shit.

My body was still singing with the feeling, and I felt a little floaty. I also noticed I was keen for more. Why did she have to run off? We’ve had first orgasm yes, but what about second orgasm?

“She huh? I guess that makes sense. But just… wow. I mean like I knew you had a reputation outside of the game, but you’re just trucking right along like being a chick hasn’t changed anything. It’s kind of impressive,” she said, “Told you about the guys thing though. Need to watch out for that.”

“I mean, this is… it’s different. I like it so far,” I said, then remembered the gymnastics thing, “Oh! Taylor! I’m bendy enough to do all my old gymnastics stuff! It’s so amazing! I’m actually so happy! I am totally going to go out and find a flat space to test myself again!”

“Oh I didn’t even think about that. You used to love your flipping around didn’t you?” she asked, smiling along with me.

“Yeah. I missed it… but I didn’t realise I missed it this much. I feel so great!” I exclaimed, reaching up and touching the wall at the head of the bed.

I walked my fingers slowly up the rough lime of the wall while I thought about how nice this all was. The sex had been incredible. It wasn’t just that the orgasm had been different, it was the whole thing. The way I had been pursued, how she’d been both insistent and gentle. She’d treated me like I was special. There had also been a much more heightened sense of… I don’t know, was it connection? We’ve barely said anything to each other, and yet I’d gained so much insight into who she was and her nature by the way we’d been intimate.

It kinda sucked that we might not bump into each other again, but I wasn’t too upset about how she’d rushed off. She obviously had issues with something going on, and she should do what works for her. It would have been nice to have a bit of cuddle time together afterwards though. I always liked that part the most, up until she showed me there was more to sex than what I had been experiencing.

“What’cha thinking about there Tami?” Taylor teased gently.

“Sex,” I replied cheekily, then said more seriously, “It’s just crazy how… I hope you don’t mind if I get a bit TMI, but yeah it’s crazy how much better sex felt this time. I’m trying to figure out exactly what is different, because this time makes every other time I’ve had sex just pale in comparison.”

Taylor chuckled, and said thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s just the difference between men and women?”

“Naah I doubt it, because other men talk about sex like it’s the meaning of fucking life, so they must be feeling something,” I said, shooting down her idea.

“Well, that was all I had sorry,” she laughed, “I’m not as experienced as you, my dear twin.”

“True. You should give it a go though. I think I’m going to have some fun in this game,” I said, thinking eagerly about my future exploits.

“Oh my god,” she laughed, rolling her eyes, “Alright then, well I’d better go. Make sure you actually level up as well. I want to play the game with you as some point this year!”

“You got it sis, have a good night,” I smiled, waving happily into the camera.

“You too sis, sleep well,” she smiled, then cut the call.

I smiled and lay back into the bed for a few minutes before I decided to get in and go to sleep. I undressed and piled my clothes haphazardly on the floor, then slipped between the sheets. Oh they felt great on my just barely orgasm-glowing skin, even if they were a bit rough. I felt so content. Happy even? The mix of good feelings helped weigh my eyelids down, and I was on the cusp of sleep when I realised something. Taylor had called me her sister. I was far too tired to analyse that, and the feelings it produced, so I shelved it and let myself drift off.

** If you are not reading this on SH, it has been stolen. My author alias is QuietValerie. Come find me! **

The next morning, I was woken up by someone moving around my room. I struggled to make sense of the odd sensations I was feeling for a moment before I remembered where I was. More importantly, I realised with a surge of about a million different feelings that I was Tami. I lifted the cover just a tad and saw my naked body under the covers. My naked girl body.

“You alright there Tami...pesa whatever, you alright?” Jill asked, failing to pronounce my full character name.

I let my head fall back to the pillow with a secret little smile, “Call me Tami.”

“Right. You’re good then? Myself and the party have to start a trip down to the capital today, so unfortunately we’ll be leaving you here. We’ve all added you though, so we can keep in touch,” Jill said, smiling fondly down at me.

She was dressed in her travel clothes again, and her things were all backed up into her backpack. Guess they were off without me. That was fine, I had so many people to do… and things too.

“Yeah I’m good, thank you for everything you’ve done Jill. My start to the game would have been a lot rougher and a lot less… enjoyable, if it hadn’t been for your generosity,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it. You’re a good kid. I’ve paid for this room for the next two days, after that you’ll have to talk to Darb after it,” she said, already moving towards the door.

“Cheers! Thanks so much again Jill,” I called from the bed.

“You too Tami. See you later,” she replied, and then the door was closed and I was alone.

Damn, talk about running a tight schedule. Judging by the light filtering in through the shutter over the window, it was early morning at best. I guess they had to keep all the toilets stocked with toilet paper.

It took me almost an hour to stop relishing the bed. I had to put on the same clothing I’d worn yesterday, which was a bit gross, but what can you do when you only own one set of clothing. It was odd, standing in the room having put on my clothing, because I felt like there should have been more preparation before I left.

I left the inn through the back door after grabbing the simple cheese and bread breakfast that came with the room. I really wanted something nicer, but I figured that cost money I didn't have.

Outside, the area behind the inn looked very different under the light of day and without the distraction of a pretty girl. The ground was hard packed dirt with grasses and weeds attempting to grow around the edges. The distance to the stables, and the nook behind it, was around thirty meters or so. Far larger than the old gymnastics floors I had bounced around on as a kid, but without the springy material on the ground. I wasn’t worried about its lack, as I wouldn't have it in combat either.

Before I tested myself out, I did some stretches. I didn’t know how realistic the game was, but it felt like the stretches were helping. Things had been exceedingly realistic so far, so I wasn't going to take any chances.

Once I’d stretched, I decided to start small, just putting myself into a handstand. I didn’t have any bars, horse or rings to use, and that wouldn’t be terribly relevant in the game. Nor had I been good enough to really do anything too dangerous on them either, so it would just be floor stuff.

The handstand was laughably easy, and I swapped to one hand with just a bit of wobbling. Seems my balance had translated too. I let myself down, and took some deep breaths as I readied myself to do a front flip. I ran forward a few steps, leapt once, landed and used both feet to push forward and into the air, shifting my center of gravity forward to perform the flip. Which I landed!

I continued to test myself, finding that I had lost some of my abilities since I was young, as well as this body having no muscle memory whatsoever. I was still happy though, and once I levelled up I’d be getting better and better at all this.

My testing came to an end when I received a text message from my sister.

LipsAndShades: Hiya Tami! How’d you sleep?

Tamipesagniyah: Great! It was so hard to get out of bed…

LipsAndShades: I can imagine! Hey Mum and Dad sent me a message wondering how you are, since you never reply to anything, they came through me.

Tamipesagniyah: Tell them I’m good. I assume they know about the break up? I can’t imagine Kristina being too quiet about it to her parents.

LipsAndShades: Yeah they know. They send their love, and want you to call them some time.

Tamipesagniyah: But that would mean getting out of the pod…

LipsAndShades: Nah. You can make calls from in the game. I’ll gift you some paid currency so you can call them. You will have to explain the girl character to them though.

Tamipesagniyah: Hahaha, that will be fun!

LipsAndShades: Goof. Make sure to get some levelling done today too. You need loot and levels.

Tamipesagniyah: Yes dear sister, I know. Thanks for checking in

LipsAndShades: Love you sis. Stay happy.

Tamipesagniyah: Love you too.

I smiled at the exchange, my sister was very caring, if a little helicoptery. She called me her sister again too… I guess it was because I was a girl in the game and her mind was defaulting to feminine pronouns.

With the reminder from my sister urging me on, I made my way out onto the street and then through the city. Now that I was aware it existed, I could clearly see the strange patchwork of lore friendly stuff vs the new amenities the adventurers were putting in. The square in front of the gates for example had a public toilet that looked freshly built. I didn’t have anything to do in the square, so out the gates I went and into the great beyond. Well, into the forest anyway. Calling it the great beyond felt like a bit of a stretch.

I entered the forest where it had been cleared away from the walls, and began my search for things to punch. I decided I was going to punch and crack and break all the spiders. I had a new giant friend to impress with my kill count after all.

It took almost half an hour of walking before I was jumped by the first spider. It didn’t stand a chance! I caught that fucker as it jumped at me from a tree and beat it to death against said tree. This time, I actually took the easily harvestable materials from the corpse and put them in my inventory. It was nice to have something to actually put in it. I’d been too distracted by my rather rude introduction to the game yesterday to remember to loot anything.

The spider became spider meat and raw silk in my inventory. Items safely stowed, I set off in search of more prey, and my word did I find prey! Spiders were soon launching themselves out of every little corner at me, and had I been arachnophobic, I would have been out of that forest as fast as my legs could carry me. Instead I was… Arachnomurdery? I don’t know what the word is for that.

I punched, kicked, burned and stunned my way through this seeming horde of spiders, looting the corpses when I had the chance. It was like I was walking into an oncoming storm of spiders, but thankfully they were exceedingly weak to my build, and just exceedingly weak in general. They were the absolute epitome of useless starter zone monster.

Which meant that it took almost two hours before I heard the little chime that indicated a level increase. Finally some damn progress! I quickly cleared the rest of the group of spiders I had been fighting, and then opened the level up notification.

I was given a point to spend in my attributes, which I slam dunked immediately into speed. I was then given some points to spend in my ability trees. I searched through all three for good opportunities to spend the points, and eventually settled on the Unarmed tree. There was an ability component in there that was designed to be used in a passive ability slot.

I hadn’t really looked at my passives yet, but it seemed like the one the game had given me was fairly crap. I opted not to replace it, seeing as I had open slots available right now. Instead, I brought up the ability creation screen and got to work.

Presented before me was a triangle of nodes with lines connecting between them. Into the first of those slots, I put the component I had just purchased. It was a buff to my flexibility! I wanted to be the bendiest chick in the game after all. The next piece to be slotted was one that designated this as an always-on passive. This meant that the overall effect was reduced, but it didn’t drain stamina or mana. To the third slot I added another flexibility component, and once the game told me this was a viable ability, I hit accept.

I felt the change in my body instantly. It was a very hard feeling to describe, and the best I could say was that suddenly my limbs felt like they moved with a new smoothness. Descriptions aside, I felt happy with my choice, and almost skipped further into the forest.

My happiness was given a cold bucket of water to the face when something truly ugly screamed at me from a tree. It screeched in some nails-on-chalkboard language and leapt at me with a cry. It looked like what would happen if you took a stereotypical goblin, painted it grey and then sun-dried it and gave it wings. In it’s little fist it held a sharpened stick like a spear, and it was aiming it straight at my chest. No thanks!

I twisted to the side, only barely avoiding the rough tip of the weapon in time, and then grabbed the little shit by the leg. It gobbled in surprise, trying to twist around in my grasp and stab me with the pointy stick.

I slammed it viciously into the ground, then lit my foot on fire, and rammed it down hard into the chest of the thing. The stick fell from its grasp as it screamed in pain and scrabbled at my leg with long claws, but I didn’t let up, pressing down even harder instead. It didn’t take long for it to die to the fire damage, and from the combat log I got a name for it.

It was apparently called a Tephim. It was obviously at least moderately intelligent, because when I picked the stick up, I found it had been crudely sharpened using a stone or something. When I examined the corpse more closely, I saw it was gently decaying into a shimmering dust. I crouched down and quickly collected the dust, wrapping it in some large leaves from a nearby plant. The dust, when it was in my inventory, called itself Essence of Air. More shit I didn’t understand yet, but it probably sold okay.

The Tephim had been much better experience than the spiders had I noticed, and I smiled happily into the forest at the thought of finding more of these things. I hadn’t really been making progress with the spiders.

The unfortunate thing about that smile, was that the forest smiled back. Evilly. Tons and tons of the little creatures poured out of the woodwork, all holding some form of crude weapon, and some even had armour made out of spider carapace. On no. Not like this.

I turned and ran, and the forest exploded into sound and motion behind me as the horde of irate little grey Tephims tried to chase me down. I dodged between trees and under branches with as much speed as I could manage, and thanked my past self profusely for the flexibility perk. It was doing some serious work!

It wasn’t enough however, as the little cretins were slowly gaining on me. There was only one thing for it. I swapped to my demon form and carefully furling my wings against my back as soon as they manifested. The added strength and speed of the demon form proved to be the deciding factor that kept me ahead of my angry enemies, and with the breathing room that it provided I was able to start thinning out their numbers.

I began bending large branches back as I ran, then releasing them into the surprised faces of my pursuers with satisfying results. Once again I found that I was enjoying myself, and I let out a little giddy whoop of excitement. This was more than a little hilarious if you looked at it objectively. The Tephims were too small to take too seriously, coming in at what I estimated as around three and a half feet tall. I may have even started yelling insults back at them. Yes I’m just that mature.

I was watching the results of a particularly satisfying splattering-by-branch when I heard someone talking ahead of me. It was muffled by the foliage at first, but as I got closer I was able to make it out.

“...so if you collect these herbs, you can use them to make a balm that stops most low level venom from spreading! It’s a really useful little herb, and is also great used as seasoning for red meat dishes, especially a hearty beef soup!” an enthusiastic and very adorable feminine voice said, right before I burst into the clearing.

I got a mere handful of seconds to take in the clearing and it was gorgeous really. Idyllic even. Wildflowers bloomed across the little field, with lush grass and other plants covering the rest. A small pool of crystal clear water that was fed by a tiny stream sat at the opposite edge.

At the edge of that pool, a short elf girl who looked around my own age was just glancing up from where she had been picking herbs. I had no idea who she had been talking to, because she was alone, but that was very close to the bottom of my priority list right now. I was not going to train a butt load of angry imp-things into the poor girl.

I lit my foot on fire again and spun, sweeping the ground in a wide arc and lighting it on fire. My closest pursuers found themselves dashing into a line of flame that was almost up to their tiny chests. Some even fell through it, the fine white hairs across their body lighting up like the Hindenburg at its prom after-party.

The burning ones ran around screaming, and I had time to notice that they were burning far more… robustly than they should have been for living creatures.

Wait.

Oh.

Essence of Air. Fire likes air. If they were made of the Essence of Air as well as normal fuel…

I found myself chuckling with glee as I Idly touched my fists together in preparation. These little fuckers did not know what was about to hit them. I dodged the first one to leap at me, catching it in the chest with a fist that whipped with rioting flame. My blow sent it burning, screaming and cartwheeling to the side to land in the grass, leaving a trail of singed grass in its wake.

I became a demon, not just in looks but in essence as well. I leapt across the clearing, my fists and feet aflame as I smashed and pulverised my foes.

Every now and then one would get its crappy little weapon pointed at me, and I’d easily weave to the side like a tree in a gale, only to snap back and deliver fire and death by fist. I found myself enjoying things a little too much I think, because I swear I heard myself cackling. Like a disney witch or something.

It was over in a matter of minutes, the last of my foes burning and stumbling blindly through the clearing before they finally collapsed.

I stood there, my fists raised as I looked around for more, but I found none. The clearing however… was a bit of a mess. There were erratic trails of scorched flora where the burning Tephim had tried to run, and their corpses and charred bits littered the grass like detritus left behind after a storm. I looked sheepishly around at the damage. Opps.

The girl, who appeared to have fallen into the pool when I had so rudely burst into the clearing, stared over at me from her position still in the water with awe filled eyes.

“Uh, sorry about that,” I said awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck with a hand and stepping forward.

The girl didn’t reply, instead letting out a little, “Eep!”

“Uh, my name is Tami. Ummm, yeah. I was being chased and they were angry and I uh…” I tried again, attempting to explain why her beautiful little clearing was now on fire.

I received more stunned blinking in response, so I moved forward and offered her a hand. I knew from first hand experience that the water would be cold. Instead of taking the hand, she lowered her gaze to stare at it for a moment, then looked back up at me.

“It must be cold in here. Come on! Out you get,” I said gently, extending my hand further.

She finally got the message and reached up with a nervous and shaking hand to clasp mine. I pulled her out of the water with ease, she weighed next to nothing even with the waterlogged clothing. Or was it maybe that I just had quite a lot of strength while I was in this form?

I stepped back, giving her space to stand and orient herself, and getting a good look at her in the same breath. She was half a foot shorter than me, with long flowing white hair and sparkling blue eyes. She wore a worn and practical looking dress made out of some tough looking fabric, with tight pants made of the same fabric underneath. Her head had previously held a big floppy sun hat, which was now floating lazily down the stream several meters away.

I leapt over to it using my wings for extra power and air time, and scooped it out of the river, then jumped back to the girl. Shaking it out a bit, I sent droplets of water flying all over the place, then handed it back to her.

“So um, yeah. I’m Tami. Sorry about that… I didn’t expect to run into anyone while I was out here,” I said, introducing myself again.

“U-um… I’m… I’m Alchemilla. M-millie for short. I guess. It’s okay about the fight. I guess. I was just here to pick some herbs and show them to the people watching my stream,” she said, stammering her words at first.

“Oh, you’re a streamer? That’s cool!” I said self-consciously, wondering how many other eyes were staring at me from around us.

Her eyes lit up at my praise, and she bounced on the balls of her feet for a moment and grinned.

“Yeah! I have almost twenty thousand subscribers!” she exclaimed excitedly, then frowned and mumbled, “Oh, that’s bragging isn’t it?”

“You’re fine Millie. Be proud! Sing your achievements to the sky!” I said encouragingly.

This girl was hella sweet. I wanted to pet her. Not in a dirty way though!

“Thanks! I always feel bad when I talk myself up like that. I don’t want to be arrogant or anything you know,” she said earnestly.

“Fuck you’re adorable,” I laughed, and then chuckled some more when a blush bloomed across her face. She was damn pretty, in a helpless kind of way.

“U-um… Thank you,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet in embarrassment.

“No problem. Hey I just noticed the time, I think we should probably be getting back to town yeah?” I said, looking up at the sky.

The sun was getting to the point where I was pretty sure we’d only just make it back if we tried. I must have been punching spiders for longer than I thought. It was hard to tell the time from under the canopy of the trees and flying arachnid body parts.

“Oh! You’re right! Oh no!” Millie said, rushing to a reasonably untouched section of the clearing and picking up a satchel.

The satchel was… well… absolutely stuffed with a very wide assortment of things. There were roots, fruit, berries, random green leaves and even a small rodent or two. Girl was prolific I’ll give her that.

She bounced back over to me and looked up expectantly, “Which way?”

“You don’t know?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

“Um, no I don’t… I got a little distracted when I found this Spirrul,” she said, pointing to one of the small critters that was dead in her bag.

“Riiiight. Well I guess we’ll have to do our best,” I said apprehensively.

With a nervous eye to the sky, we set off in what I knew was vaguely the right direction. I really hoped we didn’t find out what the horrors of the mist were. I was not high enough level to deal with that shenanigans.

Chapter 7: Silk Bras

We hurried through the forest, trying to make good time, but unfortunately my little companion was less than capable when it came to moving at speed. Getting frustrated during a particularly hard stretch of old forest, I decided to just scoop her up into my arms and run with her.

She squealed when I picked her up and her arms were almost instantly wrapped around my neck, while her eyes stared at me with terrified awe. Damn girl, careful on the ears, that was a piercing squeal! Crashing blindly through the underbrush turned out to be not such a hot idea when we were suddenly weightless as the forest parted suddenly to reveal a small cliff. Spreading my wings to allowed us to glide safely down to the forest floor below, rather than splattering against it. I wish I’d decided to practice flying though, it would have made this a whole lot easier to just soar over the trees.

I carried Millie for as long as I could, but my arms and back began to feel the strain, and I had to put her down or risk dropping her. She was light, but anything became heavy if you held it up for long enough. Unfortunately with her back on the ground we were once again making slow progress, and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut as I realised we wouldn’t be making it to the gates in time.

The sun was coming at us sideways now, thin rays of warm orange light trying to pierce the suddenly eerie canopy. The normal sounds of the forest were quieting, as though all the animals were hunkering down for the night. Typically in a forest at this time, the birds would be losing their stupid little minds in the branches of every tree. Not many people have heard it, forests are hard to come by for most people these days, but when the sun is setting, the birds just do not shut up.

I finally called a halt to our flight when I saw the first tendrils of mist curling across the ground like some dark creature feeling it’s way across the ground.

“We need to find somewhere to hide,” I told Millie, looking around for any cover at all we could use for the night.

“W-why?” she asked fearfully, her head swivelling this way and that at every little creak and crack of the forest.

“We’re not going to make it back before they close the gates, so we’re just going to have to try and survive the night,” I replied absently. Most of my attention was focused on trying to find a place to spend the night.

“Um… okay I think I can find a place for us to hide,” she said after a moment.

I turned to her in surprise, “You can?”

She nodded up at me and pointed deeper into the forest, “I saw a Fallihal Tree further back, they are actually a type of vine that has completely consumed their old host tree. They are usually hollow, and sometimes those things you killed earlier will turn them into houses.”

“Won’t we have to fight them to get the house then?” I asked, already getting ready to punch more things.

“I don’t think so, the Tephim are migratory. They move randomly through the forest in large tribes, stopping for shelter in those trees when night comes. Most of the trees have been converted into some form of shelter by now,” she said confidently, already moving back towards the tree she’d seen.

Damn, the girl had smarts I’ll give her that. It was pretty badass, but in a far different way to what I aspired to be.

“Alright, lead the way,” I said with relief, following her back into the forest.

We stumbled our way through the twilight, tripping on roots and shrubs and generally making a lot of noise, and I hoped we wouldn’t end up as food for some tentacled horror. That was a really disgusting thought. Ew.

“There it is!” she cried in triumph, rushing towards a large tree that looked maybe a little gnarled compared to the others, but otherwise normal.

I followed her, and was surprised when she bent down and wriggled between a gap in the large roots of the tree. Bending down and slipping in behind her, I found myself in a dark space inside the tree that was maybe five feet across. The floor of the tree had been flattened, the hollow of the tree had been blocked off at the top and although there was a faint odor, it felt pretty homey.

“Wow this is actually kinda nice,” I said into the dark.

“Isn’t it? I’ve never been brave enough to stay the night in one though, but now that you’re here…” she said, trailing off.

I stared into the dark for a moment where I thought she was, and then there was a tiny spark of light and suddenly we could see! Millie held a small orb of glowing amber light in her hand, looking triumphant.

“I made a light spell!” she giggled happily.

“You did,” I laughed, enjoying the warm glow even if it wasn’t actually putting out any heat.

Speaking of heat… it was getting damn cold. "Hold on a moment," I said, rushing back outside. I tore through the darkening mist for a few moments, grabbing and tearing off as many lush branches as I could. We needed the foliage between us and the ground so that the chill of the forest floor wouldn’t seep into us while we slept.

It was almost too difficult to see through the mist by the time I ducked back through with a massive armload of leaves. I dumped them on the floor and leaned back against the inside of the tree with a sigh of relief. There was something about the atmosphere out there. It was tense and deadly. I didn’t like it at all.

“May as well get comfortable,” I said softly, sitting down with my back to the wall of the tree.

“Right,” Millie said, “Yeah.”

She followed suit, sitting down next to me and trying her best to give me room. The tree was small, and we found our shoulders bumping. We sat there for what felt like a long time before she spoke again, “I’m going to turn off my stream now. Thanks for watching everyone! I’ll make a video and upload it if anything happens during the night. Luv you all! Sweet dreams!”

Once her stream was off, Millie sighed and relaxed somewhat, looking over at me with tired eyes. She seemed like the wanted to say something, but she thought better of it and turned away.

“What’s up?” I asked gently.

She looked down at her hands with a sad expression, “It’s nothing. I was about to start unloading personal shit on you but… that’s kinda mean.”

I shook my head and reached out to take one of her hands, “You’re fine. Vent away. I have a good ear.”

“Are you sure…? I just… I don’t think you’ll be interested is all,” she said bashfully.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She avoided my gaze sheepishly and dropped my hand, looking around and biting her lip like she was about to tell me she’d seen me taking a dumb or something.

“I mean, you’re like, a lesbian right?” she blurted.

I blinked at her for several seconds, the word Lesbian… it shocked my mind into stillness. Was I a lesbian? No, I mean I was a guy in real life so that made me straight. That word though... stuck in my brain like a burr on a dog.

“I’m sorry if I’m wrong! I didn’t mean to assume, it’s just… anyway oh my god I’m so stupid,” she said quickly, thinking I was upset with her.

“No you’re fine. I… I like girls. Just girls,” I said quietly.

“Well um… anyway, I’m sorry I just… I’m straight and I have straight problems and like my gay friends have talked about not understanding straight people sometimes so I was like oh she probably doesn’t want to hear…” she said, tripping over her own words.

“Straight problems huh?” I asked, feeling a little confused now, “You can talk about straight problems if you want.”

She took a deep breath and spoke, “Okay thank you… well um, I um, I broke up with my boyfriend a few days ago… I still love him so much but I just couldn’t do it. I mean how could I keep going after what he did?”

I felt myself grow still as a scary thought entered my mind. Still loved her ex boyfriend… broke up with him a few days ago… surely not?

“Uhm, What-” I started to say, but my voice hitched strangely. I had to clear it and try again, “What did he do?”

Millie was silent for a few moments and I heard her breathing quicken like she was going to cry, “He... uh. He cheated on me. I confronted him and… he told me that I wasn’t sexual enough for him. Told me that I wasn’t fulfilling his needs or whatever, so he found them elsewhere.”

I felt my whole body relax as I realised that Millie was not Kristina. I had been more than a little scared there. I mean, I know the chances of meeting someone from your area are reasonably slim, but I was from one of the largest cities in the world, so it wasn’t off the table either.

“I’m sorry to hear that Millie. I feel you on that one,” I said with as much compassion as I could muster.

It sounded like the guy had a different libido than Millie, which was fairly normal for a relationship with a straight relationship as far as I knew. Instead of discussing it with her though, he’d gone off behind her back and fucked some other chick. Not cool. I’d been the unwitting third participant in a situation like that before, and it was far from pretty.

“Thanks. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this I’m sorry, we only just met…” she said apologetically.

“Nah you’re good. You can talk to me all you want. Plus there’s something about being trapped in a hole in the dark that makes you want to talk,” I said reassuringly.

“Thanks,” she said with a sigh, letting her little light go out.

Another long silence fell, and so we sat side by side and listened to the terrifying sounds from outside. An hour after she’d told me about her ex, a strange sound started to draw near. It started off just at the edge of hearing, like it was a distant noise in a busy city, but it slowly grew louder. As it became legible to my ears, I thought it sounded like wet breathing. It was as though a ninety year old man with a lung infection was getting closer and closer.

Following that sound was a quieter sound that reminded me of a child slurping through a straw. Both sounds drew nearer and nearer, until they were just outside our little hideout. I felt my heart begin to race and I tried to look into the inky darkness of the night, but it was almost impossible to see anything other than vague outlines now that Millie had put her light out. It almost sounded like it might leave, but then Millie let out the tiniest little whimper.

I quickly reached around her with an arm and pulled her into my lap, holding her close to keep her safe as the strange sounds paused outside our tree. Poor Millie was shaking like a leaf, and I tried to calm her by gently stroking her back. She clung to me while we waited for it to leave, and as time wore on and the noise didn’t leave, I began to cling back. I was normally okay with horror, but living it was an entirely different matter.

At some point we must have fallen asleep despite the terrifying noises outside, because one moment I was struggling to hold back my fear, and the next there was sun filtering in through the hole in the tree. Millie had fallen asleep where she had lain in my lap, and seemed at least to be sleeping soundly, even if I felt like I’d been knocked unconscious with a rock.

“Hey Millie,” I murmured, touching her shoulder.

She groaned, but didn’t wake immediately, and I had to nudge her again to get her to stir. She had been sleeping face down in my lap using my thighs as pillows, and now she rolled over to blink bleary eyed up at me. She was crazy adorable like this, in a purely platonic way of course. Girl was definitely not my type personality-wise, far too cute, and if her comments about not being interested in sex were anything to go by, not compatable with me either.

“Morning sleeping cutie,” I smiled down.

“Wha… you’re… Tami…?” she asked, still pulling herself up out of sleep brain.

“I am indeed Tami,” I said, nodding sagely.

“Oh! I slept!” she said pulling herself up out of my lap, which she then looked down at, “I slept in your lap.”

“My thighs are pretty damn big, so I don’t blame you,” I chuckled.

I watched her face grow red from embarrassment, and couldn’t help but chuckle some more. She seemed to understand I wasn’t making fun of her, because she smiled back after a few seconds.

“So are you ready to get back to town? I don’t know about you but I feel pretty fucking disgusting right now and I’d really like to see whatever counts as a medieval shower,” I grimaced, looking down at my gross self.

“Yeah me too. Let’s go. Also I don’t have any food on me and I’m hungry,” she grumbled, crawling forward to peek out the hole in the roots.

“Oh damn yeah. You just had to go and mention food didn’t you, now my stomach is reminding me I haven’t eaten since yesterday breakfast,” I said with a pained expression, holding my now protesting stomach.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” she said, looking like she was apologising for stabbing me, not mentioning my lack of calorie intake.

“Oh shush, you’re fine! I was joking,” I said, reaching out and ruffling her hair, “I’ll go out first and let you know if the coast is clear.”

“Oh…” she murmured from behind me as I shuffled out of the tree.

The sun was blinding for a moment, and I had a tough time seeing anything, but it turned out not to matter because the coast was clear. I let Millie know, and we set off towards town. I only just remembered to take my human form again before we got close to town. I was still erring on the side of caution here.

It did not take as long as I thought it would and it was still morning by the time we entered the gates. We walked a few meters inside before awkwardly turning to each other.

“So um, I guess we say goodbye…?” Millie asked sadly.

“Of course not! I’ll add you right now,” I said happily, opening the game menu and sending her a friend request.

“Oh!” she chirped, her frown turning into a cheerful little smile as she navigated her own menus to accept it.

“I’m going to go my own way for now though, but how about we check in with each other in a day or two?” I asked hopefully. I felt an attachment to protecting this sweet girl.

Her smile brightened further and she nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! Oh! Can we do something fun too, there’s so many herbs and ingredients I can’t get because I’m not very good at fighting, and I could totally get them with your help! I mean, if that’s okay… I don’t want to like, force you to babysit me or anything, so you can-”

I laughed and placed a hand on her head to quiet her excited rambling, “Sure thing Millie. I’d be happy to go on ingredient collecting adventures with you. I should probably do some leveling first so I’m able to take you to more dangerous places.”

“Yes! Thank you! Thank you so much!” she said happily, pumping her fist in the air.

I couldn’t help but grin and laugh. What an adorable dork. Instant friend material.

“Okay, I’ll catch you later! Hit me up if you need anything or just want to chat,” I said, walking towards the Inn where I was staying.

“I will! Thank you! Bye!” she said, standing there in the square and waving.

****

As soon as I got to the Inn I asked about a bath, and was directed to a women’s communal shower, which I was more than a little conflicted about entering. It took me a little time to work up the courage to go in, but when I was actually in there everyone had already used it for the day and I was able to wash both myself and my clothing in peace.

After that, I left the inn with the bread and cheese breakfast, and went in search of a vendor to sell my loot to. The market by the gate came into mind, and so I headed there. It was packed by now, adventurers were everywhere, arguing and haggling with the NPC and player vendors. It seemed, from a billboard I found, that you could purchase a slot in the market.

I stood at the edge of the market and tried to figure out which vendor I should approach. The NPC ones would probably undercharge by a mile, but the player ones would try and gouge me for all I was worth if I wasn’t careful.

I was still staring when a dwarf player at one of the nearby stalls called out, “Hey you’re that chick that Aurugm was raving about! The ‘nut cracking, fire fisted hellion’.”

Hearing his accent, I did a mental double take as my brain caught up with what I had just heard. When you think of a stereotypical dwarf, and he definitely looked the part, you definitely don’t expect a crocodile dundee australian accent to come out of his mouth that’s for sure.

“Um… yeah,” I said cautiously.

“You looking to buy or sell? Jill told us guild merchants to play nice with you if you wanted to do business,” he said happily.

“Oh sure! I mean, I have a bunch of random spider bits I want to sell,” I said.

He nodded sagely, beckoning me forward, “Ah yeah they said you were new. Those spiders aren’t great experience, but that silk is in high demand, especially by you ladies.”

I squinted at him, trying to figure out if he was being sexist or not, “Why?”

“Oh because that cotton isn’t great for your lady parts that’s why. Rough and chafing, I’m sure you’ve ah… noticed,” he said, blushing beneath his beard as he explained.

“Right. Got it,” I coughed, thankful for my reasonably good control of my own blushing.

“So let’s see,” he said eagerly, changing the subject.

I pulled everything carefully from my inventory and placed it on a rough wooden table that was ready for this purpose, and he hummed thoughtfully as he began to look through it.

“Ah yes, fairly standard, although you do have quite a lot of meat and silk. As impressive as your reputation of course,” he rumbled, counting through all the spider stuff, “Yes, I can probably give you five or so silver for all this.”

“Oh cool, thanks!” I said happily. Money! It was mine!

“Uh, you’re not going to haggle?” he asked, a little taken aback.

Oh right. We’re meant to do that. Ugh, that sounded like so much hassle.

“I don’t think I can be bothered to be honest,” I said with a sheepish grin.

“Oh… right. Well in that case I’ll give ya fifteen silver then,” he said, chagrined.

Aha! I knew he was going to try and fleece me!

“Thanks,” I giggled, reaching out to take the money when he offered it.

I was about to say goodbye when I remembered the single Tephim I had remembered to loot.

“Oh hey, I have something else actually,” I told him, extracting the Essence of Air from my inventory.

I placed it on his table carefully, making sure to keep the dust-like substance in the leaves I had used to collect it. Almost immediately he leaned forward with a grin on his face, and I knew I had something he wanted. Why didn’t I loot the rest of the bodies? Damn damn damn!

“Now that is interesting. Essence of Air. It’s a component used in a lot of enchanting, and it’s not especially hard to come by, except that those imp lookin’ things you got it from are currently too far from the town to make it back here in one trip. Most adventurers aren’t willing to risk going that far out, and so we have a shortage around her now,” he told me, staring eagerly at the dust the whole time.

“Yeah worked that one out the hard way,” I laughed.

“Ah spent the night out there did ya? Those are some balls you got on you! Metaphorically speaking of course since you don’t have none,” he replied nodding in respect.

I snorted involuntarily at what he’d just said. Wow. Yup.

“I make up for it in busted ones instead,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster.

Chuckling he replied, “Yes I’ve heard as much. This will get me a lot once I resell it, so I’ll give you thirty silver for the lot.”

“Oh nice! Do you have like, some spare clothing I can buy or something that will fit me? I only have what I’m wearing and it can start to stink after a while,” I asked hopefully.

“That I do,” he nodded, turning in his booth to open a heavy chest.

He produced some clothing that looked a little higher quality than what I was wearing and put it on the table, then turned back and went to a different chest. When I saw what he had in his hands, I made the happiest most high pitched squeal of delight I have ever made in my life. I was too excited to even be embarrassed. Two bras and two pairs of underwear!

“Oh my god thank you so much!” I exclaimed, already wondering what it would feel like to be able to breathe properly when I swapped the tight binding for the less constricting bras. I mean, I knew bras were still pretty annoying, but it had to be better than a damned bandage!

“I’ll give you ten silver for the Essence, and the clothing on the-” he started, but I cut him off, leaping forward and grabbing the clothes and coins.

“Thank you!” I beamed at him.

“You’re welcome,” he said, looking a little stunned.

I was about to rush off to the public toilets to change into the new underwear when I figured I should ask him about better places to level. Even the Tephim hadn’t been very good for it.

“Hey by the way, where should I go if I want to actually get levels?” I asked.

“Oh! If you’re wanting experience, your best bet is to apply to join a party going down into the Bleaklands. There’s a lot of nasty creatures down there in the mists, but with a decent team you can get a lot of experience very quickly,” he explained.

“Great! Thank you so much!” I said, then turned and dashed off towards the toilets without waiting for a goodbye.

I rushed into the women’s toilets without a whole lot of thought for if I belonged there, threw myself into one of the stalls and tore my shirt off as fast as I could. I’d been wearing this damn binding for most of two days now and I already hated it with a passion. I took it off and stuffed it into my inventory, and took out one of the hallowed bras. It was an off white colour, obviously undyed from the spider silk it was made of, but I didn’t care in the slightest. The wire seemed to be made of something a little more flexible that metal, and I guessed it was probably bone. I hoped it didn’t break and stab me or anything.

I slipped the straps onto my arms, brought the two ends of the band in front to orient myself, then hooked them together behind my back. Boom, first try! All that practice on other girls had paid off! I left the toilets feeling freer and lighter than when I had entered, and I smiled and waved gratefully over to the dwarven vendor.

Time to take his advice and find a party to level with. I wanted to be stronger!

Making my way over to the adventurer board, I took a step back when the thing turned into an augmented reality style game menu. Alright, I guess I’ll search for a beginner group to apply for. It seemed that most parties were formed with the idea of being out in the wild for multiple days, and that made sense. I’d have to get a rain check from Millie about our hanging out. I’d need to make it up to her somehow.

I tried to join a few parties, but it was hard to get a slot as a damage dealer. I finally got into one that was planning to make the day trip to the Bleaklands, then spend two days inside. I’d be gone for a total of four days which sounded reasonable. I’d be getting out with a day to spare before I needed to exit the pod and do my week of classes. I was definitely not looking forward to that one.

When I was accepted into the party, a little window appeared in the left hand corner of my vision that showed me all the people in it. We had the party leader and tank named Grerum, the healer named Xethu, and the two other damage dealers were named Aurora and Florence.

I also gained a general awareness of where the members of my party were hanging out, so I followed that sense over to a space near the gate, where a group of four people were standing in a huddle and talking.

“Hiya!” I said cheerily, “I’m Tami!”

“Tami, thank you for joining us,” a gruff man in a chainmail hauberk said, turning around to greet me.

“Thanks for having me,” I smiled back.

The guy looked like he was going for the young rough knight look, and his kite shield even had some crudely painted heraldry on it. His helmet was a typical cone thing with a nose bar. Fairly low level looking equipment, but probably more than I could even hope to afford right now.

“So let me introduce you to the others. We’re all strangers so we’ll have to learn to get along as we go,” he said seriously. No nonsense party lead. Got it. That would work.

He pointed to a small lizard girl wearing a simple robe who looked like a cross between a human and a gecko, “This is Xethu. She’ll be our healer. Disrespect her and I’ll kick any of you.”

The little gecko girl smiled sweetly at me, her huge green and yellow eyes twitching up and down my form as she got a good look at me. Her robes were about as simple as mine, but her arms were covered in this crazy web of rope. The rope had semi precious stones woven through it, along with some feathers and other random objects.

“This is Florence,” he said, pointing to a tall blonde haired and handsome guy who wore some relatively nice looking robes, “He’s a ranged caster DPS.”

He looked at me like he was trying to figure out if he wanted to laugh at me or ogle me. He was such a stereotypical pretty boy looking dude that I struggled not to roll my eyes. He was totally going to be trouble.

Then Grerum stepped aside and motioned to the last member of the team, and my breath caught in my throat. Oh. It was the fire haired girl, standing there in her strange robes with her sword sheathed at her hip, and a stunned expression on her face that must have mirrored my own. Gods she was gorgeous. Her eyes moved me on some deep and spiritual level every time we made eye contact I swear. I almost took a reflexive step towards her before I caught myself.

“This is Aurora,” Grerum said, completely missing the sizzling, crackling eye contact that was being made in front of him.

Chapter 8: Brawl

Aurora. That was fire hair girl's name. I had to take like a bunch of deep breaths just to stop myself from closing the distance and gathering her in my arms. The guy… um… Grerum, he asked me a question, but I didn’t hear what he said. My mind was still stuck on the way Aurora’s eyes were locked with mine.

“Hmm? Sorry?” I asked, still unable to draw my eyes away from those gorgeous orange ones in front of me.

“Have you got travelling gear? You’ll need at least a bedroll and water skin for the journey,” he asked again patiently.

I blinked and finally tore my gaze from Aurora’s, “Oh… I um, I’ll go buy some.”

I rushed off back to the dwarf, who was more than happy to take all his coins back and give me what I needed, plus some meat jerky of some description to use if we couldn’t hunt some food. He was a good dude, and I was going to make sure I brought my loot to him when I came back with it.

When I returned to the party, Grerum had us double check if we were ready. The pretty boy mage had forgotten a water pouch and rushed off to grab one, while our healer was fine. Aurora slipped off without a word to get something, I’m not sure what, she didn’t say a word. I wondered if she was alright with us being in the same party together. She did run away after all. I decided I was going to give her space if she needed it.

It took another half hour or so before we left the gates of the town, and I was eager to see what trouble we could find ourselves. I had heard that dying wasn’t pleasant in this game, even if the pain was reduced, but I had trouble caring too much about it myself. I’d respawn at my last bind point, which was this town, and I’d continue on with my life. I was more afraid of shit I didn’t understand to be honest, like those noises Millie and I had heard outside our tree last night.

Walking with 3 people I didn’t know and one person who… well I knew what her body felt like against mine. Walking with these people was awkward at first, but I tried to just ignore the awkward feelings and enjoy the sun. I loved being in nature like this, even if it was in virtual reality, and it put a smile on my face. We entered the forest following one of the many roads that were like the first one I’d found and the sounds of the forest enveloped us.

The others started to talk among themselves, and I stepped back to listen. It seemed that Grerum and Xethu had been in parties before, and the two of them had heard of Aurora and Florence.

“I’m surprised you put down your lone wolf thing to join our party,” Xethu said to Aurora at one point as we crossed a low stone bridge.

Aurora shrugged and stared off into the distance for a moment, “I have a quest, but I’m too low level to get through it, so I need to powerlevel.”

Florence the pretty boy mage looked over at Aurora with a disbelieving look and scoffed, “What type of quest do you get from around here that needs any sort of levels?”

“A hard one,” Aurora said curtly, going back to walking and ignoring everyone else's existence.

We continued in silence for a good chunk of the day until we stopped to have a meal and rest at around mid afternoon. I leaned gratefully against a tree on the side of the road, snacking idly on the jerky I’d been given practically for free by the dwarf. It tasted nice, but it definitely wasn’t anything I was familiar with. I was doing my best to analyse the taste and figure out what type of meat it was when the pretty boy turned his arrogant stare on me.

“What about you? I don’t see any weapons on you. Are you a caster? You don’t look very promising as a damage dealer,” he asked grumpily. Damn what was this guy’s problem?

Before I could speak, Aurora spoke up in my defence with a snort, “Oh you’ll find out. It’s more impressive than those shitty little fireballs you’re so proud of.”

I swear she mumbled something about my thighs under her breath at the end there as well and I raised my eyebrows at Aurora in surprise, but she only glanced at me for the briefest of moments.

“Are we going to know beforehand? Or is this all a big surprise for us? How do you know her anyway?” Florence continued petulantly.

“Oh she only knows me in a… roundabout sort of way,” I said idly, trying to keep a straight face.

My little acknowledgement that she had planted her face between my legs a few nights ago was rewarded with a blush that bloomed large across Aurora’s face. She was pretty cute when she blushed, and I couldn’t stop my grin from breaking free of its confines.

“What does that mean?” the pretty boy asked.

“Can you drop it?” Aurora snapped, glaring at him now.

“I want to know if she will be a reliable member of-” he started to protest. Oh fuck this guy. Leave us both alone, fucking hell!

I lept at him with a roar, transforming midway into my demon form, idly noticing that I had claws now. When did that happen? My sudden leap had been intended to just scare him, but he yelped when I crashed down in front of him and tripping backwards and landing hard on the ground with a thump.

I stared down at him with a self satisfied smirk, then calmly walked back to my tree and furled my wings. I didn’t leave demon form this time. I kinda liked being like this when it was practical. Sleeping with the wings would be a pain in the ass, although the strange feather-like leather that they were made of was definitely soft enough.

I leaned against the tree and glared a challenge back at Florence. I was purpose built to fuck him and his caster bullshit up, and I would love a chance to get into a brawl and show him what I could do. Gap closing melee damage dealers were the bane of all mages everywhere.

“Thank you Tami. Florence, you’re not top dog in this game anymore, so stop acting like it. Stop stirring shit,” Grerum said with an exasperated sigh.

The disgruntled mage stood up and dusted himself off, gave me a grumpy look and went back to eating his food in silence.

When I looked back at Aurora I saw she was smiling to herself while she ate her own food, and her eyes flicked up to mine for a brief moment, the mirth dancing in them making my heart do a little flip. Oh goddess.

I grinned and winked at her in return, getting another beautiful blush out of her. Wow she was being very bashful and cute today. I liked it. Damn I was starting to enjoy this silent little interplay we had going on. Brains sucked though, so of course the way she was making my heart dance around reminded me of the last person who had caused it to do that and my mood dropped a little. I turned back to my jerky and started tearing at it with my claws until it was in chewable pieces.

I’d been really distracted by everything that had happened, so I hadn’t really been thinking about Kristina. The breakup was still too raw, and my mind skittered off it like a sword off a shield. Too much pain. Schooling my face into impassivity, I tried my best not to let anyone know I was feeling vulnerable. That Florence cunt would jump on it for sure.

My heartache was interrupted by Xethu’s curious voice, “Tami, what race are you if it’s okay to ask? I haven’t seen anyone who looks like you before, especially with the shapeshifting you just did.”

“Oh um, I’m a Darkling Infiltrator Mk4. It’s a randomiser exclusive,” I told her.

She took another look at me and whistled, “Wow you got that character from the random generator?”

“Genetics play a role in the generation remember, so she probably looks similar to that in real life too,” Aurora said quietly, watching me with a new expression I couldn’t recognise.

I shrugged, unable to tell them that wasn’t true, but unable to bring myself to falsely confirm it. If I had been born a girl I might have looked as pretty as this if I was super lucky, but as it stood I was a guy.

“What type of role do you fill?” Grerum asked.

“Uh, I’m fast and I hit hard, but I’m not really able to take a hit in return. I focus mostly on dodging enemy attacks right now. Getting some thick gauntlets might change that though. Not sure what role that puts me in. I haven’t seriously played a VRmmo before so I’m unfamiliar with all the names people give things,” I told him honestly.

“Ah I see, you’ll probably be working with Aurora a lot then, she fills a similar role. Right now I’m calling it Fast Attack,” he nodded, clearly happy with my role choice.

I looked over at Aurora again and smiled. I liked the sound of working with her… intimately. Oh gosh my brain needed to calm down on the horniness for like two seconds. She hasn’t displayed any more interest in pushing you against a wall yet. She seems almost shy now.

“Alright. Sounds good,” I nodded, drawing my eyes back to my food and keeping them there. I was a little apprehensive about how Aurora would feel about this arrangement. Her running away hadn’t been an issue when I wasn’t really sure I’d ever see her again, but spending four days together out of the blue like this was blowing my awkwardness tolerance apart.

Xethu and Grerum spoke among themselves while the rest of us ate and rested in silence until it was time to go. When we headed off, instead of being alone at the back of the group this time, Aurora sidled up next to me without a word. Neither of us explicitly acknowledged the other as the hours wore by, but it was nice to have her near as we walked. Once or twice one of my wings may have accidentally brushed against her arm, but it was pure coincidence, and had nothing to do with the fact we kept veering slightly toward one another as we walked.

It was coming up on late afternoon as we approached the camp and Grerum decided it was a good idea to slow us down to explain some things about the place before we went in. Apparently, the camp had sprung up out of nowhere almost as soon as people realised you could farm experience in the bleaklands, and it was entirely run by players. This meant there wasn’t a whole lot that one could call the law in this place, so we were all advised to stay wary.

Entering the vaguely defined borders of the place, one thing became apparent almost immediately while my curious eyes roamed the place. It reminded me of some chaotic outlaw town from a western movie, people eyeing each other up and posturing. The odd enterprising player trying to sell potions or weapons. Turning my eyes to the center, I saw with a bit of surprise that there were two or three hastily constructed permanent buildings in the middle.

Our party made our way to an open patch of ground and Xethu began planting some large pins made of bone into the ground. The process Xethu was using seemed to involve pushing the pin into the ground like a tent peg, then tipping a single drop of blood from a vial onto the pin, where it was absorbed and flashed once with a red light.

“What are those for?” I asked her with interest.

“Oh! These are our wards. It protects us from monsters and players alike. Very useful, especially in a lawless place like this one. Be careful when you are outside the wards,” she advised me, her adorable little gecko face turning up in a smile.

“I will! Thank you! I saw some actual buildings in the middle, what are they?” I asked.

Nodding, she looked over at the buildings I was talking about, “The Phoenix Merchant Guild, those innovator types from Motregarnon, built a tavern and a store. That way people can sell their loot here instead of walking all the way back to town.”

I nodded, “Yeah that’s cool. I think I’m friends with some of them.”

“Oh? I’d build those contacts if I were you, they’re looking to become a real power in this region,” she advised me earnestly.

Let me tell you, a serious tiny gecko face is still very cute. Her eyes were like the size of baseballs in that tiny head of hers.

“I will! They were really cool people, helped me out on my first day,” I smiled, then changing the subject to one I was very interested in, I asked, “So like, is the tavern any good? Like Darbs one?”

Shaking her head, Xethu giggled softly, “You are a lively girl! I’m sorry, I have not been inside myself, but I have heard that it is more like what you’d expect in a fantasy game. It is mainly for drinking, boasting and fighting.”

That sounded like it could be fun for entirely different reasons than Darb’s place was! I wanted to get into a brawl! Still, it would have been nice to get onto another dance floor… with Aurora...

“Right,” I sighed, deciding to duck in and check it out anyway, “I’m going to go and take a look inside, it sounds fun!”

“Good luck,” she giggled again, “Don’t die, you’ll respawn back in Motregarnon.”

“I’ll try not to,” I laughed, walking towards the building in question.

The path through all the haphazardly placed camps with their bone pins was difficult to say the least. Impromptu streets seemed to form and disappear randomly based on where people thought was a viable place to set up, and although I could see where I needed to go, the wards kept me from trespassing on other party’s camps. It was like an invisible maze. Finally finding my way onto the one strip of dirt that counted as the main street in this place, I headed towards the very rowdy Tavern with building excitement. I had enough coin left for one drink if I was lucky, but maybe I could punch some more out of someone...

When I entered the tavern I found it bustling with other players, many of whom were gathered around the rough wooden tables with their parties. No one was brawling at the moment, much to my disappointment, so I headed over to the bar and sat down at one of the stools. I watched the pretty bartender flirt with a rogue looking guy who I swear was almost identical to the character I originally made. Dang, I had been so unoriginal. I was so glad I had accidentally gotten this character instead.

It took awhile for the bartender to finish, and when she did she swept right past me to attend to another handsome player. She looked to be a player herself, and I had to hide a grin at her antics. She must have quite a lot of fun in her position. Plenty of good looking men for her to take back to her tent at night, and she definitely seemed like she was warming to a few candidates right now.

I was about to interrupt her fun by calling out to her, when someone with hair that was all the colours of flame sat down next to me and did just that.

“Two half pints of mead barkeep!” Aurora called, perhaps a little roughly, getting an amused snort out of me.

I flicked a look over at her, finding her watching me with an impassive expression that was almost good enough to hide her cocky smirk. That subtle look was all I needed to feel a warm little spark in my stomach, and I had to take a breath to keep myself from doing anything drastic.

The barkeep girl sighed theatrically and grabbed two mugs, placing them one after another under the tap that had been hammered into a hogshead sized barrel. With both mugs filled to the expected amount, she placed them in front of us and went back to the guy who looked like my first character to flirt some more.

I watched the barkeep for a moment longer, then glanced back to Aurora and rolled my eyes with a mirthful smile. I got two theatrically wiggling eyebrows in return, then she turned to her mead and took a drink.

“Thanks,” I murmured, taking a drink of my own mead.

“No problem. I’ve been here once before. If you’re a pretty girl she won’t serve you for ages, it’s a bit of a pain, even if she is funny to watch,” Aurora said dryly, her cocky grin becoming unmasked just a little more.

“I was enjoying the entertainment yeah,” I chuckled.

We both smiled at each other, eyes dancing with unspoken connection. I don’t know how or why, but this chick and I seemed to have some sort of empathic connection or something. I was already getting the feeling we were having entire conversations in a glance and I kinda really loved it.

We sat in companionable silence for a minute or two before I broke the silence, “So Florence is an ass.”

Aurora grimaced and nodded, “Yeah from what I gather he was a big shot PvP dude in Gale Realm. He thinks that his fame and skill should translate directly into Cora for some reason and is pissed that it isn’t.”

“I can see why it isn’t. Gale Realm was small fry compared to Cora. Those devs murdered their game on birth with that monetisation scheme. He was probably just lucky with their bullshit weapon upgrade system and got some overpowered piece of gear,” I said, remembering my brief and thoroughly unenjoyable experience trying that game.

Laughing quietly she nodded, “Yeah it was a bit of a shit show. I really tried to give it a good run because they had some interesting ideas, but it was tough. It was like the game wanted you to hate it.”

Deciding to gauge how she was feeling about our previous intimacy, I said, “And then there was the part where it wasn’t eighteen plus, so everyone had Ken Doll crotch going on. I much prefer the way this game does things.”

Aurora choked on her drink for a second, a furious blush rising on her cheeks. I hid a grin behind my mug, enjoying how damn pretty she looked when her cheeks were all rosy like that. I wanted to tease her more, just because I loved seeing her normally stony cocky exterior melt, but I didn’t know how far I could go yet and definitely didn’t want to push things. Either way though, she was adorable.

When she had herself back under control, she nodded bashfully and murmured, “Yeah. It’s… pretty good.”

Deciding to cut her some slack and change the subject I turned the conversation towards tomorrow, “So what kind of shit am I going to be expected to punch tomorrow?”

This time she threw an almost evil smile at me when she said, “Mostly undead animals and shit. Good luck with that by the way, I wouldn’t want to touch their gross decaying flesh like… ever. We’ll be keeping to the edges though, and I hear things get weird when you go further in.”

I groaned and entreated the ceiling for help it couldn’t offer. Damn I did not want to punch undead and get my hands all gross and covered in rotting bits of animal. Gross gross gross! I needed to figure out if I could set up any abilities that would help me stay clean.

“Great. Just great,” I sighed, “Ah well. What’s it like further in?”

“Don’t know really, people say there’s like eldritch horrors and stuff, or angels, or like, plague doctors. No one can agree on what’s in there. There’s footage of it all, but it seems like one party will find something completely different from another,” she explained before taking another pull from her mug.

“That’s pretty cool actually,” I said in surprise. I wanted to go further in now!

Aurora raised an eyebrow, “Oh really? Tons of people say they don’t want to go in because it’s so weird in there.”

“No that’s what makes it interesting!” I grinned, getting a little giddy with excitement, “Like, I wonder why it’s like that. Is there like a lore reason or something? Do we know? Oh and then I want to punch the lore reason! I bet it gives good loot.”

She smiled at my enthusiasm and shook her head with a laugh, looking down at her drink, “Wow. You really do like punching things huh? I guess the game chose well for you.”

I slipped a sly glance in her direction and winked, “I’ve been enlightened to a great many wonders since I spawned.”

Luckily for her, she didn’t have her mouth full this time and didn’t end up choking. Instead she simply chuckled some more, then slid her empty mug across the bar along with the coins to pay for both drinks.

Giving me a look that sent tickles of warm energy singing up and down my spine she said, “It’s getting late and we need to leave early tomorrow. I’ll see you back at the camp unless you want to leave with me?”

“Uh… sure!” I blurted, placing my mug next to hers and following her out of the tavern. What did she mean by with her? Oh geez, she hadn’t waited again, but she did give me a look over her shoulder. Where was flirty Aurora coming from again all of a sudden? Was it the drink? Now it was me who was all flustered.

As we left, I saw rogue dude’s eyes following us intently. He seemed particularly interested in Aurora, and I glared at him until he casually turned his eyes away. Keep your eyes off her weirdo!

Jogging slightly to catch up with her, I stepped up next to her without a word, content to just walk next to her in happy silence. Maybe it was the earth shattering orgasm she’d given me a few days ago, but being around her made me feel pretty nice, so I wanted to stay next to her as long as possible. I hoped maybe she might give me another one at some point, if I was a good girl.

We entered the haphazard maze of warded campsites and tried our best to find our way through, but it quickly became clear we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. It was at our third dead end that we stopped.

“Shit,” Aurora swore, “This place is a fucking nightmare. Someone should impose some damn order on this fucking place!”

“Yeah,” I agreed, turning around and trying to get a good look in the dark as to where the hell we were.

“I can’t even figure out where we are anymore,” she sighed, doing the same thing I had just been doing.

“Yeah it’s nuts, especially now that it’s fully dark,” I groaned.

“Well, let’s turn around and try to retrace our steps I guess,” she grimaced, leading me back to the T junction we had just used.

It was moving so quickly I almost missed it, but thankfully the default passive that I had called earlier crap turned out to be anything but that. A little light blinked at the corner of my vision for a microsecond, and my eyes identified a dagger flying through the air towards my fiery haired friend. I reached out and grasped her robes, pulling her back sharply and out of the way of the blade. It was close, almost skimming close to her face, but she was unhurt when I steadied her.

“Wha-?” she started to say, then stopped when she saw the man who had thrown the dagger, “Ah shit.”

From the other direction another man rushed, and I recognised with not an ounce of surprise that it was the rogue who looked like my old character, wielding a short sword and dagger combo.

“You take the thrower, I’ll get number two,” I said urgently, moving to cover her back as she faced the guy who had tried to skewer her.

“Got it,” she said tersely, already drawing her sword.

I had just enough time before by foe arrived to see her blink forward with some sort of short ranged teleport and take a slash at the dude in front of her.

My enemy got into range and took a swing, which I dodged by dashing left, shifting into a sweep of my leg as I tried to knock him over. The problem that I faced when someone was coming at me with sharp pointy things while I had nothing but fists, was that I had no ability to deflect or block an attack. I was limited to just my skill at dodging, and I was still pretty new to the game and my character. I needed to end this fast.

He came at me again with a lightning stab at my gut, but I was just fast enough to twist sideways and let it pass me. He would have been able to slash sideways and get a hit anyway, had I not grabbed his fist and tried to pry the weapon from it. My attempt to deprive him of one of his weapons was cut short when he drove the point of his dagger at my side. Damn, how was I going to get out of this?

I tried to reset the fight a little by dashing backwards and into the dead end, but he saw that as an opportunity to try and rush Aurora instead. I wasn’t having any of that, so I flicked back in and cracked a stunning strike right into his side. Yes! A hit, I thought as he doubled over and collapsed into a campsite as his side locked up due to my ability.

I followed him down, managing to kick his short sword away in the process and depriving him of one of his weapons. It was about now that I realised something odd. He had fallen into a campsite, which should have acted like a smooth wall to him. Was this their camp? I didn’t have time to ponder it too hard because he was trying to get back up, and my question was answered anyway when I was able to pass through the same way he had.

I drove another fist into his chest, following it with a burning one a second later. He cried out in pain, trying to take a slash at me with the dagger that still remained in his hand. I was about to try retreating, when I noticed one of the large bone ward pins lying discarded on the ground. No way, had these people not set their wards properly? I lunged for it, grabbing it and lifting it high into the air.

Mister rogue stared at it in confusion for a second, before he registered what I was about to try and do with a yelp. I drove it down past his desperate flailing guard and into his chest, then pulled back and waited to see what happened. How would the game react to someone not from the owning party being inside the wards when they went up?

I locked eyes with the terrified and pained rogue as the pin blinked red in his chest. The moment the pin went red, every part of him that was inside the ward violently popped in a shower of gore, blood and chunks of bone that splattered across the invisible inside wall of the campsite.

I sat on my haunches and watched the bits dribbling down the invisible wall with a mix of disgust, awe and for some odd reason, amusement. Wow, that was not what I had been expecting. I’d thought maybe he’d be cut in half or something, but that… well that seemed almost excessive!

I stood up when I heard blades still singing from where Aurora was fighting. Rushing forward, I put myself into a slide, activating my dash at the same time to get through her enemy’s guard, using my forearm to trip him as I went skidding past. Aurora capitalised on his sudden lack of solid guard by slicing upwards in an extravagant flourish that cut his neck clean open. An instant later she was finishing him with a vicious stab that cracked into his skull.

“Whoa,” I laughed, grinning up at her from the ground, “That was intense.”

Her serious fighting expression dissolved into a grin of her own that caused butterflies to go berserk in my stomach. My giddy heart drank in the sight of her, cheeks flushed from the fight and chest heaving enticingly as her breathing began to calm down. How the hell was I feeling all this mushy stuff after watching a dude literally explode?

Taking a cloth out of her inventory, she cleaned her sword and sheathed it, then dismissed the rag back where it had come from.

I watched her step over the body of the guy she’d killed and offer me a hand to get up off the ground, which I took gratefully. She lifted me easily, and that feat caused another round of excited fluttering in my chest. Now that I was upright, I found myself very close to her, able to smell a little of her scent and finding it… well it was nice. She was nice. Wow she was pretty, inside and out.

She licked her lips for a moment, her breathing coming a little faster than it had before as she searched my eyes. We stayed like that for I don’t know how long, I think time was having a bit of trouble staying straight just then. Our lips were so close, I could feel her breath mingling with mine between us, and oh how my heart was racing. I think my mind was having a meltdown, it was firing randomly down lines of thought only to leave them half finished. Oh gods above please just kiss me!

Almost as though she was stepping into a gale, she took a deep breath and stepped away, dropping my hand and saying breathlessly, “Uhhm. Let’s… let’s loot these guys and try to find our way back to camp.”

I had to swallow once or twice just to get my voice back before I replied in a croak, “Uh yeah. Sounds good.”

We got to work seeing what the game would let us take, which turned out to be a reasonable number of coins, plus the thrown dagger and… the guy I had detonated’s nice boots. Everything else would fade and stay with them when they respawned. Quickly dividing up the coins between us, we left the scene of the fight and wordlessly pushed through the maze until we finally found our camp site.

Things felt pretty weird between us, neither of us able to make full eye contact, but trying anyway. I caught her smiling at me slightly when she thought I wasn’t looking, so I was pretty sure we hadn’t made things totally awkward. My heart was having trouble calming down though. Damn! She… gah! I wanted her in so many ways my brain even had trouble deciding what to fantasise about.

When she placed her bedroll down, I put mine down next to hers with a question in my eyes. I sighed with more relief than I would care to admit when she gave a shy smile and nodded. Woo! She still liked me!

The others were already quietly in their bedrolls, so I put myself back in human form and slipped into my own one. I watched with rapt attention as Aurora took her robes off, hearing the clink of hidden blades as she did so. Underneath was that singlet and bra combo again, but this time I saw she was also wearing some breezy looking pants made of spider silk. I was kind of jealous of those actually.

“Goodnight,” she murmured, wriggling into her own bag and looking over for a moment to smile at me.

That smile made all sorts of warm gooey feelings bounce around inside me and I knew that sleeping was going to be damn hard to achieve. Shit my heart had still not stopped beating wildly!