Life After the Apocalypse

Darkness.

The confusion of a troubled sleep.

A sense of missing something. Something important but just beyond the grasp of your memory...

A voice. No. A Song. A sad, melancholy voice in the muddled darkness... No words, just a vocalization of deep sorrow...and maybe hope?

A faint, hazy light permeates the darkness.

The feel of warm wind on your face. The susurrus of leaves in the trees. The sounds of water gurgling nearby.

A sudden jerk, like a myoclonic twitch that wakes you suddenly from a deep sleep, and your eyes open into streaming sunlight and an open meadow around you...



>>>Wait! This definitely isn't where you were just a moment ago... The last thing you remember was finishing the tutorial on this quaint old MMO you and your Internet friends decided to try. You'd just clicked ACCEPT to join the main game after the tutorial and...what? Where?! How?!

>>> Everything was pretty clear in your mind up until that button click...and now?? Now you're just standing next to a gently flowing creek in the middle of nowhere and around you are four others you don't recognize. Wait, no... They do look familiar. They look like your friends' characters you were playing alongside... But that's impossible , right? Right!?!

Before...



Russell sighs heavily as he flops down on his couch. Another long day at his thankless job has come to an end. It's mind-numbing work, but it (barely) pays the rent on his one-bedroom apartment.

He thought his life's trajectory was going to be different. He thought by 38 years old, he'd have more to show for it--a family, a house, an actual career. Well, at least he has video games. He needs some escape from the daily drudgery.

Russell picks up his controller and fires up Elder Tales II. He played the game extensively in college when it first debuted twenty years ago. He was bemused by the sudden resurgence in the MMO's popularity, and curiosity about the new expansion that just dropped compelled him to install it once again.

He's immediately impressed by the graphical upgrades the past two decades have brought. The characters look nearly photo realistic. He indulges himself by using the option to scan his facial features onto his avatar, then, with a smirk, changes the character's gender to "female." There she is, a slender woman with the same brunette hair, hazel eyes, and glasses.

Russell tweaks some of the settings, giving her long hair (to compensate for his own encroaching male pattern baldness) and a full-figured build. Once satisfied with the look, he proceeds to select her class (weapon master: assassin) and starting abilities.

At last, the game begins! Or, at least the tutorial! Grouped up with a handful of other newbies, Russell familiarizes himself with the controls, combat systems, and other nuances of the game. It isn't long before the tutorial is complete, and the time has come to get into the meat and potatoes of Elder Tales II!

"Here we go," Russell says to himself.

And then, darkness claims him...

---

Now...

Russell blinks his eyes as the world comes back into focus again. He's not sure what just happened, but it was certainly weird! But it looks like the weirdness is just beginning.

The warm sunlight is a stark contrast to his dimly lit apartment. The greasy couch he was sitting on has become a grassy field. He turns his head to look around and feels something soft brushing against his cheeks. Hair. Long hair?

As he brings up his hand to brush the hair aside, he can't help but notice how small and slender it looks, covered by a black leather glove. Awareness begins to spread, and he realizes his entire body feels odd. His center of balance is lower, and there is a heavy weight on his chest. He looks down and...

"EEK!" Russell yelps, his voice decidedly a higher pitch than it ever has been before. For he now beholds his body, or more accurately, her body. The body of Raquel, the avatar he created. The curvy, female body, clad in leather armor that doesn't cover nearly as much as it should.

Russell puts her hands to her face in shock. "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. I must be," she says, her voice unfamiliar and alien. Belatedly, she notices the other newbies' characters are nearby, and they seem to be reacting in a similar fashion.

What have I gotten myself into?

"This is not what my therapist meant!" was the first thought that went through through Taylor's mind when he blinked.

"Maybe dad was right about these computer games." was his second thought. Followed immediately by an outloud, "Nah, Dad is never right."

Taylor's parents were conspiracy theorists who believed in everything from gay chemicals in chemtrails to cellphone signals implanting microchips. Of course it was their belief in government codes that made taxes optional that brought the law down. It was their disbelief in doctors that got Taylor into foster care. (Broken legs sucked.)

Taylor's new state-assigned therapist had suggested he try a multiplayer game to help acclimate to 'modern life' and this Elder Tales II had come pre-installed in his equally new computer.

Learning to even control the computer enough to play the game had been a bit of a challenge. It had taken him almost an hour (and a lot of random re-rolls) before he landed on a look he liked. That it was a girl that both his father and mother would have hated was just a bonus.

Now it seemed things were a little more real than the make-believe he (she?) was supposed to try out.

Just another day sculpting and painting miniatures. What better way to vent some steam by tiring more his eyes on a computer screen, Jim thought amusingly. He changed desks by dragging his chair to the one with the PC. The other one where his workshop was, was a mess. Figurines, putty, paints, tools, everything looked like it was thrown randomly on the desk but he knew where everything was. When his girlfriend protested to clean the workshop he always said to her "Order through disorder". Anyway, it was a tiring day and he was ahead of schedule to deliver the last sculpt to the client. Some hours in his favourite game were the best compensation. He stopped the music and loaded Elder Tales II.

In truth he never got bored this game, he had made so many characters just for fun but never really played them. In all those years he had not reached the endgame, he was too busy playing the side quests and immersing himself in the game world. But this time he was determined to play the character to its fullest. He started tweaking him. "Yeah, sure, let’s go with a fox." thought playfully, finalised the character and played the intro. "Hm, nothing new so far, I wonder what the fuss is about the new release…" he thought as the tutorial ended.

…

"What is this?"
He covered his eyes from the sun. He was in a meadow next to a creek. He could hear the water running and the soft wind. He could smell the moisture and the grass.
"Wait a minute...is this real?" he thought and touched the grass. Yes it felt real. Then he saw his arms. They had red and black fur. He checked his clothes, those were not his clothes, those are what his game avatar wore. He touched his nose, or more likely his snout.
"Wait...what...how is this possible?" he thought and looked around. There were other people there, that looked as lost as him. And something was behind him...a fox tail?


concept art

A jolt woke Clara from her sleep.

Warm sunlight streamed through her eyelids, revealing a scene straight out of a fantasy painting. Towering trees, their leaves a vibrant green, formed a canopy overhead. This was not the familiar beige walls of her bedroom.

Clara reached up to rub her eyes, but her face was met with soft fur. No more calloused fingers from years of lab work, but nimble, fluffy paws that looked suspiciously similar to her cat Cinnamon. She knew she was a little sleep-deprived, but it could not have been so bad to the point of hallucinating, could it?

Clara tried to remember what happened before she fell asleep. Lately, time had blurred into a monotonous flow. After three intense years at a research lab with a lot of overtime and weekend work, Clara had finally finished her contract. Exhausted and disillusioned, she had decided to take a break to figure out what to do next for her career. Being back home, surrounded by the well-meaning but stifling routine of her family, felt strange after years of independence. The constant hum of the fridge and the tick-tock of the clock seemed amplified, a stark contrast to the always busy life she led from early school all the way through work after university graduation. Days bled into weeks, filled with half-hearted attempts at job applications and long walks with her beloved calico, Cinnamon.

The truth was, science was not Clara's true passion. Yes, it was interesting, but it was the path her family chose for her, with their emphasis on stability and "practicality". Clara dutifully followed her parents' aspirations, excelling in school and landing a good position in a renowned research group right out of university. But the thrill of discovery she had as a child was lost somewhere amidst test tubes and beakers, never truly materialised.

Ever since she was a kid, she loved burying her nose in fantasy fiction, escaping into worlds filled with magic and wonder. It was during a lazy afternoon browsing the web that she stumbled upon an ad for the launch of the highly anticipated MMORPG, Elder Tales II. She was no stranger to video games. Despite her strict upbringing, she would always be able to sneak some gaming here and there to destress, but she was a novice to the MMO world. She did some research about the game, finding so many praises about its prequel. The trailer for the new game was very captivating. Plus, the soundtracks were exactly her cup of tea. Full of curiousity, Clara signed up for the launch.

When she opened the character creation interface for the first time, she was in awe. The system seemed very detailed, with many interesting races and character options to choose from. She was being overwhelmed with what she wanted her character to be, when Cinnamon flopped down on her keyboard, begging for attention. This gave her an idea.

After crafting an almost 1:1 copy of Cinnamon, she named it Calico Calamity. "This is to honour all the havoc you cause around the house." Clara said as she rubbed Cinnamon's belly. The cat gazed up at her with the most innocent eyes, as she often did when scolded.

With a press of a button, Clara confirmed her character. She could not tell what happened after, just that now, she found herself as the in-game copy of her cat, standing in a world far stranger than any experiment she'd ever conducted.

>>>Wind ripples through the tall grass in the wild fields just beyond the wood line where you all find yourselves suddenly thrust into an alien, yet familiar, world. Your bodies feel like ill-fitting clothing in ways you can't quite describe...or maybe there's just no term or turn of phrase to quantify the sensation.
>>>As if the situation wasn't weird enough, strange and unsettling cries echo from deeper in the woods. They don't sound too close but they also don't sound like anything you recognize from Earth either... But then again, gamers aren't well known for their experience with 'The Great Outdoors'.

Russell focuses on her breathing, taking several deep, steadying breaths and doing her best to ignore the strange weight on her chest. It looks like those around her are experiencing the same sense of shock that she's feeling, so at least she's not alone. As she tries to calm herself, she scans her surroundings...

"So, I'm new to this whole...computer thing." Taylor states slowly. "But I'm guessing this is not normal?"

Clara turns around to see her new friends, and her neck hurts. Everyone is much taller than she is. Or rather, she is very, very short in her cat body. She is not exactly the tallest person in real life, but to be this tiny surely is a bizarre feeling.

"Last time I checked, virtual reality hasn't advanced this far." Clara answers the red-haired girl's question. Surprisingly, her voice still sounds like her own, probably because Cinnamon, the cat that inspired this character, cannot speak.

She looks to the direction the eerie echoes came from, her whiskers twitching. It is a weird sensation. It almost feels like... she can detect vibrations in the air.

Fren closes to the others. He feels the body moving natural, although a bit stiff. "Is this normal? No it isn't." he answers. He turns to Calico, that cat looks familiar somehow.

>>> Unfamiliar sensations set Raquel and Calamity on edge but for no discernable reason. The new bodies of the Assassin and Pirate follow reflexes wholly alien to the people inhabiting them. Hands move to sheathed weapons in practiced ways, stances shift and muscles tense.
>>>Moments later the sounds of something moving fast in the woods behind become noticable. Something is charging headlong through the brush seemingly heading your way...

---

>>>Crashing through the scrub and into the small clearing by the stream, a plainly dressed burly young human flies headlong at a full run. He stumbled, trying to arrest his forward momentum, backpedaling and falling backwards instead. His eyes were wide and panicked, flickering between you all in turn before yelling, "Run!" and trying to scramble to his feet.
>>>Behind him, the brush quaked with whatever followed the boy...

Russell's sword is in her hands before she even realizes what she is doing. The katana's blade gleams in the sunlight as the young man stumbles into the field. Acting on instinct, she steps forward to confront whatever might be pursuing him, her own bizarre situation temporarily forgotten...

Fren draws his sword, the silver Jian straight blade gleaming on the sun and gets on a Chūdan-no-kamae defensive stance. How he had the sword equipped and how he knows all those things? He does not know but it works.

Calamity's fur stands on end. Her pupils dilate as she scans the surroundings for danger.

Taylor snaps to. "Eh, I know how to throw fists, but something tells me this is going to be different."

>>>The ruckus in the woods following the young man makes itself known moments later as a trio of... creatures...leap from the brush into the small clearing with you. Short, evil looking things with rusty ill kept weapons at the ready burst into the scene. They're Goblins... They have to be...though they look a whole lot less cute and a ton more homicidal than they did in the actual game tutorial!

>>>Music erupts from seemingly nowhere as the green humanoids take in the sudden appearance of the five of you in the clearing. An odd pressure just behind your eyes presages the appearance of a Status Bar, complete with an ID tag and full Health Bars above the heads of the three Goblins.

---

Level 12 Goblin Raider "Grrr..."

Level 12 Goblin Raider "Hssss..."

Level 15 Goblin Boss "Yarr..."

---

>>>
>>>Scrambles on hands and knees behind the five of you, "They're gonna kill us!"

The disembodied music gets Russell's blood pumping. She may not know how she's ended up in her character's body, but she knows how to fight goblins. "Stay behind us!" she calls to the cowering boy as she twirls her katana. "Take out the adds first! Focus down one at a time. Let's go!"

She rushes forward to the closest of the goblin raiders and strikes!

Atalanta quickly closes in with the goblins and gets among them. "I'm over here creepies."

Atalanta is going to try to use Laughing Taunt to pull the agro off the BradL33. Hopefully by the next turn one of use will have the aggro instead.

Fren does not lose time, he will attack the closest goblin. "I hate those creeps!" he says with gritted teeth, his canines showing. He knows that although goblins are not that dangerous alone, they can be quite difficult in numbers. "Keep a lookout for more!" he says after his attack.

Calamity's hazel eyes dart between the approaching goblins. She launches herself onto a nearby rock, gaining a bit of height. Although Clara has never held a firearm in real life, her tiny paws move with surprising familiarity, as if the knowledge of how to use the pistol is imprinted within her subconsciousness. Taking a deep breath (or is it a hiss?), Calamity aims at the goblin closest to BradL33.

>>>Raquel, Fren and Atalanta take the fight to the Goblins at the treeline while Calamity takes the high ground on a boulder near the stream and lets loose with her old-timey pistol.

>>>The feeling of fear and exhilaration mixed in terrifying ways. Attacking something with deadly intent wasn't something you'd done before (to anything bigger than an insect) but these bodies you inhabited felt practiced in the art of combat. It felt like a hand slipping into a comfortable glove as they moved in ways you'd never have been able to in the 'real' world...

Arga pointed his staff at the assaulting Goblins frantically, as if trying to wave something off the end of the gnarled wooden weapon. "C'mon... Magic's gotta work..." Panic was more than obvious in his voice. Everyone else had weapons and armor and apparently training; all he had was a stick and a cape unless magic was a real thing here.

"Try yelling....? I don't know..." BradL33 scuttled behind the boulder Calamity was standing atop.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Arga pointed the staff and yelled at the top of his lungs.

He facepalmed hard. "No. Yell the name of a spell, maybe...?" BradL33 looked up at the Cat Pirate on top of the boulder as if to ask *Is this guy really that dense?*

"Um...umm... think. What was the name on the hotbar?!?" the sorcerer rapped on his bushy haired skull til the name popped into his head. "Oh! FLARE ARROW !!!"he yelled, staff pointing at the Goblin opposite the one struck by Raquel, Fren and Calamity. The Sorcerer's black mystic tattoos surge with orange light that traced down to the tip of his staff and then leaps forth into a beam of fiery light at the remaining Goblin Raider.>>>In response to the sudden defiance of what was once such easy prey, the bigger of the three Goblins raises their rusty double scimitars to the sky. Crossing them and then bringing them sharply down, a terrible screeching sound issues from the blades along with a curved spark of light that cuts across the clearing in an instant, growing wider the further from the Goblin it travelled.
Struck first by Raquel's blade, then Fren's and finally taking Calamity's shot, the Goblin's Status Bar registers it's red HP meter plummetting until it disappears. The Raider bowls over backwards and explodes into a burst of rainbow-hued light as it hits the ground. In the aftermath of the incredible sight, a handful of glittering coins and a bottle rain to the ground around where the Goblin once was...
Following up on the Boss' move, the remaining Goblin Raider turns their rusty-bladed attention to Atalanta. Offering to pull attention away from BradL33 has it's consequences as the green menace lunges at the Monk with it's cruel looking blade... Atalanta's practiced body easily dances away from the Goblin's crude swipe with the blade as Arga's Flare Arrow strikes, sending the Raider's HP bar to less than 1/3 full.

---

Russell gasps and grits her teeth as the sparks from the goblin boss's blades strikes her. "Ouch! That freaking hurts!" she exclaims, her skin still tingling painfully from the blast. "I guess pain is real in this game, too."

As Atalanta dodges the other raider's attack, Russell dashes behind that goblin and slashes, but the goblin dodges the clumsy strike! "Bah! Stay still!" she growls.

Fren grits his teeth through the pain. Not what he was expecting, but what really he was expecting? They are inside a video game? How? He washes aside this thought as he gets down on a posture and starts meditating. He will cast Healing Forge.

As the big goblin unleashed its attack, the screeching sound made Calamity squeeze her eyes shut, ears flattened like her cat Cinnamon when it was time for a shower.

The light arc from the goblin's blades hit. A wave of pain washed over her, but... she was still alive? Despite her small size, she appears... relatively unharmed?

Surprised but also a little emboldened by her new physique, Calamity takes aim again at the goblin currently engaged with Raquel and Atalanta.

From within the scrum, Atlanta targets the spell caster for a quick punch combo.

Atalanta looks down at their fist after landing the serious blow. "Woa, never been strong before."

>>>One down, two to go... One of the Goblin Raiders had been defeated and burst into multicolored light. Raquel struck at the remaining Raider, still burning from Arga's seemingly magical strike. The Raider's rusty short sword met the Assassin's blade in an effort to keep it from biting into its flesh and meeting the same fate as their compatriot. A sharp turn of the Goblin's blade wrests Raquel's Katana from her grasp and sent it spinning away out of her hands to land nearby, sinking point down and vibrating in the soft soil...
>>> Atalanta, the cat girl Monk, pivots to palmstrike the bigger Goblin Boss before it can recover to act again. A solid, bone crunching strike staggers it back a couple of steps and eliciting an hair-raising gutteral growl.
>>>The gloating glower of the remaining Goblin Raider gets cut short by the impact of Calamity's Pistol shot. In the moment, Calamity...or the scientist mind inside the Catfolk body...realized that real wheelock pistols are single shot and need to be reloaded after every shot but she just shot twice out of the one in her hand, or paws in this case. One more bit of the impossible to add to the considerable pile of weirdness...
>>> Atalanta's strike and Calamity's Pistol shot buys Fren enough breathing room to try one of their Cleric Class spells. Invoking the power of Healing Forge , intense light floods across the clearing bringing an invigorating energy to you and burning pain to the remaining Goblins. The remaining Raider succumbs to the burning purity of the light and bursting into rainbow light if its own and vanishing with a similar rain of coins and an item.>>>"Flare Arrow!!" Arga shouts and lets loose with another searing bolt of fire...only to watch it go wide and land entirely too near Raquel for comfort. "LOOK OUT!! Sorry!" he shouted after the bolt came to rest scorching the ground behind the Assassin.

---

>>>With its lackeys gone, the Goblin Boss realizes that it's outnumbered and outgunned but also knows it'll never manage to survive making a break for it. Striking out of spite at the Monk before it, the Goblin Boss swings it's pair of rusty cutlasses...only to watch as the Monk easily evades the strike.

---

Russell gives the others a grateful glance as she dashes over to her katana and pulls it free of the soil. "Good work! Let’s finish the boss now!"

Seeing others being targeted by the green monster, something clicks in her subconsciousness. Standing tall on the rock (as tall as a small cat can stand, that is), Calamity throws back her head and lets out a loud yowl. It's the best she can muster in her tiny feline body, but it carries a surprising force, echoing in the clearing. "Over here, you oversized pickle".

Fren stands up and raises his sword at the sky. He does a quick incantation, almost an instant, and the sword emits a blinding light. He casts Holy Hit.

Atalanta continues her attack against the Goblin Boss.

Damage [HR] High Roll + [6] = 7+6 = 13

Not wanting to be left out and very much wanting these Goblins to just 'go away', the Sorcerer levels his Staff at the Goblin Boss and blasts away... hoping not to fry Raquel or anyone other than the green skinned menace.
"Flare Arrow!!"

>>>Raquel races to recover her blade nearby as Calamity directs the Goblin Boss' attention towards the ginger cat Pirate to buy her some cover. Atalanta's knee to the Goblin's gut staggers it back into Fren's sword-strike. With a blade as radiant as the sun, the Fox cuts across the Goblin's undefended back dropping it's Health Bar to a tiny sliver of it's former robustness. Arga's fire magic finishes off the remainder in true overkill fashion... The fiery blast obscuring the flash of rainbow light that signalled the end of creatures such as these. Two bottles, an item and a handful of coins rained in the vacuum of where the Goblin had once stood. The mysterious music swelled and ended with a solid electric guitar riff, to be replaced with the relative silence of the babbling brook and the sound of wind rustling through the trees...

---

---

>>>BradL33 slowly came out from behind the boulder, "Please.please.please.please.please tell me you're real people." He looked to you all as if finally having the time, and maybe the presence of mind, to get a good look at you all. "I mean, like... I dunno what I mean??" He was clearly struggling to give voice to what he was thinking and feeling. "Like people from Earth, not this crazy game world..."

>>>As if to interrupt BradL33’s question, a holographic version of the game User Interface popped into your view with startling suddenness.
>>>Your Class Icon sat in the middle of a plethora of 'drop-down' menu tabs: HP/MP Status, Character Level, Friends List, Equipment, Class Abilities, Subclass Abilities (greyed out for everyone but Fren), Racial Abilities, Party Status, etc... Everything you'd expect to have in an MMO character sheet. The LOG OFF button immediately catches your eye...only to dash hopes as it is solidly greyed out and unresponsive. However, the Character Level display scintillates with color and a similarly strobing 'up' arrow next to it. >>>

>>>Perhaps noticing everyone's sudden 'thousand yard stare', BradL33 asks "Um, is everything ok?"

Russell's attention is pulled from the pleading BradL33 to the menus now floating in front of her face. She looks over the options briefly before looking back to the young man. "Yeah, it's okay as it's likely to get in this bizarre situation. Don't worry, we are real people. We've been pulled into our characters from the game. My name is..."

Russell hesitates a moment. There's already enough going on without having to pile on the fact that she's supposed to be a man, not a woman. She decides to stick with her character's name.

"Raquel. My name's Raquel. We're all figuring this out together, kid. Stick with us and we'll keep you safe. Now, if you'll excuse me for just a moment. I think we just 'dinged.'"

She reaches out to touch the Level Up button in front of her.

Taylor looks around as if checking if any more monsters are coming.

"Depends on what you mean by 'real' because I'm pretty sure my hair wasn't red yesterday." At this point Taylor's tail, which agitatedly slaps along the side of his leg. "Oh, and I didn't have a tail either."

"The game is calling me Atalanta, but I'll probably answer faster to Taylor for now."

Calamity, still perched atop the boulder, lets out a sigh of relief. She can't help but be impressed by how well they worked as a team, even though they only met moments ago.

Her attention is caught briefly by the holographic interface that just materialised. A quick scan reveals the essentials, not much different from other games she played in the past. After confirming the basic menus and options, she turns to the new guy.

"Seems like you're one of us too. How did you end up in the woods with those green monsters?" Realising that she hasn't introduced herself, she adds. "Oh, and I'm Clara. That's probably easier to say than my username."

>>>"Okay is definitely going to be a 'relative term' from here on out, I guess. 'Sane' and the word 'Normal' too..." BradL33 mumbled in response before a sudden realization struck him. "Hey. Whaddya ya mean, "Kid"??" his gaze shot to Raquel, a puzzled and somewhat indignant expression on his face.

>>>"Dude... You better take a look..." the Sorcerer pointed to the pool of water at the bank of the brook. 'I think we've all got a lot of adjusting to do..."
>>> Hesitantly, BradL33 took the few steps over to the still waters of the pool and bent over to take in his reflection. Oh my God...I look like I'm Twelve Years Old..." his gloved hands roamed over his hls face and hair. He didn't look that young, but definitely not like an adult.
>>>"I guess...it could be worse." he said hollowly, some of the drained color returning to his face as the shock started to wear off. "I know people who made their characters hideous on purpose during character creation." BradL33 stood up and laughed a full-on belly laugh, "Bet they're in for a real shock today!"
>>>He let his (probably stress driven) mirth subside as he listened to 'Taylor' and 'Clara' speak, the goofy smile still sitting on his face. He wiped a mirth-driven tear from his eye, "Oh, um... he stammered sheepishly, "My name actually is Bradley. I couldn't think of anything better for this alt character." He seemed genuinely embarrassed by that. "I was out here gatherings mats..." materials, aka consumable crafting items in game slang "...or, rather, my character was when the Expansion hit. I figured when the Expansion hit the mats would refresh and I'd be able to snake the rare stuff out from under everyone else if I was already out here. I hit the ACCEPT button and...I dunno...like 'woke up' in the woods." He looked around at the others to see if they recognized any commonality in what he said. "It took me a minute to get my head straight and then I heard something...someone...nearby and called out. Turns out, Goblins have really good hearing. They attacked me and I...Ran. Ran for my life. I didn't know what else to do. Then I ran into you guys." He paused a moment, somberness overtaking his previous mirth, "Thanks for helping me out. I didn't know what to do... Three of those things I could handle, y'know, back when I was sitting in front of my laptop clicking away at a game. This. This is different ."

---

---

>>>It had been a panic inducing time for Isbjorn, or rather the mind inside Isbjorn, after the sudden transition from the 'world that was' and into this strange world he found himself in now. Coming to consciousness in the middle of a ruined forest path, the man found himself changed in ways he didn't understand. Alone and in a place unlike anything he knew. His brain fuzzy and unfocused, it came into sharp relief realizing his son was nowhere nearby. Hadn't he just been right there talking to him?? No. That was different. That was... That was the old world. Talking over the game chat...
>>>Noises ring through the trees. Voices. People. Maybe the sound of your son's voice up ahead? No. None of them sounded right. But maybe they know where he'd be? The broken cobbled path lead toward where the voices murmured. Whoever they were, it couldn't be worse than being alone in a strange forest.

Isbjorn stood up and dusted off the bits of grass and dirt clinging to the deep blue robes he was now wearing instead of his usual button-up and jeans. He then slowly walked towards the direction of the noise. He knew that there was little chance his 17-year old son Ulrik—the son that he didn't even know he had until a few months ago—was just over where the voices were, but that didn't stop him from desperately hoping, anyway. Isbjorn didn't want to imagine Ulrik here... wherever he was, alone by himself.

He followed the forest path, and emerged into a clearing with a pond and was surprised at the motley group of... people waiting for him. Isbjorn couldn't help but stare at the decidedly non-humans of the group, feeling like everything was a dream. Was that a fox... and a cat? His son had introduced him to the different race options in Elder Tales when he first started creating his character for the game. Isbjorn vaguely remembered there being non-human options, but he picked human since it was the simplest for him to understand.

"HELLO!" he greeted the group. He grimaced inside, scolding himself for shouting a bit too loud due to his nervousness. His big, booming voice, not to mention his towering height and burly build often scared many children to tears, and intimidated a few adults. He tried giving a friendly wave after, but the biting, cold energy shooting out of his fingertips startled him. "What the hell?!" Was that magic? Right, I picked sorcerer as my class in the game... does that mean I could use magic?

Isbjorn shook his head. No, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is I need to find my son as soon as possible. He gave the group of strangers an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. Uh, my name's Isbjorn. I'm guessing you guys are—were players of Elder Tales too? It's a long shot, but does any one of you happen to know someone named... ah, I forgot what his username was, but his name is Ulrik and he's a Guardian."

A gold glow surrounds Raquel as she levels up. She feels tougher and, somehow, luckier. She gives Bradley a sympathetic look. "We are all in shock a bit over our transformations. Some of us more so than others." She glances down at the bit of extra cushion around her bare midriff, regretting not bringing the weight slider down a bit.

Her eyes widen when the burly man emerges from the woods and bellows a greeting. That’s a big dude! She blushes when she realizes she has been staring and glances away. "No Ulrik here, bro. But it’s dangerous to go alone, so you might as well stick with us, too, and we can help you find him. I’m Raquel."

As the others introduce themselves, Raquel moves to inspect the loot laying on the ground.

>>>"I wonder how much 'game logic' exists here?" Bradley mused and opened the pack at his hip. Astonished, he pulled out a gnarled wooden implement (that was somewhere between a staff, a club and a tree branch) clearly far too big to have been held inside the small pack.
>>>Inspired by the discovery, he slipped off the bulky backpack he wore and set it down in front of him and began retrieving whole logs from the container, each falling heavily to the ground when he let go of them. "This is crazy..." he continued pulling odds and ends out of the backpack far,far in excess of what its volume should hold. He finished by pulling out a beautifully formed red apple and (throwing caution to the wind) took a big bite. "Hm. Not bad. Tastes like an apple. I'm not about to try the mushrooms I collected though..." he mused as he looked at the items he'd emptied from the pack laying around him.
>>>He was pondering how to get all the junk back in his pack when a thought struck him. "Oh. Um, what Level are you guys?" he asked, trying not to sound weird by asking what was once probably absurd question. "I'm only Level 22. If you guys are lower level, like me, the next time you fight...and I hope we don't have to...you might get hit with a Fatigued Status if you don't eat something.". It was definitely going to take some getting used to the way this world worked.

>>>"Hey, dude. I'm a Sorcerer too..." Arga seemed enthused to meet Isbjorn, another person like him. "I do Fire Magic, so we've got this HeatMiser/ColdMiser dynamic going on, huh." Unlike Isbjorn, Arga was clearly not human. Not as obviously as the two Catfolk and the Fox Tail, but clearly inhuman. What could only be termed 'Jack Kirby-esqe' tattoos ran over Arga's body and his orange colored eyes glowed with a hint of lumenosity. "Who's this Ulrich you're looking for?"

---

>>>Raquel takes a moment to trace the area around where the Goblins fell in battle. Clear tracks and stomped grass indicated their presence; she could almost choreograph their battle moves by the tracks left behind. But the little green men had just vanished, leaving no trace of a body behind where they fell. Instead, glittering gold coins and a couple of items lay in the grass around where they'd fallen.
>>>Picking up what they'd left behind, she counted out 24 gold coins, two small bottles of a red liquid and a crude looking iron bangle of some sort. "Logic", as such a thing existed currently, indicated that the bottles contained an HP Potion. At least they heavily resembled the ones given to players through the tutorials anyway.

"Oh my God... I look like I'm Twelve Years Old... I guess... it could be worse." Upon hearing that from Bradley, Calamity, or Clara, wants to pat him on the shoulder, but realises she is too short to do that. "It's okay, at least you're not in an animal's body." She misses not having to crane her neck to look up at people.

As if these new friends of hers are not already tall enough, a towering man appears from behind the trees, his face looking lost. Despite his physique, Clara doesn't feel intimidated. After all, the guy seems as flustered with his current situation as the rest of them are.

"It seems there're many more victims of this... whatever this is. I don't know whether I should be relieved or concerned." Paw on her chin, Clara thinks out loud.

After a short introduction, Clara decides to ask for more information from Bradley, who seems to be a veteran of Elder Tales. "So we can stuff an absurd amount of items in our backpacks, but we still have to eat? Where would we find food here, in the middle of nowhere? You also said you were gathering mats, for what though? What kind of stuff can we craft in this game?"

Fren noticed the "level up" menu and gave a glance. He then closed it and left it for another time, he wants to do it in a more secure area, possibly a town or an inn, and maybe he will know some more things about this world. He then turns to the kid that came through the bushes. "Nice to meet you Bradley, I am...Fren. No I am not that high level with that character, only 10. Just fresh from the tutorial. I guess the others are the same level as me." he says. Game etiquette and for safety reasons, he knew that you should not use your real name in a MMO, although he thought that he, somehow, recognised the other players from their names. And that kitty looked familiar.

He turns around and sees the newcomer. Although Fren is tall, he is nowhere near tall and especially not that broad as the guy that introduced himself as Isbjorn.

Raquel collects the coins and potion, intending to distribute them to the others later on. She looks at the iron bangle curiously before sliding it onto her wrist to see what happens.

Isbjorn calmly approached the group, relieved that these strangers weren't threatened by him. Once he got closer though, he couldn't help but be shocked and slightly anxious. He figured a lot of them would be pretty young—teenagers just like his son whose hobby was playing games, but he hadn't expected to see little kids as well. Their parents must be very worried... Still, he greeted them one by one, memorizing their names and answering their questions.

He gently smiled at the young woman in glasses, and answered, "I'll take you up on your offer, Raquel, and go with you guys. I agree that there's safety in numbers." Isbjorn then turned to the sorcerer with tattoos, fondly chuckling at the young man's enthusiasm. "Ulrik... Ulrik's my son," he simply said. "He's the one who wanted to team up with a Sorcerer so you'll have to thank him for that." If I find him... No, When I find him.

Overhearing Clara's concerns about food, Isbjorn addressed the group. "If what Bradley's saying is true... I think we should find the nearest settlement. A town, a village, just somewhere with more people so we could get more information. Along the way we could try hunting some wild game if we can find them. I don't have any experience in hunting, but since we have this—" He opened his hand, palm upward, intending to produce some magic. Thankfully it worked, as a small chunk of ice now rested on his hand. "—we could probably manage somehow. What do you guys think?"

Taylor looks around a little, but does not jump in to leveling up. "I'll look at that later." Taylor mutters to themselves.

"Not only fresh to the tutorial, fresh to computer games in general. What a way to get starts right?"

"Basic survival says finding shelter is the most important, especially if monster attacks are really a thing here." Then she shrugs. "I know how to hunt, but really only with rifles."

>>>Dismissing the User Interface, whether for later use or after finishing Leveling Up, proves easy enough by pushing the ❌ on the holographic display. Calling it up again seems to be a reflexive mental action and not just an event triggered by Leveling Up. Fortunate, given how handy having all that information at your literal fingertips could be.

>>>"Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't think of it that way..." BradL33 suddenly realized the import of Clara's statement. "I was just so relieved not to be alone here I... I didn't think about how being here might affect you guys too." He didn't know how to address her assertion about being trapped in a humanoid body, especially one so drastically different from 'normal' existence. Perhaps to buy time to think about what Clara had opened his eyes to, he started exploring how to store all the items he'd taken out of his pack. Sorting through the pile of stuff he tossed a wrapped package over to Clara, "Here. I had some food packed just in case. Go ahead and take it, there's more but I have to dig it out."
>>>BradL33 seemed like he was about to address Clara's question about crafting when something Fren and Taylor said diverted his interest. "Wait. You guys are right out of the Tutorial?" he stood up quickly and started a head count. "Five. Six. Seven... Uh oh." He knelt down and started throwing stuff into his backpack hurriedly. "I don't know if things still work exactly like the game but we gotta go. Like now..." he shouldered the pack as if it were perfectly normal and not holding a couple hundred kilos of weight. "Those Goblins you fought. IF things work kinda like the game, the things that live here zero in on players. Us. Those three Goblins zeroed in on me. They were what? Like Level 12? There's seven of us here now and that's bound to draw a lot more than three Goblins or maybe something worse or, I dunno, higher Level? Either way, big groups like a full Party of six attract attention fast and we have seven here. The Big Dude is right." he nodded towards Isbjorn. "We should get back to town as fast as we can."

---

Raquel shrugs when the bangle has no immediate effect. She keeps it on her wrist for now.

When BradL33 suggests leaving swiftly, she nods. "Right. Let's get a move on. Lead the way."

Isbjorn looks at Bradley, admiring him for how calm he is about their whole situation despite being a little kid. And from the looks of it, is way more knowledgeable at the game than the rest of the group. He places his big hand on top of Bradley's head and ruffles his hair affectionately. "That's right, point the way to the nearest town. Don't worry, I'll protect you," he says.

He looks at the whole group, trying to figure out how to arrange everyone while they're traveling. "Since I'm the biggest of us, I'll stand in the front," he starts. It hasn't really come up now in his older years, but Isbjorn has experienced many brawls when he was younger and stupider, and his build was definitely advantage on that front. What's more, while he hasn't mastered his ice magic yet he's sure it'll come in handy when protecting the group. "I think Fren can be with me. Then Raquel, Taylor, and Arga can protect the back, while Clara and Bradley go in the middle. Sound good?"

---

Taylor shrugs, Isbjorn logic makes sense to them.

"I hope the towns are safe. Dad always thought that people would go nuts once the Government made its move."

>>> "Yeah, I don't know about that, Pops..." the tattooed Sorcerer chimed in. "I mean, you're a BIG dude and all but if you're a Sorcerer like me... Well, we're the vulnerable ones." He struggled trying to wrap his own brain around trying to reason with the new reality they all now lived. "I looked at my User Interface and I've only got like 50 HP. She..." he gestured towards the flamboyantly dressed small Calico Catfolk, "...is a Pirate. A 'Tank' character. She's prob got more HP than both of us put together. I don't think we can really rely on what someone...or some thing, I guess,...looks like as to how tough it might be."

>>>BradL33 looked around at the surrounding landscape as if trying to get his bearings. "Okay, so..." he announced after a moment, "I'm not used to seeing things from first person perspective so things aren't exactly familiar but..." He sighed, as if having to admit something he didn't want to say but forced himself to do so. "I know that That Way is West, That Way is North, that way South and this way is East. I'm guessing that the only way I know that is because I have 'Hunter' and 'Tracker' as my SubClasses... I hope that's the case and I'm not just imagining it."
>>>"We need to go NorthWest. That's where Mound City is. 'In Game' it took me about 5-10 minutes of travel to get here from Town but..." he looked towards what he, at least, thought was NorthWest and open meadows and forest stretched into the distance. "...maybe that's different now. Either way, we should head out and talk on the way."
>>>He grimaced as Isbjorn ruffled his hair, "I'm not a kid, y'know. I just look like this because I just hit 'Random' on the character generator and took the first one that didn't look weird. I'm probably closer to your age..." He mistakenly assumed Isbjorn was his character; the same faux pas he was chiding the man for. The expression BradL33 wore certainly did very little to make him look like an adult. He looked like he was about to stamp his feet and throw a tantrum. "Let's head out..." his chunky boots start making tracks in the tall grass heading away from the clearing.

---

---

>>>Darkness. Falling. An almost nauseating lurch of sudden consciousness...
A vocalization of pure emotion in the void, mixing feelings in a bewildering manner. A song attempting to understand itself.
Somewhere in the distance a peal of laughter that acts as an anchor in the formless, swirling blackness of existence.

>>> Suddenly, Light. Weight. A feeling of Being, a feeling of becoming differentiated from the Void.
>>>Warm breezes on Grace's skin presaged the opening of her eyes. The laughter, that called to her through whatever or wherever she was before, continued beside her. Louder and more 'real' than before...
>>> Grace's senses told her she stood beneath a tree next to a stone cobbled wall separating a field from the yard of a...villa?? She definitely wasn't here before... Before what?? Before... Before... Her mind stretched out for answers but found only confusion. The last thing Grace remembered was being in front of her computer messing around with an MMO... The laughter beside her was too distracting for further recollection.

>>> "AhaHahaHahhaHa!" The incessant laughter rolled from one of the other people Grace had been in the game Tutorial with. What became of the other four, she couldn't say as they were nowhere nearby. The girl's laughter had gone on long enough to be worrying before she finally stopped long enough to take a deep breath.
>>>Grace remembered the girl's gamer handle, 'Piphany', and that she'd clearly dropped quite a bit in the game's Cash Shop for a custom weapon and outfit. She was bent over, catching her breath as she braced on the absurdly huge Scythe at her side. Noticing Grace, she looked up, "Oh, hey. Ahaha..haha..hah." the smile didn't make it to Piphany's eyes. That wasn't the laughter of mirth, or excitement, or joy. That was the hollow inappropriate laughter left behind when everything else is short-circuiting. "Am I... Am I tripping balls right now?? Ahaha. haha. ha. he..." At least the laughter seemed to be subsiding.

Grace gives the other woman an appraising once-over. Lovely outfit. Matching oversized scythe. Belt’s more function than fashion…

To Piphany’s comment, Grace replies, "There’s quite a bit I’ve tripped over throughout my career. Balls’re not among them."

She catches a glimpse of her own hand, with skin so young it’s practically a baby’s.

"I don’t know about you, Piphany. But I’d rather not wake from our shared dream."

—for she can’t imagine there’s anything dangerous about reliving her early twenties, and with magic to boot!

>>>The warm wind blew fresh scents in from the fields, the sky was an aquamarine blue with wispy clouds at its upper levels. Nothing about the situation Grace found herself in implied anything but reality, despite the obvious signs it wasn't.

"Dream?" she repeated the word as if she hadn't considered the option of their predicament being simply a dream. "This doesn't feel like a dream..." She seemed to have reigned in her laughter but the tension underlying it remained. Like she was treading a very tenuous wire mentally. "But it definitely doesn't feel like reality or a lucid dream either. It...feels real and yet not real at the same time." She hoisted the enormous scythe and spun it effortlessly, the deadly weapon moving as if it were weightless in her small hands. The heavy thud when she pounded the haft to the ground belied the weightlessness it displayed earlier. "I don't ever remember smelling things in my dreams...and all I'm smelling right now is the manure on those fields."
>>>The sounds of voices muffled by distance carried on the winds from the fields. Much closer, however, came a rustling of the crops on the other side of the hip-high cobblestone wall. Something moved hastily through the vegetation before bursting over the wall...
>>>"Haha! FIRESTICK!" the boy yelled, pointing a wooden twig at the girl as they tumbled over the wall. "FireStick isn't even a real spell! Anyways, I've got MAGIC SHIELD!" the girl yelled back, holding her hands up and brandishing the toy sword in her hands.
>>>Both the girl and the decidedly non-human boy stopped cold in their tracks as they two caught sight of Grace and Piphany standing on the other side of the tree. Looking at each other, the kids clearly had no idea what to do at the sight of strangers.

>>>A Status Bar pops up above the heads of the two kids, hanging in mid-air displaying their names (Ardana for the girl and Jean Louis for the cat-folk boy) along with their Level (3), a full HP & MP bar. The sight is surreal with the juxtaposition of the rustic setting and the obviously computer generated information hologram together.

>>>Well, well, well... What do we have here?" Piphany addressed the two kids coldly, levelling her scythe to cut off any escape path the kids might have.

"Manure is an acquired scent. My band used to do shows at the PYO. That’s pick-your-own—peaches, blueberries, apples—depending on the season. And they had cattle too. It was the ice cream that drew in the crowds."

The Three Graces were not exactly a successful trio, but O’Bass reminisced just the same.

When the kids show up, she smiles at them. She’s about to offer them a song to lighten Piphany’s mood.

But those HP/MP bars!

"Oh. So this is, like, for real." And maybe the people here are all older in the real world. Maybe the boy was a woman and the girl was a man. Or were they really children?

"Ardana, Jean Louis…" And Piphany’s scythe is making her very nervous now. "…Piphany? I think we are all in that game. I think we should keep our weapons in our purses—" She winces at the cute handbag which somehow carries her humongous baroque theorbo.

"—scabbards. And… and, and, and…"

But she can fight unarmed if it comes to that. And her instrument doesn’t look like a weapon, though the toy sword might be no different than a real sword here.

She continues, "We should introduce ourselves! It’s what people do! I’ll start," and she so desperately does! "Grace of Bass was my stage name on Earth. My band—it was O’Keys’ band—toured 5 of the 6 New England states, and once played on Canada’s Thousand Islands. Just one of them, though the islands are small and close together. People on other islands could hear us, which was the idea. Except for when someone called the police and they made us stop. That was NOT the idea.

"Andandand I didn’t realize the Moose Mounties had boats, haha? Ya learn something new when you travel outside your country, right kids? We’re all in a foreign land now, so we have that in common."

She isn’t sure her little anecdote was helpful at all. But she remembers specifically choosing a No-PvP option. The status bars don’t mean anything like that, do they? Piphany isn’t… is she..? What is she doing? What is everyone doing?

>>> "You sure do talk a lot..." the girl with the scythe said, looking at Grace. Presumably she was a girl... Grace's sudden musings on appearances vs. actualities brought everything into question. Piphany narrowed her eyes trying to follow Grace's rapidly derailing train of thought. Either way, the effort seemed to have averted the feeling of menace building in the girl.
>>>"Alright, you two. I wanna know what's going on." Piphany addressed the two kids in an abrupt mood swing to annoyed rather than possibly homicidal. "Where ARE we?"

>>>The girl stepped up rather defiantly to answer Piphany's challenge, "You're standing in my Appa's yard. That's where you are."

>>> "You gotta big mouth for someone with..what...fifteen HP?" Piphany shot back. Her grip tightening on the scythe.

>>>"Fufty-een what?" Adana questioned. The audible grip on the leather wrapped scythe didn't go unnoticed and she forced her grip on the pommel of her own toy sword. The thing couldn't cut bread, presumably, but she clearly felt confident with it in her hands.
>>>Jean Louis stood slightly behind and to Ardana's left, eyes wide as he took everything in. The way the sun hit the boy's fur, the twitch of his ears and he stood on digitigrade legs sold the 'reality' of what Grace was seeing, despite the obvious impossibility of it all. "You're Adventurers, no?" he said haltingly, accent a bit different from Ardana's.
>>>"Appa will know..." Ardana cut in. "APPA!" she called.

>>>An older man shuffled out of the cottage, in a relative hurry for a man his age once he saw the two visitors. Making his way up the slight hill with a bow-legged gait, he stopped to look at the kids and his two visitors.
>>>To her credit, Piphany raised the scythe and set it, blade under, to let the kids pass. "My, my..." he said in the most 'grandpa' way possible. "What brings you out here to our village? We hardly ever get Adventurers out this way." The old man looked between the two women with a bit of trepidation. Not waiting for a response, he patted his vest, "Now where have my manners gone? My name is Verduhn. Village Apothecary." He gathered the two children to him before rushing them off to continue playing elsewhere. "Perhaps you're lost? Let us get away from the heat and enjoy some tea inside,eh?"

Grace kinda knows a few gaming terms. Some of her fans recommended the hobby on her Three Graces Fans Discord channel—which she almost renamed Three Three Graces Fans, but a fourth fan joined before she could figure out how to rename it.

Anyway, she thinks these people are NPCs, and that might mean they aren’t real. Still, she’s glad Piphany didn’t kill them.

"Oh, yes, we’re Adventurers." She stops herself from saying ‘not Murder Hobos.’ Don’t provoke Piphany. Make her feel needed. Because when the monsters come, she will be. "We’re just doing our part to keep civilization safe from—" What exactly is the major threat in Elderscrollsville? "—evil."

Be the Bard, ya dope!

"A spot of tea would be a delight, Verduhn. Perhaps I could play tune to express my gratitude for your hospitality." To Piphany she adds, "That, and I’ve never received a complimentary drink without being expected to entertain."

>>>The two kids run down the line of the stone wall, glancing back at Grace and Piphany once before disappearing back into their game of fantasy cops & robbers. Varduhn shows the two women down to the cozy villa at the bottom of the gently sloping hill.
>>> Inside, out if the sun, the villa was quite cool and refreshing. The ceilings were high and boasted none of the things one would associate with a modern home. No TV, no couches, no electric lamps, no electric anything ... The word 'cottage-core' leapt into Grace's mind as the best way to describe the interior. A huge unlit hearth dominated the room and was surrounded by tied bundles of drying herbs and bark. Wooden tables lined the walls and a wide chest with a hundred tiny drawers dominated the back wall. Grace had seen one like it playing a gig at a Farmer's Market once. That one held seeds, this one? Who knew?

>>>The old man cleared spaces at larger table, clearly meant for family dining but now lay cluttered with jars of dried mushrooms and other ingredients. "Please, have a seat..." he waved the two to sit at the table. "No need for your..." he waved at Piphany's scythe, trying to figure out what to call it. "It will be safer if it were leaned in a corner, yes?"

>>>"Sure, Pops. If it'll make you feel better." she surprisingly agreed. "Getting kinda tired of lugging it around. It looked cool in the Shop but I didn't know I'd be carrying it around like.... Well, like this."
>>>She sat the oversized weapon in the corner, making sure it wouldn't fall, before setting down in one of the sturdy wooden chairs at Varduhn's table. She shot a look at Grace, her expression confused as to maybe what came next.

>>>The old man made himself busy by filling an earthenware vessel with water from an honest-to-gosh hand pump and placed upon a rack above a small pot. Removing the lid, something in the pot immediately emitted a purple flame. Varduhn grabbed a few dried herbs from a couple of jars, humming a subliminally familiar tune, adding things to the vessel and then sitting at the table with the two women. "Tea should be prepared soon. In the meanwhile... What brings you to the village of Belle, hm? Adventurers, such as yourselves, are always running around after such interesting things. Nothing like that around here..." It was pretty clear he was searching for information albeit in a most genial way.

Grace is surprised at how agreeable Piphany is around the old man. She sits at the table, and… it takes effort not to glance back at the scythe.

He disarmed her.

Maybe that’s normal. How would Grace know? In the real world, a man never offers a lady a drink for free. The most suspicious men never state the price aloud.

But… there may be a way to know! Grace contemplates her in-game skills.



Just sitting at a table means I can STUDY the old man, right? And the whole set up, all this clutter on the family table, Piphany’s sudden lack of paranoia, whereas she was highly suspicious of mere children…

The purple flame is not so much a shock as it is a mild surprise. She expected the flag to be a more subtle shade of red.

But Farmer Brown ain’t looking for a roll in the hay, so if this is a trap, it’s one befitting Elderscrollsville.

She hopes the in-game skill will kick in until the tea is ready. If it doesn’t, she’s mentally prepared to protect Piphany—despite her earlier fears about her obsession with that scythe.

"We fell here," Grace replies honestly. And she decides to be even more honest. Not about her yet-to-be-confirmed suspicions. But the likely motive for whatever Varduhn is up to. "But this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ve been in dozens of Belles. ‘Nothing interesting here’ is a polite way of saying my girls and I should take our instruments elsewhere.

"And I think I understand. Adventurers in Belle will disturb the peace, and you can’t allow that." She’s watching how the old man responds to her honesty. "Then the simplest way to accomplish that is to give directions. There must be a town where Adventurers belong. There must be a way there without passing through Belle."

For the sake of those children, she hopes to avoid a fight with this Appa. He might actually be a hospitable elder behaving normally. Or he might have jars of adventurers heads in his basement.

>>>"Been to dozens of Belles, you say?..." the old man seemed sort of entertained by Grace's assertion. "We 'People of the Land' don't travel much. Not like you Adventurers. We're the type that's mostly born, live and die in the same village. Oh, some of us do travel some. Merchants and the like, you know." It clearly wasn't what Grace was getting at but he did ramble on. "I've only been to bigger towns a handful of times... I even went to Mound City once in my youth. That's the Adventurer town you asked about. It's about half a days travel Northwest of Belle."
>>>Getting up from his chair, the old man searched up three tankards and cleaned them with water from the well pump, "Id originally thought you were from Mound City but you say you 'fell' here? Sounds like magic to me...but I'm just an apothecary and don't know much about such things."

>>>"That's nice and all, Pops." Piphany rapped her nails on the solid wood of the tabletop. "What I wanna know is how to get a hold of an Admin or a GM or somebody who can explain...this..." she gestured at herself, not unlike Varduhn did to Piphany's scythe, clearly at a loss to explain what it was that she needed explaining.

>>>"I'm sorry?" Varduhn paused for a moment from cleaning the tankards. "I'm not familiar with those words although I'd like to help you if I could..." he returned to the table with the metal cups and sat down. "It is true that sometimes when Adventurers appear in places like Belle trouble can follow." He gestured with his hands as if trying to articulate his position as delicately as he could. "Sometimes trouble follows the Adventurers here and sometimes the Adventurers turn out to be the trouble... As I said, I don't know much about you Adventurers or the world you live in but I've found that despite all our differences, there's common ground between us to be had by acting in friendship towards each other.". It was a nice sentiment but it had underlying implications. One of which was that there was a sort of dichotomy between people like Varduhn and people like Grace and Piphany. Like they each belonged to different castes or class system. The other was that people like Varduhn, the 'People of the Land' as he called them, were not at the top of the system...and that might explain his cordial deference to the two girls.

Raquel walks along behind BradL33 and Isbjorn, marveling at the altered world around her. She'd sometimes imagined what it would be like to live in a video game world, but her daydreams couldn't hold a candle to the reality of it all. All of the colors were so bright and vibrant, the smells and sensations heightened beyond reality. It was definitely an upgrade from her previous humdrum existence.

Her body... that would definitely take some getting used to. But it was not an altogether uncomfortable change. She seemed hale and healthy, and that what was most important. The rest would come later. For now, she puts that part out of her mind as she enjoys the walk to the village.

Grace’s paranoia subsides as (a) her skill from character creation doesn’t seem to be kicking in, (b) Varduhn’s nice and (c) from that ‘pops’ reply, it’s now clear that Piphany isn’t under any kind of a spell as Grace had feared. And she isn’t crazy or homicidal… she’s just scared.

And maybe I’m the crazy one just trying to enjoy the ride. Accept this. After all, who am I but myself when I was young and full of dreams. To relive ’em so they don’t turn out nightmares this time.

Or maybe they’ll be different nightmares, where the monsters are green and toothy and trying to kill me.


"Those children we met on the way in.. they’re lovely." She assures the old man, "If trouble comes while I’m here, you’ve my word the children matter most."

She then turns to Piphany, "And we can travel to Mound City together, okay? As long as we act in friendship with People of the Land, everyone will know we’re the good guys—including the people who can explain The Unexplainable."

>>>"They are quite lovely children." Varduhn agreed quite readily. "Ardana's my youngest daughter's girl. Her friend , Jean Louis, is a refugee from across the Gateway." The older man said it as if Grace and Piphany were supposed to understand what that meant but the phrase 'Gateway' sounded intriguing. Piphany locked eyes with Grace when the old man mentioned it.
>>>Oh, tea's probably ready by now..." he stood and attended to the now steaming earthenware jug, finishing the hot tincture with a little of this and that from small jars on his counter.

>>>"Do you think he means the gateway outta here?" Piphany leaned in conspiratorially as soon as Varduhn was, presumably, out of earshot. "He doesn't know what's GM or an Admin is but he just throws out 'gateway' like it's no big deal?" She drummed her fingernails on the wooden table agitatedly. "I could really use a cigarette right now..." she slipped that out there before a surprised look crossed her face. "...but I don't really want one?"

>>>"Here we are..." Varduhn poured the hot liquid from the vessel he held with a towel to avoid getting burned. "Lemongrass, dried apple peel, a pinch of salt, a spoon of honey and AleBalm. Let it cool a bit and it's quite soothing for the nerves. I grew the AleBalm myself..." he looked at the two women and realized he probably should explain. "The orange flowers in the garden... That's AleBalm. Goes into all kinds of things medicinal. Takes a good crop to brew HP Potions and Curatives for Status Effects. I'm quite proud of the crop this year." It was somewhat jarring to hear the old man just drop 'game terms' into a conversation as if he were chatting about the weather.

---

---

>>>BradL33 led the group through open fields towards where he swore he came through to get to the woods from Mound City. He diligently went around any density of woods to hopefully avoid encountering anything like the Goblins from before. The strange sounds carrying on the winds from the dark treelines mark that as probably one of his better ideas. Avoiding the clumps of trees and hurrying through the thinner patches of woods added to the length of the trek, however. Despite that, the hike didn't seem to be very tiring at all for the group. They'd all marched seemingly for kilometers and kilometers but really didn't feel any effects from it. On the plus side, there didn't seem to be an abundance of bothersome insect life either. Sure, they could hear cicadas and crickets and the like but never saw any trace of them.
>>>Idle chatter amongst the group during the hike revealed the use of the User Interface to BradL33 and Isbjorn. During a short rest, BradL33 reviewed what he knew about how it worked, at least when it was a game, and experimented with it a bit. He explained about the Friend List and how it was used to keep tabs on players you meet, how to add others to it and be able to use the TeleChat feature. TeleChat took some getting used to... It worked like a built-in cellphone for a character. Selecting someone from your Friend List let you 'call' them and voice chat but it worked only for one person-to-person 'call' at a time, though anything in the surroundings were audible at the other end.
>>> Having spent more time than they could probably afford playing with the UI, BradL33 mustered everyone along to continue the hike. This time, he picked up the pace since discovering that they could all handle a much more intensive pace...
>>>A low stone wall halted progress as the group exited a thin patch of woods brought BradL33 up short. A large Status Box popped into everyone's visual field...
Village of Belle
Field Zone | Eusa Server
Monsters: Yes | PvP: Yes | Skill Use: Yes
Entry Restriction: None
"Woah..." he murmured under his breath. "Been by here a bunch of times but never stopped in." he slowly climbed the low cobble stone wall into the field of orange flowers. "I think the only thing here is a Potion Shop...but that was before."

Grace responds to Piphany’s want of a cigarette. "That’s good that you don’t. Believe me, I’ve had my struggles with addiction." Her expression is apologetic as she adds, "Sorry… if you’d rather not know the me from Earth, I’ll understand. I just hope when we find the way out, you’ll continue to not want cigarettes."

After the old man names the potion, Grace imagines the surgeon general’s warning stating that ‘smoking is bad for your HP.’

"I did wonder what those orange flowers were. That’s one mystery solved." She raises her tea cup, looks at Piphany, and says, "Here’s to solving the next." But she doesn’t sip her tea just yet. "Heh. Probably should’ve made the toast after the tea cooled."

It's fortunate that their group, big as it was, didn't encounter anything dangerous on their way to this small village, although Isbjorn felt quite embarrassed about his lack of gaming knowledge throughout the whole trek. That said, he doesn't forget to add all of them to his Friends List—it's good that there'll be a way to contact each other, just in case they get separated.

Still, everything feels surreal, even as he stares in surprise at the Status Box. Most of the information here he can understand easily, or at least infer what it means, but "Field Zone | Eusa Server" and "PvP" stumps him. I'll ask about it later.

Hearing Bradley's words, he says, "Let's go to this Potion Shop then, since at least it'll be familiar. There should be somebody we could talk to there."

Despite the long trek, it feels strangely effortless for Clara. Maybe this is just the perk of being a cat, she thinks as she remembers her cat Cinnamon's random bursts of energy.

The nature here is beautiful. From the absence of pesky insects to the vibrant flora, it's unlike anything she has seen in the real world. She always dreamed about fantasy universes like this since she was a child, so while being swept away from reality is unsettling, she also takes a moment to enjoy what this world has to offer.

She added everyone in the party to her friend list when they took a break, following Brad's instructions. The voice call functionality is decent, albeit lacking a noise-cancelling effect.

On the way, she can't help but notice the thoughtful look Fren sometimes throws in her direction. Surely not because of her non-human appearance, he's also a fox himself. As a curious person, she decided to just ask. "Is there something on my face?"

"I remember potions from the tutorial. You can never have enough supplies, so we should check in there as soon as we can."

>>>The tea is warm and mild but with a definite bitter medicinal 'whang' to the aftertaste. It's not an unpleasant bitterness, perhaps akin to the slightly bitter, earthy flavor of good coffee or very dark chocolate. It has a tongue warming effect aside from the temperature of the liquid. Overall, it's not bad but it's also something alien to Grace's experience.


>>>"It's called Cicada Tea." Varduhn offered. "Oh! No cicadas in it, of course!
It's just that the ingredients to make it are usually ready about the same time as the cicadas start singing..." the old man offered a quick explanation as he caught Piphany's eyes cut his way, the Assassin almost choking on her first sip.

>>>She sat the cup down and wiped at her chin and watery eyes. She very nearly shot the astringent drink out of her nose. "...next time just be quiet and let me drink..." she wheezed at Varduhn. The old man fetched a dishtowel to let Piphany clean herself up a bit.

>>>"AleBalm is what Belle is known for. It's our main crop." he tried to fill the awkward silence while Piphany recovered with some kind of small talk. "We grow most of the regional supply here in our little village. We have a festival in the autumn after the AleBalm has been cut and finished drying. Merchants and Representatives of the Nobles come from all over to obtain a goodly stock of our dried AleBalm. What I grow in the yard is my own personal supply for when the village might have need of a Potion or three."

>>>A sharp knock at Varduhn's doorway stopped the old man's rambling as a tall lanky man stood in the open doorway. "Beg your pardon, Varduhn..." the laborer said, "There's a whole bunch of Adventurers coming into the village out by the southwest fields." Judging by the startled look on his face, he didn't know Grace and Piphany were already in the room. "Kaimon sent them this way because they were asking about Potions..." The man's face bore more than a little concern on his weathered features. The way his eyes darted from Grace and Piphany over to Varduhn made him seem nervous, even more so as he noticed the big black scythe sitting menacingly in the corner.
>>>"Friends of yours, I hope..." he sounded like he actually meant that to feel relieved but he acted like the laborer had announced that there were wolves in town..

---

---

>>>A gray beared man drops the implement he'd been using to perhaps weed the row of orange flowers he tended. About two dozen other men and boys of varying ages were working their way down the rows of flowers doing the very same task. Weeding a field by hand was tedious work and the gray bearded man seemed both eager for the break but cautious of strangers simultaneously. "Adventurers, eh?" he regarded the strange way the group dressed, especially Arga. "Welcome to the village of Belle..." he didn't sound particularly welcoming but not overtly hostile either. Maybe a bit agitated. "I'm Kaimon, field supervisor. What brings you to our village?" his tone said 'state your business' but couched in a formal kind of rustic cordiality.

Grace enjoys her drink as the old man talks. She did prefer her chocolate dark and her coffee black.

But when Varduhn’s colleague enters, it becomes clear that her earlier instinct wasn’t too far off. But not from meanness.Grace sips some more of the strange drink. Her smile is subtle, but enough the men may have noticed she approves of the beverage. She lowers the cup to the table.

"Friends…" She considers the possibility that these adventurers are the other four from the tutorial. But what difference would that make? "I could try to make friends with them, I suppose."

Her eyes shift from one man to the other. "It’s obvious that Adventurers put you on edge. Not without reason, I’m sure. Have any Adventurers given you trouble?"

Perhaps the men will be polite and choose their words carefully, but Grace will watch the younger one especially. What he says, how he says it, his expression as Varduhn replies…

Fren looks around him, taking the vista. He finds the walk pleasant. He speaks to the pirate cat without really looking at her. "No, nothing at all, you remind me the cat a friend of mine has. IRL friend I mean..." but what was real life and what was a game right now?

He sees the people working at the field, the flowers are so pretty. He notices the man named Kaimon to be a bit annoyed with them being there and he lets others talk. He does not know how people will react to a non human like a fox-folk.

Isbjorn steps forward and enthusiastically greets Kaimon, taking care to look as non-threatening as possible. "Yes, hello! We're... erm... new Adventurers and we were hoping to buy some potions to stock up." He's not actually sure himself if he has any money at hand, but it's a good enough excuse. And Isbjorn's sure there must be something they could do to earn more money anyway.

"Can I also ask, has anyone else in the village encountered, uh, Adventurers like us? We'd love to have any info about them, if possible," he adds.

>>>As Grace concentrates on Veskar, trying to discern more about his motivations, she brings up the man's Status Bar floating above his head. Similar to the ones that appeared above Ardana and Jean Louis when they suddenly appeared earlier, Veskar's basic information was available for Grace to read.

name: Veskar Alifo
race: Human
(Person of the Land)
class: Laborer, Farmer | Level: 14
HP: 84 | MP: 52

"Well..." he looked to Varduhn as if unsure whether to proceed but did anyway. "There have been occasions when Adventurers came to town and caused trouble. Not recently, mind you, but in the past yes, M'lady.
Acting like marauders."

The old man was eager to jump in, "Not unlike we People of the Land, there are some who act for themselves and their own interests but most act in the interests of the community." It was clear the two had a difference of opinion on the subject.

---

---

"First Adventurers I've seen all Season... Kaimon reckoned. "More used to stop by in years past during the Gateway War but don't get many these days. Nothing to draw them this way much, I suppose." The old man huffed a bit, "If anyone's seen other Adventurers around, it'd be Varduhn. He's our village Apothecary and also the person you'd want to see about potions." He pointed a gnarled finger down a dirt path that ran alongside the low stone wall, "His villa is down that path a ways, take a right at the corner of the fields and look for a home next to a big tree. That's where you'll find him most days."

Grace nods, "Marauders, yes. The Murder Hobos. I’ve heard of these."

She does not mention that she heard that term on her Discord channel for fans, which only has four people on it: her mom, and the other three probably discovered her music on Spotify and think she’s the pretty twenty-something on the album cover from two decades ago. She IS that pretty young redhead in this world. A part of her wants to stay this way… but then Piphany would be the sane one.

As long as she doesn’t do anything horrible. Because killing innocents, even if they are just programs, would still etch into her memory. And mine, too…

She sips her tea, then says to the men, "On the topic of giving to the community, you so generously treated me to this fine tea. My offer to play you a tune still stands, but I suspect you’d rather I greet the other Adventurers that Mr. Alifo mentioned." Realizing he had not actually introduced himself, she says to him, "I’m Grace O’Bass, by the way."

If the men are comfortable with the idea, she will greet the incoming adventuring party. She’ll greet them with a pleasant smile and her weapon (humongous lute) in its scabbard (her purse).

Looking at Kaimon, Atlanta decides to reply. "Just traveling through, I think. Maybe purchase some supplies if you have any to spare."

Clara decides not to probe further as Fren seems like a private person. Moreover, she is distracted by this village they just arrived in. The residents here seem wary for some reason. She's unsure how common catfolks are in this area, especially those looking more cat than human like she does. "Better let others do the talking, I don't want to scare these people off." She thinks to herself.

>>> 'That would be very generous of you to do so...er,.Grace." it was clear the older man was 'trying on' the idea of addressing Grace without the honorifics the field laborer used. "Adventurers sometimes use language with which we are unfamiliar. They must be talking of things you all understand but are beyond our experience. Perhaps speaking first to one of your own might facilitate things." What he clearly meant was 'not start any trouble'.
>>>"And we would be honored for you to give us a song. It's said that a Bard's songs carry good fortune and health sometimes."

The field laborer just gripped his hat worriedly, "The other Adventurers should be here right away. I slipped away when Kaimon was first talking to them in the field." Shuffling back out the doorway after bowing to Varduhn, and presumably Grace and Piphany, he slunk backwards out the door. "As fast as they all walk, they'll be here pretty soon..."

---

---

>>>True to Kaimon's directions the Apothecary wasn't at all hard to find. The path lead right to the small villa just as the old field hand had described. One of the other field hands was backing out of the door when the Party arrived.

>>>Two pair of eyes stared out of the foliage of the big tree by the stone wall that served as the boundary of the field of orange flowers. Neither child seemed inclined to greet the new visitors, remaining half-hidden behind the green leaves.

>>>The big wooden door to the villa stood open at the end of the cobblestone path and BradL33 was at the head of the Party, barging right in like he owned the place. "Access Inventory..." he said abruptly to Varduhn, as the old man came to the doorway to greet them. He did a double-take when he noticed Grace and Piphany seated at the table. "Okay.
Um, Access Potion Shop? Buy? Sell?" the young man was starting to sound a bit annoyed.

>>>Varduhn just looked puzzled at the boy, probably wondering why he was sort of shouting. "I beg your pardon?"

>>>Piphany poked BradL33 in the arm with a fork from the table, perhaps to get the boy's attention or maybe as a bit of punishment or maybe just for fun, "Talk to him like a regular person, Twerp. This isn't the game..." she dropped the fork back on the table. "Well, not anymore, I guess... Are you all? ...Real people? From Earth, I mean?" The goth girl's eyes looked past BradL33 towards the rest of the party, lingering on the non-humans.

Grace stands in solidarity with Piphany. "What my friend means, Sir, is that we’ve been forced into this world somehow. It’s important we don’t lose ourselves.

"Varduhn may be a part of this world, but that’s all the more reason to treat him with the same respect and kindness you’d show the shop’s owner on Earth." She then says to Varduhn, "I suspect this customer may be hurt and in need of those ‘HP Potions’ you mentioned earlier. Might you have some available?"

Grace then addresses the other people in Brad’s party. "Please come in. My name is Grace, both here and on Earth. And this is Piphany who fell here with me. We were just about to head to Mound City, but I owe the shop’s owner a song because I made a promise."

She then looks inside her purse. She has NO idea how that Baroque Theorbo could possibly be in there. The interior of the purse must be going through the floor. She reaches inside, feels the neck, grasps and pulls. The instrument is wider than the opening of the purse—yet she is now holding it overhead triumphantly!

"Ah, ha, heh..?"

She adjusts her grip to hold the fine instrument like An Instrument, not a Caveman Club.

And she plays something soothing, calm……sure it’s a video game soundtrack cover. But Grace thinks it may be appropriate here.

Isbjorn steps forward, awkwardly laughing as he tries to smooth over the situation. Grace is right. Even if some things in this fantastical world still work like it's the game, it's clear that most things work just like in the real world. "Sorry about him, it's been... a tough day for all us. We're here to buy supplies in preparation for our trip. " he starts. He checked his inventory on the way here and he discovers he does have some gold on him, and so he brings out his money pouch. "We're interested in health potions, but if there's other things that are sold in this town we'd be happy to look at them as well."

He's also pleasantly surprised when Grace mentions their destination. Still, he waits until she finishes her performance. Isbjorn's is not really a music person, but he politely claps.

"Coincidentally, our group is also headed to Mound City," he says to Grace. "If you two are okay with it, you can come travel with us."

>>> "Has something happened?" Varduhn asked, trying not to sound too curious. "To you Adventurers, I mean... I'm aware of the stories about the amazing things Adventurers get involved in, like the Gateway War and exploring the deadly dungeons that dot the land, but something seems different today." An embarrassed look suddenly jumps across the old Apothecary's face, "Pardon me, I don't know where my manners have gone... Here let me clear some space. You must be tired from your journeys." He made himself busy clearing the containers and other items from the large table.

>>>Varduhn listened to Grace struggle through her song as he cleaned. Grace recalled the song fairly easily and the Baroque Theorbo was fully capable of playing the notes of the song but there was something seemingly interfering with the way the sound was coming out. Like the Theorbo and her fingers were both fighting the notes and trying to play a different song. It was mildly unsettling to try to will a part of your body work when it had other plans. The result was a bit wonky and stiff as Grace mentally fought to play the tune she wanted.

>>>"Are you sure you were in a band?" the goth girl said sarcastically. "I specifically remember you told me you were in a band..."

>>> "Yeah, like Isbjorn said, about those potions though...." BradL33 looked skeptically at Piphany before turning to Varduhn. Maybe he was watching the goth girl to avoid another forking, maybe he was just trying to steer the conversation away from any more opinions on Grace's effort at playing a song.

>>> "Yes, yes. Of course!" Varduhn seemed to puff up proudly. "The village of Belle is the regional supplier of AleBalm, the key ingredient of HP Potions! This year's crop is coming in nicely! Perhaps you saw the fields on your way here? We have a goodly supply of HP Potions as well as a few other varieties of potions as well." The old Apothecary gestured at the now mostly decluttered spaces around the big table should anyone care to take a seat in the sturdy wooden chairs.

Grace is mortified at her performance, Piphany’s sarcasm, and…

"Oh, thank you for the pity-clap."

If blushing is a thing Elder Scrolls PCs can do, Grace is probably way better at it than she is at her own instrument.

She doesn’t let this extremely humiliating moment get to her, or so she tells herself.

"It is kind of you," she says to the tall man (who is obviously the muscle of the party… at least of the non-cats), "and yes, I would love to travel as a group. Since you’re here for Healing Potions—is that what HP stands for? So saying HP potion is like saying ATM machine, where the M.. never mind.

"Anyway, I apparently only know one song. Called the…" How do I look up..?Oh. How did I do that? "…the Anthem of Mother's Affection." And what’s 30MP? Don’t tell me I need to buy thirty magic potions just to not suck at music! She keeps this thought to herself. "I guess no matter how big the party, your wounds will heal while I play."

And gesturing to Piphany, she says, "Piphany has a Really Big Scythe, so yeah… I think we can do our part to keep each other safe from the monsters."

Fren sits on a chair and listens to Grace's tune. He claps with Isbjorn when she finishes. "I am Fren by the way. I think we all are in the same boat with being stuck here, in this world..." he says to the girls and thinks about his dog and girldfriend back on Earth. "What they will do when they find me back at home?" he thinks.

Clara's tiny head peeks out from behind her taller party members. She waves: "Nice to meet you. You can call me Clara."

She has so many questions after listening to the conversation. After all, a newbie like her is not yet familiar with the lore of this world. She pokes BradL33, whispering so that the apothecary won't feel weird about her ignorance. "Ummm, excuse me... What is the Gateway war? What will we find in Mound City anyway? And do we even have enough money to afford these potions?"

"Fren, Clara…" Grace takes in the names and tries not to make it too completely obvious that she thinks Clara is the most adorable person ever. "…yes, I think you’re right about the boat.

"Piphany wants answers. Maybe Mound City’s the best place to get them. And I…" She can’t bring herself to admit it aloud, but she likes being young again… but there’s probably a consequence to remaining here, with true self what? Comatose, slumped over a computer? "…hope to make our stay here as enjoyable as possible."

(Grace thinks music would help, but she won’t dare play an encore!)

"Personally, I was basically in a new world in our last world too, but this seems to be a lot bigger change." Taylor says aloud. "But having a goal at all is supposed to be very helpful for adjusting."

>>> "Well, speaking for myself, your appearance here has certainly enlivened my day." the old Apothecary reassured Grace. "And I'd like to extend that hospitality a bit longer, you see..." he hesitated, the forthcoming bad news telegraphed in his eyes. "Mound City is more than a half day's travel to the Northwest and it is already quite late in the day. Without mounts there's little chance of reaching your destination until well after nightfall. Even Adventurers, like yourselves, are loathe to travel at night so let me extend the offer to put you up for the night and prepare a hearty breakfast before you journey off, eh?"

>>>Lost in thought, trying to figure out how it took him about ten minutes to run down to the woods from Mound City (when Elder Tales was a game) but it's taking hours for the return trip now that they're in the game, Clara's touch on his arm brought him back to the present. "Oh. Um, good question... We shouid have at least some money. If you guys were dropped here right out of the Tutorial, I think the game gives you 100 Gold?" he didn't sound entirely certain. "It should be in your bag. I guess if you want to check, you can call up your UI and check your inventory if you don't want to count it out by hand." It was such an odd thing to say and it actually have real meaning.
>>>"I'm not sure what this Gateway War is he's talking about. Sounds like maybe a 'server event' from years back?" that was definitely something it looked like BradL33 would like to know himself. "When the developers came out with a new game expansion for Elder Tales, a lot of the time there'd be some big event tied to it to generate more interest and maybe show off some new features for the game. There's been like, I dunno, maybe 12-14 expansions so maybe it's one of those. We should probably find out, though. The way Varduhn talks about it, seems like it's was a long time ago."

---

'Yep. We're all in the same boat, alright..." the tattooed sorcerer agreed with Fren. "...and that boat is up a creek without a paddle." He leaned in the doorway, tapping the end of his staff on the stone floor. "As many of us as there are here, it's looking like it's going to be a BIG boat. I wonder how many more people like us we'll find once we get to Mound City?"

>>> Piphany cut her eyes at Grace for 'volunteering' her concerns but softened a bit as she realized the Bard was right. "As much as I don't want to agree with Grace, heading to the City is what we should do." she tapped her long black fingernails on the wooden table, her hands fidgety when she's being more 'real' than snarky. "Hanging around in Mayberry here isn't going to get us any more answers. SOMEBODY'S gotta know what happened and why were here, right?" She looked down at her feet as she suddenly realized she was likely going be long distance hiking in a pair of spiked platform shoes. "I'm all for heading out in the morning. I haven't seen a single electric light since we got here and walking around in the woods at night is not my idea of a good time..." She nodded over towards Atalanta, "Red here has a point. Having a goal is a good idea to keep focused and not go off the rails in this insane place. One step at a time, right? That what they kept telling me in rehab."

"Good move," Grace says in immediate response to the word ‘rehab.’

She admires Piphany for being the kind of person who needed treatment and got it, whether that was her own decision or a loved one’s encouragement. Grace isn’t going to pry, and she certainly isn’t going to ‘share’ her own story.

"Leaving in the morning sounds good," she agrees. "What are the accommodations, Varduhn, if you don’t mind my asking? You know, bed, bath, breakfast..?"

What she really wanted to know was whether a hot bath would be an option in this world …but now she’s wondering if she even needs to bathe in this world, or if she even can! Maybe, as game-people, our clothes always stay on…

A night's rest sounds like a good idea, and Isbjorn waits for Varduhn to answer Grace's question. He's roughed in the wild a few times, and with their current situation, a bed sounds very luxurious right now. I hope Ulrik is safe, wherever he is right now...

He also follows up another question for Varduhn—that is, the types of potions he's selling and their prices. He's not sure how many they could buy with their 100 gold, but they have to make the most out of their budget.

>>>"Would that I was able to host you all..." Varduhn said wistfully. "My villa is simply not adequate for that. There are rooms and facilities in town meant for visitors during the AleBalm Festival that would be more suited to your stay. They're merchant quarters but the Festival isn't due for another three months so they're freely available at the moment." Varduhn sauntered towards what might be a kitchen area in the quaint hovel, "I offered tea to the two ladies earlier. Would any of the rest of you care for a spot?"

>>> Hiding her smile, she sipped at her cup. "Go ahead. Have some. It's delish..."

>>>The old man seemed a bit puffed up with pride as he misread Piphany's praise. "My shop is on the village commons, right near where you'll be staying. You all are more than welcome to buy any potions you may require there." He marvelled at Isbjorn's sheer size . If he was intimidated , he didn't show it at all. Absently, he answered Grace's pressing concerns, "I do believe, with a kind word, we could get the bath house to open for any of you that require it. I'll have to speak to Aegelby about preparing a dinner and breakfast for you and she is in charge of the baths as well as the kitchens."

"Oh yes, I would like to try your tea Mr. Varduhn" says Fren.

Raquel had looked around the village with quiet bemusement during the initial approach. Once the group meets Grace and Piphany, she introduces herself. "You can call me Raquel. I would like to know exactly how this happened to us as well, and if there's a way to reverse it. I'm all for heading to Mound City in the morning."

She blushes a bit when she sees Grace's pretty smile for the first time. Odd feelings begin to fill her new body, and she does her best to try to suppress them and focus on the task at hand.

When Varduhn says a kind word would get this Aegelby to prepare a bath and a meal, she says, "Well at the very least, a ‘please’ and a ‘thank you’ to you and Aegelby."

As Raquel introduces herself, Grace notices the blushing and that all-too-familiar look. Not a look she’s gotten in recent years, but—

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Raquel."

—she doesn’t stammer or make her attraction completely obvious, like she did after that Northampton gig twenty-three years ago. "That’s an interesting choice of words: ‘if.’

"I’d like to think that because entering this world is possible, exiting is. But, full disclosure, I like being twenty-three again. I like knowing that this twenty-three-year-old me won’t fall in love with the bottle, the bong, the drummer."

Now, Grace is definitely blushing.

—and stammering, "W-what I m-mean is, I might like this predicament. But I’m still in on the mission to find the way out."

I played drums on ‘Rock Band.’ Does that count? Raquel wants to say, but she bites her tongue. Instead, she simply nods. "Right. Well, we can, eh, make the best of this unusual situation as we journey on."

It occurs to her that all the new people came to town, it seems, because of the healing potions. (Or maybe not, but) Grace realizes that she is not just new to this game, but online gaming in general.

She asks Raquel, "What exactly is our situation. I mean… not the Earth stuff. The Elderscrollsville stuff.

"I mean, yeah, I used that human-self-insert feature to play Me, or the Me on my 2001 album cover, Stereolith." She cringes a little at the debut album’s name.

"Buuuuut… my oversized lute called a Baroque Theorbo is technically a custom weapon. So, when you were out and about, did you have to… y’know?" She doesn’t want to say ‘kill.’ Or ‘monsters.’

"Well, yeah. We're adventurers now," Raquel says. "Fighting monsters is part and parcel of the whole deal." She pats the hilt of her katana with a gloved hand. "It was actually more thrilling than scary, though. My body just kind of took over and I knew what to do, how to fight. And the monsters just go 'poof' when they die, no blood and guts or anything. You're a bard, so you've probably got support magic you can use if you don't want to mix it up in melee combat."

Grace’s eyes linger of the hilt, flicker to Piphany’s scythe, then… her hands.

"Well… that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Maybe I could start up the healing song, which keeps all of you relatively safe, then if there are un-poofed monsters, I might have to engage in fisticuffs, or do the El Kabong thing."

From Raquel’s words, she feels a little better about the prospect of combat. Poof, like in that super-cute Super NES game she and O’Keys and O’Drum played as teenagers.

Taylor doesn't really know anything about music, outside of his father's disdain for most rock stars.

"I don't really have any place to go back to, but at least it was a world that I was sort of familiar with."

"Also this sort of thing just doesn't happen, and I don't want to be part of another person's grand plan."

>>>"Here you go." Varduhn fetched a relatively clean metal cup and handed it over to Fren after filling it with tea from the earthenware pitcher. "Let me know how you like it. I can't say I've ever served Cicada Tea to a Fox Tail before." Inwardly, he was eager to watch how Fren navigated drinking from a cup.
>>>His eyes not leaving Fren, he backed towards the door and called out to his granddaughter, "Adana, Child. Would you and Jean Louis run to the town square and deliver my note to Missus Aegelby?"

>>> "Is it a Quest!?" the little girl called out from the tree.

>>>'Yes. Of a sort..." he called back, somewhat embarrassed to be yelling in front of his esteemed guests. "Come, child. Take this and help where you can. I...We...will all be along shortly."
>>>The girl and her Catfolk friend descended from the tree, retrieved Varduhn's hastily scrawled note and were off in a flash. The energy of youth and promise of adventure fueling their pell-mell flight towards town.

>>> 'Wait. You play a broke torpedo?" Arga butted in as Varduhn conversed with his grandkid. He clearly misunderstood or mis-heard Grace. "No wonder that thing is huge..."

>>> "Yeah. I think we'd all like to find out what happened and how. And especially find out whether we can get back to Earth or not." BradL33 interjected. "Best place yo find answers is definitely gotta be where there should be more of us players... Adventurers, right? I'm guessing that's gotta be Mound City." He looked at the others gathered in the small villa, maybe trying to figure tout their various feelings about the situation. "We're all bound to feel different ways about whatever it was that happened. For some of us, I guess it was like the end of the world. Like some kinda Apocalypse, or something. For some if us, maybe not. Maybe its like a new beginning..." he looked directly at Atalanta for maybe a bit longer than he meant to. "Either way, we're stuck here and we need to start learning how things work. How to live in this world now that it's not just a game anymore." He looked at Grace and Piphany, "I don't know if fighting is just gonna be a part of this new experience or not but I don't see us avoiding it for now. We'll do what we have to, though."

Grace smiles sweetly at the children. "Thank you, Adana, Jean-Louis."

She giggles at the torpedo comment (in part because the instrument was the butt of the joke, and not her terrible playing!)…

When Brad says fighting is inevitable, she replies, "All the more reason I won’t opt out of it. Raquel’s description makes me feel a little better about it.

"I just hope I’m better at hitting people with my instrument than I am at playing it."

Fren tries the tea and find it delicious. He does not pay attention to Varduhn, either he does not notices his puzzelment or he doesn't care. He holds the cup as a normal human and drinks with his snout a bit inside the cup. His whiskers get a bit wet and finds the way that a snouted (is there such a word? he thinks) person drinks is a bit funny.

"So are non-humans common here?" he asks Valduhn, after he sees the wolf boy. "How their existence affects the locals?" He knows that in the real world people are very petty when someone has even a different skin colour, let alone being a completely different species.

>>> "I don't wanna downplay it..." BradL33 countered. "It was terrifying not knowing what was going on or how to even defend yourself. I got jumped the moment I landed here and ran into these guys and that helped even the odds a lot." He gestured to the others that he arrived to the villa with. "Seems like we've got abilities like we had in the game but there's a whole world, in this case literally, of difference between knowing that fact and being able to use that knowledge effectively. We're still all learning how everything works here." The thought struck him as he talked with Grace, "Oh, hey. There's probably stuff we found out that we should share with you guys in case you haven't found out about it yet. Stuff like the User Interface. We only found out about it by accident..."

>>> "Do you think this is a good place to Level Up? " Arga asked before BradL33 could start explaining the UI to Grace and Piphany. "I didn't want to be distracted looking at my options while we were travelling in case something jumped us."
>>> "Yeah, I guess so..." he thought about it for a moment. "The Info Box on the town said 'Monsters' were allowed here but it seems safe..." He looked towards Varduhn questioningly.

>>>"Oh, eh?" the old Apothecary seemed a bit confused as to the question but muddled an answer. "There have been monsters sighted near here on occasion but none have attacked in years. Nothing really to draw them here, I guess. No Gold, no valuable supplies. For that we should be thankful. We have a small militia to deter such things but we've no guards like the big cities."

>>>"So, I'm gonna be over in the corner figuring out what I should take while you teach Grace and Piff the stuff we found out. Poke me if when we're gonna leave." Arga moved from the doorway and found a space to sit down on the floor with his staff across his lap and zoned out. His fingers made odd motions in the air at things perhaps only he could see.

>>>The goth assassin bristled at the nickname Arga suddenly saddled her with; her dark fingernails etched marks in the wooden tabletop. As much as she'd like to go punch him in his face, she felt like whatever BradL33 was going to teach them was at least marginally more important and thus sat still.

>>>"I'm pleased you like the Cicada Tea." Varduhn moved closer to Fren as BradL33 monopolized the conversation at the other side of the room. "There are a few Beastfolk around the village. My granddaughter's playmate, Jean Louis is Catfolk you see. Fox Tails and Catfolk are an unusual sight but not terribly uncommon, though there are fewer FoxTails than others, by far." He drew in closer to Fren in order to speak quietly, "Wolf Fangs are only seen amongst you Adventurers in these parts in modern days. And only tolerated because it is understood that they were not part of the Gateway War."

---

---

>>>Meanwhile, something stirs in the forests out beyond thd fields of AleBalm as the field hands return to the village after a day's hard labor...

Grace will gladly take lessons from Brad. "I managed to study a man, and I knew his full name despite not having a proper introduction.

"Leveling… that reminds me. My Custom Weapon is 5 levels above me, I think. So I’m what… level 1 since I never made that go… up? And what’s the significance of my weapon being a higher number?"

She thinks this lesson could take a while, but Raquel was quite chatty so she doesn’t want to ignore her. "Oh, Raquel… I was thinking of checking out the bath house, so long as the monsters don’t come along and disturb the peace. Would you care to join me?"

Raquel’s eyes widen and her face goes white. "Oh, th-the bathhouse?" she stammers. She looks away and pretends to adjust her glasses as her imagination momentarily goes wild. She takes a deep breath to steady herself. She hasn’t been a woman for even an entire day yet... But she doesn’t want to blow a potential chance with Grace for... For what, exactly, she’s not sure yet.

She turns back to Grace and manages a wan smile. "Uh, sure, I’ll go with you," she manages to say.

"A bath sounds amazing right now!" Clara's ears perk up, completely oblivious to the changes in Raquel's demeanour. She always loves a relaxing hot bath after a long day IRL, forgetting the fact that she is no longer a human in this world. "Can I join you guys?"

Seeing that the others are busying themselves, Isbjorn on a whim tries to follow Adana & Jean-Louis outside. Even though they probably wouldn't be staying for long, he wants to know the village layout better. What's more, the mention of monster attacks worries him—He's not sure if a large group of Adventurers like themselves will attract monsters or not, so it's better to keep a look out in any case.

He tells everybody that he's stepping out, and invites anybody who wants to come with him explore the village.

Grace replies to the cat-girl, "You’re certainly welcome to, Clara."

Raquel seems relieved by Clara's interjection. "Sure, the more the merrier," she says, happy to have a bit of a buffer between herself and Grace, for the moment.

>>>BradL33’s quick guide to the Elder Tales UI doesn't take all that long since mainly it just involves kind of showing Grace and Piphany what to look for and where stuff was then letting them do their own exploring when they had a chance.
>>>Isbjorn wandered away while everyone was distracted, following the two kids as they headed for the main part of town. He watched them play as they headed towards the rows of houses (all similarly styled as Varduhn's) that ran along a wide boulevard. The white stucco and terra cotta roofed village was quaint and relatively quiet. The kind of place someone might come for a vacation getaway...under radically different circumstances. The kids disappeared into a low, detached building off the boulevard that had a picture of a wooden-staved washtub hanging from the door. The warm wind picked up into a pleasant breeze as the sun sat low in the sky. The returning field workers and other villagers were polite to the large wizard but tended to take a wide berth around him.

>>> "Woah! Hey, hey!" an armored man called out across the boulevard at Isbjorn. "You're from Earth, right?!" He seemed a bit overjoyed, patting his smaller elven companion on the back hard. Jogging across the street made his armor clank together loudly, his companion in tow behind him. "I'm Guy and this is Tina..." he seemed almost giddy with relief to (presumably) see someone else not native to this new world.
>>>"Ease up, G. Let the guy answer..." she put a hand on his chest to slow down the enthusiastic knight. "You are from our world, right? Earth? 21st Century?" she tried to clarify in case anything else weird was going on besides being transported to a game world.



>>> Varduhn urged the Adventurers to follow him to the village square to visit his shop and allow the girls first chance at the Bath House while a proper evening meal is prepared for everyone.
>>>The village 'square' was really just a wide boulevard with shops and homes (often the same building) that lined the only cobblestone street in the village. Varduhn gave a very brief, yet through, tour as he pointed out the Bath House, the Merchant Quarters where everyone would be staying, his Apothecary Shop and the other fixtures of the small village. The ringing hammers of the Blacksmith's caught Fren's attention from it's location behind and away from the other buildings; perhaps located there to be safely away from the more flammable shops.

>>>"You are free to do as you please." Varduhn announced. "We'll be having an evening meal at sunset so you'll have time to peruse my shop or any of the others in the square, Aegelby probably has heated enough water for baths for those so inclined.
The bell will ring when the meal is ready." The old Apothecary tried to make Belle sound as appealing as he could, despite the way glances from the villagers. It really seemed like a bucolic and peaceful place, despite the weird circumstances that brought everyone here.

Isbjorn sighs when he notices how the villagers seem to be wary of him. He doesn't really blame them, but it's dampening his mood quite a bit. Luckily, the sudden shout and clanking of metal approaching surprised him out of his torpor.

"Ah, yes, hello. My name's Isbjorn," he says while offering a smile and a handshake to the strangers with similar circumstances. "If you two were also playing Elder Tales before getting magically transported in here, unfortunately we're in the same boat," he adds with a wry chuckle. "I came to this village with a few other... Adventurers, so if you wanna meet the others I would be happy to introduce you two."

Speak of the devil, Isbjorn turns around when he hears footsteps behind him and notices Varduhn leading the others towards the village square.

Fren will visit the Blacksmith and sees what he can find there. He enters the door and greets the blacksmith joyfully. His eyes sparkle from the hearth's fire. "Well, hello there!"

After, if there is still time, he will visit the baths.

Raquel distributes the extra treasure from the goblins as evenly as she can among those who were present for the fight. She buys a HP Potion, an Eliixir, and 3 rations, saving the rest of her gold for now. She then nervously waits for Grace and Clara to be ready to go to the bath house.

>>>"That pretty much sums it up, mate..." the knight concurs with Isbjorn. "Log in and wake up on a road ain't never in my life seen and dressed like I raided a 1066 reenactment." the more he spoke, the more his slight English accent slipped out.

>>>"You came here with others ? How many?" hers was an American accent but Isbjorn couldn't place it exactly. She was trying not to sound too inquisitive. "I thought we were it for a while. Just me and Guy 'til we got a TeleChat from some Guildmates in the same mess. Looks like it's worse than we thought..."

>>>"Ain't raining, innit? Deffo could be worse..." Guy interjected. "No 'monsters' and stuck in a village in...what is this? South of France?" he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood.

>>>"It's Missouri... The U.S." she flatly corrected him and he seemed a bit crestfallen and confused. She turned back to Isbjorn, "We were recording some 'B Roll' footage for our YouTube gaming channel and suddenly ended up here."

---

>>>The Blacksmith's shop is relatively small and cluttered with numerous projects in progress. The telltale ringing of a hammer on anvil sounds out the finish of a day's work repairing the field tools for the village.

>>>"Watch your tail..." the smith nods to Fren as he enters the shop. "Those things go up like a torch if you get em too close to the forge."

---

>>>The Bath House is somewhat behind the main boulevard of the village, detached from the other ships and living spaces, opposite the Blacksmith. Tubs of steaming soapy water stand in the open room; the pulleys and rope lines crisscrossing the large room give you the impression that laundry is also washed here. The tubs look like giant half-barrels with attached plumbing and a step to help you get in. Towels hang on the laundry lines between the tubs for a modicum of privacy and to dry off once finished.

Clara receives the extra gold coins from Raquel and decides to buy 2 elixirs and 3 rations while wondering if this food will have a decent taste, or any taste at all. Before heading to the bathhouse, she addresses Taylor, seeing that she's been quiet: "Do you wanna come along?"

Once in the baths, Grace is not shy about disrobing in the presence of other women. Her back is to them, in case any of them are bashful.

The original early-twenties-me was shy.

Once her clothing is folded and shelved, she steps in and slowly sinks into the soapy water, only hesitating at the point where, surely, most people hesitate! …then she dips down until only her head and shoulders are above water.

"Only now it occurs to me there’s no hair products in 1364," she says to the others, voice far too relaxed for someone allegedly bemoaning the lack of a modern convenience. "I’m not even sure I’ve a hairbrush in my purse. And if I do, is it six feet long and meant to bop monsters on the head?"

"I guess so. It would be mice to get all the sticky from traveling off/."

Raquel blushes and quickly turns away as Grace wastes no time in taking her clothes off. She waits with her back turned until the bard is fully in the tub before slowly unbuckling her leather armor and removing it, followed by the undershirt and breeches. She studiously avoids looking at her own body as well, instead quickly grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her body, mindful to cover all her womanly parts. She keeps the towel on as she carefully steps into her own tub.

The water does feel nice, but it's hard to relax given the circumstances. When Grace mentions hair products, Raquel just chuckles and smiles nervously, having no clue how to maintain her own head of long hair. "Maybe there will be a menu to change your hairstyle," she muses. "Just select how you want it to look, and poof! Who knows? This whole thing runs on video game logic, so anything is possible."

Grace is happy to relive her youth with someone else being the shy one this time.

"If Game Logic means I can get my hair wet without consequence, I’m going under."

She thinks on Brad’s lesson, but doesn’t recall her purse (or ‘magic bag’) having anything ordinary in it. Just the Baroque Theorbe.

But she gives her UI another look. As she does, her hands are on the surface of the sudsy water, pointing and clicking…

Isbjorn stops by the shop and empties his gold for an HP potion, an MP potion, and 2 sets of rations while continuing his chat with Guy and Tina. He feels a bit lost when Tina starts talking about Youtube and gaming footage—his son would definitely know what she's talking about if he was here—but something else caught his attention.

"Your guild messaged you? How? And where are they now?" he asks. He's familiar with Telechat thanks to the crash course from before, but he didn't have any contacts in it until he added the others. He sighs, and says "I was playing the game with my son Ulrik but we got separated after getting transported here. Unfortunately I don't have his contact..."

Fren enters the smithy and his eyes glitter. It is much better than what he had in mind. He greets the elf and tucks his tail. She is right and he still has not used to having a tail. "Is there anything I can buy? A better sword than what I have and possibly a recipe? You see, I also have a production subclass." he says, hoping that the lady knows that there are subclasses and some of the game terminology still applies to the (real?) world.

>>>"Guild?" Guy responded. "That might be stretching the term a bit... Sure, we joined in but it's kind of a 'working Guild', I guess you could say. We're all Streamers and kind of grab footage for each other so we're not so spread out that we can't post content regularly. Looks like that's all on the back-burner now."
"We sell game footage to the bigger Content Creators on social media to fund the gear and stuff we make our own shows with." Tina explained as the two followed Isbjorn around buying his supplies. They followed him almost like they were afraid to be left alone again. "The Guild we belong to is called TTV. We're pretty far outside where the others are. They're back on the Coast around Liberty City. What we don't really know is exactly where WE are... We're somewhere around Mound City but the mini-maps aren't working so we can't even tell which way is North."
"We just followed the road we woke up beside and ended up here in Belle." Guy became a bit somber as he addressed Isbjorn more directly, "Sorry to hear about your kid, though. How old is he? What's his game avatar like? We can ask our mates in Liberty if they've seen anyone like that around." Guy patted Isbjorn's large arm to encourage him, "Players are all supposed to show up in the Great Cities, the Player Cities. There's five Great Cities on each server so as long as he's on the same server he had to have shown up at one of them. Maybe he's at the nearest one waiting on you, eh?. Mound City, right Tina?"
She nodded affirmative to Guys question. "You get us to Mound City and we'll help you find your kid. As much as we're able to anyway..." Tina wasn't sure how much help they could be but they had a network outside of the backwater they were currently in so maybe that'd weigh in their favor.

>>>As the three conversed in Varduhn's shop, the old Apothecary listened in intently, enraptured by having so many Adventurers around town so suddenly. Some of the others filtered back in after looking around at the rest of the town.
>>>"Woah! Where'd you guys come from??" BradL33 remarked as he walked through the door with Arga in tow behind him.

"That's not your kid I'm guessing?" Tina asked Isbjorn as she looked at BradL33.

BradL33’s eyes narrowed a bit before blurting out, "I. Am. Not. A. Kid!" The outburst didn't really sell the assertion.

---

>>>"Not much that an Adventurer might have interest in... Belle is a farming community and swords aren't in much demand, I'm afraid..." she said, the swinging of her hammer slowing. "You'd need a Sword Maker SubClass for crafting one worth having and that's a bit beyond me. You're welcome to look through the Recipes I have available." she pointed to a sooty desk across the room from her forge and anvil. "Basic items, mainly. Not much call for the unusual or exotic in Belle but there's stuff to get you started if you're new to your SubClass."

>>>The desk had numerous scrolls of thick and oily vellum placed in cubby holes around the desk. The desk looked a lot like the one in the Tutorial where Fren discovered the book that let him open up the Blacksmith SubClass. Such hidden items were a bonus for the curious who didn't 'speedrun' through the Tutorial.
>>>The scrolls contained the Recipes for a number of handy metal items, mainly farm tools that were 'weapon-adjacent' but not weapons themselves. A Recipe for a Toolbox Item stood out from the rest. A Toolbox let a Blacksmith make minor repairs to weapons, armor & other items in the field rather than having a Blacksmith Crafting Station, aka a Forge & Anvil. Amongst the other scrolls, Fren noticed the Recipe for smelting Goblin Iron. Such things as were made with Goblin Iron instead of regular Iron had greater durability and a small chance for a minor enchantment or special quality to arise during crafting. Goblin Iron, as the scroll stated, could only be obtained through defeating a Goblin with a high enough Rank.

---

>>>The water was nice and hot. You wouldn't think a hot bath on a May evening would feel good but after hiking who knows how far through the woods it felt amazing.

>>>"Where's the hot water come from?" the goth girl wondered, hesitating at joining the others. As aggressive as she came off earlier, she seemed a lot more timid or hesitant than before, almost as if she were trying to find some reason to not join in.
>>>Once everyone else was in she groaned and started taking off her outfit like everyone else had. For privacy, she used one of the other big barrels to block line of sight. She stood back behind the barrel for a long time, not really moving once her black and red dress was removed and hung on a chair nearby. Her voice trembled a bit as she said lowly, "... it's been so long since I could see my feet..." She'd said it to herself but the voice carried in the big open space. Piphany entered the steaming hot water and sort of curled up into herself.
>>>As if to distract from Piphany, the elf matron who ran the Bath House appeared with a stack of fluffy towels and wordlessly set them down on the benches beside the barrels containing the Adventurers. "Will you be needing your clothes cleaned?" she asked. "It'll only take a few minutes as long as what you're wearing is Production or Magic Class Items. Anything above that should clean itself." She waited for a response to her query, ready to gather things as needed.

Grace smiles with empathy at Piphany’s whispered confession. She wants to say something but stops herself, fearing her attempt at kindness would only embarrass the poor girl, who seems as self-conscious as Raquel!

So the bard turns herself around to face Aegelby, leaning on her elbows, mindful of her posture so she’s covered just enough by her arms. "It’s sweet of you to offer. My clothes is plenty clean, but would it be a bother to ask for help with my hair?

"I seem to have arrived in your fine village without my hairbrush or—" Did they have shampoo Back Now? "—special soaps that keep my hair silky soft, with this pleasant aroma that’s a little bit citrus, a lot bit floral… and the lady in the ad seems to enjoy it much more than I do." Getting to the point: "If my hair dries funny, it’ll resemble a briar patch."

Grace’s eyes roam the elf’s green braids with genuine admiration. "Your braids are lovely, so I’m hoping you might be the local hair expert," she adds with a hint of a nervous laugh.

Atalanta shakes out their wet hair. "Hey Grace, how long does it take for hair to dry? Mine has never been this long before."

"Thank you," Atalanta says to Aegellby, "If it doesn't cause you any trouble."

Atalanta doesn't appear to have any of the body shyness Grace or Raquel, but if you look close she appears to be removing very robotatically.

"I’ll have my clothes cleaned, please and thank you," Raquel says.

Grace replies, "Drying this much hair back where I’m from only takes—" She says the amount, but then names several hair products along with the steps she takes "normally just for the stage, but once you’re used to it, you know what you gotta do daily and my girl Cynthia at the spa gives me the full treatment."

It occurs to her that she’s talking about her younger days as if they are present.

"Well… not Cynthia now. Or monthly." Her enthusiasm seems to peter out for a second or two—but she snaps back to her seemingly default chipperness: "It’s actually nice regressing to novice at hair anyway."

From the way Grace turns her body when addressing Atlanta, it might be apparent that the bard is neither covering up nor purposely ‘showing herself.’She asks Atlanta, "What’s it like having a tail?" She turns to Clara, who’s as qualified to answer. "I hope that’s not a weird question. I… almost played a catgirl."

>>>"If you're wanting anything fancy done with your hair, you'll have to ask an Elder Maid." the Bath House matron announced as she collected the clothes to be cleaned. "You'll not be finding their like around here." She held up Raquel's armor and looked at it before folding it under her arm with the others. "If you want something simple, I can have one of my girls tend to you. Their Maid level isn't too high but they can manage. The practice would do them some good." She prepared to leave as a bevvy of young women filed in all wearing very traditional looking maid outfits. The oldest of them had to be late teens at most and each had a wooden caddy of bottles, soaps and brushes.

Grace is surprised by the small army of Girl Scouts.

"Good evening, girls." Grace gives each of the young maids an appraising look. "Aegelby was just talking about Maid Levels. Well, my Bard Level ain’t ever gonna be anywhere near Taylor Swift’s, and truth be told, I’d be happy to level-up to Half-a-Kim Deal… and to pull that off takes practice.

"So you little ladies are in luck. I’m Grace, and this is Atlanta, Clara, Piphany and Raquel. Pick a head o’ hair, and see if you can Up those Maid Levels."

Grace dunks under a moment, and as soon as her head emerges she tosses her wet hair and leans her back against the tub. She closes her eyes.

"If any of the other women don’t want their hair done, feel free to team up on mine."

"How much for those two scrolls?" Fren asks the blacksmith. He wanted the Crafting Station and the Goblin Iron sounded promising. Maybe he could etch runes on the items, down the line. He hoped he could upgrade his blacksmith stats soon, as he did in his previous game.

Raquel is distracted watching the water dripping from Grace's beautiful red hair. Not knowing how to tend to long hair herself, she lets the novice maids style her own hair in whatever manner they choose.

The prospect of a hot bath is so exciting to Clara, that she forgets she is now a full catfolk.

As everyone casually soaks in barrels full of steaming water, Clara's paws are hovering over the edge of the tub. An unfamiliar instinct was kicking in. The water almost seems... menacing. This reminds her of her beloved cat, Cinnamon, who tolerated baths only with the most dramatic protest.

The fleeting unease towards water is quickly overshadowed by the offer of hairstyling. Clara's eyes light up, but a touch of self-consciousness follows. Unlike her long, black hair in the real world, her current calico mane isn't exactly brimming with styling options. Still, she is curious to see what magic the bathhouse maids can work.

In the meantime, her interest is piqued by the soaps and shampoos of this world. Having dabbled in formulation science back in university, Clara can't help but wonder if her knowledge is at all applicable here. Since Brad mentioned subclasses before and half the party, including herself, being women, how feasible is it to whip up some simple beauty products?

>>>"Most of them are 10 Gold each but the one's you're looking at are 25 Gold." Almathea responded, quenching the red hot chunk of metal she'd been working on into a bucket of oil. The smell of scalded oil filling the air with a heavy scent as flames licked up the tongs she held it with. "Lots of Goblins in the forests around here but haven't had a call to smelt Goblin Iron in a long time. Adventurers used to come in and sell it to my father when he was the town Smith. Haven't seen any in a long time... You're probably the first Adventurers to come by since he died a dozen years back." She left the metal in the bucket of still seething oil and closed the air channels below the forge and unhooked the chains to the bellows above it. She seemed to be finishing up work for the day and cooling the forge but was in no hurry to rush Fren out the door. Especially since the Smithy didn't even have a door.

Atalanta doesn't seem to be having the issues with the water Clara is, but with her sliders set to minimal all she really has is the ears and a tail.

"I don't know about Clara, but so far I'm having a hard time noticing my tail. Or rather, it seems to be...automated? As long as I don't think about it too much it seems to be mostly behaving, but when I think about it I seems to really clumsy with it."

Taylor doesn't bring up that he was using this same automation to basically bathe right now.

Now that Taylor mentions it, Clara suddenly becomes more aware of her fluffy tail. It feels natural enough that she is barely bothered by it. "Speaking of which, how are you guys adjusting to this world? So much has happened that I can't believe it's only been a day." Clara tries to get to know her new friends, while apprehensively dipping a paw in the hot bath.

Grace feels a little guilty admitting it, but—

"A part of me would prefer to stay like this. Deep down, I know—or think—it’s gotta be… wrong, somehow. But this body is Me from my debut album cover." Glancing at her knee protruding from the suds, she whispers, "Right down to the airbrushed smoothness. It’s like a miracle o’ sorts."

Not wanting to sound insensitive, she notes, "I’m sure it’s not the same for everyone. I mean, you’ve got lives to get back to, I’m sure, and so I’ll help. What I’m not sure is whether I’d go back if each of us had the choice." She recalls her childhood summers, the arcade at Hampton Beach. Every game there had one common screen which she is now picturing in her head:

GAME OVER


"I suppose I’d go back," she says with a hint of trepidation. "Mend fences and whatnot…"

"Yeah, I... I haven't really had time to process everything," Raquel says. "I'm still a human, but other than that, this body is, uh, significantly different than what I'm used to. So, uh, get back to me on that one..."

She looks down at herself, blushes anew, and sinks down lower in the tub, still wrapped in a now soggy towel.

"Too early to tell."

Hearing Grace's confession, a thoughtful expression appears on Clara's feline face. "Actually, I kinda get where you're coming from. Real life has put a lot of pressure on me lately. This whole situation, bizarre as it is, gives me the temporary escape I need."

She then smiles, as much as a cat can smile, that is. "I'm an optimist, so I have faith we'll figure things out. Sure, being stuck here for years would be scary, but for a short time it might be a welcome break."

Still, a flicker of worry crosses her mind. "My only concern is how time flows here compared to the real world, if this were some elaborate VR program." She thinks about her parents. While they're a tad perfectionistic, and their expectations can be stifling at times, she knows they care about her more than anything else. What would happen to them if she may never return?

"Ok, I will take both of them. I am pretty sure I will find some Goblin Iron soon." says Fren. He sees that the elf is prepping for closing shop and he leaves to get some rations from the market. If there is time after this he will go to the bath house to take a hot bath.

Isbjorn laughs a little while ruffling his hand on Bradley's head. "Don't mind him, he's a bit testy about that," he says to Guy and Tina. If he's being perfectly honest however, even when Isbjorn believes that he's older than he looks—some of the others have become non-human after all—he himself couldn't help but treat Bradley as a kid. Maybe he's missing his own kid too much. Speaking of—

"I unfortunately can't remember my son's username. I think it was based on one of the characters from a show he likes... it's called anime I think? And he didn't directly use his own appearance like I did, he looked like a wolf." Isbjorn sighs. He and his ex-wife parted in not so good terms, but it would've been nice if he knew of his son's existence earlier. That way his knowledge of him wouldn't be so shallow at the very least. "I do know his class is guardian though, since I was playing a sorcerer and he said he would protect me," Isbjorn adds with a huge grin and a touch of fatherly pride.

>>>His tantrum subsiding and trying to avoid having his hair ruffled again, BradL33 retreats back to another part of Varduhn's Apothecary and looks around a bit more while Arga hangs around the "adults" and leaning on his staff as he listens to the conversation.
'Guardian, huh?" he patted the white trimmed armor breastplate he wore. "That's what I picked. Well, Tina picked it. She needed an escort for the playlist she was making about how to play the more difficult Elder Tales classes."
>>>"I'd done a short 'How to Play' video for Elder Tales a couple of years ago when I was first starting out. I did a bunch for older niche games back then just to have some views coming in but during the COVID Lockdowns it really started getting some hits and thought I'd get back around to an update sometime." she sighed, the emotion behind it sort of complex. "With this new expansion coming out and some big names starting to talk about it, I thought I'd make a few quick 'tips & tricks' videos on the harder to play classes and cash in on the hype. Dragged G into it and ended up here...and stuck playing the most obtuse class in the whole damned game." She looked apologetically at Guy.
>>>"Eh, she does the MMO thing. My expertise are FPS games; though I'm kinda glad we didn't get dumped into one of those!" >>>The sun had begun to set behind the abundant treeline around the village as the group spoke together, commiserating the situation they found themselves in. Outside on the boulevard, the shadows grew long as the sunlight dimmed only to be replaced with a warm glow from flickering lanterns that had begun to be set out in the tables in the middle of the boulevard by the women of the village. Large plates of simple food items soon followed and it appeared as if the villagers had begun to arrive for the evening meal.

---

>>>The young Maids quickly shuffled in and each took a tub and attended to its occupant, each girl with a sort of demure nature that was a bit unsettling to 21st century egalitarian sensibilities.
The young boy that accompanied the Maids simply assisted them until called away by Aegelby.
"oh my gosh, you're all so pretty!" one girl squealed.
>>>
"How did get such long hair? Is it Magic?" another asked, a sense of wonder in her voice.
>>>
"We're really getting to do your hair? I can't wait to tell Mama I helped wash an Adventurer's hair!"
>>>
>>>The way these girls went on about things made it feel like they were in the presence of celebrity or royalty or some social station to which these girls could never climb. Supremely eager to please, the girls pulled out all the stops in making the bathing experience memorable and pleasurable.
>>>For Grace, Raquel and Atalanta, the Maids explained the trick to managing their hair in an age without blow-dryers...hair oil and a thorough brushing. That seemed to immensely speed up the drying time of even Grace's mountain of hair and keep it tangle free while eliminating the frizz.
>>> Piphany rebuffed any attempts at help or assistance bathing, preferring instead to lurk mostly below the water. With only her nose and eyes above the waterline, crocodile-like, she seemed perfectly content to bathe herself.
>>>By the time the girls had finished and retreated from the room to allow the Adventurers to finish and get dressed, the windows to the outside were dark and the sound of the cicadas intensifying in the deepening dusk.

---

>>>While the girls settled in for a bit of pampering, Fren entered the Bath House and was quickly greeted by the Matron, Aegelby.
>>>"Well, another Adventurer come for a bath?" she met him with a stack of towels and clothes. The clothes he recognized as belonging to the others so he must be in the right place. "Right this way..." Aegelby led Fren to a room separate from the girls, but no less spacious. "I'll say, it's been an age since we've served a Fox Tail. If you'd choose your tub, I'll send Martin in to be your attendant shortly." The Matron left Fren to choose his tub and a young boy appeared a few minutes afterward. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt with his sleeves tied back and toting a caddy full of bath supplies for Fren's needs...whatever those might be. Having a fur pelt was a new experience.

Grace is about as giddy as the maids. As soon as they leave, she says, "Oh, those little maids’re so adorable—so polite! Talented, too." Her posture straightens as she stops short of rising from the tub.

"Well, shall we head to the center of Belle?"

"So I guess the real question," Atalanta says to the group after the baths are done, [b]"Is along the line of, 'are we going to Mound City?'"

Grace could spend the rest of her life in a place like Belle… except that the royal treatment she’s received in her short existence in Elderscrollsville is because she’s an Adventurer. Not Adventuring would pull the plug on that. So yeah, taking it easy ain’t happening. stick to the plan.

"Of course," she replies. "Dinner, bed, breakfast… then off to Mound City first thing in the morning!" She adds, "—after breakfast."

"It feels...weird...to have NPCs just kinda fawn over you, doesn't it?" Piphany stirred in her cooling bathwater, a bit hesitant to get out. "It was kinda okay when they were just like robots. They only repeated the same dialogue prompts, walked a path track they never deviated from and now they're like...like...people" She hurriedly splashed out of the tub while the others were distracted by towelling off, their own body insecurities or getting dressed. She towelled off rapidly, continuing in a more hushed tone "I mean, ARE they people?"

>>>The main boulevard of the small village was quite a bit more bustling as ths girls meet up with BradL33, Isbjorn, Arga and a couple of new people, an armored man and a robed woman.
>>>The deepening shadows of the end of twilight and the beginning of night are dispelled by the sudden flickering of lanterns flaring to life. The lanterns cast a warm-hued light across the boulevard and point out that most of the village must be gathering here to eat. Long tables & benches sat in the middle of the boulevard, gathering various congregations of villagers. The tables were there when Varduhn gave the Adventurers their tour of the village but it wasn't evident at the time what they were for.

>>> "Oi! Hey, hey!" the armored man enthusiastically waved at the girls as they entered the boulevard. "More people!"

>>>"Here, my friends, let us all take this table." the old Apothecary waved towards a long table that should fit everyone. "We villagers often eat together at evening meal when the weather allows. As guests of Belle, it's only natural that you would get welcome to join our meal. We don't often get visitors so please don't mind the stares. Many of us are curious about Adventurers but also a bit...wary."


>>>As if bound to disprove her grandfather, Adanna and her felinoid friend run right up to the table and hop onto the bench, much to the chagrin of Varduhn. "How many people have you killed?" she asked bluntly to none of the Adventurers in particular with the brutal honesty of a child. Jean Louis' father was in the guard and he killed lots of people..."
>>>For his part, Jean Louis covered his whole face with his paws, tail swishing agitatedly. He looked like he was about to die of sheer embarrassment. "non. non. That was a war." he said demurely from behind his paws. "not adventuring..." his accent was very different from Varduhn's or Adanna's or Aegelby's, almost like French??

Fren prefers to be alone in the bath so he says to the boy to leave. Not that he has insecurities with his body, at least he did not had in real life. He undresses and sees that the cosmetic scars he chose during character creation were there. He even has long "hair" like fur on his head, that fall like a lion's mane when they are untied. How deep is this game after all? What really is happening? he thinks as he enters the bathtub. He feels his body strange, feeling fur instead of skin and his tail is soaked. He spends some time soaking and then he gets out, he dries himself as best as he can with the towels and dresses up. He leaves to find the other people.

He feels the warm food in his belly and, strangely, the feeling is like hunger and sustainance in real life. He shares the same concerns with Piphany and he starts to miss his girlfriend and his dog. Fren likes Piphany's style, as he did some "death lolitas" dolls for a client some time back. "I like your style and I think the scythe is awesome...what class you picked?" he says as he eats.

Raquel finds herself relaxing a bit as the maids tend to her hair. It feels good to be pampered. It's something she's never really experienced before. So she feels a bit less self-conscious when the time comes to exit the bath, dry off, and don her clothes. She tugs on her breeches and the padded undershirt before strapping on her armor, somewhat annoyed that of all of the women in the group aside from Atalanta, she's the only one whose outfit exposes her midriff. She silently curses whichever (probably male) developer coded the assassin's armor set.

When Piphany brings up the nature of the NPCs, Raquel frowns. "I don't know. They definitely act like living, breathing people. I think we should treat them as such."

She introduces herself to the new people at dinner, but mostly keeps to herself from that point on as she eats. Every so often, though, she'll sneak a glance towards Grace, somewhat taken by the boisterous bard's bold personality.

As Grace dries and dresses, she echoes Raquel’s sentiments. "I’m all for treating NPCs like real people whether they are or not. They’re being very kind to us, and if anything, I’m afraid I’ll let ’em all down."

---

At dinner, Grace happily introduces herself to Guy and Tina. She finds the ‘killed-people’ comment unsettling, but does not respond to it. It comes as a relief that War and Adventuring are seen as ‘different.’

She decides that the People of the Land deserved to be entertained for their hospitality. She slowly removes the impossibly large baroque theory from her purse……and again, Grace. Cannot. Play!

She is mortified by the novice mistakes. She blushes furiously, and in a pathetic squeak she says, "Forgive me. I should know better than to tune my instrument at the table. Haha?"

She’s about to put her instrument away, but is afraid even that will draw attention—which is what she wanted, or would want if she didn’t suddenly suck at the lute! This should be easy. What is wrong with me?

Raquel sees Grace struggling and decides to step in to help. "That was pretty good, Grace. Do you know ‘Wonderwall?’" She begins to sing, hoping the bard will start accompanying her. Raquel’s singing voice isn’t great, but maybe it will distract from Grace’s earlier mistakes:

Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now, you shoulda somehow
Realised what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now...

Grace does know the tune…

—and the memory of backing O’Keys’ vocals bolsters her confidence. Grace plays the bass naturally, and her voice is angelic as she counters her bass playing with a soprano harmonization of the second verse.

Backbeat, the word is on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now…

She rises from her chair, standing as she plays, moving her hips as if the oversized lute is her dancing partner. Her eyes meet Raquel’s as she bellows the chorus with feeling—whether Raquel continues to sing or not—and by the end of the song, she dances her way toward the sweet little maids.

She was hoping to repay them with a performance, and thanks to Raquel, she found whatever she was missing! And so she plays for the children, ending the tune with a curtsy.

Her "thank you" is directed at both the maids and Raquel.

>>>The villagers all settled into family and familiar groups to socialize and discuss the day. While mostly a human population, the village has a fair number of Elves and a noticable few families of Dwarves and Catfolk.
>>>Aegelby and her large gaggle of Maids soon appear, each carrying either a stack of bowls and cups or a heavy pot of steaming stew to place on the tables. Large wooden pitchers of an amber colored drink soon follow, brought out by the few boys in her employ. The young boy, Martin, who attended to Fren's bath brings the libation to the Adventurer's table along with a platter of earthy looking brown bread.

>>>"Aegelby is doing a fine job training the young ones of the village." Varduhn beamed proudly.

>>>"'Cept me..." Adrianna interjected, eagerly tearing off a chunk of bread impatiently. She nearly climbed onto the table to reach the bread before Varduhn intercepted her and handed it to her instead.
>>>"Yes...except for you
..." the old Apothecary sighed dejectedly before resuming his conversation with the Adventurers. "I trust your baths were up to your standards? I supply the Baths with their cleaning supplies, oils, soaps and perfumes. I learned the Recipes for those in my youth when I traveled to the cities."

---

>>>Zoning out while Varduhn was talking, lost in her own thoughts perhaps, Piphany was invited back to what passed for 'reality' by Fren as the FoxTail spoke to her. "Hm? Oh, um I picked Assassin for my Class. I kinda felt like beating on stuff for once instead of being a punching bag..." she explained, a brief panic setting into her eyes and she tried to cover with a quick explanation, "...like , um, the Warrior Classes. Guardians and Pirates and stuff. Yeah." She swallowed hard and reached out to pour herself a wooden cup of whatever was in the pitchers. "I got a gift card for the Elder Tales cash shop from a friend and bought the scythe. I don't really even know what it does but it looked...I dunno...cool. it sorta 'spoke' to me and I made my character kinda around that. I hope that's not stupid..." It wasn't clear if she was looking for validation or an opinion from Fren. "Anyway, Fox Tails are pretty cool looking. What made you choose that? Is it...weird...not being human?" Having tasted her drink, she shot a confused look and set it down on the table in front of her.

---

>>>A bit eager to eat, but not the first person to ladle out stew into their bowl, Guy spoons a healthy serving into his mouth...and immediately tries to stealthy return it to the bowl. Holding up the bowl, he looked at it's contents while he stirred it around with his spoon. Carrots, potatoes, something pale green like spinach or herbs, a thick brown sauce, maybe even a chunk or two of meat...he found nothing unusual or a miss but the expression on his face was unmistakeable.

>>>The sorcerer was close behind Guy in discovering how weird the food was, though he managed to swallow it by washing it down with an entire cup full of his drink. "Varduhn? Wha...what is this...er, fine meal?" he stammered unconvincingly.

---

---

>>>Grace and Raquel are spared from the immediate discovery of how bad the food is by their impromptu performance. Grace fires up her Bass Theorbo and finds the strings and her fingers again fighting her efforts to play the song she wants. It's disconcerting to have your body not obey your commands and the effort is frustrating to say the least. She knows she can play the tune she wants but her body is trying to play something else entirely. Activating her Troubadour Ability, a handful of gold coins rain down on the table from seemingly nowhere much to the amazement of Varduhn and Adanna. The surrounding villagers all pull their attention towards Grace and the Adventurer's table as the notes, both auditory and literally visual, start flowing forth.
>>>Raquel jumps up to start a chorus to give Grace a lifeline. Maybe it's the external beat or just the encouragement or the expectation of the musical resistance but Grace finds her beat and starts beating out the chosen 90s hit. Guy starts drumming (passably) on the table in rhythm along with Grace and Raquel.

I said maybe (I said maybe)
You're gonna be the one that saves me (saves me)
You're gonna be the one that saves me (saves me)
You're gonna be the one that saves me (saves me)

Raquel finishes the final chorus and Grace plays the outro to the song. When it's over, the assassin adjusts her glasses and gives a little bow. "Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Try the veal!" she jokes lamely.

Grace stares in disbelief as rainbow-colored notes float overhead from her music.

"Taylor Swift never did that!" Eyes flickering to the table, she admits, "She does have my Raining Gold thing beat by a few billion coins." She scoops the coin into her hands, relieved that they didn’t come from the villagers’ pockets.

She flashes a smile at Raquel’s joke, even if it is lame. In reference to some of the song lyrics, she says, "You were definitely the one who saved me." She raises a glass to Raquel, then drinks up.

Oh! She’s about to complain about the booze being watered down. But… if it’s just water, that’s a good thing.

When she tries the food, she’s polite about it. What’s unsettling is not the taste, but the mismatch of texture. She takes a sip of her drink, then hesitates before taking another bite.

"Oh, where are my manners?" she says to the villagers. "Thank you all for providing food, shelter, and… well, I would say ‘the comforts of home,’ but honestly, Aegelby, it was better than that. I felt like a princess in your bathhouse. Five-star review! And—" She picks up four of the coins that were summoned by her music. "—a tip for the hairdressers!"

She gives each of the maids a gold coin.

Isbjorn is mostly quiet during the meal, distracted with his slow, simmering worry for his son, although he sways a little to Raquel and Grace's singing. He doesn't even notice how weird the stew is for a few bites, but it definitely jolts him enough to frown while staring at his bowl.

He does continue eating it however, and urges Guy and Varga in doing the same, seeing as the other two are hesitating. "You guys should try eating as much as you can. We've got a long journey ahead of us and we need all the energy we can get," Isbjorn whispers to them before downing another spoonful of the stew.

Fren laughed with Piphany. "There is no right or wrong with these games, I always go for rule of cool. It's my way to escape reality...or was, just before we entered this...game? Dimension? Dunno what to call it..." he changes into a more serious tone in the end. "Anyway, I really like both your style and scythe." He does a dual thumbs up gesture and with a grin that shows his canines. "As a Foxtail I do not feel much different, all movements are the same. I had to take care of my tail moving when I entered the smithy though, fire hazard and such. I feel and do not feel my tail at the same time, dunno how to describe it. And it was a funny feeling at the bath when my fur and tail got wet."

He then tries the stew. Although he hates it on the first bite, he tries to endure it. "Well, I was expecting some bugs but not in the taste...is this normal taste or something is wrong with my character?" he asks the other adenturers. He shrugs "oh well, we will need sustainance...even like this..." and he continues eating it. He sure misses his girlfriend's Kimchi stew now.

"Well, that's what I'm here for," Raquel quips. She smiles and gives Grace a thumbs up.

Despite the initial aversion to water, the experience wasn't all bad. The cheery company and the novelty of having her fur styled leaves Clara feeling surprisingly relaxed.

Joining the rest of the group at the dinner table, she spots two new faces. With a warm smile and a tilt of her head, she offers them both a greeting. While she isn't particularly familiar with the latest gaming content creators, their conversation nonetheless draws her in.

As Grace and Raquel takes center stage, Clara watches with delight at the harmonious performance. Unable to resist the melody, she claps her little paws and softly sings along in the audience.

The colourful music notes that emerges from Grace's instrument leaves Clara momentarily speechless. Piphany's earlier remark resurfaces in her mind. The NPCs here seem alive, which is why Clara has been treating them like real people. It almost feels like she can form genuine connections with them, but the gold raining from thin air, the visual effects, coupled with the strangely bland taste of food are constant reminders of the true nature of this world.

She doesn't seem to be the only one in contemplation, however. Clara notices Isbjorn's furrowed brows and distant gaze during the meal. Gently, she asks. "Hey Isbjorn, is everything alright? You seem a bit troubled."