Dying in VRMMOs gets old after a while. Your vision goes black for a slight while, and then it just fades right back into wherever you'd set your spawn point - typically the nearest inn. There was no wait time, no black void, nothing. It took longer to blink than it did to respawn.
Oddly though, when I did respawn, it felt as though I had woken up from a nap. A great nap, in spite of the fact that I was still wearing my armor. My body, still so foreign to me, felt extra refreshed.
VR in the past could soothe people’s small real life aches and pains, but this was absolute euphoria. Nothing before even compared to what I was feeling now. It was like a massage from a professional masseuse it had been so good.
I suppose that if Altera’s devs could change people’s appearances as drastically as mine, then small wonder they could do something like making people feel so comfortable as well.
The innkeep himself had woken me up again when he’d found me in one of his beds. Strangely, he seemed somewhat agitated when he found me there.
NPCs were supposed to not notice things that would indicate the world was a game, including respawning. If you respawned in an inn, the innkeep was supposed to ignore you. Other NPCs did the same with activities such as logging off in the middle of town or anything else that didn’t fit in with the game's world.
Something else the hacker messed with?
Ah well, the NPC AI had always been pretty limited in scope. Worrying as it was, the fact that the NPCs now had a few idiosyncrasies was a minor concern at best.
“Why are you still here?” the innkeeper asked, his face scrunched up as though he’d tasted something terrible.
“Sorry? I was just leaving,” I told him.
He nodded. “You sure are. But first, tell me what you were doing here.”
“Erm…” There wasn’t a good response to that. I could tell him I was thinking of staying here another night, but that wouldn’t explain why he found me in a bed.
“How long does it take you to respond, girl?” he questioned, increasingly agitated. “I’ve half a mind to drag you to the city consul.”
“The hacker must’ve done something to you,” I muttered, mostly to myself.
For a second, it seemed that the AI would just ignore my statement like usual. Then the man’s face contorted.
“Hacker? What is that?” he inquired. “What do you mean ‘done to me?’"
“Shoot, you could hear that?” I said, surprised. It was obvious that the AI was acting weird, but “hacker” was a keyword that they were always supposed to ignore.
“Of course I could hear that!” he shouted. “You’re standing in front of me! Now what do you mean by ‘done to me?’ Come now, answer me!”
This was bad. I didn’t know how to deal with an AI that was so self-aware. It didn’t help that he was leaning in so close to me.
“It’s nothing important,” I told him. “Just forget about it.”
He was getting angrier by the second. “I’m not forgetting about anything! Don’t make me repeat myself again. What. Did. You. Mean?”
“I already said it was nothing!” I repeated.
“This is ridiculous,” he huffed, turning red. “Leave me! I don’t understand a word you’re saying and at this point I don’t care anymore. Go before I call the town guard.
He didn’t have to tell me twice. This was so incredibly strange. Somehow the hacker must have turned off the inhibitor that let NPCs ignore out-of-world conversation.
What would that mean? Would NPCs get suspicious of people just for talking about game mechanics out loud? What about everything else? Would they get suspicious if we do something as innocuous as opening our menus and taking items out of our inventory.
The bank clerk hadn’t seemed to mind. Maybe this was just an issue with the innkeeper. But the bank was an isolated system in the game, so maybe it didn’t affect them, but it did affect other NPCs. That was a frightening prospect.
It was best to brush it off. No point in worrying, I could discuss this with Jess when she got here.
I stood around standing in front of the inn, waiting for her to return. Sticking around wasn’t a great idea, but I also didn’t want to get separated from Jess. Looking at her location on my map, she was still about five minutes away.
Even though the special armor set had appeared in my inventory as soon as I woke up, along with all the other dungeon loot, I still wanted to show it to Jess before trying it for the first time. There wasn’t a particular reason for it. Just figured that she deserved that much, since there was no way I could’ve finished the quest without her.
Unfortunately, my arm didn’t return to normal when the quest was done. It was still covered in thick black scales. Normally, I don’t think that I would’ve minded, but considering that I was trapped in this world, it bothered me a lot more. Not much could really be done about it though. Luckily, I still kept the stat boosts that it gave me back when it’d been a ring.
Next to me, a few people were talking about the “fog” everyone had been discussing earlier. The innkeep was with them. Just like earlier, he seemed to be extremely agitated, getting more and more upset with his three compatriots.
“Do you not think that my situation and what happened to the town as a whole might be related?” he asked his group, all of whom seemed tired.
“Not hardly,” said a man wearing a buckler on his arm. “You already said yourself that it looked to be a glove. Besides, a person just appearing in your inn should be the least of our problems. A good portion of our stores have been looted in the last day and not one of us can remember what happened? That’s a far bigger issue.”
“And I think I’ve found the cause! The girl just woke up in my inn and her arm was most definitely not gloved. She knows something, I’m sure!”
That was when the innkeep noticed me standing in front of the inn. I backed away slowly, unsure of what to do.
“Come here, girl!” he yelled, approaching me. “Don’t you dare run!”
I froze. Only guards were ever supposed to act if a player was acting untoward, and this man looked ready to stab me.
He grabbed my left arm and began pulling me toward his group.
They’re not supposed to be able to even touch me! What the heck?
The innkeeper switched his grip and held out my arm for the group to see, trying to take off my armored gauntlet. “Come help me take this thing off! You’ll find a monster’s arm.”
The man with the buckler rolled his eyes while another man in the group just stared at me dumbly. The sole woman in the group, however, marched over to me and raised her hand, slapping the innkeep over the head.
“Ach! Lorna! What in the world did you do that for?” he asked, wincing in pain.
“To make you stop acting like a loon,” she answered, eyes narrowed at the innkeep. “The poor girl is obviously frightened out of her mind.”
I checked out my arm. Thankfully my armor prevented anyone from seeing the scales folded into my skin.
“Now,” Lorna continued,” let’s suppose that she did cause all of this. Do you really think she’d just be standing around here waiting to be caught?”
“How should I know how she thinks?” he cried. “But wouldn’t you be suspicious if a girl just appeared in your stores with a lizard’s arm?”
Lorna, with a look of exasperation on her face, pulled the old man away and off my arm.
“T-thanks,” I squeaked.
“Don’t mention it,” the woman said, before turning back to the innkeep. “As for you, I think we need to get you to the apothecary. Clearly you’ve been afflicted with delusions. Obviously the girl doesn’t have a lizard’s arm. That’s inane.”
“But I…” he began, shoulders slumping. “I was sure. Was I?” He looked confused, as if he was questioning what he saw.
Lorna sighed, before patting the old man on the shoulder. “Look, all of us are in this together. We’re all confused. I mean, none of us can remember what happened the past few hours. And all of us have been in a stupor for what must’ve been months. I think a few odd appearances in your inn is a small problem.”
She turned to me. “I’m sorry for the way you’ve been treated. Let me handle old Harold here. You go on and do whatever it is you’ve been doing.”
“Ah,” I said, “I was just waiting for a friend.”
“Hmm,” Lorna replied. “Say, are you an adventurer?”
I nodded.
“I have something that you might want,” she continued. “Consider it a token of apology for Harold here.”
“Lorna,” the old innkeep piped up, “It’s fine. I’ll give her something as an apology.”
She smiled. “You’ve changed your tune.
He nodded and turned to face me. “Look, lass, I'm sorry about earlier. Thinking that your glove was some sort of lizard’s arm. Thinking that you somehow did something to me just because you said something I didn’t understand. I really am sorry. I’ll return the money that you and your friend spent. It’s the least I can do for the hassle I’ve caused you.”
“No thanks,” I said. “Keep it.”
I didn’t care about the money. Frankly, I just wanted to leave and meet back with Jess as soon as possible.
“No, no, please take it back,” he insisted, taking out a small coin purse.
Lorna looked at Harold, and then back at me. “How about I give you my gift instead? He can pay me back at the tavern, but I think you're gonna like this.”
“No, really, it’s okay.” I told her. This was getting really annoying.
“Please,” the innkeep said, “you have to take something. I don’t want to just leave you with nothing, not after the harassment you got from me.”
“Trust me,” Lorna said, her eyes gleaming. “You’re gonna like this.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
There were still a few minutes before Jess got back, and I really didn’t want to keep going through this back and forth. “Alright, fine, I’ll take it.”
“Come with me,” the woman said, looking back to the two other men in the group. “You all can take care of Harold, can’t you?”
The man with the buckler nodded, and, after yet another apology from Harold, the three men had departed.
Entering the woman’s shop, I realized that it was full of potions. Purple, blue, and red concoctions lined the shelves. A nasty-looking purple and black mixture lay behind a glass case while a brewing table lay behind a counter.
“Are you an apothecary?” I asked her.
She chuckled. “No, else I would’ve given Harold something myself. I sell fortification potions, strength potions, and the like. It’s not in me to deal in medicine. There’s another potion seller in town who does sell health potions though. He ended up losing a good portion of his stock during that period where none of us had any memory. Poor man.”
I immediately felt guilty before it came back to my head that this was just a game. Just a bunch of lines of code running simultaneously.
There’s nothing to feel bad about.
“Anyways,” she said, pulling out a wooden box. “Here you go. It was made by the dwarves in Atmesh mine. Was my husband’s, before he finally passed. If I knew him half as well as I think I did, then he’d want this in the hands of someone who’ll use it.”
She unlatched the box and revealed a beautifully carved wooden crossbow sat on a velvet cushion, a back strap wrapped around it. Looking up the item description, I found that it was incredibly rare. Like my armor, it scaled up according to my level.
“Can I really have this?” I asked, staring at it in awe.
“Of course you can have it. It wouldn’t feel right to just sell it, and the thing’s just been collecting dust here for years.”
“Thank you,” I said, marveling at the intricate piece of work.
Just then, the door to the store opened. Standing in front of the doorway was Jess, looking irritated.
“Hey, Crystal, you done shopping around?”
I nodded. “I’ll be right out." Looking to the store keeper, I said my thanks to Lorna, and took the crossbow.
“That your friend? Well, be seeing you then. Good luck on your travels,” she said, and the two of us walked out of the store together.
The both of us headed over to the plaza to take a breather, Jess still incredibly annoyed.
“What, so first you die on me and then you go shopping?”
“It’s not like I meant to die,” I said, defending myself. “I just got a little panicky near the end there.”
“You, though,” I went on, “you did great! You didn't even need to use your taunt ability to get the dragon to focus on you. That’s pretty darn impressive.”
“Oh, flatter me some more,” she said, giving me a withering look. “Still pissed you didn't even follow your own directions. You know how hard it was for me to fight all those slimes on the way back?”
I realized what she had done, and snickered.
She turned red. “W-wha, what’re you laughing at?”
“Jess, did you seriously go back the way you came in?”
“Was I… not supposed to?”
“There should’ve been a way out through the boss room,” I told her. “Did ya not see it?”
“U-umm,” she stammered. “I-it was dark in the room, okay? The only light in there came through a few torches.”
Shaking my head, I sat down on a bench and motioned for her to do the same.
“A-anyways,” she said, looking at my crossbow. “I see you’ve been off doing some stuff while I was gone. What all happened?”
I quickly relayed the story of everything that had occurred.
“Let me get this straight,” she began. “The NPCs are self-aware now?
I shrugged. “Not the way I’d have worded it, but they are able to respond to everything we say now. Even if they can’t make sense of it, they won’t just ignore us when we say words like “NPC” or “hacker” anymore. We should also be careful about opening up the inventory and taking stuff out in public. Dunno how they’d react to just seeing someone pull stuff out of thin air. We should be fine to check our menus though. Only you can see your own menu.”
“So we gotta be a bit more careful from now on? I think I can manage that.”
“You’ll have to,” I replied. “Not unless you want the whole town to suddenly get suspicious of us.”
“Wait, hold on,” Jess said. “What about the bank clerk? She didn’t seem suspicious of us when we pulled stuff out of our inventory.”
“I’m thinking the hacker didn’t touch the bank. It runs on a different system than the regular characters. She might not have been affected. I’m not even sure if any NPCs other than Harold have been affected.”
“I see.” Jess leaned back in her seat and sighed heavily. “You remember what I said about AI hitting the uncanny valley? How people were hard to mimic and that NPCs would just be crude imitations of real people?”
“Yeah?”
“If only that were the case. Instead, I’m having a hard time telling them apart from real people. You know, I saw some kid crying and immediately tried to comfort him. He tried to hit me up with a quest right after. I felt so bad when I turned him down, even though he wasn’t real.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“Understatement of the year right there,” she replied. “Anyways, enough of that. When’re you going to show me your new armor?”
I grinned. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
She stared at me tiredly. “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t bring it up yourself.”
“Well,” I said, “first we need to decide if we’re staying here for a while or if we’re gonna head out to another town.”
“Wherever is best for leveling, I suppose.”
I brought up my map. “Looks like the closest town from here is some port city named Jensen. It’s a town for people about level 10, and it’s on the way to Ralcor.”
“Jensen it is then,” the knight declared.
“Alright,” I responded. “Want to leave now?”
“It’s about midday. Wouldn’t it be better to stay and wait around here until next morning?”
I give her an “eh” look. “It’ll take two days no matter what. If we leave now, we should be able to get there before dusk tomorrow.”
“Then let’s restock on supplies at the bank and get going,” she said, nodding. “But why can’t you show me your armor right now?”
“I have a good reason, ‘kay? I’m pretty sure that I’d get chucked in temp jail if I showed it off here.”
“...That doesn’t at all sound suspicious,” she murmured sardonically.
“Glad you think so,” I replied, ignoring her sarcasm.
“I didn’t mean…ugh,” she said, rolling her eyes.
…
Luckily, the bank clerk didn’t have any issues, acting just as she should’ve. Hopefully the other clerks in Delsana were just as unaffected as she was.
All banks worked on a vault system that meant a player’s goods could be accessible no matter what town they were in. Without the vault system, most of our looting would’ve been for nothing.
We left the town, and our statuses quickly changed from “Safe” to “Vulnerable.” People and mobs could attack us, but I doubted any player would be enough of an idiot to do so, given the circumstances.
“So can I finally see what the deal with your armor is?” asked Jess. “I’m getting a little impatient.”
“Not yet. We need to make absolutely sure that the people in town can’t see me. Not if I ever wanna go back here without getting chucked in temp jail.” I glanced back at the town. It was pretty far now, but not nearly enough so.
She cocked her head. “Why would you ever come back here? The place is meant for beginners, right?”
“Don’t know,” I answered. “I still plan on playing Delsana once this ordeal blows over. Just want to make sure all my bases are covered. What about you? You still gonna play after this? You know, assuming Altera doesn’t just shut this whole thing down.”
The knight made a face. “Nah. I don’t think I’ll be playing much VR after this. This whole thing has pretty much soured Altera games for me.”
“That’s a shame. You make a great partner, you know?”
She looked to me in surprise, before turning away and glancing at the enormous ridge we were approaching. “Thanks, I guess. Still gonna quit after this though.”
“Can’t blame you much for that,” I answered. I might’ve quit myself, but VR was just too big a part in my life besides work. And by that I of course meant that I didn’t have anything else.
I never liked being out of VR. Everyone always thought I was some quiet loser. At least, that was hopefully what they thought of me. There was always the fear that people saw me as a reclusive creep.
Couldn’t blame them, either. What with me rarely talking, not ever going out with friends, never making eye contact. I did actually do all of those things of course. Just not in real life, with people that I knew.
Truth be told, I was a bit jealous of Jess. She sounded like she had other stuff to occupy her mind beside games. All I did at home was use VR. The only thing else that I really did was work, eat, and sleep. There weren’t any other hobbies for me, at least none that were particularly interesting.
Altera devices were all I had. Like it or not, I was stuck using them. Nothing else helped me relax. Nothing else was fun.
“Okay, this is enough,” I said, as we passed a high ridge that blocked out our view of the town. “It’s time for me to show off the armor.”
Jess threw up her arms. “Finally, I can see what the big deal is all about.” She turned to me. “Well? Come on, big man, let’s see what you got.
I pulled up my menu with my mind, smiling like a doofus the whole time. Selecting the inventory option, the option to modify my armor set appeared, and I quickly did so.
Immediately, the purple carapace armor I wore began to change shape, losing its bright sheen and size as it began to transform into the same black scales as my right arm. The scales that remained around my right arm began to cover the rest of me. Soon, both the carapace as well as my underclothes had melded with the black material, covering my body but stopping just short of the upper half of my neck.
Next came the part that was worth looking forward to. Dark and purple growths appeared in my back. The growths unfolded just as soon as they appeared, as they soon unfurled into leathery wings. My vision grew slightly bright for a moment. Just a moment though, when they soon adjusted to the world around me. I couldn’t actually see myself, but I knew that my eyes had just become vertical slits, much like a dragon’s.
To my surprise, my wings actually felt like they were a part of me. It was rather surreal. They felt smooth and durable, yet so foreign and unnatural at the same time.
A small part of me was half-expecting this. After all, if it was possible to plop people into different bodies, why couldn’t it also be possible at the same time to give people actual wings?
But at the same time, it was unbelievable. Sure, being put in different bodies was already insane in and of itself, but at least the sensations that came with different bodies were ones that already existed.
No one had wings. The developers had said that players would be able to customize their characters with slight bodily modifications like cat ears or tails. Playtesters had described them as surreal, but fake-feeling, without any actual sense of touch in them.
This? It couldn’t have felt more real. I imagined myself flapping them, and my muscles twitched and followed through on my thoughts. The experience was so natural, like these wings had been a part of me all my life.
“Good God,” was all Jess could say.
“I know,” I said, smirking. “Pretty cool, right?”
“Definitely…” she replied. “Can I touch them?”
I looked behind me. “My wings? Go on ahead.”
She approached my backside and carefully placed a hand on my left wing.
“Ah!” I yipped. “Geez, that feels so weird.”
The knight backed off. “Oh, sorry! Did that hurt?”
I shook my head. “No, no, don’t worry. You didn’t hurt me. It just felt strange is all.”
“Wait,” she said, realization dawning on her face. “You can feel your wings?”
“Yeah,” I answered, curling my left wing forward so that I could get a better look at it. “It seems wild to me too, but these things genuinely feel like they’re a part of me.”
Jess shook her head in disbelief. “If you’re not pulling my leg, then that’s freaking crazy.”
I shrugged. “Hey, if we can get dumped into such different bodies, is it so weird that something like this can happen?”
“I suppose not,” she acknowledged. “But what do your wings even do, anyways? Tell me they’re not just for show.”
In response to that, I fully extended my wings outward and, with every ounce of strength in me, began to flap them as hard as possible.
Unfortunately, it didn’t amount to much besides creating enough of a gust to blow most of my hair in front of my face. I brushed my hair out of my face, only to be greeted with a snickering Jess.
“Your power to give yourself a bad hair day is quite remarkable”, she quipped, lips curled into a mischievous smirk.
Ignoring her, I tried again, this time focusing more on flapping my wings in the same way I’d seen in the developer video.
Big flaps, in a slow and methodical pattern.
It took more than a few tries, but I finally managed to get myself about four or five feet off of the ground. It ended with me unceremoniously planting my face right into the ground, but it was progress.
“Nice work, man!” Jess said, extending her hand out to help me up.
I brushed the dirt off of me. “You being sarcastic again?”
“Hey, you take it how you want to take it. But seriously, that was pretty cool. Think you can actually fly for real?”
“I know I can fly for real,” I answered her. “The devs did it.” I extended my wings again. “Just need some more practice, is all.”
“Not to mention the devs probably had tons of practice beforehand,” she noted. “Considering you have actual freaking wings, I’d say you’ve done pretty well.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“You can thank me by flying. Now get to it!”
I got to it. Trying again and again, it took a few more tries before I finally managed to accomplish what can only be described as something resembling a broken drone.
“You gotta be more confident!” Jess shouted to me.
“Jess, you got no clue how hard this is!” I yelled back at her, wavering about fifteen feet off the ground. “It’s like I need to keep moving a second set of arms constantly.”
“Come on, you’re never gonna get anywhere by being scared! Fly around a little bit, don’t just hover off the ground!”
“I only have ten minutes left!” I cried. My wings only worked for a total of thirty minutes every six hours, according to the item description.
“All the more reason to start getting to it! Come on, try flapping in another direction,” she ordered.
I put more effort into moving from where I was, directing the gusts of wind behind me. My stomach lurched, but I managed to move myself a few feet forward.
I looked down towards Jess. “I… I did it!”
“Sure did,” she congratulated me, “Now get out that crossbow.”
Come again?
I stared at Jess blankly, hovering once more. “My crossbow? What the heck are you planning?”
“I want you to try shooting at me while flying,” she answered, not missing a beat. “Don’t worry, I’ll block your hits with my shield.” She raised the painted hunk of wood.
I shook my head. “That’s insane! Why do you want me to shoot you with my crossbow?”
“Practice!” she replied. “You said yourself that we couldn’t get many new skills just by leveling up. So…” She gave me a small wave with her shield. “We need to figure out our own tactics.”
I gave her a dumbfounded look. “And you think aerial bowmanship is the way to go?”
“Can’t hurt to try,” she said, rustling. “Come on, I know you bought some bolts in town.”
“What if I hit you?”
It was hard to tell from so high up, but I think she rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’ll feel it. And I’ve got more than enough health to deal with your crossbow. What do you have to lose?”
Nothing, really, but I still didn’t like it. Aiming a crossbow in a game was easier than in real life, but doing it while flying was a different story. The aiming would be unimaginably wonky, so much that it almost certainly wouldn’t be practical.
“Jess,” I sighed. “chances this’ll work are next to none.”
“All I’m hearing,” she responded, “is that you’re saying there’s a chance. Look, you literally don’t have anything to lose. Just try it out and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
I finally acquiesced. “If it’ll shut you up, I’ll give it a shot.”
“That’s all I want,” she said.
I opened up my inventory to get out the weapon, making sure that I kept both of my wings flapping. The crossbow appeared in my hands, and I took aim.
Right away, a reticle appeared in my vision, showing just where my crossbow would hit. Not that that mattered much. I kept bouncing back up and down so badly that it was nearly impossible to to focus on anything. Occasionally the reticle would flash red as it honed in on Jess, but my reflexes weren’t nearly good enough to actually land a hit when it did.
“Come on, Crystal!” Jess encouraged me. “Keep yourself steady.”
“I’m trying!” I shouted back, bouncing up and down as I shot an arrow. It bounced harmlessly off the ground, a good few feet to the knight’s side.
Steadying my wings to stop bouncing as much as possible, I took another shot. This one was steadier—my aim wasn’t nearly so shaky as it had been. Even still, the projectile only dug itself onto the ground, just below Jess’ foot.
She grinned. “Good work! Keep going!”
We kept at it for a bit more. Each time a shot looked like it was about to land, the reticle would always be just a tiny bit off, and the bolt would invariably land next to, behind, or in front of Jess.
Eventually, a bolt hit her shield.
Jess could barely hold her smile in. “Alright! Now—“
“Now nothing,” I told her. “I have like 30 seconds left.” I began to descend. “Ain’t particularly keen on pancaking myself.”
Jess put her shield onto her back once more. “Alright, alright,” she said. “Let me help you down.”
I hit the ground just as my timer ran out. When it did, my wings, along with the black scales around me, vanished, making my skin and purple carapace visible once more. My vision seemed to darken for a moment, before my eyes returned to their usual shape. I was back to normal.