I started to answer, but then a realization struck me. I was flying. With a near giggle of my own, I did an aerial backflip followed by something akin to a pirouette. Then, I grabbed Jasmine (as I mentally referred to her—her full name being too long to use except when speaking to her) by her hands and twirled her about, though without the ground to interfere, it was more like we both twirled around a mutual axis.

This time, the laugh wasn’t just a near giggle; it was a full-fledged, honest-to-goodness, girlish giggle. In mild embarrassment, my cheeks colored a bit pink to match my scales and bandeau, but I shook my head, released her hands, and flew another loop around her.

Jasmine replied, taking on the intonation she used when explaining earlier, though she forewent the chalkboard and other schoolmarmish accouterments.

she winked at me,

She had a point. And yet … if it felt natural to be a five-and-a-half-inch-tall flying mermaid because it was natural, what did that say about when I returned to reality? Honestly, it didn’t even really bother me to be a girl, though perhaps with all the other things that this hivatar entailed, femininity was the least significant change upon my body. The “mer-” was really more prominent than the “-maid,” so to speak. But since this now felt natural, would being myself when I logged out feel unnatural?

Even with those thoughts shadowing my mind, however, I wouldn’t—couldn’t—log out before even logging in all the way. It just wouldn’t be right. Besides …, I glanced down at myself … the damage was already done, if damage it really was.

Still speaking in the trills, clicks, and song-like sounds of her musical language (which was now mine, too), I shrugged,

She flew with me toward the anachronistic glass wall of the dirt-floored hut. She gestured, and sparkles like pixie dust flew from her fingers to the screen. I murmured, but she just giggled softly.

“G E N E R A T I N G   D E F A U L T    C H A R A C T E R F O R M . . .”  filled the screen, and motes of light not too dissimilar from Jasmine’s pixie dust started swirling in a pillar, evincing a certain classic sci-fi transporter beam. But they never resolved into a figure, and the screen text switched to blinking “E R R O R !” in a bright red and overly large font. For a long moment, the text looked a little off, and I was having difficulty distinguishing where one letter ended and another began, despite the monospace font and wide kerning; then I realized something: the text was in English, which was not the language I was currently speaking nor, apparently, thinking in.

Both Jasmine and I frowned, but before either of us could say anything, the message expanded into something a little more clarifying and a lot better formatted, but still just as difficult for me to make out:

Unhandled exception at line 2,005 in vr.heraldic_echo.new_player_experience

Exception originated in Routine()._Generate_Default_From_Appearance()

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Non-playable races (_raceID #5F9EA0) cannot be selected.

AI.Mediator(“Aurora”) recommends continuing with _raceID #F1A1E4.

Error logged. Escalated to GM Nazhai. Estimated wait time: 72 seconds. Please stand by. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I looked at my own AI assistant who should, in theory, be able to interpret a bit more than I. At the very least, the names and ID numbers should mean something to her.

she began.

I kept one eye on the screen as we were talking, and while the time had been ticking down, it had paused when it had hit fourteen seconds remaining, but a new line of text noted that the GM was reviewing the incident.

she tapped the word “appearance” on the screen,

She was about to say more, but at that moment, a new voice intruded into the conversation. It was soft and high-pitched yet nevertheless carried a tone of authority, “That’s not quite correct. It was anticipated that such hivatar modifications would be fairly minor and not an impediment to character creation: younger, fitter, more attractive, or even crossgendered hivatars were the assumption.”

I was initially a bit surprised at the voice intruding since Jasmine’s earlier explanation had mentioned that a home instance was private to the player and AI assistant, but perhaps the rules didn’t apply to the game’s support staff. Besides situations like this, there might be other reasons a GM might need to visit a home instance. Despite the surprise, we both turned around as she was speaking. And the speaker was HUGE. Well, at least she seemed so from my point of view and perspective. How quickly I had forgotten that I was now just under six inches tall... The presumed GM only seemed huge. In actuality, she was probably average sized, maybe a little shorter. Pretty, in that girl-next-door manner, and dressed as a maid (for whatever reason) in a long black dress and apron—she nevertheless was a bit intimidating, perhaps because of the vast difference in sizes. Or perhaps it was because she was obviously of partial feline stock, with a swishing tail and flicking ears as black as her shoulder-length hair. After all, I was close enough to part fish at the moment, so perhaps she was intimidating in the way that prey considers predators to be.

She kept on speaking, apparently oblivious to my apprehension. “None of that should pose a problem for the routine. However, Mediator Aurora was quite put out that no one had considered what to do for a fringe case like yours. We are implementing her suggestion; it’s a relatively easy fix, and there’s not likely to be any issue with complaints from those who want to just hop into the game without any adjustments. After all,” she leaned forward and winked, “anyone who’s likely to modify their hivatar this extensively before logging in is also likely to spend at least some time tweaking a character before hopping right into the action, right?”

Even though she wasn’t speaking the same language as I was now and even though her accent was a little odd, I somehow had no problems understanding her. Regardless, I had to concentrate in order to answer her in English. “I … I suppose so. You must be a GM. Nazhai, was it? What do I do now?”

She actually curtsied. “That’s me, GM Nazhai, at your service...in a manner of speaking of course.” That was said with a wink as she rose from the curtsey. Then, she continued, “What you do now is wait five, maybe ten minutes. The fix is easy, trivial even, but it still has to run through QA, and that takes a little bit of time, even with all hands on deck for the launch. In compensation for your lost time, you’ll find a little something extra in your character’s inventory when you do make it in to ECHO. I believe you’ll also be entitled to a bug-finder’s bounty, too, but that comes from a different department.”

She walked over to the screen and swiped the error message away. Or, rather, wiped the error message away with a polishing rag. It was a bit incongruous to see a maid attempting to clean something when the floor was packed dirt. It actually made me feel a little ashamed about the appearance of the home instance—like having company over and serving dinner on paper plates while the dirty dishes are piled in the sink. “It’s pretty rare for something to dump out an error message like that, too. That might count as a second bug; I’ll pass it on. Anyway, take care, Miss. When the avatar appears,” she pointed to a timer on the screen giving an ETA of 342 seconds, “feel free to customize it as much as you like.”

Then she curtsied once again, turned, and disappeared.