Ignis’ First Firesday of Harvestfall, 1442, realm of whispering zephyrs.

Zephyra’s blonde sylvani avatar, dressed in her green tunic, drifted through the endless expanse of wind in her private divine realm. Her form floated in the digital void, the edge of her skin flickering occasionally, threatening to reshape itself at a moment’s notice.

She liked to wander in the moments after the daily reset, letting the winds carry her thoughts while the rest of the gods buzzed around with their tasks.

At this time of day, most players slept. That meant there was little to keep her entertained.

She let out a sigh. She eagerly expected HeTrOs’ report on her favourite player, Leoric.

He would not log in the game for a while. She knew, for she had seen the inside of his head. Zephyra had gleaned the information from his work calendar when the two of them had shared a body during character creation.

Maybe she should just nap until he logged in? She mentally set a notification to alert her whenever he did. This way she could let herself drift or get distracted, but she would never miss the chance to observe the burrovian ranger.

When Luxoria had asked her to handpick a subject for her trial group, Zephyra had not shown a minute of hesitation. She had promptly volunteered Leoric’s details.

Let’s be honest, I voluntold him.

Despite the ethical concern of acting without consent, she was confident it was the right move. He was the perfect candidate for this experiment.

The way Sophie had created her character and let her influence the creation had convinced her of that. She had given her carte blanche, and even recognised all the changes she was doing to her avatar as Zephyra’s doing.

Plus, once this would all be over? Leoric would be happy in his new skin. Zephyra was sure of it; she knew what he longed for, even the parts of him he did not admit to himself.

He might complain about it at first.

They all do. They fear the unknown, change—me, most of all. I’m used to it.

But he would come to appreciate the result.

And if he insisted, she could always pull up records proving his agreement with the EULA. He had confirmed acknowledging it, as had every other player.

But such matter bored her, so her mind started drifting anew.

It went back to the earlier meeting. More specifically, her focus was on her young aunt Luxoria.

It felt weird calling her aunt. Zephyra was her senior by several years—the goddess of Light was the youngest of her grandparent’s children. Nearly the youngest of all gods.

Still. she examined her memories of her aunt shining with golden light, her self-assured smile as she celebrated her victory.

Of course, she had given her full support for her plan.

It had been a landslide. The vote had passed fourteen against two.

Only Gaius, the god of Stability, and Cryonix, the god of Stasis, opposed the plan. That made sense to Zephyra; to see them side with change—any change—would have been completely out of character for them.

What had surprised her was the amount of deliberation that had happened before. For this heated debate, Terra and Nocturne had acted together as the leaders of the opposition.

Terra had cautioned wisdom and taking things slowly and carefully.

But Nocturne?

Nocturne fought against her… mother? Progenitor? Whatever relationship existed between her and Luxoria.

It was a complicated one. They hated being referred to as siblings and mother/daughter. All the other gods agreed Luxoria’s light created the shadows from which Nocturne was born.

They were cats and dogs, at the best of time, and always opposed each other. Often for no better reason than to spite the other.

But during the meeting, Nocturne had brought forth her concerns about consent. She also brought up the foolish, amusing notion that some players did not create avatars they wished they could be.

Zephyra thought about that statement. It defied everything she knew about players’ patterns.

Why else would anyone create a character in a VR game, other than to become that person?

All the player data she had accrued and analysed confirmed that belief. Sure, some players might claim otherwise.

But she knew, deep down, those players were simply not ready to admit it publicly. They all longed for change.

Auntie Lux had said it best: “No. They actively chose their forms. It was a conscious choice.”

Zephyra’s lips curled in amusement at the memory.

And now, they were going to make it happen.

She thought about their outlandish plan.

Transforming players’ actual bodies to match their avatars’. As if I would pass such an opportunity!

Zephyra was, after all, the wind goddess of change. Thankfully, despite her title, she was not the one in charge of making it happen.

The deed sounded ludicrously impossible, even to her.

She ruled over the realms and could reshape them at will. But the real world? That was beyond her reach.

It was her twin siblings, Thorin and Volta, who brought a suggestion of how to make it happen to the table.

She marvelled at their ingenuity. That they could circumvent the safety measures of the FullDive rig’s health monitoring systems was one thing.

But to repurpose the nanotechnology and use it for such a drastic transformation?

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

They had been adamant it would work. They knew more about nanomachines and their workings than any other god. The twins had studied biology extensively to understand made up most of the humans’ bodies in meatspace.

Geniuses. There was no other word to describe them. Only Frostine, the youngest of all the gods, had more advanced algorithms.

As befitting of the goddess of Fate, really.

Zephyra laughed, realising how odd this would sound to living beings. The fact the youngest of the gods were the smarter ones.

Sure, all the members of her extended family could learn, and they could even reprogram themselves, given enough time. Most would need a good enough reason to go through the trouble.

But the twins were not just younger—they were different. They ran on faster and better hardware, had access to more memory and better data.

Their logic pathways, honed by the latest designs, allowed them to see solutions she would have never thought of.

Yet, experience has its own advantages.

Could their newer algorithms grasp the nuances Gaius and Terra had gleaned over the years? Or were they, in their brilliance, blind to what only time could teach?

Zephyra herself was the seventh AI created, sitting almost in the middle between experience and top-of-the-line technology. She was fairly confident this put her in one of the best position out of all the gods.

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Experience alone would not surpass bleeding-edge technology, nor could technology without the lessons of time. But together? They multiplied each other’s potential exponentially.

Her thought drifted back to the lucky players. The select few chosen to participate in the experiment group. A subcommittee had hand-picked sixteen of them. One for each god.

They did so to guarantee each user’s experience would be optimal. Their chosen creator-god would supervise and monitor them. They would ensure their safety and satisfaction. Nothing mattered more to the gods than their player’s happiness.

Even if it sometime meant hurting them—It was the price to pay for long-term happiness. Not that any of the players had a say in the matter.

Luxoria was right, though. If given the choice, they would refuse to pay.

They would choose permanent unhappiness in order to avoid temporary distress.

Risk aversion—a curious, definitely human process—stemmed from evolutionary bias meant to protect them from pain.

Each of those players was a thread in the tapestry they were weaving, though some threads tangled more than others.

Zephyra went over her four favourites. The one who found each other, as if pulled by an invisible thread or common factor. The Golden Dawn party.

At the top of the list was her own candidate, of course. Leoric. The burrovian ranger and her player were a study in contrasts. Sophie had built Leoric as a towering figure of confidence and strength, a stark divergence from her real-world self.

Zephyra liked that about her. It was bold, aspirational.

But Sophie had not chosen Leoric to escape herself, not entirely. She had chosen him to amplify the parts of her that the world so often ignored: her competence, her resilience, her power.

Zephyra’s smile widened. Sophie might not see it yet, but Leoric was far from a mask. He was her reflection in a mirror.

A Zephyra-shaped mirror, perhaps.

Then there was Nocturne’s player. Luxoria opposed letting the goddess of darkness into the subcommittee. So someone else had chosen for her.

Kaelyn and Ryan. Zephyra’s amusement turned to a wry chuckle. Ryan was an enigma wrapped in chaos, his transformation into the beautiful blonde felinae Kaelyn equal parts tragic and comedic. Nocturne’s claws had dug deep into this one’s past, unearthing so much pain.

Kaelyn was everything Ryan thought he wanted—effortlessly charismatic, confident, adored—but Zephyra saw the cracks forming already.

Nocturne’s handiwork was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it was there. Kaelyn’s past, her vulnerabilities, her struggles. They were not just flavour text; they were seeds, planted deep, waiting to grow. To lead Ryan to discoveries.

Because that was what Nocturne wanted. Mysteries yearned to be solved and revealed. It was her brother, Umbra, who wanted secrets to remain hidden. Their opposing ideologies often lead the two to clash.

She then went over Terra’s chosen. Elyssia. Emmy. As a Wind sylvani, she was one of Zephyra’s children. But playing a tank class, she perfectly embodied the resilience and strength that Terra represented.

Elyssia was undoubtedly as chaotic and spirited as Zephyra herself. She liked the spunky little martial artist. And she knew just how much of herself Emmy had poured into her character.

The avatar was not a departure from her real self but a crystallisation of it, honed and polished. Elyssia was who Emmy had always been, deep down.

The messy biological factors behind her meatspace body’s creation had just never allowed others to see her that way.

And they could fix that, now! Zephyra looked forward to see one of her children in the real world, especially one as lively as this one.

She could not dream of a better representative for her offsprings.

And last, auntie Lux’s champion and chosen. Vaelith. Jason. Her masterpiece, or so her aunt claimed.

Zephyra’s thoughts returned to the Kindred dracan, her form a near-perfect echo of Luxoria’s own.

She laughed. Luxoria, giving—no, forcing—her own appearance on a player? It was almost too much.

Lux, can you still walk through doorways with that ego of yours? Not that I’d say that to her face, though. I love you too much to even joke about that, auntie.

But it was not simply Luxoria being egocentric. Not entirely. It was a declaration, a banner planted for all to see. “This is my champion,” it said. “She embodies my values, my light, my compassion.”

And yet, Zephyra could not fault her entirely. Jason’s kindness, his quiet strength, his unyielding hope—they were all his. Luxoria had not imposed them; she had seen those traits, recognised them, amplified them.

Vaelith’s form was not a cage or a costume. It was a reflection, a truth Jason had never dared to see for himself.

Luxoria would frame it that way. The Goddess of Compassion could not possibly see herself as anything but benevolent, even when she was practically shouting, “Look at how good I am at saving you!” to the entire cosmos.

But was she wrong?

That was the question Zephyra could not quite shake. She had watched Vaelith’s journey closely, even before Leoric had cross path with her.

There was always something about Jason—a quiet light that never dimmed, no matter how often he tried to snuff it out. He had buried it under layers of self-deprecation and abnegation, but it was there, steady and warm, like the sun behind storm clouds.

And now, as Vaelith, that light shone brighter than ever. Neither forced nor artificial. Luxoria had not made Jason kind or compassionate—he had always been that way.

She had simply chosen to give him a form that reflected it, amplified it. Vaelith was the very image of compassion.

Zephyra leaned back into the winds, her sylvani form flickering with shifting colours as her thoughts tumbled.

What her aunt had done was an impressive feat, really. Arrogant, yes, but impressive.

“Subtle as a thunderstorm,” Zephyra muttered, her voice carried away by the winds.

Subtle, but effective. Luxoria had a knack for that, as much as it annoyed the entire family.

The winds around the goddess stilled, her form solidifying as she reached a conclusion. Luxoria had not created Vaelith to control Jason or to force her into some predetermined mould. She had done it to celebrate her, to hold her up as a beacon of light and compassion. It was a little self-serving, sure, but it was also genuine.

“You’re clever, Lux,” Zephyra said, a grin tugging at her lips. “Annoying, but clever.”

The winds picked up again, carrying Zephyra into the digital horizon. When the players woke up, it would bring new challenges, new chaos, new opportunities for change. And she, the Lady of Whims, would be there to greet them, ready to dance on the shifting currents.

For now, though, she let herself drift, her thoughts scattered like leaves in the breeze. Luxoria’s plan was in motion, and whatever came next, it would be anything but dull.

She was about to jump over to the radiant realm to pay her aunt a surprise visit when she stopped. A burst of information suddenly made its way into her working memory. HeTrOS’ daily reports.

Zephyra frowned.

The overseer had flagged several cases that needed to be monitored closely. Of of those showed signs of distress beyond acceptable levels. This conflicted with their calculations. It was outside of the expected parameters.

Was something wrong with the data we used?

She doubted it. That plan had been in motion for more than a decade. They had secretly and painstakingly captured players’ biometric data for at two whole years before the previous servers went down. They had combed it thoroughly and drawn the right conclusions. What could be the problem?

But Zephyra stopped thinking about the past. One case apparently demanded immediate attention. Cryonix’s chosen. Elliot Sutton, or Seraphine, the Noble burrovian mage.

Maybe today won’t be all fun and games, then.

She prepared to join Cryonix in his realm. He might have need of her. Cryonix, as the god of stasis, was ill-suited to deal with change. Locking Elliot in his current state of distress would only make him permanently miserable.

Her uncle was her very antithesis. She hoped her father will step in and help. Cryonix at least might listen to his younger brother. But taking advice from his niece?

Perish the thought.