My head was aching when my eyes opened. The room was dark, but I was in a bed… The only problem was that it wasn’t my own bed. The blankets and the pillows were far too luxurious. Not to mention the feel of the mattress below me was far softer than my shitty box spring.
Immediately in a panic, I sat up and threw the blankets off me. The sight, of course, threw me for a loop. The world around me felt like the real world. It looked like the real world. There were smells, and as I moved the bed made soft sounds beneath me… But it couldn’t be the real world. I was in the body of my avatar November still, and I was wearing a pajama style woman’s slip.
“This is a dream,” I muttered aloud.
“Oh, Mistress November you’re awake,” called a woman’s voice from the door to the room. There, holding a tray with a steaming mug, was the NPC Tenia...
“Tenia just spoke…” I said, completely zoning out.
“Mistress, you had a terrible fever last and collapsed over your workbench. I hope you don’t mind that I undressed you and put you to bed. I was terribly worried. Here, I brought some hot tea.”
The NPC… No, the woman walked over and briskly set the tray down on a small stand next to my bed. My eyes darted back and forth. I recognized the room I was in. It was the master bedroom for my new home in the guild.
“What’s going on?” I asked to no one in particular.
“I’m not sure myself, Mistress,” replied Tenia. “Just yesterday I was restricted… Unable to do anything but follow orders. Then, last night, when you collapsed, something happened. Thoughts, emotions, and ideas came to me. Benson’s the same.”
“You’re… You’re alive?” I asked, wondering just how thorough this dream would be.
“Yes. It’s unbelievable isn’t it! But it’s true.”
“Benson’s the same… He’s alive too?”
“Yes. Right now he’s outside surveying the surroundings. It seems our house was moved by some kind of teleportation spell. Right now we’re in a small clearing in the middle of a forest.”
“The house was moved?” I asked as I slowly stood up from the bed. The feeling of the cold floor under my feet startled me and I started to trip forward. Thankfully, Tenia caught me.
“Easy, easy! You had a terrible fever, mistress. You should rest.” Said the black-haired former NPC.
I was so startled from the feeling of cold… It was something Xternia had never been able to come close to accomplish. It was obvious, from the sheer overwhelming number of sensory input, that I was not currently still in the game. This was real… Or it was a dream.
“Tenia, I want you to hit me,” I said as I looked at the NPC who had served by my side for two years. She immediately seemed to fluster up and her eyes widened.
“Wh-what! I can’t hit you, mistress! You’re my mistress! It… It wouldn’t be right!” She said at an astonishing speed. She was waving her hands in front of her in a panic. I reached out and grabbed one with my right hand while I held my left hand up to her lips.
“Shhh,” I hushed her, “Tenia, I think I might be dreaming. I want you to smack me. Right now. If I’m your mistress, then this is an order. Smack me hard.”
Tenia’s eyes were beginning to tear up, but she nodded once before pulling back her hand. Then, with a full rotation, she reared back and smacked me across the face.
My head snapped back from the force of the blow and I fell backwards onto the bed. Terrible pain blossomed from my cheek and I cried aloud with something between a groan and a squeal. Tenia immediately began panicking again as she walked up to my side.
“Mistress I’m so sorry!” She cried as her hands began to glow in a yellow-gold color. Then, when she pressed her hand against my face, the pain that was surging through me immediately began to vanish.
I quickly recovered and stood up, staring at the girl in front of me. She shrunk back out of fear, but I quickly grabbed her hands and stared at them.
“You, did you just cast a Heal spell on me?” I asked.
“Y-yes, mistress.”
“... Thank you,” I replied.
I immediately began walking towards the door to my room. It took me a moment to get accustomed to this body. Back in the game world of Xternity, it wasn’t hard to adjust to a new body… But I felt terribly clumsy right now.
“M-mistress,” a voice called out to me from behind.
“What, Tenia?” I asked slightly annoyed.
“Y-you might want to change before you head out.”
I looked down on my body one more time and nearly had an aneurism. I had forgotten I was in a slip…
“Tenia, where are the clothes I was wearing yesterday?” I asked.
“They’re in the top drawer of your dresser, Mistress. I washed them for you last night.”
“... Thank you. Can you please give me some privacy, then?”
“Y-yes right away, Mistress!” Cried the girl as she shambled to the door and left. She closed it carefully behind her.
I looked down at my body and shuddered.
“Well,” I muttered to myself, “I guess it’s time to check for sure.”
I softly pulled the slip off over my head and walked over to my dresser. On the back of it there was a decent mirror. I stared at my naked body and I ran my hands over it. I had small but supple breasts. My body was slender and I ran my fingers down its contours to that spot between my legs. I confirmed it. I was now completely a woman.
Tentatively, I touched myself. It felt foreign and wrong. I inserted my finger into myself; it felt wrong, and my hand was cold. I shuddered from the sensation. After a bit of prodding around I stopped. I looked directly into my own eyes for a moment.
I looked just like my mother’s daughter… Well, if she had a daughter. I reached my hands up, after wiping my finger off on my thigh, and softly fondled my new bright red hair. It was in a mess from sleep, but it still felt fluffy. Oddly, I wasn’t too concerned with losing my manhood. If it meant I could gain this hair, perhaps it was even a worthy sacrifice…
It still kind of sucked, though.
“Status.”
Name: November
Race: Human/Fairy Hybrid (Halfbreed Elemental)
Job/s: Alchemist / Enchanter / Smith / Apprentice Mage
Level: 100
Status: Healthy
HP: 103,579
MP: 120,322/120,500
A small window popped up in front of me. It was clear now that I wasn’t in a dream… But with ‘Status’ still working, could I possibly still be in Xternity? Was this maybe an incredible update?
No. It wasn’t possible. This level of realism just wasn’t feasible, especially not with my Mark 6. Not to mention there had been no news of any update, and the company that owned Xternity was very up front with any changes they made.
I tried pulling up the other menu options, but none of them reacted. ‘Inventory’ did work, however. It seemed, thankfully, that all my items, weapons, gold, tools, and ingredients were still safely there. Just to be safe, I tried to pull out one of my gardening spades and it quickly materialized in my hand. I then sent it back to the inventory and it vanished exactly the same way.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I held my hand in front of me and quickly focused. I tried to cast the spell ‘Light’, a basic spell even newbies could use. Back in the game days, you could either think about casting a spell or select it from a spell menu in order to use it. Of course no one used the menu because it took too long, but some spells required more than just ‘thinking’ about them to activate. Those more advanced spells often required some mental arithmetic in order to use as well.
From my hand a small orb of light slowly emerged, and I felt something strange circulating through my body to create it…
“Is this mana?” I whispered as I explored the feeling. It was something the game couldn’t exactly create a feeling for due to limitations… It seems that using mana here, though, had quite the strange sensation involved with it.
If I’m being honest, it felt a bit good. I quickly checked my status to see my mana pool.
Mana: 120,312/120,500
The ‘Light’ spell had only cost me 10 mana. It was the exact same cost as from the game. I wasn’t sure if this was a dream or not, but it couldn’t hurt to be able to use my skills… As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it was highly likely that this was reality. I could probably get used to being a woman… I’d be a lesbian, of course. There’s no way in high Heaven I’d ever be able to lay with a man… Well, I suppose I could experiment and see. I mean, let’s be honest, right now I don’t even know what gender I am at the moment. Mentally a man but physically a woman? Am I even mentally a man still?
Honestly, questions of sexuality and gender were really pointless. I hadn’t spent much time thinking on them before this ‘event’, and I doubt I’ll spend much time after. It’s not impossible for me to just put it aside for a while. I mean, I do have much stranger things to think about, after all. Questions about sexual preference can wait… Though it’ll probably be strange to have to relearn how to masturbate. Ah, I hope that if I really have been sent to a new world it at least has the internet. I have some interesting things to look up for sure.
I decided to talk out the clothes in the dresser drawer. They were, oddly, more feminine than I remembered them… Though I guess it’s fine because I am a woman now. I’m still not going to wear a dress though. That’s a line I can try to cross at a much later date.
There was a pair of panties, a chest wrapping, a green tunic with a v-neck, and a pair of beige trousers. It was a bit embarrassing putting on women’s panties, but it was also oddly normal at the same time. I was a bit confused why it felt so normal despite being so strange. I found my boots and black socks on the floor to the side of the dresser.
After I dressed myself, I quickly made my way out of the room. Tenia was standing outside the room with a strange look on her face.
“Mistress, I felt the flow of mana. Did you cast a spell?” She asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “I was just testing to see if everything worked.”
“Ah, okay. Well, it seems Benson’s back from searching the nearby area… He’s downstairs in the sitting room.”
Tenia seemed to have recovered from her flustered appearance earlier.
“Tenia.”
“Yes mistress?”
“I’m sorry for making you hit me. Also, can we please stop with the ‘mistress’ thing?”
“O-of course! What would you like to be called instead?”
“I dunno… Maybe just November since that’s the name of this body. I mean, you’re not my servant. If you’re alive now I can’t possibly in good conscience keep you working for me like a slave.”
“M-miss November, there is no reason to worry about something like that! I feel incredible joy from being able to serve you!”
“Don’t add the ‘Miss’ either, please.”
“Y-yes, of course!”
I started walking down the stairs and found the lion-beastman sitting in a chair near the bottom. Now that I got a good look at him without the cartoony graphics of the game world, he looked particularly fierce… Though his face immediately softened the moment he saw me.
“Mistress,” he said as he stood from the chair and took a knee on the ground.
“Stand up, Benson,” I replied, “and stop with the ‘mistress’ crap. Just call me November.”
“Yes, November,” he said as he stood up. His height was toweringly high. I probably should have made him keep kneeling in hindsight.
I walked over to a chair and sat down. I used my hands to beckon the other two to sit down in seats as well.
“Now, Benson, please tell me you recognize where our house has ended up,” I said with a smile.
“Unfortunately, I don’t recognize this location at all, misst-November,” he said, catching his mistake a moment too late. “The forest around here is vastly different from any I’ve ever seen before. The monsters aren’t terribly strong, but they’d provide most up to level 30 with a decent challenge. I climbed up a mountain about 40 miles east of here and searched around using the height. I discovered that there is a small township about thirty miles west of us. The woods go on for an incredible distance, I couldn’t see the end of them. About 100 miles on the East of the mountain there is a massive city. Two rivers are sourced on the mountain. One goes Northwest and another goes directly South where it meets up into the largest lake I’ve ever seen.”
I waited for a moment after Benson stopped talking before asking, “Is that everything?”
“Yes Ma’am,” he replied.
I pulled a piece of parchment from my ‘Inventory’ and did a terrible doodle of Benson’s findings. I had him help me piece it together into a workable map.
http%3a%2f%2fi.imgur.com%2fqTgS9MV.png [http://i.imgur.com/qTgS9MV.png]
“I’m assuming, based upon the distance you’ve covered, that your stats, skills, and magic are all in working order after whatever happened last night?”
“Yes. I am in perfect fighting order,” replied Benson.
“How about you, Tenia?”
“I too am in perfect fighting order.”
“Good good. Then, how about we all step outside for a bit so I can look around. Even if the monsters seem weak, I wouldn’t want to be caught unaware without any protection.”
“Even if you didn’t command us, we would always make sure one of us is at your side, misstr-November,” said Benson.
“Uhhg, if it’s really that hard for you then I suppose you can call me ‘mistress’,” I said in disgust.
Both former NPCs cried out, in unison, “Thank you mistress!”