"… and I think that's all I have in me—it's almost two AM. Don't forget to keep an eye out on my Youtube channel for this upload, blah blah like and all that. You're all awesome!" I hit the key combo to end the stream and leaned back in my seat to relax a moment. It was late, but it always seemed to be late.

I checked my sub count and how much I'd made from the stream session itself, and let out a sigh—I could pay rent, pay my bills, and even afford food. Now for the stuff that the stream wouldn't see. I had to get loot moved around for the new alt I was working on, which meant logging on her.

Tapping in my password for my alt account and bringing up a second copy of the game, I tapped on her and logged into Shadowverse with Dusky Rose.

Dusky wasn't a character I enjoyed playing. I'd tried to get into playing a healer, but when your only damage source is auto-attack—No. I'm not even going to think about playing the game as her. It was annoying and I could see days and weeks to level up to anything approaching useful.

What I used Dusky for now, since she was on my second account, was a mule. Loot, gold, even some PvP rewards sat in her inventory, safely standing in the banking hall and surrounded by guards.

GM-Molly:-

Hey Dusky! How are things?

While my stream didn't know about Dusky—mostly to stop any chance of someone stream-sniping and getting to her—there was one person who'd found me raging when I'd first played her. GM-Molly wasn't a head GM, she wasn't even a high-rated one, but she was a GM and she had helped get some problems fixed on my main characters.

Dusky Rose:-

Sup Molls? Just finished streaming and getting loot safely into the bank. What about you?

GM-Molly:-

Same ol' same ol'. Fixing bugged newbies. You saw that new quest chain that was added? There's a step in it that keeps bugging out. There's a hotfix in the works, but until then we have to nudge things along manually.

I caught the stream, you kicked ass!

Dusky Rose:-

Thanks. I didn't think I'd manage to drop that whole group, but when I took their healer out fast, I knew I had a chance then.

GM-Molly:-

You seemed to have fun.

Molls was smart. She was damn smart, and she knew I'd read between the lines on that.

Dusky Rose:-

It's getting harder, Molls. When I started playing this, everything was a challenge. But now it just seems like stuff is getting too easy and mechanical. Ya know?

GM-Molly:-

Yeah. I figure the next expansion will help with that. Hey, there was something I wanted to ask you.

That was an odd segue for her to use. Still, I shrugged and ran my main character into town. The particular town I kept Dusky in was practically deserted. Practically, because my characters were the only ones that went there. It wasn't a starter city, there was no high-level resource nodes around, and no dungeons worth a damn. But it had a bank, and that made it perfect for me to dump my junk there—where no one would see.

Dusky Rose:-

What's that, Molls?

GM-Molly:-

If we could… I mean, would you like to meet up some day?

That was a surprise. Molls had never shown an interest in meeting before. I'd had plenty of fans want to meet me, but she wasn't a fan—she was a friend. I was transferring scalps from my main to Dusky's vault. The annoying thing about them was they didn't stack except when you killed the same player over and over.

GM-Molly:-

I'm not a… It just gets a bit lonely here sometimes. It'd be nice to spend some time with a friend.

Dusky Rose:-

Sorry, Molls, got a little distracted moving this junk. Sure I'd like to meet up. Maybe next week some day before my stream? Where do you live?

GM-Molly:-

Spring Valley. Aren't you in Cali somewhere?

She really wasn't all that far. Just a bit of a drive or a short flight.

Dusky Rose:-

Yeah, Little Creek.

When you get close, gimme a call on 909-555-0812

GM-Molly:-

K. I gotta go, more reports to deal with.

Dusky Rose:-

Stay sane!

I finished with my gear sorting and swapped to the screen of my main account. Traveling in the game world wasn't exactly easy until you got an epic mount. Thankfully, Espy Death had one. I took to the air on my wyvern mount and flew well away from my secret little city before parking and logging off.

Yawning, I looked at Dusky Rose as she stood there with her back to me. It was stupid. Why had they made a class that was literally just a healer? I mean, I could beat things with her staff, but that took so long it…

I slowly turned the camera around to look at her from the front. A smile crept onto my face at seeing her—I'd spent way too long in character creation and had been just tipsy enough that I'd made her my type. Some guys went for huge-chested, tall monstrosities—maybe even a furry race of some kind—but I'd picked a short and cute half-elf with deep blue hair, glittery silver eyes, and a modest chest. She wasn't girl-next-door cute, but maybe fantasy-elf-next-door fit her.

Smiling, I reached for the menu button and logged out in bank—again. "Poor girl never gets to see the world. Sorry, Dusky, but you're the one class I can't bring myself to play."

Another hour of editing and processing the stream and I set it to upload to Youtube. Ads on, of course. What I got from Youtube was practically nothing compared to Twitch, but it was more than nothing.

Promising myself I'd set the upload active the moment I woke up, I walked into my bathroom, had a quick shower, then went to bed.

----------------------------------------

I didn't often dream, but game-dreams were common when I did—unsurprising when I spent so much time playing the damn things. This one was odd, though. It was like the character creation screen in Shadowverse, but the freaky thing was it was backwards. Like, everything was reverse.

I looked around, but couldn't see much other than the usual sliders and boxes around me. Around me.

"Wait. Hold up. This is the game."

No one else said anything.

"I am in the game. Character creation, right? There's the slider for eye color—" As I said it, I watched a white mouse-pointer reach over and grab the slider. The normal range of eye colors took up about half the slider, but the mouse dragged it along to silver (with shimmer).

Huh. Okay, that wasn't so bad. I kinda liked silver and shimmering eyes, not that I could see if I'd changed to match it.

"Hair next, I guess." I pointed at the hair controls. They were more complicated than just eyes. Hair had styles, it had weight, it had color, and it had extra features that could be added. As the mouse came down and dragged the color pad to dark blue, a shiver ran down my spine. "Hold up. Wait."

----------------------------------------

I woke up screaming. It wasn't a dream after all, but a nightmare, and there was a rule about screaming when you wake up from nightmares. My shoulders and back were stiff, and I felt really janky. Looking around, I realized something was up with my bedroom.

Lit by flickering candles and a blazing fireplace to my left, my bedroom looked just like— "The bank?"

I thought my computer did a good job of rendering Shadowverse, but the bank around me looked just like what the real thing should. It was perfect in every way. I could feel the heat of the fireplace, the carpet-covered stones underneath me, and even smelled the slightly carbonous smoke from the same fire.

"Okay, Harper, whatever kind of insanity this dream is, it's not completely terrible." I braced my hand and jumped to my feet, but in doing so I felt my body move. Not that it felt like anything was sore or broken, but I felt more move than I should.

I looked down into the compact cleavage of a pert pair of breasts being hugged by low-tier healer robes. My hands, shaking, reached up to touch my chest, and I felt them through the fabric when I squeezed. Those boobs were my boobs.

"Getting a little more terrible. What the heck is with my hands?" Trying to ignore the breasts right under my nose—literally—and looked at my hands. Soft, small, and with a bright golden ring on each index finger. "Rings of strength. No, no, no, no…"

I closed my eyes and tried to stop the high-pitched voice I had from chanting no over and over again. "Stop, Harper. It's just a dream. So I've turned into a cute half-elf healer that can't do a damn thing. It's—just—a—dream."

Alright then. If it's just a dream it's not so bad. Slowing my breathing down, I reached up and looked at my hands again. "This could still be fun. It's just a dream, so it's not like there's anything bad that will happen beyond another nightmare."

Calm down. Relax. Enter your zone, Harper. My zone was the focus I got when I PvPed, of course, and it let me focus and plan. Okay, so I was dreaming that I was Dusky Rose and I'm in the bank where she normally lives. Well, time this girl got to experience the world a little then, isn't it?

It's a dream, and the best thing to do in a dream is not be boring.

"Hello, miss, can we help you with something?" I knew the voice before they even left the first syllable. It was the old guy behind the counter at the bank. He asked that at random whenever you were in here. The code would pick a random player in the bank room and he'd use their honorific and quote the line.

I ignored him and walked to the door. Reaching for the handle, I opened it up and felt the chill weather of Northwind hit me full on. Snow was common in the city of Northwind, this was nothing new—feeling actually cold from it was. I shivered a little as I walked out of the bank and looked around.

The city seemed bigger than I was used to, but it looked to be scaled right. I started walking toward where the tavern should be and got ten steps when I realized why it seemed bigger—I was small. Dusky Rose was five-foot-nothing, which was the lowest the slider ran for half-elf females.

As my feet traced the shoveled path, I remembered back to my plans for her. I wanted to infiltrate a guild on the down-low and get into the ranks of their raiders. Catching them out in a raid, not healing them, taking not just their scalps but their raid loot.

It would have been a long-term plan, but I was set to document it in a long set of videos that would have probably made me a small fortune on Youtube… But I couldn't get past level five. Not even out of the newbie zones!

I should have been at the tavern by now. If it truly were the game, I would be, but it wasn't the game and I hadn't been running like the game always depicted characters doing. Making an effort to move a little quicker, I opened the door at the tavern soon enough and slipped into the warmth.

The tavern of Northwind wasn't somewhere I visited as often as the bank, but I'd been here enough to buy food and drink for Dusky that I knew the layout and NPCs.

Behind the bar was a mix of usually four different NPCs that changed at random so that two were always there. There was a mix of patrons that came and went over the course of a day, and a minstrel who would start playing soft tunes just before nightfall.

I walked over to the bar and sat up on one of the stools.

"What can I get you, ma'am?" Julia was the barmaid on duty that got to me first. She was a little too buxom for my tastes, had black hair that looked as smooth as a raven's feathers, and her skin was a shade darker than the usual white that most of these games ran with as default.

It was a good question. I wanted some booze like I didn't have to work when I got up, I wanted food that I wouldn't have to run off first thing in the morning, and I wanted… Nah, I didn't want it to be that kind of dream. "Mug of ale with a shot of something harder in it, a bowl of stew, and a room for the night." The last just seemed right. It had been a chill afternoon outside and I didn't want to be a literal murder-hobo (without even the murder to make up for it).

"Coming right up."

She disappeared into the back room—not literally disappeared—only to return a few moments later and fetch a mug. She poured what looked like whiskey into it, then topped it up from one of the huge ale kegs prominent behind the bar. When she turned back around, she set the mug down before me. "That's two copper for the ale, four for the whiskey, five for your dinner, and ten for the night."

Money. Right. Dusky Rose was literally my richest character. I reached my hand around, looking for a pocket, only to find there literally wasn't one on this outfit. Under my breath I muttered, "Come on, this is an MMO. I just need some of my money in my hand. Uh, ten silvers?"

A soft clink surprised me. I stared into my palm to see ten shiny little coins there. It was literally nothing. Barely worth worrying about. I had thousands of platinum on this character, and with the coin exchange rate, that meant I could afford to live for the rest of even an elf's life at the rate she'd quoted. "Here. I might be staying a while. Just let me know when I start getting low, okay?"

I put the ten silver on the bar and saw the barmaid's eyes go hugely wide as she saw it.

"Y-Yes ma'am! Is there anything else I can get you?" One of Julia's eyebrows raised and lowered a few times. Okay, so I wasn't wanting that kind of dream, but apparently my subconscious did.

"No thanks. This will do for the moment." Despite myself, I had to wonder what it would be like as Dusky Rose. Ugh, that wasn't a path a guy should ever think about. I reached out for the mug and lifted it to my lips. The taste was interesting. It was kinda like a really strong Bud, but the whiskey just chased away the flavor of the beer after a few seconds to leave me feeling a lot warmer. "That's good stuff, Julia."

"Thanks! We brew the ale ourselves and the town blacksmith made the still for the whiskey. We're trying to save a barrel of it each year to age, but it's just so popular."

Hold up, Harper, this isn't the game. This is a dream. Of course the NPCs could go off-script. "Huh. Well, it's delicious."

"Order of stew?" a woman asked as she poked her head out of the back room. She looked around until she caught Julia's eye and beamed. "Here we go. Hope you like it, miss."

Even in the dim lighting of the barroom, the stew looked good. Closing my eyes for a moment, I inhaled and drew in the delicious scent of the food and could already hear Dusky's voice make a soft sigh of appreciation. Everything in this dream was so real I could barely imagine it actually being a dream. "Thanks! It smells so good."

I picked up the wooden spoon and began to eat the stew one mouthful at a time, though I wanted to just pick up the bowl and guzzle it down. It tasted as amazing as it had smelled, and before I knew what I was doing the bowl was empty and I was doing my best to dig a hole through the bottom with my spoon.

"If you're still hungry, Ma's making something fancy for desert." Julia plucked up the bowl and spoon the moment I'd put them down.

I took another swig from my mug and the warmth that infused me made me ready to agree. "That'd be great, thanks!" While she took my bowl into the back, I took another—much longer—pull of my drink.

This was so much better than a nightmare. Being stuck in Dusky's body was a minor problem if I could wake up with the taste of that stew still in my mouth. Leftover Subway sandwich? Ha! Shitty, watery beer? No way.

My face was all tingly, a sign I'd had enough drink to be tipsy, but rather than hold back I reached for my mug and took another long swig of it.

"Here we go. Ma calls it tarte tatin. It's basically some really yummy fruit on top of a tray of pastry. I hope you like it!" What Julia put down in front of me looked like an upside-down apple pie, but it smelled about two-hundred times sweeter. "Hold up, you need to wait for the flame to go out—There you go." She poured a thick custard on top as well.

I hadn't seen the flame until she'd pointed it out. It had shimmered blue above the dish. I used a fresh spoon to break through the fruit and into the pastry. When I got it to my mouth, my taste-buds exploded with excitement. Rich and sweet and apple and hot and alcohol. "Ohmygosh this is good!"

Trying to eat it slowly was impossible. My arm was like a machine as it scooped up more and more and put it in my mouth for me to experience the best food of my life. Unlike with my meal, I'd managed to distract myself with some drink every now and again, so that when I was done with the dessert, my mug was empty and I felt myself blushing near constantly.

Julia picked up my empty plate and spoon and paused at the sight of my mug. "You want another drink?"

I had to face facts. I was drunk because of course being five-foot-nothing and a thin little half-elf with only a moderate con score wouldn't be able to take a strong ale and a shot of whiskey. But, I had to tell myself it was just a dream. Why not have another? "Yes please."

The moment I took a swig from the second one, everything got harder to focus on. Some soft music started, and I don't know why, but I found myself walking over to listen to the bard play.

I'd heard the game music for exactly twenty-two seconds when I first installed the game before I'd turned it off. This was nothing like that. I found myself relaxing on a soft, padded couch with my mug. At some point I'd thrown some coins to the guy to encourage him to keep playing, and when I felt someone touching my arm, I looked up to see Julia standing over me.

"You need help getting to your room?" she asked.

I nodded and wound up leaning against Julia more than I walked on my own. She led me upstairs and down a hallway to a door, opened it and guided me to the bed. When she turned to leave, that subconscious traitor in me made me turn around and watch her walk from the room.

After the door closed and left me alone I managed to say, "Fuck she has a nice ass," before I climbed onto the bed—fully clothed—and managed to squirm and work my way under the covers.

----------------------------------------

Waking up was reassuring. I always tossed and turned in my sleep, so being tangled up in fabric wasn't new. Yawning, I reached my arm out for my phone that should have been on the bedside table—only to encounter nothing.

My brain barely registered that as odd, but maybe I'd squirmed so much that the bedside table was too far away. Easy enough problem to solve by actually opening my eyes and getting my bearings.

But, there was no way I was going to do that. My alarm hasn't gone off yet, so that means I don't have to get up yet. Simple logic. Reaching my arm back up under my cheek, I drifted back to sleep with a somewhat odd feeling circulating in the back of my head.

When I woke up again, I felt better rested than I had in years, and that is exactly why I started to freak out a bit. "My alarm should have gone off by now," I said aloud in a voice that was too high-pitched.

Dreams. That's what had happened. This was another messed up dream like the one last night. That's right! I'd had a crazy dream about—about Dusky Rose. Wait, no, it was about being Dusky Rose. Well, that explained my high-pitched voice. Clearly I was still trapped in the nightmare and just needed to wake up.

Reaching across my body with my left arm, I was reminded of two things I'd completely forgotten about and discovered the source of the "wrapped up" sensation. The second answer was the robes I'd gone to bed wearing and the first two was my breasts.

"Come on, don't think of breasts at a time like this, Harper." I exposed my right forearm and grabbed up the skin between two fingers and gave it a firm pinch. "Ah! Crap! That—that hurt." My voice was still too high for comfort, but with nothing else to do in bed I decided I might as well get up and try to figure out why I wasn't waking.

After several attempts to get my clothes under control while in bed, I gave up and instead tried to escape one prison of fabric (the bed) first. Tugging and pulling didn't help, but at last I worked out which way I had apparently rolled the most and turned the opposite direction once. This, finally, got me free enough to crawl out of bed and onto the floor.

Standing up, I was acutely aware of impending needs. I rushed for the door on one side of my room and was in the tavern's hallway. Looking around, my need must have been obvious on my face because someone called out, "On your left, two doors down."

Minutes later, after navigating the strange commode and body both, I washed my hands in a basin of water and walked back to my room. Once inside, I tried to make sense of all this. "Either I'm having the most vivid and real dream ever, or I'm—"

I shook my head. "No. That can't be the truth. That's not how anything in the real world works. This isn't some stupid anime with a protagonist working to overcome the terrible world they've been dumped into while fending off a hoard of female love interests they want nothing to do with."

Laughing, it seems, was the only answer. It was stupid—insane—to think that this was real and not some kind of weird dream. Maybe I'd eaten something bad (the guy who works at Subway when I got lunch looked familiar, did he poison my sub)?

A gentle knock on the door startled me and I jumped to my feet as I heard a voice ask, "Hello? Miss Rose? Are you alright? Did you find relief?"

It was one of the barmaids. I let out sigh of relief. "I'm fine, thanks. I, uh, I found it no problem." I found it alright. I was sure as heck never going to mention what happened in there to anyone in my life.

"Breakfast is being served if you'd like some. I can clean up your room and freshen your bed for you while you eat."

At the mere mention of breakfast, my stomach made what I would call (if anyone but me made it) a cute little growl. My brain tried to remember my dinner from the previous evening, but the closest I got was a jumble of flavors that ended on something sweet. My stomach knew exactly what it wanted, however. Wait, was it my stomach? Technically it was Dusky Rose's stomach. "Coming."

I walked to the door and opened it. It wasn't Julia from the previous night but Caprice—a Kobold. For the first time since being in this strange body, I felt relief to have someone shorter than me. She stood four and a half feet tall, sported a long, thick tail, and was hunched forward and wearing a neat but plain dress over her green scales. "Oh, hello—"

Kobolds were a playable race and an NPC one. On the player side, there was an entire empire of them, though dragons were the rulers of that empire. Huge monsters that, for the most part, didn't really care about mortals. But Kobolds were squat little creatures that came in a whole mess of colors, usually matching the dragon that ruled their clan. But Caprice wasn't part of a clan. She had the stereotypically large hands and fingers of a digger-Kobold, as well as a shortened thumb. The most dangerous thing about her, however, was she was cute.

"Oh no, this isn't right." Caprice, despite being shorter than me, bullied her way forward and pushed me back and into the room. "You can't go down like this. Come over here and sit down and let me fix that up for you."

I realized the dragon-kin girl was so used to people bigger than her that she literally ignored height as a predominant factor when it came to expressing herself. She had me back in the room and sitting on a stool before a mirror before I even knew what was going on, and all the time she was talking about the strangest things.

"… and then she threw her arms in the air and claimed it was a god had besmirched her name! Well, you understand that I'm a good Kobold, and I'd rather not be smited by a god for just being near her, so I took a few steps back and hid behind a barrel. Well, she just kept on stomping around and complaining all the while her clothes were soaked through. You have to understand, of course, that she was just wearing a night shift and—what with the water—she put on quite a show for all the manfolk of the town. So that's when I…"

She kept going, battering my brain with so many words that I completely missed that she'd undone the neat braids my hair was in, brushed them out, then pulled a basin out and started washing it. If her tongue had stopped waggling for so much as a second I might have pulled myself together and stopped her, but even as she dried and brushed my hair out again, I couldn't so much as find two of my own words to put together and interrupt her.

In all, Caprice did my hair, adjusted my robes, and even circled around and applied a little blush to my cheeks before I finally managed to stop her. "Wait!"

Caprice froze, drawing back the blush pad in surprise at my shout. "Is something the matter? Did Caprice do something wrong?"

I'd never seen a Kobold cry before, and in that instant I prayed I never would again. She lifted one of her hands up to her cheek with a pristine handkerchief and blotted away at one tear.

"N-No. I mean, I just wasn't—There's been a lot going on, Caprice. Please, don't cry." At my urging she looked at my face and I realized I'd need to do better. "It's my fault, not yours." That worked. Her tears stopped, though she seemed ready to start them again if I didn't continue. "You want to hear a strange story?"

When she didn't reply—just looking at me curiously—I figured that was a yes. "Sometimes the real world is very different to the world you live in. Imagine if there was a guy who entertained people for a living—"

"Like a bard?" she asked.

That made me smile. "Yeah, I guess, kinda like a bard. So imagine he had a huge dream and he was in another world and was a different—"

A flicker of something like a text-box appeared, hovering in the air between Caprice's face and mine. It crackled and shimmered a little, but solidified into a message box, but all the text was backwards.

"S-Sorry, Caprice, I need to—I need to use—" The excuse was a terrible one, but it allowed me to jump to my feet and race out the door without saying anything. I reached the commode again and closed the door behind me.

Reading over the text-box several times, I eventually figured out what it was saying:

Incoming message from GM-Molly

I reached out with my finger and tried to poke the OK button, but it didn't work. "How do I accept? Wait, is it like the coins?" Focusing, I imagined a white mouse pointer tapping OK, and the button lit up blue and the box stretched out.

GM-Molly:-

Are you okay?

After reading the words several times—also backwards—I had to pause and wonder if this was part of the dream. Then came the real problem in how do I reply?

Well, I'd used a mouse to poke a button just by thinking it, would this work the same? Focusing my attention, I tried for a simple message.

Dusky Rose:-

Yes.

Success!

GM-Molly:-

This is really crazy. I'm stuck in the GM interface and… Dusky, I can't contact any other GMs and I can't get out of this. Is it a dream or something? What's going on?

It took me what felt like forever to get through her words and put them in order, but by the end of it I felt I was getting better at reading it.

Dusky Rose:-

I have no idea. I went to sleep last night and now I'm stuck in this dream. Woke up this morning and still here. You're in the GM system, right? Can't you just force us both to log out?

GM-Molly:-

Okay, sure. If this is just a dream that'd work. If this is reality, what would LOGGING OUT mean?

Dusky Rose:-

Fair point. The big question is how do I know you're not just my subconscious playing games with me while I'm asleep? But, then you'd ask the same question back and we're right back at the start. Isn't there some logic thing about guards that always tell the truth and always lie or something?

I was rambling, I knew, but once you started just thinking a reply, it took a conscious effort to stop thinking it.

GM-Molly:-

Look, all I know is there are other players on here too, but there's none near your city. It's just NPCs and you there. Are you alright on Dusky? I could try to force you to log directly to Espy, but there's no telling what would happen.

Espy Death would at least let me be male, but then I'd be stuck as the biggest target in the entire game world, and with what Molly said about there being other players, that would basically mean they would gang up and hunt me.

Worse still, there was no telling if dying in this world meant you died for real—

Dusky Rose:-

Are you sure this isn't some elaborate gag? Like, did you have some kind of advanced VR dropped on me while I was asleep and now you're sitting out there getting lulz at me stuck in this?

GM-Molly:-

Okay, Dusky, I'm going to leave you to sort your shit out. When I work out this fucked up void I'm stuck in, and when you decide to not accuse me of doing this just for laughs, I might talk to you again.

The chat window disappeared, and I was left trying to focus on the door of the bathroom.

Good going, Harper, you just got the only other person in this world that you can talk to angry with you. Fucking. Good. J—

"Hello? Are you alright? Caprice is worried." Caprice's voice practically trembled as she spoke through the door in a soft voice.

Kobolds, at least the players I'd seen playing one, were crafty and menacing when they got you on your own. They had bonuses when working in groups against single targets, and had some of the nastiest bite and claw attacks I'd seen on a starting race.

Taking a breath, I stood up and tried to arrange my robes so they weren't a mess. "I'm coming out, Caprice." And here I was feeling sorry for an NPC of all things. When I opened the door and saw her huddled in place, looking up at me with her big eyes, I realized why I was feeling sorry for an NPC—she was not just cute but looked innocent. "Sorry."

"N-No! It's Caprice who is sorry. I didn't mean to intrude on you and wash your hair and braid your hair and straighten your outfit and I definitely didn't mean to bring you a robe so Caprice can wash your clothes." She held out her arms to reveal a folded, white bathrobe across them.

"R-Right." Now I was stumbling over my words too. This was not a good sign. "Thanks, Caprice, it means a lot to me." I took the bathrobe and started back toward my room. Heading inside, I completely forgot about the door until I heard claws on the floor just inside the doorway and before the carpet began. "Caprice?"

"Please, allow Caprice to assist you." She rushed toward me with all the skill and speed of a trained warrior. Taking the bathrobe from my hand, she next reached up to my shoulders and drew the robes I was wearing back and off my shoulder, then down.

Do I look down? Do I acknowledge the fact that I'm naked? Do I—Wait, I'm still wearing something. Taking the biggest breath of my life, I looked down.

My body looked weird and curvy. Okay, no, it looked hot and curvy, it was just weird because it was my body being hot and curvy. There was some kind of thing clinging around my middle and up (and over) my breasts.

My. Breasts.

Stop that, Harper, that won't help. I also seemed to have a pair of panties on too, which meant I wasn't naked!

"Oh, let me get those too." Caprice was far sneakier and swift than I was. By the time I realized she had the thing around my torso in her grip, she was pulling it up and over my head. While I still reeled from that attack, she grabbed the panties and removed those too. "Now, let Caprice hold this out and you just step back into it."

Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.

Doing as Caprice said seemed my best chance of getting out of this without anything more embarrassing happening. She guided my arms as I stepped back and then slid the bathrobe over my shoulders.

Caprice reached around me from behind and carefully tied up the drawstring of the bathrobe, leaving me—

I looked down, thinking it was safe. Without the underthings, and with the bathrobe tied as it was, my chest was squeezed a little and I had cleavage. More cleavage than a guy my BMI should ever have.

"You look beautiful in that. Caprice will wash your clothes for you and bring them back. Please, go downstairs and have breakfast while Caprice works." Bobbing her head, Caprice gathered up all my clothes and rushed out of the room.

Okay, so now I was stuck in some kind of game world that may or (I can't believe I have to say this) may not be a dream, and now a Kobold has stolen my clothes. I looked down again. Right, and I'm stuck as a girl—err, woman.

There wasn't much else to do (and if this is one of those terrible isekai anime, I don't want it to become that kind of anime), so I walked to the door and opened it up. I was halfway down the stairs when I realized that I was barefoot. When Caprice had taken my boots off, I wasn't aware. Maybe I'd done it before getting in bed? That part of last night was a bit hazy.

"Good morning, miss. Would you like some breakfast?" The young Catkin woman who spoke to me was a sight to behold. When I was playing the game, she'd looked like a puffball of white with tufty ears. She was a Catkin, humanoid feline, and whoever had made her had gone nuts with the fluff. Now that I was in the game, or whatever, I could see that regular clothing would have been a mistake for her to wear with all her fuzz, though her not wearing anything but an apron did set off all kinds of warning bells in my head that probably had to do with nudity taboos gone wild.

"Good morning, uh…"

"Chloe. You can call me Clo if you'd like." She bobbed her head, a smile appearing somewhere in the fluff that covered her face.

"Thanks, Clo, some breakfast would be good. What's on?" I could smell at least some of what they had cooking. The scent of strong coffee wafted to me, as did something sweet.

Counting things off on her paw-hand, Chloe said, "We have coffee or tea to drink, as well as either porridge and honey or we have sausages, bacon, and eggs."

Much as I liked the idea of having a huge, greasy breakfast with all the meats, I wasn't a complete idiot. If I was stuck here, ruining Dusky's body wouldn't be a good idea. "I'll take the porridge, please, and some coffee."

"Coming right up!"

Hell but she had a tail on her, too, thick around as my leg. I shook my head to banish the distraction of naked cat girls.

So, Harper, what are you going to do here? Got enough money to bum around in town for the rest of existence… Nah. That was never my thing. Laziness didn't fit me, so what to do?

Level up? I mean, why not? I knew magic and everything, why not have some fun with it? That's when I remembered. "Lvl 50 multiclass…" Excitement filled me. "Why didn't I think of that before? If I level up to 50, I can take a second class. Then I could go flex-healing, which is actually pretty strong in one-v-one."

"Here's your breakfast." Chloe slid a bowl of steaming oats before me and added a large tin cup of dark coffee and a little pot of honey. "Jules said you had paid in advance, I'll take this out of that? Also, what's 'multiclass'?"

"Sure, that's why I left that money. Let me know if it gets low and I'll give you some more, okay?" I used the spoon in the honey to tip some into my coffee and give it a swirl around. "Multiclassing is, well, it's when you learn a second trade that makes your first one better."

I didn't know as much about the Catkin races. Well, I knew them by sight. There was the bigger tigerkin, leopardkin, lynxkin (which is what I figured Chloe was), and a few others. I guess snowy and cold areas were her homelands, since all that fur wouldn't do her any favors in the desert.

"Oh! Like if I became a cook in addition to working in the bar?"

Snapped back from my musing, I nodded to her. "Something like that. I was just thinking that if I get better as a healer, I could take a class—profession—that is better suited for fighting."

"You don't like healing? Why would you become a healer, then?" Chloe seemed perfectly happy to stand on the opposite side of the bar and pay all her attention to me. That's when I realized she was looking at my chest as often as not. "What's your name?"

Oh. My. Grod. She was—And I'm a—I mean, she's kinda nice, but I don't even know what she looks like under all that fur! She's also an NPC. Are they actually alive? I mean, could any of this be scripted? "D-Dusky Rose."

"Well, Dusky, you can always ask for help. We could use another barmaid around here, though I think Caprice would bite your leg if you tried to take over her job."

"Thanks, but I think I have this worked out. It's not going to be fun, but—" Heck. I'm an idiot! I had so much money I could ruin an economy, and needed people to adventure with. Mercenaries!

Mercenaries cost money. Each additional one increased the cost of all of them, but compared to what a high-level player made, low-level mercenaries were cheap because they scaled to your level. I could hire a handful of NPCs, kit them out to be the party I needed, and then start leveling!

Chloe was waving one of her fluffy paw-hands before my face. "Are you alright, Dusky? You kinda zoned out there."

"I'm better than okay, Clo. You gave me the best idea ever." I took a long drink of my coffee and let out a happy little sigh at how good it felt to get something hot inside me. … phrasing! "I'm not going to go out alone to get better, I'm going to take some friends."

Working on my porridge, I realized how good it felt to have direction. I had a task to do—I'd do it and then find another. First, of course, was to finish breakfast and get my robes back from Caprice.

Thinking of the Kobold made my face pull into a smile. How could I be angry at her for literally doing her job—even if it caused me to get so embarrassed? And what was so embarrassing about it, anyway? It wasn't like she saw anything, let alone anyone else. She'd been really discreet actually.

From the corner of my eye I saw Caprice carrying a large basket in her arms—hunched forward a little—and heading to the fireplace at one end of the room. The fire was burning bright, which gave me perfect light to see her set the basket down and start lifting out items one by one as she hung them on a drying stand she set up there.

Several aprons were the first things to go up, then some dresses, then my robes.

It was strange. My robes looked different on the drying rack. They didn't have the V of cleavage or the tight wrap around the waist. That's when I started to giggle because I knew exactly what it was. "Boob armor…"

"Pardon?" Chloe asked.

"Oh, just thinking about something silly." I wondered how that would work with Chloe. Would any armor she wore turn into some kind of cute accessory?

"And watching Caprice's tail has nothing to do with it?" Chloe's voice literally purred as she delivered the question.

If this was a bad anime, I'd get all kinds of worked up and embarrassed about that. "Well, I gotta admit, it's a nice tail, but I was more wondering when my things will be dry enough to wear."

"Oh. Well, Caprice will keep an eye on them and turn them when they start to dry. Shouldn't be too long."

I got another spoon of porridge into my mouth when I realized that Caprice was hanging out my undershirt and panties. Okay, so even I had my limits as to what I could take, so I hid my face over my breakfast and focused on eating it.

And eating it. And eating it. And definitely not thinking about my underwear on full display. I lifted my coffee up to drink the last of it.

"Excuse me, miss Dusky? Miss Dusky!" Caprice's voice started out soft and didn't get any louder. "Your things are dry now. Would you like assistance dressing?"

"I—Uh—That is—I mean—" Words completely failed me, mostly because while I had an idea how to put the things back on, it was Caprice that took them off and knew exactly how they would go on. I could either surrender now or possibly screw something up and embarrass myself further. "Please."

Raising one eyeridge, Caprice gave me a big, toothy smile and nodded her head. "Come on, then, let Caprice take care of everything!"

That sounded like the last thing you hear before waking up hungover, hanging by your legs from a flagpole while naked. Part of me screamed at the obvious setup, but that part wasn't in charge. I stood and followed Caprice back upstairs and into my room.

"Caprice has questions." Sorting through my things, she pulled out the underwear. "Firstly, where does nice elf-girl come from that she doesn't know how to dress herself?" Her tone had changed completely. Before she'd been the sweet little Kobold who didn't understand big words, now she was curious and interrogative—though she was still sorting my clothes. "Take the robe off."

I reached for the belt around my belly and eased it loose. This wasn't even technically my body—why was I so damn embarrassed about this? Well, duh, because it wasn't my body. Sliding the robe off my shoulders, I let it fall—only for Caprice to catch it.

"You didn't answer Caprice's question."

"Remember the story I started telling earlier?" I asked.

She pulled the undershirt thing over my head and down past my chest—Dusky's chest. No, dammit, it was my chest right now. I had to get this crap sorted out before I went insane. "Caprice remember. About a famous bard who fell asleep and woke in a new world?"

"Well, that happened yesterday. I woke up in the bank and—"

Caprice proved how strong she was for her size when she grabbed me and turned me around to face her. "This is a lie. If you woke like that, where did your money come from?" She looked angry, and her clawed hands were so firmly gripping me that I couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to.

"I dreamed that I had gold. I dreamed I was a healer. I dreamed—I dreamed all this." When Caprice let go, I fell backwards and sat on the bed with a thump. "I don't know how else to explain it. Yesterday I was a guy, a bard, and then when I went to sleep I woke up here."

"You're not lying." Caprice's eyes narrowed. "You're really not lying. Caprice understand now. Caprice help." Her demeanor switched from angry-inquisitive to bustle-take-charge in an instant. She dragged me to my feet again and turned me around. "This needs to be laced up properly. It was loose when Caprice took it off you."

My brain started to register what the garment was when Caprice began tugging on the laces on the back of it. "Wai—" It wasn't as tight as I had feared, but when she jerked on the laces it gave me a moment of panic. What surprised me was how much better it felt with my boobs being supported by it. "That's—that's pretty good."

"Thank you, Caprice," she said.

I turned and looked at her over my shoulder. "Thank you, Caprice. I really have no clue with this stuff." I gestured at the corset-like thing gripping my midsection and holding my boobs up.

"Truth is the best currency Caprice accepts. Put these on—you should know how."

She passed me the panties, which I pulled up only to have them start to slip. "Uh, how do these stay up?"

"There's a drawstring. Caprice will leave its management to Dusky." Now there was a clear note of humor in Caprice's voice, and damn it all I could appreciate it. At least it wasn't pity.

Sure enough, there was a thin string at the front that I pulled tight and tied up. Having the waistband above my hips meant it definitely wasn't going to go down this time. "Thank you, Caprice."

Gripping my sides, Caprice spun me around to face her again before reaching up to tap my nose. "Caprice knew you would learn fast. Next you need to learn how to fasten these robes." She passed me the robes that Dusky Rose had been wearing when I'd logged her out—just before the dream. They were somewhat plain looking, but they were enchanted fairly well since I wanted to actually level up a bit when I first started.

She held them out to me, so I took them and slipped them over my head. They practically cascaded down my body in a heap, covering me from neck to ankles. I started to adjust them when Caprice reached out and batted my hands away.

"Like this." She shifted and tugged on the robes to get them over my shoulders properly, then pulled at them around my waist and buttoned up a few hidden fasteners that pulled them tight in several places—hips, belly, chest. There was the oddest sensation of something flowing into me, and I realized it was the enchantments on them taking effect. The robes pulled a little more and then changed. Now I was stuck with a robes that hung to just above my knees and with a deep neckline that put my (yes, my) boobs on display—at least my cleavage.

"Thank you, Caprice." Okay, saying those three words were so worth it if only to see her smile.

"Are these magical? They look magical." Caprice walked around me, tugging on the robes here and there. "Dusky looks cute in it."

I knew damn well that Dusky looked cute in this. I'd made the character and dressed her—me--after all. But from a raised eyeridge above Caprice's left eye, I knew she was expecting the right answer. "Thank you, Caprice."

She giggled now. "Dusky all ready to face anything. Caprice know you do well." Then she wrapped me up in a hug that, if it wasn't for my robes' crush defense, probably would have actually caused damage.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Despite all the craziness of the situation (or probably because of it), I found myself reaching around her and hugging her too. It was nice to just be accepted and have a friend. At least, I figured we were friends. "Can I ask you a question, Caprice?"

"Yes. Caprice will try to answer as fully as she can."

"Will you be my friend, Caprice?"

Her eyes actually had a kind of sparkle to them as she reached up as high as she could and kissed me on the cheek. "Caprice is your best friend, Dusky."

"Thank you, Caprice."

At my words she let out a full-throated laugh and spun away from me—almost knocking me over with her tail. Continuing to laugh, she left the room practically bouncing with each step.

I felt lighter. It almost seemed like this wasn't as bad. I knew for a fact that the best NPC scripting wouldn't have accounted for what just happened, which meant there was something else happening. I grabbed my fleece-lined boots and pulled them on, then made my way out of the tavern.

The chill weather was offset by my robes' enchantments and the sun itself. I knew where I had to go to hire mercenaries, so set out on foot at a brisk walk. My target was a bulletin board that had what looked like papers nailed to it. I walked up to it and hoped an interface would open—but nothing did.

"If this is broken, I'm hosed. Okay, focus, Harper." Just like with the chat window, I thought about poking the board and, to my utter relief, it opened the mercenary interface.

Backwards.

"This is going to be annoyingly regular, isn't it? Oh well, at least I know—" I froze while mentally flicking through the options. "No way. I can choose any NPC to be one of my party members?"

This made things a whole new game. The first one I picked was Caprice and set her to be a mage—the base class of a lot of the more advanced builds that gave huge rewards. Next I tried to cycle through the options and spotted Chloe. A natural born fighter for snow conditions, I had no trouble at all in tagging her with the martial base class. The money rate was still super low, so I kept at it.

Since I had a theme going now, I figured why not make it an all-girl group? At least I'd have some cuties to look at while—standing at the back and healing. I picked a cute-looking Vulpine (the fox-race, absolutely all the usual fox-looking things you'd expect, though this one had a fluffy white coat instead of red) and set her as rogue. The last I needed was a flex-tank, which meant another martial class. I figured it'd be best to get an actual guard for this, but the moment I tried to select one the system told me I was too low a level for that.

Cycling through my options, I found a young human woman and added her with the martial template. When I hit accept, there was four simultaneous cries of alarm right behind me. I banished the interface, taking note that it would be about 10 gold per eight hours.

"Dusky? Why Dusky here? Why Caprice here? Why Chloe wearing sword?"

"Me wearing a sword? Caprice," Chloe said, "why are you holding a wizard staff and wearing robes like that?"

"Who are you people? What's going on? Why do I have so many knives?" The Vulpine was busy patting herself down, revealing so many bulging knife-shapes it was honestly a little worrying.

"I don't know what's going on. You two are from the tavern, right? And you, Yaff, you sell fruit in the market. Who are you?" The final girl, the human, pointed her pale finger at me. She had bright red hair that hung down her back in a tight braid and sported more freckles than there were stars in the sky.

Okay, how best to explain it? Right, I hired them with magic! "My name's—"

"Dusky! What did you do?" Caprice fixed her glare on me, looking angry and inquisitive again.

"Let her finish, Caprice," Chloe said. "And if we don't like what she says, we leave."

"Okay, so basically I activated a magic thing that summons warriors to my side. It gives you skills and equipment—and money." I looked around the group. Caprice didn't look moved at all, Chloe looked curious, Yaff looked confused, and the final one, the human, looked excited. "If you don't want to, I can try to get the magic to swap to someone else…"

"I'm in." Chloe looked me in the eyes, something a little off-putting given her yellow, feline irises. "If I get paid, that is. I've always wanted to see what all the fuss is about with adventuring."

"I've always wanted to go on adventure! This is so much better than making toffee!" The human girl shoved her hand out to me. "Taffy Sugarborne! Oh, I'll have to go and tell my da what I'm doing." With that said, she turned and ran off.

"Actually, Caprice and I will have to let Jules know we're going to be out for the… day?" Chloe looked at me and, when I nodded, smiled. "Come on, Caprice, let's go and tell the boss we'll be busy."

That left Yaff, the Vulpine. She looked at me with narrowed eyes. "How much am I getting paid for this?" Her big white tail flicked back and forth a few times, then stilled.

I hoped the system resulted in all the money going to the NPCs. So long as that worked, I wouldn't have to pay any extra—though after I told them I would, I kinda felt like I should. "Uh, you'll get a bit over a gold a day, I think. Check your coins."

She fumbled around for a bit, her clothing apparently having changed between her normal work clothes and the adventuring gear she had now, but when she lifted her coinpurse her eyes widened. "That seems… worth it." Which I knew meant You're overpaying me, but I'm not complaining. "I'll just have to go and secure my cart. I'll be back as quick as I can!"

And that is how I came to be standing in the middle of the town, paying four NPCs to run around and talk to people.

"Wait, I need my own gear. Where's my staff? I—" No sooner did I say it than a staff appeared in my hand. It was the same one I'd had made for Dusky, of course, but I was surprised at how it just appeared. No sooner was I holding it, however, than I felt a rush of sensations.

I don't know how I knew, but I could feel that I had mana, stamina, and magic available. It was just about the biggest rush of excitement of my life, and in that single moment I managed to forget how crazy all this was and giggle excitedly. "I know magic!"

But, wait, what magic? How do I use these spells? What spells? Right, magic book. Uh, it was an interface in the game, but I bet— I held out my right hand, palm up, and a thick book appeared there. "Okay! Heal spells."

I had, according to the spellbook, four healing spells:

Weak Heal

Major Heal

Group Heal

Channel Life

The first two were basically just a small/big heal spell, with higher mana cost and cast time for the bigger one. The third was the same healing as Weak Heal, but it healed my whole party. The last was a heal-over-time that had a slowish cast time and gave about as much life as Weak Heal.

But there was more. I had Bless, which gave a small defense and attack boost to everyone in my party and Focus, which was the generic out-of-combat mana/stamina regen ability.

The important ones I'd be using would be Bless, Weak Heal, and probably Channel Life. Major Heal and Group Heal were best saved for bad situations.

Okay, that was sorted, but how do I use them? "Bless!" Shouting didn't work. Focusing more, I thought Bless, and felt my mana dip a little while a swirling magic effect rose around me and spread out—probably to the other girls. Neat!

So all I had to do was think the spells and they'd work. Weak Heal—nothing happened. "Oh, right, it needs a target. Uh…" Weak Heal me. Again my mana dipped and this time I felt a surge of magic rush into me that felt… nice.

That's when I realized I had a sense of not-being-able-to-castness about those spells, and while the Bless seemed out of action for a while, Weak Heal seemed to return in about half a minute. "I know magic. I can cast magic!"

"Alright," Yaff said from behind me, "and what magic do you do?"

Jumping a little, I spun around to see her wearing a cocky grin. Well, two can play at scaring. "I'm the healer of the group." Yup. No finer words had ever been said as the culmination of a joke. "But hey, at least I know my magic works now."

"Hey, uh, my da said it would be okay if you pay. I gave him the coins that appeared in my pouch, and then he was smiling too much to be upset," Taffy said as she walked up on us. "Where's the other two?"

All three of us turned at the sound of tromping boots on snow, only to see Caprice and Chloe marching toward us. Caprice had picked up an extra cloak, but Chloe still wore nothing save her fur and some light, leather armor that somehow seemed barely to cover any of her. The sword at Chloe's side seemed to imply she meant business. "There, I'd say," I said.

Caprice gave me a neutral-inquisitive look and held out her staff. "Magic Arrow!"

The pain was immediate and sharp. A bright green lance of light shot from her staff and hit my arm like a hammer. I stared at the wound in shock, trying to work out why she'd attacked me. "Wha—?"

"Caprice is a mage. I can do hurty-spells." Gesturing at my arm, Caprice then stabbed one of her large fingers at my chest. "You're a healer. Heal that."

I tried to focus past the pain and fear and narrow down on what she meant. Okay, a test and revenge. Weak Heal on me.

The dip of mana came and I felt the rush of feel-good again, but this time it banished the pain that Caprice had inflicted upon me. I stared at my arm for a moment and then grinned. "I'm the healer. I can heal." I stuck my tongue out at her and got a big, Kobold grin in reply. Apparently we were still friends. "What about the rest of you?"

"I have no clue what I am. I figure I hit things with this sword?" Chloe asked.

"Looks the same as mine." Taffy looked at the weapon Chloe drew out slowly. "Yup, look." She then drew her own sword. "So we're both—"

"Martial fighters," I said. "I… might have picked your classes."

"And what am I meant to be? All these knives would make me a great juggler, I suppose." Drawing a short, wicked-sharp blade, Yaff tossed it into the air and caught it again on the tip of one of her paw-pads. She stared at it a moment before flicking her wrist and sending it tumbling again—only to catch it by the hilt.

"Do that again! Caprice wants to watch!" She clapped her hands—dropping her staff in the process.

"So how does this work?" Chloe asked. "You seem to know the most about this, Dusky."

All four of them turned to look at me. It was strange, after all this time playing solo, to be part of a group like this. Most of my experience with the game's group-play dynamics was on the side of breaking them apart and destroying them.

"Okay, well, I'll be honest—I've never done this before. Wait!" Panic had set in when all four started to turn. "I know how it works, though. Trust me. Martial types have lots of defense and health. You hit things early in a fight to get its attention focused on you. Yaff, your daggers do a lot of damage if you hit things while you're not its target. Caprice, your magic really hurts—trust me on that."

Chloe and Taffy looked at each other for a few seconds and then nodded in silent agreement. Both turned to me and I could swear the temperature dropped by about ten degrees.

"You keep us healthy, got it?" Taffy asked.

"And don't forget Caprice and Yaff. Especially Yaff, since she'll have to be in close with us." Chloe gave me her best predator-looking-at-eating-me gaze (it was really good). "Got it?"

"Y-Yeah," I said.

"Great! Let's go!" Taffy spun around and started walking toward the edge of town—then paused. "Uh, where should we be going?"

That was a tough one for me to work out too. I tried to think map, but nothing came up. "Uh, I guess we ask the guards where something is we can fight?"

"Makes sense. Come on." It took a minute of walking for me to realize that Chloe had taken the lead. It felt odd to not be the one in charge of everything, but she just seemed really confident. "Excuse me, guardsman? Oh! Trelkin!"

"Little Chloe! How you doing, kitten?" The big, burly guardsman reached out and pulled Chloe into a hug that somehow managed to hide a large amount of her. He was huge. Easily six and a half feet tall, he held a polearm weapon firmly in one hand, had chain armor covering him from neck to ankle, with a painted shirt over the top of the chain, and a helmet on top that couldn't hope to hide the huge amount of black hair that spilled out from under it in all directions.

Chloe managed to extract herself from the embrace and dropped lightly to the ground again. "Great, uncle Trelkin! We were just heading out on and adventure and wondered where there might be some weak critters we could take on to give ourselves a bit of a warm-up?"

"Well now, we've had reports of wargs further out, but you don't want to mess with those if you're just starting. There's some dire-rabbits just off into the woods to the east. Nasty little things, but I figure with a group of you, it'd be no trouble." Trelkin reached up and rubbed his beard. "In fact—I require twenty-five dire-rabbit skins."

The way his speech had turned practically robotic shocked me. It took me a second to realize a dialogue box had appeared just above him. Accept Quest, I thought, and the box turned green and faded. Floating off to the left, I noticed a quest tracker appeared, shimmered, then solidified.

It was backwards, but seeing some basic interface stuff gave me new hope that this would work out. I looked in the direction he'd indicated for the rabbits—it looked like fairly sparse forest with unpacked snow and a little underbrush here and there. There was something still bugging me, and it wasn't until we'd walked out of town and toward the woods that I realized what it was—I couldn't see their health!

"You, uh, need to tell me when you get hurt, okay? I mean, I should be able to see what happens, but just don't leave me out of the loop. If you're hurting, tell me." Oh, great one. Just tell the party they have a nervous healer. I almost face-palmed.

Chloe looked back at me and nodded. "Got it, Dusky. Caprice, you need to keep an eye on Dusky, too. If anything attacks her, you make it stop. If it's too big for you, tell us."

"Got it!" Apparently, Caprice took her job seriously—she stepped up beside me and walked so that our hips were almost hitting. "Caprice is sorry about that spell earlier. I didn't realize it would do that much."

I looked down to her, feeling better about our recent friendship. I'd been a dick, after all, and I had to accept that NPCs now seemed to be real people. "It's no problem, Caprice. I kinda get why you did it, and I know I should have warned you about this before just doing it. I'm still trying to get the hang of this world."

"Well, Dusky has Caprice to take care of her n—Incoming!"

Her shout startled me, but it startled me into action. My senses sharped to points and I saw where she gestured. There were two cute, fluffy bunnies hopping toward us—only they were three feet tall at their shoulders and their slathering mouths revealed sharp fangs.

Bless! The spell cast quickly, renewing the defense/attack buff and readying everyone for the impending fight.

"I've got the left one, Taffy, you take the right." Chloe didn't wait for the rabbits to reach her, instead stepping forward and swinging her sword toward her one to get its attention.

Taffy, showing her own brand of adventurousness, actually jumped toward her rabbit and swung her blade low at its face. "Taunt! Ha ha!" And, with her excitement, the rabbit bounced around her reverse swing and bit her leg.

I didn't need to hear her shout to know she'd need healing. "Weak Heal!" Instead of saying her name, I gestured at Taffy, which seemed to work just as well. I felt the trickle of mana leave me, and watched the red gash on her leg fade. Gesturing at Chloe, I started another spell, "Channel Life!"

That's when I realized Yaff was nowhere to be seen. I was just about to call out for her, when I saw her leave cover behind the rabbit Taffy had hit. A flash of steel and the rabbit shouted in shock and fell over.

My quest indicator ticked up by one. Yay, automated questing. I really hadn't looked forward to skinning these things for real.

Chloe swung her blade a second time, barely hitting the rabbit and the exaggerated swing gave the bunny the time it needed to get close and bite her shin. "I need a hea—Oh." The wound closed over almost the instant after it was made as my heal over time cleared it away.

"Nasty rabbit hurt Caprice's friend! Burn!"

We all backed up a step as the rabbit caught fire in a huge plume of flame that seemed to erupt from the ground under it. I knew it was done for because my quest counter ticked up again.

"Focus," I said, using the out-of-combat rest ability. I knew that it would become useless at higher levels, but right now it was the boost a bunch of newbies needed to keep fighting continuously. "Nice work everyone! We kept our heads and worked as a team."

"It was good. How do you all feel after that?" Chloe looked around. "Oh, and you did real good, Dusky."

"Yeah!" Taffy turned to me and held her free hand out and up. "Great heals! Put it there!"

As I raised my hand and high-fived Taffy, I realized how much more real this felt actually being here. I didn't even know if I could resurrect. I didn't even know if NPCs could. "Thanks. Are any of you still hurt from that fight? How's your mana, Caprice? Stamina, Yaff and Taffy?"

"Caprice used biggest spell, but I'm almost back to full again." The way she talked was such an odd mix of first and third person. It seemed kinda weird, but also really cute. Ugh. This was my own fault for picking cute mercenaries.

"Maybe you should hold back on the big ones," Chloe said. "Try using the arrow one next time."

"Girls, speaking of next time. Incoming, three this time." Yaff's voice came from the bushes beside us somewhere. For being a bright white fox person, she was literally impossible to see once she got out of view just once.

Bless was still up, so I instead focused on who would make the first contact with the rabbits—it was Chloe again. She swung her sword in a wide arc. "Arc Taunt!"

My eyes widened as all three of the rabbits turned their heads to face her. Gesturing my staff at Chloe, I cast, "Channel Life!" This time, since I was paying more attention to her in particular, I saw a soft green glow appear around her and seem to tremble a moment before sinking into her body. "Caprice, this is when you want to use that big area spell!"

"Mmhmm!" Caprice gestured at the middle rabbit with her staff and cast, "Burn!" Immediately two of them practically evaporated and my quest counter ticked up again.

When Taffy stepped up to the last one and drove her sword into it with a shout, the counter went up again.

A whistle off to our right alerted us to Yaff's direction. "No rest, girls, this seems to be a good spot. Two more incoming."

The fighting was way more exciting than sitting on my computer. Okay, sure, it was all low level stuff, but being with a group made each fight important. I paid attention not for the grind, not for the people watching my stream, but for my friends and for me.

I hadn't even paid attention to the quest indicator, which was why it was a surprise when a notification popped up that the quest was complete. "Oh, that quest is done? I can hand it in out here? Okay."

"Whoa!" four voices shouted at once.

"What just happened to Caprice?"

"Dusky, what did you just do? I feel stronger and—where did this shield come from?" Chloe held up her free arm to reveal she had a shield held in it. "And why do I know how to use it?"

"Probably that mercenary magic stuff Dusky used to get us together." Yaff was far closer than I'd thought, close enough that she stepped out of the woods right beside me. One moment there was nothing, the next there was a big fuzzy vixen with more knives than she knew what to do with.

I knew what happened, now. The experience from the quest, seeing as I was level 5, was shared out and was enough to level them all up. I had no idea how much experience I'd been on or how much I needed. I didn't even know if these bunnies conned green to me. "Y-Yeah! The mercenary magic boosts you all as I get experi—as I get better."

Caprice was sitting on the ground with a big book resting in her lap. She flicked through the pages and started bouncing in place. "I got a new spell! Enchant Weapon!"

"I like the sound of that. Give me a hit, Caprice." Taffy stepped close and, when Caprice reached out to her and touched her (while casting the spell) Taffy's blade suddenly lit up like green fire bubbled along it. The flames seemed to die down a little, but never went out completely. "Alright! Now let's find something tougher!"

"Let's try the rabbits one more—" Chloe said.

Needing to make up an excuse for going back and getting the quest again, I thought quickly. "Wait. I need to renew a part of the mercenary magic. I need to do that so we can get stronger faster." Not even a lie, either.

"Caprice know when Dusky has a full bedpan, but I trust Dusky not to hurt us. Tell me later." She patted me on the arm like I was a good dog.

What the actual hell had I gotten myself into? Despite some curiously raised eyebrows, no one else asked about the mercenary magic as we followed our path back to town.

Despite the cold snow and ice everywhere, I felt warm enough wearing literally nothing that should be keeping me warm. In this kind of weather I should have layers of clothing on with a big coat, but apparently a single, revealing robe and underwear was enough to make it tolerable.

"Back so soon? You all look in fine health, so I assume your little miss healer there did her job well. What do you want from old Trelkin?"

I couldn't stop from blushing at being referred to as "little miss healer", mostly because he wasn't wrong. "I was wondering if—" How do I ask this? He seemed to say the quest message last time without anyone else noticing. What triggered him to say it?

"Caprice thinks what cute healer wants is to know where you think we should hunt now?"

Cute healer now? Ugh, she had to be doing this on purpose.

"Well? Seems likely you'll want to go a bit more west than where you were so you can catch the more serious dire-rabbits. Careful with them, they have a few different nasty status effects, so you'll want to avoid anyone but your martial types taking damage from them—I require thirty-five rabid dire-rabbit feet." Again his voice turned flat and mechanical at the last bit, and sure enough a quest dialogue appeared.

"Okay, I think we can take them on. Come on, girls, let's go hunting!" I'd worked my mental focus into my words, which worked well enough to accept the quest.

Chloe reached a paw out and petted the top of my head. "Look at you. So eager to get out there and take on bigger and tougher things. Just keep your friends healed and we'll all be fine." She strode forward and everyone—including me—just naturally followed her.

Seeing Chloe take charge made me revise how I planned to structure the group. My role was locked in—since I've already chosen my level 5 specialization—but the rest would probably hit level five in about two days, and each of them had a choice as to what specialty class they would be.

Chloe seemed a leader, and there was a great class specifically for leaders—Champion—but my original plan had been Warrior for her and Taffy. Putting up an impenetrable wall for us to work behind. Champion had far less defense, but they had some nice buffing options in short term shouts and battle tactics. A flex-tank specializing in damage.

This made me reevaluate all my ideas. With less pure tanking, it would make healing more important. Why not have Taffy go with Valkyrie instead of Warrior? Another flex-tank option, but specializing in heals and defense.

With Chloe taking on more DPS, it would mean we wouldn't rely on Yaff and Caprice for their damage, so why not utility there? I had planned to take Yaff into Assassin, which was pure damage, but eventually it'd be nice to take on a dungeon, and for that you needed a Rogue class that had a more trap/thievery specialization. Trap-lord would work, but then she'd have no DPS at all. Bushwhacker seemed a better idea. She'd still have some DPS, but she'd also have a reasonable trap detection/use and would have a high thievery—which would aid in getting into locked rooms/chests.

This all left a big hole that Caprice could swim around in. DPS was good, but it would be nice if we had her more flexible. I had planned Wizard initially, burning a lot of things down when you had a wall of tanks was great, but with a more dynamic group we would need a more dynamic Mage. There was one specific Mage specialty that fit that bill in spades—Beastmaster. The ability to summon or charm creatures meant that she could swap between a bear-like thing for a big tank and a tiger for some serious DPS. Plus they had some great debuffs to really mess some targets up.

"Hey, Dusky, I asked if you were ready. What's up?" Chloe (and everyone else) was looking at me. There wasn't any condescension in her voice or demeanor—she was in a more serious frame of mind, it seemed.

"With the mercenary interfa—magic, I got to choose what classes you were, and when you get a bit stronger I'll get to choose what specialty class you become." Looking around at their faces, I picked up various levels of dislike and annoyance. "I had plans, but those have changed because—well, because I know you better now. Chloe, you're a true leader. Caprice, you're a lot smarter than anyone gives you credit for, and you care for people a ton. Taffy, you have the bravery to jump between any of us and a monster. Yaff, you're not really feeling challenged by stab-stab-kill-kill, are you?"

All of them looked at me with surprise. I sighed and smiled. "That's why I was trying to come up with a way I could help you find the right class to fit you. I think I might have it worked out."

"Hold on, Dusky. What's a class?" Chloe asked.

"More importantly," Yaff said, "there's four rabbits coming."

Taffy and Chloe turned together, lifting their shields and getting their swords ready. Caprice cast Enchant Weapon on Yaff, and Yaff herself melted into the forest branches.

Bless. The spell poured out from me and over the others, protecting them and improving their attacks. I spotted the four rabbits, and while three of them looked no different to the ones we'd been fighting, there was one with red eyes and a little foamy-stuff around its mouth. Of course, rabid.

I hadn't started any of my characters in this area. It was kinda new to me so far as monsters went—mostly because Espy Death was so high level by the time I brought him up here that everything was gray con.

Caprice was casting another Enchant Weapon on Chloe as the rabbits got closer.

Stepping up, Chloe thudded her sword on her shield. "Group Taunt! Come on, try me on!"

With combat starting in earnest, my first spell was directed at Chloe, "Channel Life! Chloe, hit the angry-looking one!"

"I figured as—ouch! Stop that you little fluffy rats." Chloe hit the rabid one with her sword, and while it didn't seem to do much to hurt it, the rabid rabbit gained a halo of flames around it.

"Hey, some of you leave her alone. Try me on. Arc Taunt!" Taffy had positioned herself to come in from the side. Her taunt only got two of the lesser rabbits as a result and it pulled their attention away from Chloe.

With the two so close together, the four rabbits were perfectly stacked, and Caprice seemed ready to take advantage of it. "Burn!" The flames that erupted from the snow engulfed and killed three of the rabbits, but the bigger one still stood.

Chloe and Taffy both swung at the remaining rabbit, but the creature remained standing despite it. It lunged at Chloe, but hit her shield with a dull thump.

"Peek-a-boo. Backstab." Yaff became visible from thin air right behind the rabbit, a dagger in each hand already extended and pressing the blades into the back of its neck. Just as quick as she struck, Yaff faded from view again in what seemed like real invisibility. And it was for most of us—it would take another rogue to have a hope of seeing her. "This is really neat."

"Yaff?! Where'd you go?" Caprice looked around in surprise. "What happened?"

I couldn't help but grin at Caprice's surprise. "It's okay, Caprice. At level two she got cloaking. It lets her go invisible if she stands still. She can move really slowly, and only gets revealed if she takes damage, attacks, or if a monster is really close and looking right at her."

"And I have a new attack that I can only do when I'm cloaked—backstab. It does a LOT of damage, and should always hit." Yaff's voice came from just beside us. It was kinda freaky to know she was there but be unable to see her—apart from magic, it was probably the biggest this is not the real world thing I'd had to deal with. Oh, right, and having boobs.

"Is anyone still hurt?" I asked.

Flashing a big, tooth-filled smile at me, Chloe shook her head. "Not a scratch. Let's head in a bit deeper. With Dusky, we can afford to be fighting tougher groups than that."

She was right, of course. My healing hadn't been needed at all in that fight. Even the token heal over time I'd put on her hadn't done a thing. "You're right, Chloe. Let's find some big things to beat up!"

The thing about Chloe was how likable she was. In just a few hours she'd shown not just that charisma, but also a willingness to take action and assess situations. Damn, but she might be even better than I am at this kind of thing. It wasn't that she was an NPC, either, because none of the others showed this level of tactical brilliance.

It wasn't just easy to follow her lead, it was enjoyable.

There were two more encounters, each with two of the rabid dire-rabbits, before we found a huge cave. It was then I noticed that each kill had only given me one leg. "Damn this stupid—Ugh."

A large Kobold hand patted at my shoulder. "Calm down, Dusky, Caprice think things about to get serious."

Then there was Caprice. She was almost an anachronism until you realized her mind was razor sharp and she was always paying attention. I think we were still friends, but she would expect a lot of explanations later. Maybe I should explain this stuff to everyone?

"There's four of the rabid ones at the cave's mouth. I don't think there's more, but there might be further in." As she spoke, Yaff dropped her cloaking. She pointed with one fluffy white paw toward the cave in the distance.

"Usually, groups do this thing known as pulling," I said. "You have someone with a ranged attack—not a mage—get their attention with it and then run back."

"And then we get their attention and start the fight proper. That's pretty clever, Dusky." Chloe looked excited, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Yaff, can you handle that with a dagger throw?"

"I'd rather throw something that I don't care about losing." Bending down, Yaff picked up a handful of rocks. "Like these." She faded away into nothingness right before us. It still both freaked me out and amazed me to see that in person.

I mean, I was casting magic spells and had made friends with a Catkin and a Vulpine—and was best friends with a Kobold. Did I need to remind myself that I was also a half-Elf girl? Nah, that was starting to get old. "Ready when you are."

Chloe looked between Taffy and Caprice and got a nod from both. "We're all ready, Yaff, bring us some friends."

Waiting. It was the hardest bit of laying an ambush in PvP, but right now it was much worse. When would Yaff toss the stones at them? Would she—?

Yaff appeared about halfway to the rabbits, her arm forward like she'd just thrown a rock. A loud squeak from the rabbits was proof she had hit them. Yaff turned toward us with a huge grin on her face and ran as fast as she could. "Four incoming!"

Chloe and Taffy stepped up and let Yaff run between them before they braced their shields.

The moment the rabbits came within range of her, Chloe snarled at them and banged on her shield with her sword. "Group Taunt!" Chloe shouted.

"Channel Life!" I made sure to gesture at Chloe, but in the time it took my cast to finish she got bit twice.

Chloe's hiss of pain was audible even back where I stood. "Taffy, get two off me!"

"Burn!"

"Arc Taunt!"

The two abilities went off at almost the same time. Caprice's spell erupted fire under the rabbits while three of them turned to look at Taffy. She'd over-taunted!

"Channel Life!" This one went to Taffy, since she'd probably take a hit sooner or later.

"Backstab!" Like a ghost, Yaff appeared behind the one still on Chloe and was still in the motion of thrusting her blades into the big rabbit's neck. She quickly pulled the blades back and vanished again.

Caprice gestured to the singed rabbits and raised her staff. "Burn! Just die you little fluffing rabbits!"

Seeing Chloe still with damage on her that my Channel Life hadn't cured, I sent a normal heal her way. "Weak Heal!" She glowed, and I noticed some read effects that had been hard to see before floated off her. Had she been poisoned? "Oh, they really are rabid!"

Taffy had backed up a step, giving the rabbits a chance to bunch up again. She had raised her shield against them and seemed focused on defense. There was something amazing about the young woman who, earlier in the day, was just an apprentice candy-maker. Her teeth were clamped together in a snarl, and I could see several bites on her legs.

Crap, she'd taken a few hits already! "Major Heal!" This was a slow-casting spell, for sure, but I knew it would help her out way more than the little ones I normally did.

"Backstab!" Yaff's appearance marked another of the rabbits dying, and again she stepped back from the fight and vanished.

"Thanks, Yaff! Chloe, can—?" Taffy said.

"Taunt! Got you. Now we have one each." My spell went off just as she finished speaking, and I could have sworn I heard her purr. "Nice work, Dusky!"

"Backstab!" Again Yaff appeared, and the rabbit on Taffy fell to her blades. "Quick Strike!" Her blades flashed in the direction of the last rabbit, but wasn't enough to bring it down.

"Sure Blow!" Chloe and Taffy said together, using their simplest attacks to kill the last rabbit.

Caprice bounced up and down in excitement and then glomped me in a big hug that I was sure would literally be impossible to get out of. "We did it, Dusky! Yaff and Chloe and Taffy and you and Caprice did it!"

As impossible as it was to get out of her grip, I knew it would be impossible to resist reacting to it—even as my arms wrapped around her and hugged her back. The fight had been a tough one, and it felt amazing to know that—together—we beat it. A big smile stretched across my face and I even bounced with Caprice a few times.

Yaff and Taffy were, likewise, bouncing with excitement, but Chloe stood alone, smiling broadly and purring far louder now.

"My mana's a little low. I'll need a few minutes to get myself ready for the next fight." I still wasn't free of Caprice's hug—partly because I still had one arm around her myself. "Focus!"

"Ooh! Caprice should do that too. Those Burn spells take a lot out of me. Focus!" I felt her tingle where she was pressed against me, even through my robes. "Much better. Caprice ready for more."

"Focus!" Chloe nodded to Caprice and me, then turned to the other two. "How often can you do that Backstab, Yaff?"

"It's, uh, instant. I can do it as much as I want, but I can only do it while cloaked. Focus! It doesn't take much out of me, but if I cloak, that uses a bunch of effort. I guess that is what limits my damage, right?" Yaff looked back at me with a raised eyebrow.

I didn't play an Assassin, but I'd seen them a few times—mostly trying to get the drop on me. "Yeah. If you went the Assassin path, you'd get a lot of abilities that would let you stealth again quickly. If you go Bushwhacker, like I think you'd prefer—"

Yaff's eyes narrowed. "Why are you trying to encourage me to do this Bushwhacker thing?" Her voice was more curious than dangerous, though I wasn't sure if mercenaries could attack the player that created them.

Well, I didn't like lying to them, since they were all friends now, so I had to fess-up. "Honestly? It would be a better fit for our party if we were to go into dark, inhabited places. Dungeons are full of traps, and trap-finding is something Assassins don't get. They have poison-use instead."

Keeping up her suspicious gaze for about five more seconds—seconds in which I was ready to sweat bullets—Yaff finally broke into a big grin and walked over to me. She was deceptively fluffy where she didn't have daggers or leather armor, and Yaff's hug was something I hadn't expected—but felt relieved to get. "You're really trying to get us to be able to work together better, aren't you?"

She was taller than me—which wasn't hard—but not by a lot. Still, the little height she had over me made me look up to her. "Y-Yeah. I have ideas for all of you, actually. Maybe after we're done here we can go back to the tavern and discuss it?"

Yaff poked me on the nose with one fuzzy finger. "Boop. That's the best idea yet. Now, are you ready to kick more butt?"

It felt like a weight had been lifted. I let out a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, but I won't be the one kicking."

"Unkicking," Caprice said. "You remove the butt-kickings we take."

I couldn't help myself, I giggled, and the sound reminded me that I definitely wasn't a guy here. It was a tinkling and high sound that only made me giggle more—particularly when Caprice and Yaff joined in.

"Hey, you three ready?" Chloe asked. "If you are, Yaff, can you head on in and scout ahead. If you see a target of four or less of them, just pull them back to us."

"Got it, boss." Surprising me with a kiss on the cheek, Yaff backed up and vanished. "I'll warn you if you start getting too close to my position. I'll toss a rock at your feet." As she spoke, her voice drifted closer toward the cave.

Rolling her shoulders, Chloe looked to Taffy and nodded. "Come on, we'll take it slow and make our way in. Can any of you make light?"

"Oh!" Caprice tapped me on the head with her staff. "Light." My staff began to glow like a fluorescent tube. She repeated the action for Chloe and Taffy—both their swords and shields started to light up. "There we go. That should last a while, according to this. Same as weapon buffs. Oh! Enchant Weapon—Enchant Weapon!"

"Thanks, Caprice. This really makes a difference to our attacks." Taffy hefted her sword that now bore an aura of flame around it.

Caprice's tail started to sway side to side, the tip flicking quickly. "You're welcome!"

"Let's tighten this up and head in." Advancing, Chloe took us into the cave that Yaff was already scouting. It took a minute of walking before the sound of snarling rabbits came from up ahead.

Yaff came into the light cast by our weapons and pointed back behind her. "Three rabid ones, two normal. Damn that's bright."

Sure enough, rounding the corner behind her was exactly what she'd said. We all braced while Chloe strode forward to engage. The fight was more straightforward. Just before they reached us, I cast Bless and Caprice buffed Yaff's weapons.

Splitting up the rabbits made the fight easier. I put a heal over time on both Chloe and Taffy, which kept them at full throughout the fight. We rinsed and repeated that as Yaff pulled more groups of rabbits to us.

We renewed our buffs, not wanting to be stuck in the dark. Yaff somehow managed to see just fine in the dark (that might be a rogue passive power, or maybe part of being a Vulpine), and it wasn't too long before everyone let out a gasp of excitement. Sure enough, my quest had finished.

"Caprice got a group version of Enchant Weapon!" Seeing a Kobold dance around excitedly was a relief in the dark cave. I won't lie, it was a lot different being in the dark and fighting for your life rather than just looking over your character's shoulder and knowing that, at worst, you wind up back in town with some damaged equipment.

Yaff, Chloe, and Taffy all talked quickly about their own new things, which left me wondering if/when I might level. I knew there was a catch-up thing going on to get them up to my level, but how would I know if I'd leveled? Was there a fanfare that would play? "Wish I could see my XP bar."

"Caprice is going to want a very long chat. Might be good to tell others more." She poked me in the shoulder with one big finger. "Dusky shouldn't keep secrets from friends she trusts in fights."

"Yeah. You're a lot smarter than me there, Caprice." Again and again she hit me over the head with how much not NPC-like she was. It made me look at the others in the same light even if we hadn't really become as close friends as Caprice had managed.

For that matter, how had she become so—so close so fast? I'd told her just about everything about how I'd gotten here, I'd promised to tell her what all the game lingo I was using meant…

She'd helped me. When I had no idea what I was doing and was almost about to cry myself, she'd told me this would be okay and that I could trust her. I looked into her slit eyes and felt that connection all over again. "Thanks."

Tilting her head to one side, Caprice lifted one eyeridge. "What did Caprice do?"

"Helped. A lot. You helped me a lot just by being friendly and helping me come to grips with what might have been the oddest thing to ever happen in my life. You are also helping me to understand this world and everyone in it. So, uh, thanks." I reached out and pulled her into a hug that she was enthusiastic about returning.

"Hey." Taffy walked up to us. "Yaff said there's a big room ahead with seven of the rabid rabbits in it. You think you can keep up with this, Dusky?"

"Yeah. I'll do my best. Just keep trying to keep the aggro spread between you so, if things get bad, I can do a group heal." I squeezed Caprice one last time and let go of her. "Guess we should buff up and get ready. You get any new damage spells, Caprice?"

"'Aggro'?" Chloe asked.

I had to remind myself that they weren't players and they had no clue what these terms were. "Attention. Monsters shift attention based on apparent damage, healing, and other effects. This is called aggro."

Chloe looked contemplative for a few moments, but nodded her acceptance of the term.

"One! I'm not sure how it works, but I'll try it on the first nasty fluffer we get."

Taffy smiled at hearing that. "Chloe and me got an ability called shield wall. It lets us boost our defense with another shield user nearby."

"Incoming! Seven rabid bunnies!" Yaff's shout echoed down the tunnel and shook us all into readiness.

"Bless!"

"Enhance Weapons!" Caprice's spell made everyone's weapons light up with flickering fire, and just around the corner of the tunnel ahead I could see Yaff's daggers ignite.

When Yaff pulled the rabbits close, Taffy stepped up to take the first hit and used, "Group Taunt! C'mere you little monsters!"

Caprice gestured into the mass of rabbits that Taffy had taunted and cast, "Burn!"

I had the first target for my heal over time and gestured to Taffy. "Here comes a Channel Life! Can you get some off her, Chloe?"

"Shield Wall! Let's see how this works first. How you doing, Taffy?" Chloe stepped in beside Taffy and started winding up for another attack. "Undercut!" The wide arc of Chloe's swing hit all seven of the rabbits, and the whole lot of them appeared to catch fire.

She'd really picked up tactics quickly. She has a weapon buff that does damage over time, so why not use an attack that hits all the targets, even if the damage is low?

I focused on Taffy. She was holding her ground well, and I noticed that hardly any of the rabbits were getting past her shield blocks—she'd also started to parry a few of them aside with her blade—but inevitably she had taken a few bites. "Major Heal!" It had a slowish cast time, and even with the heal over time ticking, she would take some more hits before it went off.

"Burn!"

"Backstab!" Yaff's daggers dispatched one of the rabbits a moment before she stepped back and started fading away again.

My heal finally went off and I noticed all the damage Taffy had taken faded away to nothing. "Undercut!" Taffy's wide attack only hit three of the remaining rabbits since they were lined up around her in an arc. One of the three, however, fell over a moment after her attack as the DoT ticked.

"Channel Life!" Gesturing at Taffy again, I let my magic pour out and renew the healing over time spell on her. "We've totally got this!"

With heavy damage already on most of the rabbits, we dispatched them quickly enough—Caprice having the most fun there by using her AoE spell to take out three at once.

When the last rabbit died to Yaff's Backstab attack, I was surprised when Taffy spun around and ran to me. She grabbed me up in a big hug. "That was amazing! I didn't doubt you for a second, Dusky! Great healing!"

"That was some pretty cool skills you used there. I saw you parrying and blocking like crazy." Okay, it was one thing having Caprice hug me—she wasn't exactly my type—but Taffy was slim and cute and I totally shouldn't be thinking about her this way. But, despite my self-admonishment, I hugged her back.

"Well, that was all the rabbits gone from the cave. There was a chest at the back of the room, though. Want me to go and check it out?" Yaff asked. There was an edge to her voice, excitement and anticipation mixed together.

Chloe nodded while she sheathed her sword. "Sure can. Let's go together. Dusky, Taffy?"

"Coming!" Taffy let go of me and spun around.

We advanced together down to the end of the tunnel. It was dark, though Caprice's light spells made short work of that. The place stank a little, but just as Yaff had said there was a rusty old chest at the back of the cave.

"Is there anything I should know about these?" Yaff asked. "Will it be trapped?"

"I don't think so. I can't remember, but I don't think any chests under level 10 are trapped." Moments after I said it, I realized I'd let slip another game-mechanic thing. At the odd looks I got, I let out a groan. "Throw it on the pile of things I'll be explaining when we get back to the tavern."

When she opened the chest, Yaff let out a laugh. "This is so cute. Some new clothes. I think they're for a healer." She turned to look at me and held up the robes. They were bright pink and looked less like robes and more like oversized bikini. "See, I think you can keep whatever secrets you want, so long as you wear this tonight."

"Oh my gosh! That's so cute! You have to wear it, Dusky! Caprice want to see you wear it too!"

"Hey now, a little ribbing is fine, but if she doesn't want to wear it, she doesn't have to." Walking up to Yaff, Chloe took the clothes from her and walked back to me. "But they are yours. You hired us, after all, and that means the loot goes to you since the money goes to us."

I took the pink clothes and willed them to go into my inventory. After a moment I realized I had no idea what was actually in my inventory. I knew what was in the bank, but my inventory should be reasonably empty. "Actually, we should probably head back now. I don't know about all you, but I'm feeling pretty hungry."

We only encountered small groups of rabbits on the way out, and made our way back to town without any trouble. I had time to reflect on why things seemed so much better now, and I think it had everything to do with having people I trust. I hadn't exactly had much contact with people outside of Shadowverse, but though I had kept mostly to myself, I also enjoyed company.

It took me until we reached the front door of the tavern to realize I still hadn't made contact with anyone outside of the game. If anything, I was even deeper in it now than ever. "Oh, I need to end the mercenary grouping…" It seemed just willing Disband caused the group to cease and I had a sense of smallness again.

"Hey, all my stuff is still here though. Do I get to keep all this?" Yaff was looking herself over, still bedecked in knives and leather armor.

Opening the door of the tavern, I shook my head. "That's one thing I have literally no idea about. Come on inside and let's find somewhere we can chat."

Inside, Julia was working at the bar for the few locals who seemed to be almost permanent fixtures in the place. That had me wondering how much autonomy NPCs had now. Could all of them do their own thing like Caprice, Chloe, Taffy, and Yaff? Was this something to do specifically with those around me?

Chloe in particular seemed so independent she would be impossibly to tell apart from players—except for her lingo. And that's why I was sitting at a table in a tavern trying to think how to tell the four women around me that they were background characters—small ones at that—in a computer game.

Caprice had slipped in beside me at the table and wouldn't stop looking at me. When I finally looked back, she poked out her tongue. "This is the bit where you talk and I don't bop you on the head."

"Okay, well, it's going to be hard to explain and probably hard to understand, but this is what is happening. I'm not from this world—not really. Yesterday I went to sleep as normal in my own bed, then I woke up here—as Dusky Rose.

"But that's not why I know all this stuff, and that's what you want to know, right?" I waited for the four of them to all nod. "That's because, in my world, this world was a game. I don't know how better to explain it than there are a lot of people playing the game, but there's never enough to fill the whole world. The game makers created what are called non-player characters."

"Us." Chloe rubbed at her jaw with one big paw. "We're the background people who fill the world for exciting adventurers to—to what? To play in? You said this is a game to you?"

"Was." The past tense was important, I felt. "Back then—"

"Yesterday," Caprice said.

"At the start of yesterday, you were all just characters in a game that didn't have much to say beyond 'Would you like some ale?' or 'How about some apples?' But now you're nothing like that. You're real people and—and I have no idea how this happened or why it happened."

"You didn't do it?" Yaff asked. When I shook my head, she added, "Then why are you so upset about this?"

"My world—the world I came from—is really different to this. We have…" As I trailed off, I realized that the real world would be harder to explain and understand than what I'd already gone over. "It's really different. I was really different. I can't really—"

"Dusky was a bard. He was a bard." Caprice's words silenced me and caused the whole table to stop and look at her. "That's what he told Caprice this morning. That's why this is so hard for Dusky. This—this is not what they were." She gestured at me with one big, clawed finger.

It was both the most embarrassing thing ever and a relief to have it out in the open. I felt tiny and so much less than what I was, but—

"So who was Dusky Rose?" Chloe asked.

"She was just a character I made. I was going to play her and get her to high level, but I hated playing her so much that I couldn't get past five." The game's concepts were leaking out again. "Levels denote how powerful you are and what skills you can use. You noticed when you got your new powers and stuff, right?"

"It did seem a little sudden." Taffy drummed her fingers on the table. "So this will keep happening? The world—our world—is still like your game?"

"I think so. There seems to be bits that are more like the real—a real world. You four, for example. But, did you remember when we talked to the Guardsman?" I asked.

Chloe nodded. "Trelkin? Yeah."

Now for the big test. "When he finished speaking, didn't you hear him say something extra?" When they all shook their heads, I knew it was true. "Okay, but for me he said he had a quest to kill rabbits. Both times we talked to him. It's why you all leveled up at the same time—the quest completed and we got experience."

"I know what experience normally means," Taffy said, "but what does it mean here?"

"Experience, in the game, was a way to measure when you get to the next level. Killing monsters gives experience and doing quests gets it too." Did I want to tell them about PvP? Well, I was being open and all. "And you can get experience from killing players, too."

All four looked at me with serious expressions. Serious, but unreadable.

Well, I might as well continue. "When I played Shadowverse—that's what the game was called—my main character I played was named… Espy Death. I would—"

"We get the idea, Dusky." Yaff didn't seem inclined to let me finish. "But that was just a game, wasn't it?" When I nodded, her mouth curved into a smile. "And when you killed them?"

Well, that was one thing I could wave off. "They respawned. Came back to life in their home cities. I mean, I knew they would. It wasn't like—"

Chloe cut me off and shook her head. "You talk way too much sometimes, Dusky. Julia? Can we get four mugs of ale and one of milk?"

"Milk?" I asked.

"You've never seen a kobold drink milk, have you?" Yaff asked. "It's like a cross between ale and rum for them."

I turned to look at Caprice and saw her practically bouncing in place with excitement. "Oh. Okay. And what about my ideas for your specializations?"

"By my guess"—Chloe paused while Julia set down mugs on the table—"we won't be reaching the point where we have to choose for another day, anyway. So let's talk about them over drinks and sleep on it." She passed out the drinks, keeping the milk for last. "Drink it slowly, Caprice."

Sticking out her bright blue tongue at Chloe, Caprice picked up the mug with her big hands curled around each side of it, and lifted it to her lips to sip. "Oooh. That's so good!"

I lifted my own mug up and took a drink. It didn't hit as hard as the ones I'd had the previous night, but then those had had whiskey in them too. A second pull was soon chasing the first down.

Chloe interrupted my appreciation of the ale. "So, tell me about this Champion style. What's it do?"

I took another sip and relaxed a little more. "Champion is a solid group leading class. You get several long-term buffs that you can place on others in your group as well as in-combat shouts that allow you to give more short-term, powerful buffs. Things like being able to do more damage whenever one person takes hits, giving others bonuses to damage or haste. It's a good all-round battlefield commander."

Taffy giggled. "That's why you thought of her for it, right? She's always bossing us around anyway, she might as well give us buffs when she does." She lifted her own mug and took a sip. That's when I had to wonder if there was an age of consent for alcohol here like back home—she couldn't be 21, that's for sure. "So what did you say you thought of for me?"

"Valkyrie. One of the big defense tank types that can also heal. They have a shout heal that works on everyone around them as well as a single-target heal that works more like a spell. You also get all the top-tier armor that you can use, and a huge shield." I took another drink.

"That. Sounds. Amazing!" Taking another drink, Taffy let out a whoop of excitement. "I don't care about other options. I want that!"

For some reason I now wanted them to think about it more. This was, for them, potentially life-long decisions. "L-Look, it's just been one day of working together."

"You can find out a lot about someone in a day." Yaff, in contrast to the others, lightly sipped at her ale. "You said there were two choices for me?"

I matched her sip with a bigger pull of my own drink. "There's four per base class. For Rogue there is Assassin, Bushwhacker, Thief, and Archer. Basically, Assassins specialize in killing only. Thief is weak in combat but has all kinds of skills for getting more money and exploring dungeons. Archer gets a bow and all kinds of ranged attack stuff. Bushwhacker is a mix of the three."

"Oh, so I'd be an all-rounder. Hey, I bet using a bow to pull with would mean I wouldn't have to get so close." Leaning back, Yaff drew one of her daggers and started idly playing with it. "I like being the one to score the big hits, though. Would I lose Backstab?"

"You don't actually lose anything you already have. You just get more stuff to do with whatever path you want to take. Then you have multi-classing at level 50. That lets you pick another base class and get some skills from them."

"So, Caprice will always have my damage buff and burn spell?"

"Yeah, but they will become less useful as you level up in your main class. I was thinking of Beastmaster for you, Caprice."

Yaff sipped a little deeper at her ale. "Why that? Aren't you reducing our, uh, damage by making me not be Assassin?"

"Actually, Beastmaster can have as much single target damage as a Wizard, but their big advantage is flexibility. You get to have pets. You can charm or summon them, then you can buff them up to be either damage dealing or tanky. With Chloe being more damage focused, we should have a lot of advantage there. Particularly good if we can find you a good pet."

"How powerful are Wizards?" Chloe asked.

Right. Of course they probably haven't encountered a wizard before. I tried to figure out how to explain things. "Wizards are heavy on single targets. They do directed magic damage in great amounts. Beastmasters can do similar, but the damage gets split between them and their pet."

"No, I get that. I mean can they do more than me or Yaff?"

"Wizards are one of, if not, the most powerful damage-dealing classes. Assassins are probably higher, but they also need to get way up close with things. They fit in a category of classes that get referred to as DPS, that is, their main goal is damage per second in a fight." I noticed that Caprice had drunk more of her milk and was looking more than a little excited. "What exactly does milk do to a kobold?"

"Imagine a really strong coffee liqueur. Makes her both hyper and drunk. It's also really strong, and that's why she only gets one mug." That said, Chloe drained the last of her ale and set the empty mug back down on the table. "Jules! Can we get some food over here?"

"What about you, Dusky? Caprice want to know what you want to be?"

"I'm kinda stuck, Caprice. I'm level 5 already, and I picked Healer to be my class." Looking into the bottom of my mug, I saw that it was about a quarter full. Tilting the mug up, I downed it all.

"Here we go. It's too early for evening meal, so here's what's left of a hock of meat, bread, and some bowls of soup from lunch. You girls enjoy." Surprising me, Julia was about to turn away when she noticed our mugs. "Finished already? What exactly have you been up to?"

"Dusky was teaching us about adventuring, Jules." Caprice had somehow gotten from one side of the table to the other without going around it or under it. "Oh! We should teach her how to pour ale!"

"Yeah! Come on, Jules, it'll be okay. Just let her pour our two ales and, if she screws them up, she pays for it." Chloe was on her feet now and grabbed me by the arm.

I'll say, in my defense as I was dragged to the bar, I was trying to stay on good terms with them and I'd just drunk a mug of ale on an empty stomach. That's when it hit me that being female and really short probably wasn't helping things either. "What do I have to do?"

"Okay, Dusky, take a mug and come over here to the latest barrel." Chloe rapped her knuckles down the side of the barrel. "It's about half full, so it won't flow too fast. You hold the mug under—Hold on, let me get into a better position."

When Chloe came up behind me and practically shoved her belly against my back, I froze in place. "Hey, relax. This isn't hard. Right, grab the mug in your right hand." As she spoke, she reached around my shoulders and put her paw over my hand. It was lucky for my sanity that she was wearing armor—I don't know how I would have coped if she'd been in just her fur. "Now, you need to control the tap to not pour too quickly, like this."

She moved my hand and had me turn the tap with the glass on an angle. I'd been in bars before and this wasn't dissimilar to how I'd seen people pour beer in them. She ended the pour by straightening the mug up and slowly turning the tap off as the foam reached the top.

"Okay, now you try."

I took the second mug and started to pour, doing it exactly as Chloe had showed me. When I finished up and set the mug down, a dialogue box appeared in the middle of my vision.

> Congratulations on choosing the Barmaid trade class!

"Wait. Hold on." I tried to look around the box, but it was stubbornly right in the middle of my sight and, worse, only had an Okay button. "No! I don't want Barmaid to be my trade!"

Coming up beside me and taking the mug from my hand, Caprice rose up on her tip-toes and kissed my cheek. "What's wrong, Dusky?"

"I—When I did that the game—It just made my trade profession Barmaid!" The dialogue box was the only visible interface element. There was no close or abort—only Okay. Reluctantly I thought Okay at it and the box went away.

"What happened? I don't think I followed that." Walking beside me with her own mug in hand, Chloe sounded perplexed. "You said something about not wanting to be a barmaid? That was only your first pour."

Slumping back at the table, I took my ale from Caprice. "Thanks. It's just that you get trade classes, like combat ones, and whichever you pick you get stuck with. I was thinking of taking Alchemy for potions or Spellcrafting to invent healing wands and scrolls, but when I poured that ale I got a popup—err, game window thing—that said I'd taken the craft of Barmaid."

"Well, there're worse trades." Taffy had been mostly involved with eating until then. "You want to go and give my da a hand making candy?" Her tone implied how much she "enjoyed" the prospect of following in her father's footsteps.

"I guess it's not so bad. I mean, Chloe and Caprice are both Barmaids. I guess that makes it the official trade class of our group." I took a long pull of my ale and reached for some of the meat to put between bread.

"You sounded like you don't like being a healer, but you had fun today," Caprice said. "Did you have fun today?" She hiccuped after asking, and I had to now revise my list of things that are cute to have a hiccuping kobold right up near the top.

"Yeah, Caprice. I had fun, but it wasn't anything to do with being a healer." I tipped back my mug some more and drank it to about halfway. Putting my arm around Caprice's shoulders, I found myself leaning on her a little. "I had fun because I was with you guys. You're really cute—I mean great!"

Caprice squirmed a little, though it seemed like she was trying to get closer not away. "You hear that, girls? Dusky thinks we're cute!"

Chloe, Taffy, and Yaff all looked my way, each with a raised eyebrow.

"Cute?" Yaff asked. "Dusky, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but you're a short girl with a modest chest—that you seem intent on showing off, I'll add—and little points on your ears with the most intense blue hair I've ever seen. You're pretty cute yourself."

Picking up my mug, I held it up to half-hide my face while I drank some more.

"Now Caprice think Dusky embarrassed. Sorry, Caprice didn't mean to embarrass you. It's just that you're so cute and soft and cuddly…"

I gulped down the rest of the ale and reached for the sandwich I'd been building before everyone started commenting on how cute I was. I wasn't cute. I was a hardcore pro-gamer!

—stuck in the body of his healer he never wanted to play. I barely got through half the sandwich before a yawn escaped me. "What time is it?"

"Time Caprice had another drink!"

I looked at her for a few seconds and let out a sigh. "Didn't Chloe say you could only have one?"

"Only one? But Caprice is thirsty." Caprice looked up at me with her most weaponized-cute expression firmly in place. If I could have gotten her a mug of milk without anyone realizing, I would have in a heartbeat.

"Maybe we should both go to bed early and rest." I had to fight off another yawn, and just as I managed to end it, Caprice yawned too. "Both of us."

Giggling, Caprice turned and stood up, leaving me almost falling over. "Silly Dusky. Let Caprice help you." She caught me in her big hands and pulled me along the bench and upright with one of my arms over her shoulder.

I didn't think I was that drunk, but that first ale on an empty stomach had hit me pretty hard, and I was now trying to remember if I'd had two, three, or maybe four. "You don't have to do this, Caprice."

She was not just stronger than she looked, but far less drunk on milk. Steadying me along to the stairs, she started hefting me up them without a sign that it was inconveniencing her. "Dusky still having trouble adjusting to being Dusky. It's okay because Caprice is here to help."

From one blink to the next I seemed to teleport down the hallway somehow, then another and I was in my room and sitting on my bed. "Uh…?"

"Caprice think Dusky can get undressed herself tonight."

I looked down at myself and remembered I had boobs. "Y-Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Caprice."

Another blink into my cleavage and I heard the door close behind Caprice. "Okay, Dusky, just get out of these robes, get your underthings off, and get into bed."

My boots had to come off first, of course, but I managed them easily enough. The robes came off as well, and that left me in the corset-thing and panties. I untied the drawstring on the panties first, then reached behind my back for the corset laces.

With both garments untied, I slipped out of my underthings and crawled into my bed. I didn't even have time to remember to curse the fact I had boobs now before I closed my eyes and passed out.