Things went back to normal after Joel left. I mean, that’s to be expected after all.

There were some complications with the school with his withdrawal from classes, but those were fairly easily cleared up with the right connections and offers.

Luckily, none of my friends questioned the fact that Joel suddenly vanished. I think they connected the utter annihilation of the Al’Verath branch families with his disappearance. It had been fairly obvious that he was from the main family line, and that he was hiding—even if he was hiding quite poorly.

As soon as he was gone, my peaceful day-to-day life resumed. Of course, there’s still college stuff to consider, as well as the future in general. But those were small concerns compared to people actively trying to break into your house and abduct or kill your brother. Well, at least it’s over now.

There were other concerns, but those only started popping up during the next week of school and mostly involved my group of friends. Or more particularly, one person from my group of friends.

A part of the whole getting back to normal involved Ashenload. Now that I wasn’t bogged down by the protection details involving Joel, I could take time to play again. In particular, I was curious to find out how the God Quests were progressing. I mean, I keep getting periodic and excited updates on them from Godard, but there are things that I want to see myself, and draw my own conclusions from. Namely, I want to see how those new 'Player God’s' are doing, and what sort of impact they’re having on the game itself.

I’ve long thought that power tends towards corruption in normal people, and that it takes a special type of willpower and mind to overcome the temptations brought along by said power. Those players got their hands on near absolute power inside the game—and in a way endorsed by the developers, no less. I’m curious to see how things are holding up.

If I could describe the scenery that appeared before my eyes that day when the game booted up in one word, it would be chaos.

Players and NPC’s were milling about, without any sort of direction. For some reason, each and every female avatar I could see looked really…sexy. Like, more than normal. For heaven’s sake, most of them aren’t wearing anything more than skimpy shirts and bandages! Also, they all seemed to have gained cat ears and tails, regardless of actual race. On the flip side of the coin, all the males were wearing collars made of metal and seemed despondent and ugly. Like, physically more unattractive—As if they had been dropped as children many, many times. But this is a game, so there’s no way that could have happened. No, someone made them like this, and the female characters as well.

In a fit of panic, I raise my own hands to the tops of my head, and was relived when I found no ears on top of there. Since my avatar in game is closely modeled on my real life self, adding cat ears would simply overload the moe factor and make my in game experience very annoying. Well, to me at least. I’m sure all the other players would have appreciated such a thing. Though, for safety’s sake, I pulled a hood over my head in order to hide the fact that I don’t have cat ears.

Really, I have a good idea of what’s going on, but I want to confirm my suppositions first. To do that, I went to a rather well known pub in Ashenload, frequented for information purposes and it’s connections. I didn’t look out of place at all inside there, with my hood pulled over my head and a dark cloak enveloping my body. I was even allowed to keep my weapons inside the pub, like everyone else. Sure, it means that bar fights were likely to get rather violent, but there were very few people willing to piss off the pub’s owner. Unfortunately, I’ve pissed her off a few times in the past—though I’ve also managed to dodge some of the severe punishments she’s known to give out. Instead, I had to throw my dignity out the window.

Anyway, I went to the bar as soon as I entered the pub. Not bothering to sit down, I spoke out my order to the bartender in a crystal clear voice, somewhat tinged with embarrassment.

“T-the loli special, please.”

The bartender didn’t need to see my face to know who I was, and greeted me according to the code words without missing a beat.

“Ah, miss Vina. I’m afraid that drink requires a more secluded location to enjoy. If you would follow me to the backroom?”

I nodded underneath the hood, and followed the aged and dignified looking man to a door off to the side. He inserted a key into the door, and it swung open without any resistance or noise. The man stepped off to the side, and motioned for me to enter. I thanked him, and the door closed behind me. I had noticed that not even the bartender (whose name is Tom, or Jimmy, or something equally ridiculous) had been spared that iron collar around his neck. How odd.

Inside the room, a fireplace perpetually crackled with a few chairs scattered around the room. A few wine and whisky bottles were kept in the open for guest to enjoy while waiting, and there were a good number of books all over the place. Some of them were even skill books—of which one or two were shockingly rare.

I sigh, and start picking up the books form the floor and such, putting them into neat little piles and re-shelving them. While I was at it, I also straightened up the rest of the waiting room. Dammit. Because of Joel, I feel the need to keep things clean. Even though he had left, that instinct seems to be lingering. The bastard.

By the time a door off to the side opened up, and a burly man walked out, the room looked completely different from before. I could see the man pause for a second, confused, before leaving through the door from which I had come in.

“Come in!” Said a voice past the door the man had walked out of, bright and cheerfully.

I walked into this other room, cringing a little internally. Honestly, I dislike coming to see this person, due to some of their…tendencies. However, there have been a few times where it was necessary.

What, you want to know about this person’s tendencies?

Fine. What happens next should tell you everything you have to know about Xavia’s personality.

When I entered the room, I caught a blur of silver in my vision, before someone tall and thin smacked right into my stomach and lifted me off the ground and onto their shoulder.

“IT’S A LOLI!” I heard the person scream as they swung me around. In the process, my hood fell off and revealed my face to the normally composed silver-haired woman holding me.

Immediately, a sour look crossed her face.

“Oh, it’s just you. Hello Vina.” She said, setting me down and walking back to her office chair. She hid it well, but I could see the disappointment in her movements.

I sat down in the chair across from her. And then we stared at each other for a good few minutes. It’s been a game of ours for a while now.

I noticed that Xavia had also gotten the cat ear and tail treatment, though hers were silver to match her hair. Oddly, it suited the woman well. She was wearing a good amount of clothing as well. 

“What do you want this time?” Asked Xavia, breaking the silence—which means that I won this round.

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“Information.” I replied.

Xavia sighed in a long-suffering way.

“Honestly, you need to clarify yourself. What do you want information on? I can’t tell you anything, unless I know what you want. We have this problem each time, you little shit.”

I smiled in a way that made it clear that I was simply suffering the presence of Xavia, and her opinions.

“Why cat ears and chokers?” I ask, referring to the changes inside the game world. Xavia froze for a second, clearly trying to understand my request.

“Wait—Wait just a second. You’re asking about game stuff? Not real life things?”

I nodded.

Xavia stroked her chin, and smiled cunningly.

“How interesting. So, there’s nothing in the real world that attracts your attention at the moment? Not even the revolts near the Verge?”

She continued thinking aloud, without any intentions of stopping.

“Though, you probably already know about that particular incident, since your information gathering net is astonishingly good, judging by the stuff you’ve traded with me before. I wonder, do you have some sort of investment in the game? Besides, there’s the question of you coming to me for information you could get from anyone on the street. Why even bother?” She asked, looking at me curiously.

“Depth, accuracy, factuality.” I replied, briefly outlining the three main reasons I came here. Of course, I also didn’t like talking to strangers on the side of the road, since gamer’s reactions to me can be…Well, just look at Xavia here. She used to be a prime example of what would happen.

“Ah. So, it’s because you can trust what I say, and that it’s not just rumormongering?”

I nodded.

Xavia laughed a little before continuing.

“So, what you got to trade for this information? I’ll accept the normal stuff, got it?”

I nodded, and past a piece of paper over to Xavia. She opened it up, and quickly read over the contents. Her face quickly revealed a stunned expression.

“Are you sure this is good?” She asked. I nodded again.

“How the fuck did you find this? Sure, it’s info only good in game, but to get this stuff…You would have had to gain access to the game files, find the God Quest’s base code, then interpret that data. Other’s have tried, you know—in order to find out what the next God Quests are, how to beat them and such. None of them could understand the code.”

She thought for a while, before throwing her hands up in defeat.

“Ugh! Fine. Dammit Vina, I don’t know whether to be in awe of you, or terrified. I’ll trust that the info here is 100% accurate.” She said, tapping the paper. “In return, I give you information on recent changes in the game, right?”

I nodded again.

“Okay. So, where do I begin? I guess all the craziness came about right after the last God Quest ended, and player gods were appointed. Long story short, the player gods are a group of super hardcore otakus and might be a little insane. The first command they issued was to have all female avatars gain cat ears.”

I snickered a little, eyeing the large rectangular ears sticking up from Xavia’s hair. Though, I was only laughing to rile her up. The ears actually suit her to a scary extent, as if they were meant to be there all along.

She reacted by grinning at me in a way that didn’t reach her eyes.

“You know, I noticed that you don’t have those cat ears. The strange thing is that the commands should have affected everyone with a lower status than the player gods. I would go ahead and invest in a pair of fake ears, else others would begin connecting the dots, you know?”

I flushed, realizing the merit in her suggestion. Immediately, I dug through my inventory, and pulled out a pair of black cat ears that had been added as a joke item. Without hesitating, I put them on top of my head. I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked up, only to see that there was a thin trickle of blood running down Xavia’s nose.

“…Cute…” She said in a soft voice, before shaking her head vigorously and slapping the sides of her face. “No, not cute Xavia, not cute. Vina is not cute. She is scary, remember?” She continued, mumbling more to herself than anything.

I take off the cat ears slowly, reminding myself to wear them later, away from Xavia.

“So, where was I?” Asked Xavia after she regained her composure.

“Cat ears.” I reminded her.

“Right. One of the player gods thinks that the ultimate expression of beauty involves cat ears and tails. So, he made it so all the female avatars gained those things. Another player god found inspiration in this, and decided that all men should be collared, as a representation of his view of them being beneath him. Things went south from there.”

“And those are the probably the most…normal changes. One of them changed a city up to the north into candy, while another decided that he wanted a massive floating castle in order to fly around and smite ‘evildoers’. There are a couple that just go around killing all the players they see, abusing their new-found power. I’m just surprised that none of them have turned to doing the really depraved stuff, though it’s probably just a matter of time. Or maybe they’ve hid it really well. I guess we’ll just have to see.”

I nodded, and thanked her.

Of course, I made sure to put on the cat ears after I left, as well as a fake tail. I then covered myself with a cloak and hood again, for what should be obvious reasons.

Really, all this is because of the egotistical player gods? It’s not shocking that they would abuse their power, but it is shocking in the ways they go about it. Though, they are gamers—a group of people not exactly known for their mental stability. Also, the last thing Xavia said resonated with me. It was only a matter of time until they began doing things that were…morally questionable.

But that doesn’t actually matter all that much. In fact, I think things should start to take a change in at most a week, and maybe even sooner. Hell, it could happen today.

Anyway, soon after leaving the pub, I found myself getting mail from Sabrina. Ah, wait—It’s Rina inside the game. She was letting me know that pretty much everyone else had logged in, and wanted to know if I wanted to party up. I said yes, of course. I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t been able to meet up with them in game lately, due to the whole Joel debacle.

I went to the appointed meeting place, and waited for a little while. Luckily, nobody bothered me, probably due to the fact that I was wearing entirely black and covering clothing. They aren’t able to see my face, or even determine my body build. Oh, and then there’s the intimidating bow and slung over my back, and the quiver at my hip—which is rather ingeniously connected to a sheath holding a sword properly sized for me. Really, I have to thank Godard/Xavier for that again. He’s quite good at this stuff.

The rest of the group arrived soon after I had, so I didn’t have to wait long. Unfortunately, it looks like Ussen had some real life stuff to deal with, and couldn’t log in. Other than that, the entire group was in attendance.

We decided to take on a quest that Rina had heard about through the grape-vine. Apparently, it allowed for it’s completion in a number of different ways, and took inspiration from the God Quests, which were known to have totally different endings depending on the player’s choices. In some cases, some players had screwed up the quests so badly that they couldn’t be completed that go around, and everybody had to wait for the reset. The God Quests gave players unprecedented amounts of freedom, but that included the freedom to cock-up the whole thing.

This quest is much the same, though on a smaller scale. Basically, we had to walk on a road outside the city for a while, before the quest is triggered by a specific event.

That event took the shape of a group of NPC adventures roasting a haunch of meat over a cook-fire. We ask if we could eat with them, and they agreed.

Now, it was a matter of waiting for the quest proper to begin. While waiting, we talked and ate.

“Ugh—I can’t believe the developers are just letting those players make such severe changes to the game.” Said Haven—or Diana inside the game—as she fingered the tips of her ears.

“Won’t last long. Thing’s change.” I reply.

“But how do we know? None of the Dev. teams are responding to questions of when exactly things are going to end, and they’ve stopped talking entirely!” Said Rina.

I shrugged, and went back to eating the meat on my simple wooden plate.

“Yeah, well at least you girls look cute like that. You didn’t get metal collars.” Said Kormic’s avatar, Spark.

“Oh please. It’s just a collar. It’s not an extra part of your body that you have to worry about. Do you realize how difficult it is to avoid sitting on a tail, and how much it hurts? Oh, and then there's the fact that I basically wasn't wearing anything when I logged in!”

“The collar’s shock us each time our bodies get…excited.” Said Spark quietly. His name has never been so deliciously ironic.

Wanting to head off this topic of conversation before something truly lewd was said, I speak up.

“Maybe players need to fight?”

“What? Fight the player gods? The guys that literally gained cheat-powers?”

I nodded.

“Maybe not impossible?” I added on.

Xavier shook his head.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything. At least now until the Dev’s realize that their game is being screwed with pretty badly.”

I sighed, and didn’t continue arguing the point. I wonder if their sentiments are shared by the rest of the gamer population? Well, it probably doesn’t matter. What’s going to happen will happen, and there’s nothing I can do about it anymore.

Suddenly, our quiet dinner was interrupted by war cries echoing in the forest around us. Before we knew it, we had been surrounded by bandits armed by rusty weapons and armor. Their leader, a man with a mouth full of rotting teeth, stepped forward.

“Surrenda all ya valuables, an we’ll keep ya alive, ya hear?! Make ting’s difficult, and we migh’ jus’ decide dat you’s an’t worth da trouble!”

Egad’s, that accent. I think I got a bit stupider, just listening to this twat.

Well, this is also the start of the quest proper, and we need to decide our course of action.