“Jesus, they really did a number on you Willow. You look like you got mauled by a dog… Nice!” Zero says from behind me, peering at my neck with a mischievous smile and a thumbs up.

I turn around and narrow my eyes at him, then sigh as I open my inventory and take out a scarf, wrapping it around my neck. My face feels flushed as I hear him and Hestia laugh. “Shut up.”

“Oh relax girl, it’s not quite that visible.” Hestia says with a small chuckle. “Besides, you three were definitely not the only ones to have some “adult fun time” last night. The Shade basically tossed a bunch of anxious 20 to 30 somethings in a house together and left us to our own devices, it would’ve been a miracle if no one did. Hell, I know a few of our guild members that were in long distance relationships with each other got to meet their partners face to face for the first time these past two days. No one’s gonna care if one little wolf girl has some hickeys… though I am surprised by how quickly they made a move on you.”

I bury my head in my hands with a groan. “I’m admittedly surprised too… Heck, I’m surprised I agreed to it. I’d never really thought of either of them like that, but being together like this…”

What exactly was last night? Freya and Rune had always been teasing back whenever we called or chatted, in a friendly sort of way. But last night, well, I never expected that. These were some of my best friends for the last year, and after a single day together in person we… did that. And I had no idea how to feel about it. Was it just fooling around?... Or did they like me? It wasn’t impossible I guess but like, why? This wasn’t even what I really looked like, the real me is ugly and… well, I would never pass for a girl. Even if they did like me now, or even just liked how I looked, that probably wouldn’t be the case when we got home.

From behind, I feel someone place a hand on my shoulder. Glancing back, I see Adam with a small smile on his face. “Hey, it’s okay to give it some time to think on what it all means to you. Sex doesn’t have to mean anything more than you three want it to, and you’re still learning about yourself too. Give it some time to think on your own feelings and then, well, talk to them. For now though, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“I… guess you’re right.” I glance back up, looking at the tank. “Thanks, Adam.”

“Anytime, Willow. Now, speaking of the other two, how much longer should they be?” Adam looks over at Hestia.

“Sorry we’re late!” I hear Freya shout from behind us all. Glancing back I spot her running across the yard towards us, her golden armor equipped, followed shortly after by Rune in her black healing robes.

“About time you two could join us. All geared up and ready to go?” Hestia grinned at them, to which the two girls nodded. “Right then, today begins our parties first day of training. We’re going to be out for a total of 6 hours, so I hope you’re all ready to get good. Now, all of you except for Willow, head to the gate. I have something to say to her first, alone.”

Some of the others raised an eyebrow at that, myself included, but Hestia shooed them off with a smile. When it was just us two, I was the first to speak up. “This isn’t more advice about the whole Me, Freya, and Rune thing, is it?”

“Hah! Nah, that’s not why I wanted to speak with you without the others around. Romance and all that doesn’t really interest me, so while I might poke fun, I don’t really consider it any of my business to lecture others on it.” The short redhead shrugged. “No, this is purely about you.”

“Me? What about?” I asked, to which Hestia pointed towards my hip. Following her gaze, I saw she was pointing towards the blade strapped to my belt.

“That blade you’re carrying and the class that came with it, combined with the fact that you seemingly can’t switch classes. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all that occurred just before we were dragged in here.” Hestia closes her eyes in contemplation. “It’s still far too early to say, so I could be entirely wrong, but I don’t think I am. The Shade wasn’t just targeting the guild… she was targeting you.”

“Me? Why… who on earth would…?” I question her, but Hestia raises a hand, stopping me.

“That’s what we need to figure out. But yeah, I don’t buy that its just a coincidence. That’s another reason why you’re on my personal squad for the journey to the capital, besides just being one of my best friends. I get the feeling that you’re going to be important somehow, call it a hunch. And besides all that… I want you to know that no matter what, I have your back Willow. Whoever this Shade is, I won’t let her lay a finger on you.” Hestia looked at me with a determined smile.

“… Thank you, Hestia. I don’t really know what to think of all this. Everything with the Shade, this world, or Freya and Rune. It’s all been a lot, but I’m glad I’m not alone.” I lean down, wrapping the halfling in a hug. After a moment, she hugged me back with a small chuckle.

“Damn right, Willow. Now, how about we go test out this new class of yours?”

---

“AAAAAAHHHH!!!” I swing my blade downward at the direwolf, leaving a deep gash in its side as it attempts to dodge. Seeing that its injured, I go to finish it. “Frost Rune!” A series of runes flash in the air around my blade, before the blue glow of my blade intensified. With a cry I swung towards the downed monster, a wave of magical ice launching from my blade. The direwolf barely had a moment to react before it was dead, fading away into shadows. I’m left panting, though not from exhaustion and more just the stress.

“Not sure about you guys, but I’m not even feeling winded.” Zero twirls his blades in his hands with all the finesse of a master thief, before sheathing them.

“Well yeah, we’re all high level players fighting low level trash mobs. If we were feeling tired from this, I’d be worried for our chances.” Rune closes her tome, turning towards the rest of us. “I haven’t had to cast a single healing spell this whole time.”

“It is kind of weird though, right? I’ve never held a halberd or anything like that in my life before, but somehow wielding it just feels completely natural.” Freya placed the polearm on her back, then looked over at me. “Hey Willow, how are you holding up?”

“I uh… well, swinging around the sword isn’t really a problem, at least.” I glance down towards my menu, looking over my skills again. “From what it looks like, Rune Knight is a mixed range and melee class, with a focus on magical buffs. I can enhance my weapon with different elemental runes, or use different ones to boost my stats or lower an enemies. I can even share my buffs with ‘Transfer Rune’. It sounds simple enough, I’m just not really sure how to fit it all together, if that makes sense.”

“Well, you’ve always seemed like a quick learner, Willow. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have it at least mostly figured out by the end of the day.” Hestia beams, then opens up her menu. “Well, it’s been about three hours now. How about we take a lunch break?”

In a small flash of light, a large red blanket appears on the ground, followed by a picnic basket. Hestia sits down on the blanket with a sigh of contentment. “I thought I’d surprise everyone and make a little something for us all to eat today. We can take a quick break, then get back to training.”

“Sounds good to me.” Adam takes a seat, though doesn’t get much of a chance to relax as Zero darts to sit in his lap. “H-hey!”

“Sorry, cat boy now. If I fits I sits!” The blue haired gremlin cheered and pumped his fist in the air.

The rest of us all laugh as Adam blushes, and we take our places on the blanket. I sigh, relaxing as I take in our surroundings. For miles around is arid land, with large rocks, tall dry grass patches, and tall hills like the one we’re at the top of now. Off in the distance I can spot our guild hall, sticking out like a sore thumb even without the vibrant green grass of the courtyard. Close to that, I spot a river, snaking through the land and bringing a small bit of proper greenery back to the area. It wasn’t the best spot, but we could’ve ended up somewhere far worse I suppose.

Turning my attention back to the others, I see them all smiling and laughing, enjoying each other’s company. Almost like nothing had changed at all from when we all just played games together. I wondered how everyone was really feeling though, about all this? I’m keeping my composure pretty well, at least I think so, and it’s being helped a lot by all the excitement of actually being a girl, and the comfort from not being alone, but underneath all that, I’m terrified. I might never see my mother or my sister ever again, stuck here in a world who the hell knows how far away from home. Even if some of us might be having a better time processing and getting used to this, I knew everyone here wasn’t quite as calm as they seemed.

“Oh right, that reminds me!” Rune’s eyes go wide. “Last night, we all decided to check out the magitek tv in Freya’s place, and surprisingly enough it actually works.”

Zero’s eyes sparkled in excitement. “Wait, wait, wait… does that mean we have like, Netflix and stuff?”

“Uh… not quite, Zero. It was a bit older style, with like, channels and stuff.” Freya frowned. “It was pretty weird as well. When we turned it on it was set to some news channel.”

“Huh? What exactly did you all see?” Adam leaned forward in curiosity.

---

Last night, Freya’s apartment

“Sucks that we don’t have popcorn, but at least we have some sweets.” Rune said with a small bowl of chocolates in hand.

“It’s not like we’re anywhere near a convenience store. And hey, that’s not all we have.” Freya giggled, pulling out a bottle of wine from the cabinets. “I could seriously do with a drink after the day we’ve had.”

“Oh, uh. I don’t really drink all that often, but I guess a glass of wine wouldn’t hurt.” I shrug. It was true, I’d drank once or twice since I turned 21, and never really got the hype. It might be a nice time with these two though, especially after… I ignored my face flushing, and continued. “Although are we sure this thing is even gonna work? I mean, in game it was basically just a prop.”

“Well, everything else from the game has worked how it should so far. Guess we’ll have to see.” Rune takes a seat on the couch.

I help Freya grab the wine glasses, and we all take our places on the couch. As Freya pours some in all of our glasses, I giggle and make a joke. “You guys think we’ll have streaming services from home on this thing?”

“Ooooh, if we have Netflix we should totally watch one of the Ghibli movies!” Rune’s eyes lit up in excitement.

“Haha, alright. Let’s see what’s actually on this thing before we get too excited,” Freya says as she picks up the tv remote, hitting the power button.

It takes a moment to load, flashing some blue logo I’d never seen before, until it finally settled on a proper channel. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting though. “- oday investigators and engineers at the Morgana Power Company are still looking into the cause of the mysterious blackouts that occurred all across Shanrend starting last night. Engineers are baffled as they struggle to find the source. The Grand Technomancer and current CEO of the MPC, Alexandria Morgana, had this to say.”

The screen switched to display a rather regal looking woman sat at a desk, with dark brown hair tied back into a ponytail, and wearing a formal looking black coat. “Our current theory is a large mana disturbance of some kind interfered with our power grid, hence why all our systems seem perfectly fine from a technical standpoint, as the problem was an outside source. We also received word earlier this morning that the Valethyr Alliance and Arcadius Kingdom both dealt with similar outages, further supporting our theory. Although Arcadius was affected to a lesser degree, and while Valethyr was hit hard, as a whole they were left relatively unscathed due to its lesser reliance on magitek. For now however, that’s all we can say.”

“And there you have it, straight from the CEO herself.” The newscaster ladies voice continued. “We here at SNN will be keeping you all informed of any new developments in the situation as they are discovered. For now, we’ll be switching to Tom for the weather.”

Freya, Rune and I glance at each other, until I speak up. “This is… some kind of news channel?”

“For Shanrend it looks like. Not sure what all this is about blackouts, but I hope everyone up there is doing alright.” Freya looks concerned at the TV for a moment, before lifting the remote again. “Well, don’t think there’s going to be any familiar shows or movies on this thing. How about we just flip through channels till we find something interesting?”

“Sounds fine by me.” I take a small sip of my wine and smile as I find I actually kinda like the taste. “Either way, just kinda happy to enjoy a night with you two.”

---

“And then she was giggling like a schoolgirl and cuddling up to us after just her first glass of wine, and out like a light after the second.” Rune laughed loudly, with the others following suit.

“Hey, in my defense I haven’t drank much in my life, and this body is a lot smaller…” My face felt hot, and it only got worse as I felt a pair of hands grab my hips, pulling me in closer.

Soon I felt Freya hugging me from behind, and I was practically in her lap. “It’s fine Willow, it was adorable. I do wish you had stayed awake though, we ended up finding this really cute romcom movie-.”

Hestia cut off the conversation, making herself known by loudly clearing her throat. “Ahem. Before this conversation goes too far off track, I noticed something with what you said about the news report. They said those power outages occurred the night before?”

Freya loosens her grip on me, quirking an eyebrow at Hestia. “Well, yeah… wait, you don’t think it had something to do with us, do you?”

“I think it might, and-“ Hestia pauses, suddenly going quiet taking a look at the ground. Why did she stop? I wonder for a moment, before I start to feel it.

Thump

Thump

Thump

THUMP

Large, heavy thuds echo across the land, before Hestia looks up in horror. “LOOK OUT!”

With a loud boom, something lands a short distance away from our picnic blanket. I shield my eyes from the dust and dirt flying at us with my arm, and feel Freya pick me up onto my feet and behind her in a protective stance. When the dust clears, standing in front of us at 30 feet tall is a giant troll, club in hand. My breath hitches in horror as I hear the monster let out a guttural, ear shattering roar, so loud that I could feel it in my bones.

“It’s a troll! Everyone, to arms!” Adam bellows out while he summons his axe, taking a swing at the monster to draw its attention.

To my sides I see Zero drawing his blades and charging at the creature, and see the telltale signs of Hestia and Rune casting with their tomes. In front of me, Freya draws her halberd from her back, turning back to look at me with a soft but unreadable expression. “Willow, please stay safe.”

Freya darts towards the Troll, stabbing it several times in its left leg. I reach down, drawing my mageblade from its sheath, watching it as it begins to glow with an ethereal blue hue. I sigh, testing the feel and weight of it in my hand before looking at the monster, and charging. “Haste Rune! Transfer Rune!”

A green glow surrounds me, followed by everybody else. Suddenly my body felt light as a feather as I darted around to flank the troll. I cried out as I slashed and stabbed at its legs, leaving deep gashes in the giant creatures flesh. “Yeah that’s right ugly, fuck you!”

I stepped back to make some distance for my next skill, when I noticed the troll turn his attention to where Freya, Zero and I were all at his flank. It narrowed its beady eyes, raising its club to swing at us. Unfortunately, Freya and Zero hadn’t noticed yet. I heard Adam cry out as he noticed as well, and for a moment, it felt like time slowed around me. I raised my blade, pointing it at the troll. I knew what I needed to do. “RUNIC CHAINS OF BINDING!”

Purple symbols flashed in the air around the troll, catching his attention. Moments later, large ethereal purple chains sprouted from the ground, wrapping around it in an instant. The thing roared and struggled against the chains, but it was no use. It was helpless. Turning to look at Freya, I call out once more. “Lightning Rune, Rune Transfer! It’s all yours Freya!”

Freya’s eyes widen in surprise, as lightning begins crackling along the length of her halberd. After a moment, her expression turns to a devilish grin. “Got it.”

Freya stretches out her wings, and launches herself into the air. Her golden armor glinting in the sunlight as she goes higher and higher, before she eventually slows, and begins to come down. Leaving a trail of lightning and sparks behind her, she crashes back down towards the troll, still bound by the chains. It looks up, and the last thing it sees is a golden angel, her halberd aimed straight for his skull.

Dust goes flying everywhere as a thunderous boom rings out. I shield my eyes again, and as the dust settles my eyes go wide. “Holy shit…”

Where the trolls head was a moment ago is now nothing but a burnt stump of flesh. I feel my breath hitch, until I watch the creatures corpse fall to the ground and disappear, fading away into shadows. Standing where it was is Freya, halberd in hand and doing that trademark smirk. “That’s what you get for interrupting my cuddle time.”

I hear Rune, Adam and Zero chuckle at that, and I laugh as well, until I notice the troubled expression on Hestia’s face. I look over at her in concern. “Hey Hesty, what’s wrong?”

She looks contemplative, walking over to the crater where the monster fell, the only trace left that the troll was even here. She stares down at it for a while, until finally she speaks. “I don’t buy it.”

“Huh? Hestia, what do you mean?” I tilted my head in confusion.

“We’ve had dozens of teams out here, all training or guarding the guild hall. Not one of them encountered anything even approaching that trolls level of strength. Then our party, of all parties, encounters a boss level monster.” She peers back at me, her expression one worry, directed at me. “Looks like I was right.”

A moment later, I realize what she means. This monster attack wasn’t an accident. Someone deliberately caused this, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out who. The Shade, why in the world is she after me? Who even is she? I take a reflexive step back in fear. “I don’t get it, I’m a nobody… why would anyone care about me enough to do all of this?”

Hestia looks at me for a minute longer, before sighing. “We’re done with training for today. Everyone grab your stuff.”

Adam looks back and forth between us in confusion. “Hold on, what are you two talking about?”

Hestia narrows her eyes, looking down at the ground. “This wasn’t some random attack; this was a message from the Shade, for us. ‘Don’t get comfortable’.”