Teresa paced back and forth, her arms crossed. She’d spent over an hour getting ready. She’d gotten her hair all perfectly straight and soft, the strands flowing along her shoulders. Her makeup had taken ages to get right, she’d had to redo it half a dozen times. She’d even poked herself in the eye when applying eye shadow. She really wished she was better at that kind of thing.

But that didn’t matter now. She looked at herself in the mirror. A blue, shoulderless dress that went down to her knees. Around her neck she was wearing a small, gem studded choker. She looked gorgeous and she knew it.

Her phone went off and she quickly grabbed it, swiping through the lock screen and quickly bringing up the message. Her heart felt like it was being dropped and stomped on a moment later.

‘Sorry, honey. Something big came up. Larry is in town on work, I promised to take him out, show him some things. I’ll need to miss date night.’

Teresa stared at the phone, reading over the list before going over the names of his past friends. Larry, Larry. He used to work on trucks, at least she thought he did. The mechanic, maybe? He’d moved down south a year or two back. She felt more annoyance creep in. They’d been planning this for weeks. They even had a reservation. She was halfway to texting him, before she stopped and shook her head.

This was an out of town friend, a rare occurrence. If Larry was here on work, it was only fair that William would want to spend some time with him. Still, she had gotten all ready for the night, she didn’t want it to go entirely to waste.

‘If you want, I could come with you?’ Teresa texted back. She stared at the screen, awaiting a reply.

‘Nah. Don’t worry about it, I don’t want to bore you. We’ll do this another time, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Teresa texted back, before turning off her phone and tossing it on the bed. Another time? She knew what that meant. A few weeks, maybe a month from now. Assuming it even happened at all. She kicked the mattress. “Stupid Larry. Ruined our date night, you idiot,” she said bitterly. She felt guilty a moment later and shook her head. “No. No. Nope. It’s a rare occurrence. You’re NOT going to get jealous. You get him EVERY night. He never gets to see this guy. Calm down,” she said to herself, struggling to bury the anger and annoyance down. It wasn’t fair to either of them. It was only natural he’d rather hang out with a rare friend than her, anyway.

Since she wasn’t going to do it tonight she walked to the bathroom and started to wash off her makeup and change into something far more comfortable, before sitting on her bed. Despite her best efforts, her mood was absolutely shattered now. She glanced at her headset.

Maybe it would be a good time to get more work done. It’d mean when he got home, she’d have less work to do and could spend more time with him over the next few weeks. However, the idea of trying to focus and make any kind of progress on her work felt impossible. Finally, she sighed and got to her feet.

Teresa always felt better when she was working on something. On a project or a chore or anything. She glanced towards the bathroom. She’d been meaning to clean it, anyway. What better time than now?

------

After almost an hour, Teresa smiled at the now polished bathroom. Everything had been cleaned in it and, once again, the cabinets were all neatly organized. Her disappointment had been slightly overrun by a bit of pride. When she kept up on the chores, they really weren’t so bad. Filled with a sense of purpose, she moved through their home and decided to keep the cleaning energy going. She finished the dishes, started the laundry and even vacuumed. Once everything was finished, her pride had slowly risen and she felt the pain from earlier fading.

So what if he was busy? He had a good reason. That didn’t mean she was going to waste away. Teresa felt she’d made good progress on keeping their home nice and habitable, she deserved a reward. Once again her eyes focused on her headset. She walked to it and picked it up. She didn’t really want to work.

Teresa told herself she’d earned the right to play some games. To relax and enjoy herself. Besides, he was enjoying himself, why shouldn’t she?

She laid down on the bed and slid the headset on. It powered on a moment later, taking over her vision. She stared up at it, waiting for it to load. A moment later, she felt that momentary hitch when she separated from her physical body, being taken over by the virtual world.

A list of her games appeared in front of her and she eyed them for a moment. She could return to her three kingdoms game. Starting as one of Cao Cao’s allies might be a fun twist. On the other hand, it’d likely be rather slow at first. She was in a fighty mood. She wanted to stab something.

She finally selected Landasy Reality. A moment later, the game began to load around her.

She appeared in the middle of the obsidian city, Feldusk. She started walking, intending to head outside of the city and just kill a bunch of random lava monsters. That always felt exciting.

However, within a few steps a message popped up on her display. Excitement billowed inside her. Maybe it was William! However, her excitement turned to disappointment when she realized it was from Orion.

‘Hey, Kira. You on?’ Orion’s message said.

‘Well, I did log in a moment ago, so yes. What do you need?’ She swore if he wanted her to do some guild work, she was going to scream. This was why she didn’t join guilds. She wanted to ENJOY her time in the game. To focus on having fun. NOT on dealing with someone else’s issues. She had enough problems of her own without feeling guilty for not being at someone else’s beck and call.

‘We were going to do a low level dungeon. Wanna join us? How do you feel about slime monsters?’

‘What’s a dungeon? And they’re okay, I guess. Can I stab them?’ she sent back.

‘As much as you want. And a dungeon is just a place with a bunch of enemies and pretty good drops at the end. I’ll be going with Blueberry and Ervent. It might be a bit rough with just the four of us, but I’m sure we can handle it.’

Kira weighed her options for a moment. She had been planning to play alone. But a whole dungeon filled with lots of monsters she could stab sounded delightful. Besides, she’d had yet to have met the others. If they were really annoying, she could just leave.

‘Yeah, sure. Where do I go?’ she sent back to him.

‘Perfect. We’ll meet you in Feldusk. Well, outside Feldusk. Northern gate, okay?’ Orion’s message read.

‘Okay. See you then!’ Kira sent. She started walking again, heading towards the gate. Once there, she tapped her foot impatiently. She couldn’t believe she was wasting her game time waiting for them. Already she was beginning to regret this decision. If she’d gone off on her own, she’d be able to play now, not be waiting for them to arrive so she could start.

Annoyance was beginning to grow into full on impatience. “Hurry up,” Kira said to herself. She finally got tired of it and ran forward into the obsidian hills, cleaving her halberd into another one of the dinosaur creatures. It seemed her level had risen enough that these creatures were nothing more than punching bags for her to take her aggression out on. That, at least, was satisfying.

Still, she had plenty of aggression to let out. Moments after she cleaved through her dozenth monster, she heard a voice. “HEY!” She turned to the left, seeing Orion run out from the city.

“About time,” Kira said before glancing at the person following him. Her mouth fell open when she saw who was trailing behind him. A dragon player. He looked as if he could have been a professional body builder, nearly a head taller than Orion with glimmering blue scales. “Wow. Blueberry?” she asked, staring at him.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice deep and powerful. She couldn’t help but wonder how similar it was to the user’s real body. Were they actually that tall? If they weren’t that big, how did they avoid getting sick from such a difference when they logged in? Just the idea of trying to walk around in a body like that made her feel a little nauseous.

“Hello,” a second voice said. It took her a moment to realize that voice had come from a far, far smaller angel girl. The girl seemed almost microscopic compared to the dragon besides her, though she was only a few inches shorter than Kira.

“Ervent, I take it?” Kira asked, her eyes once again being drawn to the dragon.

“Yes. Orion told me you helped him get the ring for me. Thanks a lot for your help, miss Kira,” Ervent said before bowing.

Kira turned back to the girl and stared. The angel looked absolutely terrified to be here, not that she blamed her. While the dragon was wearing thick, heavy plate and had a battle axe nearly as big as her, the angel only had a small dagger at her hip and thin robes. Kira wondered how could she even fight with stuff like that?

“It was nothing,” Kira said quickly once she realized she had been staring. “That’s what guildies do, right? Help each other with stuff? Speaking of helping with stuff, let’s go kill this dungeon thing. Where is it?”

“This way,” Orion said before tapping a few times on the air. “Here.”

A moment later a group invite appeared in front of her. Kira’s eyes widened when a glowing mark appeared off in the distance. “Huh. That’s not too far at all.”

“Just follow us, we’ve done this one before,” Orion said before beginning to walk towards the glowing mark, Blueberry moving behind him.

Kira trailed back a bit to walk besides Ervent. The angel looked ready to curl up in one of the caves until they left her behind and she had a small suspicion if she didn’t say something the girl would start having a panic attack. “Hey. You okay?” she asked in as gentle a voice as she could must. “Nervous?”

“First dungeon,” Ervent said, her eyes lowered and hands clasped in front of her.

“Mine too. Don’t play a lot of these games?” Kira asked before glancing back to Orion and Blueberry.

“Don’t play many games. Just got my first direct neural headset a few months back, when this game came out,” she said softly, her voice getting softer with each word.

Kira barely managed to contain her shock, coughing into her hand to cover up her gasp. “Wait, really? How old are you? Everyone has one of these.” Even William had one, though mostly for work. She couldn’t imagine not having one of their own.

“My parents thought they were evil,” Ervent said so softly Kira had to strain to hear the words, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground. “I moved out a few months back and one of my friends gave me their old one when they bought the new model. Sorry.”

“Ohhhh. How old is it?” Kira asked, trying to keep the girl talking. She wondered if the girl was still nervous because of her inexperience with these kinds of games. She thought a few months was long enough to get used to it, but maybe it wasn’t.

“Two years. It’s really nice, though,” Ervent said quickly. “She’s really sweet, always helping me. She was actually the one who got me to try this game. She said I would like it.”

“Is she in the guild?” Kira asked.

“No,” Ervent said, her voice filled with sadness but, for the first time, her voice slightly above a whisper. “She’s a pro, she doesn’t play this game. There really isn’t much way for a professional gamer to make money here. I tried some of the games she played but, well, she’s really, really outside of my league. This game is a lot better for me. Slower. Easier. I hopefully won’t hold anyone back.”

Kira couldn’t help but chuckle. “Not much of a competitive player, I take it?”

“Not really. I’m not really very fast. I get sick a lot too. I’m not used to this. I’m getting better, though,” Ervent said quickly, lifting her head just a little bit.

“I’m not surprised. I got sick a lot the first time I tried these. Though, I was about eight at the time. You’ll get used to them eventually,” Kira said, struggling to resist the urge to reach out and pat the girl on the back.

“I hope so. It’s a lot of fun. I really like playing with everyone. Orion and Blueberry are really nice,” Ervent said.

Kira chuckled, before her eyes lowered to the small ring. “You know, it wasn’t that hard to get. You don’t need to be that thankful. I don’t know what Orion told you, but it was pretty quick.”

“He didn’t need to get it for me, though,” Ervent said, giving the first smile Kira had seen on the girl. “Everyone here is so nice and wonderful. Welcoming, even.”

“Welcoming?” Kira asked. She then sighed and rolled her eyes, beginning to wonder if Ervent was only pretending to be nervous. What if this was all some attempt to talk up the guild? She’d already joined them, there was no reason to try and trick her into feeling bad if she left. She then glanced down at the other girl’s weapon before looking back up to her wings. She wondered if she was just being paranoid, the girl seemed honest, if nervous. “So do you actually fight with that dagger? I figured if this was your first game you’d want something with more range.”

“Huh? Oh. No. Not really. Angel’s have a lot of healing magic, so I prefer to just stand back and cast spells. It has a nice buff for my MP regeneration. I tried a bow once, but it’s really hard to use it while flying. All the wind and stuff just makes it impossible to aim.”

Kira stumbled slightly at that. She didn’t understand how someone could play a game like this and NOT want to fight things up close. Half the fun was running around and stabbing things. Getting all of your aggression and frustration out on something without actually hurting anything. It was like therapy, in its own way. Just standing back and casting spells sounded horrible “That sounds kind of boring.”

“Sorry,” Ervent said quickly, moving a bit away from her. “I just think it’s kind of scary. If something gets you here, it can kind of hurt. The monsters are so realistic. You’re probably right, though. I’m pretty boring.”

“It’s not real,” Kira said, stopping herself before she could say more. The angel was new to all of this. She’d been playing since she was a child, she was used to it all being fake. She suspected to Ervent it still probably felt real. Kira glanced off to the left, watching a small bird fly off of a tree, giving a light chirp. If she ignored all the little signs she’d grown used to over the years then this world WAS really realistic. She could understand why it might feel real, especially to someone not used to this kind of thing. “Actually, you know what? That’s fine. I’d have probably been the same way.”

“Really?” Ervent asked, turning to look at her with borderline awe in her eyes. Kira felt more guilt surging up inside her. Just what in the world had this girl been playing before? “I know it’s kind of lame to be scared of--”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Kira said again, waving it off. “You’re new. It’ll take time to get used to things. Magic is fun, anyway. As long as you’re enjoying yourself, it doesn’t matter what you do, right?”

Ervent gave another small smile. “Thank you. Is it okay if I ask you a question? Why do you use a spear?”

“It’s not a spear, it’s a halberd,” Kira said quickly. “And I’ve always preferred polearm weapons. I think the first time I tried one was in an old ‘knight versus the dragon’ style of game. I used a glaive then, though. It just stuck with me, you can just do so much with them. You have plenty of reach so you can hit even the big monsters who have a ton of spikes, you get a great vantage point since you can see more of the area you’re fighting in. Not to mention you can pole vault if you need to, though I don’t recommend it in most games. There’s a lot of differences between the different types. In the three kingdoms game I’ve been playing lately, I was using a ji. It was really cool, because if you maxed your relationship with Lu Bu, you’d get a special one. This game didn’t have one to start with, though, so I chose the halberd.” She reached back to grip the halberd on her back, pulling it out and holding it in one hand. “It’s such a versatile weapon. You can stab with it, use the axe to cut through things. Pin things with the hook. Not to mention you can always beat things with the shaft itself. Polearms are just super fun for me.”

Ervent stared, her mouth open. It took Kira a moment to realize that she had been gushing about her weapon and probably came off as some kind of weirdo.

“Sorry. I get kind of excited sometimes,” Kira said, hoping she didn’t look as embarrassed as she felt. “Its just always been so much fun to play. Running off, stabbing things. I never felt that way with a sword. You always had to carry a shield around in most of those games. Had to be right up in the other guy’s face, could barely see anything else going on around you, ugh. Bows and guns felt like you were too far away, they took all the fun out of it. Besides, there’s always the extra risk with a polearm that makes it even funner.”

“Risk? Isn’t the reach good at avoiding risk?” Ervent asked.

“Not if someone can get in too close. If they can get in close enough and you can’t stab them or shove them off? You’re toast. Man, I used to die sooooo many times. I got torn apart by a pack of raptors once, in this fun monster hunting game. It was so embarrassing,” Kira said with a laugh, though it quickly faded when she saw the look of horror on the poor girl’s face. “It was just a game, don’t worry. I didn’t get hurt in reality or anything.”

“I know,” Ervent said, her eyes lowering again. “You’ve played a lot of these, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. Not these kinds of games, mind you. This is pretty cool. Most online games tend to be a more a push button, receive bacon kind of thing,” Kira said.

“Receive bacon?” Ervent asked.

Kira cringed when she realized that the saying probably didn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t heard it before. “You know. Activate skills, then the skills go off and your body moves on its own. The game decides for you what happens, if you hit or not. Ugh. They’re so frustrating. I LIKE feeling what I’m doing. Knowing what I’m doing. I think this is the first really big multiplayer game to follow that. I can’t imagine the load it must be putting on their servers.”

“Probably not as much as you’d think,” Ervent said. “While there are occasional bursts of lag, the game itself has almost everything loaded onto the headset, so there’s not nearly as much feedback as you’d think. They likely use a lot of tricks to make it seem more realistic than it is.”

Kira cocked an eye, slightly shocked that the girl had finally spoken with actual confidence. “Really? I thought you hadn’t played these kinds of games before?”

“I’ve played a lot of normal computer games, nothing in virtual reality, that’s all,” Ervent said, her smile melting. “Sorry, I’ve just always really liked computers, I have a knack for them.”

“Really? I thought that your parents disliked them?” Kira asked.

“There’s a huge difference between a normal computer and a virtual reality one. My parents were okay with standard computers. But even on standard computers, there’s a lot of little tricks they do to reduce lag and keep the connection stable. Often what we see and hear isn’t always what we’re actually seeing and hearing, but more a trick to make our minds think it is.”

“I see,” Kira said, though she didn’t really get it. It all seemed real enough to her. “Have you studied these or something?”

“Err, yes. Sorta. I’m a network administrator. Well, in training. It’s more of an internship, to be honest. I mostly do the hardware side for the VR sets for the moment, though I’m learning a lot more about the VR side too,” Ervent said quickly, her voice getting softer once more, forcing her to struggle to hear her.

“Really?” Kira asked, moving a little closer to hear her. “That’s interesting. My boyfriend does a lot of work in VR at his job. You set those kinds of things up? What’s it like?”

“To be honest? Kind of invasive,” Ervent said, her voice rising once more and filling with what Kira could only think of as righteous fury. “A lot of jobs are offering to let people work in VR offices and with VR equipment, but it can get a bit insane what they demand. They can monitor everything you do now. Not just what you do on work, but where you look, what you touch, even if you blow your nose. It’s a little creepy. I know a few companies that actually fire employees who use it, since they were monitoring them and tracking the whole time they weren’t really working. Every moment you look away from your work can be recorded and logged. If you use them you have literally no privacy at your job.”

Kira shuddered, shaking her head. “Remind me to use a normal computer if I ever work in an office. That sounds creepy.”

“It can be. Fortunately, most businesses allow employees to work from either style. The owner of the company I work for is really great, though. We do a lot of installation on physical and VR systems and he refuses to touch the extra monitoring equipment.”

Kira nodded, smiling to the small angel. While she didn’t understand everything she was saying, the angel seemed far more relaxed now, her voice almost excited and her gaze finally lifting to the demon’s. “Oh? So you have a lot to do there?”

“There’s always more to do,” Ervent said, her eyes filling with excitement. “We recently ran the lines for a--”

“Here!” Blueberry yelled, making the two jump and cutting the angel off.

Kira glanced towards the dungeon and froze. It was a massive, wooded area. The trees themselves were covered in acid burns and there were strange, random globs of goop coating them. She looked around and realized that the trees were so close together that the only actual entrance was directly in front of them. She suspected she could try for days to get around the trees, but she wouldn’t be able to break through them. One way in, likely no way out.

“Okay, everyone,” Blueberry said, turning and crossing his arms. “We’re a bit short on people for this, but not by much. The maximum allowed people for this is five, so we should be fine. The monsters are slime based, don’t let them get on you or you’ll get acid damage, which can be nasty. Kira!”

“Yes?” Kira asked, trying to resist the urge to stand at attention.

“Have you fought slimes before?”

“Not really. Why?” Kira asked, tensing up. She wondered if he was going to tell her to hang back and shoot spells too, there was no way she’d put up with that.

“Okay. They don’t have weak points, so don’t worry where you stab them. However, if they reach out at you with any kind of tentacles or limbs, if you strike the base you can cut them off. That’ll weaken them as well,” Blueberry said.

“Oh, cool,” Kira said, gripping her halberd tighter. She wanted to go, not listen to another tutorial.

“Um, what about me?” Ervent asked.

“Just stay behind us and use your magic. You won’t be able to cut them off with a short dagger. We may need you to help us if we get hit bad. Do you have restoration yet?”

“Yes, sir,” Ervent said, quickly standing at attention. Kira barely resisted rolling her eyes though it took every bit of self restraint she had.

“Just use that. Okay, everyone. Let’s keep close and get this done. Move out!” Blueberry yelled, before running forward.

Kira rolled her eyes the moment his back was turned before she ran after him. She tapped on the menu when it popped up, asking her if she wanted to continue. She wondered what the point of that warning even was, why else would she have run into the forest otherwise? Running head fast into danger was WHY she played these games.

MelodyAvant

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