Ariventure

Hiya readers! Thanks for the love for the last chapter, and another thank you for waiting patiently for this one! June's going to learn a bit more about who they are in-game, and well-cultured readers might be able to pick up on the type of class they'll be using. This chapter is about as long as Chapter One, but that'll fluctuate throughout the book based on the story beats and my spoons. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

I clapped my hands over my mouth, stunned by the voice that echoed around the clearing I had woken up in. It was almost familiar, but gave me an uncanny sensation which buzzed around my ears. The same feeling as when you hear your voice back on a video or a recording and you go “wow, that's what I sound like to other people” because it doesn't match up with the voice in your head.

It was the same feeling, but this time it was because this voice actually did sound more like the one in my head. But it had more… definition. I felt my fingers tremble against my lips as I breathed in through my nose. I wanted to hear more.

“H-Hello…?” I let the voice leak out again, breathlessly. It was warm and sweet, like the taste of marzipan on the tongue. It had just a touch of huskiness, which teased a smile out of me. I blinked a few times, my mind filled with glitchy static. I need a mirror. I jumped to my feet instinctively, but stumbled as I landed. The move was effortless, my body responding quicker and easier than my real-world equivalent and I had almost tipped back over from expecting more resistance.

I cast about, still foggy-minded, as though expecting a full-body mirror to just conveniently be standing here in the woods. Naturally, I was not so fortunate. Okay, no mirror… uh… A glint of light caught the corner of my eye, a reflection of the moonlight from above. A pond! I scrambled over and dropped onto my knees, pausing just before the water’s edge.

Why am I hesitating? I went to move that little bit further but it was like my body refused to listen. My heart was beating an uncomfortable rhythm, ready to leap out of my changed chest. I closed my eyes and took a practiced, slow, careful breath, exchanging the too-hot air in my lung with the cooler air in the space around me. The scent of wet earth and vegetation drifted up from the pond. I opened my eyes and poked my head over the water.

The world seemed to still. A girl gazed up at me from the water. She stared with wide, round eyes, and I felt a nervous laugh burble out of my mouth. Her bow-shaped lips moved with mine. “Holy shit…” Her features were soft and pleasant, her skin unblemished save for a splash of freckles across her nose. She had fluffy, layered bangs and gently wavy hair which framed her face and spilled down her shoulders. She was wearing a simple dark red sleeveless jerkin, revealing smooth arms also flecked by freckles towards her shoulders. Is that… “Me?” I glanced down at my shape. At least from this angle, I seemed… trim, but squishy in the right places. Well-balanced.

Something plinked into the water, followed by another, then another. The image of the girl in the water started to blur, and I felt my jaw shake as a sob clawed its way out of me. I blinked in surprise and felt tears clinging to eyelashes that were longer than I was used to. I flopped backwards, away from the pond, and pressed my hands to my stomach. A feeling had dug the depths of me, chewing at my insides. My skin suddenly felt too hot to the touch as I tried to swipe the tears from my cheeks. Stupid, what the hell are you doing? It's a godsdamned videogame character. Despite the weird, un-nameable feeling inside me, I felt… lighter somehow. It made sense, with the change in my frame.

I'd heard about people who played games as the opposite gender, and admittedly, I wasn't a stranger to that myself. When I was younger and played non-vr titles, I'd usually pick the female character when given the choice. I liked girls so playing a girl just meant more girl in the game. Additional girl equals additional good. That's just simple math.

But it felt… weirder in VR, and I recognised the strange feeling inside me now as the same one I felt back in those moments. Apparently, a lot of people who tried to play full-dive titles as the opposite gender struggled like this, as their brains couldn't quite connect up with the differences in their virtual bodies. I'd read that it was called dysphoria or something like that; the same thing that people experienced in the real world when their bodies didn't match with who they are.

I huffed and rubbed at my eyes again, feeling them now a little sore by all the agitation. Just my luck. Stupid game should have protections for this kind of thing. Clambering to my feet, I brushed my body down of the plantlife that had collected onto my clothes, trying to ignore the feeling of my new body under them. I get that it's random, but this just feels like trouble waiting to happen. 

For a moment, I thought about just opening up my menu and backing out of Terrasplit Online. Finding something different to play, get a different recommendation from Naila or even from Clover. I nodded to myself and moved my hand in the air, gesturing to open the system menu of the pod. My finger hovered over the “Return to Lobby” button, before I tapped it somberly.

Felloren froze around me and I picked up the faint waft of freshly roasted coffee beans in the air. As I blinked, I felt the texture of the ground beneath my feet change, soft soil swapping to firm wooden planks. I was back in my cosy coffee shop, warm light casting its glow onto my face. Feeling slightly disconnected from my body, I went to sit down on the bench at one of the tables, landing heavier than expected. Even in the few moments I had been piloting that girl's body, my real world shape already felt infinitely heavier and more lumbering by comparison.

Stretchy synthetic fabric stretched against my fingers as I noticed my hands gripping at the full-dive suit I had spawned in when I first entered the pod, white-knuckled. They were faintly shaking, enough to be noticeable. I took a shaky breath and consciously relaxed them. They took a few seconds to respond. Maybe something's wrong with the pod? “Uh… Clover?”

A set of bells jingled through the air as a translucent green hologram appeared, sitting on the chair opposite the table I was at. A fluffy-haired, lab coat-wearing hologram. “Reporting for duty!” They saluted me, whapping themself in the face with their coat sleeve.

Their sudden appearance had thrown me onto the back foot, all the weird feelings bubbling in my body momentarily forgotten. I had been expecting a message or something, but I suppose there are upsides to being a digital lifeform. You can be wherever you need to be, whenever you need to be there. “Oh um, hi. I thought you'd…”

“Hmm?”

“I don't know, I thought you'd not look like a hologram in here. Like… digital world so you can look however you want?”

Clover tilted their head at that, like a confused puppy, “Why wouldn't I want to look like this? This is how I look!” Huh. I guess if the hologram body is all they've ever had, they wouldn't know to want anything different. Something about that sat weird with me, but I shrugged it off. It made a kind of sense. “Besides, why do you still look like that?”

I blinked and leant back a little, “And what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, sorry if I offended you!” Clover waved their hands apologetically. “I just meant that most people change clothes once they've settled into their lobby. Unless you're comfy in the full-dive suit! They seem comfy.”

Oh right, clothes. I'd never exactly paid a lot of attention to how I dressed myself. “So I can just picture a different outfit, like when I made the lobby?” Clothes were just a thing that happened to me, because it was important that I wear them for survival and social reasons. When was the last time I bought something new to wear? Nothing came to mind.

“Sure! If you feel like it!”

I toyed around with doing so, but there wasn't much point. Clover was probably the only person who'd see me like this, and it's not like wearing different clothes would really change how I look. I did picture the suit less form-fitting though, it was a little claustrophobic.

As I thought that, the fabric of the full-dive suit relaxed, becoming baggier and fitting more like loose pajamas. Better. Clover was giving me two thumbs up across the table. They grinned and snapped their fingers. A clipboard materialised into their hands as their glasses settled onto their face. 

Making a big show of flipping through the papers, they looked at me over the rim of the lenses, “By the way, you must be fitting to make a bonus in your first pay packet! Whatever you were doing in here before was spiking your brain activity and making loads of yummy energy. Good work!”

I mean… more money is nice. “That so?” 

“Yup! Though it looks like you're coming back to baseline now.”

I did feel a little more relaxed. Something about the atmosphere in my lobby eased my soul. I felt heavier, more tied down and less likely to float away. “About that, is the pod working properly?”

The Holo got a faraway look in their eyes and pouted. “All pod functions appear normal? Everything is still calibrated, health monitoring functions are operating as standard, response latency is at-” they refocused on me and chuckled, “Well I won't bother reading the full digits, but it's within a few million of a millisecond. Why? Are you having some problems?

I flexed my hand under the table, opening and closing my fingers repeatedly. The shaking had stopped and they were listening to me now. “Uhm… no, I guess not. Just had a weird thing happen in game.”

“You were playing Terrasplit Online, right? We've got a few other workmates playing that! I hear good things!” Clover paused, an awkward expression passing their face, “Oh did you die? Past users have mentioned that it can be kinda uncomfy dying in full-dive. That's partly why Holos like me are around, so we can keep an eye on you! I must have missed it…”

“No, no, nothing like that.” That seemed to put them more at ease. “I actually only just started, finished having my character made by the Brainscan and just… I don't know, freaked out?”

“Why did you freak out?”

“It made my character a girl.”

Clover stared at me for a few beats. “Okay?”

“And… I'm not a girl?”

“Right?”

“So I don't know. It made me freak out I guess.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“Well-” I frowned. The sensations I had been dealing with after seeing the girl in the pond didn't feel good. The voice was nice though. “No, bad I guess, mostly.”

Clover matched my frown and tilted their head again, that distracted look in their eyes once more. “Huh… but that-” They went quiet for around a minute, their expression perfectly paused. Though if I looked closely, I could almost make out their eyes twitching back and forth, until they blinked and shook their head, then laughed airily, “Well I'm sorry to hear it, June! But it was probably just first-time jitters! It was your first time being in a body that's not your normal one ever, right?”

I… guess that's true? “Yeah, I've not had a full-dive like this before…”

“Right! So, maybe it's just going to take a bit for you to get used to it.” They gave me a confident smile and an enthusiastic nod.

“I didn't really think of that…” I felt my cheeks burn a little, embarrassed by the simple answer. Stupid, of course my brain is going to feel weird. It'd probably feel just as weird being stuffed into some huge muscle-bound centaur guy! 

“That's okay, that's my job! Like I said, we're here to make sure your experience at Dreambank is super duper smooth and enjoyable. So, if you've got any worries like that, I'm always just a tap away!”

“In-game too?”

“For sure! Open whichever contact menu the game uses and I should have an entry there for you to message me. I can only appear physically like this in software managed by Dreambank though, like your lobby.” They did little air quotes with their fingers when saying “physically.” 

I couldn't help but smirk. I did feel better already. Maybe I just needed some time to settle in, I guess making my own character would have given me that time but I sort of dived in at the deep end. “Well uh, thanks Clover. This has actually been nice!”

“You're welcome! I'll go ahead and take my leave, but keep up the good work!” They jumped up onto the chair and extended the arms horizontally, in a perfect T-Pose. I heard a snickering laugh as their form just drifted up into the ceiling and eventually vanished from sight. That Holo has a few screws loose.

I sat back on the bench and rolled my neck out, easing a little of the tension that had built up. Why would they program in feeling tense? I reached up to scratch at my head absently. My hair felt smoother than it did outside of the pod. Cleaner. It was nice, actually. Maybe I just jumped out too early. I didn't even check my character info. I took a breath and pulled up the program page for Terrasplit Online, tapping the launch button before I could think too much about it.

My brain barely registered the shift, but I found myself looking out into the shadowy treeline of the woodland clearing, that cool nighttime air gracing where my skin was exposed. I rubbed at my arms for warmth, feeling softer skin there again. I could do with a cloak. Or at least a shirt of something. My lips twitched slightly and my hands drifted to absently fiddle with my hair as I got my bearings, winding the smooth locks around my palms. 

Focus, June. I'll just… give it a shot. See how it goes. “Okay, okay. There must be a town or something nearby at least. The game wouldn't just dump new players in the middle of nowhere.” My voice curled around my ears and settled in my head again. Caramel on my tongue. A hesitant smile settled on my face. This could be nice, in a way. Kind of a change of pace.

I took a step forward and immediately felt my foot collide with something in the grass. I fell hard onto my knees and yelped. Smooth. Once back on my feet, I went to kick the offending object, stopping as I spotted a brown leather satchel sticking out of the greenery. There wasn't anyone else out here, so it must have been mine. Probably. That or I'll have started the game with a theft as well as making myself look stupid by tripping over on my first godsdamned step out of here.

I slipped the strap of the satchel over one shoulder and greedily opened the flap, digging through for goodies. My first loot! Sadly the satchel did not contain a legendary sword or spell book but instead held a handful of small glass vials with coloured liquids, a lovely little book bound in blue-scaled hide, a quill pen made of a gorgeous glittery purple plume and a small leather pouch which clinked as I pulled it out.

I upended the pouch into my other hand and watched as about fifteen discs dropped into my palm. They were made of dark glass, each one etched with a silver circle in the center of both faces. I guess this is money? Or maybe a spell component? I tipped them back into the pouch, which I returned to the satchel as I pulled out the book.

Ohhh. Interesting way of doing it. The first page was titled “Inventory” and had a list of the items presumably on my person.

• Simple Jerkin (e)
• Simple Breeches (e)
• Travelling Boots (e)
• Simple Belt (e)
• Coinpurse (Small)
• Enchanted Quill
• Basic Dagger
• Dagger Sheath
• Starborn Handbook
• 3x Potion of Healing (Minor)
• 3x Potion of Mana (Minor)
• Void Satchel (Starter)
• Tinderbox
• 5x Torches

At the bottom corner of this page I spotted a circle containing the number fifteen, followed by text in flourishing handwriting which read “Lune.” Guess that's those weird disc things.

I frowned as I scanned the list again, then glanced back into the satchel. There were a fair amount of items that were listed but weren't present. On a hunch, I reached my hand inside and thought about a dagger. The moment it entered my mind, I felt cold metal brush against my palm.

Wrapping my fingers around the hilt, I withdrew a single-edged dagger. It was unadorned, with a wooden hilt, a dull-metal pommel and a blade around ten inches long. I experimentally gave it a swipe through the air. It was lighter than I expected, but comfortable in my hand. I normally play like, a healer or a caster, but I guess maybe I'm some sort of martial class? It was a small relief to know I was at least rudimentarily armed in case of any threats.

Withdrawing the sheath from my satchel, I affixed it to my belt and slid the dagger into its new home. Small (e) icons appeared next to the sheath and dagger on my inventory page. I flipped the page and saw a sketchy drawing of my character in full on the next. Different parts of my body had lines leading off them, some with text describing what was equipped into that slot.

Next to that was a page titled “Character Information.” Alright, here's the good stuff!

• Name: Undeclared
• Species: Human [Human]
• Job: [None]
• Job Skills: [None]
• Class: Incarnate [Unique]
• Current Incarnation: [None]
• Affinity: [None]
• Class Skills:
  • Contract Keeper
  • Bond Bearer
• Statistics - Physical:
  • Brawn - 3
  • Agility - 6
  • Precision - 5
  • Vitality - 3
• Statistics - Mental:
  • Intelligence - 6
  • Awareness - 5
  • Essence - 5
  • Willpower - 6
• Statistics - Special:
  • Capacity - 3
  • Connection - 0
• Titles: [None]

I mouthed the words as I read down the page, squinting in confusion the further I went. Why is Human written twice? And some of these stats are weird. I idly tapped the entry for my class to see if it would bring up a description. “Okay, so I'm an Incarnate. And that meaaaans…” I dragged out the word, hoping that my brain or the book would provide the answer. The word petered out, doomed to be a sentence never finished. No dice. At least I've got some Skills? They could explain it a bit!

I tapped the first one, “Contract Keeper”, and it actually opened up a dialogue box on the page! 

Contract Keeper: The bearer of this unique skill is able to forge contracts with certain beings they may encounter across Felloren, and add their strength to the bearer’s own as Incarnations.

So I make people agree to a contract and suck their power away? My mind conjured the image of my new body in a business suit, watching someone sign a long scroll before I hungrily licked my lips at them. Yay, I'm a middle manager. I tapped the next skill, hoping for something that could actually help me in a fight.

Bond Bearer: The bearer of this unique skill is able to advance the strength of their Incarnations by building and nurturing their bonds. Stronger bonds may lead to further unique skills and advancements.

Okay, what anime bullshit is this? “My friends are my power!” I scoffed and shook my head. “Sure, okay, whatever. Other people get to throw fireballs, I get to make friends.” Maybe there was something more to it, but it wasn't exactly blowing me away. I had no combat skills, no spells… Wait, how am I supposed to fight?

My Agility and Precision stats plus the dagger suggested some sort of assassin playstyle, but I didn't have any special attacks or stealth abilities. My mental stats being more well-rounded overall hinted at more of a caster role using those physical stats to avoid danger, but the next page titled “Spells and Rituals” was completely empty! As far as my character sheet made clear, I wasn’t much better than a regular human with a dagger. 

Though, there were those last two stats, under “Special.” Capacity, according to the tooltip, was something relating to a stock of a resource, separate from my Health and Mana. Whatever it was, I could hold three of them. Connection only said that it would affect later skills and was a representation of the “stability of my heart.” Cool, heart attack stat.

“I’m just going to hope that this class is more useful than it looks and… I don’t know, maybe I’ll unlock the Powers of Knife God or something.” I snapped the book closed and stowed it away, finally taking the chance to actually check my surroundings. It was a wonder I hadn’t been sneaked up on by a slime or a goblin or some other RPG staple between all of my falling over and weird new body feelings not thinking about it hahaha. 

Maybe your spawn area is a dedicated safe zone?

The pink moon sat high in the sky and had climbed further since I had spawned. It was likely around 11pm, maybe even midnight at this point. The grass around me was thick and glossy, slightly dew-wet and speckled with wildflowers. The shallow pond in which I had observed the girl my brain had been stuffed inside sat at one side of the treeline with the other end of the clearing about twenty or so meters from it. It was quiet, save for the chirping of nocturnal insects and the low woosh of the wind through the trees.

The peace was broken by a distant whump, then a crackling from above, like a campfire working its way up to a full blaze. I frowned and glanced up, then scrambled for cover behind a rock as a red-hot chunk of something sailed over the treeline at speeds high enough to produce a cone of pressure ahead of it. My skin prickled with sweat from the heat of it as it passed overhead. Barely a few seconds after I had pressed myself against the stone surface, the ground beneath me shook as the meteorite impacted somewhere in the distance. I could hear the sharp crack of the trees splitting as they broke and fell in its wake.

I hugged that rock for probably longer than necessary, only poking my head around it when I heard discordant clatter of bells, as though someone was rattling windchimes that owed them money. It was distant but distinct, emanating out from deeper into the woods, towards where a pillar of smoke was drifting up from the top of the trees. As good a direction as any. I pulled my dagger from its sheath and left the relative safety of the clearing at last. 

Immediately, the light of the moon was suppressed by the canopy, leaving me able to see only by the light cast by small glowing bugs that buzzed through the air. A few of the trees had clusters of bioluminescent fungi growing from their bark but rather than pleasing pastels, they produced a sickly yellow-green light. It screamed eat me if you want to be bedridden for days. It was hard to make out any detail further than a few meters, so I squinted and waited for a sign of whatever made the jingling sound. It rang out again a few seconds later, still deeper into the woods but now towards my right. I chased it in, now starting to pick up on the smell of ozone and burning wood, using that to guide me through the dark. Having learned from my earlier mistakes, I made sure to keep half an eye on the ground to avoid any errant roots or stones.

Before long, I didn’t have to use the smell of the impact or the sound of the bells to guide me, as a faintly flickering pale light turned the dark of the woods into an ashy grey. The temperature had ticked up a couple of degrees, and between that and my focus, the chill of the wind on my bare arms was no longer a concern. I stepped around one more tree and entered a space that had been forcibly opened up by the meteorite’s descent. I could easily follow the path by the scorched line drawing a diagonal from the sky to the earth, leaving a few of the upper boughs singed and even aflame. That… could become a problem. Closer to the impact point, smaller trees had their trunks split and pushed aside, all leading to a crater about three feet across. In the center was a chunk of obsidian, glowing with starlight from within. It was roughly the length of my forearm and had a few spiky spires jutting from its peak.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention the most. I had initially overlooked it because… well, big sky rock, but it was hard to ignore when it was flitting this way and that erratically. From the distance I stood at, it had initially looked like a part of the stone’s glow, a miniscule star reflected on the glassy faces of the meteorite. However, it in fact was a floating creature, around seven inches tall. I took a few cautious steps closer to try and make out some detail, and winced as a fallen and blackened branch crunched underneath my foot. The form stopped mid-air and snapped to turn in my direction. I tightened my grip on my dagger, ready for it to lunge at me with some sort of cosmic curse.

Instead, it jangled a panic of bells and zipped behind the rock, out of my sight. Did I frighten it? “Uh… hey little guy?” I let go of my daggers hilt and raised my hands, putting a friendly smile onto my face. “Please be friendly? I’m not going to hurt you.” I stayed in place, hoping that this wasn’t a set-up. For all I knew, this miniscule thing could summon black holes. I could feel my heart in my chest thumping anxiously. A part of my mind distractedly made note of how realistic the sensation was. Gods full-diving is cool. As that thought came and went, a corner of the creature’s head (or what I assumed to be its head) poked around the edge of the meteorite. I gave it a little wave. It raised a stubby little arm and waved tentatively back.

And like that, we have communication. I took a few steps around the rock to try and get a proper look at the being, without getting any closer without its say-so. Cornered dogs, and all that.

Its head was a glowing starburst of light, the only features I could make out being a pair of perfectly black almonds that followed me as I moved. It was wrapped in a white cloth shawl with a high collar, which gave its body a bell shape, and what I could see of its body was made of a voidlike substance. It was bipedal, but the tiny legs and arms just ended in pointed stumps. As we stared at each other, it floated up onto a part of the meteorite that was jutting out and landed gracefully onto it. 

“Cool rock?” I tried. Its eyes swivelled to the meteorite. It shrank a little against it, then looked back at me and let out a few windchime notes.. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it or anything. Are you okay? That was a hard crash.” It seemed to understand me judging by its reaction to me complementing the rock, so why not try a conversation?

To my surprise, the little starlike creature looked itself up and down and adjusted its shawl slightly to lift the collar higher up to hide more of its face. It nodded at me softly and I felt a little of my heart melt. Oh this is too cute. “Okay, that’s good.” It jabbed one of its arms towards where my dagger was sheathed against my waist and “spoke” a more worried string of chimes. “Hey, it’s all good, I’m not going to try anything.” The black voids of its eyes slimmed a little, but its posture relaxed. “Is it fair to say you aren’t from around here?”

It turned away from me to look up into the sky, searching for something. Having found what it was looking for, it pointed into the night with intensity. Thanks to the hole carved into the canopy by the meteorite, I could make out the slim spire of the Midnight Needle impossibly far in the distance. A single chime fell from the creature, and I watched as its body drooped and its light dimmed. The arm it was pointing with went limp. It was realizing just how far from home it was.

A foggy memory floated into my mind, a much younger me extending a slimmer, softer hand out to a neighborhood stray. I had always been better with animals than people, and had gotten in trouble a few times for sneaking food to this poor older pup. It was a bitterly cold night, wind whipping and rain lashing. Despite us both being partly soaked through, I remembered the feeling of its warmth as it placed its head against my hand for the first time and let me pet it. I had cried for hours that night, cuddled up under an awning with the only other creature I had met that seemed to understand how alone I felt.

I felt tears at the corners of my eyes again, as a bittersweet but genuine smile pulled at my lips. I couldn’t help but draw closer as I held out my hand to another lost soul. The too-small creature looked up at me. “It’s okay. How about we get you home, huh?” I felt my new voice wavering in my throat, choked with emotion.

It lowered its eyes to look at my hand and moved into the air again, hovering in the space between myself and the meteorite. It floated closer and I turned my hand palm up for it to land on. It reminded me of the old nature sims we had used in school. A colorful array of holographic butterflies would fill the classroom, and potentially settle on your skin if you were good and didn’t wriggle around too much.

I felt the barest touch of weight as the creature stepped onto my palm, as well as a zap of something like static electricity. I barely flinched, too lost in the moment and the emotions. It turned its vacuous eyes back up to my face and jingled at me, but this time the windchimes were the underlayer to a sweet, musical voice that filled my head. “Thank you for wanting to help me. I’ve been so scared…”