I believe the biology in the game must not have been 100% accurate. If it had been, I would have peed myself. 

I don't like to think of myself as a coward. Who does? But even if I had been a six-and-a-half-foot tall gym rat, the thought of wrestling a bear would have scared me. Especially a bear that was really eager to wrestle. Especially three of them. And being a pudgy engineer only made it less appealing. So, of course I hid behind the one person with a weapon, and the ability to use it.

Not to mention, my current stats were absolute garbage.

Mack better have been given some mad skills otherwise we were all dead. Which, on a normally wouldn't have been the worst thing. We'd just respawn as new characters. But with the system crash, who knew what would happen to us? Death? Coma? Stuck in a computer matrix limbo? Plus, I'd read enough accounts of Feronia to know the pain players experienced was highly realistic. And I really didn't want to know what it felt like to have one of those giant badgers rip the skin off of me with it's claws.

Mack said, "What the hell do I do?"

"Stick it with the pointy end!" Josh yelled, trying to push himself closer to the ground so the grass would hide him.

Mack muttered to herself, "Stick it with the pointy end, he says." But she drew her sword and approached the beasts.

The first one took a swipe at her, but she moved like a blur, and its paw met only air. In the same movement, Mack lunged like a fencer and plunged the blade between its ribs. The monster made a nightmarish squeal and collapsed to the ground with blood spurting out of its chest as if it were some cheesy special effect. Except, unlike a camp horror film, this was unbelievably grotesque as dark ichor pumped out in gouts with a squelching sound. 

She must have lucked out and scored a critical hit. Either that or despite their size, they were weaker than we were. And I doubted that.

The other two giant badgers eased off, a bit more wary now. But in drawing away, they began to flank Mack. She was going to need help.

"Katie," I called. "Give me my character. Please!" I figured considering the circumstance there was no point in being impolite and possibly have her delay the request. In my conversation with her, the AI proved to be quite prickly and overly sensitive.

Mack was slashing at one badger like mad while the other one edged up behind her.

I was about to call to Katie again, when ...

Well, if one of them hit me, I'd still probably die, but I had some spells to work with. Gust seemed pretty self explanatory, so I decided to start with it. I raised the gnarled staff that had appeared in my hand and cast it.

Air blasted across the meadow and hit the badger sneaking up on Mack, throwing it backward. This solved the immediate problem, but the monster seemed unhurt and really annoyed.

I tried out my Electrical Charge on it next. I was expecting a lightning bolt, but instead, hundreds of tiny blue sparks appeared around the creature the way static electricity looks in the dark. All the sparks suddenly swarmed in and struck the beast. A large popping sound filled the meadow. Faint smoke wafted of its singed fur, and it started charging me. I hit it with another Gust followed by a Charge. It was knocked off its feet and the shock seemed to stun it a little. 

My Mystic Energy was down to 10. That must mean, each spell cost ... the answer didn't just come to me. I worked it out to be 5 points a spell, but I had to think about it for a second. That wasn't normal. Holy crap, my intellect had gone from 15 to 12! Did the game actually changed my brain's processing power? How could it do that?

As much as I wanted to explore the ramifications of this, I had an angry badger readying an attack. It's teeth were bared and its claws gnashed the air in front of me. I had enough point for two more spells. Did I rinse and repeat or try Mental Sway? What the heck did that do anyway? If I wasn't about to get eaten, I'd look it up.

Knowing my only hope was to deliver maximum damage, I cast Charge twice in quick succession.

All its fur was sooty and fluffed out. It would have looked hilarious if it wasn't a vicious monster that was trying to kill me.

The thing took a step forward, swayed, and fell over. Either dead or unconscious. But it wasn't tearing my heart from my chest like a bit of honeycomb, and that's what mattered. (Dead, I realized when I got notified about reaching level 1.)

Mack came over wiping blood from her blade. Somehow we managed to win our first fight.

"Thanks for the assist, sister," she said.

I looked down at the new me, and was immediately struck by the presence of cleavage. Two breasts were pressed into a tight vest made out of a tan suede-like material. They weren't actually that big, maybe B-cups, if I was any judge (and I never claimed to be), but they seemed to fill my vision. Then, I noticed my skin. It was a little less pale than it had been, more healthy and vibrant. But what caught my attention was the runes running over my bare arms and up my shoulders. It was a pattern of thick, black symbols I didn't recognize. None seemed to be on legs, which were also bare, except for some shorts of the same material and ankle boots. My hair hung free and was matted into golden-brown dreadlocks.

"I have tattoos!" I said.

"That's what you're worried about," Josh said. "I hate to break it to you, dude, but you're no longer a dude."

"I don't have a problem with that. I often play women in games."

"Yeah, but in normal VR you don't lose your dick."

Mack said, "Don't worry. We haven't lost you, Josh." He made an exaggerated and dismissive guffaw in response to the insult.

Aaron said, "You should also know, you have horns."

"Do I?" I reached up. Sure enough, two protrusions stuck out just above my hairline. But they weren't horns. They were antlers covered in a fine fur, and were maybe four inches tall at most. Each had a few short branches sticking out and ending in points. "Cool," I said.

"Well," Mack said. "I think we ought to celebrate girl-power." She held out her hand for me to high-five. In the background Josh muttered, "More like animal-power."

Our hands clapped, and she said, "And ... I'm level one now!" She turned to Josh and Aaron. "In your face noobs!"

Apparently, you just needed more than zero experience to reach the first level. There wasn't much difference between level zero and one though. But I'd gained 2 Life Force points and 1 attribute point I could put anywhere. I probably should have put it in my ultra-low Vigor, but I was still worried about that drop in IQ, so dumped it in Intellect. Intellect did seem to improve the effectiveness of my spell-casting, so it wasn't just vanity.

"Okay," Mack said. "As much as I enjoy being your superior, in every possible way. I think we need to get you some classes before more of those badger-men show up."

"The system identified them as bugbears," Aaron correct.

"We have a volunteer," Mack said, clearly not enjoying being corrected. "Katie, do your voodoo on our friend Aaron."

Aaron promptly disappeared. No. That wasn't right. He'd just shrunk and was hidden by the tall grass.