Josh had never been a male model. But of the three men in our little group, he was probably the most objectively attractive. He was tall, six-foot-two, although he claimed to be six-four. Thin, but not scrawny like Aaron. He had light brown hair that naturally feathered up and somehow managed to look stylish. His nose was too big and his teeth were a bit horsey, but when he smiled with his mouth closed, he could make a good impression on the fairer sex. (In general, the more he kept his mouth shut, the better of an impression he made on everyone.)

When he turned into his character, he shrunk a few inches. His body and his face became gaunt—stage four cancer gaunt. His ribs showed through his skin, which was flecked with moles and acne. He did have a surprising amount of muscle, but not body-builder bulging, more ropy like Gollum. He was bald, or rather his head was shaved. And his exposed skull was uneven and lumpy. He wore a pair of sandals and twine was tied around his waist with two (horrifically) small pieces of cloth hanging from it to cover his butt and groin. He leaned on a long yew staff while a thin line of drool dripped from his slack mouth. His muddy brown eyes were vacant.

Mack said, "What the fuck." Then, started laughing uncontrollably.

"Jesus!" Aaron said. "Now, I don't feel so bad about the whole wood sprite thing."

When Josh didn't react, I asked, "Hey buddy, you okay."

"I guess. Why do you ask?" His voice was slow and the words were mumbled.

"Um, would it be cool if I saw your character sheet?"

"Sure. Whatever. How do I do that?"

"Press the button that says 'share.'"

He did, and it came up in the air above the group. 

"An Intellect of two!" I couldn't help shouting.

"Is that bad?" he asked.

"Bad! Bad! I'm surprised you can talk."

Mack said to no one in-particular. "Wow! My slap did 2 points of damage. Awesome!" Everyone in the party must have gotten access to his sheet.

"Damn," Aaron said. "I didn't expect Katie to use my suggestions. But, huh, dumb and with a loincloth."

Mack said, "If only that was a loin cloth. It's more of a handkerchief. I'm fucking glad it's not windy."

Aaron said, "Wait. These are just game stats. Is he just acting dumb? What's going on?"

I said to Aaron, "Intelligence is always one of those tricky things in games. Strength is just a modifier for how hard you hit imaginary thing or can carry imaginary stuff, and because its all imaginary, it makes sense. But no matter what your Intelligence stat says, you still think the same way. You can use it for modifiers and whatnot, but wherever your character is in the scale, you still continue perceiving things the same way. Except, somehow—I don't know how—this game can actually change your real intelligence. I noticed that when I got my character. The points shifted a bit, and it took me just a little bit longer to do math. But I was still at twelve. Two ... I can't ... even ... imagine ..."

"Are you saying Katie lobotomized him?" Mack asked.

"Effectively."

Mack said, "Shit."

"Shit," Aaron repeated.

"And if that wasn't bad enough. His stats are just plain terrible. He gets no species bonuses or skills. Because he's a cleric without a god, he has all kinds of negative modifiers. And his one and only spell, requires he touch the person he heals, which will be next to useless in a battle. Thank goodness, his class calls upon Harmony for the effectiveness of the spells. Mine is linked to Intellect. If that was the case for him ..."

"He wouldn't be able to heal a paper cut," Mack finished.

Aaron bit their lip and wriggled up their little nose in thought, and honestly it was one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. But I didn't tell them that. They said, "Well, the godless thing is easily solved. We just have to get him to a temple, and make him pledge to whatever god it's in honor of."

Mack jumped in, "We can also assign names there."

"What if its some evil god? Like a one that demands human scarifies?" I asked. 

"Look at him," Aaron said. "Does it really matter at this point?"

Mack said, "It still won't fix his stupid problem."

"Hey, guys," Josh said. "What's a matter. Do I got something on my face or something." He rubbed his hand over his mouth and chin.

"We'll have to make sure he dumps every extra attribute point he gets into Intellect. Which, frankly, sucks because there's other stats that we could raise to make him a more effective healer."

"Well," Aaron said. "He'll need to level up to get those points. And that's going to be a slow go waiting for random encounters in this field. Might, I suggest we get a move on. That tower over there has to be a dungeon. I say we check it out."

"Sounds good to me," Mack said. "Lets grind the fuck out of that tower. What do you say, Cletus?"

Josh said, "Sure thing. What are we doing?"

So, we set off following the dirt road westward. We couldn't be sure it went to the tower but cutting through the woods made getting lost a near certainty. There was a little debate over whether we should skin and harvest the bugbears, but in this game that had to be done literally, and no one wanted to spend hours getting covered in blood and gore to obtain some hides and organs.

We'd been walking maybe an hour when Aaron's eyes went wide, and they stopped suddenly. 

"What is it? Do you sense something?" I asked. From the little I'd read, I didn't think he had any special sensory abilities, but it was possible.

Their face turned beet red. "No. Sorry. I was just reading up on wood sprites."

"Oh, something interesting?" Mack said coming up behind us. When they didn't say anything, she added, "Come on. Spill. We all have access to the same documentation. Are you really going to make me read it?"

"Fine," they said, looking as though it was the last thing they wanted to talk about. "Apparently, sprites have ... er ... you know ... um ... woman parts most of the time."

Josh laughed and slapped his thigh. "Woman parts!"

"Go on, " I said, trying to sound sympathetic.

"But once a year, for a few days, they—I grow a ... er ... manhood in addition to what's normally there."

"What's wrong with that?" Mack asked. "You used to have one of those every day of the year. Didn't you? Or ... did you?" She smirked slyly.

Aaron ignored her. "Apparently, when I have it, I have an uncontrollable need to mate."

"Oh."

"And not just with it. Both ways. Giving and receiving."

"Oh!"

I asked, "When does this happen? Is it a spring thing?"

"It's different for everyone. Its a right of passage. And just kind of happens for the first time to adolescent sprites by ... um ... surprise."

"Well, Katie did say it would be exciting," Mack said, and Aaron looked like they were going to kill her.

I knew then, at some point when I was feeling braver, I needed to read up on the mating habits of my species.

The sun was getting low in the sky and was about to dip behind the trees in front of us, when a cart came down the road behind us.

It was drawn by two large horses, a couple of figures sat on a bench in the front. The rear was taken up by a wooden box, not so much a carriage as a medieval cargo van. Two other horses with riders flanked it. There was a quick debate about whether we should hide, attack, or hail it.

They would have already seen us, so hiding was out. The two on horseback had bows and swords, making attacking here in the open seem suicidal with our current stats and equipment. So, we stood by the road and waited for them to catch up to us. As they neared, it became clear they were merchants. Various wares hung off the side of the storage box. On the bench was on rail-thin gray haired woman and a burly middle-aged woman. A young man and young woman were riding next to them. Despite their weaponry, their clothes looked ragged and were covered in many patches.

We decided Mack should speak for us. We wouldn't have picked Josh even if he'd been smarter than a house plant and certainly not in his current condition. Aaron just didn't command any authority in his present stature. And I—I'm ashamed to say–get very nervous around strangers.

"Hello there," she said, as they reined the horses in. Then in a stilted Shakespearean voice, she went on, "Well met, fellow travelers. We are a band of bold adventurers. We would be willing to guard your wagon from bandits. For a price."

The burly woman laughed so hard she nearly fell from her perch. "You? You're nothing but a sad bunch of vagabonds. I'd say you should pay us to protect you, but you don't look like you have two coins to rub together."

"Why you ugly bit–"

Aaron, always the peace keeper, punched her thigh and shushed her. Then, they approached the wagon. Next to the horses, they looked like a toddler. 

(A side note on Aaron. Their height may have been child-like, but in all other respects they resembled a woman in her late-teens or early-twenties. And a pretty attractive woman at that, especially with all that skin on display. If not for the green hair, you could see them at some trendy night club. Now, I'm not saying their new body made me want to get physical with my old friend, but everything about them, including the miniaturization, sent a warm glow burning in my nerdy heart.)

They said, "I wish you were not right. But my companions and I find ourselves in a bit a difficulty. Might you know if there is a temple near here where we might call upon their charity?"

"A temple?" the old woman said. "None in these parts. Not until you reach Thistle Brook. Unless there's some built by the wild folk of the woods. But I'll tell you what little lass, you may spend the night by our fire, and we'll spare a bit of our broth."

"They'll only slow down, Ma," the woman next to her said. 

"Nonsense. We'll need to set up camp before long. They can follow behind, and we'll meet up again soon enough."

They started moving again and left us, riding on into the growing dusk. Mack didn't want their help, but Aaron pointed out that we had no food and our Life Balance was dropping from our walking and not eating anything. She finally grudgingly agreed, and we followed after them.

Personally, I was happy we'd be spending the night with some company. I'd been killed too many times my first night in a game by wondering nocturnal monsters not to be worried about it. I could just see something slinking out of the forest and attacking us while we slept.

And have I ever told you, how much I hate to be right?