Prysmcat

CW: Unpleasant sexist/transphobic attitudes, but no explicit slurs; some bad language; no explicit sex; mild video-game violence.

About 19.5K words.

One included player race has no inherent sex. Since I’m using pronouns appropriate to each character, regardless of player gender identity, this meant I needed gender-neutral pronouns. While I absolutely support the right of everyone to choose which pronouns apply to them, I personally find that singular “they” is clumsy and ambiguous and awkward in narrative text that involves multiple characters. So at that point, I’ll be using neopronouns that I hope will quickly become just part of the background and not feel distracting to readers: en/en/ens/enself. En picked up the book. The book belonged to en. The book was ens. En bought it enself. I’m sorry if that’s jarring for anyone—I believe that the words themselves should be invisible as much as possible, but there’s really no way they could be in this situation without distorting the story.

Cameron did a cursory check on his gear, then stepped naked into the tube and leaned back. Responding to his weight and pressure, it tilted to a comfortable angle as the foam surface under him expanded slightly to keep him secure. The cover slid across soundlessly, isolating him from the real world into one of his own, illuminated only by soft indirect LEDs. A sculpted plastic frame fitted exactly to him slid out from behind his head to either side and closed gently around it, electrodes adjusting themselves into contact.

“Test stream connection,” he said. “Username Silence.”

“Username confirmed,” a neutral female voice said. “Connection valid and on standby.” The interior of the pod began to fill with body-temperature conductive gel.

“Log in to Anterra.”

“Connecting to Anterra servers.”

Colour sparkled in his visual field, and coalesced into a floating box bearing a list of names. He had no intention of giving anyone else a glimpse of that list of characters he had created over time in his favourite game. He always made sure he was fully in the game and in the right character before starting the stream. His public face was easy to find, since the list colour-coded characters by any criteria the player chose.

For just a heartbeat or two, he felt short of breath, then that passed. The pod was designed to snake the respiration mask across once a player was in the process of logging in, so the distraction would reduce the panic some people had felt back in the day. He knew it was extending other gear to take care of inconvenient waste issues that could otherwise limit playing time. He didn’t really care, personally. He’d logged in so many times that he wasn’t going to panic over anything so familiar. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was a low price for his escape and his livelihood.

Brief disorientation, then, slowly, everything changed. He flexed, feeling the powerful muscles of his great Orc warrior BlightTheBloodied. The weight of his armour alone would have left a lesser man, or at least a player of lower level and most races, flat in the dirt and unable to rise; his preferred solution to obstacles and inconveniences was an enormous studded club, slung over one broad shoulder. He loomed over most other players, with the bulk to match the height, a massive green-skinned tusked natural disaster on two legs.

Around him was the camp he’d set up before stopping the previous day.

“Activate streaming.”

“Streaming activated. You are now live.”

Blight raised both hands in the air and bellowed, “Welcome to the stream, puny humans! We’re back in my true home, Anterra! You have my permission to watch while I go on another adventure today! Rumour has it that there’s a new location, with a treasure that no one has successfully claimed yet. So I’m headed into the Iron Mountains, in search of the Temple of Lost Souls! If anyone can do it, it’s Blight the Bloodied! Guild members who want to join me for the glory can meet me at the Rusted Outpost. I’ll be stopping by on my way through. As for the rest of you... tribute can be paid by subscribing. You also get live chat sessions once a week and, at upper tiers, a chance to hang out with me in-game. Tribute lets me keep exploring all the corners of Anterra, the greatest VR world ever! Time to break camp and get moving! You know the deal: messages are appreciated but I generally can’t stop to check them while on a quest. I’ll do what I can to reply in quieter moments, and I’ll make time at the end of the stream.”

Few mounts in the game were large enough to handle Blight’s mass, and he hadn’t bothered trying to acquire one. He packed everything up efficiently and shoved it into the ample space in his Ultimate Storage Pocket. It had to be anchored to some physical item, and his was linked to a flashy gold earring that just dared anyone to try for it. Occasionally someone did. They didn’t make a second attempt.

The road that led to the Rusted Outpost was just east of his campsite. Several of his Guild members had voiced an interest in coming on this quest with him. The odds of failure were lower if they travelled with Blight, and they could have the privilege of being there when this treasure was claimed for the first time.

He wasn’t going to argue. Only subscribers could join the Guild, and subs paid the bills.

What they didn’t know, and he couldn’t tell, was that a major ongoing sponsor deal had been proposed but not yet confirmed. A demonstration that he was the greatest gamer in Anterra could secure that for him, and while he didn’t exactly need more money—he could easily pay for his real-life needs from his subs, and more of his life was in Anterra than his followers knew—he was pragmatic enough to know that the more he could squirrel away in the bank, the longer that perfect state of affairs could continue.

All he had to do was make it through the Iron Mountains, a range with a deceptively simple name considering the many threats that players encountered within, and find a hidden temple, and deal with whatever traps and trials the temple held.

Nothing to it. There wasn’t much in the game that wouldn’t go down under Blight’s mighty club. It was a bit monotonous, at moments, but circuitous hints about a new character, a different race/class combo to change things up, had not been well-received by his Guild or stream followers, so for the time being, Blight continued to exist and got near-daily stream time.

He rather enjoyed just walking alone in the wilderness, but that wasn’t very exciting for his audience. He livened it up a bit by talking. The most appropriate subject, currently, around responding to the odd comment from viewers, felt like the last time he’d heard about a treasure no one had yet reached.

“So there we are, me and JackSlasher and Talok_Vivisector and Skullboner_the_Mammoth—haven’t seen you around in a while—up against this whole damned army of undead, right from skeletons I could take down ten a swing, up to some pretty badass lich lords, and they were resisting every attempt Boner made to control them...”

He reached the road, and paused to listen.

Hoofbeats, coming from the south.

“Sounds like someone else is in the area. Maybe it’ll be someone fun. If they’re mounted, then they’ll probably catch up with me before long. So, anyway, the necromancer behind this undead army...”

He was still well short of the Rusted Outpost when the rider reached him. She slowed her mount and greeted him with a wary nod, keeping out of his reach. “Sir orc,” she said politely.

He could see only her name: Jessamine_Summerrain. Anterra believed that allowing players to simply see details about each other hovering overhead ruined immersion, so he had to work it out for himself.

Light skin with a faintly porcelain-pink tint—and hip-length hair dyed the blue of summer sky with buttercup-yellow ends. Nothing suggested that she was anything but Human, her build athletic and moderately tall.

He couldn’t tell whether she was wearing a long skirt or very loose pants, but either way, they were tie-dyed in sunset colours of violet and rose with hints of deep yellow; at least her high boots under them looked practical, and the white leather matched with her ruffled poet’s shirt—the long sleeves were loose and gathered, and there were laces at the throat that weren’t tied all that tightly, though nothing showed. She had a sort of vest over it that laced rather snugly, enough to enhance her curves. Her blue hair was held back from her face with a fringed violet scarf, and she had silver bangles on one wrist, large silver hoop earrings, and a heavy silver chain around her throat supporting something that he couldn’t see under her shirt.

Her white leather belt held only a long dagger with a fancy hilt and a white leather pouch with a buttoned top.

Her mount was, of all things, a unicorn, although not like any he had seen before. The body was a soft grey, not dingy at all but bright and shimmering in the sunlight—he hadn’t realized that there was any such thing as a grey unicorn. The spiralled horn and delicate horselike hooves gleamed like polished amber, and the very long mane and tail shaded through sky blue and rose and violet. The whole beast looked frail and insubstantial; high-quality unicorns could be powerful mounts, but aside from the unusual colouring, this looked like a basic one. The saddle and bridle it wore were minimal but highly-decorated, and the leather was pink.

Of all things, the saddle had a wicker basket attached just behind the rider, and there was a slender, fluffy calico cat, white with splotches of orange and black, curled up comfortably in it on a patterned pink cushion and looking around.

“Lady, ah... mage?” He certainly hoped so, for her sake—and that she hadn’t chosen spells that looked pretty without substance. The cat must be a familiar, right?

“Something like that.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Jessamine glanced at him, deeper-blue eyebrows drawing down. “Yes, I do. Do you?”

“This is a dangerous area. You’re not dressed for it. Maybe you should trot that unicorn back towards the city where it would be safer, eh?”

“Thank you for the concern.” The temperature of her voice dropped several degrees. “I’m a big girl. Good-bye.” She nudged the unicorn into a trot.

Blight shrugged. “Yell if you get in trouble,” he called after her. “I’ll listen for you. Maybe come rescue you.”

Jessamine ignored him.

“Ah, well,” he said to his audience. “Girl’s obviously underestimating the area. No armour, no weapons, low-level unicorn, and that horn is decorative, the things can’t fight unless you pay for a warmount enhancement, which just isn’t worth it on something like that. Probably should have spent less gold on the fancy clothes and dying her hair and the unicorn, and more on some decent optimized gear. She’s going to get herself killed out here. Not my problem, I guess.”

A short time later, he reached the Rusted Outpost, a rough wooden structure of substantial size, surrounded by a palisade with a single gate, currently standing open. A scattering of smaller structures included storage space and a blacksmith who could do repairs, for a higher fee than in civilized areas.

The unicorn was hitched outside the main building, the cat asleep in the basket. Next to them was a large horse with what he thought was called a bay roan coat, a deep reddish brown densely flecked with white on the trunk but less so on the head and legs, the mane and tail and lower legs near-black, and those tufts of hair on the feet nearly covering the hooves were black too. The saddle and bridle were graphite-black with rust-red highlights. There was a donkey with them, even smaller than the unicorn, an unimpressive brownish beast, with several bags and baskets strapped to its back.

The mechanics of the game did allow for consequences depending on how one treated mounts or companion animals. These ones, he had to admit, looked very healthy and calm.

At the hitching post on the opposite side of the door, he recognized the sleek black warhorse that Battlerage liked to ride, in its blood-red and chrome tack and armour, and the six-legged red-scaled wardrake Apexecutioner had recently won as a quest prize, in complicated-looking black gear.

Three warriors with different specialties, plus he expected the wizard Uxium_Ixium to be joining them. Not a very balanced party. Maybe a rogue or a healer would show up to join them. Sometimes these quests involved traps, and it would help to have a rogue to identify them, and having a healer around was always useful.

He had to duck and turn sideways to get through the door.

The outpost had several functions. To one side, through a broad open doorway, one could shop for consumables and some basic gear; occasionally, a rare find turned up for sale. Stairs up led to rooms one could rent, guaranteeing the best possible rest and the associated bonuses the following day. The main room had two long rectangular tables surrounded by benches, flanking a large open fireplace.

At one table was blue-haired Jessamine_Summerrain, of course, and across from her was a second woman, whose tag declared her name to be simply Elavetha. Elavetha looked like she might be a ranger-type: her thigh-high flat-heeled boots, her fitted jerkin, her bronze-studded bracers, the belt supporting her hunting knife, were all brown leather, while the long-sleeved shirt and what showed of her trousers were kelly green. Despite that, she wasn’t currently armed. Her skin was a deep brown with faintly green highlights; her hair was cropped short, a lock falling across her forehead but too far to the side to obscure her vision—and it shaded from a startling cardinal red at the roots to kelly green at the ends. Even her lips were dark green, and her eyes were lined dark with green on the lids.

The skin colour and the tall, slender build suggested that she was a Sylvan, Anterra’s answer to wood elves, but the hair and makeup were definitely non-standard.

Both were eating, and engaged in animated conversation.

At the other table were the three companions Blight was expecting.

Battlerage’s gleaming chrome armour allowed no glimpse of anything under it, though he’d removed his full-face helm and set it on the table beside him for the moment. That allowed them to see the rugged features, the short blonde hair and cropped beard, the narrow eyes. A two-handed sword was slung across his back.

Across from him was Apexecutioner, in unrelieved black—most of it leather, but even the mail was darkened. His preferred weapon, a black recurve bow, rested across his back with a quiver of owl-feathered stealth arrows, but he had a compact axe, inevitably black, slung at one side for close-range use. He invariably wore a hood with a mask across his upper face, leaving his lower face the only exposed skin on his body. That exposed skin was grey-black. Blight wasn’t sure whether he’d chosen to be a Nocturnal for the stat bonuses and night vision or to fit the monochrome theme.

Beside Apex was their Human wizard, Uxium_Ixium. He considered robes far too girly, and instead went for black leather trousers and boots and lightweight armour, blood-red shirt beneath, and a long coat of black with blood-red mystical symbols scattered across it. Over perfectly straight black hair he wore a gold circlet, shaped at the front into a grinning demonic face with three glowing red gems for eyes. A black staff, the head shaped like a cobra arched over a large faceted red gem, leaned against the table close at hand.

All three were long-time subscribers to Cameron’s streaming channel as the gamer called Silence; two were long-time members of the Guild of Silence in Anterra specifically.

Each of the three had a mug of ale, and they appeared to be trying to outdo each other in volume as they boasted about previous quest runs.

Blight stomped over to the bar to buy an orc-sized ale and joined them, taking the waiting seat at the end of the table. He was too accustomed to the appalling taste for more than a grimace at the first swig.

After due greetings, Blight outlined the plan for them, and shared what he’d been able to find about where they were going.

His gaze kept coming back to the two women, though.

“What’s with you?” Apex asked. “You don’t usually get distracted by bitches, bro. Besides, you’d break those two.”

“Rangers sometimes have some rogue skills,” Blight said. “Checking for traps. Other one rides a unicorn. Might have some healing skills.”

“I’m not doing this run with girls,” Battlerage said scornfully. “Especially a couple of hippie-types.”

“We’d spend more time rescuing them than getting anything done,” Uxium said. “Not what I’m here for. I wanna kill some monsters.”

Blight shrugged. He doubted the two women would have joined them anyway. If they were out here, they were probably doing some quest of their own. “Whatever. Just a thought. Finish your drinks, we’ll check we’ve got everything, and we’ll head out.”