It was Saturday. Both Frank and Casey were busy today, but tomorrow, they’d agreed to come over for an adventure.

I was excited… and nervous. While they were my best friends I wholly trusted, I couldn’t help but worry. Would I be putting them in danger by telling them all the secrets? Would assassins come and attack us for spreading the word about RLO being a real world?

I sighed to myself.

I still knew nothing about what the devs’ deal was and I had no idea how to find out more without revealing myself. They probably had magical artifacts to track me down even if I messaged them anonymously from a public wi-fi network.

Putting that aside for the time being, today I had an entire day free. Mom sometimes worked on Saturdays as well, and today was one such day. That meant I had tons of time to explore the RLO world, experiment with more magical items, or investigate some more.

“What are you planning today, honey?” Mom asked me at breakfast.

“Umm, nothing much. Probably just gonna stay home. Frank and Casey are coming over tomorrow.”

“Alright then.” She gave me a strained smile.

“Uh, are you alright? You seem tired.”

“I’m okay… Probably just didn’t sleep too well,” she said whilst rubbing her eyes.

I glanced at her coffee mug and had the idea of mixing in a bit of healing potion into it. But on a second thought, I had no idea what that would even do. I knew nothing about fantasy chemistry. For all I knew, mixing coffee and the healing potions would create lethal poison instead.

We finished our breakfast and I said goodbye to Mom who soon left for work.

I felt like I should tell her about this whole portal thing. But at the same time, she already had a lot on her plate and I didn’t want to add more to it. What would she even think? How would she react to my fox form? Would she… call me her daughter?

With these awkward thoughts in mind, I transformed into the not-true form and set on washing the dishes.

Once done, it was time.

I sprinted off to my room, found a bag, and stuffed it with all sorts of items I’d smuggled in here before, equipped the robes, grabbed my staff, and once I was ready, I gripped the portal and opened it.

No shocks. No pain. Not even a blemish.

It was absolutely glorious.

I crossed over to the Golden Woods, feeling light despite the weight of the backpack.

Today was the big testing day. Obviously, I didn’t want to accidentally burn down the forest, so I’d already decided to go to a different area for this. I had a consumable teleport item on me to get there quickly, but I also kind of wanted to go there on foot. It wasn’t as if I was in a huge rush or anything. I wanted to savor the fresh air in this forest. It made me feel at ease. Way better than the polluted city air. 

Before that though, I wanted to visit Elyssa again. That poor woman, nobody ever visited her unless they wanted the true form skill. Even the past me had been like that. I should rectify that.

With that in mind, I closed the portal behind me and set off in the direction of her house.

As expected, the trip there was a breeze. My original agility and stamina couldn’t hold a candle to this not-true form. It almost felt like cheating. I wouldn’t feel bad about it, though. I deserved a bit of a break.

Upon arriving, I noticed someone at the hut, knocking on the door. A woman in leather armor and a bow… A typical mid-level archer setup. That was a player.

I hid behind a tree and waited while perking up my big ears. A second later, the door opened and Elyssa’s familiar voice reached me.

“Hmm? A visitor? Hello there. What brings you to this place?”

Huh…? That was… not what she usually said.

“Hello, I was just following the bushes, they were pointing at your home.”

That, on the other hand, was exactly the pre-coded player response.

“I see. Well, why don’t we come inside? You must be tired from your journey.”

The player walked inside and the door closed shut. I stood there for a second, confused. For some reason… Elyssa wasn’t using the same lines she had always used anymore.

Well… of course not. She wasn’t an NPC. She was a real person.

But that only brought up the question of… why had she been using those lines up till now? She had even used it when I had met her last time.

I shook my head.

I could just ask her… once that girl left.

With a sigh, I sat down next to the tree I had been hiding behind and instinctively pulled out my phone to kill some time while I waited for the player to leave… only to find out that it had no signal.

Obviously. There was no such thing as Wi-Fi in a fantasy world.

With another sigh, I put the phone back and sat there in silence.

In the meantime, I couldn’t help but let my mind wander back to the devs and this not-game. I wanted to know why they did this. What the point of it all was. Was this some kind of experiment for them? Were they trying to take over other worlds? Did they not realize this was a real world?

How could I ask them safely in case they were omnipotent evil gods or something?

I had no idea what kind of powers they had. Thinking about it, they’d either created this world, or they invaded it. And in both cases, they were pretty much in full control of it. Who knew what else they could do?

…

Well, they weren’t the only ones capable of invading a world, were they? I still had no idea why I could see the portals, but as far as I knew, nobody else could. And considering the game UI had no idea how to categorize the real me, it was safe to say that not even the devs knew about them. I was outside of their expectations.

Could I make use of that?

Could I contact them not as myself, but as a mysterious glitched entity inside their ‘game’?

There was a way to post on the forums from inside the game. But again, real life me didn’t have access to UI, so that was a dead end.

What else?

Hmm… the announcement system. You could put up a quest or an announcement in every city, and there was a way to do it manually instead of using UI. They also automatically filled in your username at the beginning. In other words, if I did that, it would display the jumbled words I apparently had.

Right. Yeah. I could do that. Put up an announcement saying… what? Something cryptic only the devs could puzzle out? Directly explaining this was a real world and not just a game? Or maybe…

My train of thought was interrupted by the hut’s door creaking open and a woman in leather armor stepping out. She had nice glowy green hair this time, probably picked that as her true form’s change.

She left without a word, the door closing behind her.

Seriously… It was normal to do that in a game. But when you realized Elyssa was a real human being, this was just rude.

I waited for the player to disappear behind the trees before I got closer to the hut again and knocked on it.

A few seconds later, it opened.

“Hmm? Oh! It’s you! You came back!”

Whoa, she was basically radiating happiness. Had nobody really ever returned to say hi to her?

“Hello.” I waved at her. “I, uh, I’m free today, so I just wanted to say hi.”

She chuckled. “Of course. I’m glad you came back, unlike the hundreds of other people passing through here.”

Hundreds of people…?

“Come on, let’s go inside.”

I nodded and followed her into her living room.

BottledChaos

Got my booster shot today. Luckily still no side effects except for an aching arm, so that's good. Obligatory patreon reminder, yo.