Michael

“Mommy, I want to go home,” Luna pleaded.

This hurts so much. She even said “Mommy” instead of “Mom”. …Not that that was normal in the first place. We need to get home.

“We’ll get out of here, sweetie. As soon as we can. Is there anything you want to do when we get home?” he asked his scared daughter.

“Umm… I want ice cream! Blue moon flavor!”¹Blue moon is flavor of ice cream mostly found in the Midwestern United States. No one can really agree on what it tastes like exactly.

“You got it, Luna. We’ll go out for some blue moon later.”

It’s been a while since we’ve had ice cream. That sounds pretty good, actually.

“Yaaay! I love you, Mom!”

Looks like I successfully distracted her.

Despite the rumbling of the dark cave they were in, the promise of ice cream had helped to relieve some of her tension. The situation was still abysmal, but Michael was just glad that Luna wasn’t panicking.

And I’m definitely ready to go back to being her dad.

The rumbling noises grew louder as time went on. It was two hours after the man’s deadline that he barged into the room, only to be met with a fortified wall going all the way from the floor to the ceiling.

A light mage on the players’ side set off a series of yellow flashes to indicate that the man had returned, and everyone in the cavern went dead silent. There was only a single, small opening in the wall, and a wind mage was using it to carry sound through.

“What is the meaning of this!?” the man screeched, his voice echoing throughout the cavern. “Do you think we won’t kill you for your disobedience!? Three, no, five hundred of you will die for this! Sarrent, take down this miserable wall!”

One of the subordinates, presumably Sarrent, replied, “Leader, we don’t have the manpower for that right now! The enemy is coming! There are thousands of them here, and the paralyzation tool is- FUCK, THEY’RE LISTENING!”

A series of red flashes went off this time, indicating that they had noticed the use of wind magic and to prepare for battle.

Michael and Amber both stood in front of Luna, ready to fight off anyone who might come through. Like the thousands of others trapped in the room with them, they were looking at the entrance and ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Loud bangs began to resound from the other side of the wall, but with so many earth mages constantly reinforcing it, the bad people weren’t having an easy time of it. Only a few minutes later, the noises stopped. A signal of yellow flashes went off again.

What could that mean? Do they suddenly want to talk?

A new voice echoed throughout the cavern this time. “To the Praexoent forces hiding behind the wall, surrender now and the Kingdom will be lenient with your sentencing.”

Someone from the players’ side yelled back, “Wait, wait! We’re not with those guys! They abducted us! We all just woke up here like twelve hours ago and have no idea what’s going on! If we take down the wall, can you promise not to attack immediately?”

“That remains to be seen. If you are telling the truth, we will help you get taken care of.”

Rather than the wall being taken down by the people who constructed it, a wide window was opened up instead so this new person could look at us.

“So many!” one of them murmured.

The new voice spoke up again,” Are you using wind magic to carry the sound throughout the entire space, or just part of it?”

“The entire space,” our apparent negotiator replied.

“Then, to everyone here, we will take care of you.”

Finally, we’ll get to see sunlight again. These new guys seem at least a bit better than the other ones.

 

———

 

The next several hours were unpleasant for one main reason: Bodies. There were bodies everywhere, and several people retched at the sight and smell.

The fact that so many people were so put off by seeing real bodies did help convince these new people—who turned out to be soldiers of the neighboring Kingdom—that we weren’t with the ones they’d killed.

Michael carried Luna on his back and had her keep her eyes closed, but wasn't anything he could do about the stench. But she had the good idea of plugging her nose with water, which he quickly copied. It didn’t eliminate the smell entirely, but it helped. Amber then used her earth magic to plug her nose with a bit of dirt, and many people began copying the trick.

Once they were as far away from the bodies as they could be, thanks to many of the soldiers and even some from the player group helping to get them out and away, Michael finally decided that this wasn’t the world of Torneltha as they knew it.

Mimicking such awful things in this level of visceral and disgusting detail just wasn’t possible yet. The game and the technology behind it were both incredible, but not that incredible. This was, somehow, a real world.

But this was, in fact, the world of Torneltha, just not the game version of it. The country that had been mentioned, Praexoent, was from the game, but they had been portrayed as being incredibly righteous and benevolent.

What a fucking farce.

This also meant that Michael was now actually a woman. This new reality had turned him into a character he technically hadn’t even created.

Once the bodies were dealt with and everything was cleaned up as much as it could be, a task which was significantly expedited by magic, some of the soldiers began organizing rudimentary places for everyone to sleep and get food.

The number of people originally from the Empire had totaled around 1,000 in number, but with most of them dead and the few survivors imprisoned, that left the roughly 2,000 Kingdom soldiers to fill up the space.

A small consolation here is that nobody seems to hate anyone else because of their species, so it doesn’t seem like there will be any problems just because of looking like an elf.

The base itself was arranged sort of like a very small and tight community. Much of it was underground, and the whole thing was entirely utilitarian in design.

There was a large stock of basic ingredients that their abductors had prepared as a food supply for them. It wasn’t great, but at least it was edible.

It’s no bowl of blue moon ice cream, though.

The stress and confusion of the whole day had left many people both physically and mentally exhausted. Despite the rough sleeping conditions, many were out in an instant.

Michael and Luna slept huddled up together, which they had done in the past. It was a habit they had fallen into after Mia’s death, and they had no other family besides each other.

They only had some rough blankets to lay on and cover themselves with, but they found out from the soldiers that earth mages could soften the soil beneath them to make it more comfortable. This wouldn’t be viable during the colder months, but during summer like this, it was fine.

The soldiers hadn’t anticipated having to suddenly take care of several thousand people, which meant that the blankets were from their abductors as well. They'd obviously had no intentions of properly taking care of the people they had taken.

“Hey, Amber?” Michael quietly called out to his friend who was bundled up next to them.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“How are you doing? I don’t think I asked you.”

“You were focused on your girl and personal situation, I understand,” she said, looking at the sleeping forming Luna snuggled up against him. “You still checked in with me earlier, though, even if you didn’t use that exact phrasing. But to answer your question, not so great.
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“In the game, I had a couple other people I played with regularly, but I know they weren’t logged in when we were taken. I’m happy about that, because it means they don’t have to deal with this. I do wish I could see them, though.
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“But in the real world… on Earth, I guess… I was finally building up a life for myself. I told you before how I had to move far away from my family and basically start over from nothing.
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“And now… all that work I did might be useless. Will we be able to get back? If we do, will we still be elves? I’m just so sick of having everything ripped away from me again and again.”

“I’m here,” he comforted. “My situation is weird, and I might’ve been distant since losing Mia, but I still want to be your friend.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disregard you like that. But I don’t think you were distant. You had less free time for your life and your hobbies, but we still talked and hung out when we could.”

“That’s a relief. It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time that I need to talk to people more, but it’s been hard to find the time.”

“You were doing fine. But what about right now? With your body being… You know…?”

“It still feels the same as when I woke up. Unfamiliar, but not wrong exactly. Even the different name and pronouns are like that. It’s like I’m some weird alternate version of myself. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s got me seriously concerned.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Mhmm. Goodnight, Michael,” she told him. They were far enough away from other people that she could say his real name.

“Goodnight, Amber.”