Michelle

There was nothing to do. All the temporary living spaces had been set up, and making food and keeping the place clean didn’t require the help of all 4,763 people from Earth working together.

And all the books and research that their abductors had had were confiscated due to the dangerous rituals within. Even though the gods permanently prevented the ritual from ever being carried out a second time, it was still something they didn’t want to trust a bunch of random strangers with.

All the people who originally inhabited the base had either been killed or captured. And because the soldiers had their own things going on and didn’t have entertaining the Earthlings as one of their priorities, that left everyone without anything interesting to occupy themselves with. People began playing games with their magic because they lacked everything else.

Some of the other players had already confirmed that other than the Empire’s own portrayal of themselves in the game, most of the other information about the world was generally okay. It was off in a lot of ways, but it was passable on a minimum level.

That’s something we’ll have to work on, though. It’d be bad to not know about the world. And I’ll have to think about where Luna should go to school, too.

Some of the soldiers had left on that first day to gather a ton of supplies for everyone; mostly clothes and basic necessities. Torneltha mainly only had carriages for transportation, however, so it was going to be some time before everyone had something, even with magically-enhanced horses and other creatures.

It was on their fourth day of boredom that someone the Kingdom had brought finished creating small statues of the gods and sanctifying them. The gods needed them as a sort of focus to help maintain the massive barrier they had created.

The room the statues had been created in was going to act as a temporary temple for a while. Apparently, the gods were going to be helping them out directly, as well. Turning a place like this into a temple would’ve ordinarily been out of the question, but this was a unique situation.

So just like that, everyone was lining up outside the statue room to meet the gods. They were going to be meeting everyone individually.

They were going to give people Gifts, which worked by somehow feeling out what a person wanted and giving them a magic ability related to that. The gods couldn’t read minds or anything, but they could see things about a person that weren’t visible to the naked eye.

That strange perception ability also extended to seeing what kind of person someone was. So if the gods thought someone didn’t deserve a Gift, then they wouldn’t get one. That was the only consequence for failing their judgment, however.

Not receiving a Gift just meant they thought that that person should reconsider their behavior and actions. And because every meeting with them would be private, no one would know whether or not someone had received a Gift.

I always wondered why players couldn’t receive Gifts, and I guess this is why. I had thought it was simply too much for the devs to implement something unique for every player, but it might’ve been because it was impossible for a Gift not given by the gods to be carried over into the real Torneltha.

Amber was the first of their group of four to step through the door, and when she came out, she was smiling. She briefly mentioned that her Gift was related to her cosplaying, but refused to say anything more than that just yet.

Michelle and Luna were next. All of the kids, what few there were, had to go through the door with an adult. She grabbed her daughter’s hand and they walked through the doorway together.

It’s a shame the few other kids here are all so much older than her, otherwise she might’ve had a friend or two for as long as we’re stuck in this gloomy research base.

 

———

 

Stepping through the doorway, Michelle wasn’t really sure what to expect from meeting actual gods. Except for the seven statues of said gods arranged in a semicircle, the room was otherwise pretty ordinary. Marks remained on the walls and floor in places where furniture had previously been placed.

The statues had a tangible aura to them, like a faint, warm hug to her very being. She already knew that the gods kept themselves hidden until the door was closed in an effort to keep people from crowding the room to try to catch a glimpse of them.

Michelle nervously shut the door behind them, and the seven gods appeared unceremoniously. There was one for each of the six elements; air, water, earth, fire, light, and shadow, and the seventh god was referred to as the Goddess of the Cycle, the caretaker of life and death, of creation and destruction.

The Goddess of the Cycle only appeared as a silhouette of light in the vague shape of a person. Despite the brightness of her light, it didn’t hurt to look at her. She had apparently chosen to stop appearing directly long ago, as the mortal versions of her species grew arrogant, thinking that they were better than everyone else just because the being at the top happened to match them in appearance.

The others were visible and of varying species. Though, unlike mortals, they each had a rainbowy sheen to them. Though they were each limited to a single element, they possessed every single modifier all at once.

“Hello, Michael and Luna,” the Goddess of the Cycle said.

Michelle may have somewhat accepted her new identity, but she was still thinking of herself as Michael, which is why that name was spoken instead.

It suddenly occurred to Michelle that she didn’t know any of their names, or if they even had names at all.

“Um… Hi,” she awkwardly replied. “…I have no idea how to act in this situation, sorry.”

Why didn’t anybody tell me if I was supposed to put my hands together and bow or something!?

“Hi!” Luna said, calmly waving at them.

The Goddess replied, “Your behavior is fine. I am sincerely sorry about what happened to both of you, along with everyone else involved. By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late to prevent it. We could only mitigate the damage and do our best to help you.”

“I thought it might be like that,” Michelle replied, recounting all the information she had heard in the past few days. “I asked some of the soldiers, but is there really no way for me to change my body?”

“There is not,” the God of Light, an elf, replied. “It is possible something like that may be developed in the future, but when or if that might be, is something we do not know.”

She nodded, already expecting a similar answer. “Okay. Luna, is there anything you want to ask them?”

She simply shook her head.

Being near them is making her much calmer than normal.

“I think that’s it, then,” Michelle said to them.

The Goddess of Water, a foxkin, shared glances with her fellow deities, then looked back to the two mortals. “We have conferred and decided on the Gifts you will receive. As you are both of the water element, it is my duty to bestow them.”

The Goddess held out her hands, and two orbs of water formed above them. The orbs gently floated away from her and into Michelle and Luna’s chests. They both felt a faint feeling of water flowing throughout their bodies.

Michelle was suddenly aware of a new ability she had, something she knew how to do on an instinctual level.

Smiling wide, she told them, “Thank you so much for this! I really love it!”

“Yeah!” Luna exclaimed. “I want to pet a dog!”

Michelle laughed, “What? What do you mean?”

“I can make an ice animal now!”

“Oh, that’s amazing, sweetie! I can’t wait to see!” she looked back at the Goddess of Water and the rest of the pantheon. “Thank you, all of you. I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah! Come on, Mom, let’s go!”

“You need to thank them first, sweetie.”

“Oh!” The young girl abruptly turned around, and before her mom could stop her, ran to the Goddess of Water and wrapped her in a sudden and tight hug. “Thank you, water goddess lady!”

Then she ran back to Michelle, who had become stiff and was trying to pull her by her hand back through the doorway.

“U-Um! I’m so sorry!” she called to them.

The Goddess of Water chuckled in amusement. “It’s okay,” she said.

Before she knew it, Michelle was back on the other side of the door. She was still a bit shocked, but managed to get out of the way of the line of people.

The door would be locked for a brief period of time between each visit, so Sarah took the opportunity to ask, “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“Ah, well, yes,” she awkwardly responded, still struggling to catch up with reality. “It went well. There was a surprise at the end, but I’ll tell you about it later. Looks like you’re up.”

She found where Amber was waiting and stiffly walked over to her.

Her friend commented, “Clearly something happened in there. Is it okay to talk about?”

“Yeah. Luna just decided to tackle hug the goddess, that’s all.”

“Wh-What!? Luna!”

“Was that bad?” the girl asked.

Michelle told her, “Not everyone wants to suddenly be hugged, especially if it’s by someone they don’t know. It turned out alright this time, but please keep that in mind in the future, okay? If you're unsure, just ask."

She nodded. “Okay, Mom.”

Still not used to being called that. But having even the gods tell me that I’m stuck like this actually helped a little bit. With no way back, my only remaining choice is forward.

“So, did you ask them?” Amber asked.

Michelle nodded, “I did. There’s no way for me to change my body.”

“Really? None at all?”

“I was told that someone might develop a way to do that in the future, but they didn’t know when or even if that would happen.
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“Unlike what we’ve heard about gods back home, these ones are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. That’s what people say about them, anyway, and that’s also the impression I got. That doesn’t mean they’re just above-average mortals, though.”

“So if even the gods don’t know everything, then…?”

“I’m not going to hold out hope. They might not be omniscient, but they still know a lot more than probably anyone else I could talk to about it.”

“How are you feeling about that?”

“Strangely, kind of better? Like, I might not be entirely clear on what my gender identity is anymore, but since I don’t have an easy way of going back to how I was before, if any way at all, it’s a lot easier to just focus on other things?”

“That’s good, then?”

She nodded. “Mhmm. Anyway, you mentioned something about a cosplay Gift?”

She smiled and nodded. “I’m not going to start playing around with it until we’re all somewhere no one can watch, but it allows me to alter weapons and armor in complex ways.”

“I can’t wait to see what amazing things you make now that you can create real fantasy items.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be awesome! Now tell me, what did you get?”

Michelle grinned. “I can make a working motorcycle made out of ice.”

“A fantasy motorcycle? Now that’s just ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous?” Sarah asked, joining the conversation.

“Michelle here can make a motorcycle now,” Amber explained to her.

Michelle rolled her eyes. “And Amber can now cosplay, but for real.”

They began walking to their shared little space—three tents outside with earthen walls surrounding them—as Luna had been fidgeting relentlessly while she waited to play with her Gift.

As soon as they were away from everyone else, Michelle said, “Okay, Luna. Let’s see what you can do.”