Elizabeth looked over the character sheet on the tablet. She had spent the past two weeks scouring the options, trying to make the best character she could. After all, it would be her character, her body, for the next phase of her life.

She had help, of course, which she greatly appreciated. But even with all their efforts, she felt like she had only a surface understanding of what was possible. With how much information was presented to them, she felt like it would take them years just to read it all, never mind actually understanding it. It was much more than was publicly available. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to keep going through the information, even if they were allowed, not anymore. Her brother needed help now.

It was worrying how quickly his situation had deteriorated in the past month. A few months ago the doctors said that he had at least a few more years left before things got serious, but now they said he had less than a few months. That’s why she had to take such drastic action. Otherwise, she’d lose her brother. She couldn’t let that happen, not after their parents died. She couldn’t lose her only family.

Leaving him behind would be difficult, but it had to be done. It was the only way to save him. Never seeing him again would be better than burying him, like she had to bury her parents. He would have to live on, without her. She hoped he would forgive her.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked the man sitting next to her, the same man who helped her create her new body.

"About what?" He responded while looking over his own sheet. He was coming with her, and had to create his own character.

"About coming with me, Ben. You don't have to; this isn't your problem." She answered, hugging her tablet close to her chest. She didn’t want to be alone, but she also didn’t want him to have to leave his family behind, either. He had already been so kind to her, she couldn’t possibly ask more of him.

"Am I not your friend, Liz?" He asked, turning toward her, pausing his review of his own tablet.

"W-what? Of course you are!" It was terrible that he was even insinuating that he wasn’t, not after what he had done for her.

"And If I were to ignore this, what would happen to your brother?" He questioned, putting his tablet aside.

"I... I’d find a way... somehow..." She said, looking down at the dark carpet beneath them.

Ben gently turned her head back towards him. "Liz, not even my family could find a doctor who could cure your brother. The Alii are the only ones who have the resources and knowledge to do so." He gave his friend a comforting smile, one built upon over a decade of friendship. "Don't worry, your brother will be alright. Once we go through, they will fix him up, right as a rainbow. I'm sure he'll be bouncing off the walls in no time. My family will take care of him. And even if they don’t, I set up a fund that should let him live all the way through retirement. Your brother will be fine, it’s time to think more about your own future.”

Elizabeth returned his smile with one of her own. "You're right!" She looked down for a moment, before shaking her head. "Thanks, I needed that. And... Thank you for coming with me too. I don't know what I'd do alone."

"What are friends for?" He chuckled to himself. "Besides, it's not like I don't get anything out of this. Isn't that right, Elwen?"

Elizabeth blushed and hurriedly hid behind her tablet. "B-Ben! Don't talk about things like that!"

"Like what? Like you agreed to be my little pet when we get to the other side?"

Elizabeth's blush became deeper with his words.

"Honestly, I was surprised. I mean, who would have expected that you would accept my demands so easily? I certainly didn’t.” He teased, laughing to himself. “If I did, I would have joked about it sooner." He reached out to hold her head and bring it out of hiding, forcing their eyes to meet. "I promise everything will be alright. I will take care of you." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead as her blush deepened once again.

Elizabeth froze for a moment, as she processed what he said. Of course, she was worried about her brother. After all, he would be almost alone after she left. However, she was also nervous about her own future. She was never a fighter, she didn’t even know how to fight, and yet they were entering a world in which it was almost second nature to the inhabitants. Somehow, Ben recognized her worries even though she wasn’t aware of them. His words gave her a comfort she couldn’t describe with words. She knew she would be safe; Ben always kept his promises.

“Now then did you look over your sheet completely?” He asked as her let her go and gave her some of her space back. “Did everything port over?”

“Y-yes. I think everything ported fine. The race, starting class, attributes, everything looks the same in their system as it does in mine.” She said looking back down at her tablet. “Although I’m still not sure about this….”

“About what?”

“About the… well… my body.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s just… Why do you want me to be so short? I mean, I’m already shorter than most girls, and with this, I’ll be even shorter. Besides with you being so big, won’t it be awkward?”

“What’s awkward about it? I like short girls. Short girls are cute. And you’ll be the cutest of them all.” Varian grinned. He wasn’t lying. She really would be the cutest of them all. He made sure of it. He even tasked his personal AI with coming up with the best appearance parameters for her. It took far too many computing cycles than any one task should have taken, but he was happy with the results.

Elizabeth looked back up at him. “But… do you really want me to be cute? I thought guys liked girls who were more… uhm… s-sexy?” Her voice died a little bit with each word, her embarrassment rising as she uttered every syllable. Ben could clearly see it on her face, and her cute expression brought a smile to his face.

“Hmm… They do, but they also like cute girls. You fit the ‘cute girl’ image better, so we’ll go with that. Besides, it’s not that much different than you already are.”

Elizbeth glanced at her height characteristic. “But still… With this I’ll barely be 5 foot…”

“Err… I think you did your math wrong. That’s 4’11.”” Varian pointed out her mistake. She probably used 2.45 instead of 2.54, silly her. Still, it was weird that the Alii were asking for heights in centimeters. Or rather, it was weird that they were still using feet and inches. They measured everything else in metric, why keep the old system for height? At least they weren’t like the silly British and measuring weight in rocks or whatever.

“What? But you’ll be...”

“6’6,’’ Yes.”

“But that’s almost two feet taller than me!”

“Yep, it’ll be perfect.”

Elizabeth looked back down at her tablet worriedly. “I’m not so sure about this…”

“Trust me, it’ll be fine. It’ll make you nice and easy to pick up and carry around.” Elizabeth angrily stared at Ben for a moment, puffing out her cheeks, as he brightly smiled back at her.

“Well, you’ll have to have the strength department down, because all of my points are in the magic department,” she responded, deflating her cheeks and returning her attention to the tablet.

“And charisma.” He quipped.

“Right, and what’s that useful for?”

“It’ll make you look all pretty when I walk you around!” He bubbled as she continued to look at him like he was some kind of degenerate. He looked at her, then coughed into his hand before answering more seriously. “As a sorcerer, you’ll have access to all kinds of magic. Some of that magic is heavily influenced by your charisma stat, so it would be wise to spread points between your intelligence and charisma for your supportive stat for magic, that way you’ll be able to utilize more magic.”

“Really? I thought spells only used the intelligence and magic stat.”

“Most of the well-documented spells rely exclusively on intelligence. However, there are also a lot of spells that use charisma too, and according to the information the Alii gave us earlier, a lot of the higher ranked stuff needs both. Besides, it will help you with other things too.”

“Like what?” Elizabeth asked, tilting her head.

“… You did read the skill section, right?” There were hundreds if not thousands of skills in the system. The Alii had provided them with a general explanation of how various parts of the game worked, including the skill system. They also provided several examples of what they considered the most important skills. It was an important read, anyone who didn’t read it would probably flounder around a lot before they finally died.

“Of course I did!” She responded, puffing out her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if she actually did, there was she had to read the past few weeks. Most of it was terribly boring, too.

‘She’s clearly lying.’ Ben sighed. He was going to have to spend a lot of time explaining things to her, wasn’t he?

It’s not her fault though, the Alii weren’t exactly good at providing good teaching material, and he wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a tutorial or help program on the other side. He, being an avid gamer, had no trouble understanding the information. It was just like another VRMMO that he played, albeit with more depth. If he owned the developer, he would have sued them for copyright infringement.

He chuckled to himself. ‘How would one even go about suing the Alii? Would they even bother to show up?”

Elizabeth, on the other hand, had no such experience, at least to his knowledge. Sure, he had made her play a few games in the past, but it was a long time ago, and she never really spent the time to dissect and understand the mechanics of how the game worked. It was more of a fun activity to do with friends for a while. And that was fine for him, he never expected her to be like him. Still, he couldn’t help but regret that they couldn’t spend more time together when they were younger.

“The magic is the best part; I can’t wait to start!” Elizabeth’s excited cry broke Ben out of his thoughts.

“I’m sure it’ll be great. But still, I want you to be careful with it when we first get over there. Magic isn’t exactly common over there and I don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention when we are still getting started.”

“Wait really? I thought everyone would have magic. I mean, it’s magic! Who wouldn’t want to have magic?”

“It’s apparently nearly impossible to unlock, and really punishing for players that start with it. Most players who try to start with it die early and have to reset their characters. So, it’s rather rare, and therefore valuable, which is why I’d like it if you kept it hidden, at least in front of players. It could be dangerous if they got the wrong ideas."

“You have a point, I’ll be careful. But still, I can’t believe that everyone wouldn’t choose magic…” She lightly giggled “I guess that just means that I’ll be more special.”

Ben warmly smiled at her. “I already knew that, Liz.”

“Attention: transfer ready. Please confirm final selections and proceed to transfer pod” A voice announced from the strange PA system. As it finished, confirmation dialogues opened on their tablets.

“Well, I guess it’s time to go,” Ben said as he locked in his character creation options. “I would say goodbye, but we’ll see each other again shortly.”

“Y-yes, see you soon.” Elizabeth tried to smile and send him off well, but in truth, she was nervous. Really nervous. They were getting ready to step into a new world, from which they could never return. No one really knows why the Alii want humans to join their virtual world. Sure, they have a general idea of what happens in there, and how they transfer people into it. After all, there is similar technology on Earth, just not as realistic as the version the Alii is said to be. The human version isn’t one way too.

Elizabeth turned her attention back to her tablet and, after a moment of hesitation, clicked the confirmation button. Shortly, the door to the room she was assigned to swished open, and she could see the pod she was to use in the center of the small room.

“Attention: According to Avatar wishes, Medical Unit 487 has been dispatched to entity ‘Timothy Snow.’ Scanning target. Analysis Complete. Treatment regimen confirmed. Restorative process will commence in three hours, twenty-seven minutes”

When the words over the speaker reached her ears, Elizabeth felt a flood of emotion wash over her. She was almost angry, that the ailment that human doctors had tried for months to diagnose and treat could be so quickly and easily treated by the Alii. She was saddened that she would never see any of her friends again. But most of all, she was glad that her brother could live again.

With the last of her worries resolved, she entered the small room and stepped into the pod. Although, in her mind, it was more of a coffin. As the pod closed around her, she saw the lights outside dim. Once the pod fully enveloped her, she heard a hissing noise as the pod sealed and a few tiny lights flicker on in the inside. A few seconds later the pod began to pump in a sleeping gas.  As her eyes struggled to stay open, she heard a muffled voice and felt the pod begin to fill with a warm liquid. It wasn’t long before gas took its hold on her and she fell into a deep sleep.