Maxwell

I shook my head at the sheer idiocy of what was going on. There must be an explanation to why I could no longer log out of the game. After I had tried everything I could possibly think of on my own, I peeked my head out of the tent entrance. Thankfully, Levada was nearby. I waved him into the tent while keeping a finger to my lips.

“My liege?” He asked as he ducked his head to enter the cramped tent. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing serious. Now, what I’m about to do might make me sound like a madman, but trust me when I say that I’m perfectly sane.” The NPCs of most games were nearly identical to humans intellengeince. I mean there had been thousands of experiments done to replicate the way human intelliengeince arose. They had all that just on a digital media. If I wanted to continue to play this game after the issue was handled, I would need him to be understanding.

“I… understand,” he said after only a slight hestination.

I chuckled at the elder. “I know. I know.” After that, I began to say every command that I could think of to get the attention of the Game masters as well as exit the game. After close to five minutes, Levada was understandably confused.

“What sort of incantation were you attempting to do, my liege?”

I decided to be half honest with him. “A few different spells actually. One was to summon a demi-god of the world. A few would have teleported me to another realm. A few that would allow me to speak to people far away from me…” I thought about that and quickly pulled my friend list. I breathed out when I saw that it had carried over like it was supposed to when one started a new game. I went through the list looking for any of my friends that might have been playing this game when it glitched out.

I was surprised when I saw Joshua’s icon, the only one of the entire list, that was lit up green meaning that he was in the game. I knew he knew about the game, but I hadn’t thought he actually played. Though thinking of the man, he probably wanted to surprise me when I logged in for the first time. There were several precedents of this behavior.

Tapping on his name, there was a long low beep. “Maxwell?” I heard only it was his avatar’s voice. I blinked as it was quite feminine.

“Joshua?” I asked slowly.

“Yeah, man. Are you stuck in the game as well?” he… she replied with a sullen tone.

“I sure am. I was hoping you were in a civilizied part of the world. I am basically in the middle of nowhere.” I looked around and saw Levada looking at me with a strange expression. I smiled and waved before moving back to my tent. I really would have to work hard to remove the insane impression that I’ve given him over the last half an hour.

“About that…” he started with a deep breath. “There was an announcement roughly five minutes ago. I’m not sure… I’m not sure if I believe it or not.”

“What was the announcement?” Thoughts of death games and experiments on human minds that were trapped went through my head. I might have watched a few too many shows in my youth.

“A government looking dude appeared floating over the city I’m staying in, but something was off about him. Anyway, this game was taken.”

“Taken?” I asked not really understanding.

There was a deep sigh with just a hint of scared in his voice as he continued. “So… An alien ship or something like that appeared in orbit of the U.S. capital.” I thought back to the bogus article I read before starting the game. Maybe it wasn’t shit after all. “They used their tech to basically copy this world to learn about us.”

Thoughts of probing immediately came to mind, but I quickly banished those. “What about our bodies?!” I demanded.

“This is the part I’m less inclined to believe.” I waited for him to continue. “We’re dead. They digitized our brains. In the process destroying our flesh and blood bodies.”

My thoughts froze. No way! I was dead… Sure this was a lie. And yet… something inside me seemed to accept what he said. What did this mean for my soul? I was a practical person, but I believed that I had a soul. Was it on its way to heaven while I sat here a digital copy?

I dropped to the ground. I started punching the ground harder and harder until the pain forced me to stop. I stared at the blood dropping from my ebony skin. My nails filed to sharp points in what the dark elves considered fashion. I took a shaking breath and rolled over onto my back. I realized that Joshua was calling my name.

“Sorry. I broke for a moment. What do you intend to do?” I asked deciding to distract myself for the moment.

“Until we have some way to prove one way or the other, I plan on living. The representative claimed that all systems would work like normal but recommended that we didn’t die too much. I’m only level three since I only started a day before you. If I play it safe, I should be able to steadily raise that up.”

“Pragmatic like always,” I commented a bit more sharply than I intended.

“Hey. If I’m dead-on Earth, then I want to make sure that I’m on scale with the rest of the people that are in this game. If we fall behind, we might end up being pushed around like nothing more than a low-level slime.”

Joshua had a point. The situation, well, it sucked hardcore. If I rolled over then I would be resigning myself to a life that wasn’t exactly great. I had no idea where the nearest city was. All I had was this tiny settlement of dark elves. Hell, if I died, I might revive right here and have to do that repeatedly until whatever the end result took effect.

“You’re right as usual,” I said finally. “Alright. I’ll live as best I can in this twisted world.”

“That’s the spirit!” Joshua paused before he added. “Hey, what class did you go with?”

“Lord.”

“Really! You had Lord open to you!?” he exclaimed excitedly.

“Yeah. There were so many to pick from that I went with the coolest sounding one,” I replied rubbing my head. I realized that he wouldn’t be able to see it and dropped my hand.

“That’s the name of your settlement?!” he continued.

“Dark Elf Village.” As soon as I said the words, a prompt opened asking that I name the village. “Hold on a second.” I thought about what to name the place. Part of me, the part still reeling from the situation I’d found myself in wanted to name it something like Hellhole, but that wouldn’t be fair to the people living here. Thinking through all the elven sounding names I knew of, I went with Alflona. I told Joshua the new name.

“Awesome! See you in a minute.” The communication went dead before I had a chance to ask what he meant.

There was a flash of light from the entrance of the tent. Rushing outside, I saw a woman standing a few dozen meters from the edge of the settlement. She had bright blue hair with pointed fox or wolf ears on the top of her head. A beautiful bushy tail extended nearly to the ground behind her.

“Joshua?” I asked rushing over to the woman. I had seen this very drawing on his screensaver of his computer. I waved to the few guards that had raised their weapons at her appearance and they stood down.

“Hey Maxwell. I’m actually glad you used your real name. It will make this easier. By the way, I’m Rowena of the Ice Wolf Clan here.”

I chuckled but nodded. “Got it. How’d you manage to get here?” I asked not that I wasn’t glad to see a friend.

“Every new character, except the lord class, is given one free teleportation. Since all the systems still work as intended, I used it to come to your village.” Joshua’s avatar or was it his true body now? Either way, it was hard for me to look at. He was using a leather armor that might as well not cover anything to start with. I knew it was Joshua, but at the same time, it was hard to not stare.

I cleared my throat to banish the thoughts. “I’m glad to see you, but you might come to regret that. I’m literally in the middle of nowhere,” I said gesturing to the forest and mountainside.

He crossed his arms before shaking his head. “Nonsense! We can work together to create an empire. Trust me. If this really is permanent, then you are one of the luckiest people in the world right now.”

I shrugged actually enjoying my friend’s enthusiasm. “Then by all means, step into my office,” I said with a hand directed at the tent.

“Sure…” He said with a wide grin. He moved and seemed to see his own hand and his face fell. I thought it was related to the fact that he’d become a woman, perhaps permanently. “I need to talk to you about something else first.”

“Sure. Go ahead.” He looked at the dark elves that while having mostly returned to their positions on watch or their bedrolls, were still mostly awake. I took the hint and led him to my tent. It wasn’t exactly private but it would do. Once the flaps fell closed we sat down as comfortably as possible.

“We’ve… known each other for a long time right?”

I met Joshua in high school. There was no one I considered a closer friend. “Yeah.”

“There is something I’ve been hiding from you.” I sat up straight. This wasn’t quite what I expected but I would listen until the end before I made a judgement. When a friend says they’ve been hiding something from you it was usually for a good reason. He took my silence as my acceptance and continued. “The truth of the matter is that I identify as female and I like men.”

My head ground to a stop for the second time today. I leaned back as I thought about what to say. If I wasn’t careful, I could lose my friend completely. I really didn’t see an issue with his declaration, but I understood why he told me, at least, I hoped I did. “I see. You are very cute in that form,” I said finally, smiling a bit. “In fact, I’ve been having a hard time keeping my eyes off you.”

“Good,” he, no I guess it should be she mumbled. I felt I wasn’t supposed to be able to hear that comment, but my elven ears were much better than human. She cleared her throat and smiled with even a tear rolling down the side of her cheek. “I was so worried you would be disgusted with me, but if stopped to think about it, I knew you wouldn’t be.”

“You’re my friend. No matter what,” I said simply.

She leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “I’m glad. Now then! Let’s build your empire!”

I laughed and returned her grip. “You got it!”