“Most realistic dream I’ve ever had,” I muttered, watching the six-legged rabbit in the grass. The animal froze when its single eye found me, and for a moment both of us stood still. I wondered whether the rabbit felt just as weirded out as I did. It blinked once before shooting up and away, scrambling back into its burrow.

Well, I hoped that I’d remember the creature’s design when I woke up. I had been stuck on my latest project for a while now, and fresh ideas like this were good for overcoming my artist’s block. I reached into the pockets of the unfamiliar pair of shorts I wore, searching for something to sketch on. I needed to take notes if I didn’t want to forget all of this.

“Wait a minute… ” I mumbled, scratching my head. Perhaps taking notes within the dream wasn’t a good idea. Under different circumstances I’d have said stupid idea, but since this definitely was a dream, I didn’t have to be so harsh on myself. Dreams weren’t always logical. And my pockets were empty anyway.

I stood up and took another look at the grassy plateau, squinting in the afternoon sun. There were many more hills around the one I stood on, with a small river snaking in between them. Although some people might have called this landscape beautiful, I didn’t like it that much. It felt boring and sterile. Artificial, like the default wallpaper on my computer.

My hilltop had some peculiar sights on it, however. A dilapidated wooden shed stood in the middle, serving no particular purpose I could think of. The small group of confused people I had woken up with gathered at one side of the building, while a pair of white-haired, blue-skinned humanoid creatures stood at the other side. Everyone – even the blue figures – wore the same clothes; a simple gray shirt, a pair of beige shorts, and leather hiking boots. Oh, and everyone had a pitch-black metallic collar around the neck too. Even me. This dream was just weird like that.

I ran my fingers around my collar, feeling at its smooth surface. No seams or clamps holding it together; it was as if the metal had been molded directly around my neck. It fit me perfectly, not chafing my skin at all, and its weight felt tolerable. I wondered what it was good for; did it have any practical use, or was it purely cosmetic?

As if on cue, my collar let out a soft hum and a hologram full of colors appeared at half an arm’s length in front of me. The first thing that caught my attention was a full-bodied model of myself in the middle of the screen, staring back at me. Thin frame, messy dark hair, pale face shown in incredible detail; I could make out my green eyes and the stubble on my chin. Even in my dreams I had that sleepy look, I noted with displeasure. I reached out and waved my hand through the hologram, and my miniature mimicked the motion.

“Woah, woah, woah!” the short girl called Imaya exclaimed, hurrying to me. She was the only one from the group who had bothered to introduce herself. “Dude, how did you do that?!”

“Umm … I thought about what the collar was for, I guess?”

A second later she had her own hologram up and running, her eyes widening as she took in the details. There was a whole bunch of brackets, lists, and tables surrounding my miniature. Five buttons – Weapon Skills, Abilities, Equipment, Company, and Quests – occupied the left side of the screen, while on the right side there were five lines called Attributes. My first name was written on the top of the screen alongside a Level 1, while on the bottom there were a bunch of bars. I lost interest quickly though, so with a twist of my will I ordered the collar to end the projection. And then I turned it on again. Then off, and on once again for good measure. Mind-reading technology? Super cool. I wished we had such a thing in real life.

“Wow,” Imaya whispered in awe, touching the hologram to navigate through its screens. “I can’t believe it’s happening. I’ve read so many fictions about this, played so many games! Guys, do you know what has just happened? We’ve been transported into a videogame!”

Her announcement was met with an awkward silence.

“Yes, of course,” the other girl from our group said. “Does anyone have other, hopefully more realistic guesses?”

She looked at me pointedly as her question hung in the air, and I returned the courtesy. Her piercing blue eyes were framed with sandy brown hair that fell down to her shoulders. Tanned skin, lean body, confident pose. She had the air of competent and composed person, up till the point she accidentally activated her collar and let out a startled little yelp.

“This is freaky,” the black guy from behind the girls spoke up. He was almost a head taller than me, with a bald head but an impressive amount of beard. “Someone has kidnapped us, put us into these clothes, and left us in the middle of nowhere with this strange technology that sure as hell doesn’t exist on Earth. I’m not saying I’m freaking out, but yeah, actually, I am.”

“Plus there are those blue elves too!” Imaya pointed out in case we had forgotten. “If this is a trick, it must be a really elaborate one!”

“We should put together what we know,” the last of the group, a blonde-haired pretty guy said. “Before we jump to conclusions, let’s start at the beginning. Does anyone have any memory about how we got here?”

“The last thing I remember is going to sleep in my bed,” Imaya said with barely suppressed excitement. “But I know what this is supposed to be. Another world with game-like rules, possibly a virtual reality! See your collar’s interface? It’s exactly like a UI of an RPG! And those blue elves over there—I bet they are NPC-s!”

That was pretty much enough nerd talk for me, so I stalked away from the group. How strange! Although I had wondered last week whether I should get a gaming console, I wasn’t actually planning to buy one. My subconscious must have been more bothered by it than I had thought, if it had dreamed all this stuff up. Hopefully I wouldn’t be as awful in this dream as I usually was in videogames. I could walk just fine, which was already a promising sign.

I decided to approach the two blue-skinned figures on the other side of the hill. They were standing at the edge of our plateau, watching something at the bottom of the slope. Imaya had called these people elves, and I could see where she was coming from. The graceful movements, the lean body, and the pointed ears of these blue aliens indeed fit some stereotypes. There weren’t exactly like high-elves from a fantasy book, however.

As I got closer, I could see that both of them were about the same height as me. Their silvery-white hair, long for the female and short for the male, clashed with their dark blue skin nicely. Each of them had a pair of ivory horns crowning their head, but their shapes were apparently different for females and males. The man had his horns protrude from his forehead, curving back at the sides of his head. By contrast, the woman’s horns began somewhere behind her pointed ears and circled her head, the tips of her horns almost touching each other at the middle of her forehead.

They noticed me and my blatant stare, which prompted the man to put himself between me and the woman. We watched each other silently, and I found their eyes fascinating too; large, amber-colored irises framed with silvery eyelashes. Their almond-shaped eyes were slightly more angular than human eyes tended to be, which I found captivating.

“Hi,” I said, stopping at a safe distance away from the man. “My name is Randel.”

The following silence was every bit as awkward as I imagined my first encounter with an alien species to be. At least I hadn’t offered a handshake for them to completely ignore. I was just about to apologize if I had offended them somehow, when the man said a few quick lines in a language I didn’t understand.

“Of course,” I said with a sigh. “I should have expected this. Good job, Randel, really good job. Even in your dreams you find ways to screw yourself over, don’t you?”

Truthfully, maintaining the illusion that this was just a dream was getting increasingly difficult—but now was not the time to panic. I had two beautiful otherworldly beings in front of me, and if I didn’t figure out fast how to communicate with them, I might miss my only chance to ask them to model for my next project.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” I said, turning on my collar’s projection. Then turned it off and on once again, because I felt like showing off a bit. I pointed at my name on the top of the screen, then pointed at myself. “Randel.”

The blue elves just looked at the projection warily, uncomprehending. I kept pointing at their collars and mine until I got my point across and the woman opened her own screen. Both of them jumped back in alarm at first, but soon the man activated his collar too, inspecting the projection with wide-eyed wonder. They even turned their screens off and on a few times, and I joined them in doing so. We were off-and-on buddies now.

“Teva’ryn,” the male elf eventually said, pointing at the strange glyphs on the top of his screen. I didn’t recognize the symbols at all, and not just because they looked mirrored from my side.

“Devi’lynn,” the other added, smiling at me. Teva’ryn said a few words to her at that, repeating her name, but she just shrugged and pointed at me. They had surprisingly human gestures, for aliens.

“Ran-dell,” the woman said.

“Randel,” I said, nodding. “So, what do we have here? You were looking at something down the hill.”

I took a few steps toward the ledge, keeping a respectful distance between me and my blue friends. The slope leading up to our hilltop seemed to be very steep all around, I noticed almost immediately. If I fell down, it would prove to be bothersome to climb back—and not only because the lack of purchase on the ground. The dozens of baby-faced gnomes at the bottom of the hill might make it difficult too.

“That’s some fine nightmare fuel right there,” I muttered under my breath, but took a closer look at them anyway. They had small bodies paired with comically large, bulbous heads. Their faces alone might have passed for an innocent – but kinda ugly – baby’s face, if not for the tiny, razor-sharp row of teeth I spotted in their mouths. Their arms and legs were puny like a child’s, but their fingers ended in tiny claws and the skin looked hardened on their feet.

As far as I could see the gnomes had our hill surrounded, lazing around but never wandering too far, as if they expected someone to come down. Looking at their sharp teeth, I felt that this didn’t bode well for us … but first impressions can be deceiving, so I decided to try diplomacy first.

“Hello!” I called down, and from the corner of my eyes saw my blue friends shift in alarm. “Gnomes of the Grassy Hill? Thank you for gathering together on this fine day—”

The closest gnomes broke out in an angry screech, their voices not unlike a baby’s wailing. I winced as the noise grew increasingly worse, more and more monsters adding their voices to the chorus. I backed away from the ledge cautiously, turning to look at Teva’ryn and Devi’lynn.

“I think they already like me,” I shouted over the noise.

From the middle of the plateau Imaya and the three others came rushing over, holding—medieval weapons? The black guy and the pretty boy both held a rusty sword and small wooden shield, while the blonde girl was carrying a short spear and Imaya was clutching a crude bow.

“We found these in the shed,” Imaya informed me excitedly when they arrived. “What’s going on here? What is this noise?”

She looked at Teva’ryn – who had gone visibly alert at the sight of the weapons – but I pointed quickly to the ledge and they walked closer to peer down at the little monsters. I found their various reactions interesting; fear and disgust was the common theme, but there were subtle differences between each person. The blonde girl looked more annoyed than nervous as she noted that the gnomes were spread out in both directions down below, while Imaya’s expression could only be described as horrified fascination.

“So that’s what the quest is referring to,” the black guy said, stepping back after one last, quick look. “This must be some kind of sick joke.”

“Quest?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“Your collar informs you about it, silly,” Imaya said, tapping her own collar with a finger. “Go on, read it! It’s not too informative, but super exciting.”

I opened my collar’s screen – and resisted flicking it off and on this time – then touched the Quests button on the left. The next screen consisted of only two boxes, displayed under each other.

First contact

Description: Welcome to the world of Nerilia, the land of mythical beasts, ancient relics, and powerful magic! Like every Player before you, you begin your journey with a test. Use your wits, strength, and survival instincts to overcome the odds!

Remember, your story shapes you just as much as you shape your own story. Will you be able to Transcend, before you reach your own tale’s end?

Objective: Don’t die.

Reward: You get to live. Fresh start, fresh little bodies

Description: You woke up on a hill, surrounded by wailer gnomes. They are not friendly.

Objective: Escape from the hill.

Reward: Your very first Ability.