I decided to just take a lap around the town square and get a lay of the land. I’d never gotten around to doing a detailed map of the city, just the general area. So while I had some idea of what to expect, seeing it in person was an experience. There was small park with a pond that formed the town center, and a ring of shops and other utility buildings around it.

There were a number of shop stalls, most that were currently empty. These were likely to give players a place to establish small shops in the near future. A few of the buildings were likely empty and available for rent as well. The stalls that were in use all had various tradesmen working at them, most likely the Crafting Skill Trainers. An ornate wooden building with finely carved and painted trees flanking the doors stood at the north side of the square, a placard at the front showing a stack of coins and thus probably Sylvan Savings Bank. A short, stout wooden box painted blue sat near the front steps as well, probably the town’s mailbox. To the east was a tall white building with a steeple that was obviously the town chapel, which is where players would resurrect when killed.

As a side note, resurrection was, according to the games lore, a side effect of being born in and living under the domes. It was a game mechanic and standard for MMOs, so I didn’t bother defining it too in depth. When I asked around about it, I found that only those designated as Adventurers had this ability, as it was detectable by the high priest at birth and those with it were raised and trained to go out and explore when the dome finally came down. Adventurers were effectively immortal except for old age and natural illness. That last made me laugh. They could resurrect after being eaten by a dragon, but could be killed by the flu.

To the south of town center was the Town Hall. It was a very large but simple looking two-story building that handled city operations and would act as the local Adventurers Guild, handing out local quests and the like. Purchasing or renting buildings or land was handled through Town Hall as well.

The other large building of note was a large three-story building to the west, away from town center a short ways on the only road that actually led out of Ravensport. There was a stable attached to one side, and a simple hanging sign that had a golden sun rising up over the horizon, and was aptly named The Golden Horizon. This was the local inn, the likely gathering place for adventurers when they weren’t off questing and grabbing a cheap meal.

Apoch’s Twilight, to try and simulate the Virtual Reality part of the VRMMO, had a hunger function. Right as I thought that, my own stomach grumbled a little and I felt a bit peckish. I laughed and started heading toward the inn. Players had to eat once every 8 hours, or would start suffering an ever increasing Endurance loss the longer they went without eating. This affected their total HP, and if their base END dropped to zero, they’d die. Fortunately players could make their own food if they had the Cooking Skill, often even providing buffs.

Inns served another function as well. I needed a reason for my players in the TTRPG of Apoch’s Twilight to stay at Inns and to need to camp for the night, since they were trapped inside a VRMMO, and.—

My vision swam and a lance of pain jolted through my head, causing me to stagger. I grunted and stumbled over to one of the benches placed alongside the park and dropped down. I massaged my temple as the pain rapidly faded. This was all just too damn recursive, and apparently I was having a harder time processing it all. I died and was reincarnated inside a fictional Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online game, which was a fiction game inside my Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It was laughable, and just ridiculous, and… my head started hurting again.

That rabbit hole was deep, and my psyche was not equipped for it. I rested for a few and tried to calm myself. Raider whined and put his head on my lap, and I stroked his fur. He was really, really soft and fuzzy. I smiled down at him.

“Thanks buddy. I think I needed that.” I stood and headed back toward the Inn. I was still running the rules and background in my head, but tried not to think about the implications too much.

In the VRMMO, the game would give a warning if a player was on for 8 hours in a 24-hour period. At the 16 hour mark, the game would force them to sleep after a 10-minute grace period to reach a safe spot to log off. Apparently, the interface that players used in this version of the game allowed them to sleep in game, putting their actual mind to rest as well. In theory players only had to log out to use the bathroom and to eat, since virtual food couldn’t sustain you in real life. In my original version of the TTRP, these rest timers were there to force my players to camp or sleep at an inn. I wasn’t certain how healthy it was to be able to stay logged in nearly 24/7. I have an enforced logout period if I’d designed a real VRMMO. I could very easily imagine that if such a game had existed for real in my previous life, I’d probably have lost myself in it if the game didn’t prevent it.

There was a benefit to setting up camp or getting a room at an Inn to log off, however. You got a +1 END buff for a duration equal to how long you had been logged off for if you were at an Inn, and you got half that duration for logging off at a proper camp. Later on in the game, there would be better campsites and better Inns that would provide larger bonuses, but would be more expensive. You could log off pretty much anywhere but you wouldn’t get the bonus, and in dungeons or the wilderness there was no guarantee you’d be safe when you logged back in. My stomach grumbled again and Raider gave a soft, low growl as well that I took to mean he was hungry too, so I stopped my musing and picked up the pace to reach the Inn.

The Golden Horizon was a decent sized inn, especially when you consider that until now the city had no traffic in or out. But games need them to serve as a meeting hub, a place to log off, and to serve up food, rumors, and quests, so Ravensport needed to have one as well even if it didn’t really make too much sense. There were a dozen or so tables spread around the room, and along counter with about ten stools in front of it. Behind the counter was a stout, dark haired man talking with a couple adventurers. A pair of waitresses bustled around the room as well, one a tall, very pretty blond and the other a young girl in her teens with dark hair.

Most of the players were still exploring the city and hadn’t made it this far, but there were still a couple dozen adventurers spread around the room. I moved over to a small table near one of the corners and took a seat, content to just watch the crowd for a bit. I knew I wanted to talk with the waitress as well, as she should have a quest.

“Can I get you anything?” The blond waitress walked over to take my order.

“Sure, what do you have for dinner?” She listed out a couple simple meal choices such as roast beef and stew, as well as a handful of drink options. I chose to go with some juice and the stew and she went back to get it for me.

Most of the adventurers were just talking quietly amongst themselves, but one group of four was being a bit loud and obnoxious. One of their group, a chainmail-wearing warrior type was apparently trying to explore the boundaries of the game system. He started out by asking loudly whether or not he had “junk” in the game, then stood up and stripped down to his underwear. Another of their members, a bald, bearded man had apparently ordered dozens of glasses of bear and was drinking them as fast as possible, saying “I’m not drunk yet! Not yet!” I sighed, remembering when I ran the RPG and my players did something similar.

As the waitress brought out my meal, a tall, lanky guy with long, stringy black hair and pale skin pulled a chair over near the fireplace. He sat down, set a large bowl down on the floor next to him, and began tuning up the guitar. Nice, a bard. I focused on him a second so I could see his status plate and saw his name was “Zed Deathsong”.

“So you’re one of our adventurers I bet?” the waitress asked as she set down my meal. Besides the stew, it came with a plate of buttered, spiced potatoes and several thick slices of bread. “That’ll be 1 gold, 1 copper for the meal.”

“Yes ma’am. I just finished up my training and am looking to stock up so I can get out there and start exploring.” I said, opening my inventory and pulling two gold coins out and handing them over, and she passed back 9 silver and 8 copper. Money was pretty straightforward, 10 copper to a silver, 10 silver to a gold. I had thought about adding in Electrum and Platinum as well to feed my old school D&D nostalgia, but was glad I restrained that urge now.

“You’re lucky. I was an adventurer candidate 20 years ago, but since the dome stayed in place I got married and opened this inn with my husband, Malkom. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret that, just would have been nice to travel and explore. I trained as a mage, which comes in handy on nights when someone’s had a few too many and starts causing trouble.”

I laughed along with her. “Was your husband an adventurer candidate too?”

“Oh gods, no. Malk was just a farmer back then, but he always dreamed of becoming a merchant and traveling the world trading for exotic goods we don’t have here in Ravensport though. But with the dome, the best we could ever do was open this Inn.”

“Well, the dome’s down now. Seems that you could still accomplish that goal.”

She got a thoughtful look on her face at that. “You’re right, we probably could. Though I’m a little too old and a little too out of practice to go traipsing about the countryside myself now. Hrmmm. Maybe you’d be interested in helping us out, since you’re going to be heading out to explore soon? If you’re interested, come talk to me and Malkom when you finish your meal. My name’s Geira.”

I nodded and thanked her, and she moved off to help some other customers. I picked up my spoon and dug into the stew as the bard began playing. The stew wasn’t bad, but didn’t have much in the way of flavor. It was filling and edible, so I couldn’t ask for much more than that. I relaxed as I ate and listened to the bard. He was pretty decent and I wondered how much was the system and how much was experience playing music in real life. I wondered how much real life skills could be carried over and utilized here, actually. The song was slow and melodic with no words, but it sounded very familiar. It finally hit me after a minute or so, it was a slow-tempo acoustic version of Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper! I loved that song.

He then moved into a couple of songs I couldn’t immediately place, though one was naggingly familiar. I finished my meal, and as his last song finished I stood and approached the bard and dropped a couple gold into his hat.

“Good stuff man. What was that last one? It sounded familiar, but couldn’t quite place it.” I asked.

“Metallica! Ride the Lightning, dude.” He grinned at me and threw up the devil horns. “I love the classics!”

I grinned and returned the horns, then headed off as he started into another song that might have been something by Judas Priest. The inn was starting to fill up as other players were getting hungry and had gotten bored exploring the town, so I headed up to the bar to talk with Malkom and pick up my quest from him. He was with another customer, so I stood patiently until he was done.

“Welcome to the Golden Horizon. I’m Malkom Werth, and I you met my wife Geira earlier. She said you’re heading out to start exploring and might be able to do us a favor?” Malkom was a little shorter than me and stoutly built, his years as an innkeeper having put a few pounds on him. He had a friendly, open face though.

“Sure, I can try anyway. I haven’t decided yet where or what I’m doing outside yet, So if I can help, it gives me a direction to start in.”

“Excellent! When I was younger, I came across a diary of a merchant from Ravensport in the days before the Twilight. In it, the merchant described a hidden safe deep in the tunnels of some labyrinth he dwelled in called “The Metro”. I have no clue if the safe or this labyrinth survived the Twilight War, but if it did there should be more journals inside that safe that would be invaluable to us. Please, travel north to where Downtown Ravensport once stood and see if you can find the entrance to this Metro. If there are any landmarks left, this map may guide you, and this combination will allow you to access the safe. Bring me the journals, and you may keep any other treasure you may find.”

As he finished speaking, a quest prompt popped up:

QUEST: Expedition to Old Ravensport GOAL: Find and explore the ruins of the Ravensport Metro. Locate the office safe, retrieve the Merchant Journals, and return them to the Werths. REWARD: 300 XP, 200 GP, [Copper Ring], Choice of Armor [Y] [N]

The ring was a simple Uncommon rarity ring with a +1 END bonus to it which would be handy. There as also a list of different armors that you could choose from, all with silver names making them Rare items with a couple of stat boosts. Among them was a [Night Guards Chestguard] that would make a nice upgrade for me. I selected [Y] without hesitation.

“Excellent! This will be a big help. You’ll want to find a few companions to explore with, most likely. If anything alive out there, I can’t imagine it will be friendly.” Malkom said with a smile.

“Let me also go ahead and rent a room for a few nights as well while I’m at it. Lets say 5 nights for now.”

“Sure thing, that’ll be 25 Gold total. It doesn’t include meals, but the rooms are guaranteed secure and there’s a 10-slot storage chest included in the room to store your valuables.” He handed over a small silver key. “Room 212, second floor. Enjoy!”

I thanked him, then headed out of the inn. Looking at my friends list, Torrie, Dagg, and Lorelei were all still on, so I decided to drop them a quick mail asking to meet up shortly to see if they wanted to put a party together for tomorrow to head to the Metro. Not having a /whisper or /tell system was a pain in the ass. I’d done it for plot reasons for the Tabletop RPG, to isolate my players early on so that various in game events would be revealed one at a time, but it was really terrible game design in an actual MMO. Fortunately there should be a way to get that functionality in game before too long, assuming everything followed the script. For now, I needed to hit a mailbox to write out a mail, do some shopping, and pick up some daily quests.

My first stop was the Quest Board near the Town Hall. The board had small flyers all over it, and you could choose up to three of them per day. These were what I termed “Side Quests” in the Tabletop version, and were short fluff quests for players to do in down time to represent those silly little fetch quests that MMOs were always full of. There wasn’t much detail to them, and there were a bunch of random combinations, and I just let players do them between game sessions to so we could dedicate game time to the big, important quests and roleplaying.

I plucked three at random, and sure enough the system wouldn’t let me pull a fourth off. As I did, the now-familiar quest notification popped up three times in a row, their notification windows overlapping. I shuffled them and checked them out one at a time.

The first was a quest to join a patrol of the nearby fields to make sure no wild animals had gotten over the walls. It was a simple quest that would have me join up with a couple of the Ravensport Militia and walk a patrol route through a handful of the nearby farms. The second was a delivery quest, one of the local farmers was elderly and needed help loading up a wagon and bringing some produce into town. Easy enough, just some boring manual labor.

The final quest was to help deliver some mail around town. There wasn’t a dedicated mailman, so mail delivery was handled on a volunteer basis. This was actual physical mail, letters and packages and the like, not the in-game mail function. Those would give you a small notification whenever mail arrived, and you would have to go to a mail box to receive it. This was another pointless quest that was just a bit time consuming.

Some of the Daily Quests would involve combat, like killing some wolves or some bandit, but todays were all non-combat most likely. Unless Farmer Miller remembers me and was still pissed about Flamebolt trying to torch his house, that is. They didn’t give out much in the way of rewards, but they should all be pretty quick, maybe 30 minutes each to finish up, so I clicked accept and headed off to do them while I waited for Torrie and the gang to reply.

“There you go Mrs. Schneider. That’s the last of them!” I said as I hauled the last crate of squash off the wagon. Mrs. Schneider, a sweet old lady who ran a small squash and pumpkin farm near the eastern edge of Ravensport smiled at me. This delivery had been harder than I expected, due in part to my low STR score. Those boxes were heavy!

“Thanks you. You’re such a good boy. I should head back before it gets dark.” She pinched my cheek and climbed up into her wagon.

”You sure you don’t need an escort home?”

“No, I’ll be fine. You should go meet up with your friends. They’ll be waiting for you by now, won’t they?”

“Okay, I’ll go do that then.” I said, waving. “Let me know if you need help again.”

My Quest Log notified me that I’d completed the final Daily Quest and a reward window popped up. It wasn’t a bad haul, all things considered. Only 300 XP between the three of them, but I’d also netted 350 Gold and been given a [Small Healing Potion] for the Patrol the Fields quest. I’d also stopped and sold the few [Rat Whiskers] I’d gotten in the Tutorial Quest and picked up a [Tent (Single)], a [Bedroll], and 5 [Glowstone] Rods. A [Glowstone] was a magical torch that you could turn on and off, but would expire 7 days after it was first activated. Useful but slightly pricey at 10 Gold per Rod. I wanted to fill out some of my armor sets, but until the gatherers and crafters started working quests for the Crafting Trainers, they would only have same gear I started with for sale. There were repeatable quests for the various Gathering materials, and each Trainer had a meter that would fill up as these were turned in. Each time it filled up, it would unlock new crafting recipes that Crafters could learn and the trainer would start selling more gear. But that would likely take a few days before the first of those started opening up.

I also now had 500 XP to spend. Attributes were very useful, but were expensive, costing your current base Rank times 100 XP to raise it one Rank. So I could bump my base END from 2 to 3 for 200 XP. Skills were more focused and were cheaper, only costing Rank*20 XP. I needed both, but decided to invest early in a new Trait instead. Tier 1 Traits were expensive, costing 500 XP, but they gave me new abilities.

I knew that food was going to be important. Not only did I need to eat, Raider was going to need to eat as well. Plus, I expected that the benefits of the Cooking Talent would likely be overlooked early on and it shouldn’t be. So I splurged and spent all my available XP on the Novice Butcher Trait which would allow me to gather useable meat off of edible creatures for use with the Cooking Talent. I didn’t have that Talent yet, but I would be receiving Talent Points at Level 2 and 3, so would get one soon.

I had one more stop to make before heading back to the inn, and that was at Sylvan Savings Bank. The games lore said that both the bank’s storage system as well as the mail functionality were a part of an ancient magic used by the elves. It was an excuse to have your standard MMO functions in the game, as with a good half of the lore I’d written. Most towns of at least moderate size would have a Bank branch, and each was linked magically with the other so that you could always access any storage you had there. Same with the mailboxes, which you could find in almost every town, even small villages.

I still didn’t know if I could respawn or not, and I was in no hurry to test it. However, since you dropped all gold carried when you respawned, it was a bad idea to carry everything around with you. And storing money was a free service, so I decided to drop 350 Gold off in the bank, leaving about 50 Gold in my inventory so I could stock up on some food and just to have a little on me.

It was getting dark, and Torrie had said in her reply mail that she likely wouldn’t be able to stay on too much longer, so I headed off to the inn to talk with her and the others and plan an expedition for tomorrow.

“Bull! Over here!” As I walked into the Golden Horizon, a high pitched voice called out above the din. I could just barely see the diminutive kinder waving her arms from a table midway through the inn, so I began pushing my way over to them. The inn was packed and noisy as groups of players were gathered together, discussing the game. It was now night out, and it felt like true night and not the usual “the sky is a dark color and everything’s slightly shadowy” sort of night I was used to in video games. I would not want to be traipsing around out in the wilderness in the dark.

“Sorry I’m a little late. Got held up doing a quest for a sweet old lady.“ Torrie, Dagg, and Lorelei were all at the table already, so I apologized as I sat down.

“No problem, we’ve only been here for a little bit. We needed to rent a room for the night anyway, and these two wanted to try drinking a bit.”

“Oh, how is it? I haven’t tried the booze yet.”

“Good.” The big fighter grunted as he drained the last of a mug of beer.

“Not bad, a bit bland.” Lorelei replied, sipping a glass of wine. “Better than cheap store-bought, but even most small, local wineries will have better vintages than this.”

“Woah, she can speak!” I looked over at Torrie in surprise and she laughed.

“Yeah, she’s apparently really shy, unless she’s drinking. Then she gets downright chatty.”

“So does alcohol actually make you drunk in this game?” I asked.

“Yes. I have a nice little buzz going right now, actually.” The blond light mage said as she motioned to the waitress for another glass. “There was a guy earlier who ordered an entire stack of whiskey shots. Those stack to 100, you know? Well, he started downing those one after another as fast as possible. It was really funny to watch. He and his friends were testing the effects, and every five shots he’d get up and walk around, and after about twenty he could barely stand. I think he passed out around the 25th shot. He was slurring his words really bad, and kept saying that everything looked all swimmy and upside down.”

“Good to know. I imagine with my Endurance, booze would wreck me. That would be a nice change of pace.” I sighed. I had been a big guy in my old life, before I was run over by Truck-kun, and I had a high natural tolerance on top of that. It used to take a lot of high-proof alcohol to get me even buzzed. “Anyway, have you guys talked with the Werths here yet, the owners? They have a quest we should take.”

Dagg and Lorelei shook their head, but Torrie nodded and said “Yeah, I was in a bit earlier and picked it up from the waitress, Geira.”

“Ok, let me see here…” I muttered as I brought up my status window and slipped over to the Quest Log. “I think we need to be in a party for this to work. I’m gonna invite you, ok?”

I shot an invite to Lorelei and Dagg, and when I did a “Share Quest with Party Members” option appeared on the quest details. Excellent. I shared it with them and they accepted.

“It’s late tonight, and I don’t want to go traveling around in the dark, will you all be around tomorrow evening? Ok, then why don’t we meet up at 5:00 game time and we’ll head out then. This is a pretty good quest to get our feet wet, I think.”

“Yeah. The quests already been completed a few times. I saw the First Clear message like an hour after we started. Jeez, how do people move that fast through these games?” Torrie shook her head.

“For some people, they ‘win’ the game if they’re the first to do this sort of stuff. Besides, rumor has it that you get bonus rewards from dungeons if you’re the first to complete them. Which seems a bit unfair to me.” I had heard someone talking about that while I was doing my side quests earlier. That wasn’t something I had written into Apoch’s Twilight, so it was possibly just a rumor, I guessed.

“It’s gotten pretty standard for games these days.” Lorelei said with a shrug. “While more casual players complain about it, most people claim it helps push the game and push exploration to have competition for this stuff. Especially since VRMMOs tend to be slower than traditional MMOs due to how realistic they are. Travel times are longer, and people are less willing to throw themselves into danger since they experience it on a different level.”

That made a certain sense, I supposed. I still wasn’t sure I liked it. Lorelei downed her glass of wine and her face was flushed red. She was definitely past the point of tipsy now, and she was clinging to Dagg’s side. For his part, Dagg looked a bit uncomfortable with the public affection but wasn’t willing to push her away.

“You should probably put her to bed, big guy.” Torrie said with a grin. “Maybe check out some of the ‘Adult Only” functions of the game, eh?”

I coughed as I choked on the juice I was drinking. Ok, that was definitely not something I’d specified for Apoch’s Twilight. Torrie pounded on my back laughing as I coughed some more to clear my throat.

“I recommend knocking out your Daily Quests if you can before we leave tomorrow.” I said once my coughing fit had subsided. “Also make sure you have some camping gear. Depending on how the Metro dungeon goes, there’s something else I’d like to check out as well, so we may have to camp out in the wilderness.”

Everyone agreed, and Dagg helped Lorelei up the stairs. I sat and chatted with Torrie for a little while, comparing notes about what we’d done in game today. She was pretty bright and seemed to have picked up things fast. We skirted talking about any Real Life stuff though, which was tough for me to do as I tended to be naturally open and inquisitive with friends I made online. With my current situation though, it felt a little weird, and Torrie didn’t bring the subject up either so we stuck to in game topics. After another 10 minutes, she excused herself and headed off to log off.

Thinking about it, I was in an interesting position compared to probably all the other players. I never logged off. Hell, I couldn’t log off. I’d checked a few times, and had watched as a couple players had logged off earlier. I simply didn’t have that option in my interface window. But that also meant that I could get in far more game time than other players. Even if someone had no job or real world responsibilities they would still have to take time to use the bathroom, to go eat, and even the most hardcore players would need to get up and take short breaks occasionally.

Speaking of bathrooms, apparently since I was a game character that was no longer a function I had to do. It felt odd, butt I hadn’t had the urge or need to go all day, nor had I seen a bathroom anywhere. I decided to call it a day as well. I wasn’t really tired in the traditional sense, but felt that I had a need to sleep nonetheless. I was curious what that would be like in game anyway. I headed up to my room.

Inn rooms were instanced, meaning that they cloned and spawned a room for everyone who rented one. The there were two floors above the tavern portion of the inn with a dozen rooms on each, and my best guess was that the room numbers were generated randomly. As I walked up the stairs, I saw someone use a key to enter a room that turned out to be 212, the same room I was assigned. I tentatively used my own key on the door and found myself in an empty room.

The room was a simple affair, with a bed, a small nightstand with a glowstone lamp on it, and a storage chest at the end of the bed. The floor had some soft carpet on it, a pair of heavy drapes covered the window, and the bed was firm but not hard. I’d stayed in worse hotels back before I died, that’s for sure.

I sat down and decided to flip through the help function of the interface a bit before bed. I still had a few things I was curious about and wanted to see what they said about dungeons since we were hitting our first one tomorrow. I found the options and clicked the tab marked “Help and FAQ”. A shower of silver sparks shot out from the interface window, and a small finger about four inches tall appeared in front of me, hovering in midair with a pair of wings buzzing on her back. She was a small, slightly feminine silver figure that looked familiar despite the smaller size and the addition of wings.

“Intro-Bot? Is that you?” I asked. She looked just like the figure from chargen that had helped me out.

“Yes, that is correct. Helper functionality has now been unlocked. I am your personal helper assistant. Please give me a name.”

“Huh.” I muttered, unsure of what to say as I tried to process.

“Name 'Huh” has been accepted. Please confirm, as you cannot change this name once selected.” Oh good god. Not this again.

“No, no. Cancel that. Before I give you a name, can I ask some questions?” I looked at the small, hovering silver form in front of me with a sigh. I had no idea what to make of this.

“Affirmative. That is now my role, to act as your Help & FAQ assistant.”

“Great. Ok, first off, why are you here? Does everyone get a helper bot like this?” I asked her.

"Unknown. I have been assigned to User ‘Bull’ and have no knowledge of any other players.”

"How much can you tell me about the game?”

“I can assist with basic game functions and rules.” She replied matter of factly. “I am also capable of learning and can remember anything I see or experience, so I can draw on my experiences to further aid you.”

“That is…. Unhelpful, actually.” I rolled my eyes. Raider came over and sniffed at the fluttering AI or whatever she was. She giggled and landed on his head. It was kind of cute, and for his part Raider gave me a look that said “Really? Do I have to put up with this?” and sat back on his haunches. I thought about names, and decided to keep it simple. I’d originally called her Intro-Bot, so decided to shorten that to a version of those initials, I.B.

“Ok, let’s name you Aibee. Does that work for you?”

“Affirmative, name ‘Aibee’ accepted. Thank you.”

“You were human-sized before, but now you’re tiny. Can you change size at will? And for that matter, can you change your form to look like something else, or are you stuck as a silver humanoid?” I wondered what her limits were.

“Negative. Since being reassigned to Helper functionality I can only maintain this diminutive form. I can however choose a different skin, though I’m limited to this general humanoid form. Do you have a preference for design?”

“No, why don’t you pick whatever you like. I’d just prefer it if you had a face of some kind, if possible. It’s hard to tell where you’re looking without facial features and it’s a bit creepy.”

“Affirmative. Choosing randomized human-style skin now.” Her form glowed, and after a moment it settled to a small female form with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, well defined curves, and a deep olive skin tone. And she was stark naked and very, very female.

”Ahh!” I quickly averted my eyes, blushing. Between being the size of a GI Joe figure, being a girl I barely knew, and being some kind of game Artificial Intelligence, seeing her naked just felt wrong. “Clothes or something! Can you get some clothes?”

“Affirmative.” She replied. A few seconds later, I peeked back over at her and she was now wearing stylish light blue dress. I gave a sigh of relief, and wondered why that flustered me as much as it did.

“So I’m guessing you can’t help out in combat or anything, only give me information?”

“That is correct. I can observe and record, and I contain a database of game functions,” As she talked, her face slowly because more animated. I guess as she became used to having actual facial features. “I also have a database of creatures, locations, items, and dungeons, but access to those is locked until you discover them for yourself.”

“Oh, nice. That will be handy. Sweet.” I considered asking her more, to try and find out more about my current existence. Why I had no logout button, what would happen if I died in game, and even seeing if there was a function to call and talk to a Gamemaster or something, someone who actually ran the game I was now in. However I found I couldn’t ask those questions. I was afraid of the answers, no matter what they were. I could cope with living in this new world, but I realized I was terrified of finding out why and how I was here, and judging by the throbbing headache that started up again as I thought about this I realized that I simply couldn’t handle the answers. At least not right now.

“Are you permanently in game now, or do you only appear when I need you?” I asked Aibee.

“I am now manifested into the game semi-permanently and am bound to you. If we are separated forcibly by whatever means, I will despawn until you can call me back by using the Help & FAQ button again.”

“Ok, sounds good. I think that’s all for now. I’m gonna crash for the night.” I unequipped my armor and found myself wearing a set of boxer briefs. I asked Aibee to turn around, but found I could not unequip them.

“There is an Adult Content toggle in your options menu.” Aibee said from behind me. “Nudity and other adult functions can be enabled if you toggle that on. Only other players with the Adult Content turned on will be able to see you nude, however. To everyone else you will simply look to be wearing your undergarment still.”

“Thanks, I guess?” That was weird, but not unexpected. Raider curled up on the floor next to the bed, and Aibee snuggled into the fur on his back. I smiled and lay down on the bed and turned out the glowstone lamp.

“Night Aibee. Night Raider.” As I closed my eyes, a menu popped up saying “Now entering sleep mode. Please enter how long you would like to sleep.” It was 10:00 PM, so I chose 8 hours, thinking how much I would have loved to have this sort of function back before I was hit by Truck-kun. I’d had problems with Insomnia since High School. I clicked [Enter] and everything went blank.