My clothing was some sort of leather dress, not cut low enough to bare too much of my character’s ample (sigh) cleavage—so I wouldn’t have to kill him—but with a short skirt. Despite not wearing shoes, my feet didn’t feel the least bit tender. Weird.
My immediate area was less flame-riddled than the holo-scape I’d seen the other day, though there were wild puffs of smoke streaking through the sky up ahead. There was also the far-away sound of heavy artillery, something I could easily identify—I’d heard it enough times in tests and training exercises on base. The eerie flashing light patterns on the silvery spaceship repeated in a loop.
I faced the opposite direction of how I’d come in. Above me was an enormous castle. A banner flew off a turreted tower, and if I wasn’t mistaken . . . was that? . . . yes, it appeared to feature a silhouette of Devin himself as viewed from the side.
A red dragon landed on one of the castle’s turrets, and I wondered if it was about to shoot another missile at me. Tense already, when a hand touched my shoulder, I jumped. In the game and, I was pretty sure, up off the bed in my room.
It was disconcerting how I couldn’t be entirely certain whether I’d moved in here and out there. What was happening around me in the game felt more real at the moment than reality. Devin hadn’t been exaggerating.
“Sorry,” a deep male voice said, and I turned to see the hand’s owner. SmallvilleGuy.
He was a character here, like I was. But I still recognized him somehow. My cheeks warmed, and I couldn’t help thinking of this as a first meeting.
Of sorts.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said, at almost the same time.
I squinted at him like the instructions online had said to and lines of text popped into being and hovered beside his head. They gave his name—the same one he used in chat—and the type of character he was: alien, friendly. There was nothing else. But what had I expected?
Still, he’d designed this character. That had to reveal something.
His appearance wasn’t so alien, only a hint of a green tinge to his skin, and he’d chosen a tall, slender form rather than a muscle-bound one like those usually featured in the game’s commercials. Short, wavy black hair, thick-framed glasses. A little nerdy, maybe? But more appealing than he had any right to be despite that.
I was definitely blushing, which was silly. It wasn’t like he could read my thoughts. I reached up to smooth my hair back behind my long, pointy ears . . .
Wait a second. What long, pointy ears?
I looked down at the leather dress again, then reached up to touch the points. Of my ears. “What am I?” I asked.
He grinned at me.
I pretended my heart didn’t leap in response.
We are characters in a game. That’s all.
Get it together.
“How much trouble will your friend be in if I tell you?” he asked.
“What. Am. I?” I crossed my arms. “Tell me, and I’ll probably let you and Devin live.”
He laughed, and I wished I knew what his laugh sounded like in real life. If this was it. I sounded like myself to myself, so maybe it was. It was a good laugh.
Still smiling at me, he squinted to read my stats and answered my question. “You are an elvish princess named Lo, inhabitant of the Realm of Ye Old Troy, ruled over by . . . ” His grin widened. I hadn’t expected the character graphics to make reactions seem so real, either.
“You said your friend’s name is Devin?” he asked.
I nodded.
“This is his castle, apparently,” he said. “King Devin.”
“I will try not to kill him, since he’s royalty and all.”
“He did make you a princess,” SmallvilleGuy said. “Could be worse. You know they have harem girls and serving wenches in here.”
“Okay, okay.” I—or was it Princess Lo, elvish lady?—said. I rolled my eyes. “Did he give me any other ridiculous traits to go with the bare feet?”
SmallvilleGuy’s head tilted to one side. “I don’t know if it’s ridiculous, but your eyes are bright purple. Probably not out there, huh?”
I blinked, self-consciously wanting to close my eyes to hide them. As far as I knew, he’d never seen a photo of me, and certainly not a close-up. “Um, actually, they’re violet out there too. I know it’s crazy, like some color in a bad novel.”
If he was surprised, he hid it. “They’re beautiful bright purple, I should have said. The sovereign king made your character accurate—except for the ears.”
“And the wardrobe. But I guess I’ll give him a pass, as long as he’s a benevolent ruler. Why’d you choose to be an alien?”
“That’s what I feel like most of the time,” he said, and I almost melted. But then he added, “Or, it was first on the list.”
“Where do you think we should go from here?”
“We’re looking for Anavi, right?” he asked. Before I could answer, he grabbed my arm and towed me toward a broad-trunked tree. But we had to stop at the discovery it had a grimacing wooden face filled with disturbingly long teeth.
“Over there,” he said. He pointed out past the shadow of the tree. It hardly concealed us from the squadron.