I awaken, startled, staring at a stonebrick ceiling.
Where... I was just in my room, what the hell happened?
I sit up, pain shooting through me as blood rushes to something at the base of my lower back. I turn and look down much further than I remember being able to, finding a black, scaly tail whipping behind me, spines running down the center of it like blades, the end of it bladed and flat like a harpoon.
Huh..? what did..? why the..?
Questions flood my mind, a headache bearing down on me.
What the hell, did I finally drink enough to hallucinate? Ha, no, definitely not.
I let out a sigh, a dryness in my throat like I have never felt before. I try to swallow but my mouth is just as dry as my throat is. I look around where I am sitting, finding nothing but the stone floor and walls around me. Though I do recognize the look, I just can't bring myself to consider any of this real. This whole place is reminding me of the location I last logged out at in Elysium. I really have played this game too much if I am dreaming about it...
I lift my hands up, clenching and releasing them as the sharp looking nails poke my palms. I look down, long black hair falling into my vision as it gets blocked by my character's breasts in armor. Making me let out another sigh of realization.
Why am I dreaming of myself as my in-game character? I have had dreams of playing certain games before, even feeling like I am in the world. But I have never felt like I actually had a body, or it felt more like it was just my real body. I look down to my legs, the black armor plates lined in white going down into the clawed boots. I feel around my stomach, the armor blocking my touch. I press my legs together, feeling nothing but fabric between them as the knee plates tap together.
I never thought it would feel like this... I occasionally imagined how it would be, but I wasn't really close... But is this even accurate?
I reach down and feel the boots, realizing how flexible a body with high dexterity stats can actually be. I was a shut-in before, never really taking care of my body, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn't be as flexible as someone who is battle-hardened. Though I am surprised at the range of motion I have in the armor, I fully bend forward and touch the bottom of my feet. Leaning slightly more before the breastplate collides with my legs.
I sit back up, my headache not fading as I stretch out a little, feeling my new tail slide and tremble across the ground. Sending a tingling sensation through my whole back and making me lift it up unconsciously, and finding it oddly easy to understand how it works.
That's new...
It's a very weird experience to have and extra limb, feeling very unnatural to me. Though it makes sense as I never had a tail before. I feel the floor, the stone rough as I run my hands over it, but for some reason it feels delicate, almost like I could break it with my hands. Wait, if I am my character, I could actually break this... No, let's not, that would be irresponsible.
I remember something in that moment, reaching up to my head and feeling around above my ears. Something hard, arching outward before sharply coming back in, curving upward before coming to a point in a straight line up from where they originated, a second, much smaller set underneath that sharply go back, knowing the shape of it as I have seen it countless times. Great, I have horns now...
I reach back down to the floor, pushing myself up as I try to stand only to fall flat on my tail. No, really, directly onto my tail causing me to fall awkwardly to the side. I would have thought would hurt, but it just feels terrible and uncomfortable.
I try to stand only to fall over again, this time, the armor clanging against the stone as I land on my ass. I let out a huff, disappointed that my center of balance is causing me so many issues. The tail, the breasts, the height, it's all different from my real body. The first two, I never had, first of all, I never had a tail in real life as that was completely unrealistic. Second of all, I am male, not female, so the breasts are completely new too. The height is also affecting me, my in-game character is very tall compared to me.
While I am not 'short' by the worlds standards, I am only slightly above average for men in the US, about 5'10(~1.78m). While my in-game character was set as 7'3(~2.21m) not including the horns, on the high end for my character's race. Though I had no choice in the that aspect, the character creation system allowed you to pick any of the available races, but the height was always randomized and account based, while the look and physical aspects could always be changed, the height was locked, much to the dismay of fashion-focused players that wish they could make a 4'3(~1.29m) elf but happened to get their elf at a height of 4'4(~1.32m), yes, they were picky like that. Even after all of the backlash they never changed it, not like I cared anyway, I never cared about how tall my character was until now.
I crawl over to one of the stone walls, shimmying up it to keep my balance as I barely stay upright, my tail whipping back and forth as I unconsciously try to balance myself with it. While I don't feel heavy, and the armor doesn't feel heavy, my balance is fucked. The headache isn't helping either, as I just can't seem to focus my eyes correctly because of it. I try to swallow again, my mouth slowly becoming moist as time has gone on. I cough, my voice coming out hollow and breathy, but definitely a feminine voice at the low end. I hate to say it, but I did set my character's voice to what people would consider the 'mommy' range. What can I say, I liked the tone.
I take a look back and forth at the two paths, not able to remember which way I was going. The game was top-down, but had a map that you could use at all times, so getting lost wasn't really a thing unless you had the 'Disoriented' debuff. I guess right now I would have it though... I am glad though that I started in this dream in the same spot I logged out, otherwise I might have been in trouble, I found out a long time ago that this area was a safe zone. The first time I found it I thought it was a bug so I reported it, but I soon got a message back saying that it was actually intentional for the testing of the dungeon, and never removed as a small easter egg to the design of the dungeon itself. It's cool that the devs were fine with sharing that information and leaving it in, as how they designed the game was most of the time a mystery, but it did make me question how many of these safe zones were left without anyone noticing them.
I look down the path in front of me, letting out a sigh.
I really wish I had that map right now...
The second I think this, a large holographic like map appears on the floor in front of me, causing me to stumble back and fall on my tail again. I grunt as I sit up, shaking my head as I focus on the map. Standing once more against the wall, looking down at it. That's convenient, but goddamn did that scare me.
I take a quick look at the map, finding out that the way I am facing is actually the correct way. So I start shuffling towards the exit, feeling my fingers rubbing against the wall, making me even more amazed how real this all feels. I start to get a little anxious, while my character is definitely strong enough to take on the monsters here, and from my testing they do such little damage that my base health regen is actually enough to out-heal their damage, I am completely unsure of how it works right now. You may ask why I am here when I am so much more powerful than the monsters... Well... materials for clothes, what else?
After a few more minutes of shambling I finally start to hear the tell-tale sounds of the monsters in this dungeon, the rhythmic bone crunching and cracking of the wolves that roam the dungeon. They use chains of bones as whips, while it is interesting, it always looked weird in the game. I finally find the wolves, their bony faces lit up by their glowing green eyes in the dark, the shadows hiding the black fur that they have. Honestly, they are pretty cute in this 'real' look.
They turn to me, their eyes flashing as they realize I'm here. I let out a sigh, knowing that this is probably just going to be annoying, rather than painful. But maybe I will be hurt and wake up, at this point, who knows. This dream has gone on longer than most of my dreams ever have anyway, the ones I can remember at least. The 2 of them start to rush towards me, the bones bouncing off each other and the floor. The first one jumps up the opposite wall, jumping off and spinning around its bone whip, aimed at my shoulder.
As the bones connect, they start to shatter, breaking apart as it collides with me. The game never had a system for weapons actively breaking, and the monsters never could do complex attacks like this either.
The wolf grinds to a stop, turning and looking at me before seeing it's destroyed weapon and letting out an audibly confused and sad sound, kind of like a sad puppy.
Awww... wait what? When could they do that? It almost seems like they actually have more than just code of how to attack players... This is one fucked up dream...
The second one looks completely confused, as well as second guessing whether or not to attack me. Confusing me even further as they never were this interactive and lively. I shuffle forward, causing the one ahead of me to tense up. I swallow one more time, barely able to clear my dry throat.
"I'm not..." I am surprised by my voice, as it is much clearer than it was through my headphones, but I clearly need some water as it is scratchy and weak. "not going to, fight you." I don't know if they can understand me now or if I will be able to influence the dream enough for them to let me pass.
I don't really care about fighting these, as not only do I have no actual experience fighting, I don't need anything from them... And I have no idea how I would even fight in this dream, I'm mainly a mage.
They visibly adjust, tilting their head to my voice. I continue forward, the one in front of me dropping down into a crouch and slowly walking around me to the one that attacked me. I watch it as it does so, it backing up and getting in between me and the one missing its weapon. I turn away, checking in front of me as I almost trip on a loose stone. I hear a quick shuffle behind me, causing me to turn around as I almost fall over.
The one without a weapon is pouting and whining while the other one is sitting in front of it, neither of them even paying attention to me anymore. I start to feel bad as the one missing its weapon puts it's head down to the other, the second one almost looking like it is trying to make the other feel better as it places it's weapon in front of it, almost like it is offering it to them.
Goddamn it, why do you have to make me feel bad now... I have a bunch of those whips in my inventory, if only I could open that-
A large screen appears in my vision, causing me to gasp and the two wolfs to tense up and look at me. I take a few breaths to calm down and focus on the menu, finding it to be my inventory screen, which is... weird to say the least.
I quickly look up to the top right of the menu, finding the search bar, wait, can I even interact with this correctly? I tap on it, finding that it does work. I search for it, and find my stack of 121 of them, like I said, I have a bunch of them, and they are considered a 'rare' drop... I stare at the screen for a second questioning if it is even going to work if I try to just drop one of them. I select one of them, clicking on the drop button. A bunch of dust appears around a point in front of me, I quickly tap the X in the top left of my inventory and close the menu, putting one of my hands around the whip. I don't want this one to shatter just by hitting the ground, they seem kind of fragile.
It finishes forming in my hand, I look back down to the wolfs as they look to me in visible confusion. Their heads tilted to the side. I shuffle closer, causing them to instantly go on guard, the one with a functional weapon protecting the other. I look down to the whip in my hand.
Right, I'm now holding what they consider a weapon.
I lean down as best as I can without falling over, putting the whip on the floor in front of me. I stand up, slowly backing away as not to fall on my ass/tail again. After I take a few more steps back, they relax, the one without a weapon tries to move forward, being stopped by the other.
"It's, okay... I won't, do anything." I say with a shaky voice, still caught off guard from hearing my in-game characters voice coming from my own mouth... Well, my characters mouth that feels like mine.
They still don't move, the weaponless one pouting even more, making the other let out a huff. They move forward together, the one without a weapon quickly jumping forward and grabbing the whip, it's tail wagging. Awwww...
They both look up at me, one of them looking weary while the other looks happy. I give a slight smile to them before turning around, continuing to the exit. I hear the tapping of the nails from the wolves behind me, following me. I turn around, causing them to stop in their tracks, from what I can tell, they are staying about 10 feet(~3.05m) away from me. I am wondering why they are following me, but it's not like they can do anything to me so it doesn't really matter. I turn back around, walking a few more feet before my foot clips a raised stone, causing me to fall flat on my face.
I push myself up with a grunt, annoyed that I keep falling over. One of the wolves walks up next to me, putting it's whip down. I look over to it as it turns to me, getting close to my face. It licks my cheek, causing me to let out a small and breathy chuckle.
"I'm okay, thank you..."