Lieforged Gale

Warning: Dysphoria time

I found the copper node two hours of walking later. My thighs hurt from the exertion of climbing the ridgeline, so I was forced to stop and rest before actually grabbing some of the ore.

The ravine that housed the ore vein was pretty large. You could've driven two cars down the whole thing side by side if it weren't for a few big boulders. The ore vein itself was also easy to find—several diagonal slashes in the wall were weeping green oxides.

Pulling out my trusty Spectreheart Field Anvil, I flipped it so the horn was facing out, and got to work. It was tough, sweaty work, but I could take it. This body was tough and strong, with good stamina to boot.

My anvil and I were so strong, in fact, that we were ripping the wall of the ravine apart faster than a small excavator would've been able to. I'd smack the horn into the wall, lever it out causing a deep rip, and then I would flip the anvil around and bash the wall with the flat side. Pretty soon, I had a pile of loose ore that was taller than me and twice as wide as that.

The ore was super rich, too. I was finding thumbnail sized pieces of actual copper inside the wall, which shone brightly when I picked them out. It was when I began to put those straight into my inventory that I realised I had a… problem.

I had no way of actually getting all of this ore back to the tree. I couldn't hope to fit all of it into my inventory and remain under-encumbered enough to use my Escape Stone. There was no way I was going to waddle home stuffed to bursting with ore, either. If we hadn't gotten rid of our apartment, I could've filled that up. My warehouse was obviously not an option— it was still physically located behind a door back in Ardgour, even if it was made of dimensional shenanigans.

What the hell was I going to do?

I continued to mine—adding to the problem—as I thought on the issue, when the answer hit me like a dread bolt of lightning. My old character hadn't been deleted… I couldn't actually send the ore to him, since the account bound lockbox was absolutely tiny. However, I could go and use the exceptional amount of money I had on that character to buy a Crafting Satchel.

I'd have to buy Rellicreds—the unimaginatively named real money currency—off of other players, but like… that's whatever. It's not like I could send much of it to this character anyway, since the devs were stingy like… a thought occurred to me, and I laughed aloud. The Exodus was totally funding their operations at least partially with Rell’s cash shop. It's the only thing that made the strange currency policies make sense. The game had millions upon millions of players, and with systems that incentivised spending money for ingame benefits, you could rake in the cash.

That meant, for example, that Aquila—Marlon's flush boyfriend—was inadvertently helping to fund the Exodus. That felt… that felt good, for some reason.

There was one major problem with my plan, unfortunately. It meant I would have to actually log back into my other character. I really didn’t want to do that. My gut twisted at the thought of it—being back in that body.

Scuffing my moccasin-clad feet through the ore dust that now coated the ground, I took a deep breath. I had enough ore. Probably. I could do this. It would be easy. I’d only be logged into the character for like… half an hour, maybe as long as an hour if it took a while to find someone selling Rellicreds. I could also investigate why the character hadn’t been deleted. Yeah. Easy. I was strong. I could do this. The sun was getting on across the sky, too. If I didn’t hurry, I’d be stuck walking home in the dark.

“Ah, fuck,” I grimaced, and pressed the mental button to log out.

I reappeared in my sparsely furnished bedroom inside Exodus City, and took a moment to collect myself. Then, I flicked the Rellithesh app back open and flicked to my other character.

There he was. Roscoro Vega. Level 80 Lightstalker. Ahhh… this was going to suck.

I clicked the button and felt my consciousness transfer back into the game.

The first thing I became aware of was how awkward I felt. There was so much limb and height and body…

Opening my eyes, I groaned— and then immediately cringed inwards when I heard my voice. It came from my chest in this horrific, awkward rumbling sound that felt so,

Wait, wasn’t I in the Grand Caverns? I was! The dungeon I found the sword in was inside the huge cavernous region that was deep beneath the surface somewhere under the northern sea. It was ostensibly a dwarven territory, but the demonic Grand Duchy of Zanykalma had been invading it from caves in their territory since as long as the game had been around.

Thinking about the cool mushroomy underground region had briefly distracted me, so I thoughtlessly turned and sat up on the edge of the bed. My feet hit the floor far too fast, and the impact jarred up my shins like a static shock.

“Ah, crap!” I hissed. The sound of my actual voice caused my stomach to squirm with a thousand boiling maggots, and I went still, stunned.

I could still… the copper ore—you did so much work and walked for most of a day, it—

My stomach squirmed, and the sensation that my bones were rancid intensified. No. No this—everything was wrong. My limbs were all in the wrong places, I could feel the hair on my arms and legs brushing against my clothing like the bristles on a steel brush, and oh— oh the thing… the thing between my legs. I could feel it. It moved, bits shifting slightly to do… I don’t know.

No. No, this was— it didn’t make sense. This body was not okay. I was…

I tried to stand up, but I was confused, fighting the almost necrotic frisson that was dancing up and down my nerves, and I fell to my knees on the cold stone floor of the cheap dwarven inn. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. I wanted to pull it off like it was hiding my normal, real body underneath, but I couldn’t.

I hit the panic button.

The instant I pressed the digi-frame panic button, I was ripped from that body like the hand of god herself had just punched me. Darkness enveloped me everywhere my eyes roamed. I was ephemeral, bodiless, and safe from that nasty character.

For some reason I could still feel myself breathing, so I took in several long, deep draughts of digital air and centred myself again. Fuck. That was awful. That was not okay. I wasn’t okay…

Fiona Quinn: Hey Keiko, are you okay? I got a notification that you pressed your panic button?

The message startled me, and if I’d been embodied I would’ve jumped like a foot in the air.

Mum.

I phased back into Exodus City and my room inside our home and stood from my bed. Being back in my real body, I bathed in the warm, smooth feeling of rightness that it created. A tear of relief rolled down my cheek as the door to my room opened, and mum peered inside.

Wobbling to my feet, I rushed into her arms and hugged her tight. “Mum!”

My voice sounded so mercifully good and right that I quivered.

“Keiko,” she said, confused but holding me carefully, like I was made of paper-thin glass. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

I dragged a breath into my lungs and shifted so the side of my face was flat against the warmth of her collarbone. Already I was beginning to feel better—the shock of my previous character wearing off with each gentle stroke of my mothers hand down my back.

Mum cleared her throat. “What happened, Keiko?”

Opening my eyes, I looked over her shoulder while I ordered my thoughts and to my surprise, Sirona was standing just up the stairs in the entrance to the living room. Stepping out of my mum’s embrace, I glanced between the two.

“I can leave, if that helps,” Sirona said quietly.

Chewing my tongue for a second, I made a decision and shook my head. “No, it’s okay. You can come down— or maybe we go to the living room.”

Mum kept her arm around me as we relocated, and sat beside me on the sofa. Both listened attentively while I explained what’d happened, from the copper ore transport issue, to my idea, to what how I felt logging back in.

“Oh, Keiko,” my mother said when I was done, hugging me again. “That was rather silly. I could’ve told you how that would go.”

“Fascinating,” Sirona said after a second, and both mum and I looked over at her. She flushed slightly and held her hands up in defence. “I mean, also terrible obviously, but it’s rather interesting from a medical perspective. I’m not well-versed in transgender health—which is probably an oversight on my part—but… nevermind. I would say, perhaps, that you find another way to move your ore?”

“I can’t see how else I would,” I said with a frown. “Maybe I could just abandon it.”

“Or…” Mum said, a sly look creeping insidiously onto her face. “You could just swap the gender of your character.”

I stared at her. “Huh?”

“It’s possible, I’m certain,” she said, smiling. “Probably costs money or perhaps can be done by the developers, but—”

Sirona suddenly snapped her fingers. “Ah! I may actually be able to help in this situation.” She laughed halfway through that sentence like she’d just punned or something, but if there was anything in there, I didn’t get it.

She pulled up a little holographic window and typed a few things into it. It shrank down into a little phone sized thing and there was a ringing sound.

“Hi, who is this?” a young, slightly annoyed girl’s voice said from the phone.

Suddenly, Sirona seemed a little flustered. “O-oh, this is Sirona, I was one of the medical doctors at Hamilton City LTCH. We met during that brainstorming session for the early synthetic bodies? Is this a bad time? I can call back if you need, but…”

The girl on the other end sighed. “No, it’s fine, and yes, I remember you—” Her voice was suddenly muffled. “Yes, hold on! I’m in a call! No, don’t let them continue without me, I’ll just be a moment! Bloody UN bureaucrats. Talk about negotiating in bad faith…”

“This really does not sound like a good time,” Sirona said, the pitch of her voice rising with alarm.

“No, no… it’s fine,” the girl said wearily. “Just make it quick, okay?”

“Okay. Well, I figured I would call you because this is, uh, your area of interest and you have a lot of connections,” Sirona said, speaking quickly. “My friend’s daughter is transgender and has been playing Rellithesh. She made a new character, but now she wants to log into her old character and use the resources on it. Unfortunately, when she logged into it—”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the call, followed by, “Ouch. Bad plan.”

“Right,” Sirona agreed, glancing at me. “Well, I was wondering if you might have a way to swap the gender of her old character? If that’s possible?”

“I have access to the dev controls for Rellithesh,” the girl said after taking a second to think. “Sure, it’ll be like old times. Send me the character details… I’ll have some fun.”

The line went dead before Sirona could reply, leaving the three of us in the room to trade confused, alarmed looks. The way she said ‘I’ll have some fun,’ did not inspire confidence.