I stared at my hands in shock as I stumbled backwards from the clearing.

  I noticed then just how thoroughly covered in blood I was, and saw just how horrifying the body on the ground in front of me actually appeared. I gagged, as my ears flicked backwards in shame, and I frantically wiped my hands on my leggings staining the few clean patches of my tunic left in the process. The st thing I did was try to scrub the blood from my mouth. It had a murky taste to it, outside the heat of the fight, and I almost wished that this body had the ability to vomit, just so I could get it out.

  "Well..." I said to no-one. "I..." I began ughing nervously, walking quickly away from the site where my st victim y dead and rgely exsanguinated. Maybe it was a trait of the race? I had gone quite feral, so it was likely that some of that came from the beast-kin mentality, right? I'd look it up; I was sure that I'd find literature supporting that guess.

  I immediately realized that were that the case, the game would essentially have the ability to mind control someone. Maybe it was better if it was actually me...

  I shoved that thought out of my mind as I blundered my way through the forest towards a creek that I had come across during my hunt, practically diving into it and scrubbing my fur as a distressed whine left my throat. Would the blood be visible to everyone? No- that couldn't be the case, some realism settings prevented a user from seeing any blood, so they wouldn't be able to see it- but others who chose more realism, like me, they'd know, right? Jose and Emilia, what settings had they chosen? Would they be able to see it?

  I could feel my ears flicking up and down in distress, and I batted at them with a snarl, trying to force myself to breathe and rex.

  "This will all be fine. This is just a game- a very, very, very -" A bird nded on a branch about two feet away, and I stared, watching in fascination as its blue feathers caught the dappled sunlight. "VERY realistic video game. We can get through this. This will be good for your training Fang, so pull it together!"

  I had advancements to look at, right? Stats and shit that needed assigning with the experience. I made the star-pattern the angelic assistant had taught me to summon her, and motes of light gathered into a translucent version of the flirty angel.

  "Good afternoon, Fang. I see you have taken quite well to the worlds beyond!" The angel giggled, and I blushed, folding my arms indignantly.

  "Yes, well, I need help."

  "Go on, how may I assist you?"

  "I was notified that I had gained a level, and I have some questions."

  "Ask away, traveler! I would be happy to answer your questions."

  I paused. "How do I access the menu to assign stat points and level ups?"

  The angel giggled. "All travelers may access their stats, or dimensional inventory, by swiping down this way with the left hand."

  The angel gestured with her left hand, and a mock menu appeared floating between us. I knew that menus only appeared to the person they belonged to, to prevent other users from getting access to their user information, or messing with the menu in any way, but seeing that the universal command prompt was in fact still universal here was relieving.

  "Thank you. And... csses? Do I... get one?"

  The angel smiled. "Csses are obtained organically through interacting with the world beyond. There are many, and they are nearly infinite, and they unlock, as a general rule, around level two. However, if you wish to attain a particurly rare css, or if you wish for the world's system to generate a new one for you based off of your experiences, that will require that you go out and do interesting things. A css may be chosen at any time, and it is common for travelers to dey this choice, to provide for a greater list of requirements and accomplishments to factor into their final css selection."

  I nodded, tapping my lips with a finger.

  "And... can someone have more than one css?"

  The angel giggled again. She seemed to do that a lot.

  "There is no limit to the number of csses which may be chosen. I should inform you, Fang, that selecting multiple csses rapidly results in diminishing returns, as the most powerful abilities in any css are typically present only at higher levels. You could have seven level one csses, or one level seven css, and in nine out of ten cases, having the single stronger css would be preferable for experiencing the Worlds Beyond."

  I nodded slowly.

  "I- thank you, I don't have any other questions."

  "Ta-ta!"

  The angel burst apart into motes of light that drifted up through the canopy, and I sighed.

  An alert appeared in front of me, like a pulsating four-sided star, fshing in my view.

  |Incoming Message from: Aurora ( Friend ) |

  I panicked. I only had two friends uploaded to my system, so this had to be Emilia, unless something was in some way wrong. I panicked as I looked down at myself again, the menu opening as a crystalline fracture in space in front of me, letting me see myself. There was still some blood matted in my hair, and I dunked my head underwater, the chime of the message notification still ringing in my ears even underwater as the star kept fshing steadily before me.

  I came up out of the water with a gasp, frantically scrubbing my face to remove as much blood from around my mouth as possible, gargling some of the water from the river to scrub the st of the murky tang of goblin blood from my tongue before I spat the water into the clear pool.

  I shook my head, braid flying from side to side, and then with a trembling hand, I hit accept. Aurora's face came into view as the four-pointed star expanded, almost like a shard of a mirror, to reveal a slightly misty image on the other side. It was quite clearly Emilia. Her hair was a ptinum blonde, rather than her usual brown, and silver freckles sparkled across her face, but what caught my eye immediately was the iridescent halo hovering just above and behind her head. It was mesmerizing, more because... it wasn't a solid object. Light just... twisted, around where the halo clearly was, before sending it off, brighter? Somehow? Almost like everything except the actual halo was made brighter to show where it was. Her head was turned off to the side, talking to someone off camera.

  "-he's probably just busy or something, there's no way we can- oh! Hey Man-"

  Emilia's eyes met mine. I knew the moment our eyes locked, and her expression lit up with sheer etion, that I was never going to hear the end of this moment.

  "OH MY GOD HE'S A GIRL!"

  "Wait what?" A rge man leaned into frame, and I could tell he was Jose in an instant, but almost exclusively through his body nguage. As I have mentioned before, in the real world, Jose is... short. Shorter than me, at least, by a significant margin. The man who leaned into view, clean cut bck hair, dark, skin, and cd in bright silver and bck pte armor, had to be six foot three at least assuming Emilia had made her character simir to her real-world size.

  "Oh my god, Dude! You are a chick - how's it feel, what's it like having boobs?"

  I blushed, mouth opening and closing dumbly as Emilia, or, well, Aurora, in here, cackled with sheer glee, rainbow sparks snapping off of her halo as she shoved Jose out of the frame.

  "You can't just ask a girl what it feels like to have boobs Jerren! My gods did you never listen to a word your mother said in your life? Humans, I swear!"

  I felt blood rush to my face.

  Aurora jumped back in.

  "Tell me, tell me, girl to girl- you already took it for a spin, yeah? Oh gods please tell me you've already tested that body of yours out!" Her eyebrows wiggled suggestively, and I knew my blush was deepening fast as I turned away and pursed my lips, not wanting to admit to... how distracted I had gotten during character creation.

  "Oh my god." Jose muttered, his eyebrows rising high enough they nearly met his handsomely tousled bck hair.

  "HAHA you DID!" Aurora ughed again, and I saw her pearlescent white wings beat once behind her as she apparently did a wing-assisted backflip. "Pay up buddy."

  Jose growled off camera, and flipped a coin into Aurora's waiting palm, which she pocketed.

  "Wait - you two bet on whether or not I would try out the female body?"

  "Oh no-" Auora said, " We bet on whether or not you would... test it out! We were both damn sure you'd at least walk around in one."

  I hid my face in my palms with a groan.

  "Anyway," Aurora said, wiping away a tear that had formed from ughing as hard as she had. "Jarren and I just logged in, where are you at? We'll meet you there."

  I gnced around me. "Still in the woods outside the main gate I think? The guards said it was the gate leading to the 'Way of Doors', whatever that means."

  "Oh good! we're close then. We'll see you in a bit, show you around and get you familiar with the main city and its amenities. Make your way back to the gate itself, it will be easier to spot you."

  "What do we do after that? I've already been logged on for an hour."

  Emilia - Aurora - gnced at something I couldn't' see, but which I assumed was the time dispyed on her UI.

  "Hmmmm. If we shop fast, we might be able to try out that event-dungeon."

  "Event dungeon?"

  "Yeah, needs three people to enter, bit of a tough one. Jarren and I are over-leveled for it, so it might be a good way to power-level you a bit. Have you hit level two yet?"

  I gnced at my interface, after swiping my left hand down to summon my menu, finally clearing away all of the kill notifications.

  "I hit level one clearing out some goblins, and apparently I have an attribute to assign." I squinted at the little blue bar that faded into existence when I thought about my experience.

  "I ah, can't say for sure, but it looks like I'm really close to level two."

  "Cool - we'll talk about that in a bit. Oh! Wait- I can't go around calling you 'Rhun' When we're in here, what's your character's name?"

  "Fang."

  "Ah, yes, alrighty then, Fang." She sang as she winked at me. "See you in a jiffy!"

  The message window closed, and I sighed as I gnced down at my bloodstained tunic. I had no idea what they would see, depending on their settings, or how they would react to... the sight of me covered head to toe in goblin blood, but I knew they shouldn't be able to tell I'd had my fangs in the throat of one. I just... looked like I'd committed a massacre.

  Which was fair I supposed.

  I honestly... Kind of had been knee deep in a massacre only moments ago.

  "This will be interesting." I muttered, before I began trudging my way out of the river in the woods, and back towards the main gate of the city.

  JeanNaHas