I tiredly turned the key in the door and stepped inside, muttering, “Home sweet home.” Jess was upon me as soon as I entered the door, wrapping me up in his arms and kissing me passionately, demonstrating that not only was he home from his job at the bakery, but he was definitely in male-mode today. His breasts were bound, his hair tied back in a low ponytail and he was wearing a guy’s t-shirt and jeans. Okay, maybe I should explain a bit. Jess was born Jessica Phillips and is my girlfriend/boyfriend, in fact we were thinking about getting married. We met about seven years ago in college through the LGBTQ support group, since I was bisexual and Jess was trying to figure out who she was. It turned out that s/he’s bisexual and gender fluid and that the two of us hit it off as soon as we met.

“How was work Caleb?” Jess asked as soon as he let me come up for air.

He was grinning from ear to ear and I had to wonder just what he was up to as I shrugged and responded to his question. “It was a long day Jess; we were shorthanded with two people in our section down with the flu and our main server went down. I had to double and triple check for hardware issues, and then I discovered that it was some new virus. I managed to quarantine it until it can be added to our anti-virus program, but it took most of the day to isolate it and get the server back up. Stupid idiots shouldn’t be answering personal emails and playing games and shit at work.”

“Well I’m sure we have something that will cheer you right up,” he replied, still grinning like an idiot.

“We?” I queried. Then, as my younger sister poked her head out from the kitchen and waved I couldn’t help but smile. “Hey Karin, what brings you here?” Karin and I had always been close, despite the three years of age between us and it wasn’t often that we got to spend time together these days. Since I had started my job as an IT systems manager, and she had landed a job as a graphic designer/advertising manager for Pegasus Entertainment, we were both just too busy.

“It’s good to see you too bro,” she said as she ran from the kitchen to give me a hug. Once she had released me she grinned and extracted a pair of what looked like laminated VIP passes. “I come offering gifts. Merry Christmas.”

I took a look at the passes which bore the names “Caleb Sanders” and “Jessica Phillips” and wondered aloud, “Apocalypse Dawn Tester Pass? What’s this about sis?”

“Apocalypse Dawn is going to be the first big VR MMORPG game released by Pegasus Entertainment,” Karin quickly explained. “It’s planned to go into beta testing sometime early next year, but we’re doing a big pre-launch run that will be invite only. Four different servers will be running the game from secure locations here in Vancouver as well as New York City, Tokyo, and London. Two hundred and fifty people will be invited per server for a total of one thousand people worldwide. They’ve invited some big name gamers from popular games, but most of the invites are reserved for employees and family, and since my boss gave me three invites I thought I’d give the other two to you and Jess.”

I looked over the passes curiously, “I don’t see any information on where to get the game or server info or anything like that, and it almost looks like a backstage pass for a concert or something.”

“It kind of is,” she replied with a shrug. “You won’t be logging in to this game, but visiting the server site itself to join the game in a new form of VR tech. It’s not just a headset and motion controllers and such. This is a full immersion system, I tried it using a premade character the other day and it’s nothing like anything else on the market. The graphics are so realistic and with the sights, sounds, smells even the textures, it’s just like being there. Even the sensations you get from your character’s body feel real. We would be spending two weeks real time in the game, but they’ve made it so that It messes with our perception of time, so to us it’ll feel like over three months living in the game. I could have sworn that I was in there a few hours, but only twenty minutes had passed in real time.”

“Whoa! Two weeks in a game?! What are we supposed to do about eating and stuff?”

“Well, our bodies will be kept in a sort of sensory deprivation tank to keep outside sensations from distracting us and we’ll receive fluids and all the necessary dietary requirements intravenously while we’re in the game. There’s sensors and such to keep track of our life signs and vitals too, so we’d be pulled out immediately if anything even seems close to being a problem. Think of it as a free three month vacation,” she pushed eagerly.

“We’d be going in on Christmas day and coming out on the eighth of January, so we could probably manage it with vacation time,” Jess added, clinging to me eagerly, his eyes pleading.

I looked from Jess to Karin, and then back to Jess again and let out a sigh. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“The best part!” Jess said with a grin that threatened to split his face in half.

“I thought of you and Jess, because when I went in the pre-made character was a male, and it was… an extremely realistic experience,” Karin added with a blush. “Anyway… one of the races available to play are Kitsune; they’re shapeshifters and they can be male or female, whatever they feel like at the time. I thought that it might be a good experience for Jess.”

As long as I had known Jess, he had always wanted to know what it was like to actually be male when he was in a male frame of mind, not just binding his breasts and dressing the part when he was in a masculine mood. This would be like a dream come true and I would have had to have been a fool to not see that… or to refuse to play a part in it. “Okay,” I finally said, “we’ll do it. Tell us about this game Karin, I’d like to know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

Apocalypse Dawn was a game set in present day, or the very near future, and the plot was kind of fantasy, meets zombie apocalypse. Karin produced some of the advertising materials and read them out loud for both mine and Jess’ benefit. “Hundreds of years ago the Gods grew weary of Man. They had forgotten their Creators, abused their gifts, and showed only fear and hatred toward those who were not like them. The Goddess Danu stripped the world of magic, sealing it and all magical creatures within the Veil, including the Gods themselves, until a time when Mankind could be redeemed. Now that Veil has been breached and creatures of myth and legend have begun to reappear. Some of these creatures are good while others are creatures of instinct, driven by their baser needs, but there are evils as well; Man's past sins and nightmares given form. Now Mankind will face a great cataclysm if they, and those who would become their allies, do not work together to forge a new future.”

“Okay, I guess that could be interesting,” I admitted. “It doesn’t really tell much about the game itself though sis.”

Karin shrugged. “It’s basically a survival game and players are encouraged to cooperate rather than compete, but each server will have a mystery ‘Apocalypse Dawn Prize Package’ for the party that gathers the most experience during the testing. You’ll have to choose a race and class beforehand, but most of the character generation will be done in game. After choosing their race and character class, characters will receive a starter weapon for their class and have nine points that they may use to choose equipment and skills, though at least one point must be used for a character class related skill. Don’t worry about choosing skills you have in real life though, since those will carry over into the game.”

She showed us some of the materials then and things became a bit clearer. Each of the four servers was named after one of the four seasons and while some races would be available on all servers, each server would have a playable race that wasn’t available on the others and some of the other races may have minor differences in appearance customization or abilities from their counterparts on other servers. Karin thought that this was because they wanted to appeal to local tastes and possibly have cross-server competitions in the future or something.

Our server would be the Autumn server and the only one that would have the Beastkin as a playable race. Other playable races included Humans, Dwarves, Kitsune, Atlanteans, Witches, and four types of Fae: Sprites, Yseil'dhraí (High Elves), Nyiir'dhraí (Wood Elves), and Tokh'dhraí (Shadow Elves). The classes included Magus, Priest/Priestess, Assassin, Thief, Warrior, Gunner, Scout/Ranger, Artificer, Smith, Druid, Support, Soldier, Special Ops, Brigand, Medic, Shadow Walker, Entertainer, and Bard. Overall the game looked like a mix of modern warfare, and swords and sorcery in an apocalypse setting with monsters.

It looked like an interesting magic system too, with only the Fae, Kitsune, Witches, and Atlanteans having access to it. The only way for Humans to gain access to magic is by taking the path of a Druid and using rituals, potions, and herbs, or by making a pact with an elemental. The only exceptions to this being Witches, who are Humans born with the ability to use magic, and Priests, Priestesses, or Bards, who are given items imbued with power by a patron God or Goddess.

Jess decided right away that he wanted to play as a Kitsune Priest/ess and Karin was thinking of building a Shadow Elf Assassin. I wasn’t too sure, but I really wanted to check out the magic system. Finally I said, “I’m thinking about playing a High Elf, but what’s with all of these required skills? None of the other races have them. And seriously… I get the Kurinshal, elvish martial arts could be useful, but governance, fae culture, and faerie dance? That would use up four of my nine skills, with only one of them being remotely useful.”

“Well, High Elves are supposed to be rare and they’re essentially royalty, they’re sheltered and trained to lead their people from birth, so from a story standpoint that makes sense,” my sister explained. “I think it might be so that not everyone chooses them though, since the Fae in general seem to be the best magic users in the game and the other elves seem just as versatile with less of a downside. The High Elf racial ability for our server lets them learn faster and have better memory so they probably learn new skills quicker, but I don’t think many people are going to want to try them with those required skills at the start. Unlike the other Fae, they all have the same hair color, eye color, and skin tone too so there’s not much character customization available either. They might have to end up making some changes to that race before beta testing.”

I shrugged it off. “I don’t really care much about character customization or choosing a bunch of badass skills off the bat, it’s supposed to be a fun vacation so I really want to play around with magic. I guess I’ll just try a High Elf Magus and see how it goes.”

“Yeah, but keep in mind that you only get the one character, so you’ll be playing it for the entire time we’re in the game,” Karin cautioned.

“All the more reason to choose something I can have fun with,” I told her after a moment of thought. “Besides I doubt I’ll be the only High Elf in the game.”

The next day Jess and I booked our vacation time and Karin came over for dinner and to spend the evening with us so we could go over the game materials. We wanted to have a good idea of what we wanted skills-wise and equipment-wise before we started the game, so we could start off well prepared. For my High elf Magus I would have my main class skill called Magus Arts and for my weapon I would get an item called a spell focus which would take a form suited to my character. I was required to take governance, Fae culture, faerie dance, and Kurinshal (elvish martial arts), but for my other skills I chose ambidextrous, small firearms, Elvish language, gymnastics, and then magic crafting for my class-related skill. Since all characters had to choose a patron deity for our characters I had chosen Danu for mine, since she was apparently the Goddess of Magick, among other things.

Jess would be playing a Kitsune so her main class skill would be Cleric Arts and she would have a Hoshi no tama as the cleric’s version of a spell focus. As a Kitsune her deity of choice would be Inari. For skills, Jess decided on first aid, firearms, Japanese language, potion making, magic crafting, herbalism, hand-to-hand combat, piloting, and ride motorcycle. She had decided to start her character as female and had chosen the name Reiko. I hadn’t really chosen a name for mine yet, but I was leaning toward Talik or something.

Karin had chosen the name Nishalle for her Shadow Elf assassin with the patron Goddess Mórrígan. Her main class skill was Shadow Arts and for her weapon she had chosen a Barrett XM500 long range sniper rifle that came with an ammo pouch. For her other skills she chose anatomy knowledge, sniper, gymnastics, Kurinshal, kendo, stealth, pick locks, thrown weapons, and Elvish language.

Besides trying to plan our characters skills we tried to get to know their races a little better as well so we could figure out strengths and weaknesses. Karin and I would both be playing types of elves which were part of the Fae race so we learned about the Fae in the game in general first. There were supposedly many different types of Fae, but the chief four among the allied races were the Sprites, Yseil'dhraí, Nyiir'dhraí, and Tokh'dhraí. The Fae all shared a weakness to Cold Iron, which was a poison to them and burned them when they touched it, but they could be around it so long as they weren’t making physical contact. Yseil'dhraí meant ‘The Chosen People’ in Elvish, while Nyiir'dhraí meant ‘Wood People’, and Tokh'dhraí meant ‘Night People’.

The Yseil'dhraí, or High Elves, which I would be playing, could see equally well in day or night and took to learning magic easier than other races, or even other Fae. They were said not to be very common though, having been almost completely wiped out by Man before being sent to the Veil. They were seen as royalty to all Fae, so they were 'encouraged' to stay where it’s safe and bear children to preserve their race, and were not High Elves by lineage, but rather their features marked them as such; on Autumn Server they were always born with copper-colored hair and golden eyes and were taller than other elves. They were taught to lead their people from birth and their station was determined by a magical tattoo-like markings on their face called the Danann’syr (Mark of Danann). High Elves were born rarely, normally to High Elf parents, but they could also be born to Wood or Shadow Elf parents if there was some noble blood in the family line. As a race they had bonuses to agility and balance, but a minus to strength. They also had a racial ability called ‘Scholar’ which allowed them to learn faster and have better memory than other races.

The Tokh'dhraí, or Shadow Elves, had even better night vision than other elves, but they were mostly nocturnal and sensitive to bright light. They were also more prone to be chaotic or evil than any of the other ally races. Good shadow elves were often fiercely loyal to High Elves and become royal guards, while evil ones became Shadow Walkers, which were kind of like necromancers. They had dark blue skin with black, grey or violet hair and red or orange eyes and racial bonuses to agility and balance. Their racial ability was called ‘Thirst for Life’ and it allowed them to heal themselves by drinking blood and stealing their victims’ life force.

Kitsune were of course Japanese fox-spirits that could shapeshift to humanoid forms, look completely human with features of their choice, and copy the appearances of other people, but only once they turned 100 years old. With that in mind Jess had decided to make Reiko one hundred and twenty-one years old. In their fox form Kitsune could have anywhere from 1-9 tails, gaining a new tail every 100 years. They were generally gifted priests and priestesses and had natural abilities to create balls of light and foxfire. Their racial ability was called ‘Servant of Inari’ and increased their success rate and potency for Priest/Priestess skills.

By the time Christmas day came three weeks later we were all pretty psyched about our vacation, especially Jess. Not that I could blame her, it would be nice to live in a fantasy world for a bit and get away from the real one. Some days it seemed like all I was hearing on the news was mass murders, people going missing, some new flu, or something else equally horrible. Let’s face it, the real world can really suck sometimes and I couldn’t wait for my vacation from it. Jess was in full-on girl mode and could barely sit still as Karin drove us to Pegasus Entertainment’s corporate Headquarters in downtown Vancouver and thankfully her good mood was infectious. We got there a little early, but already there were a lot of people milling around the building’s lobby. Karin seemed to see someone she wanted to talk to though as she called out, “April!” while waving her hands frantically.

The woman who approached us was a slightly short and full figured woman in maybe her late thirties with dark brown hair and eyes. She had a girl with her who resembled her in the face and coloring enough to be her daughter and looked to be about fourteen or fifteen. “Karin! It’s good to see you came, who are your guests?”

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” Karin replied with a laugh. “April, this is my brother Caleb and his fiancée Jess. Guys, this is my good friend April Dawson and her daughter Danielle. April is our head of Marketing so we end up working together a lot.”

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Jess and I said nearly at the same time.

“Are you psyched for this Dani?” my sister asked the teenage girl.

“You better believe it! I’ve been waiting for this all month!” Danielle was grinning from ear to ear. “It kinda sucks that I can’t play an older character like I wanted, but I guess I can understand why.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, a bit confused.

“Minors need to have signed consent forms to get into the game, and they’re only allowed to play a character their own age,” April quickly explained. “It’s because we’ll be essentially living in the game for 3 months and there could and probably will be adult situations not related to combat. She’ll have a blocker on that prevents her from seeing that kind of content and, since adults won’t be able to choose avatars under the age of eighteen either, it will clearly mark her as a minor for her safety.”

I nodded as Jess replied, “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea actually.”

“April, Karin, I’m glad you could both make it for this. I need to start my big speech and get things rolling soon, but please introduce me to your guests,” a voice spoke from behind me. I turned to see a tall willowy redhead with glasses dressed in a dark green skirt suit smiling at us.

“This is my daughter Danielle,” April said first.

“And this is my brother Caleb and his fiancée Jess. Caleb and Jess, this is Ms. Moira Llewellyn, the founder and president of Pegasus Entertainment.” My sister turned apologetically to Jess. “Sorry about this Jess, but I told her about your situation, it’s how I was able to get two guest passes instead of just one.”

“I don’t mind at all if it can make my dream come true,” Jess quickly replied, “Thank you for this chance Ms. Llewellyn.”

“Please, think nothing of it, none of my family could manage to be here unfortunately so I’m glad that I could give you the chance. Caleb,” the redhead pursed her lips in thought for a moment before her face lit up. “Ah yes! You’ll be the one playing our High Elf, I’m very glad to have you here.”

“Wait, the one? As in no others?” I asked with a frown.

“Yes, you were the only one on this server to choose it, I’m a bit disappointed really,” she answered with a heavy sigh. Then she gave me a conspiratorial smile and told me in a mock whisper, “I’ll let you in on a little secret though, as a Magus you chose the best race for it. I hope you’ll be very happy with your new self.”

I nodded, deciding that I liked this woman. “I’m sure I will Ms. Llewellyn, until our time is up anyway.”

“Please you can all just call me Moira,” she insisted. “You know what they say Caleb, all good things must come to an end. I’m sure that you’ll find a way to survive once you’re back in the real world. Now I’m afraid that that’s my cue to get things started.” With that she excused herself and headed toward the podium at the back of the foyer.

Once she had everyone’s attention, after a high pitched protest from the microphone, Moira began to speak. “Merry Christmas everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Moira Llewellyn; founder, president and CEO of Pegasus Entertainment. You all do know why you’re here though, you’re here to play-test Apocalypse Dawn, a game that will expand the boundaries of virtual reality. You will be spending two weeks in the game, but to you it will feel like three and a half months. This will be just as real to you as real life. Any real world skills that you have will be usable in the game and you will perform them as you would in real life. The skills that you choose to learn during your tutorial and when you go see a skill trainer for new skills will be learned at an accelerated speed by the same technology that will slow your perception of time. I know that you’re all eager to start though so let’s get you into your F.I.Ts.”

F.I.T stood for Full Immersion Tube and Moira led us through several thick steel security doors and down into a sub-basement that was built like a bunker. The entire floor was filled with large metal tubes, big enough to fit people inside. Moria said that she believed that these F.I.Ts were going to change the gaming industry so they were taking no chances at corporate espionage. That’s why even family members of staff had to be vetted before being given an invite. We had also had to sign a beta tester contract, ToS agreement, a long non-disclosure agreement, and several waivers. She assured us all that the server, this complex, and the gear that we would be using had been painstakingly tested to be as safe as possible, even the back-up generators had back-up generators.

Upon closer inspection, the tubes were about eight feet long and four feet wide and deep. They were mostly made of a light silver metal, but they each had various tubes and cords connecting them to what looked like refrigerator-sized computer towers with indicator lights, a touch screen panel, and several readout screens. We were each given a number and told to find the tube with the corresponding number, strip down to the F.I.T suit that we had been given the week before, and wait for an attendant to help us get settled in. The F.I.T suit was basically a stretchy water resistant garment, black in color, which kind of resembled a woman’s one piece bathing suit.

When the technician arrived for me she instructed me to sit in the tube while she attached the various medical monitors, IVs, catheters, and something she called stimulation patches. The stimulation patches were supposedly to keep our muscles from atrophying. Most of this stuff wouldn’t be necessary for short term usage, but we were going to be in there for two weeks. While we were inside they would be checking readouts and opening the tubes to check on us several times a day, but we wouldn’t notice anything because our bodies would be in a viscous green liquid that would dull the feelings from our nerve endings and all of our other senses would be deprived as well.

“Now since you’re going for a non-human character, you’re probably going to feel some body dysphoria at first once you’ve completed your character,” the woman who was named Alice told me. “That will ease over time as your mind gets used to the sensations from your new body.” Then, once I was all connected and sitting in the tube filled with green goo she placed something like a flight helmet with a dark visor and oxygen mask on my head. Everything went black and I felt several pinpricks of pain at the base of my skull and several spots on my head. I couldn’t hear, see, or smell a thing and when I felt the tap at my shoulder that indicated I needed to lay down, all sensation that I had left vanished as I sank back into the goo.

I opened my eyes to a brightly lit room and looked down to find myself. I looked like myself still, or at least what I could see of me did. There in front of me was a screen floating in the air that said, “Welcome to Apocalypse Dawn. You have selected a Yseil'dhraí (High Elf) Magus as your character. Would you like to proceed? YES/NO.”

I tapped the “yes” button and a mirror appeared in front of me where my features changed. My dark brown hair became a bright copper, my blue eyes turned bright gold, and my normally pale skin stayed pretty much the same but looked smoother and softer. I was staring at my now long pointed ears as another screen popped up beside me. “Please choose your Gender.” Below that “Female” was written in cursive pink letters and “Male” in blocky blue letters. I tapped the “male” button of course, but I received a slight shock as a flashing red error message appeared. “Error! That option is not available at this time. Please choose again.”

I hit it again, but the same message popped up, and continued to pop up every time I tried it. Finally I groaned. “Aww damn. I suppose I have no choice then, it’s either spend the next three and a half months as a girl or stuck here in character limbo. I just know I’m going to regret doing this but…” I reached out shakily and tapped the female button.

Of course that just had to work so now I was looking at a pretty female elf as the screen started guiding me through various character customization options. Oh well, if I was going to be a chick for the next three months and change I was going to damned well be a hot one, for Jess’ sake. I made myself 19 years old rather than my own 27 years and I kept my height at five feet eleven inches tall, since apparently High Elves are quite a bit taller than other Elves. There weren’t a lot of options for body shape, as it would seem that tall and slender was the standard with slightly wide hips and breasts that looked to be around a large B cup, large enough to know they were there, but not big enough to constantly get in the way.

My face was gorgeous when I was finished, full pouting lips, a delicate nose, large golden eyes, small rounded chin, high cheekbones, and slender and finely arched copper eyebrows. The long pointed ears and tattoo on my face were going to take some getting used to though and I wasn’t able to change the marks like I wanted, though I did add several piercings to each of my ears, gold colored studs in the lobes and three rings along the upper half of the outer ears. The tattoos were composed of what looked like multiple pale blue cursive symbols almost like a Celtic knot that interlinked into a band that covered most of my forehead from my hairline to just above my brows. At the center was a hollow diamond shape with a symbol in the center that resembled a pair of back-to-back sideways cursive letter ‘W’s.

Since they only had long and seemingly elaborate hairstyles for my race I wanted something that wasn’t likely to get in my way, or my eyes. Seriously, do High Elves have something against haircuts? All the styles were really long, and either loose or super elaborate. For the style that I chose, it was a sort of all pinned up together high on my head with small gold circlet and then split into a dozen braids that fell behind me down to my hips with golden ornaments at the ends. It was better than having it loose and it kind of looked cool.

Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about choosing clothes. As for now there didn’t seem to be an option for it and I was in the default black one-piece swimsuit thing. So with my appearance all set all I had to do was choose a name. I was glad that I knew what names my sister and Jess were using since we all wanted to meet up once we were done with selecting our skills and the class/race tutorials, and I didn’t think that Tanik would work for this look. So I entered the name “Taelya” and hit the button to complete character generation.

I found myself at the edge of a woodland clearing and I barely had time to notice a woman sitting in what looked like an intricately carved wooden throne before I was near overwhelmed with sensations. The cool breeze that caressed my face, the feel of dew-clad grass tickling my feet as I turned to take everything in, the scent of pine and wildflowers in the air, the sound of birdsong, and the tree beside me that looked so real that I had to try to reach out and touch it. My hand felt the rough slightly dry bark and as I moved my hand along the trunk I could feel the slight scrape against my palm as small bits of bark were worked loose, flaked off, and stuck to my hand with the warm stickiness of fresh tree sap.

It wasn’t just the world around me that had my attention either. My body felt so different, so very strange and each new sensation that ran through it seemed to surprise me anew. The way my long ears twitched as I tried to place what birds were singing, the slight shiver and goosebumps rising upon my flesh at the touch of that cool breeze, and the unfamiliar weight of the hair atop my head and the braids tumbling down my back. The shifting of my breasts beneath my form fitting garment as I moved, and the lack of tightness in the groin that only seemed to bring my attention fully on my virtual body, and it’s new gender. It was some time before I was able to shake myself loose from those sensations and enter the clearing.

The woman on the throne looked up as I approached. She looked a lot like my avatar, but her hair was styled differently and she seemed quite a bit older despite her youthful appearance. While she had the same tattoo as me on her forehead she also had a pair of inverted triangles beneath each of her eyes and covering her cheeks in the same pale blue and consisting of similar Celtic knot-like entwined symbols. She also had a floating sign above her head marking her as “Queen Amoiraishe” and an NPC. She seemed to examine me for a moment before gesturing for me to come forward. “Welcome Princess Taelya, I have called you here today to teach you about your people, your duties and to teach you the skills that you will need to survive in this new world. Come now my daughter, let us begin.”