Elwen the Conquered

Opening her eyes, Elizabeth found herself standing atop a hill in a sea of emerald green. For a few moments, she felt nauseous, before it faded. Above her, she saw puffs of pearly white dotted a bright blue sky. She took her first breath in the new world, filling her lungs with pristine, refreshing air unsullied by the endless march of industry. Savoring the sweet air, she smiled at the singing birds in the trees around her.

Looking around her, she spotted Ben in the field beneath her, running his hand through the long grass. Feeling her gaze, he turned to her and started towards her.

“Enjoying the grass, Ben?”

He lightly tutted to her, before telling her “It’s Varian now, Elwen. We left our old identities behind when we entered those pods.” She was confused for a moment, before nodding her head slightly. As she did so, he finished his approach and stood before her, looking her over. “Is everything alright? How does the new body feel?”

She looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them, articulating her new joints. “It’s a little strange. It feels familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time.”

“It’s the dissociative syndrome from the transfer. It’s supposed to fade in a few hours. Anything else?” He inquired as he grinned.

“No? I don’t think so?” She responded, not sure what he was asking.

“Not even when I do this?” He teased as he lightly tickled her, causing her to squeal before jumping away.

“W-what was that? Why does it feel like that? W-what did you do?” She stuttered, throwing a bunch of questions at him.

Varian quickly contained his laughter before answering her. “You didn’t look through all of the character creation options, did you? I boosted your sensitivity a little. And in… certain places…” He droned on “A little more.”

“Y-you can do that?” She questioned him, incredulous that she didn’t see anything like that. Although, in her defense, there were far too many for her to sort through. In fact, the only reason that Ben found them is that he had his personal AI sort through everything and summarize the most important things. It was only after a few hours of probing it that he finally discovered that they could modify certain sensory parameters. It didn’t take much longer for him to find that he could take advantage of those options.

“Of course you can! I even boosted my night vision and color contrast a little. Although that cost me points, yours didn’t cost anything.” He grinned at her again. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it will help you have… more fun, later on, and come to love it.”

Elizabeth blushed at his words. “S-s-stop teasing me!”

Her words made Varian laugh again. “Don’t worry, Elle, I’ll never stop teasing you. You’re far too cute for that. Although, if you want me to stop, we could just escalate this to what naturally comes after.”

“B-ben! W-we agreed that w-we wouldn’t do that until after you… um…”

“Until I do what? Lock a collar around your neck?”

His words forced her cheeks to blush furiously, and him to deepen his grin.

“Alright, we’ll follow your wish, you naughty girl.” He declared as he lifted her chin to meet his eyes, towering over her. She bit her lip and shrank under his gaze. “And remember, I’m Varian now, and you’re Elwen. It will be better if you get used to the idea, and start living your new life.”

He smiled and let her go. “Now, I want to see how the system looks in-game. [Status].”

Varian watched as a screen appeared before him. “Can you see this?” He asked.

Elwen tilted her head confusedly for a moment, before responding. “No, it looks like it only shows up to you.”

Varian’s eyes returned to his screen, perusing his status.

After confirming that his stats were correct, not that he could do anything if they weren’t, Varian turned to Elwen, who was doing the same thing he was.

“I want to try appraising you. Tell me if you feel anything.” He said as he activated [Appraise].

He saw a small screen appear before him, giving him a general outline of Elwen’s stats. It wasn’t nearly as detailed as he got when he used [Status], but that was to be expected. Hopefully, as he leveled up the skill it would become more detailed.

“Did you finish? I couldn’t feel anything.”

“Yes, although I can only see your name and class, and without the details. At least we know that we can appraise without alerting our enemies.”

“Maybe, there might be a perk or something that alerts you when you’re appraised. And you haven’t tested it on a monster, either.”

“Well, are you ready to get moving? There should be a town around here somewhere.”

Elwen glanced back down at her status, confirming everything, before looking up at Varian. “Yes! Let’s go!” And so, she took the first steps in the new world, beginning down a small dirt path that ran down the hill.

The two continued down this path for some time, hoping that it led to civilization. They spawned essentially in the middle of nowhere, with no clear indication of what they should do or where they should go. Varian was right about there not being a tutorial. Thankfully, though, they did spawn with some basic equipment.

Elwen glanced at the man beside her, Varian, her former childhood friend. She had, of course, seen what his character would look like before, but seeing him on a screen versus in person was a huge difference. She knew that he would be taller than her, but seeing it in person, all she could think of was that he really towered over her. He was quite intimidating too, something that she didn’t pick up before. His crimson eyes seemed to pierce through her, which would have terrified her if she didn’t know the person behind them.

He was quite muscular too, although it was a little difficult to tell through his loose-fitting clothes. He had jet-black hair that fell just to his shoulders, tied back to keep it off of his face. She thought that it was a strange choice, at least for modern sensibilities, but it suited him quite well. His face was quite mature and masculine, and he looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Not too far off from his original age of 25, but noticeably more mature. She liked the face he chose and thought he looked quite handsome. It was certainly better than his previous, boyish appearance. His skin was a light ash color, certainly a strange color for a human, but they were no longer human.

He was now a dark elf, a member of an ‘evil’ race. In this world, races were generally divided into three categories: ‘good,’ ‘evil,’ and ‘neutral.’

The ‘good’ races were generally those who fought against the demons in a series of wars a long time ago. There were a few exceptions, but that was generally how it was. If your people fought against the demons, you were ‘good.’

The ‘evil’ races, in contrast, were generally those who fought for the demons. This was a little more complicated, as there were several races, like the orcs, who fought against the demons at first, but were then conquered by them and forced to fight. Despite this, they were still considered an ‘evil’ race. There were also races like the deepfolk, who didn’t fight for the demons, but are generally considered ‘evil.’

The ‘neutral’ races were those who didn’t fight for either side, either because they were too far away from the fighting to be involved or they just decided not to fight. A good example would be the lizardmen, who refused to fight against the demons because it didn’t benefit them.

Categorizing what side a player’s race was on was complicated, as a lot of races had subgroups that fought on different sides. For instance, most dwarves fought on the ‘good’ side, but a large subgroup fought on the side of the demons.

Generally speaking, ‘good’ kingdoms allowed everyone in their borders, ‘evil’ kingdoms only allowed those who were part of an ‘evil’ race to freely move about, and ‘neutral’ kingdoms were somewhere in between. There were, of course, exceptions to every rule, but this is generally how things were.

As an ‘evil’ player, Varian had access to the lands of most ‘evil’ kingdoms, and as long as Elwen was with Varian, she did too. The ‘good’ kingdoms might be a little suspicious of him, but they were generally forgiving.

Varian was wearing loose-fitting tunic and trousers. The tunic was a black, while the trousers were a faded brown. They also had patches covering potions of the cloth, indicating places where the fabric had been torn or otherwise damaged. A sword was secured at his side, the only weapon he had been given.

Elwen kept stealing glances at his new masculine form, trying not to get caught looking. She definitely did not want him to catch her peeping, he would never stop teasing her about it.

She, in contrast, felt like she got more girly when she transferred. She was shorter, albeit only by a few inches. She wasn’t exactly tall in her previous life, after all. Her small frame was capped in beautiful platinum blonde hair that flowed halfway down her back. She loved the new color; it was much brighter than it used to be. It was also soft and silky, and she loved combing her finger through it. Brushing her hair would definitely be a fun activity now. While she hadn’t gotten a chance to see them yet, she knew her eyes were a brilliant purple, shining like amethysts. Her skin was pale, but still had a pinkish tone to it, and silky smooth like her hair.

The only think she didn’t like was the clothes she was wearing. She had essentially the same clothes as Varian, except in different colors. Her tunic was a light blue, matched with a pair of brown pants. They were itchy, and the rough fabric scratched against her skin. Varian told her that she looked younger, like she did as they were leaving high school, but she asked if she looked any different when they stepped into the pods. After all, nearly seven years had passed since then.

“Of course not, you looked just as beautiful then as you looked when I first laid eyes on you.” With that, she lost the ability to continue their conversation.

They left the dirt path, stepping onto a much wider, but still unpaved, road. Varian picked a random direction hoping that the starting town of Derring was at the end of it. Varian said that this should be the right direction, based on the position of the sun and where they should have spawned. She wasn’t too sure, but she had nothing else that would point them in the right direction. Her worries were soon put to rest however, as they crested the next hill and the town came into view.

Compared to the cities of Earth, this town looked tiny, but it was still the first glimpse of civilization they had seen. Elwen had stars in her as she grabbed Varian’s arm.

“I see you are quite excited.”

“Of course I am, I thought we were going to have to sleep outside.”

“What, you didn’t trust me?”

“Remember that one time we got lost in the woods on that school trip?”

“If I recall correctly, it was you who was giving the directions then.”

Elwen covered her mouth as she giggled “Well then, I guess your sense of directions is better than mine.”

Varian almost groaned as he said “That’s what I’ve been telling you for years.”

They decided to take a short break before continuing to Derring, mostly at Elwen’s request. She was a little tired after their walk, even though they had only walked a couple miles from their spawn. While they were resting, they reviewed their plans for the next couple of weeks, as they prepared to initiate their plan.

“Our short-term goal is to find a stable source of income” Varian declared “Or at least enough money to stay in an inn consistently. Then, we can focus on leveling while moving onto our destination, which should help us earn the larger amount of gold we will need for the plan.” Elwen nodded, agreeing with his statement.

“From what I remember, most of the monsters around spawn are pretty weak, so we shouldn’t have much trouble defeating them” She stated.

“Right, just make sure you don’t take them on by yourself, I wouldn’t want anything happening to you. Trouble is, the local monsters probably won’t pay much, so I’m not sure if we will have enough for the inn.”

Elwen thought for a moment, before responding “Maybe we can work out some deal with the innkeeper. We might be able to do something to reduce the price.”

“We’ll see, but I would like a backup plan, just in case.”

“Did you have something in mind?”

“There should be some merchants in town.” Varian stated, as he laid out an alternative “We might be able to convince one to hire us as guards on their caravan. We might be able to earn some experience and get paid well at the same time. But we might end up far away from our objective, so it’s not ideal.”

“That’s sounds like a good idea, maybe we can find one that wants a return trip as well, so we end up back here.” Elwen added. “We also have the option of leveling me up so that can unlock [Cure] and sell healing services.”

“That would work, but still don’t want anyone to know that you can use magic, at least not yet.” Varian stated, worried that Elwen’s magic could attract unwanted attention.

They continued their talk for a few minutes, before returning to the road. As they got closer to the town, the road got a little wider, especially when their road joined with the main one. When they got closer to the gate, they joined a line of adventurers returning from whatever adventure they had gotten up to today. The gatekeeper was not amused that they all decided to return at the same time, wanting to get back to his card game with the other guard. Assuming the guard didn’t take too long letting the adventurers in, the pair would be able to enter the town shortly.