If only all Interworld Travel was this Easy

Life is often a series of seemingly pointless repetitions. It is vital to brush one's teeth every morning and go to sleep every night. Staring into the same crack on the ceiling loses charm night by night. What was once filled with wonder becomes mundane. Playing, once a journey into the unknown, may become a checklist. Repetition is stable, but to adventure is to destroy stability. Whether by choice or by chance.

Danielle clicked through the menu options on her bed in the screened back porch. Cheaper than the other rooms, and only suffering a few intrepid and lost insects, Danielle rarely regretted renting it. The night air gave a lovely crispness as she slotted the VR helmet on. Everything was excellent for gaming. Except for one thing.

"Menu up," she said.

A couple of options appeared before her. Many different icons of games scrolled by just by detecting her eye movement. Moments passed by until the scrolling came to a stop.

"Haha," she said.

First free time in days and I don't even want to do something, she thought.

So she checked her notifications instead. A few messages from online friends and one from her sister.

"Open labeled: Hannah," she said.

Her sister's message popped up.

|Are you excited? i am!!!|

"Oh, it's the release of that cheap game," Danielle said.

"Reply: 'Sure am,' exclamation point."

That kid'll definitely enjoy the headset once it gets to her, Danielle thought. And I won't have to look for games that are cross-platform anymore! Hopefully, she'll like it. We'll have fun together either way.

Scrolling again on her screen, she downloaded and installed the game with a combination of voice and eye motion commands. Upon starting the download, she spent a good fifteen minutes looking through cute frog pictures. She found one with a small party hat. It was a cute illustration.

After checking back up on the completed installation, she started the game.

Dramatic music played, sounding a bit rough in the sound quality. A mixture of bright keys sung on the piano followed by a darker string of notes from a cello.

"In the beginning, the land was filled with joy, for the creation of life was to begin," an unknown man narrated.

"Uh huh, here we go," Danielle said.

"The god Va and his children spent a great time perfecting the many rivers, forests, and creatures of the world. But soon enough—

Danielle released a sigh.

—the gods grew tired of the many detailed facets of such a monumental task. As the shaping of creation stagnated slower and slower, the gods split up their divinities as a solution. The sentient races were also created at this point, each by the five major children of Va, to help the creation go on."

"The first are the children of Kas, the flaming sun whose people sprouted as numerous as flowers. The Nirns are colorful and short-lived."

Images flowed by of some short and dark-skinned farmers wearing smiles and flowers.

"Then Cambrint, the mother of winter, turned the white ashes she found on her lands into people. The Brints are a people born from adversity and hardworking—

"Skip," Danielle said.

The screen paused on the image of a pale-skinned warrior with ears pointed like an elf's before opening up a game menu.

"New game," she said.

A character creation screen opened up, alongside a whole list of selections and adjustment bars.

"Ughhh," she said. "OK."

A lazy hand rummaged on the desk beside her bed. It clutched onto a controller.

So, a dragony race, a pixie race, the elves, humans, a horned race, and a dwarf race, Danielle thought. Might be a bit much to call the short race dwarves. The horned race seems like demons, but where are the wings or tails? Well, I kind of like the non-intrusive design. Humans and elves are too boring, and I don't feel like any of the other races.

Demons it is! Danielle thought.

A list of classes popped up, long and increasingly specific.

Dragoon, ninja, and maid? Danielle thought. What kind of weeb crap have I been talked into?

She clicked on the maid choice. The introduction to the class said it had support abilities. The outfit her character was dressed in, which she wouldn't see since she was playing in VR anyway, seemed tasteful. A simple black dress to the ankles with a white apron. Not combat equipment, but realism was definitely not this game's style.

It was an interesting option. There were even subclasses to choose from right out of the gate, and the small text said the player could change these at any time.

"Devil maid? Pftt," Danielle said.

She clicked on it expecting the outfit to change considerably, but it remained the same. It said it was a race option, but the horned race wasn't named devils.

Still, she thought, I'll choose it for the name alone.

She named her character Mz. Devilz and clicked create.

|Do you want to name your character "Mz. Devilz"?|

Danielle clicked |OK|.

|Are you agreed to become a devil's maid?|

"Geez," she said.

She clicked |OK|.

A long message popped up, looking like a legal terms agreement. Danielle fell through it without reading a word.

|OK|.

The VR headset's screen went dark. Danielle started glowing, but she was blind to it. Her hands and feet shone a pale blue, which her pajamas dampened. The rows of pink elephants lit like an old lampshade. Then she disappeared underneath a beam of light that shot through the roof and covered her. The beam disappeared and so had Danielle. Everything remained untouched except the headset and controller falling to the ground as the plugged-in wires tugged out. A moment too late to follow her.

"Is this thing broken?" Danielle said.

She reached up to touch her head and felt hair. Lowering her hands, her eyes open wide, she saw nothing. A darkness unfathomable in its sudden arrival. She tried to move but realized she felt nothing as well. And then weight, light, and sound settled back onto her all at once.

Danielle clenched her eyes shut at the sudden blue light.

"IT WORKED! Ahahah! Anything some old witch can do is of ease for me!"

Danielle slowly cracked open her eyes to a wild blond-haired man cackling away on an intricately carved white chair. Black horns with yellow highlights in the ridges spiraled from his head. As he continued muttering over the marvels of his achievement, a hairline crack crawled across his horns.

As everything was unbelievable, Danielle found her sight sucked onto this small moving line. Feeling sickeningly soft ground under her knees, she saw the line split into other lines. The original line widened.

*CRACK*

Danielle watched on as the horns crumbled. The man froze, combing the shards of his horns from his hair into his hands. His expression went from a hollow blankness to an almost imperceivable tremble that was wiped away with a soft smile as he scattered the remains onto the floor. The floor pulsated.

"Oh well," he said. "WELL! How do you feel about being a fiend yourself? Huh?"

Danielle found the words made no sense. Slowly, her mind played the words back. They were words she could understand. She did understand them. But the man was already saying something else.

"Oh, gracious," he said. "You look... Well, it'll be fine. Are you fine? You should be able to understand, so why?"

Danielle trembled a little.

The now hornless stranger got down from the ornate chair to kneel in front of her. Danielle's eyes stay glued on the broken round bases on top of his head. Black rings ending in jagged edges. She reached out to touch them, only to jerk her hand away at the smallest graze.

"They're real," she said.

"So, it's shock," he said softly. To her, he said, "They're real. Really broken."

Danielle jerked as soon as their eyes met. The man remained still.

Perfectly normal eyes, Danielle thought. Perfectly normal nose. Perfectly normal ears. Perfectly normal head, but the horns. And the ground feels wrong.

Her eyes moved past the man to the darkly fleshed wall. It breathed. Danielle found herself gasping for breath. The man's face moved back into her line of sight.

"Don't worry about the walls," he said. "They'll be fine,"

Danielle burst into cackles. The man reached out but paused. Ultimately he waited for her breathing and posture to relax. Her eyes went back to the walls, which is when he spoke.

"Let us start from the basics," he said. "I'm Melorandious, and you?"

"I— I'm Danielle," she said. "Where the hell am I?"

Melorandious lifted a finger but thought better of it before he spoke his original intent.

"Uhhhhhh," he said. "We're in a safe little dimension hole I made."

"What?" Danielle said.

"We're safe," he said.

"Melorundus—

—Just call me Melor for now," he said.

"Melor, what the actual f*** are you talking about?" Danielle said.

"Ah," Melor said. "Well, I was nearly killed. But! I escaped from that end by making this tiny dimension. I call it my egg."

"What the hell?" Danielle said. "What the absolute hell! There's no way this is real! It's a dream. It only could be a dream!"

Melorandious pulled her hands away from her head. She had clutched the side of her face so intensely that red trails remained. His touch stilled her again, as it felt far too solid.

Just like how the ground—

"You're right," Melorandious said. "This is nothing but a dream."

Danielle's thoughts cut off at Melorandious's words.

"You just need to wake up," he said. "Do you know how to do that?"

"I— I— It'll just happen," Danielle said.

"You're right," Melorandious said. "But I've got a cheap trick that'll help it along. You wanna hear it?"

"That doesn't make sense!" Danielle said.

"It makes sense that dreams make no sense," Melorandious said. "Now, behind you is a giant purple orb. Put your hands on it, and will yourself into it."

"What?" Danielle said.

Turning around, there was indeed a dark orb with highlights of purple upon a white carved pedestal. Danielle found it reassured her. Maybe it was the large size of it that convinced her further that it was a dream. Or maybe it was because the floor still kept moving as the seeming glass ball remained steady as if it held the entire room together.

"OK," Danielle said, "It's not like it could hurt me."

Saying it made it feel like it was true. She walked towards it, across the thin holey skin of the floor. Resisting the urge to retch, her hands touched the orb.

Solid coldness gave her something to focus on other than her bare feet. The man spread his hands on the other side of it, and with its size, it was quite a distance. It felt more like a table stood between them, instead of an orb.

"Imagine yourself going into it," Melorandious said.

Standing now, with the orb in front of her, Danielle thought that that sounded like a terrible idea, even in a dream. Her dread displayed itself to the man.

"The definition of self-decay is not rotting in place but being frozen by fear," Melorandious said.

Danielle frowned as she took a calming breath.

"What could go wrong in a dream?" Melorandious continued. "Everything. But none of that will affect you when you wake up. So why not follow a bad idea? It can't hurt you."

Danielle leaned in. Her face reflected in the orb's surface warped into a smile.

It's the same dare, Danielle thought, if I really disbelieve in this dream or not. But if it's the truth, nothing here can harm me, only scare. I want to get out of here.

She closed her eyes and focused pouring herself into the orb. The first image that came to mind for her was for her hands to be sinking into the orb. At first only queasiness, as the silence brought notice of an odd smell. Focusing on the idea to run further inwards, Danielle felt her soul fall to her feet.

"Excellent," Melorandious said. "I'll do the rest."

Danielle's eyes opened to see the orb filled with a glowing strand of orange. Stray strands reached out from it. All glittering with their own light. Most similar to fluorescent hair. Then, Danielle both saw and felt the orange flowing strand pull into the center of the orb. The strand drew taunt and disappeared out of her sight.

A sudden light filled the room. Danielle looked up to see Melorandious already gazing at the ceiling. Her eyes looking past the walls of flesh she saw the ceiling fall away like ashes. A glorious light filled her view. The center of the ceiling was a circle of white. Colors rushed by the edges of the gap.

"I think we'll just barely make it," Melorandious said.

And the room crashed into a reality, the walls completely fell into fantastic dust. Danielle collapsed to her knees. The orb was gone. Her still outstretched hands felt the grass. Normal grass dampened by the dew at dawn.

"Two theoretically possible feats accomplished today," Melorandious said. "Maybe I'll find a lottery somewhere and win. Those could be three and four."

Danielle looked up at him. He stood scratching the back of his head. Seeing her looking at him, he nodded down at her.

"Feeling fine?" He said.

"I'm feeling," Danielle replied.

They stayed in the brightening dawn of the day, silent.