I cursed the overly sexualized body of this Fey Wardancer that I was trapped in. It seemed like everything she did had to involve some ridiculous, full-body extending flip or cartwheel. Lamara’s Acrobatic Dodge had tortured me by forcing such painful movements. So once Alexis had me go on the offensive, I was thrilled. But it would seem that her, my, attacks were just as acrobatic as my dodges.
I had hoped that after a while of Lamara’s forced acrobatics, I would start to get used to the extreme stretches. But I was like a beginner in an advanced Yoga class, even if I could get used to it, there was no way I would get there in my first session.
For what seemed like three hours, but must have been less than one, Alexis had me killing my way through these humanoid lizards she called Lizardkin. Any satisfaction I may have had at killing them, especially given my torment at one of their hands when I first loaded into this hell, was lost by the pain I was constantly feeling.
As Alexis forced me to attack them, my attack patterns cycled through several different animations. In one of them I performed a full-split sumersault to my left, swiping both of my long daggers across my target as I went. Another had me stretching my leg up over my head in the highest kick I had ever seen. I also performed hand-plant backflips, kicking my target as I went over.
I was able to determine that these were the default attacks. But it didn’t stop there. Alexis could apparently key in special attacks that were just as tormenting. In one of them, I held my daggers underhanded, stabbed them both into the monster and flipped over its head. I felt like my rear foot didn’t even leave the ground until my lead foot was already planted on the ground, pulling my legs painfully apart. I couldn’t tell if that was worse than the one where I took a running step then dropped down and slid past him into a perfectly flat front-to-back split before jumping to my feet on the other side. I swear I got so low that if I still had balls, they would have been flattened under me.
The pain of all of these was intense, like my body was being ripped apart, but the saving grace was that it didn’t last long. I guess while I can still get hurt in this world, it didn’t seem permanent. Only pain from enemy attacks was persistent, and only until Alexis used either a healing item or her Healing Meditation ability.
“Okay, everyone,” I could hear Alexis’ voice from behind me, coming through the ‘window’ into the real world. She was still streaming to her fans, all several thousand of them. “I think I have enough Lizard Hide now, so I don’t have to grind these Lizardkin anymore.”
As she spoke, she had me run off toward a distant city, with several of the Lizard creatures trailing behind me. I flinched against my will and let out a girly grunt as a sharp pain hit my shoulder from behind. I knew immediately that it was an arrow from one of those creatures, I had felt that pain many times in the last hours.
“For those of you just joining us, a member of my guild is looking to upgrade his Natural Scale Armor Crafting ability and has asked us to collect hides when we are in the right areas…”
I grunted again as another arrow hit directly into my ass. I would have flushed with embarrassment if I had any control. Hearing that high-pitched bimbo-like voice coming from my mouth was still humiliating. The fact that I had such a large audience didn’t help, even if they didn’t know Lamara was an actual person.
“I’ve collected enough hides to give him probably two or three levels, so I’m going to head off to the guild bank in Salak City real quick,” Alexis said, apparently not bothered by the fact that I had been shot multiple times. Her lack of healing item or ability left the arrow impacts in moderate, throbbing pain.
“So I’ll do a quick run to drop these off and then…” Alexis paused as if distracted by something. “Why is my chat exploding, what are you trying to tell me…”
I was a bit worried by her tone of voice, but at least I wasn’t getting hit by arrows anymore. We must have crossed out of the aggression range of the Lizardkin behind me. As I was forced to keep running forward, exhaustion started to take over. As I had learned before, being in this game didn’t grant me the unlimited stamina that I thought it would.
“Oh shit, what time is it?” Alexis said quickly. Just as she spoke, I stopped running, as if she was so startled that she let off the controls. I could see the sky above me darken in a purple hue, getting darker by the second.
“Damn it, it’s midday on the solstice isn't it? I gotta get the hell out of here!” she said with urgency in her voice. Suddenly I turned to my right, putting the city to my left and started to run again.
“I know a lot of you know, since you’re screaming it at me in the chat, but for those of you who don’t know…” she started. I almost felt as if she was addressing ME directly. “Midday on the solstice triggers the ‘Assault on Salak’ event, which…”
Before she could finish, a huge purple lighting bolt struck the ground in front of me, maybe a hundred yards away. If I was able, I would have jumped in surprise at the sight and accompanying noise.
“Shit,” Alexis muttered behind me. I truly got nervous at that point, wondering what she was scared of. That question was answered pretty quickly. As the lightning dissipated, a huge, purple-black crack remained. It was as if the world was a painting and someone ripped a hole in it, to reveal a picture of a space-scape behind it.
“Well our stop will have to wait,” Alexis said as I turned away from the crack and ran. A chill ran through me as I heard a growl that shook my soul. There was something big behind me, probably coming out of that reality tear or whatever it was. Real terror gripped me as the sound gathered in strength and volume. The ground shook, and I heard the sound of what could only be giant wings flapping.
I couldn’t even look back, being forced to run in the opposite direction. Without warning, a searing pain struck my entire body for a brief moment before disappearing completely. I stopped running and sort of… floated off the ground. Two things registered at once: first was that I was surrounded by a roaring fire which didn’t hurt at all, and second was Lamara’s body falling to the ground beneath me.
I felt odd, disconnected, like I was viewing the world around me through the thick walls of a large fish tank. My consciousness became aware of my surroundings, so I could see everything at once. I could see Alexis through the window to the real world. And I could see the massive dragon flying over my head, fire still trailing from its mouth following the fire-breath that apparently killed me.
KILLED ME! The realization fully dawned on me. But I didn’t feel dead, at least not dead in real life…
“Well damn,” Alexis said under her breath. As I focused my attention on her, I could see real worry on her face, as if she didn’t know what would happen to me now that Lamara was dead. “Well I guess now is a good time for a short break, folks,” she said, gaining her composure. “I’ll be back in around five to ten minutes, but stick around, there’s a lot of stream left.”
As I listened, I took stock of what was happening. Apparently I was currently a ghostly version of Lamara floating about five feet in the air. The only difference was that I was wearing big, white robes that defied gravity and floated lightly around me.
Alexis keyed some controls and then quickly turned to me. When her ‘streaming smile’ faded, I figured she had stopped streaming the game and put up her ‘be right back’ screen that I’ve seen before.
Suddenly I felt myself pulled hard and I flew with dizzying speed through the air. Just as quickly as it began, I stopped dead, the sudden nature of the stop made me dizzy. While I couldn’t move my body enough to actually see myself, I could tell that I was back to my normal self. Well back to being Lamara at least.
I was inside of a small tomb, the whole area only being about ten feet square with a large stone coffin in the center. I suppose that this was the respawn point, my soul returning to where the body was buried.
Alexis’ window wrapped around and settled in front of me so I could see her worried expression.
“Are you okay?” she asked me and paused for a moment waiting for the response that I could not give her. “Oh right,” she muttered and waved a hand in front of her, a shimmer following it. “You should be able to communicate now. So are you okay?” Alexis asked again.
I tried to speak but I still was unable. However, my attempt to communicate brought up the emote wheel. It would appear that I could now select which emote Lamara did. I picked one that looked like it was a positive response.
As soon as I picked it, I put a big smile on my face and gave a thumbs-up gesture. “Oh yeah baby! Let’s do it!” I said in my cheesy female voice. As I returned to my idle animation, Alexis burst out laughing. I could do nothing to hide my humiliation at being forced to communicate like this.
“Oh man, I guess my spell to let you communicate didn’t work the way I thought,” Alexis said with tears in her eyes. “So how are you liking your deepest fantasy so far?” I noticed that even though she realized that I couldn’t actually talk, she was making no effort to fix that oversight.
I pulled up the emote menu and looked them over, picking one that looked like it might be a negative response. I threw my hands down, put on an angry expression and stomped the ground. “I don’t like this!” I said in such a cutesy voice that even I didn’t buy it.
“Awe, is it not as fun as you thought?” Alexis said in a cute voice like she was talking to a child.
I was starting to get frustrated. I need to just tell her straight out that I want out of this game, but there wasn’t an emote for that. Trying to get my frustration across, I keyed the same ‘angry’ emote. Alexis laughed.
“Alright, alright, let me give you your voice back,” she finally said and waved her hand again. I felt something change. “So how are you doing?”
“This is not…” I started to talk, though I stopped immediately. Talking in this world felt so strange. My voice was still that of Lamara, the high-pitched, overly girly pitch. The inflection even changed, it was as if my mind was a movie director and my body was the actor, I would tell it what to say, but when Lamara delivered the line, she put her own twist on it. This meant that her voice sounded a half second after I commanded her to say them.
“Let me out!” I shouted, my girly voice taking the urgency out of my request. “Being in this game is nothing but pain. You’re forcing me to run around constantly, letting those asshole lizards shoot me over and over again, let me out!”
Alexis chuckled. “I’m sorry, it’s just so hard to take you seriously. Though I admit it is fun to finally be able to talk to Lamara. I’ve spent so much time with her…”
“Come on, this isn’t funny! I’m not Lamara!” I shouted, my voice going even higher pitch, now sounding like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Get me the hell out of here!”
“Alright it’s less cute now,” Alexis crossed her arms. “Even with Lamara’s voice I know when you’re yelling at me. This was YOUR fantasy, remember? And YOU begged ME to use my magic to drop you in there. And now that I know you can’t be permanently hurt…”
“Wait what are you…” I started to say before my voice cut off. I found myself unable to talk again and just stood there subject to the game’s idle animation.
“I don’t like you yelling at me after I try to do something nice for you,” Alexis said with the rarely seen fire in her eyes. “You wanted this, and since you can’t REALLY be hurt, you’re going through with it. Do you understand?”
I was taken aback by her anger, and paused for a moment before realizing I had control over the emotes. I thought that I should just give in and accept it, but I remembered how much it hurt. So I hesitantly keyed an emote.
“I don’t like this!” I stomped my feet, hoping she would realize just how much I needed to get out.
Alexis sat back in her chair with a ‘I can’t believe you just did that’ expression. I knew I fucked up, so I called up the emote menu and tried desperately to find something that could mean an apology.
As Alexis was about to tear into me, I found one and pushed it. I took a half-step back and raised both my hands out in a ‘stay back’ gesture.
“Sorry, I hope that didn’t hurt too much,” I said apologetically. I guess that emote was meant to be used in the case of friendly fire.
“Oh no, it’s too late for apologies,” Alexis leaned forward with an angry look. “You better strap in, this stream just got longer. I have plenty I can put you through…”
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