Confusion. Surprise. These were my reactions to waking up and realizing that I was still alive.

Someone must have gotten to me in time, though it must have been pretty damn close. Was I in the infirmary? A real hospital? I felt like I was floating in water which only made me even more confused.

I opened my eyes and sat up, finding that I was in a tub… No, I was in a pool that was about two feet deep and fifteen feet wide. However, what was even more surprising was the fact that the pool didn’t seem to be full of water. Instead, it was full of a silvery liquid metal, which immediately reminded me of that weird robot from Terminator 2.

When I brought my hand up, the silver liquid ran right through my fingers, leaving nothing behind. My hand was completely dry. Then I realized that there was something wrong with my hand. It was smaller than it should have been as well as a couple shades lighter.

“What the fuck?” I started, only to pause when I realized that my hand wasn’t the only thing that was wrong. My entire body felt strange.

I slowly stood up, my eyes scanning my surroundings. I was in the middle of a room, one where all the walls and ceiling looked to be made of trees that had grown ridiculously close together. All of the branches and leaves were woven together so tightly that I couldn’t see through them at all. Glowing fruit grew from some of these branches and seemed to be the main source of light.

Then I looked down and was surprised to realize that I couldn’t see past two large mounds of flesh that were sticking out of my chest. They felt kind of heavy too. My eyes shot wide at the sight, though I only became even more confused than before.

After taking a few long seconds to try processing this…and failing…I stepped out of the pool. All of the liquid ran off me, leaving me completely dry. Then as I looked back at the pool, I realized that the liquid had already settled down and didn’t have so much as a single ripple. That left the surface of the pool looking almost like a giant mirror.

I stared down at the reflective surface, my mouth dropping open in stunned disbelief. A chick was staring back at me from the mirror. She looked to be in her early-twenties and was pretty hot, with big tits.

“Oh,” I gasped as I looked down at those very tits, which stuck out from my chest. They had to be DD’s at least, though admittedly, I was making a wild guess because I never really understood bra sizes and ‘DD’ was simply the default size I assigned to nice sized tits. “What the hell?”

I looked back at the mirror, then at myself, alternating my gaze back and forth as I tried to take everything in. She…I…had vibrant red hair that went down to the middle of my back. My skin was a little on the pale side, a little lighter than I was used to. And I used to have a few tattoos, but there wasn’t any sign of them or any other ink on my skin.

I probably gaped at my reflection for about ten minutes before my mind finally reset and began working again. This made absolutely no sense at all, until I suddenly realized what must have happened.

“I’ve respawned,” I blurted out, now remembering the writing that had popped up in front of me as I was dying. It had asked me if I wanted to respawn and I’d said ‘yes’ without really understanding what that meant. “That means, I must be one of those players now.”

Everyone knew about players and how they all claimed to have died and then come back as other people. I’d always thought that was complete bullshit, because once you were dead, you were gone. Period. That was one of the inescapable facts of life. Or, it had been.

“No way,” I said as I tried wrapping my head around that idea. I’d died and had then come back as someone else, which meant that the stories had to be real.

What else did I know about players, besides the fact that they’d all come back from the dead? I knew that they all had superpowers, and they claimed that they were players in some kind of real-world video game. I’d always thought that part sounded like bullshit as well.

“Okay,” I told myself as I tried reasoning through this. “If I’m a player, I must have some kind of powers too.”

Unfortunately, I had no idea of how those supposed powers actually worked. I knew guys who fanboyed over all that player stuff, and they could probably recite all the facts about how it all worked just as easily as other guys could call out football stats. However, I wasn’t one of those. I’d never paid much attention to players. They just hadn’t been a part of my life.

I stood there for another minute, trying to figure out the whole power thing while intentionally not looking at the reflecting pool. I was a bit freaked out about turning into some kind of hot chick and was trying not to think about that for the moment.

Then, it came to me. It was almost like an instinct that bubbled up, leading me to click on a mental switch that I hadn’t even known was there. As soon as I did, a bunch of words suddenly popped up in front of me.

CLASS: ENCHANTER
LEVEL: 1
FREE STAT POINTS: 3

FOCUS: 6
PERCEPTION: 6
PRESENCE: 7
STRENGTH: 5
VITALITY: 6
DEXTERITY: 7
AGILITY: 6

TALENTS AND AFFINITIES:
-ENCHANTMENT

ABILITIES:

SOULBOUND ITEMS:
-ARMOR OF THE ENCHANTRESS

I stared at the writing in front of me, a bit surprised and curious. I cautiously reached out and my hands went right through it as though there was nothing there. And as I turned, the writing remained right in front of me, moving along with my eyes.

“Weird,” I muttered, trying to touch the writing one more time.

I was clearly seeing something that wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t real at the same time. Now, I just had to figure out what it all meant. Some of it was pretty obvious, especially when I realized that this had to be what players meant about being in some kind of real-life game.

“First off,” I mused aloud. “What the hell is an enchanter?”

The words in front of me suddenly changed and new ones appeared.

ENCHANTER – A CLASS WITH THE ABILITY ENCHANT TARGETS WITH BOONS AND BANES

I read this explanation, though it didn’t really explain anything. What the hell were boons and banes? There were no additional answers.

After snorting in annoyance, I mentally closed this message and brought back the previous page. It listed various traits with numbers beside them. Clearly, this was some way to measure things like my strength and agility. Not that I knew what those measurements really meant, only that some of them seemed to be stronger than others.

While I was trying to make sense of this, I noticed that there was a faint blinking at the top of the page. I hesitated for a moment, then mentally clicked it. Suddenly, another new message appeared in front of me.

YOU MAY UNLOCK A NEW ABILITY. SELECT ONE OF THE CHOICES BELOW

-BOON OF GRACE
-REVITALIZE
-HEX

Once again, I stared at the writing, trying to make sense of it. For the first time in my life, I wished that I’d been into video games so I’d have a better idea of what this writing was talking about. However, I was able to figure out a couple things. The other page mentioned abilities, but it didn’t have any listed, and now this page was offering me an ability.

“This has to be talking about those powers that players get,” I thought aloud. “But what the hell do these ones do?” None of these gave any kind of explanation about what they did. “Makes it hard to choose…”

But as I read over the names of the abilities, I had a vague sense of what they did. I wasn’t sure if this was just my imagination or not, but I suspected that it wasn’t.

From ‘Boon of Grace’, I had the feeling that it could make other people more graceful. How did that work? Maybe it had something to do with that agility score that I’d seen before. The more I thought about it, the more confident I was that this did do something with agility.

‘Revitalize’ gave the impression that it made other people healthier. Heal injuries? Maybe this one had something to do with that vitality score, but I wasn’t as confident about that part as I was with the ‘Boon of Grace.’

And then there was the ‘Hex’ option. That one felt like it was almost the exact opposite of ‘Revitalize’, that it would hurt other people.

I considered my options for several minutes, trying to get a better sense of what each ability could do. However, it didn’t take long for me to actually make my decision. “Boon of Grace’ and “Revitalize’ would both help other people but wouldn’t do anything for me. ‘Hex’, on the other hand, was something I could use to defend myself with. That one definitely appealed to me the most.

After I selected my option by mentally clicking on it, I brought back the previous status page, though I immediately noticed a few changes.

CLASS: ENCHANTER
LEVEL: 1
FREE STAT POINTS: 3

FOCUS: 6
PERCEPTION: 6
PRESENCE: 7
STRENGTH: 5
VITALITY: 6
DEXTERITY: 7
AGILITY: 6

TALENTS AND AFFINITIES:
-ENCHANTMENT
--BANES

ABILITIES:
-HEX

SOULBOUND ITEMS:
-ARMOR OF THE ENCHANTRESS

“Okay,” I mused aloud. “I have an ability now. Too bad I don’t know how to use it.”

However, that wasn’t quite true. I suddenly realized that I did know how to use ‘Hex’, and I had an even better idea of what it did. It was just too bad that I didn’t have anything to test it out on.

I closed the status page and then reluctantly looked down at my new body again. I shuddered at the sight. This was NOT me, though admittedly, the evidence seemed to suggest otherwise.

At that moment, I wasn’t sure what to do next. Should I check myself out in more detail? Maybe feel myself up a bit? However, I was a bit too creeped out by the situation to do anything like that. Hell, I’d prefer not to even think about my new body.

“I need to get out of here,” I grumbled, deciding to focus on that instead of on my changes. The longer I could ignore those, the better. Denial was not just a river in Egypt.

With that, I looked around the enclosed space again, looking for the doorway. I’d spotted it earlier, a round opening in the trees and branches that I could easily leave through.

Clothes were hung up beside the doorway, though when I went for a better look, I saw that it was just a robe, the kind you slip over your head and which covered everything. It was a plain brown color, made of some sturdy fabric, and it happened to be just the right size for my new body. And then, on the floor right beneath the robes, I found a pair of sandals. They fit my feet perfectly.

Now that I was dressed, there was one other thing that I’d noticed inside the room but hadn’t checked out yet. On the other side of the doorway, there was a table with some weapons sitting on it. A knife, an axe, a mace, and a sword.

I immediately grabbed the sword, in spite of the fact that I had absolutely no idea how to use one. Cool factor won out over such trivial problems. Besides, how hard could it be?

With that, I slashed the weapon through the air, feeling like a total badass. Superpowers and a cool sword. This was like something straight out of a movie. Or a video game, I silently corrected myself. After all, players were called that for a reason.

My eyes went to the doorway but my feet remained where they were. I slowly turned and looked around the odd chamber, trying to see if there were any other details I should note. There didn’t seem to be anything besides the clothes and weapons.

“Now,” I said, turning my attention back to the doorway. “Time to figure out where the hell I am… Wherever this is, it can’t be any worse than prison.”

I took a deep breath, clutched the sword a little more tightly, then stepped out through the doorway.