Inside Out

by Ellis Michaels

  “Sorry,” he said, letting out a series of farts. “I can't help it. I think it's from eating that orc.”

  “You think?” Luke said, laughing.

  They got uptown to where all the shops and the inn were. There were dozens of players hanging out in the streets. Lakewind was a popular town for players to meet before going out on quests together. Each player's name, level, race, and class were displayed under their character in blue lettering. NPCs showed similar things, except in green lettering. Some monsters – bosses mostly – had their info below them in red letters.

  “Let's start talking to people,” Luke suggested. “See if we can get some answers.”

  Stephanie and Mitch shot each other an anxious look. Neither of them were particularly outgoing.

  “Good idea,” Alyssa said. “How do you want to do this?”

  “Maybe we should split up,” Mitch answered. “Me and Luke will go around talking to people and the two of you,” he said, pointing at Alyssa and Stephanie, “do the same. Then we'll meet up at the inn in about an hour.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “There's just one problem,” Stephanie said.

  “What?” Mitch asked.

  “How are we supposed to know when it's been an hour? There aren't any clocks in this game.”

  “I know! I've got something for this,” Alyssa said, frantically flipping through her torn-in-half spell book. “Here! It's an alert spell. If I cast it on the four of us, it'll let us know when a certain amount of time has passed. I'll cast it to let us know when it's been an hour.”

  “Make it so, number one,” Mitch said in a poor British accent.

  The other three looked at Mitch. Alyssa out of confusion, not getting the reference. Luke looked at his dorky friend and slowly shook his head from side to side. Stephanie just looked at Mitch and smiled.

  Alyssa started reading from her spell book. She held out her hand and the other three placed theirs on hers. As she finished the spell, a purple orb briefly appeared around each player with the word Alert above it before disappearing.

  “All set,” Alyssa said. “Come on, Steph. We'll meet up with you two in an hour.”

  “Toodaloo, boo,” Luke said, looking Alyssa in the eyes.

  Her and Stephanie turned and started walking away. Alyssa mumbled under her breath, “Disgusting,” just loud enough for her friend to hear. Stephanie looked over at Alyssa and smirked. “What?” she asked.

  “I think you and Luke have a thing for each other,” Stephanie said.

  After making a puking sound, Alyssa replied, “Um, no! Gross. He's so...”

  “Disgusting, I know,” Stephanie said before her friend could finish her sentence. “He wouldn't bother you if you didn't like him.”

  “Right now you're starting to bother me,” Alyssa replied. “Let's just focus on the task at hand.”

  The girls walked up to a couple of players standing on a street corner. One of them was a tall bearded man with Altazar, Level 17 Human Wizard written underneath him. The other was a short bearded man holding a battle axe. Underneath him read Forsgoth, Level 16 Dwarven Fighter.

  “Hi!” Alyssa said. “I'm Alyssa.”

  Neither of the players replied. They just stood there staring off into space.

  “They must be away from their computers,” Alyssa said. “Let's try someone else.”

  As the girls started walking over to another group of players, Stephanie asked, “Do you realize you just introduced yourself as Alyssa?”

  “So?” Alyssa replied.

  “In Bloodfeast, your name's not Alyssa. It's Dwyndolin. It says so right there,” Stephanie said, pointing to her friend's feet.

  When Alyssa looked down, she didn't see anything. However, she could see Alalia, Level 34 Elven Archer/Black Mage written in blue letters under her friend.

  “You're right,” Alyssa said. “I forgot we have different names in the game. I can't see my own name and level and everything, but I can see yours and everyone else's.”

  “Same here,” Steph replied.

  The girls approached another group of players. There were three of them and they were moving around, so the girls knew they must be at their computers. Two fighters and a wizard, all human, all level 12.

  “Hi! I'm Aly...” Alyssa started, but corrected herself. “I'm Dwyndolin and this is my friend Alalia.”

  “Hello!” the wizard replied. “I'm Flaggg. We're getting ready to go on a night adventure. Care to join us?”

  “We can't, unfortunately,” Stephanie answered. “Flaggg: That's an interesting name.”

  “It's from a Stephen King book,” he replied. “There's a wizard in it named Flagg, spelled with two g's. Unfortunately, that name was already taken in Bloodfeast so I added an extra g.”

  “Very cool,” Alyssa said, guiding the conversation to their predicament. “I have a strange question for you guys: Have you ever heard of anyone actually getting transported into Bloodfeast MMO?”

  “What do you mean?” one of the fighters asked.

  “Have you ever heard about anyone actually becoming their Bloodfeast character?” Alyssa replied.

  “I know there's Bloodfeast fan fiction,” the other fighter said. “Maybe you'll find what you're looking for there.”

  “We're not talking about fiction,” Alyssa said, a little aggravated. “What we're asking is...”

  “Have you ever heard of the Orb of Displacement?” Stephanie asked, cutting off her friend.

  The two fighters looked at the wizard. Flaggg just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I haven't. Sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Alyssa said. “Have a safe quest.”

  The girls walked away, disappointed.

  “We need to talk to some high-level players,” Stephanie suggested. “They'll be more likely to have heard of the Orb of Displacement.”

  “You're right,” Alyssa agreed.

  The girls started walking around the town, looking for any players over level fifty. In Bloodfeast, there was no upper limit to what level you could reach. However, it became more and more difficult to level up the higher you got. The highest level player that any of the four friends had ever encountered was a level 96 paladin.

  “I wonder if the boys are having better luck finding answers,” Stephanie said.

  “Pfft,” Alyssa replied. “I doubt it.”

  * * *

  “I'm fucking serious, bro!” Luke said to the massive six-foot-nine warrior. “Our characters started thinking for themselves somehow and transported us into the game and them out of it. I know it sounds crazy but you gotta believe us!”

  “Get outta here!” MurderHammer22 replied, laughing. “You're crazy. I don't know what you're trying to pull, but it's not working.”

  “We're serious!” Mitch pleaded.

  “And so am I,” MurderHammer22 said. “Get out of here before I lose my temper.”

  Luke wasn't one to avoid confrontation, but he knew that getting into a fight with a sixty-fourth-level warrior named MurderHammer22 wouldn't end well. Not for him and Mitch, anyway. They walked away and wandered the streets, looking for more people to talk to.

  “This is pointless,” Mitch said. “No one's gonna believe us. We've talked to a bunch of people and they all think we're either crazy or trying to somehow manipulate them.”

  “So, what are you suggesting?” Luke asked, stopping in the middle of the street and turning toward his friend. “That we just give up?”

  “Of course not,” Mitch answered.

  “Then let's keep...”

  Luke stopped talking mid-sentence when a purple orb surrounded both him and Mitch. Above it read, Alert! Alert! Alert! in bright red lettering. Gradually, both the words and the orb faded away.

  “Time to go meet the girls at the inn,” Mitch said. “Hopefully, they've had more luck than us.”

  The boys made their way to the inn. It was the largest building in to
wn. The inn not only had dozens of rooms with reasonable rates, it also had a large tavern with good food and cheap beverages. In some towns, the inns had names. In Lakewind, it was simply called The Inn.

  “I don't see the girls yet,” Luke said. “Grab us a table. I'm gonna go get us a couple ales.”

  “K,” Mitch said, then sat down at one of the only empty tables in the tavern.

  Luke approached the barmaid. Underneath her read [NPC] Elmina, Barmaid, The Inn. In Bloodfeast, NPCs didn't have levels. Elmina was very well-endowed and wore a low-cut top, something Luke took notice of right away.

  “Can I get a couple ales?” Luke asked.

  “Up here, sweety,” Elmina said.

  “Huh?”

  Elmina placed her finger on Luke's chin and gently guided his gaze upward. He'd been so busy staring at her insanely-large breasts that he hadn't noticed what a beautiful face she had. When their eyes finally met, Elmina smiled.

  “That's better,” she said. “Two ales, coming right up.”

  Luke's eyes stayed fixed on Elmina – her tits, mostly – while she poured the drinks. He was so focused on her that he didn't see Alyssa and Stephanie walk into the tavern. Elmina finished pouring the ales and brought them over to Luke.

  “That'll be eight copper,” Elmina said.

  Luke flipped her a silver piece and said, “Keep the change,” his eyes glued to her chest the entire time.

  He walked over to the table that Mitch had secured for them, surprised to see the girls sitting there. Luke put the two mugs of ale down on the table.

  “Awww, for us?” Alyssa said, taking a sip from one of the mugs and sliding the other over to Stephanie. “How sweet.”

  Luke didn't respond. He just turned around and walked back to the bar, returning to the table with two more ales for him and Mitch a minute later. As soon as he sat down, Mitch filled him in on what they'd been talking about.

  “The girls didn't have any more luck than we did,” he said. “They spent the whole hour talking to different players just like us. And not surprisingly, they were met with the same level of suspicion and disbelief that we were.”

  “So then what the fuck do we do now?” Luke asked, taking a huge sip from his mug.

  “I think we need to look for the Orb of Displacement,” Stephanie said, taking a tiny sip from hers. The others could barely hear the petite elf's words in the crowded tavern.

  “No shit,” Luke replied, significantly louder. “But how? We asked everyone we talked to if they knew anything about the Orb of Displacement and none of them had even heard of it.”

  A halfling sitting at the next table turned around. He hopped off his stool and walked – more like waddled – over to the four friends.

  “You're looking for the Orb of Displacement?” he asked.

  “That's right,” Luke replied.

  “Anything you can tell us about it would be a big help,” Stephanie added.

  “I can't really tell you anything about the orb itself. What I can tell you is that there's an NPC - I think she’s an NPC, anyway - over near the weaponsmith who was talking my ears off about it just the other night. I forget her name. Seemed a bit, um, crazy, so I didn't really pay much attention to what she was saying. But she kept going on and on about the Orb of Displacement.”

  “Talked your ears off, huh?” Luke said with a grin, looking at his ears, large even by halfling standards.

  “Hey, asshole,” the halfling said, looking right at Luke, “if it wasn't for these ears, I wouldn't have heard you talking about the orb. And if I hadn't told you about the crazy NPC near the weaponsmith, you'd still be sitting here with your heads up your asses, trying to figure out what to do. The way I see it, you owe these ears both an apology and a thank you.”

  Before Luke could respond, Alyssa said, “He's sorry. And thank you. From all of us.”

  The halfling smiled at Alyssa, shot Luke a dirty look, and returned to his table.

  “All right!” Mitch said. “At least that's something. Why don't we stay here for the night. We'll all get a room and rest up. Then tomorrow at first light, we'll head over to the weaponsmith and try to find that NPC the halfling was talking about.”

  The others all nodded in agreement. They continued to hang out in the tavern, eating and drinking mug after mug of room-temperature ale. By the end of the night they were all feeling pretty good. Luke spent most of the evening flirting with players and NPCs alike, eventually taking a half-human, half-elven woman to his room for the night. The others remained at their table in the tavern, talking and drinking, until each getting a room of their own.

  “You know,” Mitch said, his words slightly slurred, “I've been so focused on being stuck here that I forgot our characters are out there in the real world in our bodies. That's what the scroll implied, anyway.”

  “Oh yeah,” Stephanie replied, leaning on Alyssa. “I forgot all about them, too. I wonder what they're doing in the 'great beyond,' as they called it.”

  “It ain't so great if you ask me,” Alyssa said, her words barely understandable.

  Chapter 5 - We're Not In Lakewind Anymore

  Back in Boston, the four Bloodfeast characters explored what they believed was the great beyond. Ethelwulf and Arnold69 were transported into the bodies of Mitch and Luke, the creators and players of their characters.

  “This isn't anything like what I pictured,” Ethelwulf said, looking around Mitch and Luke's small apartment.

  “Look at this,” Arnold69 said, pointing to the screen of the desktop computer.

  The two characters stood silently and stared at the screen as they watched the players walk around Lakewind. Although they'd obviously never seen a computer screen before, they knew what they were watching. In Bloodfeast, there were spells that allowed you to see what was happening in other places. When the spell was cast, a crystal ball would appear and the vision could be seen in it. The characters just assumed that the computer screen was something similar.

  Arnold69 looked down from the screen to his new body – Luke's body. Luke loved to work out and was in excellent physical shape. But compared to his usual massive body, Arnold69 felt tiny and weak in his new frame.

  Ethelwulf, on the other hand, didn't have that problem. Mitch created Ethelwulf in his own image: same height, same weight, same hair color – he even gave him the same size genitalia. Ethelwulf felt quite at home in his new body.

  “We need to go explore,” Arnold69 said.

  “We just got here,” Ethelwulf said. “Why don't we chill out for today and then tomorrow morning we'll go out exploring, looking for a quest.”

  “You can stay here, but I'm going out adventuring.”

  Arnold69 went around the apartment, opening each door. First, he opened the door to Mitch's bedroom. Then, the door to Luke's room. Meanwhile, Ethelwulf just laid on the couch, lost in thought, occasionally talking to himself.

  “This isn't right,” he mumbled. “This isn't the way the great beyond is supposed to be. Where are all our deceased loved ones? Where are the rivers of gold that the elders promised? This can't be the great beyond.”

  Arnold69 opened another door. This time, it was the closet. Mostly packed with protein powders and cereal boxes, this is where Mitch and Luke kept their non-perishable foods and cleaning supplies – the few cleaning supplies they owned. Arnold69 slammed the door shut, starting to get frustrated. He was looking for a way out of the apartment.

  With only two doors left, he opened the one to the bathroom. Arnold69 stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. He'd never seen a sink or a toilet before. However, he was familiar with outhouses and bath tubs. Arnold69 knew that this room was for taking care of business and cleaning up. He just didn't know which device was for what purpose.

  Before getting transported into Bloodfeast, Luke had just drank a big protein shake. As a result, Arnold69 was really starting to have to go. He knew the tub wa
s for bathing. Though rarely used, they had baths in Bloodfeast. But he wasn't sure about the sink and toilet. He looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out which was which. He knew one was for peeing and the other was for washing, but could only guess as to which was for what.

  Finally, he stepped over to the sink. After struggling with the zipper on his pants for a minute, Arnold69 managed to whip it out. He let it rip and emptied his bladder into the sink. Normally, after peeing in Bloodfeast, he'd just put it away and go about his quest. But with a bowl full of what looked like clean water right there, Arnold69 thought it'd be a good idea to get washed up a bit.