Amy looked herself over as she shivered inside of the hot spring there in the Amberpine Forest. It felt good all over her body, and she lost herself for a few moments until it seemed that she would change no more. It was a strange feeling, kind of like how it felt when she first logged into The Kingdom… but this time was different. Instead of shifting from her human and male form to this character, she shifted size and weight of the character to something else.
She rather liked it.
Still, all was not as she had hoped. Running her hands over her belly under the water, she felt a pressure leave her. During her shudders, she had pushed something out of her… a side effect of the hot spring water, it seemed… the child could not withstand the change and had been lost… but the water was so thick of blue she knew not what might have happened to it. Did it absorb back into her body, or did she loose it to the spring?
This is just a game, she told herself internally. I just want to get out of here and get back to my room. I've been here for less than two hours and my feelings and emotions have been toyed with to no end, she squinted as tears began to come to her eyes. I'm going to find a Moderator and get the hell out of here, she decided. And then I may very well take this blasted thing back to Best Buy and get my money back.
As she climbed her way out of the spring and up beyond the warm mud at its edge she found her fairy cloths waiting for her. Amy sighed as she held the little items in the palm of her chid-like hand. She looked the part of an eleven-year-old Misty from Pokémon and was now naked once again. Maybe next time she'd find a store to buy cloths in before trying to change her form.
Shrugging, she picked up her Character Scroll that was laying just beside her, looking it over. She had lost Perks and gained a fair amount of basic stats and size. She could have dealt with any of them further, but why the Sensual Touch was kept, she couldn't say. She'd rather still be fertile, all in all… the idea of snuffing out a life, digital or not, didn't sit well with her.
Getting to her feet, her toes squishing some of the mud between them as she pushed her way carefully through the bushes just ahead of her, she stepped back out towards a path. Her wings momentarily caught on a low-hanging branch, and it hurt to reach back and get them free. With a sigh, she stood just barely taller than the bushes themselves in her child-like size.
Looking down at her own breasts and her legs for a moment, she had to consider that if she could have grown up to an older look, she might be very attractive. Still, did she even care? No, of course not. She just wanted out of The Kingdom so Andy could get a breather and go happily back to a normal life.
"Hail!" someone called from behind her just up the path. Amy froze in place. It was bad enough to be caught in such a situation, but to be caught in such a situation with other Players around was just a horror story waiting to happen. In an AO-Rated Game, anything goes…
She turned around and saw a most unusual sight. There behind her stood a pony with thick brown fur and strapping muscles. It was obviously a powerful work-horse, carrying four large packs at two on each side of it's main form. It wore steel armour painted red, and looked the part of a warhorse from the neck on down.
From the neck up, was a different story, for the above the neckline of the pony was the torso of a man. He wore matching armour and had on a backpack across his back, a strap over his chest to hold his short sword on his back. A shield was over his right gauntlet and a brown whip hung at his left side.
The face he had was mostly human with deep red-brown hair braided off behind him. His ears were a bit pointed, and his eyes glowed with a soft golden light. Most importantly, though, was the black tabard he wore with white lines to its edge. This was because across the center of it was the logo of Prince Herald's Unfinished Kingdom as an emblem and the word (in all capitals) 'Moderator'.
Amy's shock and unease turned to elation as she stared at his form. Her lip quivered and she formed a smile, waving at the form as she started running towards him, forgetting completely that she was nude. "Hail!" she called out, "I was just about to find… one of you," she said, stopping just a few feet in front of him, realizing she didn't know his name.
"Moderator Othello at your service," he gave a slight bow, his pony half kneeling forward. "I was unfortunately looking for you as well," he explained.
"Unfortunate?" she wondered, looking down at herself and immediately reaching her arms across her chest to cover up. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I just got made this size and my cloth wont fit," she explained.
"Oh, no, not that. If you knew how many nude characters I saw all day," he shrugged. "Imagine being called in because a guy's female character was penetrated to far by a tentacle monster to the point where they two were stuck intertwined for an extended period of time. I mean, if you think normal Tech Support is bad, it's nothing like what you see in The Kingdom," he laughed, his head back. But when he looked back to Amy, her eyes showed a horror he had not seen in hours. "Uh, huh… but sometimes I talk too much," he offered, "My apologies. No, I meant unfortunate that we two would have to meet under these circumstances. I myself prefer that no Player have any bad experience due to technical malfunction."
"But doing it to themselves is alright?" she wondered. "What happened to the man?" she couldn't believe she was asking.
"What man?" he blinked, having already forgotten his off-handed rambling story.
"The man playing the woman with the tentacle monster," she dropped her hands in disbelief. That he could forget that image so quickly astounded her.
"Oh, well. Just goes to show that some things may be interesting as a fantasy but much less interesting when it's all real to you," he offered. "The monster was only an NPC and had tried sucking out her life force. Her spirit rating was too high, so she absorbed it instead after a little technical nudge," He smiled, but didn't elaborate.
"Absorbed it? What does that mean?"
"His character became part woman, part tentacle beast," he said, not enjoying the look of detest on her face. "No, no. He really didn't mind too badly. She made enough money with a popular escort service in Vector City that she could have requested any transformation she liked from any mage or otherwise," he noted. And as much as that appalled her, he added, "But, of course, he slash she didn't care after a while. I think she owns her own establishment now. 'Fanciful Desires', I think."
After her jaw un-dropped, she blurted out, "Can you help me!" with tears in her eyes. "I don't want to be this way," she said, reaching up and grabbing her own breasts with both hands. A moment later she both did and didn't regret that action as she softly purred a bit to herself, imagining a she was with someone else who was showing her closeness as she shut her eyes.
A moment later, she opened her eyes and quickly removed her hands as Othello was still standing there. She had become a bit wet that time, and hoped he hadn't noticed. Whether he did or didn't, he reached down to one of the backpacks at his side and handed her first a white bra and some panties which she took from him as he said, "I can turn away if you like."
She thought about it, wondering to herself if he must be hung underneath all that armor. He was a horse after all. Still, her eye twitched as she considered what she had been thinking and frowned deeply, shaking her head, "Not my body. Trying not to worry about it," she insisted as she pulled up her new fresh panties and let go of them as the 'snapped' into place. She pulled up her braw, and as she tried to latch it behind her, it also simply 'snapped' into place. "Auto-Fit clothing? Does it all do that?"
He nodded to her, "Advantages of a video game. Here," he said, handing her a pair of deep red leggings and some kind of long-sleeved undershirt. "These items, along with the undergarments I just gave you are designed to reduce friction and overall feeling between the clothing and the skin. While I cannot remove your Perk, I can help you with it as best I can with these items," he explained, latching the one pouch and reaching for another on his other side.
"Can't you? I heard somewhere that Moderators have over fifteen thousand powers… can you not change me into something, say, human and male?" she wondered, as she finished pulling up the leggings, she started pulling the long-sleeved shirt over her head. It was good to be touched in a way that didn't feel like a lover caressing her skin.
"Technically, we have over fifteen thousands levels and access to every power in the game," he corrected with a smile as he pulled out a set of short blue jeans with red suspenders and handed them to her. He also handed her a yellow shirt that was also just like the one she'd been wearing earlier. "But no. You've been trapped in this game for so long that we wouldn't want to risk using out 'god powers' to change you further. I may be able to direct you to an in-game store fulfill your needs, however."
"But I've only been stuck her for about two hours," she explained after she thanked him for the cloths and slid them all on, the slits in the back of her shirt allowing her wings through. "If that's too long, then—"
"Actually, it's been closer to four years," Othello said with a bit of a sigh, following by a long pause in the air. Amy's eyes just stared at him in disbelief as he continued. "Four years ago you were the first casualty of The Kingdom… We were almost shut down because you effectively died after logging in. But after litigation and working with your family, The Kingdom is stronger and better for it. They never gave up on you," he explained as she remained quite. "So, recently, were had you hooked up to a production model EIU… Extended Immersion Unit… in the hopes that we could coax your mind back into your body.
"So I've been in a coma for four years?" she asked, thinking that if her day could get worse, it would be the death of her.
Othello shook his head and handed her black button pin with white text on it. It said 'Guest' and had little white numbers on it that seemed to be counting down from two hours without any kind of digital background to them. It was like the button was just repainted every second. "No, worse than that. For all intents and purposes, you are brain dead in the real world."
"And you think the EIU can get me out of this right?"
The truth was, there was no way for Andy to have been fully loaded into the game in the first place… a suit is just a suit and should have little to no effect on the mind. Othello knew this, but he didn't want to frighten Andy further. They had no idea what would work to undo this, but if some strange scientific convergence somehow made it happen in the first place, then an EIU did make a bit of sense.
"If anything will do it, this will," Othello said. "It make take some time, but if you pin that button on your clothing you will be invisible to NPC's if you want, much like I am now. That way, if you want to come out of the game world and into a Mod-Shop, we can keep an eye on you. Otherwise, you can tap the button like a communicator in Star Trek and me or another Moderator will be able to answer you call in case you want to keep playing the game," he noted, turning his pony body so as to perhaps walk away.
"So right now only Players can see you? I guess that makes sense… otherwise NPC's would worship you as gods or something. I take the the timer on it is that it must be renewed every two hours?" he nodded. "Which encourages me to check in from time to time. Also lets you get ahold of me if things change on the side of the real world," she thought, rubbing a hand to her chin and closing her eyes as it felt so good.
"Right," he said, looking back. "Only yourself and other Players can see the button. If we need to find you, we should be able to use the game system as normal… but that button should help," he said. "Now, do you want to come with me, or continue on with the game?" he asked.
"Well," she looked at the button, wondering if she could be helped further.