aka Amy - Interlogue pt.1 (Amy) (Patreon)

"Getting a little low on health here," Leah called out.

"I'm on it," I responded as I pointed my staff at her and cast the spell. Mystical golden light bathed the powerful armour-clad woman as her injuries miraculously healed.

I could hear the smile on her face as she replied, "Thanks Amy!"

Then she was right back into the fray, smashing skulls and blocking attacks with her great shield and severing limbs with her big sword.

Kreff loosed another arrow and scored a critical hit on a monster who'd been trying to sneak up on us by clinging to the ceiling. 

The body fell dead to the floor just behind our companions and Raven joked, "Hey, it's raining goblins in here!"

She was our new DPS. She was a sort of gothy dark rogue character. Armed with a single-edge curved sword, a small buckler, and an assortment of knives. She seemed like a cross between a ninja, a rogue, and a duelist.

This was our first dungeon dive since she joined us, and I already liked her a lot more than Dorn. Where he took everything way too seriously, Raven had a sense of humour and she knew at the end of the day it was all just a game. 

That's not to say she didn't pull her weight or goofed around and got us in trouble, she definitely got the job done. But she did it with a smile, and I got the feeling if things didn't go well she wasn't going to have a tantrum and ragequit on us like Dorn did. 

Though to be honest I was kind of glad he did that. After he was gone, Leah introduced Kreff and I to Raven and we all hit it off pretty well. As far as I was concerned Raven was already as much a friend as Leah and Kreff were, the way she fit right in with the rest of us.

The four of us made short work of our current foes, then we pushed deeper into the dungeon. I had a light spell keeping our immediate surroundings illuminated, while Leah and Raven sort of took turns up front. The heavily-armoured knight could withstand most attacks, while the agile and resourceful dark rogue had a keen eye and a knack for spotting traps and tripwires. And every so often I'd cast a spell to detect monsters, incase there was anything lurking just out of sight.

It was funny in a way, when it came to magic the game's mechanics were so much more limited than the real thing. If we were doing this for real I could light up the whole dungeon rather than only a few meters radius around me. I wouldn't need to keep casting detect monsters every so often either, I could just do it once and know where they all were. And I'd almost caught myself mentioning these inconveniences to my teammates more than once this evening, before remembering to keep my mouth shut.

In the end I had to remind myself the limitations were because my character was only a cleric. If I was playing a goddess then I'd probably have better stats and my magic wouldn't be so restricted. But then I'd also be very OP compared to everyone and everything else in the game, and it would likely lose a lot of its appeal. 

So I focused on enjoying the game for what it was, despite the irony of everyone else playing characters who could do things they couldn't do in real life while I was playing a character significantly less capable than the real me.

Things in the dungeon seemed quiet for the moment, and while we had a lull in the action Leah commented "Hey Amy? I know we all kind of agreed not to talk about this sort of thing, but I gotta say you sound amazing. I don't know why you hid your real voice for so long."

Fortunately nobody could see my grin or my blush as I sat at my computer. Well, nobody apart from Tess, but I was pretty sure she wasn't paying attention. She was curled up on the sofa with a book, ignoring me and my game. And she couldn't hear what my friends said anyways since I was wearing headphones.

Her small apartment felt even more cramped with my computer set up on a little table in the corner of the living-room, but it was only a temporary situation. We'd be moving into our new place in just under three weeks, at the start of September. It was a two-bedroom unit, less than a kilometre from her current place. It had everything we wanted though, including a balcony and bigger kitchen and bathroom. And we planned to set up the spare bedroom as an office, so I could do my gaming in there without bothering Tess.

I let that fun thought go for now as my focus returned to the game, and Leah's comment about my voice.

When Leah and Kreff and I got back together online I had to come up with an excuse for why I suddenly sounded like a girl, instead of the guy-voice they were used to. So I told them I had some bad experiences in the past with guys in other games giving me a hard time when they knew I was a girl. I claimed I used a voice-changer and pretended to be a guy so I could avoid those problems this time around. And I said that I finally got tired of sounding like a dude so I decided to try just being me.

My companions accepted my explanation without question, they said they were glad I felt comfortable enough around them to be my real self. 

The way Leah and Kreff just accepted me like that made me wish I could let them actually see the real me, purple eyes and silver hair and all. I was sure they'd have some comments, considering I looked like the real-life equivalent of my character. 

In fact I kind of wished the four of us could meet up in person at some point. A month ago that thought would have terrified me, I was embarrassed of what I used to look like. Now I was proud of it, and I wanted to be more social too. I didn't care that Leah sounded like a skinny nerdy sixteen-year-old girl, or that Kreff sounded like a forty-year-old accountant guy. They were my friends, and to me they were the tall muscular lady knight and the slim non-binary elven archer.

And while Raven was new to the team and new as a friend, I actually really wanted to get to know her better too. Her character was a twenty-something human. Attractive, sexy, dark, mysterious, and that's exactly what her voice sounded like too. Like me, she sounded exactly how I'd picture the real Raven to sound.

That was another thing, if I really wanted to know who they were or what my friends looked like, I could find out. I wasn't omniscient, but I wasn't limited to human senses either. I could do something like clairvoyance and peek in on them, but I'd never actually do it. I respected their privacy, the way they respected mine when I sounded like a guy.

And as much as I wished the four of us could meet I was reluctant to suggest it. For one thing I had no idea where in the world they all lived. Going by accents and some remarks about time-zones, Leah was probably in the UK and Kreff was Pacific-north-west. Raven was a lot harder to pin down. She had an elusive 'mid-Atlantic' accent but then some of her words seemed to be spoken with vaguely UK accent. And she freely mixed up words and terms like miles and kilometres, elevators and lifts, cookies and biscuits. 

Maybe once we all got to know her better, I'd try asking her where she was from. Maybe I'd even get brave enough to suggest a meet-up someday, just to see what they all thought. But for now, there was a dungeon to clear and more monsters to kill.

I'd actually been a little scared at first that I wouldn't enjoy the gaming anymore, as if becoming Amy would somehow change my interests or something like that. Though to be honest, while I did enjoy the game as much as ever the reality was I'd spent a lot less time playing lately.

For one thing video games had been a kind of escapism for me, an opportunity to be my true self on the screen when I couldn't be me for real. That was no longer a problem. And the other thing was now I had a girlfriend, and spending time with her was a lot more important to me than spending time in a video game.

"Thanks Leah," I finally replied to our tall strong beautiful tank. "It's nice to be myself with all of you."

Kreff sounded like they were smiling as they interjected, "Save the flirting for when we're done, you two. We've got a dungeon to clear!"

Leah laughed, "You know the monsters can't hear us right? They're not on voice."

"Actually they are," Raven commented casually. "But they have their own channel."

"Wait what?" I asked. 

The dark rogue giggled, "Just kidding! C'mon, Kreff's right let's keep going!"

There were some more laughs and teasing all around, but the four of us pressed on. It took another hour or so of fighting and exploring to find the final boss monster. That was a real challenge, the thing had hoards of minions that prevented us from getting anywhere near it. 

Leah and Raven ended up fighting the swarm of lesser monsters while me and Kreff used ranged attacks to deal with the boss. Kreff had some enchanted arrows and in between healing spells to keep the four of us going I was calling upon divine retribution magic to cast lightning bolts. Raven's class also had some limited magic and when she wasn't dispatching minions she'd shoot some fire at the boss to keep him on his toes.

The final fight took us about a half hour, but ultimately we were victorious. When it was over we gathered up all the loot as the system doled out experience points, and the four of us talked and joked about the battle. And in the end, we cleared out and returned to the safe zone in the village so we could all save our progress.

"That was fun," Raven announced. "I like you folks."

Leah agreed, "I think we all make a good team."

Kreff asked, "So who's up for another round?"

I glanced at the time and grimaced, then checked over my shoulder. Tess was still sitting on the sofa but she'd put her book away, she was watching me with a little smile on her face.

"Sorry gang," I said into my mic. "It's late here and my girlfriend's giving me the 'time for bed' look. I'll catch you all next time."

Leah teased that she was jealous and Raven promised to look after her since I was taken, then we all said our fare-wells for now and I finally logged off.

I pulled off the headphones and shut down the computer, while Tess got up from the sofa. She wrapped her arms around me from behind and whispered in my ear, "It's really cute you know? Watching your little digital self running around on the screen with her friends, fighting monsters and tossing magic about."

She added with a smirk, "I wonder what they'd think if they knew that was you in real life too? Including the magic. I already know you can do healing spells, but can you really toss lightning bolts around?"

"Hey," I blushed, but I smirked back at her. "If you weren't so clumsy in the kitchen I wouldn't need to show off with healing magic. We're keeping you away from sharp things and hot things from now on."

Tess pouted, "If I'm not allowed near hot things, how am I supposed to kiss my girlfriend?"

I grinned as I got to my feet, "Perhaps we'll allow one exemption to the 'no hot things' rule. Now c'mon, let's go to bed."