Trouble With Horns

4: Cheerful Woodchipper

“What the fuck Terry?! Alright, first off, please cover yourself! Second, why are you a chick? Third… why are you in Gienia?” Taylor exclaimed, covering her eyes.

I placed an arm over my boobs to protect my sister’s delicate eyes, and had to marvel once again at the incredible softness that even my small boobs provided.

A laugh escaped as I covered myself, and still chuckling I said, “Okay it’s safe Taylor.”

She slowly uncovered an eye, then when she saw I was covering my boobs she pulled her hand away from her face entirely. She looked me up and down for a moment in a confused kind of awe, then shook her head in bewilderment.

“You are a shit magnet like literally everywhere you go. How did this happen?” she asked, smiling despite her accusations.

My sister’s character appeared to be similar in appearance to her normal self, except with a bit more muscle. I kind of admired what she’d done. I had known she played a tank, but I didn’t know she’d based her character off her own looks. Being a little buff suited her.

“Well, I had my character all set up. The one I mentioned I was going to make, but I uh… I accidentally pressed the random character button right before I pressed the confirm button,” I said, grinning. I loved my sister’s reactions to my antics. It was one of the top ten things in my life.

She rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, “Yup, total mess. Well, that explains the resemblance to mum then. The random character thing likes to use your genetic profile to help keep your character from being too outlandish.”

“Wait I look like mum?” I asked, a little horrified. I didn’t want to be walking around in a naked body similar to my mother’s.

Taylor laughed at my panic and shook her head, “Not that much! Like a mix. I can see some dad in you as well. You look like my sister. You can check you know, there’s an option to show your own camera to you in the call.”

I haven’t hammered a UI button so hard in my life. I really wanted to know what my face looked like. I was rather intimately aware of what my body looked like, so my face was the last step. The option came up to display my face in a smaller window next to Taylor’s, and I pressed it.

The window popped up, and my breath was taken away. Wow. When Taylor said I looked like mum, she was kinda right. I did also look like Taylor’s sister… but the main thing, the main thing was that I was drop dead fucking gorgeous. If I had to describe myself to someone, I’d say I was Taylor on night mode. Where she was all bright hair and an honest beautiful face, I was dark hair and mischievous eyes. If I’d seen myself in the bar and made eye contact, I’d be both scared and turned on. If she smiled at me, I’d start preparing to fight a boyfriend. Holy shit. It’s official, the randomiser was thirsty as fuck. Damn AIs always were I swear.

I watched my shoulder length dark brown hair shift beneath my head as I moved my head around to get different angles. My eyes were just black, unless you looked really closely and saw the pupil in the center, and my lashes were like stupid long. I found myself smiling as the person in the little screen followed my movements, part of my brain recognising that she was me. I felt a surge of weird butterflies in my stomach and quickly shut the second screen off. Damn, why was this such a rush?

“Well holy fuck,” I said finally, a little out of breath.

“Yeah holy fuck. You better be careful around guys um… Terry. Even if they can’t do anything terrible to you, you’re still going to have them buzzing around you like insects,” she warned me, then added, “Also, no one is going to take you seriously when you have an opinion, so get ready for that lovely new source of frustration.”

I frowned at that, what did she mean? Everyone knew woman should be listened to as much as anyone else. We buried that problem decades ago, or so I’d thought. Guys buzzing around me like flies though? I knew that was going to be a thing the moment I saw myself in that dress.

“What do you mean?” I asked, “Like about the opinion thing?”

“Come on Terry, that’s like womanhood 101. Girls get treated differently. Especially pretty ones like you and I,” she explained, and I think she was actually a little annoyed with me on this one.

“I thought that like, wasn’t a thing anymore? The news likes to say so at least,” I said, already knowing I was digging a hole for myself.

Taylor put a hand over her face for a moment, then shook her head with a defeated kind of laugh, “Nope. Just because you’ve always treated women and their words with respect, doesn’t mean other guys do. It’s still just as bad as it’s ever been.”

I grimaced and looked down at myself for a moment. That didn’t sound promising. At least it was nice to know I hadn’t been part of the problem, at least when my sister was looking.

“Damn,” was all I could say to that.

“Yeah. So what’s your character like? I hope it’s not too messy, although it would be fitting,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“Pretty good actually, I’m a glass cannon melee damage dealer by the looks of things. My race is amazing though! I’m a Darkling Infiltrator Mk4! I have a human form and a crazy demon form with wings. I totally beat a bunch of spiders to death earlier with my fists. Oh! The magic too. So I have the Self Magic, Contact Magic and Unarmed combat trees. I’m actually a bit excited to play this character,” I gushed, getting more and more excited as I explained what the game had given me.

“Nice! I’m actually really glad you aren’t playing the character you originally wanted to play. That would have been so boring,” she grinned back.

I nodded in wholehearted agreement, “Oh definitely. That wouldn’t have been half as fun as this has already been.”

We grinned at each other through the call for a moment, before Taylor’s face turned a bit more serious.

She seemed a bit hesitant for a moment, there, but it passed and she asked, “So uh, are you feeling the Dysphoria yet?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, a little confused by what she was trying to get at.

“Well when guys usually play women characters in full immersion like you are, they start to feel uncomfortable in the body. Doesn’t feel right to them. I know a lot of people who had to pay out of their teeth to reroll their character a few days after launch because they decided it was too much,” she explained, searching my face with her eyes.

I thought for a moment, but couldn’t think of a time where I was truly uncomfortable with the body I was in now. There had only been the weird sense of deep calm. Was that dysphoria? I highly doubted it.

“Nah. I haven’t felt anything yet. I have felt like, really calm since I got into this body. Well, not calm exactly, you can’t really be calm when you’re crushing a writhing hairy giant spider between your thighs, but you know what I mean,” I said, smiling fondly at the feat of brutality I had inflicted on the hateful creature. I hated spiders, but more in a death to my enemies kind of way.

Taylor looked troubled and thoughtful as I explained myself, until I mentioned the spider, and then she guffawed, “You did what?”

“I was fighting a bunch of spiders, and somehow I ended up straddling one. Rather than like, get off it and punch it, I just squeezed it with my thighs until it popped. That’s why I’m naked. Had to wash the goo off myself,” I said proudly.

“Oh jesus,” she laughed, “Oh my god you are… wow. You’re my b-, my twin that’s for sure. Fuck you’re funny.”

I winked at her through the call and laughed along with her, “Yup. Damn right I’m funny.”

“Alright well, I guess it will be a while before we meet up ingame. So I should… Oh wait, what name did the game give you?” she asked, “I should call you by that in the game since everyone will look at us funny if I go around calling you Terry.”

“Um, let me check,” I said, already bringing up my character sheet. I didn’t know why I hadn’t already looked.

Character Name: Tamipesagniyah

I blinked. Several times. What the fuck was that monstrosity I had been saddled with? Did the AI sneeze while it was typing my name out or what? It looked like the sound someone makes when you tickle them mid sentence. Even my angry horned demon form wasn’t as demonic as that abomination.

“Um,” I started, my mind still trying parse how you were meant to even say the random string of characters, “It says, Tami... pesa… guh.. gin.. gyen… yah? I am vetoing that right now though, you’re calling me Tami.”

I felt another strange little feeling after I said my name, but this time it was like… excitement? Excitement and fear, intertwined in my gut.

“Wow what a mouthful! Tami it is then!” Taylor said with a smile, and it seemed like her eyes were extra attentive all of a sudden.

When she said my chosen ingame name, I felt the strange feeling in my gut surge, and I had to take a deep breath to try and calm myself. Wow I was all over the place today. Maybe I was experiencing that dysphoria after all?

“Thanks,” I said, trying to laugh off what I was feeling, “So um, I guess I should level and then come and join you later?”

Taylor was still watching me like a hawk for some reason, but she nodded, “Yup. We’ll meet up once you’re high enough level to travel to me. Try and get some gear too.”

“Aye aye captain,” I said, giving her my best roguish wink.

“Oh geez. The AI don’t know what they’ve unleashed on this world do they?” Taylor laughed, raising her eyes skyward beseechingly.

“What’s that meant to mean?!” I asked in mock outrage.

“Bye Tami! Talk later,” she chuckled, cutting the call.

I laughed as my sister left. She was right, I was so ready to have fun. With a happy sigh, I leaned back into the grass and basked once more in the light of the sun.

****

An hour or so later I checked my clothes, if you could call them that, and found them to be dry. Time to struggle my way back into the dress I guess. Once my underwear was on, I maneuvered my way in the same way I had gotten out of it. There was no way I was keeping this look for anything other than like… parties or something. It was beyond impractical.

With my clothes on, I was ready to follow the river and hope I found my way to civilisation. I needed to do it today too, because I was getting hungry and foraging for food was not something I knew anything about, especially in an unfamiliar place like this. Judging by the position of the sun, I had like four to five hours of daylight left.

The stream meandered its way through the forest with a frustrating habit of turning back on itself, and I was almost ready to give up and just walk in a line when I heard the distinctive sounds of fighting. Was it the hot girl again? I’d kinda like to see her again.

I moved through the underbrush, making sure that my nonhuman nature was hidden from view. If I was a minority like that, I’d rather not advertise it until I knew more about the region I was in. Hopefully I’d be useful without my wings and extra strength. The fighting sounded like it involved more than just one or two people, and I could make out shouting pretty clearly now.

Vaguely seeing a dirt road ahead of me through the trees, I slowed and crept forward with as much stealth as I could muster. When I could see it properly, I saw that the road had been cut through the forest recently, at least by the time scale of nations. The forest was about five meters away from a ditch, then the road itself was a hard packed dirt affair.

On that road was a mass of people fighting. One side was pretty uniform in the bland generic way that NPCs are, while the others were obviously adventurers. The adventurers fought with a multitude of varying and unique styles, and while the bandits all held a mish mash of weapons, it was all pretty standard spears, swords and bows. The bandits appeared to have their sights set on a handcart full of goods that were being protected by the adventurers.

Well, this one was almost stereotypically cut and dry. Time to use my abilities. On my walk over, I had taken a quick peek at the rest of them, and I seemed to have four. The fire punch one I already knew, same with the one that sped up my movements for a short time. That one was a bit finicky. It didn’t really help me move with any more finesse, just raw speed. Another ability was made up of components mainly from the unarmed tree and promised to partially paralyze whatever limb I punched. The last was a passive boost to perception I could toggle and it would drain mana to sustain itself.

My first victim was an archer. I rushed him, activating both my speed boost ability and my flame ability. My flaming knee hit him in the back with a shitload more force than I was expecting, and I heard a visceral crunch from his spine on the impact. He went down with a scream, and I drove that same flaming leg into his neck to stop him from screaming because holy shit that was kind of awful. NPC bad guys had it rough.

Another archer noticed my brutal takedown of his friend and turned to try and put an arrow into my body. I disagreed with his desires, my body was far too gorgeous to be perforated, and so I dove to the side to avoid his shot. He swore and fumbled for another arrow, succeeding in getting it nocked just in time for me to sweep his legs out from under him with one of my own. I put him down for good with a crack to the throat.

Having taken out two of their ranged dudes, the bandits decided I wasn’t allowed to keep doing that, and two disengaged from the main fight to come and try to take me down. I actually wasn’t incredibly confident about taking on two at once, especially since they had swords and wooden shields instead of nothing but a knife for close quarters fighting.

I turned around the other way and dashed off, circling the fight to look for more juicy targets. That turned out to be the wrong idea. Leaving the safety of the melee allowed the rest of their archers to get juicy clear shots. I dodged one arrow, and was just barely nicked by another. Damn, I needed to get back into the fight! My gorgeous skin must be defended!

I rushed in, and used my speed dash thingy to slide between the legs of a particularly big brute who was probably half giant or something. He was like nine feet tall at least! I may have punched upwards with my paralyze ability as I slid in, connecting with a set of sensitive organs. The big dude howled in rage and pain, but it was too late for mister popped berries, because one of the defenders put the biggest spear I had ever seen through his chest.

The guy, who I now found myself chest to chest with, was wearing a very sturdy, if a little rusty, armoured plate across his chest, while his arms were bare. He was definitely also half giant. His beard was tickling the top of my head.

“Hello there miss!” he boomed happily, laughing as he moved me to the side like a child so he could disintegrate the head of another bandit with the butt of his spear, “I saw you zipping around out there! Quite the display, come to help I hope?”

“Um, yup!” I said, grinning back up at the big man. I aspired to be as happy about breaking things as he seemed to be.

“Great! I want you to punch that other giant in the balls for me too! Make him squeal! I will finish him!” he said with an evil conspiratorial grin.

Oh this guy was great. He was top notch.

“Aye aye captain! Two popped grapes coming up!” I said cheerfully, already dashing off towards my target.

I dashed with tiny bursts of speed, almost sliding across the ground as I did so, then as I came up on the offending giant he noticed me. Oh fuck! The mace he was swinging around was literally just an anvil bolted to a log! I was saved from pulping by the spear of the giant that was on my side. It had been thrown flat side towards the enemy, causing the strike aimed for me to go off course.

That was all I needed, triggering my dash ability and my paralysis ability in the same instant like I had before. The blow connected right where it needed to be, and the big man did indeed squeal as he dropped his weapon to protect his jewels. My giant friend grabbed the enemy by the sides of his head and yanked it down into his knee into a heavy disorienting blow.

What proceeded after that was what I thought it must be like to watch two kaiju just go ham on each other. The impacts of their blows almost seemed to cause shockwaves as they laid into each other. The fight became very one sided when I punched the enemy giant in the back of the knee with a flaming fist. I was forced to dodge to the side when my new friend jumped forward and rode the enemy to the ground, grabbing his spear off the dirt in the process and driving it into the other guy’s chest with both hands.

He grinned at me in triumph, then gestured around him, giving another friendly booming laugh, “Why are you standing there girl! We have more bandits to crush and maim! Let us enjoy ourselves!”

“You got it big dude! Crushing time!” I said with a giddy laugh. I was having fun? Damn I was having fun!

On we went through the crowd of bandits, me distracting and incapacitating while he… well he broke them. He broke them and he smashed them and he stabbed them. I felt like a gardener throwing off cut branches into the world’s most cheerful woodchipper.

It was over pretty quickly after that. Almost terrifyingly quickly. I loved it though, holy shit this game was good! I found myself laughing and almost skipping from one target to the next. I don’t know what that says about me as a person, because that’s kind of like horror movie material, but whatever. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

As the dust settled and everyone stood around staring at each other in triumph, the big giant man clapped a hand on my shoulder and asked, “Tell me miss, what is your name! You fight well!”

“Oh um,” I said, trying to get my mind to figure it’s way through the deceptively simple question, “T-tami!”

“Well Tami, where are you headed?” he asked, “We are trying to get our loot to our guild hall in Motregarnon. Will you join us? We need to get a drink to celebrate this victory!”

The others all nodded agreement, and I smiled around at them happily, “Sure!”

“I will send you a friend request and add you to our party Tami!” the big guy grinned.

Friend request received from Aurugm.

I accepted the friend request, but frowned up at the big dude and asked, “How on Earth do you say that name”

“Like you’re gargling a slurry of rocks and mud,” a woman said, coming forward.

She was obviously the group’s healer, dressed up in priests robes and even carrying a crazy staff thing. She looked a bit older than most people would make their characters, with a few wrinkles and laugh lines across her face.

“I have a name that is actually pronounceable, unlike the brick laughter house there,” she said wryly, “The name’s Jill.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Tami,” I said warmly.

“I know dear,” she chuckled, then pointed at my arm where the arrow had nicked me earlier, “Do you want me to fix that or are you going to let it bleed a bit longer?”

I looked down at it and she was right, it was actually a pretty nasty. Damn I guess they had the pain dialed down a bit in this game.

“Um, yeah if you could heal it that would be cool,” I said.

She lobbed a little ball of water she summoned from her hand at me, and is splashed over the wound and healed it in moments. My arm relaxed as it was healed and although I hadn’t felt the pain too much, I definitely felt the relief.

“That’s an interesting outfit you’re wearing too,” she commented as she nodded at my unspoken thanks.

“Oh yeah that reminds me! Totally stealing some clothes off the dead. This dress thing is shit,” I said enthusiastically running to the second of the archers I had downed.

I unceremoniously yanked his button up shirt off, then his pants. His simple moccasin boots came next. The shirt was a plain and undyed linen, with all but the top few bone buttons still attached. Pretty good condition if you asked me. The pants were this dark, almost black leather that seemed to be stretchy. I was about to put it on when Jill stopped me.

“Let me cleanse those for you,” she said, walking over and taking the garments from me.

She summoned a bunch of water and enveloped the clothing in it, swished it around in the air for a moment, then dismissed the water like it had never existed. The clothing she handed back to me was clean and fresh and I accepted it with a smile and a nod.

“Get changed, I’ll shield you from the big hairy men,” she offered, turning her back and glaring at them all. Every one of them sheepishly turned their backs, while the women grinned and turned away too. Huh, I hadn’t noticed it in the fighting or the conversation, but those guys had been following me a little closely with their eyes. Interesting. I couldn’t totally blame them.

I quickly got myself out of the dress, throwing it away with disgust. Then put the pants on. They seemed to be pretty tight fitting, and I noted the guy I’d killed to get these was a little smaller than usual and had strange eyes. Must have been some other race. Lucky for me though, since the pants at least fit me pretty tightly. The shirt was a bit baggy though. I looked down at my naked chest and groaned when I realised something.

“Uh, Jill. The dress I was wearing had support built in. I don’t have a… bra,” I said, slightly embarrassed.

“Ah, not a problem. Take one of my bindings. Unfortunately us women are still teaching this backwards ass world about things like this,” she said, taking a strip of cloth from a pouch at her waist and handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it and winding it around my chest with resignation. Maybe I could cut the dress up and use the chest part as a bra?

Once I was all dressed, I felt much better. I felt like a proper adventurer instead of some exotic dancer. I also thought I actually looked kinda hot with the front buttons undone just a bit too far. I kinda liked the aesthetic if I was honest. Felt good. I twisted around a bit to get a look at my ass, and was satisfied to see it giving the fabric back there a run for its money. Nice.

“Alright I’m good. Thanks!” I grinned.

“Good good! You are dressed much more practically now! Crushing nuts will be much easier!” Aurugm said with a smile of approval, “We continue to the town now?”

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