She woke up to something pressing heavily on her chest, like a cat, hungry for food and endearment, eagerly trying to awake its owner, its complacent, furry muzzle heralding the morning of the new day. But in reality, there was no cat. It was just a strange feeling, which, like the remnants of morning fog, dissolved in a light breeze. Sensations gradually returned to her, as if she was coming out of general anesthesia. Through the dissipating veil of her sleep, the trills of birds echoed in her ears more and more clearly, filling her mind with the ringing sounds of a mellow melody.
“Ahh, what a lovely birdsong,” she thought and opened her eyes wide. “Wait what?”
Above her stretched a green ceiling, high and vast. Towering trees rose like living pillars, their trunks wide and ancient, bark ridged and furrowed in complex patterns that caught the light in subtle gradients. Their branches interlaced far overhead, like vaults of cathedral. Sunlight filtered through a canopy above her, breaking into shards as it passed through layers of leaves.
“Where am I?” she thought. It was definitely somewhere far from her office desk, the last location she remembered she was in.
The branches swayed in a light breeze, and a ray of sunbeam hit her right in the eyes. She blinked, instinctively covering her face with her palm, but the sight of her own hand made her shudder: it looked different. The palm and fingers were thinner than she remembered them.
Her skin color was also deprived of its usual lurid pallor from too much exposure to her PC blue lights. Instead, the tone was warm, as if she spent some time under the sun, only not the tropical one, whose perky bronze could not be confused with anything. Her tan was rather defined by the soft penumbra of forest expanses, where the sunbeams made their way through the interweaving branches and leaves and delicately galloped across the skin.
“What’s going on here?” The sound of her own voice startled her too. It wasn’t her timbre. It was lighter, carrying a melodic lilt that lingered on the edges of words.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked around, eyes tracing the curve of a nearby tree trunk. It looked familiar.
She scanned her surroundings with a critical eye. The forest landscape unfolded further: ferns unfurling at the base of the trees, their fronds still tipped with dew; honey agarics nestled on a rotting log; vines creeping along stone outcroppings, their leaves trembling in the morning breeze. Somewhere deeper in the forest, something large moved: she heard branches rustle, leaves whisper, then the noises died down. Her chest tightened—she did know this place!
“This can’t be!” she exhaled in hushed whisper.
The bark’s texture—she could trace it from memory, every ridge and hollow. She remembered sculpting it in high resolution, with hours spent adjusting the depth maps so that light would catch just so along the grooves. She remembered arguing—persistently yet futilely—that the moss should be thicker on the northern side, where the sun reached less often. She remembered this forest because she had built it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed rapturously. “I’m in the game!”
The realization washed over her like reviving water filling an empty jug. This wasn’t a dream since dreams didn’t smell like this. They didn’t carry weight and temperature and texture so precisely rendered that her skin tingled where the sun touched it and cooled where the shade claimed her. Dreams didn’t remember the feel of grass and moss compressing under her palms, springing back the moment she lifted her hand.
“It’s definitely not a dream, it’s better—days off!” she laughed, closed her eyes and took a deep breath—the air, clear and fresh like only a morning forest could be, filled her lungs.
She listened to her feelings: no stiffness, no ache. No familiar protest from her shoulders that hunched too long over a keyboard, no dull throb behind her eyes from another sleepless night spent chasing deadlines. She felt… rested. Strong in a way that didn’t require effort.
The last few months came rushing back. The endless crunch. Ten-hour work shifts that bled into twelve, then thirteen. The stale office air recycled until it tasted of burnt coffee and despair. Slack messages at three in the morning. Meetings where senior executives spoke about engagement metrics and monetization funnels while the development team silently calculated how many hours of sleep they could afford before the next build.
She hadn’t been a narrative designer. She hadn’t shaped heroes or quests or dramatic arcs. She engineered textures, sculpted forests, the locations players probably would run through between moments of spectacle, often without a second glance. She’d poured herself into them anyway, obsessing over light angles, color palettes, the way shadows pooled at the roots of trees. She’d wanted the world to feel alive, even if no one ever would notice why.
And for that devotion, she’d been rewarded with more work and sleep deprivation. Rumors whispered in hallways about CEOs dissatisfied with the projected profits, about the possibility of cancellation soon after launch if the numbers wouldn’t promise for sure something shamelessly lucrative. Maybe even before. By the end, she was so tired that she didn't care what happened to the project. If it died, it died. If it lived… she wasn’t sure she would be happy. Then the darkness had taken her, most likely at her desk opposite the indifferent glow of her monitor.
And now she was here. In the forest she had helped create.
“I guess this counts as an exit interview,” she said dryly.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
She examined her clothes—a ranger’s vestments, designed to blend easily into the branches and foliage, simple, practical, but not without grace. She ran a strand of long hair through her fingers—her natural raven-black color. She touched her face, as if palpating a sculpture, and realized that from now on her appearance was completely different from what she was used to. Her hands slid higher and felt what she suspected—pointed ears that meant only one thing. She was an elf!
She chuckled. Of course, who else but an elf? A Wood Elf, to be precise.
She looked around and only now noticed a bow and a quiver lying nearby. Her bow.
That was when unease crept in. This forest was wrong, wrong in its placement. Her placement, to be precise. It was not her forest. She tried to remember the world map. She did not pore over it a lot, only to ensure the biome allocations made sense. But this was enough to realize the oddity of her spawning location.
“This is the Sylvan Reserve,” she said. A protected region. A kind of national park within the game’s world, set aside for rare fauna and magical ecosystems. No settlements and wandering merchants. Players weren’t meant to start here. Wood elf characters began hundreds of miles farther north-east, near sanctuaries, villages woven into living trees, places where NPC elders offered guidance and introductory quests. Definitely not here.
“Okay,” she muttered. “That’s… not ideal.”
She focused inward, searching for the familiar mental trigger.
Menu.
The sensation took her breath away, like a first parachute jump. A translucent interface unfolded before her eyes, clean and elegant, hovering just beyond her reach. It was real—an experience completely different from watching it from a player’s perspective. She knew perfectly well that with time she would quickly get used to this, but right now everything was new and gripping.
Character:
Class: Archer-Mage
Origins: Wood elf
Core: Support (Healer)
Attributes:
Constitution: 22
Intelligence: 22
Dexterity: 22
Cunning: 14
Charisma: 8
Physical Attack: 16.5
Physical Attack Resistance: 5.5%
Physical Ranged Attack: 38.5
Magic Ranged Attack: 38.5
Attack Speed: 33%
Evasion: 8.8%
Magic Attack: 44
Magic Attack Resistance: 11%
Cooldown reduction: 14%
Poison: 14
Poison Resistance: 7%
Ability Multiplier: 1.6%
Persuasion: 8
Luck: 4%
Chance: 4%
Concentration: 2%
Level: 1
Her eyes were dazzled with the abundance of stats. She ran through the list from top to bottom, then back to top, stopping at the first lines.
“What the heck?” She frowned at her class and the core characteristics. “There’s no such class as Archer-Mage! It should be either Rogue-Archer or Mage. Or have I been kept in the dark about some of the latest updates? And being an archer and a healer? What a mishmash!”
She then decided to check her abilities. There were just two of them so far:
[Explosive Arrow]
This magic arrow explodes upon impact, thereby imparting fire damage to foes. Moderate physical damage + moderate Fire magic damage + burning (10% chance of panic).
Each upgrade increase damage and burning duration, and chance of panic.
[Knockback Arrow]
This arrow attack stuns the enemy for a short while. Moderate physical damage + Moderate Electric magic damage + shock (10% chance of stun). If shock also gives a stun, it prolongates main stun duration for 50%.
Each upgrade increase damage, stun and shock duration, as well as chance of stun.
“Perfect,” her confusion only grew stronger. “Healer core but only DPS abilities. What else do we have?”
Her inventory followed.
Weapon: Simple short bow
Quality: common
Damage type: Physical
Attack: 8
Description: Unadorned, but functional, a novice ranger’s best friend.
Armor: Simple Robes (light armor)
Quality: common
Armor set: --
Defence: 12
Description: Good for hiding, light enough for mobility, defenseless against almost everyone.
Potion: Health (small) x 2
Quality: common
Description: A minor wound? Not a problem.
“No staff, no mage’s poignard, just a bow with only physical damage,” she grumbled. “It’s not a build, it’s a crazy quilt!”
There were also 10 bronze coins in her inventory. And nothing else. Well, almost nothing: her gaze stopped on the final icon—it was an amulet. But she couldn’t remember its purpose. It had no stats, nor rarity color. No helpful tooltip beyond a single line:
Description: Unique Item. Bound.
Her fingers brushed against her chest instinctively, and she felt it there. Maybe this was the source of her weird sensations straight upon waking up? But now it carried almost no weight. The amulet however was warm at its core, as if it carried a life of its own. And then it dawned on her.
“Ahh, the amulet!” she almost yelled. She didn’t try to examine it further. She knew the narrative designers had prepared a lot of plot forks, but this amulet was the main course on the menu in the whole story.
With a sigh, she plopped back down into the grass. Looking at the clouds peeking through the branches, she moved her limbs as if making a grass angel—the blades tickled her palms pleasantly.
“And here I was, thinking that this would be my vacation for life—to wander the world, enjoy the landscapes, marvel at the magic creatures, and maybe settle down somewhere.” She was thinking aloud. “But here we go! To save the world again.” She stopped short and then giggled. “Again? Really?”
“Wake up, you’ve been an NPC your whole life, Miss Nobody! Now you’re a damn-Archer-damn-Mage! If this is not an opportunity to make a difference, then I don’t know what is.”
Finishing this short self-motivational TED-talk, she rose on her feet, brushing blades of grass off her clothes.
“If I’m stuck here, I might as well get my bearings.”
Since she was here for good, she had to solve a number of urgent tasks. She needed to open a bank account to safely store her gold and loot she’d earn from future quests. She also needed to register in a guild to receive good quests—as far as she remembered the better ones were locked from the vagabonds non-affiliated with any of the professional organisations. Which guild to register first was a good question—she had to find out if there was at least one in the nearest settlement.
She smiled. Turned out, moving to a new world wasn’t all that different from moving to a new city. Only certain chores were a bit different.
Her gaze drifted toward the thicker undergrowth, where the light dimmed and the forest floor formed a fold turning into a small ravine. She thought she caught the notes of blabbing water—a stream, perhaps. Some sort of nature mirror.
“Right, let’s go check what I look like after all. But first…” She opened the menu again to check one particular detail.
Elanil
That was her name henceforth. She hardly cared anymore what her name was before. And with that, Elanil stepped into the forest, unaware that the world had already begun to move in response to her presence.
