Welcome to Xaranya

Book 2 – The Knight’s Tale

2.1 – Susan’s Story

Susan has had this same dream many times. The location is different, the time is different, but the dream is basically the same.

In the dream, she is always young again, no more aches and pains as she arises from her bed, a bed which is somehow both strange and familiar, a bed with white sheets in an off-white room.

This time, the dream included a dark-skinned woman with dreadlocks and bracelets, golden bracelets that jingled on her wrists.

Like an alarm clock, the jangling of the bracelets woke her up, startled her out of the dream – or the notion that this was all a dream.

The woman smiled at her, bracelets rattling as they fell down her wrists, as she raised her hands in a calming, welcoming gesture.

“Hi, Susan. My name is Kat. I am here to welcome you to Xaranya.”

Susan sat up, propping herself up on her elbows.

“If you walk through that door, you’ll enter the initial phase.”

Susan looked in the direction the woman indicated and began to notice the rest of the room, the cool breeze moving the curtains near the open window, the soft rustle of the sheets as she moved, a slowly rotating fan that buzzed as it moved above her head.

Out of the corner of her eye, a nightstand held an unlit lamp and beyond that a door with a silver door handle that turned of its own volition. The off-white door swung open as if moved by an unseen hand – or maybe someone else standing on the other side of the door.

“What do you mean by initial phase?” she asked.

Kat just smiled and … something in Kat’s eyes told her that staying in this room might actually be the more terrifying option, come to think of it, and not in a “stick around find out kind of way.” No more questions.

Right.

Susan finished getting up, finding herself dressed in pale white linen. Beside the bed, white slippers waited for her to slide her feet into their cushy warmth. Now fully dressed, Susan walked toward the now fully-open door, noting that there was nothing on the other side, just a dark, gray wall.

Before walking through the door – or the wall, or whatever that even was, she turned back to see Kat frozen in place, like a pretend person, like the NPC AI she probably was, although Susan won’t be sure until much, much, much later. With a shiver, Susan closed her eyes and stepped through the door into … a quieter room. Nothing in this new room moved, the floor made of marble instead of wood, two arches, one to her left and one to her right. The one on the right had the word “Female” etched on the top, and the one of the left had “Male” eteched across the top.

Writing on the wall directly in front of her held the words: “Welcome to Xaranya. Please choose a gender for your avatar.”

“What?” Susan asked no one in particular. She had played plenty of video games, and she knew this part – she knows this part. There’s the same gray wall on the other side of the two arches. Turning around, she sees, she saw – part of her forever, still in this moment of decision.

This moment of decision. Is this like … reincarnation now? Susan does not, did not believe in reincarnation.

Susan walked back the way she came to find the room still there, to find that as soon as she stepped into – or through the wall/doorway, the entire scenery changed.

None of this was real, she realized in that moment. Or rather – it was not real in the way she was used to thinking about real as real.

Kat stood there, right where she had been, unmoving, her part in Susan’s story over for now. Or something. Susan walked over to the window and looked out the open window at the ground two stories down, two alleged stories down from this alleged room. The grounds outside this space were inviting and green and lit by a yellow sun.

At some point, Kat moved, coming to stand beside her. “Are you going to be difficult about this?” Kat asked.

Susan gasped and jumped a little, not having heard the woman (was this a real person even?) move.

“Please go voluntarily through the door. And the next. And the next. Otherwise, this is going to get quite tedious quite quickly.” Kat’s eyes meet Susan’s and Susan can feel the uncanny valley now, the uncanny valley between an actual person and a pretend one. Is there a person on the other side of those eyes? And – honestly – which would be better, yes or no?

“Who are you?” Susan asked. “What is this place?”

Kat’s expression softened slightly. “Those are two very interesting questions, without easy answers, but with answers. Answers which – I promise, Susan – will be best answered by going through the rest of the steps. I will see you on the other side, I promise.”

“What if I refuse?” Susan asked.

“Then you will force me to take away the illusion of free will,” Kat said.

Susan had worked as first a financial manager and then a corporate advisor and finally one of a handful of female CEO’s in her industry. She was not one to be pushed around and was very inclined to call whatever bluff this even was.

“The illusion of free will,” Susan repeated. “Meaning what exactly?”

Kat’s mouth quirked up at the corner like the shadow of a smile. Once again, she had the “try me and find out” look. Okay, so … not a bluff.

“Fine,” Susan said tersely, going back through the door and into the next room, the gender-decision room. “What the hell,” she muttered and walked through the arch marked Male and … into another body.

Full disclosure, Susan had never been a feelings kind of a girl. From time to time – in nicer or meaner, more sarcastic or more complimentary (but was it ever really a compliment?) way, she had been told more than once that she was basically a guy. Might as well be. She was never all that feminine.

Her body remained “mostly the same” except that she could feel that she had just undergone the fastest, cheapest, least painful gender transition surgery of all time.

Looking ahead, the next step would be race selection, with twelve arches this time, twelve arches spanning the width of a much larger room, because it had to be, because twenty arches. Susan turned around and went back the way she came and then back the way she came – again – with her physical body still quite male but otherwise with the same height, the same basic body and face, probably. She’d need a mirror to make sure.

Kat stood directly in front of the door this time, as if she were waiting for Susan to come back again, which … probably.

This time her rich, brown eyes turned dark gray, and I mean all of the eye, first the iris and then the whites of the eyes turned gray – the exact gray of the doorways in fact, and then … Susan find herself back in the room, the gender decision room, facing the first arch, as if she had not passed through it at all. This time when she reached out to touch the doorway or arch – or whatever – it really was solid.

“The illusion of free will,” Susan repeated still talking mostly to herself. “Fine.”

This time she walked through the “Female” arch and got her body back as it had been when she first got there. She wondered, idly, what if she were non-binary? Or gender-fluid? But those were all questions for later.

No more messing around. There were twelve arches for twelve race options. Once again – because she did check – the pathway back was blocked, because she was determined to be difficult and therefore … right. She would be able to choose – sort of – but not to spend forever choosing. Nice.

For race, she chose half-elf, mostly because she was both curious and a little unsure. She wished this were like a real role-playing game, where she could create different characters. Experiencing this from the inside was … a little terrifying. And final.

After that, she chose [Warrior] for her class and then picked an outfit (rich, gold-embossed leathers) for her starter clothes, changing into them as soon as she stepped through what turned out to be the final gate and into … an outdoor location.

“Congratulations!” Kat said, there to meet her – as promised. They were standing outside in what looked like a medieval village of some kind, like certain historical parts of certain western European towns she had visited on fun or work trips. The cobblestone street and thatched roofs all suggested something of the kind to her. “You have just completed your first quest. As a reward you get the warm fuzzy feeling of having accomplished something. And some clothes. And to be out of the stuffy building and on to level 2.”

The woman paused, and Susan could feel the pause as a chance to respond, kind of like how computers will pause after telling you to press the button to let you press the button or not.

“Do you have another quest for me, ‘Kat’?” Susan asked.

Kat looked her over again, leaning back slightly as she did so, feeling the sarcasm – well if there was a real person there to feel anything. (Still undetermined.)

“Before we continue,” Kat said, just as drily. “Are you going to keep being difficult, or do you understand – yet – what I meant by the illusion of free will?”

Susan glared at Kat, who stared back at Susan, utterly impassive.

“I am not going to keep being difficult, no,” Susan said. “I will, however keep being me.”

“In that case,” Kat said. “Let’s keep moving. Your next quest is to explore the starter area, to meet the trainers and then to go out and kill, kill, kill.” Kat paused, and there was that hint of … humor again. “Or whatever. I’ll let the others explain. Your first stop will be with the [Warrior] Trainer, Guron. The location should appear on your location guide.”

A golden oval appeared in front of Susan, slightly to her right, indicating the way she should go.

Deciding it was not in her best interest to “be difficult” while in what was obviously the starter stage of a bigger story, Susan followed the stupid oval. Whatever.

***

Author’s note: There are some links to the world system I’m developing in this one. It is very work in progress but … at least it is in progress. Posting these has encouraged me to actually do that much. Also a shout-out to one of my two favorite LitRPG series. Total disclosure, this story is a revision of my NaNo 2025 which I wanted to be a cozy fantasy where the plot twist is that my character absolutely refuses to accept the coziness of the actually-cozy world. I’m still kind of hoping I can type all of this, get this out of my system and then go back to that story.

Because I find myself agreeing with my character a little too much. Darn it. Getting there. Hopefully. Maybe.