Leon Starbrooke, your stats are as follows:

Strength - 43

Stamina - 36

Intelligence - 34

Agility - 50

Magic - N/A

Stealth - 19

Health - 190/200

Level - 23

The game quickly overtook his life.

After school, he sat down, logged in, and played until his father called him down for dinner. Sometimes, he broke away long enough to take a crack at his homework and ultimately decide it wasn't worth it. It was beginning to become a problem that he didn't entirely see a problem with. He frequented online forums, met the top players online, and sunk so fully into the world it was sometimes unnerving to enter reality again.

So it wasn't immediately perceived as wrong when he opened his eyes one morning to find himself in an uncomfortable bed. Looking around, it took very little time (less time than he was willing to admit) for Len to realize where he was. The landscape painting above his head was easy to place; the sounds of carts and calls outside even easier. Within a moment, he realized where he was.

"Oh," was the first unintelligent sound from his mouth.

Throwing his rough blankets aside, Len examined his hands. They were rough with callouses and scarred. But they were his hands. His size, with all the same freckles and birthmarks. With those hands, he ran his fingers over his face, feeling his nose and cheeks and the hair on his head. He froze when he reached his hair.

It's his hair. It's blonde, but it's altogether too long. At the back of his head, a ponytail sat, and a braid of grass and hair loops around to the back of his head where that ponytail was held. The way his dirty nails caught in his hair was unfamiliar and just so wrong in its own way. What was this?

With a sigh, Len decided this must be one of those weird dreams. The ones where you can control them. That would make sense, since he could move his own body and he could feel and hear and everything else. But he had a sword at his belt. He could hear horses outside. This was not his world.

He was dreaming about Avanna's Forge.

The prospect excited him. He was there, in a fantastical land of myth and magic. He was there. He could do anything in this land. Hell, he could romance that amazing NPC down in the Crypt marketplace.

The feeling of the sword handle in his hand caused his heart to race. Every nerd's dream. While this did happen to be a literal dream, this was a close to being in the game as he could get.

Len was the luckiest person in the world.

Mau Minks, your stats are as follows:

Strength - 39

Stamina - 30

Intelligence - 38

Agility - 41

Magic - N/A

Stealth - 17

Health - 180/180

Level - 21

That's what she woke up to. Her stat display, with her EXP in the corner. She could tell she was close to leveling up. She could also tell something was very, very wrong.

Fae sword in hand, she stood up. She was in the middle of her campsite, where her character Mau had been left the night before. And there were the twins, Aqua and Amber, sleeping on the floor of the forest like nothing was happening. Something was happening. She could feel it. She could feel the sword in her hand, the weight of it that drew her closer to the ground. She could feel an unfamiliar strength surge through her and felt rough skin beneath her elf-made gloves. Elf-made, because this was Avanna's forge and none of this was real.

She was a casual, she knew. She was levels behind everyone she met on here. None-the-less, she could hold her own in duels and helped when she was in a party. But this was way out of her depth in so many ways.

Looking back on it, she finally snapped when she felt the cat ears on her character's head twitch. Reaching up with one hand and leaving the other on her sword, she stroked the furry ears with a delicate finger. Except it wasn't delicate. It was dry and scarred and calloused, just like every other inch of her skin. Just what the hell was going on.

It's then that Amber turns over in her shared sleeping bag, blinking in the sunlight. She stretches, yawns, and just about collapses again when she sees Mau staring at her. Amber is on her feet in moments, hardly disturbing her twin in the process. Amber chose the path of the mage, and Mau can see it in the way she holds herself. Her hands sparked with golden magic, more than ready to fight her partymate.

Mau raised her hands in a form of surrender. "I don't know how we're here, either," she said quickly. "I just woke up, same as you."

Amber, who Mau has noticed is far more hot-headed than her twin, hesitates before relaxing back into a casual stance. Mau made the effort to slide her sword back into her belt.

"What's going on?" Aqua asked from behind Amber, having finally woken up. The short-haired twin looked up at them, yawning and showing off her teeth, which were inlaid with gems of all sorts. The only thing they had in common is the color blue.

"We're in Avanna's forge," Amber told the girl. Aqua blinked like a startled bird and stretched.

"Huh."

"Huh?" Mau demanded. "What the hell do you mean by 'huh?'"

"Don't snap at her!" Amber retorted back, not delaying for a second. Aqua doesn't seem bothered.

"I thought it was a dream at first. But everything is so detailed. I can even bring up my stats," Aqua said, raising her finger as if to push an invisible button. And up popped her stats, displaying her class and level for all to see on a translucent screen about the size of a laptop.

Aqua Morganite, your stats are as follows:

Strength - 31

Stamina - 31

Intelligence - 42

Agility - 42

Magic - 51

Stealth - 10

Health - 220/260

Level - 26

Amber slapped her sister's hand away and the screen vanished. "Don't show her that," she said pointedly with a sideways look at Mau. Aqua shrugged.

"Well, we're in a party together and we're stuck in a game, so I don't see how hiding anything will help."

"Disband the party, then!"

"Rosalind hasn't woken up. Ask her then."

Mau crossed her arms and glared across the open space at Amber. "Sorry my company isn't wanted, but I'm trapped here same as you," she paused before adding. "And for the record, I had nothing to do with this."

Before Amber could shoot something rude her way, Aqua smiles. "I had a feeling. Why don't we check out a village nearby and see if this has happened to anyone else? Mau? Amber?"

Amber mirrored Mau, crossing her arms. "OKay, first thing," she began. "Start calling me Kanon. If we're actually trapped in this freaky game, then I'd like my sister to use my real name. You, however," she turned to Mau, "can keep calling me Amber."

"Well, if that's how you feel," Aqua said. "I'm Anon." The smile she gave Mau is almost reassuring. Almost.

"SeeU," Mau said in response. "Yeah, we can go to the village."

As long as you stop acting so unnervingly calm, she added internally.

Len bit into the warm loaf of bread. Well, he supposed Leon technically did since that was the name on his stat screen, but it was still Len Kagamine who tasted it. Len Kagamine who felt the crumbs between his fingers and felt bread stick between his teeth.

This was the best dream ever.

He waved to an NPC shopkeeper as he walked through the marketplace (he didn't even know you could do that in-game!). The shopkeeper offered a typica smile and redirected himself back to the customers. Probably NPCs too, since Len couldn't see their name anywhere. OKay, so the dream wasn't entirely realistic. It was still great!

He was actually surprised it had lasted so long. After breakfast at the inn he had woken up at, he trekked out to the foothills, where some villagers spotted some sort of "demon wolf." It was only a level ten, easily dealt with, but he got some decent EXP from it. That had been this morning. It was high-noon now.

"And how is a lad like yourself doing on a fine day like today?" a booming voice asked from the doorway of a pub. Len had to say, the cheesy dialogue was pretty on-par with that of the actual game. His brain was amazing.

"Can't complain," he replied. He could hear the words as though he had actually just spoken them, and so could the NPC pub owner.

"Care for a spot of mead?" the man asked. He was a giant of a person, with a thick beard and kind, bright eyes. Honestly, he seemed like a direct rip-off of Hagrid from Harry Potter. Len didn't mind.

"Perhaps tonight," he told the man. "I have many things to accomplish today."

The man laughed a big, booming laugh. "You young ones and your busy schedules," he said. "Why, I can't remember being nearly that ambitious. What times we live in."

Len smiled at the predictable dialogue. Just like the game.

He bid the man farewell and headed to the town's entrance, the weight of his supplies heavy on his back. With legs far stronger than his real ones, he carried himself down the road with an ease he wished he could replicate in real life.

"Dammit, Kanon!"

He stopped at the sound of the voice, looking on down the road to see three girls running in succession. A blonde girl with a long ponytail was at the front of the group, shouting behind her. Len barely made out the phrase she replied with.

"Don't call me Kanon, you heinous b-"

The curse is cut off as the girl in question runs directly into Len's chest. It would have been far more comedic if it didn't hurt so damn much. Was her nose made of stone?

"Shit. Sorry, dude," Kanon said. "Come on, Anon. We need to find someone who isn't a shitty NPC."

From behind the girl, a short-haired blonde who looked like Kanon's mirror image and a tall girl with kitty ears approached. The kitty girl did not look amused.

"Wait up!" she demanded, hands on her hips. From the tattoos at her neck, Len guessed she was a warrior. Probably part of the prince class from the elegance of her blade.

Kanon rolled her eyes, hardly acknowledging Len. His stomach sunk at that. This was feeling less and less like a dream as time went on.

"You're not NPCs?" he asked. The kitty girl looked at him directly, blue eyes digging through him like he had done something wrong.

"Wait, you're not?" she replied in the same confused tone. He shook his head.

A look was exchanged between Kanon and what was most likely her twin.

"Well," the twin said. "It's a start."