As the three Adventurers walked back to town, Wrottzen and Bojohn began to converse with their savior.
"Not that I'm complaining but how did you find the battle back their?" Wrottzen asked.
"You guys weren't that far from the edge of town." The slightly shorter girl replied, "When I heard the fight going on, I decided to investigate. In fact I would've intervened sooner but I didn't know who the aggressors were until I saw you scream like that."
"See man? Screaming like a little girl saved your life." Bojohn said.
"Yeah. But not my dignity..."
The three continued in silence until they reached the town and passed by the cathedral.
"I wonder what the cathedral's going to be used for now that this is a death game." Bojohn said.
"Whoa, whoa whoa! Who ever said this was a death game now?" May responded suddenly very worried, "Who gave you that idea?"
"I did." Wrottzen said, "We have no idea if the rules of Elder Tale still apply now that we're in the game. I thought it would be best if we took the worst case scenario and took it as truth until other evidence presented itself."
"Evidence like that?" May said, pointing down the street to where the enchanter and the samurai were walking, slumped in defeat.
"Those… Those are the same guys who attacked us in the woods just now!" Bojohn said.
Thank God. I really didn't want a death on my conscious. Wrottzen thought. "This is valuable information. If we know revival is possible after death, it gives us a little more wiggle room in the risks we take."
"It's getting late. We should probably try to find a room for the night." Bojohn said.
"Sounds like a plan." Wrottzen replied. "How about you? Do you have a place to go or do you need to find a room as well?"
"I'm looking for a room too." She responded. "It OK if I join you in your room hunt?"
"Of course! The more the merrier!" Bojohn replied, "Let's find ourselves a place to stay tonight!"
While easy in theory, finding a room was not an easy task for the three adventurers. All of the players now stuck in Elder Tale were also looking for rooms, and had a head start thanks to the skirmish with PKers in the forest.
Walking out of another inn, the three lamented about their luck. "How many was that?" Wrottzen asked.
"That was the fifteenth place that said they were full for the night." May said, equally as depressed.
"Come on guys! There's another inn just down there." Bojohn replied chipperly. "You know what they say, the sixteenth time's the charm."
"That's also what you said about the third through fifteenth times." Wrottzen replied, slightly annoyed by his comrade's upbeat attitude.
"I just want to draw a nice hot bath and crawl into bed." May added.
As the trio approached the inn, they noticed it was in poor condition. Paint was peeling from the exterior and the inn sign was hanging by only a single hinge.
"Maybe we skip this one." May said, disconcerted with the appearance of the establishment.
"Maybe you're right." Bojohn replied, his upbeat attitude cracking in front of the shady looking inn.
"Come on you two." Wrottzen said. "Beggars can't be choosers. Hello? We'd like three rooms for the night!"
"Ahh. Hello Adventurers!" An older man walked out to greet them. "Let me check what I have available. Hmm."
After a moment, May asked, "Hmm? What does Hmm mean?"
"I don't have the three rooms you requested-"
"Then we'll be on our way." Bojohn said, turning toward the door.
"But, I do have two rooms available if you could make do with that."
"We'll take them!" Wrottzen replied immediately.
"Here are the keys." The innkeeper said, pulling two keys from under his desk. "The rooms are just up the stairs to the left. I hope you enjoy your stay!"
The three adventurers went up to the rooms and realized another issue had to be settled: How to divide the rooms.
"Me and Bojohn can share a room May." Wrottzen said, "You take the other room."
"That won't work!" May replied.
"Why not?" Bojohn asked. "We're both guys."
"On the inside yes but physically you're male and Wrottzen is female. Who knows what kind of dirty things you two will do to that body."
"OK then, you and I will share a room and give the other to Bojohn."
"Th-That won't work either!"
"What's wrong this time?" Wrottzen asked.
"You may look female, but you're still a man on the inside, you said it yourself. A young man and woman sharing the same room is- it just shouldn't happen!" May replied, face now red.
"I don't think the innkeeper would appreciate one of us sleeping in the hall so you're going to have to pick your poison: Let Bojohn and I room together, or allow me to room with you. Unless you want Bojohn to spend the night with you."
May's face, which had been a lite red before, suddenly darkened to a beet red before she finally cried, "FINE! Wrottzen and I will share a room!" May then proceeded to grab, Wrottzen's hand, drag him inside the room and slam the door.
"What was that about? I thought you were going to take the room by yourself." Wrottzen asked.
"This is for the best." May replied. "This way I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don't do anything weird with that body of yours."
"You're right." Wrottzen replied, "I had some questions I wanted to ask you anyways."
"Great!" May responded, starting to calm down from the previous conversation, "What do you need to know?"
"My most pressing question is…" Wrottzen began, the end of his sentence incomprehensible due to mumbling.
"I'm sorry. What was that?"
"How… do I use the bathroom?"
"Hehehehehe." May chuckled, before breaking out into full blown laughter.
"What's so funny? I'm being serious here!" Wrottzen cried, beginning to rock back and forth like a little kid.
"It's just- Hehe. It's just too funny!" May replied between chuckles. "Here I thought you two were going to do all of these perverted things but you don't even know how to use the bathroom!"
"Grrrr." Wrottzen growled face now a bright red. "Are you going to help me or not?!"
"I will. I will. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Heh, that turn of phrase was made for this situation."
"Come on!" Wrottzen cried, "I'm pretty sure this is the only pair of underwear in my inventory."
"OK. First you…" May whispered the rest into her new friend's ear.
"Thank you!" He cried before running to the bathroom, system assist already removing the skirt.
Once the door was shut, May yelled, "Hey I'm going to get changed, so don't come out until I say so, OK?"
"OK." Came the content reply from the bathroom.
"I'm being serious here!" May said as she began to take off her shirt, "You better not come-"
"Guys, I got it!" Bojohn said as he burst through the door, "Appearance… Changing… Potion…"
His words trailed off as he noticed the half-naked Druid in front of him. There was a long awkward pause in which May's face changed from one of surprise to one of anger and embarrassment. When she finally reached her breaking point May yelled, "PERVERT!" and punched Bojohn squarely in the face, knocking him into the wall.
It was a few minutes before things calmed down again. When they did, May was sitting on one bed wearing an oversized nightshirt glaring down at Bojohn, who was kneeling on the floor with a large lump showing on the top of his head. Wrottzen was sitting on the other bed in the room, wearing the same thin blue clothes she had worn when waking up in Elder Tale.
"So what's so important that you had to cause that commotion?" Wrottzen asked.
"OK. First let me start off by saying I'm sorry." Bojohn said, looking over at May who simply turned her head in response. "I was talking with some of my contacts in the underworld-"
"Underworld?" May asked, "Are you guys criminals or something?"
"Ah! You must not have noticed Bojohn's subclass." Wrottzen replied,
Turning toward the swashbuckler, May carefully looked at the information screen that presented itself, "You're a… hitman?!"
"Only in game I swear." Bojohn replied, "Anyway I was talking with some of my contacts and they mentioned something that might help Wrottzen out of his predicament: Appearance Changing Potion."
"How is changing my appearance going to help me?" Wrottzen asked. "No offense but I'm going to be stuck in a female body, I rather like the one I'm in now."
"No, that's not it." Bojohn replied, "Not only can the Appearance Changing Potion change how you look, it can also change your gender."
"Meaning…" Wrottzen trailed off realizing the full scope of his friend's news.
"You can go back to being a guy!"
"Yes! That is GREAT!" He replied, jumping for joy. He went around hugging everyone in the room before saying, "Let's go pick some up right now!"
"There's a slight problem."
"What?" Wrottzen asked, the good mood from before vanishing.
"The Appearance Changing Potion was an event item from quite a while ago." Bojohn explained. "They were super rare to begin with and are probably even rarer now that everyone's stuck in game. An item that rare isn't going to be found here in Syr, not even at the most exclusive shops in town."
"Then where?" Wrottzen asked,
"We need a bigger city with a larger underworld." Bojohn replied. "We need to go down to-"
"You'll need to travel to Gotham." May cut in, seeing where the hitman was going.
"Exactly and even then, finding and purchasing the Potion aren't a sure thing."
"That's fine." Wrottzen replied. "I'll take some hope over no hope any day. We'll use the teleport gate tomorrow, go down to Gotham and hopefully I should be 100% man again by the end of the week."
"I hate to throw another hitch into your plan, but the teleport gates are down."
"What?!" Both Wrottzen and Bojohn replied in tandem.
"Yeah, a bunch of people were in the town square today trying to teleport to some of the larger cities on the server. I think they wanted information, just like you guys. Anyways, they tried activating the gate and it wouldn't work." May explained. "You're gonna have to hoof it."
"But Gotham's a month's walk from here with dangerous high level monsters nearly the entire way!" Wrottzen complained.
"We could buy horses." Bojohn suggested,
"Even on horseback, the trip to Gotham would still take a couple of weeks."
"Going on horseback is faster than sitting here and complaining about how long the trip is…" May muttered, silencing Wrottzen in an instant.
"We'll go to the shops tomorrow to make all of the preparations for the trip." Bojohn said as he stood up from the floor. "For now, get a good night's rest. We can worry about the rest of the details in the morning. Night!"
"Night!" May and Wrottzen replied as Bojohn left the room. Soon afterwards, the two weary adventurers turned off their lights and laid down to sleep.
"Hey, Wrottzen? Are you still up?" May asked, breaking the silence in the dark room.
"Yeah I'm still up." Wrottzen replied.
"Do you think there's any possibility of this being one elaborate dream?" She asked. "Do you think we're going to wake up tomorrow in our own beds, in our own bodies, like none of today actually happened?"
"I truly wish I could answer yes to that question." Wrottzen replied.
With that the two girls fell asleep, ending their day. A day which would soon be known as the Apocalypse.
AN: Hello everyone! I've seen so much support for this series and I just want to say thank you with this new chapter. Your support means a lot. Feel free to leave a review with your thoughts on the chapter.
There is one more thing I'd like to discuss before leaving you all today. I'm trying hard to keep this fic T rated and I feel like that's a thin line to be walking with some of this subject matter (Boy trapped in girl's body). If at anytime you feel as though I crossed the line into the M rating, please let me know. It would be much appreciated. Until next time!
