My pulse pounded in my ears as the loadout protocol took over. Aberrantly soft gentle tones rose up in pitch, undercut by the harsh buzz of VRsimilitude hardware as the final aspects of game shutdown hypnotics flickered in front of my eyes. 

My skin was warm to the touch and sweaty as I shakily placed the headset down. 

I’d played thousands of hours of Reverie before, and never heard of anything like this, even back in buggier patches like 1.0.15. The entire framework for a game like Reverie was maximum immersion, it was why they used VRsimilitude in the first place. So to have an ingame character undercut everything like that was frightening and intriguing in equal parts.

I untangled myself from my sling and dug around for my phone. The wallpaper was set to a piece of cosmic themed fanart showing Reverie floating in space, Electus the dragon god of light streaking through the background, and the tagline for the game in pretty font.

The time shone above it, and- Fuck, it was already 4:30AM, and I was set to open this morning. My bodily awareness crept back in as the last dregs of the immersion drug made their way out of my system. Oh, I needed to piss really badly. 

My throat was dry and scratchy so I swigged a sip of old soda and dashed to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet bleary eyed, I opened Discord, navigated to my favorite Reverie RP guild server, and typed out a message in the general chat.




Faosfable: Morning

Faosfable: Wildest thing happened last night in rev

Bardicmouse: Oh?? We were wondering where you went after The Crypt of Manis in Leptokyra

JuicyMuscle: figured you were sleeping lol

Faosfable: No, I went to Demini for the first time since patch 14. Has anyone else had a quest in that expansion with like, a really hot lady 

Bardicmouse: Miriam from the library??? 

Faosfable: No. tall fairie woman. There was a mysterious letter.

JuicyMuscle: lmaoo riley fell for a procgen npc with boobie physics huh

Faosfable: Her name was-




I felt a shiver across my arm in the spot where Aurelia had squeezed me into her side. I saw the stones ripple across the water as I tossed them as if it was my own memory. It was so lifelike. That was what made Reverie special though. The realism and immersion that it provided to players. Even though the drug was mostly out of my system, it was only natural that there would still be some embers.




Bardicmouse: wellwerewaiting.gif

Faosfable: Aurelia, she said she was called Aurelia, it was so bizarre. Really meta and fourth wall breaking. I think her intelligence system interacted directly with my VRsimilitude dosing?

W1SHmancer: Can I get a tone tag on this? Sorry, I’m autistic and can’t tell if this is a joke or not. 

Bardicmouse: Shes definitely fucking with us, I *literally* upkeep the fandomwiki and there’s never been an elevated quest or conversation npc with that name in Reverie. I just checked

Faosfable: I’m not fucking with you. I really saw her. Pink hair, skin with a holographic glitter, long arms and fingers. Why would I suddenly lie and become a troll out of nowhere bardic, we’re friends

W1SHmancer: Could it be someone using character model mods larping as an npc? Or a quirk in the emergent quest systems?

Faosfable: I’m not on a modded server. AvEn official realm.

Bardicmouse: maybe theres some new injection exploit… but if it fucked with your drip dose that’s crazy. that would mean AvEn is boldfaced lying about all of their encryption. VRsimilitude hardware to software interfacing is serious shit

Bardicmouse: Look. I’m not saying Fao is a liar. Nobody could say with 100% certainty that it wasn’t the emergent quest system. But that expansion zone works like bethesda style radiant quests, which uh, basically they aren't AI they're picking from premade assets and randomizing locations and rewards

W1SHmancer: Oh here we go strap in

Bardicmouse: lemmie put it another way. it would be like hacking someone’s bank card and an ATM at the same time, and getting both of those things to somehow spit out a bank vault key. All those things are supposed to be totally separate.

Faosfable: Look I get it, I know it sounds insane. I feel insane right now. Maybe it was something else? A VRsim malfunction?

Bardicmouse: Maybe. Sorry, I feel like an asshole for shutting you down like this but you activated my special interest overlap lol 

JuicyMuscle: pizzaburningTroy.gif

JuicyMuscle: not to immediately start things back up again, but riley isn’t the only one reporting new interactions. someone I kinda know on a diff server thinks it’s a fifth anniversary surprise drop.




My attention snapped back, and I realized I had been sat on the fucking toilet for way too long while getting sucked into this conversation. I scrubbed my hands, shaved up my face, and threw on my clothes as fast as possible. My hoodie was still a little damp from last night, but it would have to do.

The rain had let up while I was playing last night, and it was back to being dull and grey, which at least made the wait at the bus stop more tolerable. It was nothing like the warmth of the twin suns and the perfect clear waters of the spring where I had spent the past however many hours though.

My head pulsed a little with a hangover from the overnight session, so I gave my temples a massage and rummaged around in my bag for some ibuprofen. It was going to be a little while until the bus got there. I had spent so long caught up in the scatterbrained convo this morning that I had missed the first bus. 

Finally it arrived, and I spent the ride listening to music and searching for any leads on Aurelia. Google and the fandomwiki didn’t turn up any leads. I took a guilty glance at the icon for AvEn’s chatbot app that I had installed ages ago for an XP bonus, ErathAI, but decided I’d rather not use it since it would answer in-character as the god of wisdom.

By the time I arrived at work I was twenty minutes late. I tried not to let my anxiety get the best of me. It was my fault, but I really struggled with time escaping me, and the events that had occurred last night were unprecedented. 

“Sorry, missed the first bus and got here as soon as I could.” 

Daryl was the shift supervisor today. I knew him to be a middle aged coffee snob who was always angling for a promotion. Generally I tried to stay out of everyone’s way, put my head down and then get out of there at the end of a shift. He was busy prepping, and finally glanced up at me, torn between relief at my eventual arrival and anger at my tardiness. 

“Finally decided to make it, huh. I’ve got the hoppers prepped for espresso but the fucking closers forgot to take out the trash so it’s been stacking up, and we already have a few earlybirds so I’m going to need to stay up front. Grab it as soon as you clock in.”

“Yeah absolutely, on it,” I mumbled. I was the closer who forgot the trash last night. I really hoped Daryl didn’t figure that out or an awkward morning would become a downright hostile one.

It was always rough working the last shift and the first shift, but the scheduler didn’t really give a shit. I was one of the few employees with open availability thanks to my social life happening entirely in a fantasy world and discord server. It was probably one of the main reasons I had managed to keep the job this long despite my low output from chronic pain and occasional lateness, and I supposed I had that to be grateful for.

The timeclock beeped a warning when I clocked in late, but I ignored it. Thankfully our location hadn’t had a consistent manager in months due to understaffing, so even though it usually needed sign off to go through, they had deactivated that setting and I would get paid no problem. 

Trash taken care of, I went to the barista bar and started making drinks. My hands moved by themselves in the routine prescribed by corporate recipe cards, mind wandering off into daydreams and internal conversations.

Who, if anyone, designed Aurelia? Why did they keep her a secret like this? She was the strangest npc I had ever encountered in Reverie. Maybe there was something to the fifth anniversary theory, or this was some kind of fourth wall breaking augmented reality game that I had stumbled upon. I wasn’t so sure. I knew that I played a lot of the game, but it was sheer hubris to imagine that I would be the very first player to find anything related to something like that.

“One medium latte with oat milk...”

The game did rely on generative systems for conversational mechanics, so it was possible a one in a trillion emergent fluke had come about. It would be wildly unusual for a completely generated event to be so comprehensive though, usually that kind of quest was just a simple lost family heirloom or malevolent spirit to clear out. 

Game designers had learned that generative systems were necessary for immersion almost immediately after VRsimilitude was first brought to market. If someone truly believes they are their game character, they’re going to behave in ways that no writers room can fully account for. Everyone remembered the horror stories of closed alpha. These days, in the rare case of an error, those systems usually just trigger some predesigned ramp-off interruption. No, Aurelia was real feeling, so frighteningly real.

“…one large drip coffee with simple syrup…”

The fairie’s message and the conversation that followed it felt like a dagger to the heart. When she said that Reverie was real, it was like hearing it for the first time. I wanted it to be true so badly. Countless nights I had dreamed of Reverie, yearned for it to be a place I never had to return from. I wanted to believe it just a little bit, even now. 

“…I have a um… sorry a medium vanilla latte, decaf…”

I was itching to see what Juice had dug up about other players maybe experiencing something similar. A secret update would be unprecedented, but it was the fifth anniversary. My other theory was that perhaps something had happened with the glossing systems. 

When a player who wasn’t on a full immersion dose of VRsimilitude tried to break the fourth wall they were censored and glossed over in real time to ensure those who had paid for the full experience didn’t have any disruptions to their role playing. Likewise, NPCs glossed over anything that would be aberrant to the reality of the world like a sudden disconnection. 

“Yes, that was the one. I told him I wanted sugar free vanilla, but he made me a full sugar.” 

It seemed the best place to find answers to an in game mystery was to look for them within the game itself. Faonari couldn't remember being me, but she still shared my curiosity when I played her. I could retrace my steps, read the book again. Or ask Aurelia- 

“Riley.”

-about her history, where she came from.

“Riley!” Daryl’s voice was firm. I stopped what I was doing and turned to see him, patience evaporated. A woman was holding a drink, pissed off look on her face.

“I’m keto and that one made it with sugar! I could sue for this, I had enough sips to entirely break my metabolic state!”

Daryl looked exasperated, and the woman standing on the other side of the counter had a disproportionately sadistic look in her eyes as she watched me get disciplined for my mistake.

“Riley, go on break. I’ll fix this lady’s drink and we’ll talk when you get back.” He walked around the counter and turned to the customer, ignoring my existence entirely as he took over my station. “I’m sorry ma’am, let me toss in a gift card for your troubles.”

I could barely focus on the chats on my phone while I paced outside the store for 15 measly minutes. I felt too guilty and anxious about what was going to happen when I got back inside. 

Juice did share a few details about the rumors. Some were saying a special raid event was going to drop in a few days and clues might be spawning for it. Their friend in the other server hadn’t sent a message since last night though, total silence ever since. 

I reluctantly went back to work once my time was up. The line had settled down, so I was cleaning the workspace when Daryl approached me.

“Can I be frank, Riley?”

“I mean yeah. Look I’m sorry about the drink, I really did hear vanilla when she spoke.” My response was mumbly and remorseful. I hated this so much.

“I don’t think you heard much of anything. You didn’t take the trash out last night. Yes, I know. Then you were very late this morning, I mean, come on. I called three people to replace you, you were a no show. And now you’re messing up orders. I need a team player, Riley. I stuck my neck out for you and got corporate to print your name tag the way you wanted. I can’t keep covering for you.”

“Sorry Daryl. I’ll um. I’ll try harder.”

He sighed and got back to organizing merchandise, tending to the till on the other side of the cafe.

That man held the nametag over me all the time, and a fuckload of good it did. I didn’t have the courage to correct anyone who misgendered me, and at this point I was just trying to make it through the days. Extra conflict wasn’t something I could afford. 

The rest of the morning and into the afternoon was dull. That was a good thing, compared to that rough start. It was merely filled with the normal constant baseline stress that makes up my life, and then it was over at 3PM.

Meanwhile, my friends had commandeered a ship out from a port on the eastern coast of the game’s main continent, Verilium. The adventuring guild had their sights set on the Isle of Abalus to follow up on a storyline involving pirate dinosaurs. That meant I was going to be playing solo again. Truth be told, I really didn’t mind right now. Not when I was getting to have such a unique experience with the strange and beautiful fairie who had pulled me into a mystery that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

I switched out my VRsimilitude cartridge for a new one, even though there was a little bit more left in the one I had been using. I wanted to be sure that last night’s experience wasn’t caused by a defective cart, unlikely as that was. AvEn brand VRsimilitude was some of the best stuff available, specifically designed for Reverie. I was a longtime player so my dosing was perfectly adjusted. It seemed really unlikely that a bad cart would be the cause. Still, I had to eliminate all alternate explanations for this anomaly if I was going to allow myself to believe in the mystery as Aurelia was presenting it to me.

Satisfied that it was functioning properly, I laid down in my sling, slid the headset on, and allowed Reverie to wash over me with a glimmering of hypnotic lights.