As far as ways to travel go, Gage could do worse than riding a gigantic woman’s boot. The up-and-down rhythm of her gait took a little getting used to, but aside from that, Gage kind of enjoyed himself. He used this respite to take stock of his situation.

First off, he was tiny. Gage estimated himself to be an inch or two tall, although he appeared to have some level of durability: the suited man’s procedure afforded him some strength leftover after the witch’s curse. That being said, without his equipment, he had no spells or abilities. He was a level 100 character completely naked of any items – not something you see every day. He would have to depend on his basic traits and attacks until he could get his gear back.

On a sudden impulse, Gage tried to log out. He activated the icon in his Heads-Up Display (HUD) like normal… but nothing happened. It’s not like he expected otherwise, but it was worth a shot, right? He pondered the witch’s words. Level 100 is just the beginning. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Literally billions of players logged into Perfect Dimension daily, and while his encounter with the suited man seemed shady, the fact that it happened at all only proved that some sort of infrastructure aided people like him. People who wanted to escape.

With that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise him that there would be a whole underground society of beyond 100 characters. In fact, that witch had probably targeted him precisely because he was a newly elevated player. She hadn’t bothered with Charis at all – probably because she could log out and undo the spell at will.

“Finally!” a feminine voice above him boomed. His ride had come to a stop, snapping Gage out of his thoughts. “I can’t wait ‘til I level up enough to get a disc – everything in this city is too far apart!” Glancing upwards, Gage’s HUD confirmed that his ride was a level 18 firearms user, just two levels shy of receiving a disc.

“Yeah, totally,” agreed her friend and Gage’s target, a level 18 spellcaster. “Let’s dump this quest and get our reward. We can grab a drink afterwards.”

Looking around, Gage recognized his location – Felicia Fine’s – basically a bar for low-level players. The designer had clearly programmed the place with women in mind: the place glowed with garish neon hues of pink and blue and green. But as they moved deeper into the bar from the entrance, Gage found himself paying less attention to the décor and more attention to the forest of female legs surrounding him. Not bad, he thought, admiring the view. Despite everything that had happened, he had to smile at this bit of good fortune.

Eventually, the boots came to rest as his ride took a seat in a booth. Gage watched in fascination as her friend slid into the booth on the other side, her massive form moving with impossible grace. Like a pair of buses, her red sandals came to a stop in front of him, the leather scarlet bands wrapping tastefully around her feet.

“What are you going to order?” asked one of the girls.

“I don’t know, I was thinking…”

Gage promptly ignored the rest of the conversation and scurried down from his perch on his ride’s black boot. However, just as he reached the toe, the girl lifted it up and crossed her legs, forcing him to hold tight to her boot’s leather. After his initial surprise, Gage let go and dropped to the ground – a considerable height for a normal person – and ran over to the other girl’s feet. The incident didn’t slow him down, but it served as a reminder: at his size, even the girls’ most casual movements posed a real danger.

With this in mind, he paused in front of one of the red sandals, eyeing it with some trepidation. After giving it some thought, Gage figured his safest bet would be to get on top of her foot as quickly as possible and minimize the chance of her accidentally crushing him with a simple twitch. He shuddered at the thought, but tried to convince himself of his toughness – after all, Charis had stepped on him not ten minutes ago. Still, the pain of that experience didn’t exactly leave him begging for more. Briefly, he wondered how Charis was doing; he hoped she was all right and not worrying too much about him. I’ll get back to her soon, he promised silently.

Gage took a deep breath and gathered himself. Quit getting worked up over nothing, he chided himself. Then he broke into a sprint, charging directly at the sandal-clad foot of the girl. With a wild leap, he launched himself into the air and landed directly on one of the straps. Gage clung to it tightly before dragging himself to an unsteady standing position on the sloping foot. Now he just had to…

Without warning, a mass of leather and flesh knocked Gage off of his perch and sent him tumbling to the ground. He watched in a mixture of awe and frustration as his assailant – a girl’s foot – scratched the area he just occupied. Gage knew it was foolish, but he swore the foot’s movement had a decidedly smug air to it. If he hoped to attract the girl’s attention, he would have to pinch her foot without also being smeared to a pulp by its counterpart. It wouldn’t be easy, but what choice did he have?

Wasting no further time, Gage rushed to the closer foot and began pinching with both hands in multiple locations. Moving frantically, he grabbed an area of her exposed skin and then ran somewhere else and repeated his assault in a preemptive effort to avoid the other foot. The plan worked: like some blind beast, the girl’s foot poked and prodded, but never succeeded in finding Gage.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s biting my foot or something,” came the annoyed response. Gage felt the shoe begin to rise beneath him; she must want a closer look. Instinctively, he dropped to his stomach and grasped the nearest handhold: the small piece of leather running between her big and second toes. While this particular decision provided him a solid, two-handed grip, his nose wrinkled at the decidedly unpleasant smell invading his nostrils. The grim combination of sweat and her foot’s musky odor made his head swim, and a wildly unrelated thought ran through his mind: it must have been one thorough programmer who made sure that feet stank in this game.

In any case, Gage didn’t have to endure for too much longer. After a short trip upwards, he sensed more than saw that the owner of the sandal had rested her foot on her other knee, presumably to get a look at whatever was “biting” her. Still hanging from between her toes, Gage threw a glance upwards – and was confronted by a pair of astonished blue eyes.

“Uhhh… Lilith?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to believe this…” Gage let go with one hand and waved frantically.

“What?”

“…there’s a tiny man between my toes.”