"Come on! Promise you will give it a try!" Ashley said, pleading.

"Fine, fine. I'll try if you stop pestering me about it!" Rob replied.

The girl jumped in excitement. "Finally! I knew I would get to you, eventually. And you won't regret it, it's an awesome game. Real-life graphics, persistent changes to the game world, hyper-advanced AI. It's the perfect MMORPG."

Rob sighed. It has been two weeks since Sword of The East came out and his friend could not stop talking about it. He was not a fan of MMOs, and even less of a fan of immersive reality games, that used those expensive chairs and visors to make the user feel like they are part of the game world. VR was already too much for him, that was another step away from his beloved spreadsheet simulator games, as Ashley called them, that he loved.

A week later, his IGX machine arrived. It took him a few hours to set it up properly, but he finally managed. Giving it a try, he sat on the chair, put down the boots and gloves, and finally the visor as well. Darkness was rapidly replaced by a blinding white room, with a middle aged woman in a fancy waiting for him. "Welcome, I am your Immersive Gaming Extreme assistant. Would you like to run the first time configuration?"

Rob looked around, amazed. He could not believe how real it all felt. The ground he stepped on felt solid, the air he breathed felt real; stepping closer to the woman, he tried to touch her, and managed to! His hands felt a solid object under his fingers.

"All right. Let's do it."

Half an hour later, in which he ran, jumped, crouched, touched, and even tasted, he was done. "All right, assistant, please run the Sword Of The East."

"Of course."

The white room was replaced by a dusty room, with wooden walls, oil lamps, a fireplace, and everything else that you would find in a medieval house. There was a mirror in a corner, reflecting back the image of a digitized version of himself. He got closer, and a long list of sliders appeared beside it. Rob spent a bit of time tweaking a few things to make himself more... heroic looking, nothing too extreme, just a few touches. Finally, he opened the door. On the other side was another room, the walls made of stone bricks, armed guards stood at attention on both sides, and another, bigger, door stood in front of him.

Then a man in a fancy regal dress approached him. "May I ask you what kind of warrior will you be?" He said, handing him a scroll with various names and descriptions.

Oh, class selection! He immediately picked knight, it had always been his style in RPGs.

"Good, good. Now, what kind of world will you explore?" He said, handing over another scroll.

It was a glorified server filter, with options for PvP, guilds, events, and the like. He went to manual search and selected the one Ashley used. As he did so, he noticed a weirdly named setting "dynamic character appearance" was active.

"One last thing, what kind of adventure will you be having?"

One more scroll, with just one setting: Starting difficulty. Rob thought about it for a moment. Ashley was not one that enjoyed difficult games, but he was. If she liked this one, it meant it was probably a breeze, so if he wanted a challenge, he had to put the highest difficulty. And so he did.

As soon as he gave confirmation, the man disappeared, and the door opened. He went through.

The first thing he noticed was the light flooding his eyes. After a few seconds of re-adjustment, he found himself surrounded by green, but not the kind of green he expected, the trees looked like giant blades of grass. And above that, he could barely see strange blobs of color and shadows.

"Hey! A new hero! Yay, it's been a while since I've found one of you guys still this tiny" a feminine voice said from behind him. He turned around to see a gigantic being, emanating a faint light. She had a beautiful slender, feminine figure, and wide, golden wings attached to her back. Her light dress, white and golden in color, covered only the essential, leaving her longs legs completely bare. Her Short, golden hair fell naturally down her face, almost like a halo around her head. Her deep blue eyes fixed on him.

It was a fairy. He was almost positive she was. But then... "Wait, why are you so big?"

The fairy giggled. "Me? Big? I'm not even a foot tall. You're the tiny one."

"What? Why? What nonsense is this?"

"This world follows its special rules, hero. Your appearance here reflects your own power as a fighter. And you as a level 0 knight are as threatening as an ant" she said, with a smug smile.

"Are-Are you serious? How am I supposed to fight like this?"

"I'm told heroes choose their destiny when they come to our world. You have only yourself to blame."

Rob closed his fist. "I'm not going to be made fun of by a low level trash mob!" He screamed, while charging wildly at the fairy, his mighty sword in hand, his armor shining proud.

The fairy rolled her eyes. "Really?" She then simply lifted her bare foot, and let it fall down on him. Rob at first saw a shadow, then an enormous object crashed against him from above. The hit took the air out of lungs and forced him against the ground. The enormous pressure made it difficult to move, to breathe, even to think. And to make matters worse, the heat radiating from the fairy's foot was enough to cloud his vision. He looked at his HP, and discovered he was barely alive. A single hit point was keeping him there.

"That wasn't smart, was it?" The fairy said, and pushed down. The tiny knight immediately died, his body flattened under the fairy's sole. The creature lifted her foot and looked at the blood stain. "New heroes are so dumb, I love popping them!"

Rob woke up screaming. He then opened his eyes, but he could see nothing around him.

Suddenly text appeared in front of him. "You were killed by fairy, level 3. Experience points 0/1000." That did not look good.

He respawned I roughly the same spot. The fairy was still there, waiting for him. "Hey there, cutie! Wanna try again?"

Rob's blood boiled, and charged again with a might scream. The proud hero ran through the rough terrain at lightning speed, towards the malevolent foe.

"Oh, but I'm so tired, I think I will sit down" the fairy announced. Then she theatrically turned around, and let herself fall.

Shadows devoured the light around him, as a sense of impending doom filled his body. He looked up, to see the fairy's ass coming down as an unstoppable meteorite. Then nothing.

The fairy felt the hero's body explode under her ass. Giggling, she ground her booty against the soil for good measure.

The dark void again. "You were killed by fairy, level 3. Experience points 0/1000."

And then he back to the grass forest. He looked around up in the sky for the fairy, but he could not see her. Did she leave?

"All right, hero, I'll give you a chance this time. I'll let you go if you defeat my hand" she said.

Rob turned around and finally spotted her: She was laying down on her stomach behind some grass, that she now squished down to see him better.

Her hand advanced towards him, huge and menacing, each finger half as long as his entire body. The cruel digits were getting near. Rob prepared a defensive stance, ready to give it all. That was it, he may be able to escape that annoying fairy and actually start to play.

Then the fairy brought her middle finger and thumb together and released, sending him flying in the air. He had just enough time to see his HP bar disappear, before dying.

"You were killed by fairy, level 3. Experience points 0/1000."

"Yes, yes, I know, game. Thank you. Send me back already."

And the grass woods again. But this time, he did not waste time, he ran, as fast as he could. He had enough of that fairy.

"Oh, you're going away? Without even saying goodbye?" She said. He looked around, but he could not see her. Then he looked up, and there she was, hovering in mid air above him. "That's not polite. Very naughty of you. I'll have to punish you, young man."

Who the hell programmed this insane NPC AI? Rob looked around for a hiding spot, but there were none.

"I don't have a place to hold you in, though. Oh! I know!" She said, landing just beside him, with a loud thud that made him fall down. The fairy brought down her hand and took Rob between her fingers. The desperate hero struggle with all of his might against the mighty hand, but to no avail. Soon enough, he was high above the grass, in front of her face.

"I hope you like your prison!" And popped him in her mouth. The fleshy cavern was disgustingly slimy. A nightmare of muscles and teeth. Her tongue did not waste time and pushed him down towards her throat, then she swallowed, and Rob was sucked in, towards her stomach.

The infernal chamber welcomed him. Her stomach acids eagerly began eating away at his HP, while the lack of air accelerated the process. In twenty or so seconds, he was dead meat.

The fairy patted her belly. "They taste great. Too bad they're gone so quickly, I love feeling them down there."

"You were killed by fairy, level 3. Experience points 0/1000."

"Grrrhhg... all right, one last time, then I'm calling it quits."

And there he was again, the now familiar grass forest. And his nemesis.

"Oh, you're back! They usually give up at this point. I'm glad you didn't. Because of that, I'm willing to let you go, if you can win against my little finger" she said pointing at him.

He sighed. That was his best chance. "Fine!"

"Yay!" The fairy said, giggling. Then she laid down on her stomach and brought her little finger above him. Rob Attacked with his mighty sword, with all the strength he could muster, but his foe shrugged the attack off and descended upon him. To stop it, he abandoned his weapon and brought his hands up. With a superhuman effort, he slowed it down and then stopped the mighty little finger of the cruel fairy. Closing his eyes, he pushed more, and finally he felt it giving ground. For several, long seconds, he kept pushing more, sure of his final victory.

And then he fell down face first into the ground. Confused, he looked around, but there was no trace of the fairy. She disappeared in an instant.

"Did... Did I win?"

Then a loud boom shook him. And another. And another. An impossibly tall figure appeared, its colossal boots stomping towards him. He stood up and began running away, but the sheer size of that being made his escape impossible.

Defeated, he turned around and looked up, at the cruel leather sole coming down.

"You were killed by Player(LittleMissAshley93), level 27. Experience points 5/1000."

Rob stared into the infinite abyss of the respawn void. Silent. Immobile. "Fuck. Me."

"Rob? Rob are you here?" Shouted Ashley, but none answered, that little patch of woods was empty. She checked the map again, but his friend's name just disappeared before her eyes. "Weird, must be a glitch of some kind."