The little arrow at the bottom of the textbox blinked at me, like a waiting eye.

  I could either stand here in the darkness until I died, or I could press the little arrow.

  And maybe still die.

  The arrow was pressed, and the text dissolved, the darkness around me resolving into a bright churchyard. Looking down at myself, I saw that I was wearing a pretty white dress, in a historical European style that I didn’t recognise. My hair was braided with flowers and ribbons; I could feel them when I raised my hands.

  “Maria... Ah Tsaam?”

  I dropped my hands and stared at the tall young man who had run up to me. He too was neatly dressed in some unidentifiable European clothing, which were at odds with his facial features.

  “Calvin?”

  He sighed with relief. “Damn, it really is you! I thought you looked familiar. Thank god you made yourself look like your usual avatar.”

  “You just look… like yourself.” The whiplash I was getting from seeing a neat young Chinese man in pseudo-European attire was disturbing. Calvin made a strange gesture as though he were trying to defend himself and shrug it off at the same time.

  I glanced around at the scene. There were a few people present, including some I assumed to be playing the parts of relatives, as well as a priest, and a handsome young man, the most well-dressed of everyone present. The priest and the young man were talking, and when they noticed I was looking at them, they smiled at me. The young man had a foxy grin and a suit of a rich green.

  “Is that... my husband?” I asked quietly, thinking of the textbox.

  “What?”

  “You got a textbox, right? Before we came here?”

  “Yeah. Mine said I was one of the older brothers of the bride. My tasks were to uncover the truth about her husband, and to protect her... Oh. You're the bride.”

  “Glad you noticed.”

  Another young man came wandering over, looking a little dazed. This expression would not have been enough to ruin the effect of his rather handsome face, but the self-conscious red facial markings (a stripe down either cheek and one across the nose) were incredibly jarring. He kept fussing with his long fringe.

  Calvin and I looked at each other, and muttered in unison, “Rohan?”

  I raised my voice a little. “Really? You made yourself look like that?”

  The young man stared, then stammered, “Um... Sister?”

  This was so awkward. Was he, perhaps, an NPC? Looking like that? “Oh... Oh, yes. Brother.” It just seemed like something Rohan would do…

  “Right... right... Um... About your new husband... Don't you think he's a bit... Um... Sketchy?” He brushed back his fringe mysteriously.

  “… Rohan.”

  “Huh? Wait... Calvin? Mik Tsaam?”

  “Oh god, you're here too.”

  “What about Poppy? POPPY!”

  “Wait, don't ye-”

  “I'M HERE!”

  A beautiful young woman came sprinting out of a huddle of people, and flung herself into my arms. “Oh my god, you're all here! I was so scared! But you're here! You're here!”

  Poppy’s avatar looked as though she had just stepped out of the cast of a Korean drama. Slim, with long and silky black hair parted neatly down the middle, she would probably never need to put on makeup again.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  After much hugging and patting each other to confirm that we were, in fact, all present, we all began to talk at once. Rohan kept stealing glances at Poppy’s new appearance and casually sweeping back his long fringe. I looked around anxiously, but there was no sign of Tommy or Wai Meng.

  “Have you seen Tommy?”

  “What the hell is happening?”

  “Is this really a game? Are we in a game?”

  “Maria.”

  I glanced over Poppy's head to find myself looking into the bright green eyes of the handsome young man. He smiled his foxy smile and held out his hand to me. “Come, my dear. We should be going.”

  I realised that the rest of the wedding guests were eyeing us suspiciously, and it occurred to me that we had all become overexcited at reuniting with each other.

  “Oh... Um... dear husband...” I almost gagged on the words. “A few more moments? It's just... still a little hard for me to part from my family.”

  “Hm...” The young man's hair was gingery in tone, catching the sunlight with little golden sparks. I had to admit, he truly was handsome, and well-presented.

  Pity everything about him screamed 'suspicious'.

  “Well, I will have you all to myself from now on, I suppose. A little longer, then. Don't leave me waiting too long, though.”

  He pecked a kiss on my cheek and strolled back to talk to the priest.

  Dumbfounded, I stood with a hand on my cheek where the man had kissed me. A low chuckle broke me from my thoughts.

  “Don't tell me that's the first time you've been kissed on the cheek?”

  We looked around to see a young woman standing nearby. She was dressed, unlike the rest of the people, in working clothes. Her outfit seemed to be a hunter's garb. A knife and quiver were slung casually to one side of her belt, and she fiddled with the strung bow in her hands. Her long, reddish hair was tied in a ponytail, although stray hairs escaped around her face.

  What a cool-looking woman, I thought, admiring the avatar. Who knew if this person actually looked like this in real life, but her style choices were applaudable. I should make friends with her.

  “I’d recommend at least trying to act a little more in character,” the woman said. “The NPCs get very suspicious otherwise.”

  “Wait... You're a person too? I mean... from the real world?” Rohan stumbled over the words eagerly, then abruptly shut his mouth, chagrined at his own excitement.

  She laughed. Actually, her voice constantly sounded like it was on the verge of bursting into laughter. “You can call me Jesse. What are your names?”

  “I’m-”

  “Wait.” I pulled Rohan back, switching into the dealing-with-strangers mode I used at work. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a very strange situation. Can we trust you?”

  “You can just share your username,” Jesse suggested. “If you say, ‘share username’ you can make it visible to other players.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Before the tutorial ended, I yelled out a bunch of questions and actually got answers to them,” Jesse explained cheerfully. “Try it.”

  Everyone complied.

  “'Maria'... so you're the one who needs to be protected... ‘Bee-Bee’, you're playing the little sister of the bride... 'Dr Uchiha'… is one of the older brothers... and... uh… '898LeeWM’? You're the other older brother.”

  “Hey, I was really pissed off, okay?” Calvin defended himself, when the others turned looks of question on him at the sound of his username. “Besides, what’s with Rohan’s username?”

  “We all know he’s an anime freak.”

  “Look, we don't have time to just chat like this, we've got to work out what we need to do.”

  “Go pick up some loot first,” Jesse suggested.

  “What did you mean by loot, Miss Jesse?”

  “Just call me Jesse. I found this knife and bow and arrows after searching around. They don’t seem to belong to anyone. In any case…” She tapped her lips thoughtfully. “You saw it, right? The difficulty of this level is ‘Beginner’. That means we should get as much as we can and learn as much as we can while things are easy.”

  I rounded on the others before they could begin babbling again. “Ca- Uh, 898LeeWM, you're in the Fighter class, right? I can see a smithy in that direction. Hurry over there. Bee-Bee, you're in the Cleric class...”

  “I'll help her with that,” Jesse offered. “I think I saw somewhere good.”

  I stared hard at Jesse, but was unable to gauge what she was thinking. “Thank you. And R… ‘Dr Uchiha’, you went with Mage, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not a chuunibyou or whatever else that fucking description said!”

  “Sure, sure. Go with Cal- him.”

  Aside, to Poppy, I said, “Keep some distance from her, okay?”

  “I know. I’ll treat her like an untrustworthy date, la?”

  We all scattered. I hurried into the church, where I assumed I had just been married. Shaking off the uncomfortable feeling this gave me, I walked quickly up to the altar.

  There was a simple wooden cross, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a white tablecloth, but little else other than candles. I bent down, checking the floor to see if anything had dropped.

  “Maria.”

  Bang! Hastily backing out from under a pew, I knocked the back of my head against the underside of a seat. Before I could clap a hand to it, someone else's palm pressed against the back of my head.

  “That sounded very painful. Are you alright? What were you doing down there?”

  It was the husband. I looked up at him with real tears of pain in my eyes but hastily arranged a smile on my face. “Oh... It's... Um... My ring! I was playing with it and dropped it...”

  “Already? My dear little bird is so clumsy. Let me take a look...”

  He patted my head gently and began to move amongst the pews. It occurred to me that I really didn't have a ring; my left hand was bare. How odd.

  “Here.” The groom came padding back triumphantly. He took my left hand and slid a pretty golden band onto my ring finger. As soon as the shining ring, fashioned in the shape of a twining vine, was secured on my finger, a new textbox appeared.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  I rushed to the altar where the Virgin Mary stared blankly into space and threw myself down.

  “Thank God, the ring has been found! Thank you!”

  “My dear, were you so worried? No wonder you seemed unlike yourself.” The handsome ginger man crouched down beside me. I met his bright green eyes and murmured under my breath, remembering the abilities of the ring, “Name.”

  Character name… I assumed this meant that he was an NPC. I had no more time to think, however. Robert Fox was leading me towards the entrance of the church.

  “Come, my love. It's time to go home.”

  I hoped the others had found what they needed. Robert Fox lifted me into a waiting carriage, and we were off immediately. I managed to lean out of the window momentarily, to see Poppy and Jesse standing by the roadside, the latter looking strangely a little wet and watching grimly, until the jolting of the carriage forced me to sit back down.