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The latest Realms update is up! As always, all constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy!

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"Oh my..." Katt's eyes were locked on Silvara's every move as the temporarily furry Crusader began to make mincemeat of the hyenas surrounding her. Her sword slammed into the nearest hyena, cleaving the animal in two and burying her blade several inches into the soft sand underneath it. The beast collapsed as its body turned to ashen black dust while she slammed her shield into the second one. I winced as I heard sound of bone smashing against metal as It fell limply to the ground beside her.

"You go, Silvara!" Silvy flashed me a quick wolfish smile before three more hyena leapt on her at once, her white furred body getting mostly lost under their spotted brown coats. Katt started to make a move to aid her, but I held out my hand to stop her as I shook my head. "Trust me, Katt; she's got this."

"But she's getting swarmed!" It's true; anyone could see the flashes of light from her barrier caused by the various bites and scratches she was receiving as her health points dropped. What an experienced player would also notice, however, was that the color of her barrier stayed near the light blue of a fully filled HP bar. Silvara herself didn't seemed bothered as she casually grabbed the hyena gnawing on her ankle and simply hurled it several feet away from her. As Silvy grabbed the other two and smacked their heads together, Katt turned to me for an explanation.

"These hyenas are level one punching bags that normally wouldn't be worth her time. Even a totally new player could take them on without breaking a sweat as long as they don't try and handle three or four at once. Hell; I'm a mage, one the weakest classes in both physical attack and defense, and even I could take them out with just a love tap of my staff at my level. In the meantime, they could chew on me for a couple of minutes before they even put a noticeable dent in my health. Silvy's just showing off, is all."

"Well, she certainly seems to be drawing a crowd." Katt drew my attention to a half dozen or so other players who stood atop the sand dune, watching Silvara as she continued to decimate the pack around her. "Judging from that story you just told me about her, I didn't think she'd be so comfortable being the center of attention."

"She's bad with individual attention; she LOVES crowds, though. She kind of has to, given her profession." A terrified hyena's yelp as Silvara left her sword behind and settle for slashing into another hyena with her claws diverted Katt's attention for a brief moment while I continued. "She can handle trolls on social media and the like just fine; she's just gets overwhelmed sometimes when she's dealing with a smaller group and can see individually everyone she may be potentially disappointing. That's one of the main reasons she joined up to play Realms to begin with, to help work through that small group anxiety."

"I guess I understand?..." The questioning tone suggested maybe Katt wasn't being one hundred percent truthful, but her attention was largely focused on Silvy. "So, this Beast Mode thing that she's in the middle of right now; can anyone do it?"

"Yup, once you progressed far enough in the main story. What exactly it does for an individual depends on your class and race. All your stats get a boost, though one or two get a bigger one than most. For Silvy, her strength and constitution go through the roof." My explanation paused briefly as a hyena flew between us before crashing in the dune behind us. That Silvy was still a good thirty feet away from us when she launched the feral canine past us emphasized how strong she was.

The hyena had somehow survived the toss, and also illustrated Silvara's Beast Mode special ability. As a Defender, it's Silvara's main job to keep monsters focused on her and away from other more vulnerable players. Generally monsters will focus on whoever's nearest to them, and under normal circumstances the recovering hyena would've came at me or Katt now being that we were much closer to it than Silvara. Since Silvy was a Crusader and in Beast Mode, however, it limped past the two of us without so much as a glance as its attention was fully locked on her.

"When I hit Beast Mode, I can cast my spells in about half the time I normally need. Plus, there's a few spells I can ONLY cast while in Beast mode. So far at least, we've only been able to use Beast Mode in the game. The Break bar starts fresh when there's a real world Breach, and they haven't been long enough for anyone to build th-ack!" My summary of the Break bar was cut short as I was suddenly tackled to the ground by Silvara, who had just finished off the last of the hyenas. We tumbled around in the warm sand for a few seconds before ending with me atop her as she hugged me tight.

"Think I put on a good show there?" Silvy asked as she knocked my hood back with her muzzle to nuzzle softly between my ears.

"I think so. You certainly got Katt intrigued." A small purr slipped out as Silvara cuddled me close. The feeling of her wet nose and soft paws on me soon began to dissipate as a bright glow began to surround her body as Beast Mode began to run down. I could feel her body shifting and shrinking under me as the armor she cast off before was replaced, and soon she was back to her normal form.

"Well, I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the whole transformation aspect, but I must admit that the end results are pretty impressive." Katt squatted down next to us as I turned so I was lying on my back atop Silvara. Katt smiled as Silvara wrapped her armored hands around my waist, continuing to hold me as I looked up at Katt. "Speaking of surprises, you two certainly seem like a happy couple."

"We certainly are. It might be kind of fast, but things have gotten so much better for me since I met Silvy." My fangs showed a little in my smile as Silvara hugged me tighter. "She's just a wonderful woman."

"And you are as well, Aerilla." Silvara nodded before addressing Katt directly. "I'm hoping we can get to know each other better now, but I always assumed that you must be a great person to have raised such a wonderful daughter. Thank you, Katt."

"Daughter? Aerilla's n-"

"HEY!" Both women looked taken aback slightly as I pointed at the newly spawning hyenas reaching the top of a nearby dune. "Looks like more of them are spawning. Why don't you get them, Katt? You can use the practice. Here; I'll help you out."

Not giving her a chance to respond, I slipped an arm free of Silvara's grip and yanked on Katt's arm so I was looking at the side of her metal claw. muttered some arcane words and drew the same rune that I had on the handgun clip in the bank with my finger. As I finished, the rune began to glow with a bright red light. I instructed Katt to click her claws together three times to activate them.

"Should I think of home while I'm at it?" Of course the librarian would think of a classic piece of literature as a reference. She did as I instructed, looking confused when sparks shot off her claws the first two times she did it. A small yelp escaped her when the metal was set ablaze on the third strike, the immediate look of panic slowly fading as she realized her flame cloaked weapons weren't hurting her.

"There you go; that'll give you a little damage boost. Go on; get a little more combat experience, and we'll start your main quest line in a bit." Silvara couldn't see the glare I was giving Katt as I gently shooed her away. Katt arched an eyebrow in confusion, but nodded and left to engage the incoming enemies, leaving Silvara and I alone together lying in the sand.

"Your mother seems nice." Silvy watched Katt as she started slicing into the newly spawned hyenas as she shifted a little under me to get a better view of the action. "I know for a fact mine would NEVER touch anything like this."

"Well, when a Breach occurred right atop her and she watched me start tossing around magic, I guess she couldn't help but be a little curious." I glanced around to make sure we had some privacy before I continued, but Katt was the only one who was close enough to hear us. "I was a little nervous about bringing her in, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to how nervous you must get when you're about to step out on the stage in front of a couple of thousand people."

"Ah, that's nothing. Those people are all there to see the Rae of Sunshine. Frankly, it'd be rude of me to NOT go out on the stage and give them the performance they're looking for." Silvara, or Rae as she's known in the real world, responded as she smiled down at me. "Fans are nice, but it's really the people close to me who's opinions I'm worried about."

"And I guess I fall into that latter group, huh? Well, in that case, let me tell you this." I squirmed and shifted so I was facing one of the greatest current pop stars right in her eyes... well, her virtual eyes, at least. "You're one of the greatest women in the world, and it has nothing to do with your popularity or your music. And I'm very lucky to have you in my life."

I meant that fully and in so many ways. After our first time working together in a Breach, we met up in Realms and started playing together. My sessions at that time were few and far between because money was tight, and I need to take as much overtime as possible to scrape together the cash for my ever mounting bills. I mentioned this to Silvara one night while we were waiting for a fourth for a dungeon run, mostly just to vent my frustration. Oddly, she responded by asking for my e-mail address. I gave it to her and put it out of my mind as our late party member finally showed up.

The next day, I had a thousand dollars deposited into my PayMe account. I didn't recognize the sender, but the account was linked to my e-mail address. A note attached to the deposit read, "So you can spend a little less time dealing with monstrous customers and more time dealing with plain old monsters.". Silvara confirmed that the money was from her when I asked later, and she refused to take it back when I tried to return it. Of all the things she had to worry about in her life, money was not one of them, or so she said. My own research, plus Rae mentioning the, "black cat" that's been keeping her company as of late in various interviews, confirmed for me that she was the multi-millionaire pop star she claimed to be.

That's one of the reasons I've been cautious about talking about her too openly with Katt; with Rae constantly getting hounded by paparazzi in the real world, I don't want to bring any extra attention to her in Realms. There were also her fans to be concerned about as well; I imagined her drowning in hordes of new players all begging for a chance to play with their favorite star. She'd probably have to quit Realms just to get some peace and quiet, and I'd feel horrible for losing her. And honestly, as much as it's important for me to keep Silvara's real world identity secret, I needed more than a little secrecy myself.

"I guess it's hard to see the family relation here in Realms, what with your mother being a tiger and you being a cat." Silvara said as she watched Katt and her flaming claws burning through the hyena's before here before smiling down at me. "Still, you're clearly both beautiful women. Like mother, like daughter."

"Y-Yeah..." I really, REALLY needed to tell Rae the truth. Other than having a magic weapon, about the only other thing the Called agree on as a pre-requisite for being Called is that you have to be a woman in the real world. Obviously I break that, "rule", but I can't exactly address it without raising suspicions and questions. I'm pretty sure that's why Silvara thinks I'm a woman in the real world, and why someone so very public about her lesbian preferences seems so deeply in love with me. It's never something I've ever really lied about; it's more like I've just never set the record straight. By the time I learned Silvara's true world identity and realized the problem, I was already head over heels for her.

I didn't want to risk losing her, but it's been killing me that she may be completely unaware of the truth. I can't keep hiding this anymore; I need to tell her the tr-

"You know something, Aerilla?" Silvy's question interrupted my thoughts as she bought a hand up to stroke my hair. "I've been thinking. I may be a Crusader, but I don't believe it's that holy power is the reason I feel so blessed."

"O-Oh?" I couldn't help but smile a little as Silvara caressed me. "Why do you feel that way, then?"

"Because I have you in my life." Silvy pulled me in for a kiss before I could respond. As her hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me close, my own slipped under her shoulders as I slipped into her warm embrace.

I really, REALLY need to tell Silvara the truth...

...Some day...