Jeff continued walking away from the group and peered over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him as he took his orb out and accessed the message folder. The sun was going down and the old priest and the two annoying kids were setting about making camp for the night, affording him his chance to get away unobserved. There was a video message waiting in his folder, so he opened it. Paley’s virtual face appeared in the orb.

“Sir, I think I figured out some of what has happened. But you’re not going to like it.” she took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose the way she usually did when she had bad news. Her virtual face had no eyes behind the glasses, so it had the effect of her having removed half of her face to scratch behind it. She replaced her glasses and continued, “the Deus Interface AI has gone haywire. Not sure if it’s broken, or something worse, but from what I can tell by your description, it seems like it forced your virtual body through the default world entry protocol - that’s why your god-mode is off, and why you were feeling hungry and tired. Your body’s been reset to function normally in the environment.”

“Un-deified by my answering machine.” He said, even though she couldn’t hear him.

“The other thing with the coins is probably related to the entry protocol. If I had to guess, I’d say that you’ve been flagged by the system as a coding anomaly so it’s using the reset protocol to automatically undo any changes you make to objects after they leave physical contact with you, so that you can’t mess up anything permanently. I put the reset protocol flag in to stop your wizards from turning all the air into water and drowning everyone or something else equally crazy and unpleasant.” She glanced away at something Jeff couldn’t see and then turned back to him. “Best thing to do is stop messing with the code and changing anything for a few days and see if the system removes the flag so you can at least use program code like the resident wizards do. If you get desperate you could possibly try to hack yourself some admin access, but that may not be such a great idea. Maybe try not to draw that kind of attention to yourself. I get the distinct impression that the Deus Interface AI has decided we’re a threat. I’m pretty sure it’s partitioned and encrypted a lot of my world generating code.” She paused again here to look at something else offscreen. “ I’m working on restoring your admin status, but the throne room environment is isolated for a reason, and right now that’s working against me. Like I said before, keep your head down, I’ll try to get you back up here so we can both logout safely.”

Jeff sat staring at the orb for a moment, hoping that she would come back and tell him that she’d figured it all out and would get him back into his own body again in a moment. His distorted reflection stared dumbly back at him. He had been hoping he wouldn’t have to stay this long, but it was becoming clear that he would have to stay the night, and there was going to be a need for food and warmth overnight if he planned to be capable of walking tomorrow.

The furry body he had given himself had been pretty well suited for the heat of this arid landscape, and would probably afford some protection from the cold of the night, but he didn’t want to bet on how much he would enjoy sleeping in the open.

He could probably reconfigure his leather satchel to transform into a comfortably padded sleeping bag when turned inside out. Anyone who saw him use it would just assume it was  a magic bag. Having done that, he would need a new place to keep his viewer where he could access it quickly without drawing attention to it. His first thoght was to make some glasses and have a heads up display, but a gnoll wearing glasses just felt wrong. Eventually he decided to go with a wristwatch for inspiration, and crafted a leather wristbrace with a series of five reflective metal discs around it. Once he had designed his wrist viewer he morphed his orb into that configuration and put it on. He also made himself something more like trousers and a shirt to wear in the hope of being a bit less conspicuous. At least now he knew that things he created with program code would probably maintain their shape so long as he was still touching them. But his system default stomach had been taken out of his control, and wasn’t being counted as a part of his body. That explained why he felt so horrible after all that chocolate he had made out of leaves, rocks and bark.

Food was going to be a problem. He could very easily make something look, feel and taste like something else, but it would always revert back to the same nutritional value it started with. If he wanted to eat anything he would have to start with something edible.

Hunting and forraging: the very thought of it made him groan. All those games with the tedious grind of searching for food in the wilderness - it only worked because the game designers had made the plants abundant, clearly visible and easily edible and made the small animals easy to find and catch. Even then, he would often just pay someone to do the grind for him or buy credits for in-game purchases.

Maybe he could use his gaming rig. He set one of the discs on the inside of his wrist to be the control for his gaming gear and overlayed his first-person-shooter game controls to his existing virtual body. The system registered his form as bipedal for running and jumping and his combat status as set for unarmed melee combat. He set the system to tutorial mode and set the scanner to designate and track objects with restorative properties as objective markers. Immediately every living thing within fifty metres lit up on his scanner as potential health bonus.

It took him a few moments to figure out that many markers on his scanner were flies or other bugs, much too small to be worth the effort, but nutritionally significant. He reset the parameters to ignore anything less than about a mouthful and looked again. There was something a few metres away, but he couldn’t see it. He carefully edged forward until he was standing right on the spot where it was. There was nothing there, just some grey bushes with long and prickly spines. Whatever it was had to be directly above or… below. It was under the ground.

He got down on his knees and started to dig, and then abruptly stopped. What was he going to do when he found whatever it was, punch it to death? He looked around for something to use as a weapon. He found a twisted dried old tree branch that was possibly about the right size for a spear, but it was too soft and twisted to be useful. He stood up and swung it a few times like a club. His gaming system recognised it as a newly acquired weapon and saved its parameters for melee combat. He switched his game system off for a moment and reconfigured the tree branch into a sniper rifle he had used on a retro twentieth century wargame recently. When he switched his gaming system back on and held the rifle up to look through the scope, the system recognised it as a new weapon and saved its parameters for artillery. He set himself back to digging in the dirt with one hand while holding his rifle in the other. Before long he found a large furry creature trying to dig itself deeper into the ground. Without even looking to see what it was, he placed the rifle against its body and pulled the trigger.

*                        *                        *

A loud crack echoed across the plain and all three of the priests spun around to see where the noise had come from. Some distance away, in the half light of dusk, Keenley could see the strange creature called Jeff making a show of looking innocent. He dropped something on the ground and said, “uh, hey, I found some food. You guys know how to cook?”

        Keenley left the others and went over to see what Jeff had found. As he arrived, he saw Jeff digging what must have been about a sixty centimeter long wombat out of a hole in the ground. It had a huge bloody hole through its middle and its internal organs had mostly been evacuated into the already red-coloured dirt.

“How…?” Keenley couldn’t even construct a sentence to enquire.

“Found a stick.” Jeff replied, indicating a twisted tree branch lying nearby, one end covered with blood and dirt. Jeff got up and ineffectually brushed the splatter off his new shirt and trousers. “I caught it, you guys have to cook it,” he said, handing Keenley the wombat’s remains. “I like my meat medium to well done.”