Marty took a deep breath ready to drop the big news on the four people he had assembled in an empty classroom.

“It can be done, we all joked and fantasied about it but I dug around and found it can be done.” Marty’s sudden declaration caused a bit of confusion.

“Wanna give us some context here?” Greggory asked. He was the tallest among the group and had just gotten here so had no idea what Marty was talking about.

“Completely immersive perfect virtual reality. We all joked about how we wished we could really be transported into the world of a video game right? Well now we can.” The four teenagers weren’t quite sure what to make of what Marty was saying.

“Wow, you’re serious!” One boy named James was a bit too excited however and jumped out of his seat.

“I am. I tested it last night on my computer and it totally fucking works!” Marty’s excitement seemed genuine but that wasn’t enough to convince his three doubters.

“Are you trying to tell us that you were able to walk around inside a game world just as you do in real life?” Asked Emma, the only girl present.

“Precisely!”

“How?” That was the question anyone who had even the slightest bit of faith in what Marty was saying wanted to know the answer to. Marty paused for dramatic effect then unleashed his bombshell.

“I don’t know, but it works.” His response caused a wave of groans. “Look everyone just come round to my house at seven tonight. I’ll show you all that it’s real.” Uncertainty filled the room. None of the five were the most social people and only two of them had ever ventured into Marty’s house before, one being Marty himself.

“What do you think Clement?” Emma asked the boy next to her that had been quiet the entire time. Out of all of them he was the most socially awkward so Emma made a point to try and get him to open up whenever possible.

“What can we lose?” Clement was excited by the idea of being able to enter a virtual world but still had his doubts, a lot of them though if something was no risk huge reward then he always went for it.

“Good to hear, alright mine at seven. I’ll get everything ready to go so we have the most amount of time to enjoy ourselves.” As teenagers they all had reasonable times they were expected to return home at especially on schooldays. Emma had it the worst as she would be punished if she was out after ten by her over protective parents. Fortunately she also lived nearest to Marty. The lunch bell sounded bringing an end to their impromptu meeting. They went their separate ways as none of them were in the same class for the rest of the day but would meet up again in a couple of hours in Marty’s bedroom.

* * * * *

At five past seven the last of the group arrived in Marty’s spacious bedroom. As the only child of two well-off loving parents he had a lot of luxuries that the others didn’t.

“Nice place,” Greggory commented stepping into Marty’s room where everyone else had gathered. Marty was sitting in pro-gamer chair by his computer eager to get started.

“Welcome to my humble abode. In just a few minutes we will all embark on a journey to a world of fantasy.”

“Which world?” James interrupted. “Is it a world we know or a world specifically created for this virtual thing?”

“The Scrolls of Elders – Carria.” That was a well-known title, heck it was the latest title to come from one of the most established RPG franchises in the video game industry. It was praised for its massive world and openness to community modding.

“I can’t contain my excitement anymore. Everyone gather around!” Marty spun his chair around to face his computer and began typing while the others grouped around his large monitor. They weren’t sure what he was typing into the command prompt window that was open on the desktop.

“Alright here we go!” That was the only warning he gave before smashing the enter key and activating the program. Suddenly the screen emitted a blinding light and all five of them whited out.

With a groan James awoke from the ordeal and opened his eyes. He was face-down in a hay pile for something reason. When he pushed himself upright he did so not with his own hands but the sturdy hands of a fully grown adult.

“Wow,” he exclaimed with a deep voice that soundly oddly similar to Nolan North. He definitely wasn’t in Marty’s room anymore and he definitely wasn’t wearing his regular clothes, although that was overshadowed by the fact his entire body was different. He looked around the large bed of hay and saw three identical semi-muscular brown haired men in identical cloth rags laying passed out around him.

“Welcome to the world of a better reality,” a voice announced. James turned to see a tall man standing behind him wearing the same garments as the rest of them with the same build but his hair was a crusty silver colour and his jawline slightly different.

“I’m Marty by the way,” the man explained. James blinked in disbelief but under these circumstances it was actually pretty believable.

“Marty… how the hell did you do this?” This world didn’t look like a game. Everything around them looked like it was made of atoms, not pixels.

“I got the program of the internet, specifically the Deep Web,” Marty explained. “I told you it was possible. I couldn’t believe it myself until I came here for the first time but it’s amazing isn’t it? I’ve barely had time to explore because this town is surrounded by goblins but we can deal with that later.” There was another groan as one of the other men awoke. As they were all identical there was no way to knowing who was who until they spoke or in this case, didn’t.

“Welcome to the world of a better reality.” Clement looked around then at himself. His initial thought at waking up in a stable surrounded by burly men wasn’t a good one.

“Are you going to say that every time someone wakes up Marty?” James complained.

“Yes…. Welcome to the world of a better reality!” Marty spotted another of his friends had awoken just after Clement.

“What the hell… WHAT THE HELL!” Emma realised almost immediately that she was for reasons beyond her understanding, a burly man. “What has happened to me?” She demanded.

“Relax, it’s just temporary. You four are all using the default warrior class character which is why you all look the same and sound like Nolan North.” Nolan North of course voiced every male video game character in existence, the default male voice in this game was no exception.

“Do I have a penis now? Please tell me I don’t!” While Emma was confirming her worst fear the last member of their group awoke.

“Warn us next time you do something something like that Marty,” Greggory complained. He stood up and dusted himself off like he was already aware of what was happening despite being the last to wake up. He glanced around the stable to assess his surroundings.

“Pretty cool and just look at those muscles. You’d never think the lot of you have never worked out.” He was the least surprised out of the four of them. He flexed his new body then turned his attention towards the outside world. “Shall we take a look outside?” The group under Marty’s direction walked out of the empty stable and into the blinding sunlight of beautiful blue sky.

“We aren’t in Scotland anymore.” They felt like they were on holiday as weather like this only occurred once every few years where they lived. The trees sung in the warm breeze and the air’s freshness rivalled that of the highlands. 

“Forget adventuring, I would be happy to just stay here and bathe in the sun,” Emma joked although she would rather be in her real body instead of this one.

“Town’s this way. We can pick up an easy quest from there to test the ropes,” Marty explained pointing down a path. He had done this yesterday but hadn’t gone very far.

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“Wait wait wait,” Greggory countered. “Questing? Dude we aren’t bound by the rules anymore. We could do anything we want here like instead of doing a quest we could literally just rob the quest giver and take all the rewards without having to actually do the quest.” That was true although the town guards wouldn’t be happy about it nor would anyone else who lived in this world.

“I know it’s a game but still, that’s a bit mean.” Emma wasn’t for the mugging an old man route Greggory was suggesting.

“Friends, this is just to test the ropes. After this session I’m going to reset everything. Then we’ll design our own characters and start playing for real. If Greggory wants to rob the townsfolk fine, it’ll show us just how the NPCs react to circumstances they weren’t programmed for.” By playing for real Marty meant trying to complete the game’s main quest. There was a lot of stuff games tended to do for you that they wouldn’t have the luxury off here. The group headed towards the small town of Cakl’Dor which they had always pronounced Cackle-Door because nobody knew how it was actually pronounced. The town was small with only seven buildings including a general store, tavern, weapons & amour shop and a few houses. It was the standard definition of a starting town and everyone here had a smile on their face and a willingness to help others.

“Alright if memory serves that guy over there should provide us with a goblin killing quest and reward us with a basic weapon if we succeed.” Marty pointed to a farmer who seemed to be standing in a particularly bright patch of dirt. The group approached him and the poor man nearly had heart attack as five burly men, four of whom were completely identical, neared him.

“Excuse me.” The farmer showed clear fear towards the five men speaking with him.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he begged. 

“No no no. We want to help you. Are you the guy who hands out goblin extermination quests?” There seemed to be some confusion. It was never this hard with predetermined dialogue boxes. 

“Oh… you’re mercenaries?”

“Yeah, that’s sort of right. Do you have any work for us?”

“I’m just a simple farmer, I can’t afford to pay for five men like you to clear out my field of goblins.” It was apparent the farmer had never been programmed to handle five people speaking to him at once. The game was originally a single player so it wasn’t that big a surprise that five heroes instead of one would change things.

“Well you’re in luck.” James took over speaking. “Because we are still getting established we have a very special offer just for you. You need only pay for one of us and the other four will work for free. Even with a group like us you have to admit I’m giving you a bargain here.” James suggestion caught the others off-guard and before they could raise a voice of concern James had already shaken hands with the farmer sealing the deal. Soon the five of them were trundling off towards the wheat fields to kill a bunch of goblins.

“We are just resetting anyway after this. Like Marty said we are just testing the ropes.” James defended his actions. The five of them soon arrived at the wheat field and caught sight of the pointy green ears of the goblins that had taken over. Being strictly carnivorous the goblins didn’t care for the wheat and were more interested in trying to catch field mice.

“There’s one get him!” Greggory was the first to rush into battle. He took the three foot goblin completely by surprise and the others quickly piled in after him, although much less enthusiastically, and beat the living shit out of the poor green skin. The sight of five burly men smashing one of their comrades to bits had sent a strong message to the other goblins. When Greggory scanned the area for his next target he discovered the field was now deserted.

“Oh…” Greggory scratched his head as James picked up some copper coins from the goblins fading remains.

“The currency is minted from the remains of dead monsters? The economy must be in shambles.” It was a valid observation. James knew that the value of currency in many MMORPG’s devalued overtime because of this. It was a problem many games faced so he questioned how it would affect this world which was both a game and real at the same time.

“Well now what?” Emma questioned. The goblins were gone but they had agreed to kill at least eight for the farmer.

“Well there isn’t really any evidence we haven’t done the quest,” Greggory suggested. The field was hidden from the town so unless the farmer was watching he would have no idea how they were doing. The others all looked at him with worried expressions but the fact remained he was right so it was time to test the effectiveness of lying in this world.

“Hold up, let’s wait ten minutes then go back. It’ll be too obvious if we return now.” James brought up another valid point. They walked around the field pretending to be busy then returned to town to meet up with the farmer. He was clearly still uneasy talking with such an odd group but paid up. A cheap sword, some coins and a healing potion was their reward just like it would have been in the game. A full set of basic equipment could be assembled by doing all of the quests in the starting village but a single set wouldn’t do a group of five much good. It was certainly a problem they hadn’t been expecting but was precisely why they were doing a test run. 

“Hey Marty,” one of his friends called out. Marty turned around and hoped they didn’t realise that he had no idea which of the four of them he was speaking with. “Just how do we get back to reality?” That was easily the most important question to be asking. They had noticed they didn’t have a main menu to quit the game from.

“There is a time limit set up that will return us all once an hour has passed.”

“And how long has passed?” The question was answered when the world turned to a blinding white then suddenly all five of them were back in Marty’s room grouped around his computer.

“We’re back, I’m back.” Greggory quickly checked he was back to being himself. Emma was the happiest of them all to be back to normal.

“It’s cool right?” Marty asked now that all four of them understood that what he told them this afternoon was true.

“Yeah… but how is it even possible?” Emma questioned. Marty shrugged his shoulder while opening up a computer program.

“I got this program from the Deep Web. It is what allows us to enter the virtual world which I’m assuming is based on the version of the game on my computer. I had to alter it a bit to allow all five of us to enter at once. I’ve actually been spending the past week getting it ready for today’s announcement.”

“I don’t get it… but I want to go back so shall we go back in? I’ve still got time,” Greggory pressed. Their time in Carria had felt very brief yet an hour had passed in the real world.

“No, I’m going to show you guys what you need to do for tomorrow.” Marty hadn’t even asked if they were all free. He was just assuming as he knew none of them would voluntary miss it. He opened up the games character creator. He had also installed a number of mods to dramatically increase their customisation options.

“Tonight you should all spend some time creating a character. Once done save them to one of these.” He handed out four USB memory sticks. “All the mods you need are on those. Likewise if there are any mods you want installed then transfer it to that. A word of warning, I am only able to have a single save file and any new mods require a fresh game. Once we restart tomorrow we won’t be able to modify the game.” His friends nodded.

“When do we start?” Greggory was eager to get back into it.

“Get your characters created and mods downloaded tonight. Then let’s meet up back here tomorrow at 7 again to start playing for real.” It sounded fantastic. They all wished they could play now but Marty had some things he wanted to set up for tomorrow. Unfortunately as teenagers school was a part of life that they had to endure. Nothing was worse than going to school when you had a brand new game waiting at home.