A/N: Well, you can pretty much read Parts 1 and 2 of the prologue interchangeably. Their events sort of coincide. I released part 1 first since I wanted to give you a sneak peak into the world of Enor and start a bit of world-building.
Also, I mention Lars Anderson's school of archery somewhere here. I don't think it exists right now (it might in the future), but what I'm referring to is the style of archery Lars Anderson is making/bringing back. Youtube it, it's pretty cool.
___
My chest burned.
I reached into my pocket, fumbling around for my keys. It clattered to the floor and I looked down, glaring. My thighs groaned as I bent to pick the key up and I rubbed them appreciatively. They’d served me well. If they hadn’t, I’d probably be in the back of a police van right now.
I opened the door and nearly slipped over a stack of letters - bills probably. I sighed and kicked them aside. I hung my bow on the coat rack and unclipped my quiver, putting that aside as well.
I walked into the kitchen and turned the sink faucet. Sticking my face under the spout, I took a much needed gulp of water and ran water through my hair as well. Something caught my attention - a pair of beady eyes stared at me from the edge of the basin to the left.
A cockroach.
Great.
I stopped the water and reached for paper towels, but it scurried off.
“Yeah, that’s right. Run.”
I dried off my hair instead and sighed. It won’t be like this forever - I promised myself that. Someday, I’d move out of this dump. Speaking of...
I grabbed my phone from the countertop and flipped open the news app in search of a particular story.
It took a bit of sifting. It seemed like every news outlet was focused on reporting the eminent solar flare that was expected to reach us in about a week. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. They’ve happened at least 8 times in the past year - shouldn’t we be used to them by now?
“Scientists baffled by the abnormal frequency of recurrence…”
Yeah, okay. Never liked science anyway.
Ah. Game News. Here we go.
“Release date for Enor announced. Launching on June 13, 2034.”
It was...in 5 days?? I read it over a few times to make sure the solar flares hadn’t fried my brain. The fuck… What sort of game company announces a release five days prior?
Enor Ltd., of course. I thought about it a little, and it made sense. Enor Ltd. certainly knew how to make a statement. Everything they did right from the founding of the company a year ago has sent massive ripples throughout the VRMMO community.
Within days of forming, before even announcing what sort of game they would create, they announced that only 1000 players would be invited to play. Furthermore, those players would be paid to play - their day-to-day finances would be taken care of through a daily stipend of $2500, and those that survived to the end of a year would be awarded $1,000,000 each. That was nearly $2 billion they’d have to reserve for payment alone. Critics accused them of a hoax or of illegally procuring the money, but they invited multiple government agencies to look into it, and it was completely legitimate. People became very curious.
Their next big announcement was more of a mini-guide with a focus on demonstrating how someone would log off from the game - you had to draw a circle around your character and draw a series of strange symbols. The rest described how Enor would have none of the hallmarks of virtual reality games. There would be absolutely no status bars, no holographic popups, no item descriptions and flavor texts, no quest dialogs, no experience or levels, no skill descriptions, no rankings, and of course, no typical log-out button. With all the other VRMMO’s that boasted 99% realism, this would be at 100% realism with all the nit and grit. It would be as if the player lived in that world, and your only goal was to learn about the world through your own means to get stronger and survive whatever they had planned at the end of the year.
Their only allowance was one free revival of your character sans all the items you’ve gained unless you head to where you died and the items were still there. You would restart in the city you began in, and if you died again, you could no longer play.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The VRMMO community was divided. Some hailed it as the ultimate form of escapism while others argued that Enor was doing too much; that they were trying too hard to be different.
Of course, the real clincher and the biggest shitstorm had yet to come. No, that title has to go to when the Enor invitations were announced and sent out. Top VRMMO professional players thought they would be shoe-ins for invites and spent months preparing for every eventuality, but not one of them received an invite. Those who did receive invites were largely unrelated to the world of VRMMO gaming - war generals, combat veterans, internationally lauded martial artists, olympic medalists, weapons designers, inventors, survival experts, and…me.
I was pretty damn confused when I opened that invitation letter. I’d never even heard of Enor up until that point. I guess my one claim to fame, and the reason I was invited, was that I was the top archer in Lars Anderson’s school of archery.
Gamers everywhere demanded an explanation, and Enor Ltd. released the statement: "Success in Enor will depend entirely upon the player's real life capabilities. True, it will be boosted slightly in-game, but min-maxing in the traditional sense of the term has been thrown entirely out the window. There will be no hand-holding with stats or what-not. If you don't have the skill or strength needed to split armor, even with the boost, you will be hard pressed to accomplish the feat no matter how long you play."
VRMMO critics labelled Enor a sham, saying that it wasn’t even remotely like a game anymore. They said it was doomed for failure.
Invitation acceptance rate was at 98.2%.
See that? 98.2 fucking percent. From war generals and world-class inventors. They barely even mentioned what the game would be like yet - no pictures, no promotional videos. Zip. Nada.
I accepted the invitation for the money, but people couldn’t be that curious, could they? They have lives to lead, right?
Enor Ltd. then announced that the game would be fantasy-themed. People sort of guessed that already, what with the bit about armor splitting and all.
That was a month and a half ago, and apparently, they were already ready to push the game out.
Oh well. Works for me. I needed that stipend.
I heard a knock at the door. Shit...how’d the cops find me?
“I wasn’t hurting anyone,” I called out. “And those crates were abandoned anyway. You can’t arrest me, come on.”
“Er...Uh...Delivery?”
“Oh.”
I unlocked the door and a blonde 20-something year old delivery man stood uncomfortably in the doorway.
“Boo.”
The delivery man jumped and I smirked.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”
“Ha ha…” he laughed uncomfortably. “Um...Delivery for Jessie Kimmel?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Okay, uh. Sign here.”
I did so and he handed me a large box before he turned tail and nearly tripped down the stairs.
I looked down at the huge logo plastered across the box.
“Enor Ltd.”
Huh.
___
It was launch day. I sat on the couch munching on some cereal, flipping through the channels looking for a cartoon to watch.
A sleek black virtual reality helmet sat in the space next to me with the Enor logo plastered along the top. I tried setting stuff up in the past few days, but nothing ever happened when I put the helmet on. I thought I got a defective model, but apparently, nothing was supposed to happen. Well, I guess I’d find out in 10 minutes whether this works or not.
Suddenly, in the middle of my cartoon, my TV sounded an emergency alarm and the screen flickered to a news broadcaster.
“This is an important announcement. EMP radiation from the X-class solar flare is approaching Earth at an alarming and unprecedented rate. Please turn off all electronics to prevent irrevocable damage. I repeat, please…”
I turned the TV off.
“There, happy? Finally shut your pie hole up.”
I put on the helmet and sat back. The lights in the ceiling began flickering wildly. I think I heard a light bulb pop behind me but, all at once, the power went out.
A green light began blinking in the top right of the helmet and I closed my eyes.
“Welcome to Enor.”