On a bustling street in a medieval village stood two figures arguing. One was decked out in shiny chrome armor from head to two. With short dark hair and a stoic jawline, he looked every bit the image of a knight. Standing across from him was a skinny man with long blonde hair wearing something like a robe.
“This is only three quarters of my share! Pay up!” the knight demanded, glaring angrily at the blonde man.
“I couldn’t get as much for the item, so this is what you get,” the blonde man protested.
“That’s bullshit!” the knight exclaimed. “This isn’t what you promised, merchant!”
“What are you going to do about it?” the merchant taunted, smiling smugly. Seeing the knight’s dumbfounded expression, he turned to leave.
“GAAAAAAHH!” the knight roared at the sky. “What good is a game with no PvP combat?” he shouted at nobody in particular. Watching the smug merchant leave, the knight helplessly punched a wooden post outside of a shop.
In the beginning, this game was what everybody had expected. It was immersive. It was beautiful. The cities were well-developed. The monsters were terrifying. Hunting them was exciting. Exploring dungeons was beyond thrilling. How had things gotten so boring so quickly? This game was quickly turning from an action game to a medieval life simulation game. Fighting monsters was still exciting, but many players had begun getting caught up in building their homes.
Coming from a world of gruesome first person shooters, the knight was unprepared for what he had found in this world. What was this kind of peace? This wasn’t what he had come here for. What kind of unreal world was this where people never killed each other? Lately the knight had started thinking that the real world was more exciting and dangerous than this. The knight lamented his boredom as the city swarmed around him, buzzing with life.
Suddenly, everything stopped. The hum of the city had been silenced in an instant. The entire world was frozen. The knight couldn’t even move his eyes. He stood transfixed, his gaze resting upon the mountain range in the distance. These mountains happened to mark the edge of the map. climbing them was impossible. Without warning, a pure white light began shining on the crest of one of the mountains. With neither a whisper, nor a roar, the light grew in size, racing out in all directions in a massive surge.
The wave of light encompassed the land in an instant, passing through the entire town in a fraction of a second. Just as quickly as it came, it vanished. The city stood where it always had, and the people were unharmed. The city returned to life as if nothing had happened. The knight, however, still fixed his eyes upon the mountain range where an anomaly had formed. Ringing the mountain peak like a halo, was a ring of light, and through that ring, movement could be seen. Figures began spilling out of the portal and darting down the mountain.
Was this some kind of demon hoard? Was it a game event? Players began to notice and excitedly ran towards the incoming wave of invaders. NPCs and weaker players began running in the opposite direction. The chaos was causing traffic jams all throughout the streets. The townsfolk in particular were gripped with panic as they grabbed their belongings and ran. As the figures reached the town, cries could be heard. The battle had begun.
Yearning for adventure, the knight raced towards the source of the screaming. As he got closer, he began to make out faces. The figures racing towards the town weren’t demons. The were… human? Humans shouldn’t pose any threats. There weren’t even any bandits in this joke of a game. Even so, as the knight watched as one of the invaders shoved his sword through the helmet of a city guard. The NPC dropped helplessly to the ground as the invader continued his rampage, slaughtering player and NPC alike. Countless others raced into the city. Had PvP been implemented? Why hadn’t there been some kind of announcement?
There was only one thing he could do. The knight raised up his sword and swung down at the surly, armor-clad invader. The man dropped helplessly to the ground, surprised at the knight’s actions. In the knights view, a familiar transparent box appeared, informing him of the experience he had gained. The knight curiously inspected the body. This wasn’t a bandit. It wasn’t even an NPC. The icon by the dead man’s name indicated that he was a player. This was PvP. How?
The knight immediately brushed his concerns aside. For now he had bigger plans. He darted through the crowd, cutting down anybody who stood in his way. In his view, a map was displayed showing a little moving dot. It was time to get even with a certain blonde merchant.
As the madness ensued, countless fell to the siege. Some players stood and fought, while others died quickly without even bothering to defend. Other players, frustrated with the game, even joined with the invaders, cutting down their own kind.
As player after player died, they each entered their personal lobby to suffer the death penalty. It would be several hours before they would be able to log in again. Some angrily quit out of the game, but others stuck around and used the lobby to browse the forums, looking for some clue as to what had happened. There was more than just a clue.
At the very top of the forum a video announcement had been posted. Those who watched the video would see two players. Both players wore the same clean black robes and smooth white masks. One player had black hair, the other had white. Regardless of color, the hair on both hung jaggedly at the players jawlines. The top part of the hair had been pulled back into a sort of half top knot. Both players stood atop an ornate stone platform.
“Greetings players of Solaris!” the dark haired figure began. “I am Nils, God of Bloodshed.”
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“And I am Eira, God of Deception,” the white haired figure calmly interjected as they took turns speaking.
“As many of you have noticed, a Player vs. Player system has been implemented in this game. I’m sure you’re probably wondering how this came to be.”
“As it turns out, Virtech’s security AI was sorely lacking. Solaris’s servers have been gutted and the game is now running on servers belonging to us.”
“This is a revolution! May all of Solaris bear witness! Virtech no longer holds authority in this realm. We do, and we plan on making some changes, PvP being the first of many.”
“We’re sure Virtech isn’t exactly thrilled about this, but just think of all of the free improvements this game is going to get. Things are about to get a lot more extreme!”
“If you don’t like it. You’ll have to defeat us. Several battles will be arranged between our forces and the players of Solaris.”
“These battles will all concern certain issues in the game. The winners will determine which features stay and which features go.”
“If you love something, fight to protect it. If you loathe something, fight to destroy it. This world has been blessed with the gift of choice. Do not waste it.”
“If Virtech can manage to capture the two of us, they will receive keys that will return control of the servers to them.” Finally the two figures ended their speech with a blessing.
“Best of luck!” the two exclaimed in unison as the video ended.
By the end of the day, the video had spread to the entire world. On the Player after player struggled to take the message in. Two figures claiming to be gods have hacked the very first virtual reality game and taken ownership of it. They plan on making the game more and more extreme. They will stage battles to decide the way things will be run.
Some players decided that day that they were done with Solaris. They couldn’t handle such a chaotic game. Thanks to the rumor mill, a few even feared that the game would become some kind of supernatural death game. Most however, were ecstatic. Even if the game had been hijacked, why should they care? A PvP system was being implemented and there would be several large-scale battles to decide the fate of the world. The future couldn’t be any more… interesting.
Meanwhile in Virtech’s offices, a group in suits sat around a conference table with solemn expressions. Their baby, the game that they had sacrificed decades of their lives toward, had been ripped away from them in an instant and taken over by psychopaths. How could they not be upset? Suddenly a man spoke from the top of the table. He was terribly handsome with neat, blonde hair and cold, green eyes. Beside him was an equally stunning woman with platinum blonde shoulder-length hair and mesmerizing, blue eyes. Her expression was dark and riddled with worry. Looking at them, the people around the table were gripped with apprehension. When was the last time that these two had personally attended a meeting? When was the last time that they had even left their development room?
“How did this happen?” the man began.
“There was a backdoor in the security AI! That’s how!” a short man with dark hair exclaimed, bringing his fist down on the table. “This is what we get for outsourcing something important like security! You just couldn’t be bothered to dedicate the time necessary to do it in-house. You just had to hold that stupid contest that a bunch of outsiders won.”
“JON!” the blonde man interjected. “We held a contest. We tested the entries and picked the one that was most secure. We ran background checks on the applicants. Once we picked a winner, YOU tested it. Hell, we even ran a bug bounty on it. We didn’t ignore security. We put a considerable amount of effort into it. Now where are the winners? We still have their information on record. They had to be the ones to create the backdoor.”
“They. Don’t. Exist,” the short man fumed. “All of their information just disappeared. They were probably never real. We got taken for fools. Whoever these Eira and Nils people are, they’ve been planning this for a long, long time. Even putting security aside, you should know more than anybody how hard it should be to implement human combat in this game. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s not something that happens with just two people, either. They probably have a team. So, what are we going to do about it?”
“It may take some time, but our first objective will be getting the servers back. It doesn’t matter if they hid their tracks well. We will recover. No matter what it takes, we will eventually find these criminals and arrest them,” the man declared. To his side, the woman’s gaze bored holes in the sleek, mahogany table.
“In the meantime, we’ll have to make an additional request of the Twelve Chairs. Contact the beta testers that chose to reincarnate as well. We’ll put together a task force to defeat them in-game. We need to address the Chairs first though. Call a meeting for both servers, immediately. And somebody, contact the twins,” she stated calmly. The rest of the table nodded their assent and immediately went about their duties. Virtech was a well-oiled machine. They were the pinnacle of efficiency. This incident would surely be resolved soon.
Right?
~~~
AN: Thanks for reading! I've been working on this project for a while and I think I've finally gotten the plot to the point where I'm ready to start writing real chapters for it. Please let me know your thoughts!
Next chapter will be the beginning of several chapters showing the events that led up to this incident. We will probably jump back and forth between the past and the present quite a bit. I'll have to figure out some way to communicate which time period this is occurring in.