Waking up in his two-room apartment, which was just cheap enough for him to be able to afford it with his income, and still have enough remaining for everyday life, Darius thought to himself before getting out of bed. Damn, is there any meaning to this life?
After finishing his studies, Darius struggled to motivate himself. So far, he had mostly followed a predetermined path. While university still wasn't obligatory in today's society, it still became necessary for anyone at least mildly ambitious. Or at least, that's what Darius kept telling himself. Many still became successful through unconventional means, but forsaking comfort for something uncertain was never an easy choice.
Darius grew up in a well-off family, and while he never cared much for money, he still wanted to be financially independent. Thankfully, with the development of technology, humans increasingly shifted to intellectual jobs. With robots finishing, at first the most mundane tasks, but later increasingly more complex ones, and most developed countries introducing a base income for everyone older than 18, financial independence became easier to achieve than ever. People like Darius didn't even have to work and would still have their basic needs covered.
Easy for me to say that I don't care about money when I've never had to go out and earn it. And not like there are not many still starving out in the wide world. I should really start doing something meaningful.
While he was having such thoughts, other things kept distracting him. Reading has always been his favourite hobby, with fantasy books predominantly filling his bookshelves, while he read most of them online, he still liked to keep his favourites in physical form. He had tried some of the new virtual reality games that constantly came out, each more advanced than the one before, but still none had satisfied his preferences so far.
Just then, his phone started ringing, the full name of his mother shoving on the screen. She would call him once or twice a week to check up on him. He rubbed his face before picking up the call, "Are you up yet, Dary?". Only his mother addressed him like that, and he also found the nickname funny. "Yes, I am up for a while now." He never liked to admit that he'd slept in. After a few moments talkng about mundane things, she asked him the fateful question. "So, have you decided what to do, yet?" keeping his emotions in check Darius rehearsed the answer, "I am still thinking about it, some well deserved rest after the graduation won't hurt." His mother just answered with a simple, "Alright.". His parents never pressured him regarding his life choices, they simply let him decide, occasionally providing advice if he needed it, but the mere question still put him under a lot of pressure. After asking him if he needs anything, his mother hung up.
This is way more stressful than it needs to be.
Getting out of bed, tidying his room and brushing his teeth, he went out for a walk, which had become his daily routine. With the implementation of underground roads, the streets became way less congested, with occasional pedestrians and robotic couriers passing him by. Not paying them much attention, only greeting people he knew from before, Darius went along one of his usual routes.
Why do I always have to befriend such hardworking individuals? Unlike himself, most of his friends started working after their studies, not like he was social enough to seek them out by himself anyway.
Dozen or so minutes later, he glanced to the side, something interesting catching his attention on a holographic screen. A new virtual reality game was coming out, albeit with a new concept. Full immersion. It even had a similar setting to one of his favourite fantasy series. Let's check it out later.
Returning to his apartment after an hour of walking, he entered 'Second Wind' into the search engine. Surprisingly, even the official page didn't reveal too much about the game. The only notable information being the ability to choose a race and the ability to stay logged in longer than usual. I wonder how that would work.
From the available artwork, Darius guessed that the game would be set in a world roughly comparable to the early Middle Ages of human history. With a bit more than two weeks left until it's launch, he decided he would do some research about the time period. The next two weeks passed in a blur, fantasy and ancient human history never failing to set his motivation ablaze. It was easy to go with the simplest solution when his mother called, namely not mentioning the game at all.
With a mere few days left before the start of the game, routinely checking the game discussion threads, he noticed an interesting post. The game's head developer had posted an explanation on some of the key features, among them the infamous full immersion. Apparently, with the advancement of medicine, and in an appropriate facility, it became possible to indefinitely sustain life without any major repercussions. The game intended to use this advancement to allow players to stay logged in for prolonged periods of time. They would provide said facilities in all major population centres, and even allow free access for the first 100,000 users to sign up.
I wonder who is financing this huge project. The cost must have been astronomical, the studio wasn't even one well known on the virtual reality market. Brushing those thoughts away, Darius rushed to sing up, just barely managing to make it within one of the free spots, or so he thought, it didn't show the registration number. It didn't matter as long as he made it.
Now, the biggest hurdle remained, specifically how to explain this to his mother. He'd wait for her to call him first, for if he called her instead, which he rarely did, she'd instantly know that he'd gotten himself in some trouble.
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2 days until launch.
Having again slept in after a long night of researching, he started his day by eating a bowl of oatmeal on the kitchen counter with the sun already high into the blue sky. Darius felt excitement building up in his stomach.
Oh man, I haven't felt this excited ever since all the field trips in kindergarten.
In the middle of his 'morning' walk, he received a message notification on his watch. Even thought much more advanced technology existed, some people, like Darius, still liked to wear one as a fashion detail. Could it be that mom has sent a message? It proved that his thoughts were incorrect, as the notification stated, "New message from Fiona". Fiona was one of his university friends, he even had a romantic interest in her, but maybe because of a lack of interest from her side, their relationship never seemed to progress further.
Returning to his apartment and taking a quick shower, he quickly checked the contents of the message, "Heeey Darius, I have some free time tomorrow between 2 and 4 PM, how about going for a walk?". He never quite understood women, why behave with such enthusiasm towards him when she didn't harbor any romantic feelings. Or maybe it was the opposite, maybe men were the vile creatures who didn't know how to behave towards women not sharing their romantic interest. Food for thought. "Sure, then 2 it is, the usual place?"
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The reply arrived a short while later, "Sure, see you tomorrow." He always liked this straightforwardness about Fiona, not making him wait on purpose, answering as soon as she could. Darius valued the time of others and expected the same. While he understood why certain individuals intentionally made others wait, he always disliked the practice. "See you."
His days always went by in a similar matter, it could be said that he had a routine which consisted of a 'morning' walk, shower, research, reading, doing some stretching exercises in-between, going to the gym in the evening, and then some more of the aforementioned before sleep, finally ending his day with another shower. Keeping in shape was a very relaxing endeavour, and apparently it was also good for physical and mental health.
Thankfully, he woke up on que the next morning, he wouldn't have to keep Fiona waiting again. So much about his rant regarding valuing the time of others.
Quickly getting out of bed, rushing trough his morning routine, and away he was to their usual meeting place, the closest park to his apartment. No wonder she doesn't like me, I am so boring and predictable. He even arrived 15 minutes in advance. Sitting on the bench by himself and letting his thoughts run wild burned away most of the anxiety he didn't even know he had built up. I should do this more often.
And then a gentle pat on his shoulder woke him up from his reverie. "Hello, Darius, sorry for the wait." A brown haired, well built girl with a confident, but gentle, smile on her face stood in front of him. While some might dismiss her attractiveness for her below average height, Darius didn't mind in the slightest, and besides, she had drawn him personality wise.
"Oh, hi Fiona, no worries. I had a good time by myself." He replied with a comical grin. Ever since he'd made the judgement that she doesn't like him back, he'd tried not to show an excessive amount of emotions towards her. After walking for a while and talking about this and that, he finally told her, "I plan to start a new virtual reality game, and this time I might have actually found one that I like." She seemed surprised for a moment, probably because he had never told her before that he was going to play a game.
"There must be a reason you are telling me this?" After explaining the full immersion feature of the game, she seemed to think for a moment before replying, "Are you sure those facilities are safe."
Why haven't I thought about that? "Good point, I should do some research about those when I get back home."
Fiona kept bringing up some valid concerns, and he realised that he should be more diligent with his research, he asked her, "Do you maybe want to play with me?". She answered with a regretful look on her face, "Besides not being a huge fan of games, I am currently extremely busy with my new assignment. Maybe one day." They'd graduated university at roughly the same time, but she'd already found a job and started diligently fulfilling her duties. After walking some more and talking about the game, she had to get back to her work, so they parted ways.
Later that day.
Researching the facilities and the other concerns Fiona had brought up, everything seemed to be fine. Even looking at the less popular sources, the facilities seemed to be showing great results so far. He checked the date of the launch again, tomorrow at 5 PM, he hoped his mother would call him in the meantime. The rest of the day was spent pondering which race he should choose, he even went to bed earlier than usual so he could wake up on time.
First thing he did when he woke up was to check if he had any missed calls or messages. Unfortunately, there were none. Deciding not to stress about it, he went about the day as he would with any other. Maybe it would be a good idea to message Lucca. Lucca was his only real friend besides Fiona. After writing him a long message in which he explained that he would be away for a prolonged period of time because of a game, he decided that he'd better get ready for departure.
Arriving in front of the facility 30 minutes early, he checked his phone again, there was only a single message from Lucca, "Alright, dude. Good luck." Such an easygoing fellow, guess it's time to call mom. Dialling the number, he waited for her to pick up, "Hello, Dary, I am quite busy right now, is there something you need?" her hurried voice rang out. "Well, there is this game I was planning..." After explaining the situation to her, a distracted answer was heard, "Alright, Dary, good luck." Elated with the answer, Darius rushed to finish the call. She probably thought that he would quit the game after a week at most, like with the other ones he'd tried, or maybe she was just distracted with something else and didn't pay full attention to his words. Whatever the case, a new world awaits.
As soon as he entered the modern looking facility, he realised that he had still underestimated the scale of this project. There were hundreds of people, some standing around, presumably waiting for the launch, while others lined up in a dozen different lines, entering admission rooms at a fast pace. There was a separate room with a sign "Only for players with an invitation". Darius had received an invitation when he'd finished his early sign up, so he headed for the room. There was nobody waiting in front of the room, the others had either not arrived yet or had already finished their registration. There was but a simple table and a chair within the room, once he sat on the chair, a hologram appeared on the table, prompting him to enter his information.
Registration complete, please proceed to the room A-48. To keep the game fair, other than free access to the facility, no further benefits shall be provided.
Upon exiting the room, he was confronted by a titan of a man, standing over 2 m tall, thick of muscle, the giant just slightly nodded at Darius, a lazy look on his face. Darius returned the nod and quickly got out of the way. He headed to the A section, strolling trough the hallway, he discovered that his room was the second to last at the very end of the hallway. Only 49 rooms in my section, huh? He was greeted by a tidy, but simple looking room, with just a single futuristic looking machine and a wardrobe. There was another door which led to a small bathroom. A clock on the wall showed that there were less than 5 minutes until launch. Placing his clothes in the wardrobe, it was time.
Let's log in.
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Laying his body within the machine, it automatically started attaching a few different tubes to all parts of his body. It was quite uncomfortable, but not unbearable. His thoughts started wandering, and suddenly he found himself drifting in space, in front of him a planet, quite similar to Earth, but with a few notable differences. A screen appeared in front of him.
Checking bodily functions... complete.
Identifying user... complete.
You will shortly be required to choose your race, please pick carefully as there is no way to change it later.
While this is a game, we advise that you treat it like reality, you shall only have one life, good luck User A-48.
Following the notification, he found himself in a room surrounded by 6 figures of different build, size and appearance. On the right side, starting with humans, there were elves and dwarves. On the left side, orcs, goblins and the ratmen. Right represented order, while left represented chaos, and Darius always leaned towards order. But maybe it would be interesting to create order within chaos, instead. Still, he went with the decision he'd made beforehand, "I choose dwarves." Whenever he read about dwarves, they seemed to be in decline. Let's try to make dwarves great again.
Up next, he was prompted to choose a dwarven kingdom, there were 3 options: Neldohr Kingdom, Kig Kalduhr Kingdom and the Gimheim Kingdom. Other than the names, there was no further information about them. I'll go with Kig Kalduhr, I like the sound of it.
Consequently, tens of kids, that he failed to guess the age of as he'd never seen dwarven children before, appeared in front of him. Please choose the body you want to inherit.
Wow, this is extremely creepy. Not thinking too deeply about it, he chose one of the kids of average height that he found cute.
And just like that, he woke up in a small house built of stone, in the body of a dwarven kid. His name was Drardir.