Meanwhile in New London, Ohio

Shonda Abacrombe stared at the log-in screen for the Colossal Machine, debating if she should log in. She had less than an hour before Chuck, her husband, would drop off her daughter Tess. Then she would need to resume her normal life as a single mother.

I wish I found this game before cheating on Chuck.

Shonda picked up the Colossal Machine as a safer outlet than sleeping with Joey, the salesman at her local tire shop. He’s given her a ride she would never forget, and now she was paying for it. She couldn’t believe that she was able to max out the level on Ashony, her in-game avatar. After obtaining the rank, she was astounded that she no longer needed reagents for lower level spells. She had grown tired of carrying around so many of the strange ingredients.

There was only so much Dragon’s Ash and Hempiseed I can carry, Shonda thought.

She glanced at her watch: 4:04 p.m. Chuck would be back around five with Tess, so she decided to make a quick run to gather reagents for her next quest that would lead her to her final gear set piece.

If players are eager to group up with me now, just wait until I get my final piece of gear, the tiara of wisdom.

There was one more powerful class, and that was Grand Magi. As far as she knew, only one other was able to reach that status and she rarely logged in anymore. Shonda had put JetaGirl on her friend’s list once she received the server-side message that she was the first one on the server to reach the level. She clearly remembered what she was doing when JetaGirl ascended to her title of Grand Magi. She had been sucking the mana out of a pool of slugs. The quest was absurd, as it was meaningless. What would an old mage want with depleted mana particles from a mana slug, anyway?

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Moments later, the quest giver. Some old bump on a log had slurped up the mana residue like he was competing in an oyster eating contest. That’s when she decided to hire the fixer. She was about to cast a portal when a ringing emanated throughout the simulation.

Is that my doorbell?

Shonda brought up her system interface, where most settings were available. Time in the real world was displayed above a chronograph of the in-game equivalent time. She remembered that real world time passed more quickly than the in-game chronograph. It was 5:14 p.m. She just spend the better part of an hour in the game and had nothing to show for it. She removed her in-game VR visor, and her cell phone buzzed incessantly on the table. She answered.

“Shon, why the hell don’t you pick up? I’ve been waiting outside for twenty minutes,” Chuck said.

Shonda stared at the phone like she’d never seen it before.

“You there?” her ex-husband-to-be said.

“Yes, I will be down.”

What the hell is the matter with me? Snap out of it!

Moments later, she opened the door. Chuck and Tess stood in the doorway. Another woman leaned against a car. She smoked a cigarette with a ridiculously long holder.

That must be Maria.

The look of despair that her daughter exuded nearly broke Shonda’s heart. Tess was normally a happy girl.

This divorce is taking its toll on my little one.

Shonda snatched her daughter’s backpack from Chuck’s hand so violently the sleeve of his shirt caught in the handle and tore. She rushed her daughter into the house and slammed the door.

“I’m going to speak with the judge,” Chuck said through the door.

Tess ran to her room, crying. Shonda watched Chuck and Maria leave. The house was eerily silent. Usually, her daughter would be making all sorts of noise.