Contains some explicit language!

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Ryan grew up with a large inground swimming pool in his backyard that was often the center of his family's activities. Holidays and parties at his home would have the kids swimming and enjoying the pool slide and diving board all day while the adults would mingle along the wide bricked walkways that surrounded the pool.

With the beautiful landscaping in the backyard and the tiki bar and mini kitchen, it gave the guest the feeling as if they were attending a party at an upscale resort. 

He had many good memories with relatives and neighborhood friends enjoying that pool and had become a decent swimmer at a young age.

Even as he grew up he always loved to swim and actually began to compete in school and summer teams when he was ten years old. He began to take swimming seriously as he grew up and learned proper swimming techniques and events.

In eighth grade while still in middle school he tried out for the local high school junior varsity team and was good enough to make the team. When he was in tenth grade he continued to swim and became the varsity team captain. His popularity for being a good looking guy and the swim team captain caught the eye of quite a few girls.  He was now sixteen years old with a drivers license that he obtained early for completing driver's education and wanted to buy a used car so that he could go out on dates and hang out with friends on the weekends.

Ryan mentioned that he wanted to find a part-time job after swim practice to a group of teammates and one of his good friends from the swim team told him that his father's company that he worked part-time at was looking for office runners. His friend explained that his father's business was an architectural engineering firm and all that he needed was a driver license to be qualified for the job.

He went to his friend's house the next day after practice and talked with his father who already had met Ryan on a few occasions when he had come over to hang out with his son. Ryan was given the job and was told he would basically drive around in a company car delivering plans and documents to other business. Being only sixteen he enjoyed being able to drive around town on his own while listening to the radio. It gave him a sense of freedom and that he was becoming an adult.

There were times when he did not have to go out and make deliveries so he tried to make himself useful for the company he would run papers and memos between the department and began to learn what the company he worked for actually did.

He continued to work for the company until the end of the school year and even over summer vacation and as he began to learn more about architectural engineering he soon found another passion besides swimming. Ryan began to study architectural engineering on his off time and after working with the firm for just over six months he was given a job as an office assistant. Ryan would type up most of the documents that he once delivered while answering and redirecting calls that came into the firm.

Before he graduated high school he had worked his way up to an unofficial architectural engineering assistant. His work entailed serving as a liaison to the architects, laborers, and designers. He would report concerns and overall status reports back to the company on the various projects they were currently working.

When Ryan had graduated from high school as the captain of the swim team for three consecutive years and a GPA of 3.4, he left the company to attend a  local well-known college that specialized in architectural engineering.

On his first day of college, he was a little nervous now being in a new environment among people he did not know. In one of his classes, they were divided into groups by the professor to begin their first steps in model making and this group Ryan had been assigned to was quite diverse.  

The people in his group consisted of a quiet girl named Lily, a smaller sized guy who introduced himself as Luke, then there was a guy named Rick with military style haircut and muscles that looked like they wanted to rip out of the short sleeved polo shirt he wore, and a guy who looked Indian and spoke with an Indian accent named Rajesh.

As the college year progressed he became closer to the people in his group and they at times even formed study groups or just went to lunch together. Lily and Rajesh would generally keep to themselves though and did not participate in any after class meetups.

As Ryan, Rick and Luke returned from lunch one day they walked through an empty hallway on their way to the next class. When they turned a corner they found Lily up against a wall with three guys crowding around her. As they approached they could see that she was obviously distressed but the insistent guys continued to try and have her follow them off campus to their place. 

Lily was a good looking girl who did not talk much and this often seemed to attract aggressive guys likes these three who thought they could force her into following them without much trouble. Ryan couldn't believe that something like this was happening right in the hallway of his college. Did these guys think this was some downtown back alley where scumbags could run around trying to take advantage of timid girls?

Before he could speak up and say anything to these guys Rick was already moving toward them.

"Gentlemen, this young lady obviously doesn't want anything to do with you so why don't you three move along," Rick said with a scowl.

The three turned around angrily ready to put Rick in his place and were taken aback when they saw his size. After the initial shock, one of them was brave enough to talk back.

"What you think because you have a little muscle that you can take on the three of us? Why don't you mind your own business and move along!" The guys snarled out as he reached out to push Rick back.

Before the guy was able to push him, Rick reached out and grabbed his extended right wrist with his left hand. While he held the guy's right wrist he pulled it toward him and hooked his right arm up and around the back of the guy's right armpit. Rick then rotated his back toward the guy and threw him over his hip and slammed him into the hard tile floor with a swift Judo shoulder throw.

Smack!

The guy laid on his back gasping for air after having the wind knocked out of him. While his two buddies stood frozen in shock over seeing their friend slammed to the ground in an instant, Rick spun around and grabbed each of them by the throat and squeezed down.

"I tried to be nice, but I will be damned if I will let three pieces of shit like you run around here doing whatever the fuck you want. You think the three of you scare me? I was in the Marine Corp and spent multiple deployments to forward combat zones where we killed the enemy while they tried to kill us! I scraped what was left of my buddies off the ground over there and carried them while under fire to safety! If you three wannabe tough guys are hungry I will be more than happy to give you a taste of what I learned from the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. So what's it going to be boys are we done here? Rick growled out at the two guys as he continued to squeeze down on their throats.

Stolen novel; please report.

They tried to speak but Rick's grip prevented them from getting anything out but a choking sound.

"Oh I'm sorry are you having trouble talking while I'm squeezing the life out of you?" Rick said sarcastically with mock surprise and then let go of their necks and they scrambled to pick up their friend and carry him off. When they were about fifteen feet down the hall Rick yelled out.

"Stop!"

The three of them just about jumped off the ground and froze in place in fear that Rick changed his mind and wasn't going to let them go without a beating.

"If I EVER see or hear that you three have even gone down the same hallway as Lily let alone approach her then we will pick this discussion up where we left off today. I can promise if that happens you three will be attending the emergency room instead of classes where you belong. Now get the fuck out of my sight before I change my mind!" Rick roared.

By this time quite a few heads had popped out of the classrooms along the hallway to find out what was going on. Rick walked over to Lily and stopped in front of her.

"You're safe now Lily those guys won't mess with you ever again. If anyone tries something like that again you let me know ok?" Rick said. 

Lily looked up with a look of relief and feebly nodded yes.

Rick smiled. "Good girl, now let's get to class we are going to be late if we keep standing around here."

From that day on Lily began to open up and talk to Rick, Ryan, and Luke. The three of them eventually became good friends and even hung out together outside of school. After word got around school about how Rick had taken care of the three guys Lily did not have any more incidents quite as bad as that one. There were still a few guys who persistently pursued her but after she told Rick about them, he would insist that it was in their best interests to leave her alone.

Lily's main focus was to pursue her dream of becoming an architectural engineer. She was not presently interested in dating guys and being entwined in all the drama that generally accompanied it. 

Ryan and his new friends continued to hang out and he even introduced Rick to the aquatic center that he often visited to swim laps. Even though Ryan was no longer on a swim team he still had a passion for swimming that had been with him all his life. 

When Ryan's college buddies all began to talk about a new game that was to be released soon, he didn't have much interest in it. He had never really played video games growing up his dating, studying, and swimming. As he listened to his friend's discussions he soon found out that this game was something completely different than any other. It was the first true virtual reality game that allowed you to enter a new world and experience everything as if it were real.

This sounded incredible to him that they could enter a fantasy world and use the skills they had learned in real life and others that he learned while adventuring in the game world to build structures and explore undiscovered lands. Ryan began to research this new game online and when he read through the races that players could choose from he came across the Darfellan.

The Darfellan are a race that can live in fresh or salt water. They have gray skin are tall and muscular with red eyes. What caught his attention though is that they are expert swimmers and can breathe under water!

Ryan began to imagine a fantasy world with vast lakes and oceans he could swim in and dive down to their depths to explore subaquatic environments never seen by anyone before. 

This led him up to this very moment as he stood in his bedroom looking at his brand new chrome plated Gate Gear. He picked up the manual sitting on top of it and began to read through the first steps to joining Kingdoms Online.

Once he had a general idea of what to expect, he stripped off all his clothing and powered up the capsule and laid down inside it. Once the machine scanned him from head to toe he was launched into the game. He talked to a beautiful AI who gave him a test and showed him the different races he could choose from. He still, in the end, picked the Darfellan and did not make many changes from his original size, shape, and looks.

when he looked at his final appearance in the mirror he looked the same, but with gray skin and red colored irises. When he had completed the character creation he was sent down to the game world in a shimmering bubble. At first, all he could see below him was water then an island came into view. The direction he descended was not toward the island though it was to a group of buildings out in a large bay. 

When he got closer it appeared that there was a city that had been built partially in and out of the water. He then dropped through a hole in a domed roof that just barely broke the surface of the water. Inside the domed roof building, he found himself underwater when the bubble vanished. As he looked around he found that the large room he was in was decorated with glowing plants and corals that lit up the submerged space. When Ryan turned around he saw a large statue of a Darfellan.

He was then greeted by a Darfellan temple priest that was now familiar with [Chosen] after having received a few of them already. He was surprised that the two of them could carry on a perfectly understandable conversation underwater. The priest explained that he was in the Darfellan city temple and that he could find shops, restaurants, and places to stay in the city. The priest told him that the city was built in a large bay surrounded by an Island and that their god protected these waters from monsters.

If he were to step onto land or travel out of the bay into the ocean he would need to be prepared to fight the monsters he may encounter. Ryan asked him where he could find weapons and armor and thanked the priest for all the help and went off to explore the city. Ryan bought a weapon that looked like someone combined a crossbow with a speargun and a short sword that he hung from his waist. It shot a thin three-foot long thin barbed bolt that shot through the water almost as quick as an arrow on land.

Next, he found had a choice between a heavy cloth armor that offered a small amount of protection and a Titanium scaled armor that cost quite a bit more but was resistant to sea water and had decent protection. After spending a large portion starting money he decided to swim up to the surface and have a look around. Ryan spotted the island off in the distance and began swimming at an incredible speed toward it.

This is awesome! If I could have swum like this in the real world I would have broken every swimming record ever set!

Ryan soon reached the Island beach and walked up onto the land.

[https://s20.postimg.org/ptym16fkd/Darfellan.jpg]

Ryan had listened to Rick's adventures in the game many times and knew that it was possible to hunt and skin animals and use the meat to make meals. Ryan explored the island hunting rabbits, deer, and came across a couple wolves. He used his starter knife to skin the game and collect the meat. He had never skinned an animal before but he had read about it online. He made sloppy work of the skins and furs until he was able to learn [Field Dress].

When Ryan had hunted his way north across the narrow part of the island he spotted a couple tiny islands just off the shoreline. He swam out to them and made himself a small wooden hut with tree branches and vines. He did not have much money left so instead of wasting it on staying in an inn and eating from restaurants, Ryan decided to live off the land and sea. He hunted the island and the aggressive fish that roamed the large islands outer shoreline.

He used the fish and meat to make his meals with edible seaweed and wild vegetables he found growing on the land. He used the branches left over from his hut to make a rustic but comfortable bed that he covered with his furs. While he laid inside his small hut on his fur covered bed he could hear the waves crashing against his small island and it made him feel like he was on vacation on some deserted tropical island.

Now that I am in the game I will need to try and figure out where I am and let Rick know how to get here. He told me he was making a boat and would be able to pick me up when I wanted to move on. My money won't hold out too long here on my own. I could continue to survive off the land and sell what I find or hunt. That will only be fun for so long though by myself here. It is fun right now but after a week or so I will begin to feel like a castaway waiting to be rescued. Ryan thought as he laid stretched out on his bed.

"Well, I guess I should get back out there and see if I can gain a few more levels. I am sure it will take some time for Rick to sail to this place so I should build up my strength so that I can help defend the city when I eventually arrive there. I can't let that timid little Lily out do me!" He said to himself laughing as he left his hut.

Ryan equipped his armor and weapons and swam out toward the main Island to continue hunting and exploring the land surrounded the Darfellan city.