Aya wakes to the sound of her alarm clock blaring loudly. She groans, rolling over to hit the silence button and force herself out of bed for another day of work.
Tumbling out of bed, she runs to take a shower, then prepares her breakfast and uniform.
Thank goodness it was a Friday.
While brushing her teeth, Aya checks the Moon Valley auction house to see if there were any updates on her fire stone.
'I'll just lower the price if I didn't make a sale.' she thinks, spitting foamy liquid into the sink.
Scrolling to the auction tab, she opens it and nearly drops her phone in shock.
"Eh?! Someone actually bought it for that much." Aya yells, rinsing her mouth. She didn't think anyone would spend that much on a game. But there had to be some high spenders in any community she supposed.
After putting on her work clothes and eating the last of her cereal she runs out the door and down the steps.
"Slow down. Where's the fire?" Mars says, coming around the corner. She was on her way up the steps when Aya came barreling towards her, the same as when they'd first met.
"The fire stone!" Aya says, barely catching her breath. Mars grins.
"Didn't I tell you? Make sure you get yourself something nice." Mars says. She waves Aya away, ascending the stairs as Aya continues her run out of the apartment complex and towards the bus stop.
----------
All through the morning, Aya spends her time contemplating how much Gold she wanted to exchange.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of her boss calling for an urgent delivery to the top floor along with her usual deliveries.
On her way Into the elevator, a familiar figure calls for her to hold the doors.
"Oh, Mr. Nue, what a surprise," she says. "I was just on my way to give you some urgent letters."
Atlas, the president of the company smiles at her.
"Didn't I say Mr. Nue makes me feel old?" He laughs. "It's Atlas to you, young lady."
Aya nods, holding back a snicker at his 'serious' voice.
"About the letters let me see them, I bet I know who they're from." He says running a hand through his hair.
Aya reaches into her trolley, retrieving the letters with the elegant gold trimmings and the strange insignia from before.
She deposits them in Atlas' hand, their fingers brush against each other as she hands the letter off, and while Aya thinks nothing of it Atlas can't help but blush.
"Say, what does this symbol mean?" Aya asks.
"It's the Lumos inc logo." Atlas explains. Aya narrows her eyes, wracking her brain to remember where she'd heard that name before.
"They have a game, Moon Valley I believe."
"Oh!" Aya gasps. "Do you play?" After all, why else would Lumos inc be sending him letters if he wasn't a big fan?
Atlas chuckles a bit but before he can answer, the elevator doors open with a ding.
"I'll see you around Atlas." Aya says cheerfully. The man smiles at her again
"You too Aya! We should get food sometime." He waves to her as he leaves the elevator and walks to his office, barely saying a word to his secretary in the process.
Neither of them notices Viviana glaring daggers in Aya's direction.
The elevator doors close and Aya is free to return to the mail room.
----------
Out of the 20 Gold, Aya converts 15 for a hefty sum of 93.15 Lue, her eyes bulge out of her head at the sight.
She'd made almost a third of her rent now, just playing a game that came out a month ago for a few hours.
"I guess I should stop being surprised, this is my reality now." Aya says to herself.
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She falls into a daydream, fantasizing about making enough money from the game to quit her job at Nue Corp and move to Mericross City.
"You look a bit too blissful there young lady." Her boss says, interrupting her day dream.
Aya sits up frowning at him.
"Was just thinking about stuff, like my bills." She says.
"They pile up fast don't they?" The man says sinking into his seat with a tired sigh.
----------
Aya spends the rest of her time looking up areas to get good items but as usual, no one shares anything on the forums.
There was also barely any information about Bloom Haven, all it said was it was a starting area for a lot of elven players and was close to some of the larger elf NPC settlements despite being populated with mostly humans.
"Come to think of it, after that first day I didn't see any more players or at least not that many." Aya thinks back to that first day she logged on, the players hadn't even spoken to her only the NPCs did.
They were all heading somewhere else.
"I wonder where they were going." Aya says to herself.
After some searching, she discovers not all players start in the same area. Most players chose to leave their starting points to go to more popular areas in the game.
Moon Valley was a very large game after all.
"If I recall the ad said the game had lots of secrets to uncover but not many people are talking about the game lore." Aya says. "They're leaving behind a lot of starting quests."
"PvP? Oh player vs player, I'm definitely not interested in that." Aya says. She makes a mental note to disable PvP on her account once she makes it back home.
"Beating the hidden boss was such a feat, I can't wait to equip the sword and finally change my main class."
"Harvest Guardian, can't wait to see how that works."
----------
"Thank goodness it's the weekend." Aya says strapping on her bag to go home.
"I'll have Saturday and Sunday to play Moon Valley." She says humming to herself.
Boarding the bus, Aya prepares for her trip home unbeknownst to her the tides were shifting, whether or not it would be in her favor was a mystery.
----------
Aya meets Mars on the entrance steps of the apartment complex.
"What are you doing out here in the cold?" Aya says taking off her work jacket and laying it on Mars' shoulder.
"Thanks." The older girl says, accepting the jacket with a smile. "You're such a softie."
"Don't worry about it." Aya says taking a seat beside her on the steps of the apartment complex.
For a moment they sit in silence, staring up at the lights of the city, Mars breaks the silence a moment later.
"Guilds are forming in Moon Valley, will you join one?" Mars asks. Aya shakes her head.
"I would rather play solo. Guilds do the PvP thing don't they?" Aya asks.
Mars nods.
"I don't want to PvP." Aya says with a laugh.
"Wise choice. Sometimes joining a guild might not be the best idea." Mars says. Aya detects a hint of sadness in her voice.
She hesitates but asks.
"Did you used to have a guild?" Aya asks. Mars rises from the ground, dusting herself off. She offers her hand to Aya, lifting the girl off the ground.
"Don't worry about it." Mars says, repeating Aya's words and patting the shorter girl's head.
"What's your setup like?" Mars asks.
"My setup?"
"How do you play?"
"Oh, I play on a PacBook currently." Aya says. Mars raises an eyebrow at the answer.
"Geez, not even a headset?" She asks.
"I've only got a broken one. But what's the big deal? Does it change the game that much?" Aya asks.
Asides from some in-game features, she didn't know why everyone went on and on about the VR Headset.
Mars folds her arms, a deep expression on her face like she's mulling something over.
"I'll show you." Mars says, making her way into the apartment. Aya follows, allowing Mars to lead her up the creaky stairs to her apartment.
Mars slots her key, pushing open the door and leading Aya into her dreamy apartment.
Aya steps into the half-painted messy apartment decked in purple.
She moves through a door, marveling at what Mars had done with place.
Gone were the cream and brown walls, replaced with a pretty lavender paint job and star stickers plastered on the walls.
"Impressed?" Mars asks with a smirk. Aya nods, looking back at the girl with stars in her eyes.
"Much better than my place that's for sure." Aya says.
The apartment was a standard two-bedroom Daichi and his grandmother had shared whilst living here, Mars had converted the second bedroom into her gaming room, filled with posters and memorabilia in the same lavender colour scheme.
Mars takes Aya leading her into the second room.
Placed neatly in a glass case was Mars' VR headset.
"This is the Zephyr gear." Mars says, Aya recognizes the name instantly, knowing it to be the latest in the line of best selling VR Headsets.
It easily cost about 5000 Lue.
How could Mars afford such a thing?
"So would you like to try it out?"
----------
Meanwhile at Lumos inc
The CEO and his inner circle wait for the attendant at the archives of the company.
The CEO, a grizzled bearded man with salt and pepper hair, dressed in an elegant dark suit stands waiting with a deep frown marring his features.
The dusty lower floor of the archives irritate him, but it was the only place he could store the bulky old computer without hassle.
An attendant walks into the room calmly, upon seeing the CEO and his inner circle she nearly drops her clipboard.
"Sir, we weren't expecting you so soon." She says running to look for the main archivist on duty.
"I came as soon as I got Fred's message." The CEO says, folding his arms.
He gestures to the aged computer that hadn't stopped transmitting for the three days it's been on.
"What's happening Fred?"
The young blond man in glasses appears beside him wearing a white lab coat and plain clothes underneath.
Fred Barkley, head archivist and the only one present when the machine had come on.
He yawns, sipping a giant mug of coffee and rubbing his sleep deprived eyes. If the darkened bags under his eyes were any indication, the young man hadn't slept in days.
"Sir the computer is linked to a player in Moon Valley. That is what triggered the Yvlena protocol." Fred says.
The inner circle begins to murmur in unison until the CEO calls for their silence.
"And do you know which player?"
Fred shakes his head.
"Sir I don't even know what Yvlena is." He admits tiredly.
"It's a character, an elf to be specific." The CEO replies. "You see, Moon Valley was originally my brother's vision-" Before the CEO could continue, a pair of feet rush into the archive room.
"Sir the investors have called a meeting, you're needed in the boardroom." The woman says.
"Continue with the machine Fred, I'll be back for future updates." The CEO says. He and his posse head toward the elevator
"Sir, is everything alright?" One of the members of his inner circle asks.
"Yes, my niece might be alive."