Andy approached the doorway to the VR room. He could tell it was the correct door because there was a big, neon sign over it that said "VR ROOM." The doorway had thick blue velvet drapes that Andy pushed aside as he entered. It was darker in this part of the building, and Andy struggled to adjust his eyes.

Andy entered a dimly lit, cold stone chamber with seven walls. It had an unsettling, mystical style, and a touch of humidity suggested that it wasn't climate controlled. Andy struggled to find his footing on the uneven cobblestone floor, with only dim light coming from candles in iron fixtures along the walls. The whole room seemed to flicker subtly.

Andy felt his hair stand up as he adjusted to the dim lighting and the unusual details of the room came into focus; sigils, pentagrams, and incantations were etched in chalk on each of the seven walls. A large oak door sat slightly ajar opposite the curtained entrance.

What am I getting myself into? he thought.

A well-groomed groundhog scurried out from behind the wooden door and stood on its hind legs in the center of the room. The groundhog lifted his wrist and checked what looked like a digital watch.

"A new player?" the groundhog said in the gruff voice of a middle-aged smoker who'd seen too many bar fights. He didn't glance up from his watch.

"Yeah," Andy said. Ordinarily he'd be curious about a talking groundhog, but after the events of the last few minutes, he had lost the capacity to be surprised. "Here for the… what, virtual reality game?"

"Alright, follow me," the groundhog said, pushing the creaking oak door open.

Andy stepped through into a massive, natural-looking cavern, when the noise hit him. An overwhelming, droning growl seemed to come from all directions at once and reverberated in Andy's chest.

Torches lit the floors, but the ceiling was too high to see clearly. Natural cavern walls rose around them. Several support columns disappeared up into the darkness, buttressing the cavern ceiling.

Lining the cavern floor, Andy saw red, cushioned recliners. Big, comfy ones, row after row, occupied by people reclining, presumably in sleep, wearing helmets connected to something, presumably a computer or simulator of some kind. A mess of wires protruding from the top of each helmet like cybernetic plumage.

Andy realized the source of the growling noise: snoring en masse. The unconscious snorting and sniffing from those seated in the recliners echoed loudly in the chamber.

"How many people are here?" Andy asked.

"Here at this site," the groundhog replied, "only a few million. We're a small operation."

Andy looked straight upward, just trying to see if he could find a hint of how high the ceiling might be. He couldn't tell. This place was truly beyond comprehension.

"You just gonna stand there or do you want to follow me to your seat?" The groundhog asked.

The groundhog walked Andy through a large central aisle. The ambient rumbling continued. New particular snores became audible and eventually faded back into the great rumble as Andy and the groundhog continued on.

At the very least, this seems like a way to get some sleep, Andy thought.

The groundhog brought Andy to an aisle that was empty except for two other people: a young woman in a black hoodie and black jeans and a skinny, almost frail-looking barefoot boy in what appeared to be heavily patched overalls.

Andy checked his own clothes, which he hadn't thought to do until now. They were the clothes he had died in: work boots, jeans, and a plain black t-shirt.

"Hi," said the young woman. "You're the third one? That means we can go now?"

"Yep," said Andy.

"Ok awesome," she said grinning. "I've been waiting almost an entire year to enter!"

"Ok everyone, we have three people here, which is the minimum for a cohort," said the groundhog. "My name is Groundhog. I will be your orientation instructor. Youse have to pay attention because youse can only hear this once."

The woman extended her hand to Andy.

"I'm Arlene."

Arlene had a bright demeanor, despite dressing in a monotone black outfit from head to toe. Her dark clothes contrasted with her colorful, shoulder-length hair, dyed some kind of pink-ish, redd-ish, strawberry purple… ish. She seemed to be about Andy's age, mid-20s.

"Andy," he said, shaking her hand.

The boy in overalls looked shy and stood behind Arlene.

"This is Kermit," she said.

The boy stood stoically, the way children do when they are nervous but know they are expected to behave.

"Oh cool," said Andy in an excited tone, trying to lighten the mood a little and make Kermit more comfortable. "Like the Frog?"

"No," said Kermit. His voice was a little hoarser than Andy expected, but it was certainly the voice of a very young boy. "Why does everyone say that? Who is Kermit the Frog?" He said as he looked toward Arlene.

"Kermit was a very popular name in his time. I think he said he's from a long, long time ago, isn't that right?" she looked at Kermit, who nodded his head.

She continued, "He's been here for a long time and has finally decided to try the game!" she said with an exaggerated inflection.

Kermit couldn't have been more than 11 or 12, even though his face showed unusual aging.

"Nice to meet you, Kermit," Andy said, trying to acknowledge the boy without pressuring him.

"You said you've been waiting a year to try the game?" Andy asked, turning his attention back to Arlene.

"Yes," said Arlene, "I've been waiting a while. I met Kermit when I was first here and we became friends. He didn't want to leave the lobby, he said he had been waiting there for his brother for over… over a century, right?"

"My brother Millford," Kermit said. "We always said that whoever died first, we would wait for the other one so we could go into heaven together…"

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"Finally, after a year of waiting, I've convinced him to try the game. Maybe we can find his brother there."

"Well, I wish you had talked to me before you went waiting a century in the lobby," said Groundhog. "There are literally thousands of afterlife lobbies connected to earth. The chance that you and your brother could end up in the same lobby is really low."

Kermit looked at the floor and let out an exhale. He refused to look up, but Andy thought he saw a frustrated tear forming in Kermit's eye.

"But the good news," said Groundhog, "is that if your brother is in another lobby, which he most likely is, then he's almost certainly in the game. Most people don't just wait around forever."

Kermit sniffed and wiped his eye.

Arlene put her hand on his shoulder.

"Now what you're looking at is the most powerful simulation program ever developed," said Groundhog. "When you plug into this machine, your consciousness will be transported to a world created by the developer: Frank Smitherton.

Frank Smitherton is an angel in the IT department, very tech-savvy. He took an interest in human culture, especially your literary traditions of science fiction and fantasy. Things get a little boring sometimes in the waiting room, so Frank decided to create a game to keep travelers entertained.

It was as much for travelers as it was for him, though. Frank relished the chance to create something of his own. He had been trying to write a book for decades, so the story goes, but could never swing it. It wasn't exciting enough. But once he started tinkering around with simulation techniques, he found a medium exciting enough to bring his vision to life."

"Wait, so the guy who made this is named Frank?" Andy asked. "First off, that's a bizarre name for an angel, but secondly, isn't he the guy who has the password for the office software update?"

"Yeah, that's what they said," said the groundhog. "Nobody's been able to find him for a while. It's only been about a century though. We won't start getting worried for a few hundred more years…"

Of course things move glacially slow in the afterlife, Andy thought.

"But don't worry," Groundhog continued, "the game can still run without him. It's a self-improving and self-maintaining System. It's been running almost 150 years without a single bit of maintenance or patching. Believe it or not, that's 150,000 years in the game's time!"

"So time moves faster in the game?" Andy asked.

Groundhog just shrugged. "I ain't a scientist, kid, but yeah it seems that way doesn't it?"

"Can you tell us more about the game itself?" Arlene asked.

"Yep," said Groundhog. "This machine runs a simulation called The Infinite Plane. It's called an infinite plane because the environment is procedurally generated–that just means the program makes it up as it goes along–according to specific rules and protocols. So the virtual world that you're about to enter is infinite. You could walk in one direction literally forever and always arrive somewhere new."

"And so what do we do, just walk around?" Andy asked.

"It's essentially a fantasy adventure roleplaying game," said Groundhog. "The Infinite Plane is its own incredibly realized setting. It has its own in-built history, culture, and politics. There are factions at war with one another, dark mysteries buried in caverns deep beneath the surface, powerful swords that grant the wielder power… you know, all that kind of shit. Frank provided the basis for the setting with his notes and initial parameters, but the System itself filled in, and continues to fill in, all the gaps. You won't even think you're in a game after a while."

"That's pretty rad," said Arlene. "Do we fight stuff or build stuff or what?"

"So, that's what I'm getting to," said the Groundhog. "You will enter the game with no skills, abilities, or items whatsoever. What you make of yourself is up to you. There are essentially two large groups of players: those who take a tactical focus and those who take a crafting focus. There are four crafting classes: builders, who provide things like architectural advice and who take care of the construction of buildings and other major structures, and farmers, who take care of all things agriculture and livestock, as well as the transportation and preparation of food.

Smiths, on the other hand, craft weapons and non magical specialty items, and enchanters, who can craft spells and create magic items.

More adventurous people, though, tend toward the tactical classes, which are your basic fantasy tropes: rogue, wizard, berserker, and so on. There are quite a bit more tactical classes than there are crafting classes.

There are more details about the classes and different abilities that you'll learn in-game during the tutorial. For now, the last thing we need to cover is the display.

At any point in the game you can bring up your display, but you have to concentrate on the tip of your nose. There's not really any other way to describe it. You have to enter a meditative state, and that's the quickest way."

"So you have to meditate in order to bring up a, what, start menu?" Andy asked.

"Yeah basically," said Groundhog. "The display has a menu for your feats, skills, magic, classes, quests, and your map. You'll learn more about each of these categories in the game, but essentially, the display is where you go to make choices about how to customize your build and advance in the game. You'll be able to interact with the menus at will. The program is designed to interact directly with human consciousness."

"Good to know," Arlene said.

"One last thing about the display," said Groundhog. "When you have your display up, it dilates time inside the game. It almost freezes time. In reality, it makes time pass at 1/1000th of its normal speed. But for all practical purposes, time is frozen when you have your display up. If you ever need extra time to think your way out of a tricky situation, a lot of players use their display. But it takes practice, and you've got to learn how to focus in difficult situations."

Groundhog gestured toward the seats as Andy, Arlene, and Kermit each sat down and shifted around until they were comfortable.

"And how can you get out if you want to leave?" asked Kermit.

"There are ample exit portals throughout the world," the groundhog responded.

"And can we die in the game?" Arlene said.

"You certainly can!" said Groundhog. "It's a difficult game full of adventure and danger, and death is a possibility at any moment. Part of what makes it exciting."

"And what happens if we die?" Arlene said.

"If you die," said Groundhog, "you can simply quit, or request a respawn. A respawn takes you to a lobby until another proper spawn point opens up, then you'd spawn again at level 0 somewhere very far away from where you spawned the first time."

Arlene nodded.

"So, everyone, sit back, relax, and place the helmet all the way over your eyes. When you're ready, I'll start the search for a spawn point. When a spawn point is located, I'll put you under. You'll sleep like a baby while you play."

Andy sat on the recliner, extended the footrest, and put the helmet over his face. It was so gloriously dark, nothing got through the goggles. He felt himself grow heavy and begin to sink into the soft cushions of the recliner. He hadn't been this able to unwind probably ever. Then, a text display appeared in the darkness.

Cohort: 3/3

"Ok," Groundhog said. "I'm going to look for a match now. Sometimes it takes a few minutes. Is everyone comfy?"

"Mmhmm," everyone said in unison.

The display changed:

Searching for spawnpoint…

Spawnpoint located…

Spawnpoint locked: Cresthaven Region

"Now youse should know, the algorithm for determining your spawn-point is based on player density. The System looks for an area that is classified as a spawn city, which means there are protections and privileges for level 0 players.

But the spawn city needs to be in an area below a certain threshold of player density. That way, you can get up and running without the need to compete too much with other players."

"So it will just be the three of us?" Andy asked. He felt himself getting drowsy, but he did want to know.

"Well, it will be the three of you and a lot of NPCs, which are just characters generated by the System. They will not know about the world outside the game, except what other players may have told them. As far as NPCs are concerned, the game is real. Now, you may also run into other players. Spawn cities are safe, though. So you don't have to worry about being attacked."

Andy felt himself attempting to nod. Groundhog's voice suddenly got much lower and began to stretch out. Time was expanding.

"Goooooooooooood luuuuuuuuuuuuuuu–"

The Groundhog's voice slowed down to such an absurd level that it became an ambient drone, then it faded away as Andy's mind slipped into the void.