*Baa-duum*

*Baa-duum*

*Ba-dum*

*ba-dum.ba-dum.ba-dum.ba-dum*

Waking up to the sound of drums in my ears, I blearily looked at the cieling, seemingly alive and pulsating in my vision with every heartbeat. I put my arm over my eyes, bits and pieces coming back to me of the previous night. All in all it didnt seem too bad. I remembered a not half bad karaoke session,  everyone going up to take their turn. Afterwards I went to the bathroom, talked to the guy in the urinal, can't remember about what though, the group deciding it was time to leave right after. The rest is a blur, I don't even remember how I got home. Sitting up, I immediately decided that was a horrible idea and immediately fell back down and passed out as fast as humanly possible. Hoping the sleep along with a little help from the biochip would help my headache. "Start system purge of alcohol" This was a function that had been added by Where Software as an additional selling point for hardware to go with the game, guilt-free binge drinking.

No All-Purpose Naturally Occuring Nanobots detected, begin synthesis of ANON's? Yes No

Not remembering that he had to make them first he groaned. Clicking yes he grimaced at the message.

Initialization of ANON's beginning

expected task completion time remaining

37 Minutes

'I've had this chip for 2 years, why didn't I do this shit in that time frame?' I thought, berating myself for my lack of preparation. Head still throbbing, I swiped my phone to look at the countdown.

00:40:31

'Damn, how much time did I lose? Whatever, I'll just sleep the rest of this off and get online later.'  Checking my messages before logging back on.

Headbook Eric Vought has tagged you in a video Headbook Eve Salisa has tagged you in a video

Popping open the video Eve sent me, I felt a chill up my spine. It was the video of me singing karaoke, with 19 shares already. Hesitating, not knowing whether I really wanted to know or not, I hovered my finger over the screen. 'The sweet bliss of ignorance, or the wisdom of learning from your mistakes, gotta pick one now mikey' I mumbled under my breath. Clicking on the video results in instant regret. The sound coming out of my mouth sounded like a mixture between trying to communicate with a blue whale and a pissed off koala bear while simultaneously mimicking the death throes of a kid who swallowed one too many marbles as dance moves. Thankfully the video ends before it gets any worse. Opening Erics video, it seems normal, 'Oh I'm getting up?' Watching myself on the video walk towards the adjacent wall with a window looking out into the patio for patrons wanting to drink outside. 'At least this one seems somewhat normal, probably just me falling or something.' Trying to console myself after the previous embarassment I hear the unmistakable sound of a zipper. The angle doesn't show anything but judging by the steady stream running down the back of the man who was leaning against the window frame, it's obvious what happened. The man, becoming angry bolts up from his chair and starts yelling through the window. I hear myself mumble an unintelligable response, only being able to catch "a pirate has to mark his booty" or something along those lines, followed by a "would ye like to spitshine me cannon balls?". Eve and Eric can be heard in the background, laughing like crazy. Some of the memories snapping into place, not noticing how absurd it was to talk to someone who was IN a urinal. Cutting off the rest of the video before my already fractured pride is permanently damaged. Silencing my phone I made sure the alarm would override the volume settings I lay back, covering my face with a pillow railing at the injustice of every embarassing moment being constantly recorded.

*Ding~~~*

Groaning at the sound of a doorbell I slowly got up and made my way to the door. Peering through the peep-hole I see Eric and Brian, flanked by Eve and Liandra. The people that were expected to be part of the 7-man dream team. Why 7? because its my favorite number. Opening the door, I squint through the sunlight, my head starting to throb just a tiny bit harder than it was before. "Get inside before my head explodes" motioning them inside and closing the door behind them, Liandra and Brian plopping down on the living-room couch while Eve took a seat beside me on the sofa, Eric, jumped onto a nearby recliner and leaned back with a sigh, 'seems like he's almost as hung over as I am' I think to myself. Liandra, with a small smile said "Arrrgh capitan, did ye be enjoyin' the grog?" grimacing at how the first words were already poking at the previous nights escapades I knew it would take until the next time they went out for someone else to take the reigns and dive headfirst into embarassment before I would hear the end of this one. "Not as much as i would have enjoyed frisking an attractive mannequin." Liandra's mouth snapped shut, face turning beet red. Brian was the first to open up "Hey man, house rules" followed by Eve "yeah, we can only make fun of the person who most recently embarassed themselves" Overruled and outnumbered I gave up and threw my hands up in surrender "Fine, fine, I get it. So did everyone already get into RAB and make their character?" In unison they all spiritedly yelled "YES CAPITAN!!" The volume pushing my headache slightly further along as I felt his blood pressure rising as a vein popped out on my forehead "at least say captain right, and not so loudly please" I say with slight annoyance. "Nay capitan, we be needin' the accent" Eric said from the recliner, kicking his leg over the armrest to face the rest of the group. "Aye, aye" the other three responded out of sync but still in agreement. Accepting reality for what it was I decide to let it go and just rough the waters till someone else falls overboard. "Alright, well theres only another a little bit of time until it launches what did everyone pick?"

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Looking to Brian he said, "Wardancer, I liked the lore since it reminded me of the spartans, but instead of large phalanx's they use small highly skilled teams. What mostly drew me was they use either 2-handers or they duel wield, they are high-tiered as well. "

Swiveling our view to Liandra "I picked an High-elf, it starts at mid-tier but can gain scaling bonus's based on your patron diety so it borderlines on high-tier, I'm planning to go the mage route so I can light things on fire. Ah~ but not in the creepy pyromaniac way, in the killing things with fire way."

Eric, smirk evident, says "as if that helps your case, killing things with fire is the next step." Ignoring the glare she leveled his way he looked to the center of the others "I picked the Seedling Treant, they can grow their own minions as well as healing and buffing them and the support magic isn't restricted to only minions, the seedling subrace doesn't get anything but healing and support spells though so it relies heavily on a team or its minions. It's counted as high tiered so it fits in with the groups standards."

I looked to Eve and said "So we've got sword fairy, a pyromaniac, Healbot and?" Ignoring the complaints from Brian and Eric, Eve said "I picked the Mother Dryad, they are a low-tiered race at the start; However, as their rite of passage they have to find barren, uninhabitable land and start a grove. Depending on the size of the grove, the benefits effectively scale the larger it grows. Lore seems to indicate that space travel is available, I thought I would take the game and make my grove on a barren world. If that fails then I can just have Liandra burn down a forest or ten and make my grove from that."

Everyone just stared dumbly at her, seeing her face beginning to flush after a few seconds of silence I slowly say "That idea.... IS GENIUS! Imagine the bonuses that would get. Though, the lighting fire to half a continent to make a grove of your own is kind of psycho it's still a good idea if you only consider bonuses." Turning to the other two he said "I also think we should help her find a barren planet, we don't need the kind of reputation that would come up from having torched a landscape. Plus, if it manages to cover the entire planet, that would basically make that planet hers right?" turning to Eve "What are the rules of the groves?"

Pouting, probably from being called psycotic, she replied with a sharpness that spoke of her annoyance towards me "It's considered to be mine, by right, and the system should support me in that." With an evil laugh I said "so that means you could usurp an entire planet and we could use that as a base?" she shook her head "While that should technically be possible, if it was that easy then everyone would do it. There are most likely either limits set in place by the system, which doesn't seem to be Where Software's style for this game, or there are a massive number of natural barriers to help keep it from happening."

With everyone except me having shared, they all looked at me with expectation. Telling them about the Earthborne Titan, the perks he got and the growth rates they were all floored. Listing the demerits, no stats per level, pain settings set to make you endure extra pain and never able to reduce below 90% even after level 10, they all nodded their heads. "Not only is the stat scaling balanced with the removal of flat gains, at least until the later levels, theres even a deterrent to picking your class, that's hardcore Capitan" Eric said, adding a slight accent to the last word. Wincing at the joke I nodded, looking at my watch "alright, theres only 10 minutes left till shit starts hitting the fan." Leading them downstairs everyone claimed a pod with 2 spare ones off to the side for the still yet undecided final 2 teammates, I quickly grabbed a quick bite to eat and used the bathroom, double-checking to make sure it was actually a toilet this time, then headed downstairs to my little pod just in time for the launch.

00:01:57 Time left until launch would you like to start login sequence? Please note that time will not be dilated until the countdown reaches zero. Yes No

Bootup sequence initialized

Please wait.....

I lay there, with eyes closed watching the images that flooded my mind, screens at the forefront, relaying information about what was currently happening. Slowly everything begain to fade, replaced with darkness. Then another screen transitioned into view.

Grow by

Reaching Across Boundaries

Because nothing, given enough effort, is out of your reach.