I wake up, sitting up again in my bed. Yawning, I look at the clock. Ok, it’s 9AM! Nice. I look outside, seeing that the sun hasn’t risen yet. Well, it isn’t surprising, since there’s only around four hours of daylight in January here in Fairbanks.

I stretch and go to the bathroom attached to my room. In the case that you may not have noticed, my family was rich. Like, really, really rich. Our house is quite massive, my room is on the third floor, and there’s only my room, my bathroom and a deposit room. So yeah, counting that the walls are soundproof, I have the whole third floor for myself.

As I take a bath in the shower and then soak in the bathtub, I think about the future. At the moment, I’m 15, and I’ll start high school this year, and nothing of real importance will happen in the following two years. So I have quite a long time to prepare and change my future. Firstly, I need to secure a private source of income, because I’ll need some to do some things under my parents’ nose.

I will need at least 200k dollars. And fortunately, I can do it with WoW. At the end of this month they will announce the IRL auction house, where you can put up items for auction in-game for real money. And the good thing is that it’s going to be useful as soon it comes out, if I’m ahead in level than the majority, I can get better gear quicker and have priority selling rarer items.

Not only that, rare equipment in World of Warcraft can be dropped by elite mobs, or by completing quests. The thing is, that you can do quests that render weapons that are not suited for your class, drops will be the best for me. After all, I have a plan.

I get out of the bathroom and after getting dressed in some heavy clothes I sit in front of the pc of the VR capsule and turn it on. Firstly, I’ll need help. A guild would be optimal, but one that will give me freedom will be even more important.

At this time, people don’t have much information about World of Warcraft, since it’s Blizzards first title ever to be released. What we know is that there are two factions, the Alliance and the Horde. The Alliance are “the good guys”, with humans, elfs, dwarfs, etc.

And the Horde is “the monster faction”, with orcs, trolls, goblins, etc. It depends on your tastes, really. There are major differences in the levelling experience, and personally, I’m fonder of the Horde. Their storyline is better than the Alliance. My train of thought is stopped as I log in Wyrm and see that Nep is online. I immediately send a message.

(Me): “Hey Nep. Did u get any sleep at all?”

(Nep): “Yeah, I took a nap.”

(Me): “Which key of your keyboard is stuck in your face right now?”

(Nep): “Poison, did you know that you’re way cooler when u’re noy saying anything?”

I smile and continue typing.

(Me): “So, whatcha gonna do for WoW? Which faction?”

(Nep): “Meh, dunno yet. Probably Horde, but that will depend on what you’ll do. You can only have one character after all, and I don’t want to play alone.”

I smile. Good old Nep, truly a great friend.

(Me): “Well, I’ve been thinking critically, and I decided. I’ll do a human mage.”

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

I type, announcing my choice.

(Nep): “What? You? Playing a mage? Aren’t you an edgelord that only plays assassins and rogues? I don’t think that you even have the brain to play a mage?”

Oh yeah, that was me, right? An edgelord that only made rogues. I made a forsaken rogue as my character in WoW, the forsaken being the undead faction of World of Warcraft. Being an edgelord was also the origin of my in-game name, Royalty Poison, the nick that I used everywhere.

(Me): “Yeah, I’m playing a mage. And what about u? Whatchu gonna go for?”

I ask, although the answer is obviously priest.

(Nep): “Gonna spec a priest. You’re made of paper, you need to stay alive lol.”

Yeah, the same choice that I remember Nep making.

We chat about a bunch of shit as the hours pass, games, movies and much more. It’s nice to see that it’s still the same friend that I’ve always had all these years. And as we chat and even play some games together, the hour of the game approaches.

(Nep): “Alright, see you later in the game, you scrub.”

(Me): “See you later Nep.”

We finish our call on voice chat and I open my capsule. There’s around ten minutes until the game starts. I take off my clothes, staying only in my boxers, and get in the capsule. It doesn’t take long for a transparent slime to start covering me as the level raises. It covers everything, completely filling up the capsule.

However, I don’t drown. I can breathe freely. That’s the tech level that you can see, it completely breaks logic. the slime starts to glitter, and everything gradually turns white. After a few seconds, my surroundings become an open meadow, with short grass and a circular stone altar in front of me.

I look around, seeing nothing but grass and lonely trees as far as the eye can see, with a beautiful clear blue sky with few clouds, and a shining golden sun behind me. The breeze feels real, the heat from the sun, the feeling of grass under my bare feet. No matter how many times I come to the world of Azeroth, the planet of WoW, it’s still impressive how real it all is.

(female voice): “Scanning brain, please wait a few moments… Welcome, Mister Cahal, to the World of Warcraft character creation.”

Ah, what nostalgia hearing this voice. Yes, my name is Cahal, since my dad is Irish and is the one that chose my name. on the stone altar, a figure appears out of thin air, a perfect replica of my body dressed in boxers.

A little on the thin side, straight, semi-long brown hair and green eyes. Pale skin due to the excessive time I spend inside home playing games, and height around 1,75. I’m also on the skinny side and have ok looks. I still look a bit childish, but I know I’ll grow to be quite manly. A floating window appears in front of me, showing several customization options, like changing hair, race change, muscular mass, skin color, etc. The sex change option, however, is missing.

(female voice): “Mister Cahal, be aware that changing too much of your appearance, body mass, height others may cause psychological harm. Because of this, there will be no sex change option due to the risk of psychological damage.”

I knew that, I didn’t have any plans in changing a lot. I change the color of my hair to black, make it a bit longer and dye the tips to jade green, the same color of my eyes. And that’s is, I don’t change anything else, letting my true face be the face of my character.

(female voice): “Warning, your character still looks lie your true self. Are you sure of this?”

(Cahal): “Yes.” I answer firmly.

(female voice): “Blizzard entertainment recommends against using your true face to be that of your character’s, as that may bring unwanted attention outside the game. Do you still want to proceed?”

(Cahal): “Yes.”

(female voice): “Very well. You may now choose your class. Please, pick from the available classes.”

I don’t even look at the others, choosing mage instantly, not even looking at the specs of the class that are available in the window. With a smile, I look at my character, now dressed in light purple robes, with cloth shoes and a simple wood staff in hand.

(female voice): “You have chosen the mage class. As the server is not yet open, it will take you 15 minutes and 43 seconds to be able to log in. Please, be aware that your time in Azeroth will pass two times slower than real life, so please, be careful with the time that you spend inside the game. Please, select your character name.”

Obviously, there is only one choice.