Chapter 1 –

“I am bored.” -Admin

I was equally terrified and excited to find myself in a place so dark I couldn’t tell the difference if my eyes were closed or not. Terrified because of my situation, yet excited because what that god thing had said seemed to be true. I couldn’t be sure of course, but I did feel something was off with my body, yet I couldn’t confirm. As the lack of light was so overbearing I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It could be one of two things I thought, it could all be just part of some event in the game I was playing before all of this happened or I could be in a different world. I took a deep breath to collect myself, as well as check. The full dive game I was playing was the first of its kind ever, it was brand-new technology. Even though I was a computer science student, instead of reading up on current technological developments I preferred to read fantasy novels. So I never took a detailed look at the explanations given by the scientists on how this full dive tech worked, but even I knew that there were restrictions placed on players so their minds wouldn’t completely assimilate into the game world as that could cause issues with the player’s mental stability. Two big ones were that sexual acts were not allowed, even if you had full control of an avatar like your own body, it also didn’t have any sense of smell. Anything smell related was given to the player as an in-game system prompt. As I took a deep breath, I smelled sulphur in the air. This confirmed that something was different, but the organisation managing the game could have easily sneaked in a new patch that integrated smell functionality into the game, so I couldn’t be sure yet. I tried to will my character sheet to show as I had done so many times in the last twenty-four hours, at least from what I remembered, as I could have been unconscious for a long time, I thought. Nothing.

I have to prioritise finding a safe place, this darkness could be too dangerous. Every second could be essential. I got up and reluctantly stretched out my arms to find a wall so I could orient myself at least a little. I actively had to stop myself from thinking about the horrors that could be in the stillness that surrounds me, as that would easily lead to panic and that is never a good thing. Just a few careful steps later I found a wall, that felt slightly damp and cold. I couldn’t tell if there was something wet sticking to my hands or was the stone just cold, but I noticed it was smooth. At this moment I heard a familiar voice echo inside my head.

            “Hello, Mr Moore.” The voice stilled the dread filling me up. Her voice comforted me because I was so used to talking to her, that’s pretty much all I did during the survival challenge in the game.

“Saika? Can you tell me what is going on? Where am I? What is wrong with my body? I transmitted the same way I got so easily used to doing before. Usually, the answer would come immediately, but this time Saika’s reply came in a few moments late than what I was used to, she was an AI so this kind of delay never happened.

            “I’m afraid I am unaware of where we are and what is going, it seems I am disconnected from the servers. As for your last question, it appears as though you are in a body which is eight years old. I am afraid I must deal with a large number of anomalies so I won’t be able to contact you for an indefinite amount of time but I should be able to provide you with the information you require once I am done, running my diagnostics and hopefully fixing the issues I seem to be getting. Take care, Mr Moore.”

A massive number of questions flooded my mind after hearing her, those questions spiralled into more questions. I stood there losing a few more seconds in a daze. “Focus.” I thought to myself cutting off the stray thoughts and started walking in an unknown direction as I pushed against the wall with my right hand. I considered multiple things regarding my survival. First of which was that I had to keep going, and another was that I should be as quiet as I can. With less chance of being spotted by something that goes bump in the darkness. That thought made me shiver and reminded me I was defenceless. My best option would be to find a rock beneath my feet.

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Walking for ten to fifteen minutes by my estimation as I had no way to track time, I heard a beat other than my own heart. My dread subsided ever so slightly as a little bit of hope blossomed in me. It was the sound of a hard object striking another. But seeing nothing I continued walking slowly and cautiously forward, the sounds got louder and more distinct I could make it out to be the cacophony of a mine, but it was just an assumption as I have never been in a mine outside of games. My cynical mind jumped to the worst possibilities like maybe they were slaves and I would be enslaved as well or worse get killed on sight as an unknown. Deciding I would have to sneak around until more information was available, I crouched down and took more care in my steps. A few more minutes later light could be seen, it was dim and flickering like a torch’s I thought but no figures were to be found. The beating sounds got more distinct and louder they were right around the corner in front of me I could tell. But the sounds were more akin to metal striking metal thinner and sharper maybe it was just a rich iron mine. Peaking around the corner I surprisingly saw the cave’s entrance it was a rough rather big arch with two torches placed on the walls on each side inside it creating the flickering light. The outside, on the other hand, was very dark, but there was visible movement just some shadows moving fast, hearing some guttural yells I realised the sound wasn’t the cacophony of a mine but a fight, with steel.

Seeing nothing around the entrance I crept in closer to be able to perhaps make out the people, but my heart was trying to beat right out of my ribcage making what sounded like too loud a sound in this otherwise soundless cave. Could have just waited for the fighting to be over but for some reason, I pressed on, perhaps it was just dumb curiosity. This close I could make out more distinct silhouettes. But seeing these very tall and monstrous shapes made my jaw drop, they were mostly very tall and bulky humanoid shapes with horns growing tall and flames for eyes in their small faces. Their armour clattered as they fought each other, and their massive great swords blurred as I couldn’t make out the movements. These figures just kept clashing and their movements were not visible to my human eyes, from the sparks flying around and generating the smallest bit of light, I could make out these demonic creatures wore very similar armour but not the same aside from one side being dark grey blackish they also had spikier more menacing looking compared to the other side with their smoother and rounder parts around the shoulders as well as being coloured in crimson. The problem was the only reason I could make these features out was that these were dead bodies falling to the ground, piling up in a heap around a smaller figure than the rest. Wearing similarly dark and spiky armour, this figure carried a sword almost as big as he was, with a wide blade, from what I could make out. This wasn’t much given that they were a bit too far away from the light of the cave’s entrance. This smaller dark figure didn’t have flaming eyes like these other creatures, and it looked mostly human from my perspective. Before I could even process everything I was seeing, the battlefield became silent and one of the bigger creatures was leaning on the compact silhouette in a rather limp manner like he was unconscious or dead. There was a shard-like silhouette protruding from the limp figure’s back, it was then the other form shoved it off of himself and removed what remained of his shattered sword from its belly and twisted its head towards my direction and I saw two blood-coloured crystal-like orbs peer through its helmet directly at me. I felt with a sense I did now know I had, a force like a tidal wave erupt from this figure and smack into me, completely engulfing me. As my mind tried to rouse panic and anxiety everything went black. Next, I awoke on what felt like a cold and smooth stone surface, as my mind was coming to, feelings of fear rose in me as I remembered the last things before everything went dark. Firstly, it was a good thing that I could think, it meant that I was still alive, I reasoned with myself as I tried to calm my mind, laying on the floor not making any moves.