Prologue 2 - How it Lived

When I woke up I did the usual bits and ends that everyone does in the morning. Then, I turned on my company's laptop and started working.

I entered credentials into a database, then waited for scripts to send a data key to authentication server and establish VPN connection.

I have been working for that IT company for past two years, but I still couldn't bring myself to get a better paying job. -' Well, I work only few days a month and the pay isn't really that bad if I consider the amount of free time I have as one of the perks... '

-" Man, I hate working twelve hour shifts. " My colleague, Derrick, complained via NetCom using a private channel (NetComm - a communicator software with video, voice and chat functions).

-" Pfff, said by a person that is proudly working in twenty four seven mode, twenty four minutes every seven hours, is hardly convincing. " I countered.

-" What can I say? Its not like anyone will notice anything, the system is ninety percent automated anyway. If its running its breezing. " He said.

Few minutes later I had myself breezed through the workload and cut it into manageable pieces. By the way, Derrick was not the only one who worked twenty four seven, though I tried to be a bit more sneaky about it. The trick to it was that a *technical expertise* could be used as a great term for splitting complicated tasks into small and simple pieces and then dumping them all onto other team members. -' All the while maintaining a hardworking air. ' I smiled slyly.

-" Ok Derrick, here are your reports and tech analysis, no unusual alerts and I have approved your CBR system changes. " I said while sending out emails.

-" Got it, I will get them done Paul ".

With work taken care of I have set company's laptop to passive-active mode and turned to my private PC.

Since capsule would be ready on the next day I decided to start getting familiar with the game’s setting. It could end badly if I were to go in blindly.

* * * *

Few hours, two alerts and several websites later I had a decent idea on how things looked in the world of ArCiel.

Whole world consisted of three, or rather, four continents. To the east there were three of them bunched in together, separated only by small seas... also, those continents… they seemed really Big.

According to the scale I could easily place Russia two times over onto one of them.

Overall shape of two topmost continents roughly resembled a shape of Eurasia, with Europe separated from them by something akin to aftermath of a cataclysm. The Great Rift looked like if somebody took an almighty swing and left a deep gash, framed by the mountains pushed up by the force of the blow.

The third continent looked like a bigger and longer version of the northern continents, if they were whole and somebody did a mirror image of them.

Far away, to the west, there was another continent, which was similar to Australia in size, though its shape was rather jagged and triangular.

That Western continent was called Yin-Soth and I was told that it resembled Japan of shogunate era, with Daimio's struggling for power all over the place.

-' Well, back to core continents... ' Western, separated part of the northern continent was called Fomora and it looked like it was ridden with mountains and valleys. Dwarves, goblins and other underground races thrived there, though there was some kind of human kingdom there also.

Across the Great Rift, to the east of Fomora, there was a continent of Orphis, which was really green, covered by grasslands and woods. It was split into several kingdoms, only some of them human, there were mentions of elven, beastmen, barbarian and few other kinds. If I was to sum it up I would call the whole area a Medieval Fantasy.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The big southern continent, called Nuyon, was split into Empire, which seemed to resemble an Old Chinese legends settings, and into few other kingdoms of men that all seemed unique in some way.

-' Hmm, there's a lot of diversity - I even see mentions of a pirate nation out there, Yarr! Heh. ' I snickered.

Big western part of Nuyon was rumored to be uncharted and wild.

Considering all of the details I had to say that the company definitely mashed everything together.

-' And I can have only one character on my account. ' I thought and felt like crying.

-' Well here comes the big decision then... on where to start. '

That was a tough choice since the character I was going for was originally created in a Chinese Legends setting, but I like and know medieval fantasy the best.

Hmm, all things considered I guess I should go to where my best expertise lies and that means north.

-' Lets see what northern dominions have in stock. '

Further investigation yielded some results, though less than expected. Since the game was just released only the basic overview provided by the developer was available.

Human kingdoms of the north consisted of the following nations:

The Great Kingdom of Largos, rather stable nation ruled by King Valorius Magnus the Third, whom appears to be quite old. If my guess was correct the whole kingdom is of a typical peaceful sort.

Nieldharad Empire, a militaristic nation located near the Great Rift, was plagued by monster troubles and haven't expanded enough to inconvenience its neighbors, yet.

Sasama Republic, a mercantile nation spread around islands to the north of Orphis. It was relying on trade ships to spread its influence and was mainly focused on trading.

In a center of the continent, around the Inner Sea, there was the Kingdom of Gis. It seemed to be some kind of do it all nation.

-’ Well, they DO have border with practically everyone on the continent. And I mean Everyone. Elves, dwarves, beastman and also orcs, barbarians are also thrown in for a good measure. I bet the garrisons near those last two have lots of *fun*. ‘

That said it was pretty obvious where I should start.

-' I mean, camon! With that kind of clusterfuck of borders you can't go wrong - Gis it is! '.

Covering all the loose ends got me in a mood and I spent rest of the evening killing suckers in some FPS game.

-' Gotta love snipers. ‘ I snickered -’ One moment you charge down the bridge with how awesome am I and during the next moment you may marvel over third person view of yourself... '

Anyway tomorrow is the day...

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Hey~, Author's here~

we are finally done with the prologue hopefully I didn't kill you with boredom yet, starting from now on I ll concentrate on real chapters and VR adventures (so there will be no more slice of life Bs hopefully).

I am planning on releasing chapters every 2-4 days with 2000+ word count. I hope that I will have inspiration to keep it up. I hope you will enjoy my works, cheers.

NEXT CHAPTER: Chapter 1 - The Becoming