PR/Editing Progress:
100%
Version: 1.0
This version is still up for changes, but this IS the final product. Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Prologue
----------------------------------------
Virtual reality launched a revolution in the gaming industry. Pods the size of a queen sized bed called VR Pods were now available to the public. These "pods" were not just a gateway to virtual reality, but were also able to take care of the physical needs such as food and water while in your hybernetic state. Because of the direct connection to the brain, the inside ‘game-time’ increase between reality and virtual was one hour to one day in game. How can all this be possible? You may be asking yourself.
Simple, our brains are able to comprehend and process more than we can. This means that the user is able to use a lot more of their brain functionality than they would normally. The pod also has a simulation function that allows the user to grow their muscles naturally to match your in-game strength better. Now, this doesn’t mean you’ll gain inhuman strength if you stay in the pod longer. It just means that it will keep your muscles well used so that they won’t deteriorate. The feeding part of the machine is much easier to explain. It’s the same manner that they keep you fed and hydrated in a hospital. There is a tube that goes down your neck, but after the first few times it become easier and they just stick a needle directly into the stomach. Just don't over think it too much and you’ll be fine.
Now the bodily functions are the same as you would suspect, so I won’t go over that because that would be tiring to explain every single feature. Right now you might be wondering who I am and why I know so much about the virtual reality pod. The reason is that I practically live in the damn thing…well…for now. No, I am not one of those shut-in xenophobes, it’s more like I was forced into this way. My name Captain James Dylan Thomson of the U.S. Army and no, I did not get hurt on tour, what happened to me was worse than that. I had just come back from a tour for two years in Iraq, and God knows I’d go back there in a snap, that war won’t end on its own. Back to the subject, I had just gotten back to the States and was leaving the airport in Los Angeles. And I swear to God if one of you compares Californians to one of those TV movies, I will bitch slap you so hard you’ll be needing a face implant the next day.
Wow…I keep going off track, but as I was leaving the airport I took a cab to my apartment that is located a little out of the city. But it’s still close enough that the traffic is packed up at 4-6 o’clock with people going home. It was a good place 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room, the whole nine yards. I bet you’re wondering how I can afford such a nice place considering I’m only a Soldier. Even if I am a Captain, the pay is still quite low.
Well, when my parents passed away from cancer I received a large sum of money. I invested in the stock market and soon made a lot of money from some successful investments, earning rewards in the 3-4 million range. Growing so quickly, I decided to hire a reliable book keeper/accountant and bought a few properties around the city. Using those properties I had a real estate company maintain and collect rents for a small fee every month. So ya, I had cash to burn, so why did I join the military? Honesty, I joined after a bad break up with this girl that got kind of messy. I won't go over the details on how that went down. I keep going off topic and getting distracted to easily.
I picked up my keys from my desk and brought my stuff to my apartment. Now, I did what most soldiers wanted to do after they get back, and no it’s not going to drink or getting laid, thought it was pretty high on the list. No, I went to go get a cheese burger, fries, and a drink. If you have ever served you’ll know that you will get tired of what the army serves as food. It’s not that bad but you still just want to get something different.
Walking to a good burger place down the street, I reached the burger place, ordered, ate, and then walked home. Now any people living in LA can tell you, walking the streets at night is never the safest thing to do, and a group of thugs decided that I looked like a good person to mug. Now if I had been wearing my uniform they probably would have left me alone, but I wasn't wearing it that night. They pulled me into an alley and started to beat the crap out of me. I was able to put up a good fight, but against about 12 people is a bit of a challenge. Sad to say they had a few weapons like metal pipes. They took the money in my wallet breaking my collar bone, my left leg, and several ribs along with fracturing several others. I soon blacked out after they ran off, leaving my now empty wallet behind. I woke up six days later in the hospital.
I assume that some soldiers heard about me getting attacked, and got seriously angry. Five of the men that attacked me disappeared and the other seven ran to the nearest police station to confess all their crimes. Whatever those soldiers did, it scared the crap out of them. They were never caught, but it goes to show you that you don't ever mess with the army. What was that saying, 'You mess with one you mess with them all,' ya, that basically explains the army.
The Doctor told me about my injuries and said that I would not be able to use my legs for about 8 to 10 months due to the damage done. My ribs had been reset and it would be a pain to even breathe for several weeks without pain killers. My collar bone would take time as well, and they would have to do surgery on it later in time.
It took some time to get used to the fact that I would not be able to walk for the next few months. I could hardly use my arms for a while, making some even basic tasks really difficult. I get visited by my cousin Selina every now and again, checking in on me. She is about two years younger than me and close to the only family that visits me. She’s a nice girl with brown hair and bright hazel eyes. Standing at 5' 3", she’s about 7 inches shorter than me, well…not for the next few months at least. She always looks at me with puppy dog eyes whenever she wants me to get her something.
She is here today to take me home, because I just got released today. A nurse is apparently supposed to come and take care of me because I can't take care of myself. Well…like make my own meals and clean the house up, basically a maid and a cook in one go.
When I got home I took care of a few things, signed some paper work that piled up, and searched around a bit on the internet. Something caught my eye a few minutes in, a Virtual Reality Pod. I thought, this should be interesting. Soon after, I bought a pod, and two days later I joined in, set up an account, and was looking at a list of virtual reality games I could play. Now, unlike those old stories were there was only one game at a time, you could select from thousands in the VR Pod. There were even player-made games on the list. Some made it where you were in space, some in medieval times, and others with medieval magic-type worlds. Games on the list included pay to play, like ones by people paying for the server, or by an official gaming company. There were some people who made it free to play because they paid for it out of their own pocket and didn't care, but those are usually made to have fun on and mess around so they usually aren’t very good.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
I went through the list and saw one made by a well-known company. I clicked it and signed up for the monthly-pay cost of the game. Soon I joined the game and start to play.
----------------------------------------
I have been playing this game online for a month now and I’m kind of getting bored. I got the role of a Dark Rogue. I decided to play as a Dark Elf due to the bonus of dark affinity as a Rogue.
I was eating in a tavern one day, filling my hunger bar. Plus the food still tasted good! A group of knights, or at least what they like to call themselves, walked in all proud and mighty. They acted like they were better than everyone else. In this game the knights are basically the 'good gods' and use light affinity. Mostly just to take on dark affinity-types and treat them like demons. This group that walked in are somewhat famous, they have posted a few videos from their game-play, but nothing major. It’s more bark than bite.
Soon, they cause are causing a scene and trying to pick a fight with me. All because I’m a dark affinity type, and to try to act all ‘brave and noble’. We start to argue it out about which is better the light or dark side. Then an idea popped into my head, we could start our own server and find out which side is better. The Light or Darkness.
I proposed my idea to them to find out which side is better. After some thought, they agreed and soon we came up with a basic guideline. The Server would be divided into two factions the Light and Darkness. I would be Darkness and they would be Light. The world would be divided into territories, about 20 miles wide each. There would be no Npcs except in a neutral zone or an admin shop area were we could sell items and other stuff for a slightly smaller amount than what is normal. You could purchase items like books, weapons, and other things that you might find. We also would add an option to buy Npcs for a set amount to join our faction. They would start off as level 1 as any other character would except if they die they’re dead. Other than that, the Npc could be just like any other player. The price of the Npc would also be changed depending on the Race. Say for a human, the cheapest, the most basic being about 50 gold. Now this might seem small to a higher level player, but also understand that the price for selling items will be lower as well, so if they would get 5 silver for a wolf pelt they would instead get 2 silver.
Now the territories would be simple, each faction would start out with three territories, each surrounding the admin shop. They would spawn in the middle of their territory on their side. To get more territories they could do one of two things, you can capture the other team’s area by killing off all the members of the other team in the territory and keep control of the area for one week. Otherwise, you can capture the unclaimed areas around the center territories. To capture the unclaimed territories you must kill the boss monster who controls the area. Once you kill him, the territory will be your faction’s area. The farther you go out, the stronger the monsters and boss monsters would get. Without owning the territory you could not build in the area, and in each territory there would be a dungeon depending on the area’s level. In the dungeon, there would be money and loot drops with the boss monster waiting at the end.
We started talking about leveling up and classes. Most of the time you can get a class from an Npc or some other way, but with this world not having any Npcs we decided against it. Instead we decided that at the start of the game you could only take on 10 abilities or skills like blacksmithing or archery to use. To be able to use more abilities you must get to level 100. Once there you can basically revert back to level 1 keeping your skills, 3/4 of your stats, and choosing 2 more skills or abilities in the process. The only problem is leveling up would be 2 twice as hard as before each time you revert back.
We finally had the conversation on how the server would be paid and if we were going to allow other players to join. I would pay for the server at the agreement that they would pay $12 a month to me to help pay for it. I did not tell them I was rich because they would have probably made me pay for all of it.
Also, we would allow players to join one of the two factions after 1 year in game, this would also be the time when peace between the factions would be up. All recruiting the faction wish to make is on their own will, and no double crossing would be allowed. No one could switch sides to find out secrets or tell secrets to the other team. The server would be set to watch such actions, and if done so the player would be banned from the server, unless proved that they did not in fact betray the faction. This will make the game harder and more fun if secrets are not able to be found out.
Any money made from players joining would be sent to me with the agreement that it would be used to improve the server, no more. After some other discussion making, other adjustments such as making skills level up faster and a small boost to level growth it was agreed upon. Not long after, I bought a server and setup the payment settings along with all the ideas and changes to the server, which took a very long time. I was the one who ended up choosing the name for the server, I’m paying for it after all. ‘The Game of Dark and Light’, not too bad if I do say so myself.
The character creation I kept the same. I also kept my name as James because it was easy to know who was talking to me. Finally, after all the boring setup, I started the server up and went straight in. Let this game of Dark and Light begin!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PR Note:
Thank you for reading this version of the Prologue. Hopefully you enjoyed the reading. I just wanted to say that this is up for any changes in the future. If you spot any minor mistakes that I may have missed please comment below and I'll gladly correct them. Please also leave a rating, until the next chapter! XD