Richard performed a blanket search across all major Search Engines with keywords pertaining to all he knew about The Law of War, as well as setting up numerous bots, automated programs and website accounts that would locate key words on social media sites and forums. These searches were as in depth as his time between schooling and study would allow, as Richard's education was quite rigorous. His computer logged all searches and downloaded any pages that contained information relevant to the key words, including all text, images, videos and audio, all while Richard was away from his room.

These were precautions, saving all available data and content was important, rather than simply recording the addresses for later viewing, because of the secretive nature of the game meta. The developers and publisher of The Law of War would scour the web for user content relating to the game and have it scrubbed using content violation law and cease and desist orders. When information was posted online, it would be a matter of hours or sometimes minutes before it was erased. This ensured the game world remained an unknowable alternative reality, existing only for those who played within it. So Richard ensured that everything was saved and backed up in case he later returned to find the content out of reach.

He was smart enough to realise that the information he needed would very likely not be available through mainstream means, so it would be the deep web that he could most likely rely on for some information. The deep web was all parts of the net that did not appear on any search engine, they were unregistered servers and sites that could only be reached by knowing the Web Protocol address, or WP for short. Richard had several regular “off-grid” websites that he visited often, mostly to find alternate versions of his favourite lessons from school, like history and technology, or for the highly illegal software and hardware emulation communities, but most of all to learn computer programming, application design and web and server security coding. All things his government, school and parents were incredibly controlling of within the curriculum.

The alternatives were archived websites and encyclopedias from the Internet, before it became The Web, which most users in deep web circles said was named not because of its connected lines, but because The Web, like a spider's web, trapped prey for consumption. In this case, pests were alternative news sites, unofficial and non government sanctioned information and all hacker related cultures that have propagated on The Web. The rebel and the rogue sites, the white hats and the black hat hackers, all were illegal entities on the web, and massive fines coupled with imprisonment were typical tools used by governing bodies to control these individuals and their pages.

Through these rogue sites, Richard made connections to other servers and pages where information could be found on many subjects. Gaming being a very large subject to deal with. The Law of War's secrets would be his for the taking, or so he thought, and unfortunately only when he was finally home from the long school day.

With a swipe of a keycard, Richard opened the front door and entered his Ormskirk home at 4.30pm. He left the security card on a shelf by the door and usually as of late ignored his parents in the house and went directly to his bedroom, where his computer was waiting.

He closed the bedroom door and waved his hand over the doorknob where a sensor sensed his gesture and locked the door behind him. There was an audible click and then the lights came on automatically, reading that the levels of light were insufficient for human sight, as Richard's blinds were constantly closed.

The room was adorned with neatly framed posters and shelves of books. The posters were old and certainly from before Richard's time, advertisements for Science Fiction films and First Person Shooter games. The books were both fiction and educational. Encyclopedias and history books, science fiction and historical fiction, with a few choice fantasy series that any avid reader would have in their collection.

Like any bedroom, there was a bed, and in one corner an extensive work space with both his work computer and gaming rig installed into ventilated units under his desktop. As well as these units, there were glass cabinets encasing various retro computer consoles and hand held devices. It was a shrine to his hobby.

Sitting on a cradle was Richard's headset, a lightweight helmet with virtual reality goggles, plus a pair of pressure and gesture sensitive gloves that like the helmet, were synchronised with both computers. Behind those were two large monitors, hardly even a centre meter thick. On each wall and the ceiling was a small black bulb, the size of a golf ball. These were installed sensors used for virtual reality gaming and 3D scanning of environments and users. Typical for the hardcore gamer to own.

Richard changed out of his school uniform and into casual attire. He slipped his hands into the gloves and then slipped the headset snugly over his shaggy haired head. He fell onto his bed with the wireless devices and pulled the goggled visor over his eyes. Immediately he was greeted with the automated processes he had set up during the previous night and engaged before breakfast that morning.

The searches across the mainstream search engines and websites had all failed to acquire any results, but that was a vain hope on Richard's part, and quite understandable. However his bots had been quite busy on other parts of the web, and Richard was eager to view the results. An auto updated activity log was scrolling with lines of file names and their save destinations. There were hundreds of hits and saved files, he was surprised by the amount of information his programs has found for him. He could hardly contain himself and quickly wanted to begin his research within the content he had acquired. This is great! He thought to himself. This is bloody gre-

There was a knock on his door. 'Richard.' The voice of his mother called out through the door, muffled by the wood between them. 'Richard, why is your door locked?'

'I'm busy doing homework, I wanted some alone time.' Richard lied, knowing full well that his mother would want to check on him. He whispered into the headset. 'Hide all windows and load file: school work dash year ten history.' The computer did so. All of his searches and programs vanished from screen and a digital document appeared in their place, a school text book. 'Switch to monitor.' One of the screens on his desk lit up with the image of the operating system desktop and the newly opened file.

'Do I have to unlock this door myself, or will you be doing it?' Richard's mother spoke again.

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'Mum!' Richard barked. 'I'll be there in a-'

'Right now, Richard!' She barked back.

'Bloody hell...' He grumbled as he took off his headset and unlocked the door. 'It's open.' Richard went to his desk as the door opened and his mother entered, following him to the workspace.

She peered at the monitor, scanning over the text on screen. 'Why do you need to lock your door?'

Richard sighed 'Mum, I just like to read in private.'

'You never needed privacy before.' She retorted.

'I need it now.' He responded just as quick.

'What's wrong with you? You've been acting strange.'

'You're acting strange.' He grunted. 'Normal people like privacy!'

'Do not take that tone with me, Richard.' She brushed black hair to behind her ears, making sure that her son could see her eyes.

Richard looked at her face and then retreated to his chair, sluggish in defeat. There was some defiance in him, but when he glanced back at her, he did not see the face of his mum, but a strange woman who did not have the love he once thought she had for him. 'Sorry...' He looked down at the polished wood floor, his mother's reflection blurred into the grain. Things have changed since-

'What's going on?' A deep voice came from outside his room.

Richard looked up to meet his father's eyes. 'Nothing.'

'Richard had his door locked.' His mother spoke. 'He needed his privacy.'

Richard's father took a long look at his wife and raised an eyebrow. 'Leave him alone for now.'

'But he-'

'Karen! Leave him alone.' He motioned for her to leave. She left as he stepped in, but waited for her to head into another room before quietly speaking to his son. 'I know boys your age need privacy, your mum won't understand. But I don't want any locked doors in this house. We'll leave you alone unless it's important, but no locks. Do you understand?'

You two are allowed to lock your bedroom door. 'Yeah.' Richard answered, but it was evident he had other things he wanted to say.

Rather than inquire, his father reinforced his ruling. 'We will not allow you to end up like your sister, it's for your own good. OK?'

Can you even say her name? Did you ever remember it? 'OK.'

'OK.' His father nodded. 'Get your homework done, we won't disturb you.' He left the room and closed the door behind him.

'Thanks...' Richard sighed and stared into nothing. Is this what you went through? Now they only have me to bully. 'Lauren.' Saying the name snapped him from his haze. He looked to the monitor and then to the headset, remembering the information that required his attention. 'Let's get to it.'

He donned the head gear and lay on the bed. It was some time before the information he desired was found amongst the many searches he had automated. His keyword selection had turned out to be far too broad. The search engine results were many, but all hits having nothing to do with his search, all but the official The Law of War website, which held minimal information, only developer videos and vague in game recordings.

The deep web searches found only two hits, one of which had already been deleted from the server. Luckily the bot that found the information had recorded it, as was the same for the second search bot.

The first piece of information was old, contained on a website that Richard was unfamiliar with. It was a similar discussion to which Richard would like to have: what is a new player supposed to do? The answer? “Find new friends and see what they think, or find the nearest Soldier Academy to start training.”

It was short but to the point, and held so little meta game information that perhaps it was deemed non-threatening and left alone. The Broker's breakdown for the information bundle that Richard would have purchased, mentioned briefly about Academies, but not what they were for. Richard correctly assumed that Soldier's Academies were where Soldier's trained.

The second search was something Richard could potentially use for its content, but not its subject. It was a request for information on a missing player in the country of Hurdland. A player named Judith had gone missing, her most recent whereabouts being on a journey from Kurktown to Eastport, possibly seeking transport to Amaratsu.

This was all of the data, it had no replies and was soon erased. Richard made note of the two locations, Kurktown and Eastport. He supposed that Eastport was on Hurdland's east coast, and Kurktown somewhere to it's west. Simple information, but perhaps useful.

That was all. The long day's search of the English speaking web had resulted in pretty much nothing at all. But then again, the Soldier Academies were a start. Richard logged out of his computer and lay still, enjoying the softness of his bed. He was eager to begin his adventure, The Law of War was waiting for him, but so was his homework. School came first, though he desired the other more.