Chapter 1- Awakening
BEGIN PRIVATE CHAT LOG
THEME: Awakened earth
N88BPrtectr701: Any Idea Where this game came from? Its crazy good and I don’t recognize the company. Its calling itself Alarm Entertainment Incorporated or AEI for short but I can’t find any other previous games by them anywhere.
LaiDshAde: They used to be a brokerage firm for a bunch of the big gaming titans, I guess they decided to tip their own toes in and immediately found gold lol
Chr0n1cle: Must have found some secret projects or something, since their VR systems are crazy ahead of everyone else.
N88BPrtectr701: this is basically reality ingame, I can even feel the wind on my face and taste the food, Are we sure AEI aren’t Wizards or something?
Chr0n1cle: Yet to be Confirmed lol
LaiDshAde: Where’d you end up spawning?
N88BPrtectr701: in the Inlusion Kingdom, currently part of a Barons forces, Got myself an Elite Warrior class already, uncommon rank.
LaiDshAde: Die, I spawned in the inlusion kingdom too but I’m an errand runner for a thieves guild, I only got the thief class at common.
N88BPrtectr701: For real? What level are you, we should meet up sometime. I’m level 6.
LaiDshAde: Right now I’m level 8, and sure I don’t mind sounds at least a little entertaining.
Chr0n1cle: dang I’m In the Utila Kingdom, that sucks.
N88BPrtectr701: Can’t you just walk over to us? it can’t be that far.
LaiDshAde: Not how it works, Awakened Earth is roughly the same size as our earth, and the Utila kingdom is basically where California is.
Chr0n1cle: Yah so its basically walking from California to Minnesota
N88BPrtectr701: wait so it uses our IP from the real world to determine our spawn? That’s crazy cool but also sus
LaiDshAde: Yeah, luckily you can artificially change your IP with a VPN to change your spawn, or else I’d be on a Different Continent entirely.
Chr0n1cle: I wouldn’t worry about AEI having your IP or any other personal info, Their terms of service Promises privacy, and you could probably sue for the big bucks if you catch them using it.
LaiDshAde: Of course you read the TOS you nerd
Chr0n1cle: Speaking of Nerds, I got the Mage class at the uncommon rank.
N88BPrtectr701: Lucky!
LaiDshAde: I hope you Both die
END LOG
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Josh woke up to The loud sound of his phone alarm blaring an airhorn. Groggily he slid off his couch and started zombie walking towards his shower. After a quick hot shower and the other basic commodities of the day, Josh threw on his clothes, grabbed his keys and a granola bar for breakfast, and made his way down his apartment complex towards his beat up silver Mazda Protégé. He lived in a small town in the boonies out in Minnesota, its most impressive accomplishment as a town being the best place to rest in-between going to actually cool places.
On his way to work he listened to Heavy metal probably a bit too loud then what’s recommended on his massive speaker he installed in the car as he munched down his granola bar. When Josh arrived at his destination, he was greeted by the sight of a large warehouse colored a dull gray with a large orange logo displaying the company’s name.
“Vovitech Assembly, where we envision the future of technology.” Josh muttered sarcastically under his breath. “A lot more like copy and rewrite everything.”
Josh had worked for Vovitech for a little over a year now as a soldering technician, basically someone who assembles electronics and binds them together. He didn’t have the greatest time at first, constantly having to do new designs with a heavy corporate management meant he was being watched and disciplined for every single mistake, but eventually he was decent enough at his job where they mostly left him alone if he got his work done. Vovitech from what Josh had seen, only really dealt with one kind of product: What’s popular but cheaper.
Josh didn’t really know how they did it, but they somehow managed to find the cheapest materials on the entire planet and make it so that it barely works enough to resemble the leading competitors. Then they sell it at a massive discount to the original design with a splash of Vovitechness to keep it copyright legal. It’d honestly be impressive if he didn’t have to deal with the Wildly stupid designs that go through his department.
It wasn’t all bad though, the pay was decent for a 20 year old, and the work was pretty entertaining most of the time. He had a few friends there that would get together with him during the breaks and do a little complaint-circle about all the bad treatment and dumb decisions the higher ups decided to do, and they had a free cafeteria for food for all the employees. Both of these things are probably the only reason he still has his sanity intact, at least for the most part.
Josh wasn’t the most handsome dude, standing at 5′9 he wasn’t tall but he also wasn’t short, he blended in really well with short black hair and a little of a goatee on a bloated face along with pale skin from staying inside all day. This was all complimented by a big round belly sticking out from his gut, that had encouraged his worker friends to often call him gas because of how much he resembled a typical gas station worker’s physique. His friends weren’t the only ones who called him that.
“Hey Ass Gas, get your stinky ass over here!” Josh’s least favorite person, his supervisor Edward said.
Edward was a tall dude, standing at about 6′3, he was mostly skin and bones. He was the type of guy that loved putting people he found to be lesser than him down into the dirt. if he thought you were better than him though, he’d grovel at your feet and do anything you said to try and get on your good side. To put it shortly, Edward was an asshole.
“Good morning Ed” Josh said as he walked on over to the desk Edward was sitting at, “what’s up?”
“New prototype design just came in, High priority, don’t fuck it up ass gas.” Edward sneered before handing over the schematic and pointing him toward a work desk full of electrical components.
As Josh looked over the schematics he couldn’t help but Smile. the design was a blatant ripoff of the popular new VR headset from Alarm Industries, or AEI for short. Right off the bat Josh knew it wasn’t gonna work, or if it did, they were in for a major lawsuit. They had replaced a lot of the safeguards on the design with cheap alternatives and most of the components in the headset couldn’t handle the electrical load necessary to actually properly run the damn thing. He should know, he just got a AEI headset yesterday that he spent all night taking apart and putting back together.
But he didn’t get paid to be an engineer, he got paid to solder it all together, so he went to work making sure to leave a notation on the schematics of his concerns for the product. All in all, it took awhile, the AEI design was already incredibly compact, and the knock off one he was making was even more so, it got to the point that he had to get Edward to help him get everything in place for him while he soldered it, which he almost never did.
The one good thing about Edward was that although he’s an asshole, he still never hesitates to do his job correctly and effectively. Him and Josh might not get along very well but surprisingly they make an incredibly effective duo when it comes to getting work done.
“All done” Josh said after wiping sweat from his brow, “I’ll write down the step by step for the soldering if you wanna deliver the headset to the testing department”
“Nice try ass gas,” Chuckled Edward “I’ll be writing the report, your sorry ass is gonna have to walk across the warehouse.”
After feigning some complaint, Josh took the completed headset and started walking towards the testing department. Although he had said otherwise, Josh really did not want to write that report, it was hundreds of steps long and although they annotated every step. Having to sit down and write for over an hour sounded incredibly boring to him so he was glad that Edward was just as gullible as usual.
As he walked into the testing department he was immediately greeted by over a dozen people all excitedly grabbing the headset from his hands, giggling about how they were about to make history while also shooing Josh away. He spent the rest of his workday on the work line knocking out the high selling designs that were already set up to be manufactured before he went home.
Luckily Josh didn’t have to work overtime today, and he excitedly drove home, thinking about how awesome it was gonna be to finally play a new MMO on the AEI headset. He had played tons of both good and bad MMOs growing up and really wanted something to escape into. He really wanted a break from the monotony and Awakened Earth sounded like the perfect outlet with its nationwide popularity.
Awakened Earth, what many people consider to be the Best MMORPG ever made, has made a huge splash all across the world with its stunning graphics and Humanlike NPCs. It’s considered the end all be all of gaming. Live streams and tutorials all across the internet have sparked a massive following, and if not for the insane pricing of the AEI headset, set at 12,000 U.S. dollars, would have been the game that everyone plays. That’s why companies like Vovitech, and even the Titans of the gaming industry, have been trying extremely hard to make cheaper versions of the headset to so far no success.
Those who do play however are the envy of the world and their streams are watched by thousands if not millions.
Last weekend Josh had taken out a large personal loan from his bank to get his hands on one, using the term “investment” over and over again to convince himself to buy it. He figured that he might be able to earn a little bit of cash on the side while he had fun by streaming it. Although it was against his very conservative and close to the chest tendency with money, decided to buy an AEI headset. Tonight would be the very first night he gives the headset a try.
As he got home he walked upstairs to his apartment and unlocked his front door, only to be greeted by the slick silver and gold helmet of the AEI headset seemingly waiting for him to return, standing out amongst his very bland room decor. His apartment was barren, apart from a table and a laptop, along with a couch with a blanket, there was nothing else to note in the room besides it being pretty clean. Josh had only recently moved out of his parents house a few weeks ago after getting into a heated argument with his father and his younger sister about his future, so he didn’t really have much stuff to his name at the current moment.
Josh’s phone buzzed right as he walked into the room. He reached down and pulled it out to see who was calling. His ex-girlfriend Carmen. He pushed the end call button and put his phone on do not disturb.
After making something to eat and changing clothes he went over to his couch, put the helmet on, and laid down excited to start his new adventure. he slowly drifted off as if he was falling asleep only to be met with pure blackness, and a large blue neon pop up menu appear before him
...PLAYER ID CONFIRMED...
...NUTRITION AND BODILY HEALTH APPROVED FOR GAMEPLAY...
...GAME SELECTED ...
...TIME DILATION< APPROVED>...
...CHARACTER CREATION...
-LOADING-
