Aevum - A VRMMO LitRPG Story Chapter 1: Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 It was a relatively normal fall morning. The sky was overcast, a remnant of the light thunderstorms that had been a constant feature for the past week or so. As my alarm I had set on my phone sounded, I groggily reached over and picked it up, getting partially blinded since I forgot to turn the brightness down before I went to bed. The screen reads: 8:15am, Tuesday, October 5th, 2026. It was a bit unusual for me at the time to be waking up so late into the morning. Most of the time I had to be up before 6am to prepare for my remote job, just a simple data entry job to pay the bills while I looked for better employment. But today was unlike most days, as it was a day I had eagerly been anticipating for years. I even took the whole week off from work. I still remember it so clearly, I suppose I would have to in order to be writing this book, but still. It was the day the first true full immersion VRMMORPG was released. Was it really true? I had followed the bits of news so closely, but the developers of this technology didn’t have any public betas or tests, and I couldn’t find any private ones that I could sign up for. One would have to assume that this kind of tech would need to be severely tested to ensure the users were safe, but there was no outward evidence that anything like that ever took place. Either way, myself and fifty thousand other individuals were willing to trust in the company and ideally be a part of history. This kind of advancement would not only change the gaming industry forever, but potentially the world, as it could have plenty of uses outside of entertainment. They also stated that there would be no more players allowed into the game for at least a month after release, so I wanted to get in as early as possible. Before I get ahead of myself, who am I? My name is Arthur Ward. The reason I’m writing this is to hopefully shed some light on what happened from the perspective of someone who actually played a part, but that’ll come later. I’ll generally be writing in the first person, but occasionally I’ll add some context from the current me that the old me wouldn’t have known. At the time this book takes place, I think I’d say I’m fairly average in most aspects. I stand about 5’8, with short dark brown hair and brown eyes. I try to work out sometimes, but probably not enough. I live in a small studio apartment that I keep pretty clean, if only for the fact that I have a lot of free time. I’m also 21 years old. — — — — Back to the day itself. After getting out of bed, while the excitement was starting to build, I knew it would be for the best to do my normal routine. After all, the game doesn’t technically release till 9am. Even though the equipment to run it arrived about a week ago, the stuff wouldn’t even turn on. Seems like they really didn’t want anyone messing with it till the game officially came out. After eating some breakfast and taking a shower, it was getting pretty close to release time, so I started preparing the equipment. I must have read the instruction manual at least three or four times by this point, so I knew how to set everything up. After plugging everything in and attaching what was needed, I put on the headset and laid down on the bed. I’m not going to pretend like I’m an expert on how this worked, I just know the result was it was a full immersion experience where after putting on the headset and entering the game, you were essentially inside the game. Your physical body remained in the real world of course, but it was like you were in an induced unconsciousness. You could use all your senses in the game just as you would in real life, they could even be better in the game than real life as well. Of course, that included pain. While there were some restrictions on how much pain you could actually feel, it still did exist and I can imagine dying in the game, while not life threatening, would still feel pretty unpleasant. After putting the headset on I just laid there, stari