Prologue:Logging in.

Jiggling the key in the old lock to his apartment door, Nathan could barely contain his excitement as he slipped into his rather drab apartment. He was greeted by the sight of an old used sofa and kitchen table that he had reclaimed from his parent's garage. A mix match of plates, cups, and other odds and ends lay scattered about in piles. It wasn’t much in the way of style but it served his needs; besides the life of tier two IT tech support monkey really couldn’t support much more.

Just thinking about work immediately soured his mood. The day had been an odd mix of boredom and hell. The boredom was due to the IT gods deeming today was the day nothing would go wrong. Which left him in what seemed like perpetual anticipation with nothing but his favorite gaming news websites to keep him entertained. The hellish part was that his boss didn’t quite understand the concept of downtime, and had driven the office crazy by nagging everyone on the floor to keep busy so the metrics looked good. Despite there being very literally nothing to do.

Glancing down at his phone he quickly confirmed the time, 11:30 PM. “Just 30 more minutes!” Nathan said to himself with barely controlled giddiness. He took a long chug of what was left of his triple shot espresso coffee, a small concession in time he had made on his rush back home. It was already pretty late and he figured he needed the caffeine to keep himself up. Tossing the empty cup in the trash he quickly made his final small pit stop to the bathroom to preemptively empty his bladder. If things went smoothly the last thing he needed was having to take a break early to relieve himself. Plus the system wasn’t always great with its selective body function filtering, which he had learned the hard way in one of his longer beta sessions.

“Guess it’s time,” Nathan said with a grin as he pulled on the silver metal band of the rig over his head and slowly relaxed into his bed. A calming wave slowly passed over his body that Nathan likened to almost falling asleep. Almost without warning the world around him slipped away into a stream of colors that then settled into a dull white and and eerie silence.

“ATTENTION: System starting.”

“Preparing to generate personal VR workspace.” intoned the system voice.

Looking over the hovering HUD menu he quickly confirmed the time 11:50 PM. He didn’t have much time. “System, please launch [Unfolding world online].”

Nathan watched as his half-rezzed workspace faded to black while a semi-transparent window of UWO terms of service agreement spawned in front of him.

“I hereby agree on to... Bla blah blah.” Nathan mumbled to himself as he flipped through what looked like 100 pages incomprehensible legal jargon. Why do they bother with this stuff anymore he wondered? Only a lawyer or a law student would have any inclination to even try to read through this. CYA, otherwise known as Cover Your Ass was the likely reason he thought.

UWO wasn’t your typical VRMMORPG. No, it was the first VRMMORPG to be legally allowed to subvert and directly manipulate all the senses. Something that had been technically possible but was held up in health and safety legal limbo for the last few years. So it stood to reason its TOS was longer than some international trade agreements, if only to keep the lawsuits at bay if something did go wrong; when you’re poking around in someone's brain there was a lot of room for things to go wrong.

Finally reaching the end of the document Nathan tapped the agree to check box. His username and password credentials were already filled in, so all he had to do was to tap the hovering [Login] button.

Chapter 1 - A new World

There was a split moment of vertigo and dizziness as the world around him seemed to fall into place. He was standing on a crystal platform floating in an empty void. Standing wasn’t exactly the right word. He was more floating as a disembodied point of consciousness. In truth, it was a bit disconcerting.

“Welcome back to Unfolding Worlds Online, Nathan.” The system voice seemed to echo in his mind.

“Your Beta Character [Col] has been Archived. Do you wish to create a new Avatar?” The voice questioned,

“Yes,” he answered without even a second thought. Within a moment over half a dozen windows popped up in front of him, each showing a small video with a corresponding text description. [Humans], [Elves], [Dwarfs], [Orcs], [Halflings], [Gnomes], and [Centaurs]. He was just about to command the system to create a human male. But a sudden video clip of a female Elven mage caught his attention in one of the floating windows. In the Beta Elves, Orcs and Centaurs had been disabled as unplayable for his testing group. This was just a way to ensure that the beta player population was distributed evenly across all the playable races.

“I wonder what it's like to play as a female elf?” he muttered. It was a whimsical thought really. But it did get his mind rolling now that he thought about it. He hadn’t once in the beta rolled an Alt character and mostly focused on his Human Warrior. Because of that, he was able to focus all his game time leveling and raiding. But with full sensory immersion and time perception acceleration being turned on for retail the idea of rolling a female character seemed appealing even if only for a few minutes.

“What are Elven Racial abilities?” He quickly asked the system out of curiosity.

“High Elf Racial Skill [Mana Control], a 10% increase in [Spirit] and [Intelligence] experience.”

“Forest Elf Racial Skill [The Four Winds], a 20% increase in [Dex] experience”

“So a Mage or Ranger, huh? Maybe Assassin but you would have to work hard to level strength to make it viable. Which means rolling a Warrior as an Elf would be painful” He thought to himself. But yet the video clip of the Elven princess running around shooting fireballs everywhere seemed incredibly badass with a side of cuteness. “Nothing wrong with going DPS, besides she will just be an alt. And I can roll my tank in a half an hour.”

Nathan giddily shouted, “Female high elf!”

The world burst into shades of green, blue, and brown. Snapping into focus around him, he witnessed a surreal vista. Trees as wide as his outstretched arms and taller than some apartment buildings in his hometown dotted the edge of a small clearing with a crystal clear blue pond as its focus juxtaposed to the brown and green undergrowth surrounding it.

Nathan hunched his shoulders involuntary as a cool, mist laden breeze flowed across his exposed skin. “I’m shivering!” he uttered in amazement. “My voice,” he whispered a half a heartbeat later in slight shock.

Nathan looked down at his pale slim arms that he had subconsciously crossed under his breasts to conserve heat. Stretching out his left arm completely he slowly took stock of his slim delicate fingers as he rolled and wiggled his hand in amazement. He seemed to be wearing nothing but a pearl white bra-like top and matching panties.

A light chime rang through the air as the crystal blue pond briefly glowed radiantly. Brushing a strand of blond hair from his face over the right ear. “Guess I'm supposed to go over there...”

Walking toward the pond he was again amazed by the system’s sensory input. He could feel everything, from the sway of his long locks of hair brushing against his back to the slight jiggle of his modest breasts. He could even feel the cool texture and dampness of his toes curling to into the green mossy underbrush. As he approached the pond a gush of water sprouted up from the surface to form a crystal clear reflective mirror.

Mesmerized Nathan approached the water mirror. Seemingly entrapped beyond the surface of the rippling water was the cutest blond elf girl he had ever laid eyes upon. She was clothed only in a pair of panties and a white bra that seemed to enhance her modest assets.

Intellectually he knew he was looking at a reflection of the default preset for the character creation system. But still, he couldn’t help reaching out to touch the smiling girl’s mirrored hand beyond the water's surface.

His fingers met a soft resistance as they brushed against the reflection. It felt similar to a pinpoint jet of water that pushed back with just enough force to keep his fingers from completely crossing through. Disappointed he took a step back, the spell broken for the moment.

Looking down at his new body he let his mind simply take in all the sensory input. The first thing that jumped to the forefront of his mind was how smooth everything felt. In the real world, he wasn’t by any means old or anything. He was a relatively healthy-ish 29-year-old male with a stellar career as a tech support drone.

But by that same token, he wasn’t exactly active and had a bummed knee to boot. A partially torn ACL from a fun date he had a couple years ago with some ice and the ground. Nothing life altering but now that he was logged in all the small little aches and pains that existed at the periphery of consciousness had vanished.

“It’s just the default character but damn it feels nice!”

On an impulse, he decided to give his body a little workout. Stretching out his arms behind his back, he pushed until he could feel his shoulder blades and all his back muscles burn with the slight edge of pain. He slowly released the built up tension with a sigh of delight.

Rolling his shoulder to loosen up his muscles, a small corner of his mind argued that a virtual avatar didn’t need to loosen or stretch anything, but habit was a habit. Slowly he bent his back into a full arch. With a slight kick off the ground, he completed a skillfully controlled back walkover, a remnant move of some half-forgotten gymnastics of his youth. With a slight smirk, he brought his leg down completing a perfect side splits. That was something he could never have accomplished as a child!

“So limber!” he remarked as he pulled himself off the mossy ground. “But I guess I better stop playing around,” he thought.

The floating mirror was the in-game interface for the character customization system. Each race had their own little bit of fluff mechanics to present the same user interface. For elves, it was a mystical lake mirror in the grove of creation. A personal VR instance of UWO cut off from the rest of the game until the creation process was completed.

Without further ado, he began to tap the water mirror over parts of his reflection. Each tap would bring up a dialog box allowing him to manipulate the body part in question. If he was being honest UWO went a tad bit overboard on the customization functions. For the most part, he stuck with the simplified menu and made liberal use of the randomize function to get close to what he wanted. And only then did he dive into the advanced functions to tweak his avatar.

He settled on aqua hair just past his shoulders, a petite slender build with moderate breast, pale skin and wide eyes, topped with a pair of perky long ears that jetted through her hair. She had the perfect mix of cute and mischief.

Even with his rather happy-go-lucky method of avatar creation he had spent more than a couple hours of tweaking his avatar to get it just right. With a tap on the mirror interface, he penned her avatar name “Alvia” with his finger.

The lake mirror imploded onto her with a splash then the world snapped out of focus for a blink of an eye, giving Nathan a sense of falling through the world. Then it just snapped back into place.

The clamor of noise assaulted his ears; shouts, yells, and whispers abounded. Looking around he took stock of the situation. There were hundreds... maybe even thousands of people buzzing about within the white marbled courtyard centered around a large fountain with a statue of an Elf wearing a long robe, a Dwarf holding a large pick and Human wearing full plated armor.

Most of the people in the yard seemed to be dressed in old rags or patched together leather garments. Although he himself seemed to be wearing a fine silk purple mini dress with leather that laced and stitched with complex patterns of stars and moons. And now that he was paying attention a bit more he noticed a few other individuals wearing silk dresses or robes, all of whom seemed to be elves.

“That makes sense.” he thought to himself. “Elves are supposed to be the highly civilized sort, can’t have us dressed like the common folk.”

Peering through the slowly dispersing crowd of players he took stock of the outline of the city around him.

He never really did hang out in Threefold when he was playing in beta. He simply went from one raid to the next. With the scale of the world and the lack of cheap quick travel, it could take half a day by horseback to make it back to Threefold even from nearby raids. So he and most of the guild just kept on the move. The merchant and trading guilds latched onto his little group along with a few of the other leading raiding guilds creating a sort of tent city that moved to each new raid zone.

It was fun as hell. But he also missed out on a lot, like really exploring and taking in the sites. And Threefold was a sight to behold. The Colosseum was a full-scale replica of the Roman Amphitheatrum Flavium. The fighter grounds outlined the Colosseum, by his recollection. And both the Explorer Tower and its much larger brother the Arcane Halls could be seen reaching into the city skyline in the north and south respectively.

A sudden cease of the background din pulled Nathan out of his revery. Confused he looked around; as he watched the other player were locking eyes on something up ahead. The sound of clopping hoofs and the occasional grunt of a work horse pointed out the general direction of the disturbance.

“Move aside citizens. The Herald of the High King approaches.“

Two great warhorses adorned in gleaming gold split the crowd of players like a river as they approached. Mounted atop each horse rode two fully decked out Paladins. Their armor was a mix of gold, silver, and crystal. Imprinted across each Paladin breastplate was a symbol of a golden war hammer. Holy light flickered and leaked from the flowing heavy capes of each Paladin like angelic wings.

Nathan gulped slowly and was slightly startled by the light yelp of surprise that came from his own mouth. He knew these knights. Well, not personally but he had seen them in action back in Beta.

They were Lore NPC’s, Paladins of the Golden Hammer, under the personal direction of the current High King and High Priest. Their order only acted in the world for specific lore events, like the opening of a raid against demonic forces, or when a guild attempted to raid Threefold itself. In which case the Paladins would mercilessly restore order to the city.

Really they weren’t so much NPC’s but more tools of last resort by the system to keep order.

And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure why these two towering giants had stopped in front of him. He wasn’t the only one confused, a large gathering of player had taken notice as well. He could hear unintelligible whispering that seemed vaguely direct at him.

Each knight split around him, carving a large swath of empty space before lining up behind him. Then a lavish carriage pulled by two more sane-sized workhorses came to a stop in the path cleared by the Paladins.

Nathan was too stunned to even move, all around him he could feel hundreds or maybe thousand of eyes staring at him. Just as the impulse to turn and run started to kick in, an elderly man in silver and white robes stepped out of the carriage.

“By order of the High King, I his humbler servant welcome your joyous return Lady Alvia. While you have returned to us in a different form your great deeds and accomplishments cannot simply be ignored.” he said with a bow.

With a small glance, the man gestured toward a retainer that had followed him out of the carriage. The younger man carrier with him a small chest which he placed in front of the still speechless Nathan.

It was only a mix of emotional numbness and just a dash of curiosity that kept him from turning and running to hide in the deepest hole he could find. Oddly enough a few places came to mind like the sewer entrance that he was pretty sure was only a couple of minutes away from the courtyard. But before he could take any action to run for it, The man flipped open the chest in front of him.

Resting in the velvet lined case were 12 golden memory crystals. Memory crystal was just as the name implied, crystals that held memories. This was the game mechanic used to teach skills and magic to players. Each use of a crystal would imprint a basic pattern of knowledge into the person's mind. It wasn’t perfect, more of a general understanding of the ability. For example, a crystal containing staff arts would allow a person to swing and move a staff at amateur proficiency. But that person would still need to practice to really learn the skill.

But Nathan had never seen golden crystals before, and if the din of the players whispering around him said anything, neither had they.

Tentatively picking up the first crystal in the set he eyed it in confusion. A recurring bit of conservation by the crowd snapped itself to his attention. “Beta reward”. His mind reeled at the implication; now that he was in the mix of things his mind dimly recalled something about Beta rewards. But he had been in something of an information overload when it came to UWO.

Taking a breath he forced himself to stand and look way up trying to make level eye contact with the King's Herald, silently chastising himself for making his alt so tiny. With as clear and calm a voice he could muster he asked, “Dear Sir, may another collect this reward for me?”

Before the Herald could say anything he heard some loud chuckles from the crowd, while a few outright laughed. “Idiot, they’re bound to character!” someone else shouted with a snort of derision.

“My lady no, only your soul may take these fragments of memory...” The Herald announced with a look of confusion, as if this event wasn’t moving according to his carefully choreographed plans.

“You gotta be kidding me, she rolled an alt first?!” someone else whispered from behind. The crowd was catching on quickly and seemed to have a better grasp of the situation than Nathan’s own mind. Looking around he saw a mix of faces; some seemed out right scornful as if saying ‘how could you screw up so badly not even 20 minutes into the game?’ Others were just amused and laughing. But quite a few seemed legitimately sympathetic to Nathan’s situation.

Grinding his teeth Nathan placed the first crystal up to his head. A voice rang out in his mind.

You have been granted the Achievement of Conqueror of the Severed Plain for clearing 10 man Mythic raid 'The Severed Plain’

You have been granted the Achievement Conqueror of The Burning Tower for clearing the 15 man Mythic raid ‘The Burning Tower’

You have been granted the Achievement Conqueror of The Vault of the Rejected Queen for clearing the 25 man mythic raid ‘Vault of the Rejected Queen’

The Herald echoed the announcements for the crowd around him. “For this Achievement,” the Herald continued with a smile of content as if his pre-planned script was now back on course. “You have been granted the Title of ‘Queen Slayer’ for killing the Demon Queen Quintessa, and granted the boon of Regicide.

Nathan watched as many in the crowd looked at their interface bracers. Likely he guessed searching for the skill. Regicide granted a 10% damage increase to Noble and Royal titles. “You’ve got to be joking...” he mumbled. This was far worse than he thought. Considering how many players picked up such titles by chance through questing in the beta, even a limited bonus against Noble and Royalty would be devastating in PVP.

Selecting the next crystal, he mentally braced himself.

The system voice registered in his mind, “You have been granted the Epic Feat ‘Pioneer of The Crescent Moon Labyrinth’ as the first to conquer and clear 10 man mythic raid ‘Crescent Moon Labyrinth’. For this you have been granted the unique boon of [+10 Intellect +10 Spirit].” Again the Herald repeated the system voice for the other players and a glowing golden particle effect pulsed around his body as the stats boost was granted.

The crowd had become utterly silent. Yet in seeming contradiction the size of the onlooking crowd had grown. Continuing on, Nathan pulled the next crystal.

“You have been granted the Epic Feat ‘Pioneer of The Demonic Catacombs’ as the first to clear 25 man Mythic raid ‘The Demonic Catacombs’. For this you have been granted the boon of [+10 Intellect +10 Spirit].”

”You have been granted the Epic Feat ‘Arch Demon Slayer’ for delivering the killing blow to the Arch Demon Vosdar. For this you have been granted the boon of [10% damage increase to Demons]. You have also been granted the Achievement of Demon Hunter.”

Two more crystals to go. He thought his emotions had settled into a numb sort of acceptance. Everyone else watching had shifted into a mix of excitement, awe, and questions. He could hear whispers of people openly wondering who this High Elf girl really was. A few individuals that had been following the end game raiding in the beta had correctly guessed it had to be someone from the guild “Destiny Unfolding”.

The next crystal rang through his head. “You have been granted the Epic Feat ‘Commander of the Legion’ for successfully commanding a full Legion raid (+100 players) against a Mythic Boss. You have also been granted the boon of [Legionary] All players in the party gain the passive buff Legionary (2% bonus to all stats).”

“For clearing all Ancient Mythic raids at a 100% completeness you have been granted the Title ‘Legendary Hero’ with the boon [Legendary Hero] (5% bonus increase to the highest current stat). Note: if multiple stats are tied for the highest the priority of the stat which favors the current class will be selected.

Trembling, Nathan grabbed the final crystal. It couldn’t get any worse. As it stood he was stuck as Alvia. There was no way he could justify throwing away almost cheat-like bonuses. That flat percentage bonus boon was absurd. The stat boosts of [+20 Intellect +20 Spirit] were steering him into a magic class of some sort. But he figured that he could still get away with playing as a Paladin if he really worked at grinding his Strength stat somehow. It would make for a really awkward tank at first, but it might be doable.

With a renewed sense of determination, Nathan grabbed the last crystal. He dimly heard someone calling, “That’s Col?! Holy… Umm, by the Three!” Col was his beta character name. But in the mix of emotion and confusion, it didn’t really register that should be odd given the situation.

You have been granted the Epic Feat ‘Benevolent Healer’ for bandaging and taking care of 500 fallen warriors in a great battle. You have also been granted the boon of [Benevolent Healer] (20% increase to all Healing done to others) and [+5 Intellect].

“Fuck me!” he shouted in utter rage. How the hell was a stupid god damn bet worth an Epic Feat with such a ridiculous reward? He still remembered it, it was one of the last raids he completed: Conquering the Dark Army. It was an open event raid, everyone could join. Likely the same raid that granted him the [Legionary] achievement.

Tala Destiny the Restoration Druid bet him he couldn’t bandage and heal everyone in the raid. Betting on stupid dares was a sort of little mini game they both liked to play.

Being cocky and high on success we went and did it. It wasn’t hard really, just running through the ranks and applying the bandage skill on cooldown, coupling it with an AOE healing spell he had on a trinket. It was mostly worthless in a raid environment, but outside of combat the spell worked great.

It was long, stupid and utterly pointless according to Tala who found it more amusing that he wasted his time and willingly passed over a few thousand gold, though she reminded him with a laugh at the end gold was now worthless since the beta would be ending. He just shrugged and laughed.

“Well Tala, if you're watching this I'm betting you’re laughing your ass off right now... that or green with envy!” That thought made him smile slightly.

His focus snapped back to the present when an Amazon of a girl burst through the crowd, elbowing one poor bastard in the face. She held her sword in her right hand and shield in her left ready to seriously fight! She positioned herself in front of me, blocking the Golden Hammer Paladins then faced the crowd.

“I will beat bloody each and every person that offers to take her up on this. I swear it by the three virtues to which I gave my oaths!”

Some of the crowd seemed to be legitimately willing to accept the offer, which confused the hell out of Nathan. That was until he replayed the last few minutes in his mind and remembered the very important fact his avatar was very female. A quick glance over the crowd had more than a couple giving him some very strange looks, stares that felt very creepy or utterly vulgar.

It was then he heard one of the Paladins speak. Which anyone who had interacted with the order in the Beta knew just didn’t happen. Calling a Golden Hammer Paladin laconic would be a grave understatement. Nathan couldn’t recall more than a handful of time he had heard a full sentence from one of the Order. And when he had he was 99% sure it was a scripted event. “You would do well not to challenge Wilhelmina on this. You can not win.” Then the damn Paladin then gave her a wink. Nathan had to double take.

“So this is the twilight zone, right?” he muttered half hoping and dreading for Rod Serling iconic voice to start describing how screwed he was. ‘Here waits a 29-year-old man cross playing as a 16-year-old High Elf. Due to hubris and skipping the TOS, he has found himself in... the Twilight Zone.’ Cue spooky music.

“Yeah, that was really weird… I bet it’s because of my Beta bonus. NPCs like me. Still, wow. Umm, anyway, I don’t want to get in the way of the rest of the event, but would you be willing to talk a bit after? I’m Wilhelmina, like he said.”

“Ah, sure.” Nathan managed to say while still peering into the crowd. He honestly felt like a lamb in front of wolves. Tapping his bracelet he pulled up the friend list and sent a quick friend request.

With a cough of embarrassment the Herald waved the Paladins to move aside. “Lady Alvia when you become a little stronger please visit the High King, there are matters of great importance that the King wishes your assistance with.” The Herald said with a bow as he boarded his carriage. A light chime from Nathan’s wrist band indicated a quest had been registered.

As the Paladins and Herald left he found himself quickly becoming more suffocated by the enclosing crowd. Some were trying to grab his attention with waves and shouts. A creepy looking tall man dressed in black leather gave him a tip of his hat and a wink that made his spine shiver. Turning towards Wilhelmina “Send me a whisper later. I got to take care of some things.”

With a quick tabbing through his bracelet interface he pulled up his macro list and found what he was hoping to find. While his old character was archived out and the world reset, most of his UI preferences had stuck around including some of his custom macro’s

He clicked and activated the escape macro. It wasn’t really an in-game function but rather a debugging feature for a bug situation, like if your avatar clipped through a wall and became stuck in an impossible to escape location. Glitches abounded in the early Beta, so a function that would teleport you to the closest church or shrine was a necessity. By the end of the beta, all the clipping edge trap situations had been ironed out by the AI. But the escape function was still left intact, he guessed it was an act of prudence.

The downside to activating the skill was a 60-minute global cooldown on all player skills as a pseudo penalty. But in this case the price was worth it, besides he had no skills yet to be put on cooldown.

To be continued