Novel CAPS: Resurrection of the Greatest Guild (Revenge, Scifi, Fantasy)

Short Sypnosis: Chryses is the guildmaster of Capricorn, hailed by Constellation’s players as the greatest guild in the game. But when the game’s corporate overlords shut down the 10-year-old DR-MMORPG’s servers, Chryses loses everything. Even his guild and his friends.

Without his guild and the game, Chryses is nothing but another unemployed shut-in gamer. But then a fatal accident causes him to be mysteriously resurrected. In his second chance at life, can he find the will to restore his guild to its former glory and bring down the evil company that took everything from him?

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Genres: Action & Adventure, Revenge, Science Fiction, LitRPG

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Table of Contents
Prologue: The Capricorns
Chapter 1: Rageless
Chapter 2: Wiped Clean
Chapter 3: Barney's Net Cafe
Chapter 4: Shame
Chapter 5: Final Moment
Chapter 6: Level 1
Chapter 7: Attributes and Skills
Chapter 8: The Chief Strategist
Chapter 9: Potential
Chapter 10: An Awkward Young Man

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Prologue: The Capricorns

Fester’s party had fallen trying to protect him. In total, two hundred had come to this dungeon. Half were killed, and those still alive were on their arms and knees, minutes, if not seconds, from joining their friends.

Without a miracle, this would be the end of the guild.

Fester ran his eyes across the surrounding dark crevices that hid the monsters. At any moment they would attack again with long lanky limbs and sharp yellow claws. They were Shadow Imps, known for taking their time to torment their prey before the kill. Under different circumstances, the monsters’ delay tactic could be used to Fester’s advantage. As a cleric, he’d have more time to heal his friends before killing blows were dealt. But the Shadow Imps were too strong and too many. Fester had come unprepared. They all had. The Red Phoenix Guild underestimated the creatures, and now they were ruined.

Something dark darted at Fester in the corner of his eye. He saw the claw coming down hard and fast as he turned. He raised his staff to block the attack. He was a healer and had little defensive power. Therefore it was more an instinctive move than anything else. The staff was cleaved in half, but it took the brunt of the blow, doing only partial damage to Fester’s torso and arms.

He dropped to a knee, his body feeling heavy with the damage. He looked dumbly at his broken staff. The milky orb was cracked. He’d spent hours upon hours grinding for one with decent clarity in the Great Grasslands until it had dropped. Now it was no more. Completely useless.

There was more movement in the shadows. He tried to think of a plan. He couldn’t just give up now. He had enough mana to heal himself again, but without any protection, he’d die in a single hit. He thout about reviving one of his party members, but the incantation would take half a minute and he’d be lucky to have ten seconds before the next attack.

What else could he do?

He heard their footsteps before he saw them. Three imps this time. Sweeping toward him across the dungeon floor. Claws raised like gleaming scythes. The breath caught in his throat. A second—that’s all the time he had to think. To make a decision. And it was already gone. He raised his arms, turning his head, his eyes closing reflexively.

The blows never came.

A moment passed. Then another. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a tall, dark figure in heavy obsidian armor standing before him. Drawn in the brute’s hand was an impressive broadsword, the color of pitch blackness and nothing else, not even light’s reflection.

Fester searched for the imps that had been there moments earlier, but there were none. Instead, lying in front of the man, were six lumps, dyeing the floor with purple blood.

Even as unbelievable as the sight was, it was apparent to Fester what had happened. The swordsman—no,the berserkerhad cleaved the imps in two with a single wing.

The berserker turned to look at him with a simple, friendly smile on his lips.

“Y-you,” Fester said, wobbling to his feet. “I know you! You’re Chry-“

“Light of Athena!” called a voice from behind, and suddenly every avatar in the vicinity glowed with dazzling blue light. Fester felt himself growing lighter, his health and mana filling up, and slowly the fallen bodies of his guild began to stand, looking around, dazed and confused, making cries of surprise and relief.

Fester turned to see who could call down a god-level spell and was wide-eyed to find a fellow cleric. She was dressed in finely-laced robes. Her staff, a stark contrast to his, was made of polished sacred oak with an orb as clear as spring water. It was another avatar he recognized only by reputation.

“Don’t worry,” the berserker said, smiling his friendly smile and clasping a dumbfounded Fester on the shoulder. “Capricorn is here.”

Then the berserker turned away and marched toward the depths of the dungeon. The cleric followed after him, and so did four more figures. Fester watched the newly arrived avatars with his mouth hung open as they stepped past him. Each radiated enormous power in their own right. Each was as legendary as the next.

Ten minutes later, the dungeon was cleared.

 

Chapter 1: Rageless

The coliseum marble was hard against his face. He tasted dirt and grit in his mouth. He told his body to stand, but it would not obey. All he could feel was the pain, like hot lashes across his limbs and chest where he had been cut.

Never had this world felt more real.

The monstrous golden paladin wielding two shining swords pushed back the faceplate of its helmet, revealing the perfectly replicated face of Maxen Mellinfous, President of Colossus Industries, son to the CEO, and sole heir of the Mellinfous family.

“This is your last chance to get angry for me,” Maxen said to the fallen berserker.

Still he could not stand. With a short gesture of his fingers, he opened his inventory screen, producing a small white feather. All of his allotted potions had already been used and there was little left he could do.

Maxen raised both gleaming blades over his head and yanked downward, splitting the marble floor where the berserker had been a half moment earlier.

Maxen looked up and found the berserker thirty meters away. “Feather of Hermes,” Maxen said. “A waste of an item and my time.” He pulled his swords from the ground and made his way toward the berserker who was now struggling to his feet.

In the distance, there was a growing murmur among the colosseum’s audience. Tens of thousands had gathered to see him fight. He was their final hope, their last chance at saving this world.

Their voices began slowly and softly, then grew until the entire coliseum was chanting his name.

Maxen glanced around, a vicious smile on his face. “Listen, they are calling to you. They think you are their savior…”

It felt so real. The berserker’s body was sore and aching and weak. But he wouldn’t accept defeat. Not before and not now.

“But soon they will see that they were wrong to put their trust in you,” Maxen continued. “You are dirt under my feet. A tick to be squashed. You are nothing.”

“No… you are wrong… I am not nothing…” the berserker said, standing now. Tears began to flow freely from his eyes—from the pain or from a final muster of strength, or perhaps because it was what happened when he felt strong emotion. Slowly, painfully, he raised his left fist high into the air. “I am Silverfeet, The Black Sword, Rageless, Second of the Seven, Leader of the Northern Alliance,” the berserker said, straightening his arm, a devilish grin breaking past the tears. “But most of all, I am Chryses, Guildmaster of the Greatest Guild!”

The coliseum erupted. People leapt up from their seats, cheering, shouting, waving their fists in the air.

Maxen howled with laughter. “What a joke!” He readied his swords into a fighting stance and said, “Then I am the one who will end you.”

Chryses lowered his hand and raised his sword, taking his own stance, wincing as he pointed his broadsword at the paladin.

“Come now,” Maxen said. “Use the Rage Mode. Do it for me.”

Chryses had never used the Heart Mode, which allowed the user a short sprint of extreme power. For the berserker class, it was triggered by the real emotion of anger. He enjoyed the berserker class, but he disliked what anger could do to a person, so he vowed to never enter into Rage Mode. It was a source of pride that he never did, and it had earned him the moniker ‘Rageless’.

“Even if you destroy this world,” he said to Maxen. “We will come together again. We will start over in one that isn’t yours.”

“Oh, you poor little fool,” Maxen said. He waved his hand, opening his virtual console and entered a command. A secure voice box popped up beside Chryses that only he could hear.

“I’m not just going to shut down Constellation’s servers,” Maxen said to Chryses. “I’m going to wipe your accounts clean.”

Chryses froze, immediately grasping the meaning of Maxen’s threat. “Y-you can’t do that-“

“Of course I can. That was the agreement. You and your guild gathered all those signatures for this fight, you know the terms. If you win, Constellation will be extended for two more years. But if you lose…” Maxen said, his smile curving. “Colossus is free to do as it pleases. And let me tell you, my pleasure is to delete your guild, your avatar data, your contacts list, and all you’re little virtual friendships. I hope you know how to find each other offline, but I’m guessing immersive players like you don’t even know each other’s real names.”

“No!” Chryses screamed, charging at the paladin. He felt the heat rising in his body, fury flaring. Then it happened. Black flames blazed around him, his armor turned into a crimson red, and he did what he had never done in the dozen years since he entered this world.

He broke his vow.

Maxen broke into raucous laughter at the sight. “Yes! I have enraged the Rageless! And now I will kill the Guildmaster of Capricorn in front of his people!”

Chryses could not control himself. He forgot about the pain and his mission and he charged at the paladin, slashing with his broadsword.

Maxen took the blow for he could not dodge it, dropping his health an entire third, but as he passed the berserker, he stuck a sword into Chryses’s back.

He felt a shooting pain and fell to the hard marble floor. In an instant the rage was gone. The pain was unbearable now. He’d felt nothing like it, not even in the real world. It was as if the game’s pain limiter had been broken.

His heath bar was blinking. He had to warn everyone. They didn’t know what was about to happen. They didn’t know they’d soon lose each other. He could see them in the stands, angry, worried, terrified. He had to warn them. He crawled towards them, extending his hand.

Crim, Enn, Hasdee, Armont, Dax Sono, Scale… my guildmates, my friends!

He felt the final blow in the back of his neck. And all went to black.

* * *

Shen opened his eyes and found them damp, starting up at the low grey ceiling of his room. He sat up and pulled off the SenseDrive strip from the back of his neck and rubbed it as if the wound had been real. He checked the SenseDrive’s console screen beside his bed and saw that he had been logged out of his DreamPlay account. He reloaded Colossus’s DreamPlay portal, entering in his ColoID and password. Where his Constellation game data should have been, a little heading read “no data”. He opened his contacts list that was tied to the Constellation account. It was entirely empty.

There was a loud knock at the door. After a moment, the knock came again. Louder this time. Shen got off his bed, his body moving automatically, and opened it. It was his landlord who lived upstairs standing in front of him. She was a large, overweight woman who wore a perpetual scowl on her face.

“The internet is lagging again! I can’t run Royal Casino. How many times do I have to tell you not to play your stupid fantasy game during the day?”

“Sorry,” Shen said quietly. He wanted to tell her it was a one-time thing for something important, but it all seemed meaningless now.

She peered at him. “Oh great, are you crying?”

Shen blinked. “N-no.”

“Whatever,” the woman said. “Do it again and I’ll kick you out. Good luck finding a private room for 500 credits a month in this city.” She turned and stomped away without another word.

Shen closed the door and sat back on his bed. He was 22 years old and five minutes ago, he had lost everything dear to him in the world. He thought about Maxen Mellinfous and Colossus Industries. He thought about the thousands of his fellow players who had depended on him. He thought about his friends and his guildmates.

For the first time since his parents died, Shen felt a deep piercing pain in the core of his heart. But, as it had been in the physical world for the past several years, the tears would not come.

 

Chapter 2: Wiped Clean

An Update on Constellation

Thank you to everyone in our community for being the passionate fans that you are. It has been brought to our attention that many Constellation players have lost their in-game account data after the server shutdown. Below is a final update on this issue.

Our diagnostics team has been hard at work since receiving user reports of the data loss last Monday. The data loss was caused by a feral bug that inadvertently targeted and deleted player data from Constellation’s social servers. Our team has determined that the cause of the bug was due to multiple compounding factors.

Under normal procedures, server shutdowns are planned months in advance and go through a secure procedure under the supervision of our most advanced AI cores to ensure player data is safely and securely maintained on the user’s ColoID accounts. Months earlier, Colossus came to the decision to shutdown Constellation’s servers because its user base had dwindled to less than 0.2% of its peak of 30 million active players over six years ago. However, due to the petition signed by Constellation players, the scheduled shutdown was, at the very last moment, put on hold for several weeks.

After listening and speaking with the players, Colossus and Constellation’s community came to an amicable agreement to determine Constellation’s future. Following the gamer community’s traditional dispute resolution method, Colossus and Constellation’s players agreed to a friendly in-game duel.

Under the terms of the agreement, if the player representative won the duel, Constellation’s servers would be extended for two more years. However, if Colossus’s representative were the winner, the shutdown would be effective immediately, as the game had already been extended far past its original end date.

Unfortunately, when Colossus’s representative won the duel, normal shutdown procedures could not be adhered to. Because of the impromptu player-petitioned duel, Colossus’s AI cores were already scheduled for maintenance on other Colossus games on that date. It would not have been fair to the players to shift our AI cores away from our other titles just for Constellation, which, at the time of its shut down, served less than 37,000 daily players. If Constellation had been shut down as originally scheduled, it is highly unlikely the player data loss would have occurred.

Our diagnostics team will continue to try and find a way to recover the lost data and monitor the situation. In the meantime, we encourage Constellation players to join our newest DRMMO title, Edenfel, which is the most played DRMMO in the world with an active player base of over 100 million players. Edenfel utilizes the latest DR drive advancements to feature a deeply immersive experience, including taste, smell, weight, and the latest in RealVision technology. We are certain Constellation players will love our new game.

– Colossus Admin

– comments for this post have been locked –

 

Chapter 3: Barney’s Net Cafe

Shen stopped by a convenience store on his way to Barney’s Net Cafe. He picked up a discount six-pack of Juicybeer and paid the autoclerk with his phone’s eWallet. He opened a can and drank from it as he crossed the bridge that arched over the West Canal, which ran through the southern side of the city.

At Barney’s, Shen found an empty computer station and swiped his membership card that contained a few remaining credits. The net cafe was mostly full. It housed old computers and consoles and catered primarily to an older customer base who still preferred monitor graphics over VR and DR tech.

Shen was one of the younger regulars here. He had been coming to the net cafe every night for two months since his ColoID had been deleted. During this time, he had not entered a DR world once.

Shen decided he’d start the night with a first-person shooter. He loaded up the game and joined an ongoing match between players on the net cafe’s network. It was nothing like a dream reality game, where a SenseDrive neurostrip would have full access to his brain circuitry. This game was simple. There was a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. Point and shoot. His fingers and hands did all the work. The graphics were rough-edged and unrealistic. When he died, he’d just have to wait until the next round. When nature inevitably called due to a bladder full of Juicybeer, he could just stand and walk to the restroom. It was simple and easy and it helped him forget.

A week after his loss, Colossus issued an official statement asserting that during the shutdown an unknown bug had caused all game data, including player data, to be deleted. This was, of course, an outright lie. Shen knew the truth because Maxen Mellinfous, who was the President of Colossus Industries, had told him the truth in the final moments of their duel. Colossus had viciously deleted Constellation’s player data as a punishment to the community for standing up to them.

Shen knew the moment he read the statement that Colossus would never retrieve the lost data because they didn’t have to. The terms they agreed to allowed Colossus to do whatever they wanted with Constellation if Chryses lost the match. Several weeks had passed since Colossus’s statement was released and there had been no new updates since. It began to sink in that the game data wouldn’t return. Shen read rants by former Constellationplayers about Colossus on blogs and message boards, but it didn’t matter. Those who had lost their data were just the players of a small community in a dead game. What strength could they muster against a multitrillion credit corporation like Colossus?

Shen shot the last opponent in the free-for-all on the computer monitor and downed his second beer. He tossed the can in the waste bin in the gaming cubicle and immediately opened another one. He was starting to feel a buzz, but it didn’t do much to hamper his play. He easily won the next match as well, and the one after that. He was never much of an FPS player, but he had been a gamer his entire life. Precision and reaction times were his strengths, and he was quickly able to reach the top of the scoreboard on the net cafe’s most popular first-person shooter game, Zero Count.

He would have spent more time playing other types of games on the computers, but the net cafe had its own system of allowing players to collect points through select games, like Zero Count. These points could be redeemed for additional time on the net cafe’s membership card. This meant that players could theoretically play games in the cafe for free. Of course, only the top players of the games would get this benefit, while the remaining players spent their money on additional computer time, competing to get a better score. It worked out for Shen though, as he routinely topped the charts.

Once he had filled his membership card with enough points, he’d play decade-old single-player role-playing games. The graphics weren’t comparable to modern titles, but the stories were generally engaging. Best of all, these games had save points. When you died, you didn’t lose everything. You’d get another chance by loading from an earlier save. In Constellation, you’d die and be resurrected, losing some stats and money, but since it was a living world, the game would move on without you. Or if you were Chryses, battling against Maxen Mellinfous, losing meant the end of your world.

Each night, he’d buy a six-pack of Juicybeer and come to Barney’s, spending hours playing the old games. He did not speak to anyone. Every now and then, when a fellow cafe-goer greeted him or offered congratulations when they saw he had topped the charts, Shen would respond with a silent nod, and return to his game without a word.

He was there to forget the costs of friendship, not to form new bonds.

 

Chapter 4: Shame

Shen took large swigs of his Juicybeer as he played the antiquated sword and sorcery RPG. He kept his focus on the game and when thoughts of his friends would inevitably enter his mind, he did his best to push them away. But they never remained gone for long.

It was not that there was no way to find his friends again. He had seen posts on the popular gaming message boards, where former Constellation players made posts, searching for the contacts they lost. But he had not seen any from Capricorn. Shen knew why. They were waiting for their guildmaster to call on them. They were waiting for him. But he could not bring himself to do it.

He was ashamed.

Ashamed to have lost. Ashamed to have broken their trust. Ashamed to have cost them their world.

In the first week or two, the posts by Constellation players searching for their fellow players were numerous. But slowly, as the weeks went by, these dissipated. The players moved on. Playing new games. Joining new communities. Shen told himself it was what would have happened anyway. Constellation’s numbers had already dwindled to near obsoletion even before Colossus had announced they were shutting down the servers. Chryses’s loss just sped things up and brought the conclusion along a little sooner.

When Constellation was first released over 10 years ago, it was the first truly immersive dream reality game. It moved beyond goggles and directly tapped into a person’s brain, allowing the game to access all five senses. Being in Constellation was truly like dreaming a dream shared with others. It wasn’t exactly like the real world, but it was the closest anyone had ever gotten. A lot closer than wearing an awkward, heavy helmet and waving your hands with thick gloves in your bedroom in any case.

In the years that followed, many more DR games appeared. They had even better graphics, better sensory input, better mechanics. Bit by bit, like every game that had ever come before it, Constellation lost its appeal and popularity. But Shen never wanted to leave. Over the course of a decade, he had built a community and a life. His avatar, Chryses was one of the strongest in the game. His level 300 berserker was the best in his class. Although there were some other players of comparable or even superior skill (most of which were active members of his guild), Chryses consistently ranked in the top 10 PVP players in the game. This was one of the three reasons that the vote was cast among Constellation’s players for Chryses to represent them when Maxen Mellinfous accepted the petition for a duel to decide the fate of the game.

The second reason was that he was a familiar player in the world. Capricorn was a prestigious and well-known guild, and Chryses was its guildmaster. On top of that (the third reason), Chryses and Capricorn had led the petition to get Colossus to agree to running Constellation’s servers for two more years.

Looking back, Shen wished that Resz had fought the duel instead. Resz was the one player he knew was stronger than him in PVP. He had even contacted him and asked if he would take his place, but Resz had declined.

“Aren’t you the one who always likes to claim that Capricorn is Constellation’s greatest guild?” Resz responded when Chryses tried to persuade him.

“No,” Chryses said. “I claim Capricorn is the greatest guild.” He paused, then said, “As in the whole universe. And all its dimensions. And afterlives. And time periods.”

Resz revealed a smile beneath his half-mask. “You may not be wrong about that, I don’t know, but I do know that no guild loves this world as much as your’s does. You are its leader, you should be the one who represents us in the duel.”

‘The Greatest Guild’, he had always claimed. Even now he still felt it was true. His memories proved it to be.

Capricorn was the greatest guild, but Chryses was not the greatest guildmaster. He had failed him. And now he would never see his friends again.

He wished he had gathered a list of everyone’s real contact info, but there just hadn’t been any reason to do it before the shutdown. When players wanted to contact each other off game, they would use Colossus’s companion phone app. This was, of course, connected to their in-game accounts, so it too was lost during the wipe.

But, for unrelated and very unusual reasons, there were two players out of his 3000+ member guild that Shen did exchange real-life contact information with. Laaysa was the Chief Strategist in his guild, and Tif was a relatively new member who was still perhaps more stalker than friend. He had not replied to any of their messages and eventually Laaysa stopped contacting him. Tif, for his part, still would send him messages every day, but Shen never read them.

What could he say to them? What apology could he give that would be adequate for his failure? Even worse, what if they forgave him? Then what? Start over?

No. That was a joke. Then nothing, that’s what. It was the end. Game over, literally. Capricorn was dead. And so was its guildmaster, Chryses.

Shen was halfway through his final can of Juicybeer when a little chime popped on his computer informing him that he had less than 30 minutes of play remaining on his Barney’s membership card. He sighed and logged out of the RPG game, booting up Zero Count again to rack up some more points to earn credits for free-play. But by this time, he was already fairly drunk. He lost the next two matches and gave up during the third. He just wasn’t in a condition to keep up. He pulled his card with 20 minutes remaining and got up to leave the arcade, saving the time for the next night when he could win everything back with a clearer head.

 

Chapter 5: Final Moment

Shen left Barney’s Net Cafe and stumbled back drunkenly towards his apartment. He stopped on the bridge that crossed over the West Canal and looked out over the water that shimmered under a sliver of moon.

Each day felt more meaningless than the next. He had decided that he would never return DR again, but he hated the real world even more. He had no job, no family, and no friends. His life depended on government subsidies which barely covered his basic expenses. Since the boon of artificial intelligence, less than 50 percent of the population worked full-time. As a result, government-provided NEC, short for Necessary Economic Compensation, a monthly stipend that covered basic living expenses. It was enough to live on but not enough to be comfortable. Shen was one of the lucky few who found an affordable private room in the city, although he had issues with his landlord.

He leaned against the railing, numb and depressed. “What should I do?” he said to himself.

Once again his thoughts returned to Maxen Mellinfous. He had forced Shen into the rage mode that he swore never to use. Then he had taken everything from him.

If you want to see me angry, then I’ll give you the real rage mode and make you pay!

It was a stupid drunken thought. Shen was an unemployed gamer who frequented net cafes and lived on government aid. Maxen Mellinfous was the President of a mega-corporation, multi-billionaire, and son of Colossus’s CEO.

What chance did he have against that?

Shen sighed and pushed himself up to leave. A sudden gust of wind blew past, knocking away the Barney’s membership card he was clutching in his hand. It bounced on the concrete and through the railing of the bridge, landing right on the ledge.

“Crap!” He exclaimed. There was still 20 minutes on the card, and being a neccer, Shen certainly didn’t have the funds to pay for his play-time at Barney’s.

He hoisted himself over the railing and bent down to grab the card. He felt the skin on his back tingle as he looked down, catching the waters below. It was a long way to the bottom, and Shen suddenly wished he knew how to swim.

Just do it. What do you have to live for anyway?

Shut up brain! Another stupid drunken thought. He was unhappy, but not like that. Never like that. Shen sighed once more and turned to hoist himself back over the railing when he heard-

“STOP! DON’T DO IT!”

Shen jumped at the voice and looked up to see a young woman in a grey, striped uniform with a terrified, anxious face just beyond the railing.

“What? No… I wasn’t-“ But the shout had startled him, he had let go of the railing, tipping off balance—

And he began to fall backward…

The young woman’s face dropped as she realized what was happening.

Shen grabbed at the metal bar of the railing, but it was already out of reach.

The young woman rushed forward to take his outstretched hand—

Time slowed down. It felt like the times he faced a skilled PVP player in battle. He saw her hand come out toward him. He saw that she was too late. Inches too late. She leaned over trying to reach him, but then she stopped growing closer and started falling away.

Shen fell. The bridge raised away from him.

In the final moment, just before the water engulfed him, he saw a bright image of a motley group of figures clad in shining armors and splendid robes.

He knew each of their names and their smiles.

 

Chapter 6: Level 1

Shen rubbed his eyes and yawned and stretched. Then his eyes snapped open and he shot up from the bed looking around.

He was back in his room.

Had it all been a dream?

No. It couldn’t have been. He looked down and saw that he was wearing the same shirt and pants as the night before. He raised the shirt to his nose. It had a faint musky smell, but it was completely dry, not wet or damp like it would have been from a drop into a canal.

He checked the time. It was 8 A.M. in the morning, about 7 hours since he left Barney’s the night before.

He felt his socks (that were still on his feet) and his pants, and even his underwear. Everything was dry.

It didn’t make any sense. He had fallen into the canal and he could not swim. The last thing he remembered was feeling the hit of the water against his body and swallowing down dirty canal water. He looked around his bed but there were no signs of liquid.

He found his wallet and phone in the pockets of his pants, but the Barney’s membership card was gone. It had been in his hand when he fell…

Then he saw it. The thing that sent his heart racing and focused his attention into a razor’s edge.

In the left corner of his vision, there was a short line of text read “Level 1”. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. It was still there. He turned his head, changing the background of his vision. It was still there. He went into cramped little bathroom and stared into the mirror, checking to see if there was something in or on his eye. He found nothing, and the text was still there.

“No. Way,” he said, dropping down onto the toilet seat to gather his thoughts.

Was he trapped in a DR game like he’d seen in science fiction movies and TV shows? He felt the back of his neck, but of course, there was nothing there. Everything looked normal and it felt normal. It was like waking up any other day. He stood up and moved around his room. His bed had the same lack of cushion. His walls were the same color of uneven paint. His body seemed completely fine or at least completely normal. His lower back felt sore as it always did from spending so many hours stuck sitting or lying down. But he didn’t even have the typical Juicybeer hangover that he’d been experiencing each morning before since Constellation’s shutdown. It all felt entirely real.

He opened his door and went outside. His street had not changed. He spotted his landlord leaving her apartment downstairs, taking her squeaking little dog on a walk as she smoked a cigarette.

Nothing had changed. There were only two things that were out of place. The first was the text that appeared in the left corner of his vision as if he was wearing AR glasses or a HUD display.

The second was that he was alive when he should have been dead.

“I-I’ve been resurrected,” he said quietly to himself.

He had resurrected. How could that be? And why? For what reason was he brought back?

He went back into his room and sat back on his bed to think. If this was a game, hen what was the goal? What kind of game was it? Was there a way to win? Was there treasure to discover? Was there a final boss to defeat?

Maxen Mellinfous’s smirking face sprang in his mind. Shen remembered that he had wished to be able to defeat Maxen right before his fall off the bridge, but he had given up on that hope because he knew he didn’t have the skills to do it.

Wait a minute. Skills? If this was a game… then would that mean he could acquire and level skills?

He went onto his computer and loaded the online university where he had earned his math major. The classes were all open and free and mostly taught by AI. He scrolled through all the different fields and randomly chose something he’d never studied before—accounting.

He went to work, going through the entry-level lessons. Sometimes he’d lose focus, his brain running off on a tangent of what his resurrection could mean, but then he’d pull himself back and return to learning the lesson. An hour passed. Then another. And another. He completed lessons about balance sheets and accrual accounting and income statements. It all went rather smoothly as he already had a strong background in mathematics.

Then, two and a half hours into studying, it happened. The ‘Level 1’ text in his vision blinked and a new string of text appeared.

Skill: Financial Accounting, Level 1 Reached!

Shen’s jaw dropped. The real world was not just material reality anymore. It was a game, a massively multiplayer game with skills and levels.

He found his a smile widening on his face and a heightened rhythm in his chest. The reason he was resurrected was suddenly clear as day.

He would do what he couldn’t do in Constellation. He would defeat the final boss. He would defeat Maxen Mellinfous.

 

Chapter 7: Attributes and Skills

Shen tried to tap on the Level 1 icon and open up a menu screen, but nothing happened. Next, he tried a swiping motion that Constellation used as the menu gesture. Still nothing. He went online and researched how other popular DR games prompted menus and tried those too without any results.

He wanted to know what his current skill level and attributes were—information that was typically confined on the character sheet. It appeared he did not have access, if it even existed. It would certainly be strange to manually input attributes for his living body or to have access to an inventory that could digitally store real-life items.

Failing to get the menu working, he moved onto the next task—figuring how to defeat Maxen Mellinfous and Colossus Industries. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant yet. In some ways, he wanted a rematch. In another, he wanted Maxen and Colossus to pay for what they did to Constellation and its players. But how could he succeed in these things? Shen was playing the game of real life, and in this game, power and influence determined everything.

He thought about the different real-world ‘classes’ that had a chance to take down Colossus—world leader, corporate CEO, hedge fund manager, politician. For a brief moment, he considered going into a finance class, but quickly dropped the idea. He had no attributes in finance other than a college math background and the few hours he’d just spent learning some accounting.

Like any avid MMO gamer, Shen knew that the attribute and skill advantages a character possessed in the beginning of the game could add up and have massive impacts in the later stages. In Constellation, each race came with different bonuses. He had chosen the Mountain Men race, which gave him 5 extra bonus points in the strength attribute, and 4 extra points in the Rampage Skill, which were both crucial for the berserker class.

The strength attribute greatly determined the damage output of a berserker, while Rampage was the most prized skill for the berserker class, giving the player increased attack damage and speed for a short burst of time. These bonuses gave him a small early advantage over other berserkers that chose other races. As he progressed, he focused on increasing his strength attribute and Rampage skill in every way he could. By the time he reached level 300, Shen was one of the top three berserkers ranked by strength and Rampage. Although the number of points he had in strength and Rampage was in fact only 4-5% above the players ranked from four through twenty, it was enough to tip the scales in his favor during guild wars and PVP matches. Only 4-5% better, but when he won a battle or a duel, he won 100% of the rewards.

Real-life was surely no different. The ones at the top of their fields were those who were just slightly better than those below them. But they too reaped the majority of the rewards.

He now considered his attributes and skills in the new game he’d been resurrected in. “If I can’t see the character sheet, I guess I’ll just have to do a self-assessment,” he said to himself.

He sat on a small plastic chair before the narrow desk beside his bed and pulled out an old notebook he had used for college. He opened to a blank page and began to write down his stats. He started with attributes first.

“Hmmm,” Shen mused to himself. “First… strength. My strength is… ugh… let’s say a 3.”

He wrote the number three down beside ‘Strength.’

“Agility… maybe a 2.

“Intelligence…” Shen paused to think. He felt that he was relatively smart. Certainly smart enough to begin and maintain a successful guild. “We’ll say a 9.” It was an arbitrary number, but it made him feel a little better after the previous low skills for strength and agility.

“Constitution… 2. I guess athlete is out of the question.” Shen sighed. “This isn’t going very well, is it?”

These were the typical game stats for a fantasy MMO game. But he needed to think about class skills based on the real world. If he were to go into the “class” of finances or business, he would be starting with a Level 1 finance skill, while people who had the time and effort putting most of their skill points there since they were young would already be at a much higher level. He’d never catch up. So if that was the case, he needed to choose a field that would take advantage of where he had allocated his stat points throughout his life.

But where was that?

Where had he spent all his attributes? What skills had he developed over the years? What was he already good at?

The answer was clear. He was a gamer. A very good gamer, which even those who disliked him begrudgingly admitted to from time to time. He was one of the best in his game, Constellation. He wasn’t the top-ranked PVP player or the absolute best dungeon strategist, but he was generally among the very top, even when Constellation had a population in the tens of millions.

Also, he was always able to adapt quickly and pick up new games with relative ease, though he wasn’t entirely sure if this would be true for all games, as he had spent most of his time in Constellation.

But it was clear. Ever since he was a kid, gaming was where he had spent all his attributes. He was a player of games.

The ideas began to click into place. He would do something related to games. He would resurrect his guild just as he had been resurrected. But not in a game. He would do it in real life. He would start a company. A gaming company. He would use all his knowledge and create a game.

The greatest game.

But what exactly was that? It seemed that every imaginable game idea had already been made. New titles only built upon and tweaked a classic formula. Nothing truly new and outstanding had come along in years. Constellation itself was considered revolutionary but only because it utilized Dream Reality technology, which was the hot new tech when it was released.

The even larger obstacle was Colossus Industries. Their newest release, Edenfel, was already on its way to becoming the most popular DRMMO in the world with over 100 million active players. If the ‘Game Creation Skill’ were ranked as strength and Rampage had been in Constellation, Maxen Mellinfous would be in the top 3, and Shen wouldn’t even be on the list. At least not yet, he told himself.

But what could he offer that would be better than Constellation, his favorite game, where he had poured hours collecting rare items, grinding for experience, creating the ultimate avatar…

Shen stood suddenly, knocking back his chair. He stood there for minutes upon minutes as if in a trance. His head was buzzing. Thoughts rushed in and out of his mind, swirling together, building upon each other, then finally condensing into a final and clear vision. A vision for a game like nothing the world had ever seen before. A game that could take on the likes of Colossus.

A game that he wanted to play.

 

Chapter 8: The Chief Strategist

When her HUD pinged and Laaysa saw the message that appeared, she froze, then let out a small joyful laugh. She was in the middle of producing a complex 3d object in her DR workspace with the help of an AI assistant when the message came through. She checked the date.

Two months had passed since Chryses lost the tournament against Maxen Mellinfous and Constellation had been shut down.

She still remembered the moment clearly. She had been in the stands with the rest of Capricorn and thousands of Constellation’s active players, along with many old players who had logged on to see Chryses and Maxen fight.

During the weeks running up to the duel, Laaysa had aided Shen with preparing as the guild’s chief strategist. They knew that Maxen’s paladin was strong on healing. As in any match, potions were limited. Shen and Jasmine had chosen a PVP berserker build that would reduce the paladin’s HP rapidly while limiting his opportunities to heal.

In the beginning, it looked like Chryses was ahead as he pushed forward offensively with aggressive attacks against Maxen. But then the paladin landed a blow, and from that moment, the direction of the match turned. Chryses’s speed and swordplay began to falter and he could not keep up with Maxen’s attacks.

Laaysa was on the edge of her seat the entire time. She had suggested that Shen use a build that incorporated his class’s rage mode. Although he was known for never using anger, each class’s heart mode greatly boosted abilities, giving the character unparalleled power for a few short seconds. Laaysa’s Cursemancer transformed into a monstrous shadow she could summon by feeling fear—one of the easier emotions to experience during a fight. The limit on the heart mode was that it could only be used once every two weeks.

When Maxen plunged his sword in Chryses’s neck for the final blow, the entire game world went black. The next thing she knew, she was awake in her room, back in MR. She was both stunned and crestfallen. Chryses had lost. And Colossus’s plan to shut down Constellation immediately went into effect.

The first thing she did was contact Shen, Chryses’s name in MR. She had gotten his mobile contact card a few years prior. He was the only person in the guild that she had contact with in real life. That was her doing, of course. He was an extremely immersive player and never talked about his life outside the game. If anything, it appeared to Laaysa that the game was his life. Chryses truly cared for his guild and worked tirelessly to keep it active even as players were bleeding from Constellation. He wasn’t exactly charismatic in a traditional sense, but Chryses was the one who pushed people to care about their world, the guild, and each other. With him around, it didn’t matter that game bugs multiplied as Colossus’s developers stopped supporting the game. They had their guild, and even as other players left, Capricorn continued to thrive.

It was all because of their guildmaster. The same guildmaster that Laaysa began to find herself falling for in the months after she joined. It didn’t happen immediately or all at once. Her feelings for Chryses grew slowly and incrementally until she had to admit their existence to herself. Then one day, nearly three years ago, she admitted them to him.

After discovering that Chryses’s real name was Shen and that he lived in the same city she did (much to her joy), she asked him out on a date. A real date.

“I’m not really good at real-world stuff,” he had told her.

But she didn’t care. She wanted to give it a shot. He acquiesced to a meeting.

She spent an hour in front of the mirror getting ready for the date. She’d always been confident about her looks, she knew she was attractive, but the thought of an in-person meeting a boy she liked who’d only known her by another appearance set her slightly on edge. She had to remind herself that Shen was likely going through the same thing.

Constellation’s physical attributes could be fully modified to a player’s desire and changed as often as they wanted. Chryses’s avatar was a massive brutish man with broad shoulders and a generic chiseled face. Laaysa herself played the game with the face of a cat for the first couple of years before she chose a female human figure that was more similar to her real appearance.

She often wondered what Shen looked like in person. Though she knew he could not be the 7-foot giant he personified in Constellation, she could not imagine him as anything else. Not with a personality like his.

She had been the first to arrive at Jay Cafe, a casual restaurant near the center of the city about halfway between their respective residences. She chose a spot in the back corner, and ten minutes later, Shen walked through the door. She saw him enter but did not realize it was him until he walked to her seat, and without looking her in the eye, he said, “Are you Laaysa?”

He was not a 7-foot giant, and in reality, if his features were described, he’d likely be placed on the other end of the spectrum and deemed a little short and quite skinny. He was 21 years old, five years her junior, and spent his time working towards a Mathematics degree online while he wasn’t playing games.

When the waiter came by, he ordered an orange iced tea, and Laaysa had a cappuccino. He drank his drink all too quickly—within the first five minutes—and made three trips to the bathroom during the date.

They spent the time talking about Constellation, Capricorn, and their fellow players. Laaysa told him about her full-time job as a programmer, which explained why she only played at night.

When she tried to ask more questions about his personal life or what he enjoyed doing outside the game world, he fidgeted with the sleeves of his shirt and replied with short, unrevealing answers. It did not seem he had anything to hide, only that he did not know what to say, or, perhaps it was that he could not bring himself to speak the words that were there.

The date ended with them agreeing to meet up later in the game, which they did, but Laaysa never asked him out again. She had fallen for Chryses, the guildmaster. Not Shen, the gamer. She did not hold it against him and he did not hold it against her. He seemed to have guessed the outcome from the beginning. They continued to play Constellation together and remained close friends.

They never spoke about their date again, and they never contacted each other using their mobile contact cards until three years later, when Constellation’s servers were shut down and Laaysa sent him the message, Are you okay?

Shen did not respond. After sending several more messages, she tried to call him directly. But he did not pick up.

He didn’t reply to her the next day either, nor the day after, nor the next week. Laaysa was afraid that something had happened to him, but in her heart, she knew what it was. He simply did not want to talk. It wasn’t just Constellation that had been lost. Chryses, the man she had fallen for three years ago, the one hailed throughout Constellation as the Guildmaster of the Greatest Guild, was gone. Killed. A death that could not be resurrected because the world he inhabited no longer existed.

So when her heads-up-display pinged, and a message from her mobile account popped up before her eyes, she let out a small joyful laugh.

The message read:

Emergency War Council Meeting tomorrow @ 2pm at Jay Cafe. Chief Strategist attendance is mandatory by order of the GM.

 

Chapter 9: Potential

They were sitting in the same seats they had taken the last time they met at Jay cafe. This time, Shen had arrived first. There was a cappuccino waiting for her on their table when Laaysa walked into the cafe. She was surprised he remembered.

“Hey Shen, it’s great to see-,” she said, sitting down.

“I’m starting a new guild,” Shen said, hunched over his orange tea. “Well,” he said before she had a chance to get a word out. “Not exactly a guild but a company. A game company.”

If she looked surprised or staggered, he did not seem to notice.

“I want to take down Colossus,” he said. “I want to make sure what happened to us never happens again. I haven’t done a lot of design work, but I know games. I know you told me once you were a programmer and you’d worked on a few games in the past, and so um… I was thinking… I mean I was hoping we could do it together.”

“I’m in.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous. We’re up against Colossus, and an AI license will be expensive, and it’ll be even more expensive to rent an AI core, then there’s the cost of getting servers—wait.” Shen paused, registering Laaysa’s words. It was his turn to look surprised now. “You’re in?”

Laaysa nodded.

“B-b-but we’ll be competing against Colossus Industries. And Maxen Mellinfous! And we have no money. And you haven’t even heard my idea yet!” Shen found himself standing, leaning over the table now. Other patrons of the cafe were looking in their direction.

Laaysa put her hands on Shen’s shoulders and gently pushed him back into his seat.

Taking her own seat again, she said, “Do you know why I joined Capricorn?”

Shen shook his head. “No.”

“Because of you,” Laaysa said. “You were always there to lead us to the next mission. Even when players were decreasing and moving to other DR worlds, you found ways to keep the game fun and exciting. For two months after the game was shut down, you did not reply to my messages. I thought something terrible happened. Now you are here meeting with me, telling me that you want me to help you to start a game company to get revenge on the people who deleted our characters, our world, and our friendships. My answer is this, of course, I will help you, my guildmaster.”

Shen blinked. There was something wet in his eyes. He slurped on his orange tea, then very quietly he said, “Thanks Laaysa.”

“Tell me your game idea,” she said.

And so Shen did. Going into detail. Short term goals and long term goals. He told her the reason he came up with the idea. Why it meant so much to him. The mechanics of the game. The reason why players would want to play it—the reason he wanted to play it.

The entire time Laaysa sat quietly and listened. Afterward, she raised a question here and there, to which Shen had the answer or he didn’t.

“So what do you think?” he asked her when she had nothing more to ask.

“My god, Shen,” she said, her thoughts making squiggles in her mind. She did not speak for several seconds, her gaze far away.

“Laaysa?”

She looked at him. “Do you have any idea of what you’re proposing?”

“Um-”

“To be able to rival Colossus—which I don’t think I need to remind you is the largest and most powerful game company in the world-”

“I know but-”

“-You would need to create a game that completely changes the industry-

“Oh man…”

“A game that plays under new rules and operates radically different from any game before it while providing an experience, a better experience, that no other game can reproduce.”

“H-”

She covered his mouth before he could interrupt her again and stood over the table in the same manner he had minutes earlier. “The game you have just described to me has the potential to do all of this.”

 

Chapter 10: An Awkward Young Man

Laaysa ordered the second round of drinks as they continued to talk. As they dove deeper into the company’s details, Laaysa noticed something about herself. She was excited. She had not expected to be. When she received the message, she was happy that Shen was okay and moving on from losing against Maxen Mellinfous. But not only was he okay, he had rebounded. He was nervous and awkward—that had not changed. But there was an energy to him, born from an enthusiasm, perhaps even an anger, to do the impossible. He had come up with a game idea that truly had the potential to surpass all other games. It was ambitious, extremely ambitious. Of course, Laaysa knew that having an idea wasn’t the same as implementing the idea, yet she felt her hopes rising.

“I was thinking you could start things off in the design department,” Shen was saying. “But eventually we’ll need to grow the team and raise money.”

Laaysa nodded. “The thing we’re really lacking right now is a business person.”

They looked at each other and said the next words at the same time: “We need Armont.”

“He’d know the best way to get the company up and running,” Shen said.

“He’d have business contacts that might be interested in investing,” Laaysa said. “What we’ve been discussing will take money. A lot of money.”

Armont had been Capricorn’s treasurer. Though the guildmembers did not speak about material reality (the real world) often, from what Laaysa knew about him when the conversation of real life did come up, Armont was a man in his late 60s and retired. But before retirement, he had been a Vice President at a major corporation—which one she did not know.

“Do you have his MR contact?” Shen asked.

“No.”

Shen sighed. “Me neither.”

“About a year ago he said he started playing another DR game,” Laaysa said. “It was a new one that had just launched…”

“Do you remember the name?”

Laaysa was rubbing her temples. “Something’s Blessing… I can’t remember off the top of my head right now,” she said apologetically.

“How do we know if he’s still playing it?”

“I bet he is,” Laaysa said. “He said the game mechanics were similar but better than Constellation, and I’m pretty sure he said it wasn’t a Colossus game.”

“Hmm…” Shen said, thinking. “I guess it can be pretty safe to assume he didn’t go to a Colossus game afterward. I can’t imagine anyone from the guild doing that after what they did.”

Laaysa nodded. “I’ll go home and look it up, it shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll also check into a few other things for our next steps. I have an AI license and can start getting some of the design going.”

“Thanks, Laaysa. You have no idea how much this means to me,” Shen said.

She noted that this time, he held her eyes for a moment. She smiled in return.

Then his awkwardness returned and he looked away again, taking a sip from his orange tea.

Laaysa smiled at this too. “While we’re looking for Armont, I’ll also start coming up with designs, but without him, it’ll be tough to get funding on our own.”

“It’ll be difficult. He might be under a different username,” Shen said. “But if you’re sure he’s in that game, I’ll go.”

“I am,” Laaysa said. “I remember he said he wanted to move Capricorn to this Blessing game after Colossus announced they were going to shut down Constellation. He never mentioned it to you?”

“No. But maybe that’s because I started the petition soon after that announcement. Maybe he was going to wait until after…” Shen trailed off in his sentence, a sad look on his face. Then he said, “He probably didn’t have a chance to tell me.”

“It’s alright, Shen,” Laaysa said, lightly touching his arm. “We’ll find him.”

Shen nodded. “Yeah, then we’ll start our company.”

“What’s the company called by the way?”

Shen smiled, his gaze returning to her again.

“It’s called Caps.”

* * *

Laaysa lived in a three-bedroom apartment in an affluent neighborhood on the northern side of the city. When she returned home, she found Jamie on the phone in the middle of what sounded like a work call.

He smiled and waved at her, then turned away to continue the call.

She went into directly into her study, closed the door, and logged into the computer to do research. Her mind had been buzzing with ideas the entire way back from the cafe.

A few minutes later, she heard a knock on the door and Jamie entered. He was a tall, handsome man in his mid-thirties. He spoke with a deep voice that was often interspersed with a laidback smile.

“How was seeing your friend?” he asked.

“It was great, we had a good conversation,” she said. She did not yet want to tell him that she was going to start a company with Shen.

“Is he doing okay?” Jami said. “You said he hadn’t responded to your messages after your game was closed down right?”

“Yeah, he’s good. Actually, he’s looking for some of our old friends. I’m going to help him do some researching.”

“That’s good. But you look a little flushed,” Jami said.

“Oh, am I?” Laaysa said, feeling her cheek.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, of course. It’s just…”

“Just what?” Jamie said softly with a lazy smile.

Laaysa thought back to her conversation with Shen. Despite the short, skinny, awkward young man sitting before her, there were a few moments where she had felt something that did not appear the first time they met face-to-face. She had felt that she was speaking to Chryses, the relentless, captivating guildmaster of Capricorn.

Perhaps, his persona had not been killed after all.

Or if it was, it had been resurrected.

Jami arched an eyebrow at her.

Laaysa shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

“Mmm…,” Jami said, taking a step toward her. “Well, I’ll leave you to your work.”

He crossed the small space of her study, leaned in, and gave her a deep kiss. Then he walked out of the room and closed the door behind himself.

Laaysa rubbed ran her hands through her hair, feeling even more color in her cheeks than before, and began to search for Armont’s game.