Chapter 1

Benjamin Campbell was ecstatic and overexcited when he found an email from Dimension Studios on a faithful early morning. He was giddy as hell simply because this is an invite for early access to “The Almighty MMORPG.” Dimension is advertising this experience as “The world’s most advanced game.” They never advertised any features, just implied that a major in-game prize was waiting for the first online player at launch. The launch was only two hours away.

Benjamin raced over to the nearest vGame, known for selling the trendiest Virtual Reality games. He had a long line to wade through, which is why he came a few hours early. Not everybody was there for the exclusive access he was getting. Benjamin patiently waited, not concerned that he would miss this so-called prize offered at launch.

As predicted, he had an hour to get this set up when it was his turn in line. When the clerk asked how he could be of service, Benjamin responded by holding up the exclusive invitation from Dimension, with the Dimension stamp of approval. The clerk nodded to Benjamin, motioning for him to follow him to the back of the store.

The clerk handed Benjamin a nondescript box and said, “This is all yours. We don’t have information about it. Knock yourself out.”

Benjamin nodded and headed out of the store.

Candice Pence had a long and very frustrating day at work. She was looking forward to getting home and having a nice; home-made dinner served to her by the best cooking bots on the market. The cheap bots cooked only basic meals that didn’t have very good filling. Candice deserved better. She was, after all, an accountant for the biggest technology company in the 27TH century, Microfox. It was responsible for the advances in telecommunication since the advent of Virtual Reality software prevalent in the 21st century.

[Come to me, transportation home.] Candice simply thought her action, and soon enough, her generic MFV-620 pulled up in front of her. Candice walked up to it. “You are Candice Pence, are your not? Say my name for access to root privileges.”

“Hi Izzy,” Candice said. [One day these codewords will fucking get everybody killed.]

“Good enough, Candice, Izzy said. “Identity confirmed. Enter.”

A passenger door opened, and Candice was all too happy to obey Izzy’s pleasant order for a safe trip home. The door slid shut with not even a hiss. “Normally at this time, 5 PM, you head home. If you want, there are several stores I can stop at on the way if you need to do evening shopping.” “Would you like to proceed with previous action?”

“Yes, Izzy. I have everything I need. Please head home. I’m tired, and I need some much-over due rest.”

The vehicle pulled away from the curb with a smooth motion and made a perfect liftoff a few inches above the ground. Candice, content that Izzy was programmed to perform her job well, relaxed and was content to dose off in this slowly heating chair.

“Izzy, how long until I’m home?” Candice asked.

“Journey before destination,” Izzy says. “Give it about an hour. There’s a high amount of hover-car traffic today.”

Candice nodded, wishing that any day but today would be the day when her trip home would be delayed by an hour.

Not 15-minutes later, Izzy started beeping. Izzy continuously beeped.

[Izzy, talk to me. Give me a status report.]

Nothing. Candice began to panic. There was no way to gain control of Izzy; drivers are a thing of the past. Candice looked at her view-screen to outside. One minute she saw hover-car traffic. The next, her screen went black and the beeping got louder.

Candice was thrown forward as Izzy was rammed from behind. Izzy flipped over and landed in a field. The impact jarred Candice, breaking her ribs. The back of her head slammed into the window on her side, made just for show. She could only stay conscious for a few more seconds before passing out entirely.

For Benjamin Campbell who had been gaming and examining Virtual Reality for most of his teenage and adult life, the standard “Plug and Play” rigs commonly in use now were child’s play for anybody to set up. After plugging it in and putting the gear on, he had to wait an hour for a launch patch to download. The gear was pretty simple. The setup consisted of a patted durable chair, combined with a standard HD view-screen to visualize content, and most VR rigs came with the 3D bin oral audio headsets. If one can afford it, all of this gear is completely replaceable with better equipment. For now, Benjamin just had to deal with what they gave him.

A patch downloaded an hour later, Benjamin “simply followed the on-screen instructions as prompted. [I don’t think they could make these damn account bullshit simpler if they tried.]

There were a few things unique about this developer and game that caught Benjamin’s eye immediately. He noted the strict rule that advised “The almighty among you” whatever that means, to please treat artificial non-player characters as real, living beings. Benjamin got a chuckle out of that. [Treat them like real humans? What are these devs smoking? The last time I checked, you’re killing them.]

Account created, Benjamin was ecstatic about the creation of a “world”, not a character. [A world! What will I are able to do with this? Or is that we?]

“Each world created on The Almighty MMORPG is procedurally generated in real time,” the game outputted. “Next, you will choose from a number of creation options that will define the world and simulate one century by default, or you may optionally simulate more.”

[What am I getting myself into here! This is awesome!]

Benjamin opted for a starting world template. These templates offered a variety of genres to “mash”, as the game says. The game claimed that mashing and mixing favorite genres will make your world more interesting. Several templates were available. Benjamin made a custom world template mashing the genres Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Urban Fantasy. These are his favorite genres in entertainment, so Benjamin finalized his selection by clicking “next”.

“Now simulating 100 years of history for your world. This will populate your world and provide some substance to it.”

“Congratulations, account holder Benjamin! You are the first player online. As stated in our invitation extended to your, you are getting a special prize. That prize is that your world is the central world of The Almighty MMORPG. There can only be four gods. You are the first, and have final say on any Almighty decision that may have a massive effect on all worlds.”

[Cool! This is getting better and better.]

“However,” the game outputs, “You’re responsibility is enormous. “In order to provide a challenge, the Central World can only contain a certain percentage of crime and evil daily. Your actions will only influence worlds. Not everybody will be quick to obey. Most may disobey at first.”

“World simulation takes only a few minutes, and a few years have already been simulated already as you read this Benjamin. The Dimension wishes you the best of luck being the most powerful over the Almighty. This power may be taken from you, but if you influence the right people, this will be most hard for anybody indeed.”

“The Dimension out, for now!”

Benjamin couldn’t contain himself. He danced in his seat, just waiting for worldgen to complete, satisfied that his world was the first.

Michael Mcclintock heaved what was supposed to be an autoclean vacuum to the second floor of his very elaborate mansion he inherited from his parents. Even with the drug pushing he was involved in, his parent’s fortune combined was about six figures. He could easily stop with the money he had saved up now accumulating interest; however, his addiction was too great. The invitation he received from Dimension Studios to participate in “The Worlds most advanced MMORPG” would help him kick the habit for good.

[Is getting addicted to games any better though?] He had heard so many stories of gamers who would actually be so into the game that they would go so far as to neglect children, their jobs, and simple responsibilities. Michael admitted to himself that he’s been pretty irresponsible as of late, but he thought he kept a good cover going. He was one of the fortunate people to actually have a vGame console. Most people tended to call them gaming rigs to associate them from video games. Video games were a fading pastime that is quickly being eradicated for the more immersive Virtual Reality game.

Michael set the Vacuum down with a heavy sigh and pressed “Resume Clean.” The device zoomed off to the East, using artificial path finding to map the area and did an entire sweep. He was pretty sure that the damn thing would get stuck up here as well, but he had a game to play. He willed his tired self into his bedroom, which doubled as an office. His vGame rig was the biggest contraption in the room. Michael’s was about five times bigger than most vGame setups because he opted to have a computer in his. The disadvantages were mainly space. Michael had all the space he needed. The advantages, therefore, were that he could have Email and internet browsing on the same setup. He opened up the email from Dimension Studios and followed the prompts to install The Almighty MMORPG app to the firmware of his vGame rig. This was largely uneventful. The standard these days were everything automatic. If it weren’t automatic, it had no business being developed in this time.

Michael created his Dimension account with relative ease. He didn’t understand some of the rules he was to follow, but he never followed rules anyway. Who needs those?

[Wow. What’s this about my own world? That sounds pretty dope!]

For his part, Michael chose modern and Fantasy to mash genres. [Modern tech with fantasy and magic? Epic yo!]

Michael read the introduction to the game proper with growing interest. [So, things happen around me, and I can’t change events directly, but when I make a choice I can influence the outcome. Ha.] Michael mulled over this information with a mixture of delight and confusion. [This is an MMORPG. There’s other people on here. What do they do on here? Can I impact their events?]

Michael just wanted to get on with the game already. Worldgen had another thirty minutes until completion.