"Bored...".
This was the word going through the head of one Ronald Jacobs "RJ" Grimm. Despite his interesting name, he was by far the most uninteresting person in existence.
It was not that he was a "boring" or "plain" or an "outcast" anything like you see in other media,the ones who clearly have "something" special, a dark hidden past or was played by an attractive actor, he was just...generic. Painfully generic.
He was born in a middle class family in the USA, is the middle child of three and had the most average upbringing. He got into popular trends, fell out of them and had "that phase", he got into fights, won the occasional academic award, made friends, lost friends, fell in love, fell out of love, went to college, graduated with a semiuseful degree, failed to get a job matching it and got a job in a game store called "Valkyrie Games" in San Francisco. In other words, the authentic American...Experience.
For all intents and purposes, RJ Grimm is an NPC. Someone who would've lived a normal life, have a normal family and then die a normal death. A perfectly normal life for a generically boring person.
But life is never that simple is it? Regardless of how much one plans or how one anticipates a change, something always happens and it has a tendency to shanghai people into it. It just so happens in the case of one Mr.Grimm, he decided to download the wrong game at the absolute best time.
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"Bored...I wonder if there are any interesting games I could download?", RJ thought to himself while sitting at the cash register. If there's one thing that sucks about working at a local game store, is the mid-day lull. Game stores are great places for people to gather and play everything from board games to card games, the problem is that they require people to have free time. In the modern economic structure... leisure time ain't exactly commonplace.
Working on weekends were great, all sorts of people would come in, buy things, play things and just chat. Weekdays on the other hand...it was so monotonous that one could drop a pin in the store and it would somehow echo. With this in mind, AJ proceeded to whip out his smart phone and find some mobile game to play. His manager wouldn't mind, the woman was currently napping in the backroom for the afternoon.
"Let's see...not in the mood right now...too loud...burns my phone up like a fireball...hold up...what the heck is this one"?
As RJ scrolled through his app list, he came across an app that he had never seen up until right now. The icon in question looked like a small, stylized book with a strange pattern on it that mimicked a rune. The app in question only had one word underneath it.
[Grimmemoria]
"Did I download some bogus spellbook app again?", AJ thought as he stared at the strange icon.
"Well...nothing ventured, nothing gained", he thought as he pressed the app icon. The screen went black for a moment as the app began loading, until the screen came to life once more with the image of a spell circle animatedly drawing itself.
"Graphics ain't bad at least".
A moment later the title appeared floating above the now completed spell circle, [Grimmemoria: The Story of All and the Tale of None].
"Cheesy title", he thought as he pressed the screen to continue. The title screen faded to black, soon replaced with a small wall of text.
[Welcome novice. You are about to enter a world that can only be seen/read/viewed in-between(through) the lines/the layers/the fog. To continue please place your thumb on the center of the screen].
"An RPG huh? Alright, I'll play along", RJ thought as he placed his thumb in the center. Another spell circle animation began to play as RJ pressed his thumb to the screen, but this time a strange feeling overcame as he did so.
"Why do I feel...shocky?", he thought as his thumb kept pressing the screen.
[Scanning... Analyzing... Identifying... Finish!
Name: Ronald Jacobs "RJ" Grimm
Age: 24
Sex: Male
Preferred Gender Role: Male
Innate Abilities: Basic Martial Arts, Model Making
Innate Abilities(dormant): Geomancy, Evocation
Level: 0
Mana Quality: Inferior
Evaluation: A "noob" as the gamers say.
Proceeding to the Summoning Chamber...now]
"Waitaminute, what's going-whoa"!
Before RJ could question what was going on exactly,the world around him suddenly transformed from a game store into a strange looking alleyway.