Arnes Crowley a 16, year old high school student, was on his way home when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out, taking a look at the notification window that had appeared on the screen. "Irradu: Legends of the Gold Keep" had just released. "It's early" Arnes thought to himself, a small grin widening into a bright smile on his face. He took off towards home, throwing his front door open and rushing up the stairs, almost forgetting to close the door behind him in his wild excitement. Grinning even brighter now, he flipped on his computer, the fans humming to life as he turned on the monitor.
"C'mon, hurry." he said impatiently as the game launcher began to load, a green bar slowly filled at the bottom of the screen. There it was the thing he had been waiting for all year long. "Irradu: Legends of the Gold Keep" appeared on the screen in bright gold letters. He moved his mouse cursor to the green button on the screen and pressed play. Right as his finger came down on the mouse button, everything went dark.
"W-what the fuck." he mumbled to himself as he looked around groggily. He appeared to be in some sort of plaza. A giant fountain with what appeared to be a fairy as the center piece, stood in the middle, surrounded by a cobblestone path. There were beautiful red flowers surrounding him as well, but the thing that got his attention the most were the people. There seemed to be all sorts of people around him, a tall man in what appeared to be battle armor was knelt on the ground next to him looking around. He appeared to be as confused as Arnes was, and he wasn't the only one. There had to be at least a couple thousand people in the plaza with him. All of them seemingly just as puzzled. Arnes glanced down at his body, he wasn't dressed in his school clothes anymore. He appeared to be dressed in a medieval, long dark brown coat with a white cotton shirt underneath. He also had on a pair of rough brown boots and black leather pants, and he could feel something, or maybe a couple things, strapped to his back. He reached over his shoulder, wrapping his hand around some sort of wooden handle wrapped in leather strips. He pulled on it and felt the object come loose. He swung it out in front of him, "A sword?!" he exclaimed as he examined the blade. It was heavy, but well balanced, and it felt comfortable in his hand, as if he had held it many times before. Only, he had never used a sword in his life. It was quite an odd, slightly uncomfortable feeling. He swung it around a bit before placing it back in its sheath, an act he did with one fluid natural motion, almost like it was second nature to him. "This is so strange" he said to himself, trying to take in everything that was happening. "I know right," the man in the armor spoke. He was now standing up, and he was quite tall. He looked to be at least 6 feet and his footsteps were heavy as he walked towards Arnes. "My name is Brenam, nice to meet you." he said in a deep, booming voice that almost seemed to echo, extending a hand forward. Arnes couldn't read his face, as the man had a helmet on, however he did seem to be relatively at ease. Arnes reached out grasping the mans hand firmly. "Hi, I'm Arnes, but my friends call me Crow." "Nice to meet you Crow" Brenam exclaimed in a jovial manner.
Brenam looked around in confusion, "this is so odd, I mean one second I was at home on my computer and the next thing I know I-", "woke up here..." Arnes whispered trailing off. "Yeah," Brenam said, sounding puzzled for the first time since Arnes had met him. "I wonder what the hell is going on here.". Suddenly there was a ding that seemed to chime in Arnes' head, making him jump and look around for the source of the noise. Then a woman's voice spoke in a cheerful way, resounding through his skull, "New quest available.". He wasn't quite sure what to think of the whole situation but he decided to go along with whatever was happening right now. "This is odd" Brenam exclaimed again this time moving his fingers and waving his hand. "How are we supposed to open the quest window?" he said, having hear the voice himself. He then began to jump up and down while waving his hands in the air. "What are you doing?" Arnes asked, trying to stop himself from laughing, "You look like an idiot" this time breaking out into full on laughter. "Aha!" the tall man shouted in a booming voice, causing Arnes and a few of the people around him to flinch. "I figured it out!" a book appearing in his hands out of thin air. He turned to Arnes in excitement and began to explain. "If you look at the top right corner of your vision you should see an icon that looks like a journal, it has an exclamation mark on it." Arnes glanced up, and there it was. It seemed to be suspended in the air, just floating there. "Alright, but how do I access the window?" He asked, reaching up to find that his hands couldn't do anything. "Focus on the icon, once you are completely focused on it, imagine yourself clicking it and a book should appear in your hand." Arnes did just that concentrating on the book, and just like with Brenam, a book appeared in his out stretched hand. He grunted not expecting the weight of the book, it felt like it was woven with fine leather and had golden lettering on the front that read Quest Journal. He opened it to the first page glancing at the quest. What he read next chilled him to the bone. "BEAT THE GAME" was written at the top of the page in all capital letters. However it wasn't the title that scared him, it was the description of said quest. "You must defeat the final Raid Boss in order to beat the game, if you die 3 times, then the game is over, whether you like it or not." "What the Hell?" Arnes exclaimed. He then imagined himself pressing the icon again and the book dissipated into a blue light. Arnes glanced around seeing more people pulling out and putting away the Quest Journals. "Brenam,this has to be some sort of sick joke right?" He looked up to see that Brenam had taken off his helmet to reveal the head a Lizardman, making him jump backwards a bit. Then he noticed something he hadn't before, a long tail was protruding from the back of Brenams' armor. The look on his reptilian face however, is what Arnes focused on the most. His normally relaxed demeanor had been replaced by one of panic, as if he had just seen a ghost or witnessed someone get killed in front of him. "I don't know man, but I am not in the mood to find out. What do we do?" Brenam asked, fear dripping from his voice. Arnes paused for a moment thinking.
"I have a plan!" he said confidently looking up at the social icon in the top right corner. "I'm going to send you a party invite and a friend request, I want you to accept both." "Alright," Brenam said shakily before accepting. "So here's the plan, for the last couple months I have been reading guide books and leaked secrets about the new expansion and the game as a whole. I know of a Level One dungeon we can go to in order to get ourselves geared up. If what the book said is true, and we can die in this world, then I want us to be as powerful as possible." "Alright!" Brenam shouted, his hope seeming to come back and his energetic attitude returning. "Lead the way boss.", the two adventurers took off running through the city on a mission. A mission to become the strongest players in this game of life and death.