In an office in New York City, a man sat behind a desk staring blankly at the screen. He reached over and pressed the extension for his superior.
"Yes, Peterson, what is it?" said a deep voice from the other side of the line.
"Subject 0 has vanished from the game," Peterson said in almost hysterical tones.
"He logged out Peterson. Things like this happen in games," the man replied, clearly losing his patience.
"No, you don't understand Sir. He didn't log off, he vanished. There are no logging coordinates. It's as if his character just ceased to exist," Peterson explained nervously.
"That's preposterous," replied the deep voice. "Find Subject 0 immediately, or you can consider this your resignation from the company."
"Yes sir, right away sir," said Peterson, but the line had already shut off. "Great, just great. How the hell am I supposed to find someone who vanished from our systems. I'm just going to have to create my own account and find him the hard way."
With that he stood up and walked across the room to one of the company's complimentary Dreamgear systems and laid down, placing the helmet on his head, and started the system up. The world around him faded to black. After a few minutes of initial account and character creation setup he was ready.
Welcome to Alrisia, the system finally told him. The next thing Peterson knew he arrived at the login portal of the Citadel of Shadows. He smiled and headed out of town to level up.
"This should be quick enough," he mused to himself out loud. "Leveling up here, even from level 1 should be easy enough. I am a creator after all.
Tracker disappeared into the woods, vanishing from sight.