Of all the Hub’s users, there are few who can spend as much time as they truly want immersed in the experience. Vernon Cray happened to be one of them, but at what was once perceived to be a great cost. During a particularly harsh winter sixteen years earlier, he and his family were caught in one of the worst highway pileups ever seen. Vernon got the worst of it, having his right arm and leg crushed beyond salvation, amputated later due to complications. The rest of his family was fine apart form some light burns and broken bones. So, just when his young soul wondered how it would navigate the treacherous randomness of This Earth, he was given the only gift that ever mattered: a passport to the Hub.

The Hub with parental controls was a fascinating place to grow up. The skies were almost always blue and the weather pleasant. Depictions of violence to a child looked cartoonish and fun, while adult users saw all the gory details. Since certain progressions to his character wouldn’t be unlocked until he was much older, Vernon spent a lot of his time exploring the zones. He got a good lay of the land, having picked out certain spots he would revisit once he was eligible for his Teen Passport, where he would be able to work on his gunplay and more of the advanced spells. At thirteen, when said access was achieved and he was able to traverse the Hub no more as an unlisted child account, but as his new self, Dimyr.

None of this was to say he was a shut in, let alone led a sheltered existence. In real life, great advancements had been made in the field of prosthetics and this allowed Vernon to live not bound to a wheelchair, or even the help of others. Being so young allowed him to be in trials for new models, limbs that were soon to be much better than the real thing. By the time he reached high school, they had advanced enough to offer a strength the convention arm could never wield. For this, Vernon could only watch from the sidelines during sport, which was fine. He was just pleased he was exempt because he was too strong, and not because he was too weak. Vernon had good friends and a healthy relationship with his family. Since he was able to attend college inside the Hub, he gained a moderate education in the ways of business and finance to heed his calling. He had moved out by twenty to a modest condo where his life was truly his to forge from this point on.

This is where Dimyr came in. The character that represented Vernon was of average real-life height, with pale skin and wavy, jet black hair. He specialized as a warlock at first, and dedicated his talents to hexing his foes, weakening enemy spells as well as blunting their blows. It was one of the rarer classes, as most magic-based users preferred the flashy finesse and high damage output of the mage or hierophant. In the end, however, after each raid, when the postgame report came up, Dimyr was always near the top as MVP due to his oft unseen contributions to the battle. Due to his depth in the warlock skill tree, Dimyr was able to make his eyes glow red, an imposing feature on any avatar.

At high enough level, any user inside the Realm was given access to choose a secondary class, something to compliment an established skillset. Vernon deliberated long and hard over what to pick that would firstly work best, but closely second, what would make him stand out amongst tens of millions of users. Against much advice, he chose the polar opposite of what he knew most, choosing to walk the path of the cleric; a healer and protector. Healers were highly in demand but only as a primary – secondary healers usually only chose to be so in order to preserve themselves, and Dimyr was no different. Exploring tutorials and researching advanced skills allowed him to craft a dream build he would strive to master to carve a new path across the Realm.

The choice was a boon to what he wanted to achieve. As a budding master of the dark arts, the disciplines of light, albeit a completely different skill set, fit together nicely. His wealth of blood magic spells, which used one’s own life as fuel for spells, were made evermore accessible by newfound sources of health regeneration. By investing heavily in his subclass’ ‘retribution’ tree, Dimyr crafted his own style of play that revolved around ‘thorns damage’. Thorns damage referred to how much damage is returned when one is struck, and since magic users were often targeted as a priority, this, coupled with is wealth of debuff auras made for a nasty surprise for anyone trying to be a hero.

Suddenly areas once tackled only with a team could be soloed, making farming for resources all the more efficient. No more waiting for distracted users or failing a raid because the party bit off more than they could chew. Now, under those circumstances where numbers were all that mattered, Dimyr could clash mob to mob with an army of those he’d slain on the way, risen as undead minions, empowered by holy light and wrapped in a cloud of hexes. Pairing up with hunter classes with high perception meant he could see exactly which enemy held exactly what he needed, shaving time off of an otherwise random and indiscriminate slaughter farm.

Dymir’s notoriety rose on a particular event raid which had a particular gem amongst the chances of rewards upon completion. He had tried it several times with friends, then with random groups, until finally he made it further than usual. As it stood, no one had yet made it through the final room, where the boss, an unusually high-scaled spider God guarded the treasure room. What no one knew yet, however, was that this was only it’s first form, so as hundreds of thousands watched through a party member’s livestream, the creature exploded into something else, killing everyone carving leather from it’s hide for crafting.

More than half the party was wiped out as the hellish larvae, clearly based off of the tarantula hawk, emerged. Drawing off of the font of blood still pumping from the husk, Dymir made a hard gamble. He chose to reanimate his party as minions, which meant if they died once more, they could no longer be resurrected until the next attempt at the raid. The healers converged their efforts on him to keep the heavy cost of keeping the others alive in check. As the rest fell, Dymir added them to his ranks until finally the creature was slain. Experience points and accolades poured in from the server, but as technically the only member to survive, only he could lay claim to the chest.

The party was thankful just to see the end of the raid and to have been the first to complete it, so there were no hard feelings about the reward. Dymir opened the chest as more tuned in to watch him hold the gem he sought over his head with triumphant laughter. He gave most of what he couldn’t use to the others and salvaged the rest. From this point on, his inbox was flooded with requests to join high-level raids where he was truly able to tune his build. While Vernon wasn’t interested in streaming, many of his squadmates broadcasted, and Dymir was starting to become more famous among the community. One could easily go online and find montages of his best plays stitched together by devoted fans. The fact that he kept all of his personal information and stat sheet hidden behind privacy settings (as much as one could) only added to the mystery of the character.

Despite his prosthetics, Vernon was quite active and able-bodied. Due to the settlement reached for the prices of his arm and leg, a trust fund had been set up to generate enough income that working was optional. While not wed to the Hub, friends and family still worked and went to school, which was why Dymir was so advanced, developed. Apart from some investment management to keep sure he’d never be broke, Vernon made sure he got his share of exercise and fresh air. Life was good when weighed against the bad, so he did his best to live it as long as possible.

One day, while getting some maintenance done on his limbs at their manufacturer’s service centre, his phone vibrated with a text from an unknown number. It was from a user named Phage, asking to meet them at their penthouse in the Nation zone. This wasn’t supposed to happen. No one should have been able to see or know his phone number, not without being at least a close contact, and especially not for anything like this. Vernon knew better than to freak out, and was more intrigued than anything. Whoever this was, they either had access to privileged information or knew how to force their way to it. It was an opportunity to learn some tricks for which there was no tutorial nor manual.

Continue to Part 2-3