章 2: The Realm

Beep...beep...beep...

Time felt excruciatingly slow as I once again worked my boring job, I worked at the grocery store down the street from my apartment and was able to make just enough money to pay my bills, the rest were put away so that I wouldn't spend them on something stupid.

"Hey James, mind showing a smile, don't want the customers to be put off by your frown."

Then theirs my boss Greg, your average person, average life, likes to pick on people like me. Putting on my fakest smile to make him go away I returned my focus back to checking out the person in front of me.

She was slightly overweight but who wasn't around here, she had brown hair and brown eyes, from my short interaction with her she seemed like someone who doesn't like to come out much.

Finally, after a slow eight-hour shift, I was once again on my way home, the streets lamps were starting to turn on as the sun was almost gone. The streets were busy and not a lot of people were walking on the sidewalks.

My apartment was a ten-story building and my room was on the seventh floor, the landlord forgot to mention in his ad that there was no elevator which was very annoying and that the are was pretty shady.

I was room number 77 and lived right next to a nice old lady on the left,she would sometimes give me her left overs and often had family visiting her, while the tenant to my right was your average male, he was a full blown shut in so the only time i would see him is when he opened his door to pick up his grocery's that would be delivered to him each month.

Laying down on my bed i couldn't help but once again think about The Realm, my pod should be arriving tonight but my place was a mess, trash was all over the place and I would have to move some things around if I wanted the pod to fit.

'It just never ends huh, oh well it will be worth it in the end.' So I did what anyone would do and moved all the junk into another room to make room for the pod in the living room.

• • •

'It's here, finally!' People we're installing to Pod inside my living room while another guy was making sure nothing interfered with the wires of the machine. I was handed a manual on how to use the Pod and also was told to do's and don'ts of the Pod.

After a couple hours they finished and left my apartment. I was exploding with excitement, 'It's here, it's finally here!' The pod looked just like the machines described in those novels, with its glossy white color and futuristic looking design.

Laying down in the Pod it somehow felt just right, not to big and didn't feel to claustrophobic. There was some wires I had to attach to some parts of my body to allow me to fully experience the technology.

After everything was is place all that was left to do was say the words to turn on the Pod.

"...System activate?"

[...Starting up...]

A counter appeared on the glass door and it started counting down from ten. As soon as it reach zero the color of the glass changed to a blackish color and a female voice spoke up.

[Welcome user James, you are one of the few chosen who were given a free first edition pod. The Realm has already been installed to your pod but you aren't able to actually play on the server yet.]

'This just keeps on getting better!' When the voice finished a new counter appeared but before it even finished counting down I was standing inside a white room with a single door with the name The Realm and a picture of that tall tree.

"What do I do now, do I just wait the last four days for the official servers to open up?"

"Or you can start now and get a head start."

Freaked I turned around to see the thing that spoke, it was a small little thing with wings. It was red and walked on four legs, scales covered its small body and its eyes stared right back at me. It's eyes were yellow with a black slit down the center of it's eyes.

'It's a fucking baby dragon!' It looked both menacing and cute, but after our little staring contest I couldn't help but think back to that voice.

"Yes that's right, it was me who spoke to you!"

It's tone was more then a little condescending but other then that it was super cute. When it 'spoke' I saw that it's mouth didn't move but then how was I able to hear it?

"Ever heard of a telepathic dragon, wow and I thought I would be the one asking dumb questions being I was born just a couple minutes ago!"

'For something so cute you sure got quite the attitude, almost like a teen!'

"I heard that!"

'Right a telepathic dragon, what's next?'

"I don't know but if I were you I'd start working on your domain, what's the point of getting a head start if your not gonna use it!"

"What do you mean by that, I though we wouldn't be able to play the game until the server actually opened?"

The tiny little dragon sighed and walked over to a dog bed that started to rise from the floor. It circled around before laying down and starting right back at me.

"Listen, the first few thousand that was given the generation one pod are allowed a head start, a four day head start to be exact and after that you will be given the option to keep your domain on the main server or start anew."

"But that's not what the company said, and the people who installed my pod, even the manual said nothing about this, so why is it different?"

"That is classified, I am not allowed to tell you the info but it says nothing about you learning about it by yourself."

"That doesn't help, what does that mean?"

It just completely ignored me and dosed off, little Z's appeared above it's head. 'Yep definitely gonna have a fun time with this one around!'

"A head start huh, I wonder what it will feel like?"

The door looked ancient, it's wood seemed to rot in some places and cracks was all over the door. There was a iron doorknob on the right side that seemed to shimmer with a mystical light. If you looked closely there was a spell diagram carved into the center of the door.

"This doesn't feel ominous at all...but cool graphics, looks so real!"

Reaching out I turned the knob and a bright flash blinded my vision for a bit, after blinking to adjust to the light i found my self in a new room. The walls of the room looked like a swirling galaxy. If your looked close enough you could see the flow of the galaxy moving towards the black hole in the center.

"If you had your fun looking at [The Realm] then I think it's time to get things going."

I don't know how long she was standing there but an Angle was standing there with her wings resting on the floor. It was sort of hard to look directly at her cause she seemed to radiate light, almost like a star in the night sky.

She had black hair and dark blue eyes that seemed to sparkle like the night sky from the light she let off. She had an hour glass figure and just looked beautiful.

"Alright, that's enough looking, eyes up here mister! Anyways back to building your [Domain], as you are a newborn deity without the guidance of a god I will be teaching you the ropes."