Announcer: Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than
a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
Voices: Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's
Torgan!
Announcer: Yes, it's Torgan, strange visitor from Kazeroth,
who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Torgan,
who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and
who, disguised as Mike Greene, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan
newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American
way.
Or not. No, Mike Green was, in reality, your average
University graduate, 26 years of age. Well, not entirely average. His deceased
parents had been fairly wealthy, enough that, if he managed his money well, he
wouldn’t have to work a day in his life. Of course, he still worked, but his
‘work’ was really only taking in the advertising money when he posted streams
of his gaming experiences. As a paid streamer, he was always under pressure to
provide the latest and greatest, but since it was something he’d be doing
anyways, there wasn’t any problem.
So Mike Green was easily able to afford the monthly rent on
his two bed, two bath apartment, food, utilities, gym membership, and a couple
nights out a week. It wasn’t the lap of luxury, but he had enough that he was
comfortable, and that was enough for him, especially since he had spent most of
his time the last four years in the virtual world of WoD. Due to the time
dilation of the game world, at 26 he had the mental age of someone closer to
forty.
Right now, Mike had just come back from the gym he worked
out at daily. It wasn’t a complicated or particularly intense regimen, but
something he did to keep the disconnect between his mind and his real world
body from being too large. If you’re able to leap twenty feet into the air to
tackle a dragon in a game, but in the real world you’re a total slob whose
waist is quickly trying to equal your height, then you’ve got real problems.
People always bitch and moan about ‘body shaming’, but you don’t see them
volunteering to be the people in Walmart that look like Jabba’s twin sister.
Mike worked out, but only to the point where he was ‘gym fit’, having some
muscle tone, without going to the extremes like body builders.
In ‘Real Life’, Mike was 26, single, unemployed, and
basically coasting from day to day. In the game, however, he was Torgan, a
beacon of light and truth and all that bull. At least, that’s the role he
played in game, as leader of the top light-side guild. Honestly, it wasn’t all
bad. The Lords of Light had great people, and he enjoyed playing with them all.
But having to pretend to be a goody-two-shoes all the time was really annoying.
It is the same reason why most people relate more to Batman than Superman. So,
even if he didn’t need to [Reincarnate] Torgan into AAO for the bonuses, he
probably wouldn’t have stayed with WoD too much longer. He’d lived that life
for almost sixteen years, in game, and he felt a change was definitely in order.
Walking into the master bedroom of the apartment, Mike got
things set up for gaming. Of course, when dealing with VR, that meant different
things to different people. For Mike, it meant turning on the specially
designed bed so that the gel-filled mattress of his ‘gaming couch’ would warm
up while he took a shower, and setting the air conditioner to a comfortable
level. The Chip allowed for AR feeds, which is what most people used in their
daily lives, but going full VR meant that you were rag dolling in the real
world.
Six years ago, a certain furniture company decided to
capitalize on this market, and started selling what they called ‘gaming
couches’. The size of a couch, they sported a gel-filled mattress that was
warm, and supported the body perfectly, allowing users to relax in comfort.
Using advances in nanotech, they even included a massaging function, reducing
the risk of cramps, blood clots, muscle atrophy, and other hazards of a
sedentary lifestyle. It could even function as a normal couch, if you turned
the various functions off, and tossed the cushions back on.
Mike’s room was fairly bare. He had a couple pictures on the
wall, a double bed for when he actually slept in the real world, a dresser for
clothes, a mirror, and a writing desk. There really wasn’t a need for anything
else, in his opinion. Stripping off his clothes, Mike went for a quick shower
before he got ready for his new adventure. While in the shower, he did what any
healthy, single man would do if they could access the internet in the shower:
he looked up some of his favorite porn, and relieved some tension.
His ’cleansing ritual’ done, Mike dried off, used the
toilet, and changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and a t-shirt. While the
full VR experience largely cut off the mind from the body, that didn’t mean
they were unconnected, or that the body’s functions didn’t go on as normal.
This is one of the reasons Mike was diligent in making sure he took care of his
body. If, say, one drank a bunch of water, and then didn’t go to the bathroom
before gaming, you could expect one of two things. Either your game would get
cut short, sometimes at the worst possible moment, or you would wake up to an
embarrassing situation, and a lengthy cleanup.
Laying down on the couch, Mike took a breath, and slipped
into the full virtual experience. There was a moment’s blackness, as there
always was, and then he found himself in his ‘virtual room’. The rough
equivalent of someone’s ‘home page’ on the internet browsers of yesteryear,
users each had their own virtual rooms, which could be customized to fit their
needs and personality. Mike’s virtual room was a shrine to gaming, and to the
various places he enjoyed visiting on the net. There were digital posters on
the walls, showcasing some of Torgan’s ‘greatest hits’. If one concentrated on
them, the images would start moving to show the streams they captured. There
were also bookshelves, holding all his important files. For now, though, he
simply sat on the throne he’d made himself, based off something from an old
book series where a lot of people died while trying to become king of a country
and fighting off snow-zombies, or some such, and brought up his console.
“Start Age of Anarchy Online.”
As the game loaded for the first time, Mike was treated to a
brief history of the world. Most players would be bored, and ignore this as the
normal time-wasting as a game loaded. Most players were idiots. In a virtual
world like AAO, this could be vital lore that would give him a boost when it
came to dealing with NPCs, or at least keep him from making a fool of himself.
The world of AAO was, apparently, one of cycles. Magic rose
and fell in fairly regular intervals (though those intervals were measured in
thousands of years). When magic ebbed, creatures like elves and dragons
disappeared from the world, leaving only Humans. But when magic rose to a
certain point, it became a rich fantasy setting, with elves, dwarves, dragons,
and more. But there was a danger that came with the rising Mana levels. When there
was enough mana in the world, gateways would open between this world, and the
world of terrible creatures. These ‘Terrors’ were far worse than any mere
monster. They apparently killed for sport, and fed on the fear and negative
emotions of thinking beings.
AAO was set on the tail end of the ‘Scourge’ as it was
called, the time of peak mana, where the gateways were open. People had only
survived, it seemed by living in protected enclaves, usually underground, that
could be warded against the Terrors. Not all the protections held,
unfortunately, and more than one enclave had been breached, and overrun. Now, a
mere one hundred years after the end of the Scourge, civilization, such as it
was, had come some ways towards rebuilding itself. But while gateways couldn’t
be opened to the world of the Terrors, that didn’t stop the ones that were
already here from causing trouble.
When the loredump was over, Mike found himself in a white
room, a fairly standard character creation setup. A window popped up in front
of him:
Welcome to Age of Anarchy Online!
Attention: A World of Destiny character
has been detected on your account. You can
Reincarnate the character ‘Torgan’ into
the world of AAO. Doing so will give you
Increased benefits at character creation,
but will permanently delete ‘Torgan’ from
World of Destiny. Benefits scale with
the level, achievements, titles, and equipment
possessed by the Reincarnated
character.
Do you wish to Reincarnate ‘Torgan’?
Y/N
|
“Yes.”
Calculating…
You have 25,000 bonus points to spend
at character creation.
|
Please choose your gender:
Male
Female
Hermaphrodite
Other
Note: Some Race and Class choices may
be unavailable based on gender chosen.
|
Author's Note:
The next few chapters are going to be pretty short, but come rapid fire, as we move through Chargen and Tutorials. Later chapters will get larger.
Also! Some chapters I'll have goals for to get 'extended editions' of. These are primarily the ones with naughty stuff, so keep that in mind.
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