Prologue.

  S?ren groaned as he clawed his way out of a dreamless slumber; his body sore in ways he'd never experienced in his life. He tried to open his eyes, but they were held shut by a gummy substance. He went to wipe it away, but quickly discovered his hands were bound to his side by thick bands of a chilly, metal or ceramic material. Another groan escaped from his lips as he tried to twist his arms free of the restraints around his wrists and strained aching muscles.

  "Fuck me, what happened," he rasped out between parched lips.

  "Ah, you're awake. Welcome to Gateway Traveler!" shouted a cheery voice that echoed all around S?ren. "Your arrival was quite the catastrophic failure, but fortunately for you, the best nanites medtech could sell you were available to resurrect and restore what remained of your body and mind. Even more fortunate, you could afford them."

  S?ren frowned. What? I died? He finally forced his eyes open; sticky and slightly crusty sleep stuck to his eyelashes. The inner corners of his eyes itched terribly. He turned his head left and right, blinking rapidly to clear his blurry sight. S?ren lifted his head, as much as he could, from the soft padding it was resting on and took in the featureless white room around him.

  "Who are you? Where are you?" S?ren asked. The room appeared to be empty with not even a door set in any of the walls he could see.

  "I am your Guide and will be assisting you with your integration onto Gateway. Unfortunately due to extenuating circumstances, you will be unable to customize your adventure package. In the meantime, let us proceed with the Tutorial!" The cheerful voice rose in pitch at the end, sounding excited about the tutorial. S?ren groaned again as the platform he was laying on rotated at the middle, raising his head towards the ceiling and lowering his feet to the floor. "In just a few moments, an encounter with a Hordeling will begin. Your performance will be assessed in order to determine suitable Paths from which you can choose upon completion of the Tutorial."

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  S?ren couldn't believe what he was hearing. Tutorial? I don't recall hopping into a VR pod. Last thing I remember was… um... uh… what the fuck was I doing?

  "Seriously, what's going on?" he shouted, but his question was met with silence. The shiny white metal bands around his wrists clicked and snapped open. Suddenly free, S?ren slid down the platform and crumpled to his knees with a painful thump. In front of him, a doorway appeared in the wall as if the material had melted away. Flickering pulses of harsh blue-white light revealed a cluttered room full of debris, sparking wires, broken tables, and toppled stools. Stark shadows cast by the flickering light hid much from S?ren's view.

  His momentary confusion was interrupted by an inhuman chattering sound that echoed in the room beyond, followed by a repetitive click of claws on stone. Whatever it was, was getting closer and closer to the open doorway. S?ren staggered to his feet and stumbled behind the raised platform. The platform itself was nothing more than a thin slab of the white ceramic material with a layer of padding on top. It was floating in the air and angled towards the floor. S?ren glanced around the side of the platform and held still, staring at the doorway as a long, dirty brown scythe-like talon the size of a baseball bat stretched tentatively into the room. A second talon followed the first. The appendages gripped the opposite sides of the doorway and pulled the rest of the creature's body into the room.

  The segmented chitin shell of the dog-sized creature looked like a scorpion missing the tail. A half dozen smaller legs on each side of the thorax pushed the creature further into the room. Much to S?ren's astonishment, the creature's name, Tutorial Hordeling Spawn, appeared to float in the air above its head and beneath the name, he could also see a pale, lime green bar. This is ridiculous, he thought to himself. S?ren couldn't believe what he was seeing. Did I really get drunk and pass out in a VR pod? What the fuck was I doing? His fuzzy memory was gnawing away at him, but it would have to wait until after he dealt with the Hordeling. Somehow.

  Date Posted.

  December 29th, 2020

  Date Edited.

  December 30th, 2020 - Made a few changes to formatting.

  January 2nd, 2021 - Cleaned up the opening paragraph to clarify that S?ren couldn't see what the bands holding him in place were made of at that point.

  August 12th, 2021 - Cleaned up some phrases here and there.

  February 6th, 2022 - Minor edits to phrasing and descriptions.