Starting Point

*Beep Beep Beep!*

"Five… more… minutes….."

"Alex Harper if you do not get down here right now you are going to be late for school! Lucius is waiting down here for you as well," a robust feminine voice called from downstairs.

Groggily opening his eyes, Alex sat up in his bed before stifling a yawn and grabbing his phone off of his bedside table.

"I'll get those five minutes one way or another, and math class sounds like an appealing place for it," he muttered to himself.

Stretching his arms and tiredly moving his blankets off of his body, he got out of bed and walked over to his closet before grabbing a t-shirt, underwear, and a pair of blue jeans out of his dresser.

Sighing to himself, he walked out of his room before yelling down the hall. "I'll be down there soon, don't worry mom! I won't keep you waiting long either Lucius, just got to get my dashing self ready for today!"

"Whatever you say man, we both know that Mrs. White won't even bat an eye if we arrive to class late. Not like I'm in a hurry to be there anyways."

"Lucius!" Alex heard his mom yell from downstairs, "Don't tempt my son like that, you know he'd sleep in until noon if he could."

Rolling his eyes and huffing, Alex stepped into his upstairs bathroom and set his clothes on the counter. Turning the water on and quickly undressing, he took a quick shower before stepping out and wrapping a towel around his torso.

Once he made sure he was mostly dry, he slid on his underwear and pants before grabbing his folded up shirt and sliding it over the upper portion of his body.

Looking in the mirror, he glanced at his reflection's blue eyes for a split second before he used his hands to part his messy brown hair somewhat to the side. "Eh that'll do, he said to no one in particular.

Walking down the stairs, he was pleasantly surprised to see a plate of breakfast food sitting on the counter for him. It consisted of two scrambled eggs, a couple thick pieces of bacon, and a few small hash browns on the dinnerware.

"For telling me I'll be late to class you sure gave me a reason to take it slow," he said to his mom as he approached the food.

"Well if I didn't say that then the food would've gotten cold and you would have actually been late for class," she said, sending a glance his way before settling down on the couch.

"I can't dispute those words but know I'll eat this food and take my sweet time with it," Alex said while doing exactly that.

"I don't blame you man. That looks amazing," Lucius said from beside him.

"Want some?" Alex offered, cutting his eggs into two portions and putting a slice of bacon next to it.

Lucius grinned before happily wolfing down the offered food. "This is why you're my best friend man," Lucius said in between bites.

Alex rolled his eyes and smiled. Lucius truly was his best friend as well. They had been friends for a long while, at least five or six years, he thought.

Alex met Lucius during lunch in his 7th grade year. He had known the boy as a trouble maker and didn't really know him all that well, but he found his antics amusing at the least. Lucius had run through the cafeteria doors before eyeing Alex by his lonesome at a table. Quickly sitting down at his table and snagging Alex's cap, Lucius threw up the hood for his hoodie and simply engaged Alex in conversation, trying to blend in.

Right as Alex was about to question what the hell was going on, the doors to the cafeteria were slammed open once more, this time by an angry looking man. "Where is Lucius Devonus?!" an angry voice roared throughout the lunchroom, silencing all the chatter.

It didn't take Alex to put two and two together to figure out what was happening here. Glancing at Lucius, he was simply given a small shrug by the boy before he rolled his eyes and turned around and stood up.

"Uh principal?" Alex voiced. "I don't know if it was him but I saw a kid run out the other doors of the cafeteria a few seconds before you came in.

The principal glared at him before noticing the boy next to him. He was about to say something beogre the school bells had rung and students bolted out of the cafeteria, Lucius included. He had simply grinned and gave Lucius a wink before melting into the disappearing crowd.

Alex was approached by the boy later and found out that despite his redirection in the lunchroom, the boy had still gotten in trouble for the continuous pranks he had been doing.

Alex smiled, thinking bad to that fond memory. It wasn't very special by any means, but he found it entertaining and was glad that he knew the man next to him today. They were both seniors in high school now and today was just like any other school day for them.

Or, at least they thought so.

They both finished their food before setting the dishes in the sink and grabbing their shoes and backpacks before heading out of the house.

"Hey Alex, Lucius said whilst they both walked down the sidewalk towards their school. "Remember how we applied to the early beta for Arcane Realms?"

Alex simply nodded. The Arcane Realms was supposedly a virtual reality MMORPG that was supposed to break all records and limits that its predecessors had done. Him and Lucius had both excitedly signed up for it when they first read about it and saw a few pictures, but forgot about it as time passed.

"Well I doubt you check your email often, but I was accepted and there's no way you weren't too since we did it at the same time. Apparently it was a first come first serve sorta thing," Lucius said as he kicked a rock down the pavement.

Alex grabbed his phone out of his pocket and opened his email account, only to see a similar response to the one Lucius had gotten. Glancing at Lucius, they both had a mischievous smile on their face.

"Dip after lunch?" Lucius asked.

"Dip after lunch," Alex confirmed.

And they both did just that. They went to their classes, and as he had intended too, Alex did catch up on his sleep during his math class which earned him a pissed glare from his teacher once he had realized what Alex was doing. The school day had blurred by and as the bells dinged for lunch, Alex and Lucius used it as cover to simply walk out of the front of the school, unimpeded.

"I'll seeya online tomorrow," Alex said to his friend. "We both should get on and figure out what we want to be on our own.

Lucius gave him a nod before running off towards his house. "Yep, seeya then!" Lucius hollered back as he disappeared around the corner.

———————————————

Alex walked into his room and grabbed his virtual reality headset. He waited for the game to install and he sat down in his chair with his headset firmly strapped onto his head.

As the game booted up he was greeted with a blue haired fairy who had been the games mascot. "Hi! And welcome to Arcane Realms!" It had said

Alex had a blank look on his face as he wished he could skip past this and get to the actual game but it seemed like this part was mandatory.

"… and so, what class would you like to play as!" The creature had said.

Alex's attention shifted back to the game and he scrolled through the class list. He saw a variety of classes such as the Wizard, Bard, Warrior, and many others he had expected to see. One stood out to him however, as the text had some errors in it and the menu itself seemed slightly glitchy when he hovered over it. The class was apparently a Realm Seeker.

Since the game seemed to stop him from reading the text due to the errors and glitching, he simply asked the fairy being. "What's the deal with the Realm Seeker?" He inquired.

The fairy smiled and answered his question, "the Realm Seeker is an extremely rare class given as an option to select players. The Realm Seeker can view the unseen seam that separates the real and the fantasy world. They have powers similar to Wizards in some aspects, but are generally stronger and have their own twists on their power!" She said happily.

That was a lot to take in, he thought. The text had been a mess but the fair had told him clearly. Whatever, he thought, must be some early access bug they need to squash.

"What do you mean by select players?" He questioned, he was curious about that one bit, although the abilities and powers themselves didn't really make much sense to him either. He figured he'd experience those later anyways.

"It's likely that you're the only player to have been offered this class in the selection process!" The fairy responded back to him.

Blinking his eyes he turned away in thought. This could be a trick, but why the hell would they do that to a player in early access. He had so many questions but he doubted they'll continue being as lenient as they have been with his questions. He was genuinely surprised that the fairy hasn't been ravished by corrupted pixels like his menu screen had been.

"I'll be a Realm Seeker," he said confidently.

The fairy smiled before waving her hand and a blue light engulfed it. She brought her hand slowly down on Alex's head and said, "It has been done. Go into the world of Arcane Realms and find the divide between your world and mine. There is more to it than meets the eye…" she said as a malicious smile took over her face right before Alex fell into a deep and dark unconsciousness.