Andrew Collins.

A group of three younger men was walking out of the corporate building for an internet search company called Zazoon. They all worked the phone help desk helping people with their mundane questions and people calling and says their company was evil. They did not care, it paid the bills and to them, that is all that matters. It was December 31rst, 2020 and they were just getting off work.

"Hey Drew, are you finally going to play Alorvand today? I brought the disc so you could play just like you asked." One of the three men said.

"Yeah. We have been trying to get you to play it since it came out in April. You are going to love it. There are dragons and elves and goblins, and it is an open world. That means you can go anywhere and do almost anything."

A man in his early 20's with mess and unkempt black hair, about 5 foot 11 inches, green eyes with glasses over them, and slightly overweight, (That's me. Handsome right? Well except for that last part but, you know, COVID-19. It is keeping everything closed so do not fat shame me. I am just joking. I have never been to a gym a day in my life.) says to them, "Fine. I will play it. You guys know I have never played an RPG before, Right? They do not look fun. To complicated. The only reason I am playing this is, so you guys shut up about it."

"You say that now but, once you start playing, I know you will totally be hooked."

"Yeah, Drew. Trust us. Here is the game."

"Give it to me." and I snatched the game from his hands and turn it over to read the information on the back. "Alright, I am going home. I will see you guys tomorrow."

We split up and I start walking to my house. I do not live far away; it only takes me about 15 minutes to walk home. As I was walking home, I was reading the back of the game that my buddy from work gave me, it said,

"The once peaceful lands of Alorvand where Elves, Humans, Demi-Humans, and Fairy Folk, all lived in harmony. Until one day 30 dungeons showed up all over the world and started to release dark energy into Alorvand. The dark energy corrupted the lands around the dungeons and released evil creatures upon this world.

What will you do? Will you help to stop the spread of evil that is plaguing the world, or will you help fuel it. The choice is yours."

I thought it might make a good move but, I was not sure at the time if I was going to like the game. So, I got home, said hi to my mother, who was getting ready to go out with some of her friends for a New Years' eve part, and then went up to my room and installed the game.

By the time the game was done installing, it was already 7:30 at night, and I had already eaten a box of mini burgers that you can just throw into the microwave. I sit in my computer chair and throw on my headphones and fire up the game.

The first thing it made me do was, build a character. That took me about an hour. I thought if I am going to give this game a shot, I am going to do it right. After going through endless builds, I decided on a dark elf that can use magic, a bow, and a short sword. My character was 6 foot 2 inches, (at least that is what the status page said), grayish-blue skin, long pointy ears, red eyes, and long white hair. He had more of a fit body, like that of a marathon runner. His equipment was the standard starter set. Black pants with black worn leather boots, leather armor and gloves, a long black belt, and a long black cloak. His bow that he started with, looked like a regular wooden longbow, and his short sword looked like they just put a hilt on some metal. It was nothing special.

"Alright now that my character is built, let's see what the fuss is all about in this game." I spawned into the new world. I was in a forest, and... I died. There was someone there killing people that spawned in. (See! That is why I always played simulator games. That kind of stuff does not happen.)

When I spawned in again, I was now in an old-looking town. There were buildings all around that looked like there should be knights running around, chasing demons and dragons. It was straight out of a fantasy world. While I was in the town, which I hoped was a safe zone, I started to get familiar with my controls and how to move around. There is a mini map on the top right side of my screen, a blue bar and a red bar stacked on top of each other in the top left that said MP and HP. A gear symbol in the bottom left of my screen next to a chat bar and a G with a line through it and a number beside it. It was how much gold you have and mine said 100. The gear symbol was just like every other gear symbol, on every other piece of software, "settings". In the bottom right corner, there were 5 empty boxes and a symbol that had cross swords on it. After clicking around, I found out that the 5 empty boxes were quick equipment slots, allowing me to quickly equip items or use spells that are in the boxes. The cross swords symbol pulled up a menu that had 5 different pages. The first page allows me to go through all my armor and equip or de-equip armor. The second page is the same thing but for weapons. The third page is the character status page. It allows you to put character status points into 5 different categories, Strength, Intelligence, Agility, Defense, and Luck. All of my status points are at 10. It looks like if I raise my intelligence, my MP goes up, and if I raise my defense, my HP goes up. Strength, Agility, and Luck are pretty straight forward. The fourth page is for all your magic and abilities. It allows you to put ability status points into specific magic or abilities, leveling them up and making them more powerful. There are 3 upgrades per ability or magic. The final page was for a list of all current and active missions. This allowed you to highlight a mission and the mini map will navigate you to the area where the mission needs to be complete. Every time my character would level up, I would get 10 character status points and 1 ability status point to use how I wanted.

Now that I have that all figured out, it was time to move around and try to level up. I made my way out of town and started to look for things to hunt. I died a couple of times in the beginning just trying to get used to the mechanics of playing through an RPG. After a little over three hours of playing, I had finally leveled up to level five, and then... I died again. Another player killed me, again. I sighed and thought to myself 'I don't know if I can get into this.' and then, flashing on my screen was a message saying "Congratulations. For leveling up to level five, right as the clock struck midnight, on New Year's Day, you have earned a special reward. 100-ability status points, 20-character status points, double experience for 30 days, a new ability, and a special reward. Do you wish to accept?" I thought you know what, what the heck why not, and I clicked yes. The computer screen started to flash a bright white light and I closed my eyes and covered them with my arms. When the light finally faded away, I was looking at the buildings of the town I spawned into but, not through my computer screen but, through my own eyes. And my vision looked just like the screen of the computer, except there was no longer a chat bar and my gold was at 1,000. Then a message popped up in the middle of my I guess screen? That is what I have been calling it this whole time. The message said, "Welcome to Alorvand!"