From Player To Npc

Chapter 2: The Old Life (2)

Everything turned dark. Ameanum didn't know even if he was alive as he couldn't feel anything but only him moving. It wasn't a feeling he had with his body or any of his normal senses, but just a feeling he had but couldn't describe. And the time passed as seconds became minutes, and minutes became hours, and so on.

As time passed, he started thinking over everything that happened and lead him to this point. He wasn't an average child when young since they considered him a tranquil one. So quiet that his parents forgetting him at places was a typical occasion. Everything he started working on, even if he didn't get to be an expert, was losing interest after a few days, and for some even after a few hours.

Until then, even if everybody else considered him not normal, he wasn't paying attention. His parents, after they had another child, seemed to not pay attention to him even more. Still, he didn't care anyway as they were at least covering his living expenses. And then he came across a VR headset. The VR technology was around for a few years, but the VR headset he tested was at a different level.

Before, every other headset was just a camera you could move around. This one was using your brainwaves to move your character around. Even if the system wasn't perfect then, it drew his attention more than anything else he had started. He bought one device, but he also started his research on it and the possibilities. Even if he wasn't an expert engineer or programmer, his writing ideas at few forums drew the headset's creators' attention. He got offered a job working in the marketing and testing department. And for the first time, he found something exciting to focus upon.

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He helped design the headset's designing functions and later of the capsule to help frequently. The user could use it to see all files and documents in a 3d environment, copy them, and organize them with great freedom. For more casual users like students, they could use it for their homework as also the most common use was for gaming. ENERIAS TOWER was not the first game released in the VR environment. But was the one with the most significant impact in the gaming community and the work Ameanum was most proud of. Even if he was primarily working in the testing department, he had many ideas that helped in its development.

So when it got released, even the quests he had tried had changed on the released product, but he was more than happy to play it, and finally found what he was looking for all those years. The VR opened him the way to a world different from the one he considered as not normal. The NPCs were an essential factor. He wasn't much with interacting with people in actual life, but in-game, maybe because of the quest system and the potential rewards, he was more open. Even if both in-game and in actual life had the name Ameanum, their personalities were opposite. And the biggest thing that piqued his interest was the main quest of the game, the Tower.

The main quest of everyone in the game was reaching the top floor of this Tower. However, each floor was different in the way to progress it. Fighting monsters, solving puzzles, encountering traps, or even diplomacy with a few NPCs or fighting and other types of events.

The fighting with the Dragon was one such event and the last one on the 94th floor of the Tower. Although it wasn't known what the top floor was, some assumed that 95 or 100 would be the top. Some were considering not existing on a top floor.

As he was considering and remembering more things like that, a light appeared some distance from him. Still, if it was moving closer to him or he was moving closer to it, he couldn't tell. And as he got at the light, he felt his heart beating once more, his lungs full of air and his eyes being heavy and impossible to open like he hasn't slept for weeks.

Other than that, he didn't feel tired, although he noticed that his body was impossible to move. Not like something kept him in place, but like he couldn't master the power to move even a muscle.

And so for the time, all he could do is wait and gather the energy he needed and started using his other senses in his surroundings. Maybe because he was in a coma kind of state and his sight wasn't available for the moment, his other senses improved a little, so he learned a few things.

He was lying on a bed, but the mattress wasn't his own, either in-game or real life. It was too firm, like barely have any mattress and almost feel the bed's wooden planks under it.

Also, the smells he was getting by the room were of an unknown environment. Most smells were familiar, but their combination wasn't of any place he would usually be.

'This isn't a hospital.' [Ameanum]

He kept thinking about where he could be, and then he noticed something. He remembered that he got banned by the system, so he shouldn't have access to it, but he could feel him using it but only barely. He thought they might put him into a capsule to keep him alive if the electric shocks put him in such a terrible state as he was considering. Still, the feeling he had was like being in the game, not just being in the capsule. He has spent a lot of time in the game and the capsule's lobby and could tell that they felt somewhat similar and different.

And after a while, he heard some footsteps. He then felt someone pulling his body up and taking out whatever clothes he was wearing and felt a wet towel or similar across his body. As his little bath finished, he felt getting dressed again and then heard an unknown female voice.

"All will go well, little brother. I know you will be awake soon, so I will keep your body clean and healthy."[Young female]