2. The Long Way Round

"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them." — John C. Maxwell

After weeks of trying to clear his name and save his reputation, Paul is sitting in his apartment, exhausted. These past few days, he has been talking to people who knew him, doing interviews, and trying to tell his side of the story, but it seemed like most people didn't care or were trying to pull him further down.

At this point, he contemplated leaking the group chats he was in and taking all those people down with him. It was a childish thing to do, but he wanted to take some of these fake people down with him if he was going down. 

After all, if what he did could be related to anything criminal, it would be jaywalking at most; he knew people who had done the equivalent of armed robbery and attempted murder, very serious things. 

Of course, he had no proof of that per se, but neither did these people and as time went on, more mundane things he had said kept being leaked.

Stuff like saying that a particular streamer was only famous because their avatar is hot and very suggestive or that other players are terrible at the game. 

This was not a very big deal, but it led to many people who didn't like him for tiny reasons. 

Thankfully, the Feds were done with him after he handed over all the private messages he had ever sent on the Harbinger network. It was very wrong for them to essentially force him into doing it, but it was the best way to get out of trouble.

He hadn't committed any crimes, and if they were going to pin a crime on him and frame him, there wasn't much he could do about it anyway. 

Unfortunately, all his progress so far was based on the premise that "the matrix is attacking me, and they are mad because they are bad," which didn't exactly attract the best support. 

In fact, he had never felt like so many people who were actually criminals were standing up for him; well, it was better than absolutely everyone hating you, so it was something at least. 

Paul was thinking about what to do when he suddenly got a call on his phone; checking the caller ID, he instantly became bitter.

At one point, the woman calling him could be called his rival for the DPS spot in Dawnfire Forge, who had eventually lost when he made it to the main roster. 

Recently, she had been calling him subtly to gloat about his misfortune. It wasn't that she didn't believe what was being said about him but that nothing said was a big deal or very surprising, so she didn't care. 

"Hi PaUl sTeWaRd, how have you been?"

"Not much StEpHaNy LeWiS, just trying to salvage my career that some assholes are trying to ruin; how about you?"

He could already hear her gloating voice.

"Not much either. I just joined the reining world first raid team, Dawnfire Forge, as their new DPS. I have to thank you for the spot on the team!" 

Hearing her answer, he was not really surprised. She was already one of the primary backup DPS, but winning the central team spot was still pretty good for her; competition is ridiculously fierce. 

Knowing the struggle, he honestly didn't want to be rude and was somewhat happy for her. She never pretended to be his friend, but she still treated him better than many of them.

"Congratulations, it seems your big payday has finally come. Don't get too close to most of them; they are a very slimy group of people." 

Hearing his reply the woman on the other side started laughing.

"Don't worry—I am recording all of the text chats. If they ever mess with me, I am taking the entire ship down with me! If you are lucky, I might end up getting revenge for you, well, after I make a ton of money first, that is."

Her reply caused Paul to chuckle; that is why he was still acquainted with this woman even though they weren't friends who never played or did anything together; she was a person who was fair and intelligent but also fun to interact with.

"Hey Paul, I heard you started your own guild to form a team; how is that going?"

In Harbinger, players could be in up to five guilds at once, and many people would join guilds focused on different parts of the game, such as trading guilds, crafting guilds, dungeon and raiding guilds, and PvP guilds. With that in mind, it was not strange for people to often change some of their guilds to find better ones or get a change of scenery.

"Not very good, I don't think I am cut out to be a dungeon leader, let alone a raid lead. For now, I am just trying to get some people to run undaunted runs and maybe some normal mode Tomb, but not many good people are interested in joining."

"Well, that is too bad; if you ever need one for some daily undaunted runs for rewards, let me know, and if I am free, I will hop in."

"Who would need another DPS? I can spin around in a circle with my arms out in any town or city and fill the rest of the DPS slots. Maybe you should change to tank or healer, and I will hit you up to fill."

"Hahaha, true; they wouldn't be as good as me, though, anyways. I have to go, but good luck, Paul; maybe you will get back into people's good graces one day."

Hearing her hang up, Paul sighed in exasperation. He thought he would message her if she wanted to do any more challenging content, but she only said she would come for easy stuff. 

It would be the equivalent of calling over an Olympic sprinter to win a drunk race in your friend's backyard.

Overkill to the extreme.

After that, Paul went to lie down for the night, sleep being one of the few places to find peace recently.

After tossing and turning for a few minutes, he finally drifted off to dreamland, where he saw the sights and sounds of his deepest subconscious mind. 

Finally, he woke up, feeling that a strange but profound dream had just happened. He felt a sense of loss because he couldn't remember what was so important.

After finally getting up from his reverie, he noticed something was wrong with his bedroom.

"Is this my college apartment?"