Recruited

The elevator ride upstairs was quite weird.

The delegate who'd been sent to pick us up was a young Asian man (how was it that people could have a different nationality or race when we were all born from a vat in a wall?) who would not stop humming, and to make it worse, he appeared to be completely tone deaf. When he first saw us exit the cinema and Ms. Lucy directed us to approach him, he just nodded when he saw us but before we reached him, and then turned around and walked to the elevator. He didn't wait for us and the doors started closing before we got there.

When we finally got inside, that that, was when the madness truly began.

The person who'd joined the anti-life department with me (necromancy), the blonde girl who still didn't have a name, just would not stop staring at me. I thought to myself, if I ignore her she'll stop. She didn't stop. Did I have something on my face or did the brutal training mess with her head?

The man in the black suit was tall with his shirt untucked and long hair swept over his face preventing me from seeing it, was as bad at dancing as he was singing. First, he started shaking his head, then he brought his shoulders into the swaying before he then got his hands involved, and he alternated between drumming and turning discs. Thankfully he didn't start singing.

We arrived on the first floor and the doors opened to reveal a group of people in a variety of colored suits waiting to get in. They looked in and saw a man in a black suit doing what had evolved at some point to the legendary orange justice dance, with one kid in his early teens staring back at them in horror mouthing 'help me'. The person standing closest to the doors pressed the 'close doors' button frantically like his sanity depended on it.

As we rose up we encountered similar situations on the second and third floors, with the man in front of me going through a simply incredible range of dances from various culture points in history, and at one point adopted a Mona Lisa pose. I didn't even think that he was singing along to a song anymore if he ever was. If some idiot were to hop in the elevator at this point and ask me what I thought he was listening to, I would reply 'all of them'. When we reached the 4th floor he stumbled out of the reverie that he had gotten himself into and simply muttered,

"No queues on this floor anyway…"

I was here. I was going to become a real necromancer, not that weird class that they had in Emperors Road, which involved worshipping a Dark god and giving him regular sacrifices. I would have been hated by everyone but more importantly, I would have had somebody else in control of my fate.

I'd waited a week for this, although I thought the game had allowed me to go into a sort of trance in places to allow me to pass the time better.

"I just wish I had figured out how to log out…" Suddenly a flash of light overtook me which crept in from all edges of my vision, and when it faded away, I was lying in my bed looking at a plain white ceiling.

"Oh, you've got to be sh-"

End of 5th chapter.

Jk.

After having a meal and a shower, I logged in to the messaging service, surprisingly there were several people online, George had told me that almost everyone in their group was obsessed with the game, it was like they were the pioneers of the new game. Emperor's road had gotten big before we were born, so by the time we could properly play it at 14 with all of the age restrictions off, almost the entire game had been explored, with more than half the planet having an account. We could all still play the game and quest and dungeon, but we'd lost the opportunity that the pioneers who started playing in the first year had fully explored. When its sequel had rolled around, Liberty.

The group was formed with the aim of becoming the masters of the new game, like the heroes we'd grown up watching on videos. Unfortunately, the sequel was created by the original creator's son, who apparently lacked the same vision as his father, it was buggy, fundamentally flawed and too hard for beginners, to the point where the population of the sequel, had not even 1% of the original user population.

They all still had their old accounts, like me, but also like me they'd just logged in less and less over the years. Now they were all adults, and when I took ownership of the Tower several years ago I'd invited them all to come and stay with half-priced rent. In front of me sat their avatars, all perched on folding plastic chairs. A grizzled old man with dented battle armor on and a rusty sword leaning against the side of his chair, A bright green coiled snake, with the coils in the shape of a human body, a blue zombie with his skull cracked open to show his brain pulsating and very ripped wet clothes. Along with a miniature Minotaur half the size of the rest of us, with big brown eyes and a tiny nose ring. And George, towering above us all but perched upon a deck chair precariously just like the rest of us.

"I'm surprised you all showed up, did you all sign the Contract I sent over to your rooms?" A Contract. After economies began to rise and fall with disturbing intensity, Contracts became more commonplace, it involved the simple trade of services between both agreeing parties.

At least in theory. In reality, Contracts were often used to turn someone into a legal slave, someone you had to provide housing and food for but no payment. They all nodded their heads with Drews head falling off, before he flailed around, managing to catch it in mid-air, which was impressive considering he was probably motion sick from all the spinning his camera had done.

I'd had a hand in creating his avatar, Alice was dead set (get it) on making him into an actual piece of white paper because he had no personality but I suggested a zombie as he was always so boring to be around (he bored us to death). All of them nodded, except for the miniature Minotaur who spoke up.

"I want to renegotiate the terms." Her voice was low for a woman, and I paused for several seconds to pretend I was thinking about it.

"I'll do it to show how much I truly respect you." Her cute, almost puppy-like face twisted and sneered at me before continuing.

"I want two days off a week in real time, along with the permission to do whatever I want not just to 'enjoy myself', there's probably a trick in that phrase you used, I don't trust it."

"Watch out you'll hurt my feelings." She continued, talking over me like the bulldozer she was as she went.

"I want the freedom to choose my own class." I pursed my lips, which just made my light avatar look like he had a growth on his face as it randomly bulged outwards.

"One day off a week in real time and I still choose your class, however, I'll listen to your opinions and take them into account. In addition, I will also make the same amendments to the other Contracts. Finally, I will pay you all the same salary you are earning from your current jobs, while you are working for me."

The conditions I was offering were pretty good. They were too poor to afford the latest hardware to run the new game so I'd offered them all a Contract. Work for me in-game and I'd give them free rent. I had expected Shel would want to renegotiate on their behalf though so I deliberately made the first set of conditions sour to the point of bitterness, just so I had to concede less when she inevitably stormed at me demanding a redraw of the terms.

They all nodded. I created a second chat room and invited them all to it, everyone else in the existing chat room was now the competition. We hadn't gone into this new game with the same agreement as the previous one, likely because we were no longer children, and we all acknowledged the financial benefits of becoming a top player in Emperor's Road. The other members of the old group also had their own financial resources, even though they were living in my Tower for the lowered rent and good facilities, mostly freeloading for the last couple of years even though most people in the group were already rich. Not many people had the time to actually devote themselves to video games

I outlined the information which I'd gathered already which wasn't much, while also not telling them about anything which I'd learned through the knowledge transfer. I told them about the mages group and what to expect if they went through the Institute. I asked them to meet me there again in 24 hours real time (giving them roughly a week in-game), to share what they chose in terms of class, as well as any new information they may have gathered.

I lay back down on my bed. I plugged my headphones in and closed my eyes.

I appeared back in the Mages group Institute, outside the elevator with the man in the black suit and that blonde girl standing there staring at me.

"What?"

"You've been standing there with your mouth open for 5 hours." Interesting. I just stayed in the same place when I logged out, annoying but useful to know about in advance.

"You didn't try to move me?"

"We couldn't, every time I tried to touch you my hand just slid off." The man didn't seem to be that bothered by it.

"You don't care?"

"A lot of weird stuff in this world." It made sense that he wasn't bothered, if an NPC was freaked out every time that a pc logged off, it would make the game unplayable and weird.

They'd waited for me which was only natural. We walked away from the elevator, a thousand versions of ourselves reflected in the mirrors around us, a gold railed balcony of glass lay ahead of us which looked out onto a swirling sphere of blue energy which had gouts of flame, balls of rock, towering pillars of ice shooting out at random intervals, before sinking back in like being drawn in with gravity.

"What is-" I wanted to ask the man what it was as it looked incredible, but instead of going to the guardrail and monologuing like I was expecting him to do, he took a sharp right on the spot and walked through a pair of black double doors. The room had eight sides, and each side had a different colored pair of doors.

I followed the man's retreating back which looked faintly skeletal in nature.

Walking through the darkness, which just felt like a cold wind on the skin, I could hear the man's footsteps ahead of me and the girls behind me which felt slightly comforting. Around me, I could hear soft sounds, like waves crashing to the ground.

I liked the ocean and wanted to see if there was an ocean, somehow, in the necromancy department. I kept following the man in the black suit though. I'd invested so much time and effort to get to this point that if this 'ocean' turned out to be a trap then I would hate myself for a long time. The sound of the ocean in my ears just grew stronger and stronger. I began to smell things too, that terrible fish and chips which was both horrible and highly addictive at the same time. A perfume, her perfume which she always used too much of, to the point where he couldn't stand being around her for long periods of time. Now though, after being so long since the last time that I'd smelled it, I quickly grew intoxicated with it and took steps towards the smell. I'd heard stories about how high-level players from Emperors Road had met some of their dead loved ones on a hidden quest. Maybe there was some truth in that?

I felt a hand on my shoulder steering me back to the path I was on before, I tried to turn back to the ocean but the pressure on my shoulder increased to the point where it hurt and my hp bar decreased in the corner of my vision, blinking as it did so, which meant it was rapidly draining. I stopped resisting and my hp bar stopped blinking along with the pain.

As I walked out of the blackness, the black-suited man had his hand on my shoulder and his other hand was on the blonde girl's shoulder. He was grimacing.

"That was my fault, that was supposed to be a test where you walked through and we tested your will, but I took you through the wrong entrance. That was way stronger than what you were meant to have faced." Idiot.

"What was that?" No response.

"What would have happened if I kept on following the sound?" I was curious.

"You would have died permanently." The f**k? Why was an entrance test so hard?

"Anyway you passed in a sense, you got pretty far for your first time and the test was way harder than it was meant to be."

'Ding'

A system notification. I tapped on the white exclamation mark that appeared in midair.

'Congratulations! Due to encountering arduous circumstances and persevering, the non-linear stat Will has been unlocked. Will, increases your resistance to effects on your mind and decreases the effectiveness of Illusion spells. Has been set to 1.'

"But I failed the challenge though?" Ah well, extra stats were never a bad thing. Ahead of us was another desk, manned by an older woman who was doing a bicep curl of all things and scrolling through a holo-pad with her other hand, similar to the one I owned, but stylised to look like a scroll, instead of the metallic sleek look that I favored. It was eerie how realistic it looked, compared to the ones in the real world.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of this polished black material which was also reflective in nature but added a black smoky texture to the reflections, meaning the further out the infinite reflections went, the more unnatural and demonic they became.

The man in the black suit sat down on the desk, legs hanging over the gold railing while drumming on the desk between his legs.

"Whadda ya want Sam?" Her accent, as opposed to her tough look, was high pitched and fast-paced.

"Need to Recruit these two."Sam loosely gestured at us. She raised her eyebrows.

"You know there's a floor for that, hun?"

"I got lost."

'Sigh' The woman just gave us a look of sympathy like she knew what we'd been through.

"I can do it here anyway. Come here suga." (She had a New Yorker accent for some reason) She beckoned to me and the girl who were at the age of maybe 14 now (I'd apparently literally grown from that experience with the black fog as I'd gone through a growth spurt, shooting me up to chest height with the woman and letting me look down slightly at the blonde girl), with her index and middle finger, decorated with long pink nails. I walked up to the desk, with the girl following me. She tapped the desk and two black pieces of paper formed out of the black desk. She pushed them over to us and told us to sign.

"With what?"

"Your blood, obviously." Anti-life MM my ass. Making us sign a contract in blood? This was clearly the Necromancy department. She nodded at the girl who had already bitten the tip of her finger open. I had thankfully already lowered the pain settings, so it felt like a tiny pinprick rather than the pain I would actually feel.

We slid the contracts back over to her. She nodded then, without any warning, thrust her hands into our chests. Even with the pain settings turned down it still really hurt, but I could think enough that I could analyze what she was doing. She was pushing some kind of energy into my chest while massaging, something inside me. After a few seconds, a warm feeling spread from her hand to my body. It spread to every corner of my little body, growing in heat, to the point where I felt like I was going to burst. Then something gave out, somewhere and the heat flooded out of me like a rushing river, I could feel that something had changed inside me. Like I was always a drop of water falling down a cliff, and now the power behind me had grown to that of a small stream, magnifying that power by several times. I didn't feel more powerful, not really, just more solid with myself.

Her hands pulled out of our stomachs, I peeked at my HP bar which hadn't budged during that whole process.

Suddenly a white notice covered all of my available vision with a ding.

'Ding'

'Congratulations! You have unlocked the non-linear stat Soul. Your Souls boundaries have been increased giving you small power over life and death. Increase this stat through increasing your interactions between the dead and the undead.'

The woman stared deep into mine and the girl's eyes, her accent gone and each word sounding like an old bells gong, signaling my approaching funeral. A dark aura seemed to inhabit her, drowning out the surroundings and making her eyes look like bottomless pits of despair.

"I have finished enhancing your soul. You will now be able to see the dead on our plane and communicate with them. By providing mana to energize your soul, you can interact with them, bending them to your will and forcing them to inhabit their old bodies. This is our departments greatest secret, and part of the reason why our department has such great power over death, even without using spells. By signing this contract, you won't be able to tell others, other than fellow Anti-life Mages."

The woman trailed her hand along the black stone desk. A pink keyboard appeared. The dark aura lifted away from the room as quickly as it came, leaving the room looking brightly lit for its absence.

"What are your stats hun? I need to know so I can max them out."

"Uh...50 for all." There was a little bit of pride in my voice after I swallowed down the tremor in my voice. I turned to the girl, she seemed to be the type to laze around and I didn't remember her from the Institute, so she probably didn't kill many fellow recruits in the first open brawl.

"Same." I was wrong sometimes too. She had a very quiet voice. Strange considering all the other NPCs I'd met were all strong with independent personalities, which made sense as nobody had parents and had to survive on their own.

The leveling procedure was very simple, as I'd already passed their test, which was the black fog. A system notification showed up asking if I wanted my Class to be a Necromancer as I'd fulfilled all the requirements. My Stats had a massive increase, with my health and mana almost doubling, my Will and Soul didn't shift at all however, they probably only increased when I achieved certain actions.

Then they showed us all the skills available for a Lv1 Necromancer. There was one skill which was mandatory. but other than that I got to choose 3 others, so I made my selection and was fairly happy with them, but I resolved to purchase more in-game currency once I had the opportunity, I didn't think the black market was up and running yet, however.

They also threw a black pill to my white onesie, my Shell. It rippled around me forming a black suit with a black tie and polished shoes. I was also given a small clay tablet (dyed black of course) with my new name on it. I only received my first name and if I was asked for my surname I was supposed to just give my departments name, or my identity as a Mage if I preferred.

Samuel waved at me from two meters away.

"Hey, we match now!"

"Yeah, this is definitely more my style." I grinned, my teeth shining bright like diamonds against my skin.

This was going to be fun.

Stat page

Leonardo - Level 1

Classes : Necromancer

Linear Stats :

Strength - 55

Agility - 55

Endurance - 75 HP : 750

Wisdom - 70

Intelligence - 95 MP : 950

Non-Linear Stats :

Will : 2

Soul : 10

Skills:

Mana Manipulation (Lv1)

Raise Undead (Lv1) C: 100 MP

Bone Structure (Lv1) C: 0< MP

Excited Bones (Lv1) C: 50 MP per target

???????? (Lv1)