"Five minutes."
Mar glanced at the countdown on his second monitor, then leaned back in his chair. The fan on his PC tower whined like a dying animal under his desk, the only real sound in the room besides his own heartbeat.
Discord lit up with activity.
[Bour]: okay, nobody fuck this up
[Mihan]: define "fuck this up"
[Glenda]:Mar, you better not pick something edgy again
[Eli]: i'm gonna be an orc and i will commit war crimes
Mar cracked a smile. Same squad, same noise. He didn't even need to look at the names—he knew the voices like muscle memory.
"Alright, alright," Mar said aloud, hitting his push-to-talk. "We all agreed this wasn't going to be another shitshow, right? No memes, no cursed builds, no 'just experimenting' on launch day. We go in, we go hard, we play serious."
"You sound like a youth pastor trying to organize a guild raid," Mihan replied. "Shut up and open character creation."
The launch notification pinged. Server: Dominion | Status: LIVE
Mar didn't waste time. He slid the VR helmet over his head, adjusted the strap, and gave a quiet nod to no one. He blinked into the white loading screen.
Welcome to MYTHREIGN
Create your character.
"Holy shit," Mar muttered as the model editor loaded in.
Everything was customizable: race, class base, starter stats, even tattoos and muscle tone. He scrolled through dark elves and stopped.
Lean, pale-skinned, obsidian hair, sharp gold eyes. Fast base stats. High DEX, above-average crit. Dangerous.
He locked it in.
[Mar has selected: DARK ELF][Base Class: ROGUE]
He named himself Mar. Just Mar.
[Glenda has selected: ELF – BASE CLASS: MENDER]
[Eli has selected: ORC – BASE CLASS: SORCERER]
[Mihan has selected: DARK ELF – BASE CLASS: FIGHTER]
[Bour has selected: HUMAN – BASE CLASS: SLAYER]
One by one, the notifications rolled in. The party was coming together.
[Glenda]: lookin hot, babe
[Mar]: you too, even though your ears are clipping through your hood
[Bour]: this UI is clean af
[Eli]: i have tusks. i'm crying. i'm literally crying
Then Mihan's voice crackled through, distorted.
"Anyone else getting lag spikes?"
Mar frowned. "Nope, running fine."
[Mihan disconnected.]
"...Huh."
"Bro?" Mar said aloud.
No answer.
[Bour]: maybe his internet shit the bed
[Eli]: he did say his router's taped to a radiator
Then Glenda's icon blinked gray.
[Glenda disconnected.]
"Wait what the fu—"
[Eli disconnected.]
[Bour disconnected.]
Only Mar remained in the call.
Static bled through the voice channel. His screen flickered.And then the world broke.
Darkness.
Then cold.
Then—
Light.
He opened his eyes and immediately flinched.
He was standing in a field of pale, broken trees under a sky that looked too close. The wind howled. The HUD blinked softly in the corner of his vision—transparent, alive, fused to his thoughts. Every breath he took felt like a real breath. Every gust of wind against his cloak sent chills down his spine.
He wasn't at his computer anymore. He wasn't in his room.
He was in the game.
"No fucking way…" he whispered.
There was no logout button. No menu to exit. No Discord overlay. No voices. No Bour, no Glenda, no Mihan, no Eli.
Just Mar.
And the sound of something moving between the trees.