Humanity’s done it.

They’ve spread out among the stars, and explored the vastness of space.

Of course, we needed a little help getting there.

In 2079 F.E, a single scientist became the first to become a god.

With his divinity came certain perks, like extended lifespan, greater intelligence, and power. Lots and lots of power. He found a way to awaken this power in others, and built an army which unified Earth for the first time in human history. Then, he dedicated the rest of his life towards making the prospect of colonizing other worlds possible. In the end, he created a series of machines that would allow mankind to travel faster than light, arrive at a distant planet, terraform it in a matter of weeks, and live there.

In a matter of centuries, mankind had left Earth, and built sprawling mega-cities on distant horizons.

In these mega-cities, anything you could ever need can be found. There’s no need to exit the city for anything. Rather—you can’t exit it, since each city is covered by a massive and transparent dome, which keeps the oxygen inside. Outside, the air isn’t suitable for human life. Terraforming can only go so far, after all, even if done at the hands of a divine-class individual. Human gods are not omnipotent, as it turns out.

The most important thing to note about these domed cities would be that each functions as a massive trade hub, with intergalactic freighters coming and going every few minutes. It was through one of these freighters that I first made my way to the domed city of Jor. It was an uncomfortable ride, with very little space, and lasting a full two months. I slept on a pallet, and ate fabricated food with the crew of the ship.

After arriving, I showed up for school, and began attending elementary school classes. I fit right in, endearing myself to teachers and students alike due to my broken speech patterns, and entertaining actions. In the end, I became a school mascot of sorts—something that would happen in middle, then high school as well.

Now, ten years have past since I arrived on Jor, and only a year of peace is left.

I’m determined to spend it well.

I took the bags from the woman behind the check-out desk, nodding my head in thanks.

They weren’t too heavy, and I could easily carry them instead of using a mav-cart. And, my little apartment was right around the corner. It was a quick walk to get there, where I dumped the bags full of real food on the little ledge of a countertop.

I spent the next few moments emptying the bags, putting the cold items into the fridge, while the rest went into the cupboard. Unfortunately, the fact that most of that food consisted of snacks and chocolate made me feel a little guilty, so I had also loaded up on good, wholesome food that I would be able to cook for dinner. I got fruit for breakfasts, while lunch was served at the school during the week. Otherwise, I had some sandwitches. I would like to think that I eat a balanced diet, but my sweet tooth precludes that notion.

After having neatly sorted out everything, I flopped onto my bed, which was tucked into a corner of the little apartment.

I sighed contently.

The weekend’s only just started, and I already got my chores done. Earlier this morning, I had cleaned the apartment and done laundry. I also spent some time on homework, expending a bit of effort to finish it all today, rather than putting it off for later.

Now, I had plenty of free time, especially since I had long since conveyed to my schoolmates that the weekend was sacred time for me. They were not allowed to touch it with their petty friendships.

However, I’d also made it clear to them that if they were desperate, they could meet me online, in the other reality created by mankind.

I reached for the sleek and ergonomic headset by the bed, settling it so that my eyes and ears were covered. As soon as that minor task was completed, I powered the device on.

Immediately, a white dot appeared in the center of my vision, and spread out into a vertical line. It flipped on its axis a second later, turning horizontal, before the blackness faded and my vision turned completely white.

I could make out areas that were darker, as the space turned into a small white room with a figure standing still in the center. There were words hovering over the figure, denoting it’s name, and level. Normally, there would be a few different figures in the room, but I only needed one.

In this case, it was the only avatar I’ve ever made, who I named Vina. She was a max level arcane-archer—who was also adept at operating a mecha, should the game call for it.

I’d designed her to look almost exactly like me, with long black hair, a short and slim build, and pale white skin. The only difference between her and the real me, would be that both her eyes are a brilliant emerald green. And, her chest might be ‘just a smidge’ larger, but that’s neither here nor there. Ah, and she’s also an elf, since fantasy and all. I’m mostly human in real life.

I selected her, and then was brought to a list of the game worlds I could access. I chose to go to my favorite—a massive VRMMO world called Ashenload, which was largely inspired by the old days of fantasy role-playing, when games were played on a tabletop, and powered only by the players imaginations. It was a fairly popular game, mostly due to the massive volume of quests you could find. I think someone once calculated that it would take someone 700 years to finish all of them. Most of them were created by players before being sent to the GMs to be evaluated, which is why there were so many. Even I’ve sent in one or two. Or fourteen.

What?—I was bored, okay?

The white room faded from view, and I found myself in an empty field of grass and flowers, with the tree line off in the distance. I recognized this place, of course. I had logged off here last time, right after finishing a quest that involved me taking out a gigantic Ent that had stood in the middle of the field. I guess it doesn’t spawn in unless you were doing the quest, since the field was empty at the moment.

That thing was a right pain in the ass to take down as well, since I had to use most of my fire arrows. It was a very tanky monster, made worse by the fact that it’s branches were devastatingly fast and destructive. It would have been a nightmare for a team of close-quarter combatants.

I opened up a map display, with a chart containing all the teleport points in this world, and decided to teleport to one of seven main cities.

Oddly enough, all seven of those cities were run by players—who were even allowed to build new structures as long as they weren’t too out-of-place. The players in Ashenload were given unprecedented amounts of freedom, so long as they still abided by the GM’s rules.

Should they not, the GM’s also have the freedom to sic a thunder of dragons on them.

The teleport function soon kicked in, and a glowing nimbus of blue light surrounded me. It blurred out the surrounding field before the light faded, bringing a bustling city square into view. There were all sorts of people around me, of all sorts of races. Like any good fantasy RPG, you could chose a race fitting your tastes during the character creation screen. I had chosen to be an Elf, mostly because they were the only race besides the Vamps that had a skin tone close to my own. The human race was uncharacteristically buff and tanned looking. I also didn’t like the de-buffs that came with a Vamp race, so I chose to stick with the pointy ears. Besides, fantasy is justice.

As a result, I was one of only a few mostly human looking players in the city square right now. There was certainly a massive variety of races present, with Dragonoids, Demons, Beastmen, Angels, Gruffens, or even the odd Vent wandering around. Likely, most of them were waiting for a friend to teleport here so that they could form a party together.

Nobody wanted to be human in a world where there were so many other, better options.

I simply walked out of the square, and down one of the winding streets. Thank God there’s an automatic guidance system built into the map, else I would quickly get lost in these little streets.

It nudged me towards the blacksmith’s shop I wanted to go to, in order to replenish those fire arrows I had used against the Ent.

Honestly, I have no idea why the player who owns the shop would put it in such a hard to reach, and remote part of the city. It was well worth the walk, however, when considering the quality of goods, and the price.

A little bell jingled as I opened the door, and I could hear a voice calling out a greeting near the back of the shop. I let my eyes adjust to the relative darkness inside for a moment, before heading to the counter. I looked at the other goods here for a moment, appreciating the workmanship and quality.

Like most other things, you had to actually be a skilled smith in real life in order to create good stuff inside the game. There are some other games that use an assist system for things like crafting and combat, but Ashenload prided itself on realism and accuracy above all else.

The owner of this shop could definitely make a killing smithing stuff in real life, though he wasn't ready for that yet. Plus, there’s a one-to-one ratio for value between items in Ashenload and real life. In other words, Xavier, the shop owner, is making a good chunk of credits simply by creating virtual weapons and armor.

Xavier walked out of the back room in the shop, and smiled at me behind the counter.

“Ah, if it isn’t Vina? What can I do to help you today—more knives? Arrows?”

I nodded, and gestured to a stack of arrows in the corner of his shop. I could make them myself, but they’re of a better quality when done by a master smith.

I also pulled out my sole remaining fire arrow, and Xavier understood what I wanted.

“So, you want more fire arrows?”

I nodded again.

“Right then. I have some out back, I’ll be but a second!” He called out as he left through the back door once more.

When he returned, he had a few dozen arrows marked with red feathers in his hands. Xavier placed them on the desk where I could closely inspect them.

From what I could see, they were as perfect as usual. I was more than happy with the workmanship on them, and could even feel a bit of heat from the arrows while standing a meter or so away. The magic in them was strong, apparently.

I took the arrows and stowed them in my inventory, while passing a few gold coins to Xavier. He smiled, and the coins disappeared into his own inventory. Luckily arrows are relatively cheap as consumable items, though there was a perk that allowed you to recover spent arrows.

Things like swords and armor were much more expensive, making me very glad that I ran a relatively cheap class.

Before I left, Xavier called out to me.

“Be sure to keep your eyes open, little Vina! I heard there might be a thirteenth God Quest coming out soon! And I'll see you at school on Monday, right?”

I smiled while nodding, and waved goodbye to Xavier.

There are twelve quests that exist in Ashenload that are well known for being extremely hard to beat—they teetered on that end of impossible. They were also fantastically well written, with an engaging storyline, likable characters, and good rewards. They were quests that practically defined the Ashenload of today.

However, there’s a kick.

They weren’t made by the game developers.

All twelve of these quests were created by a single player, who simply submitted them with the initials R.A.V.

The quests were known by different names, with the very first one being called ‘A Study in Alcoholism’. Due to the title, the quest drew very little attention when it was first added to the game after having been play-tested by one of Ashenload’s GMs. In fact, it was almost completely ignored by most players, since the quest had a very simple start: Help a drunken man back to his home.

In the end, the GM who had play-tested the whole thing had to convince one of his friends to play the quest. This friend was a well-known and respected player in the community, and obviously didn’t want to play the quest through at first. So, imagine his surprise when that little act of helping the drunken man spiraled into a quest to help the god Dionysus regain his throne on Mount Olympus?

It was one of those quests that drew you in, and got you to play for days at a time, just wanting to see what happens next. After word started getting around that a massive new quest had been added to the game, more and more started playing through it.

And, they were especially excited when they noticed that there were still eleven empty seats on Mount Olympus in the end, symbolizing eleven more gods that needed help.

An epic search began to find the rest of the quest, and the remaining eleven gods, only to turn up empty. People were disappointed, thinking that it was a shame that such a large quest was unfinished.

Or, they were, until a player recently introduced to the game stumbled across a new quest called, ‘To Save a Home’, where the goddess Hestia made an appearance.

It was then that players realized the whole quest-line was episodic, and came out in increments.

Since then, the twelfth quest had been finished, and all the gods were returned to their thrones. Now, all twelve quests have become known as the God Quests, for the fact that it involved the archaic gods of mankind when they were just beginning to build civilization, and since they were so damn difficult. You needed raid-level parties to complete some parts of the quests, and you also had to be very smart to catch some of the clues involved.

It was a happy moment when thousands of players banded together to break the last god, Zeus, out of his imprisonment and defeat the last boss of the quest. And, nearly a million people watched as he sat back upon his throne on Mount Olympus.

Thankfully, the quests are reset three times a year, in order to let others go through them. Some of the hardcore fans of it do the quest each time they’re available, simply because they’re that good.

That being said, rumors of a thirteenth quest in the series seem to be going around.

Most dismiss the claims, saying that it was already finished since all the gods were reinstalled on their thrones. Xavier obviously thinks that it’s the real deal, however.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Feeling bored, I decide to wander the streets aimlessly. There are so many quests in the game, that I could trigger a few simply by taking a stroll. Most of them seem worthless however, and I want to do something challenging. I ignore things like fetch quests, single objective quests, and even the man laying in a pool of his own blood in an alleyway.

My chance finally came when I stumbled across a carriage broken down by the side of the road, with a coat of arms painted on its wood paneled door.

Grinning to myself, I checked it out.