Rich woke to the sound of dishes rattling in the kitchen. It was a familiar sound, and for a moment, for a brief moment, his heart soared at the hope that his mom had come home.

Then a dish hit the counter with a crash, and a very male, very-not-his-mom voice yelled “Shit!”

It was Dad.

Rich let out a breath. He'd spent about half an hour last night cleaning the casserole remnants off the floor. Now he was glad he'd done so.

Last night... He called up his Echo and stared at the clock. Half past eight. Schooltime. No wonder his body had woken him up.

Except... he didn't have school, did he?

The thought evoked both relief that he wasn't late, and anxiety about his expulsion.

This is also way past the three hours the bag was going to last. I hope Geebo's okay.

Rich blinked at the thought. Why had that occurred to him? Geebo was just a character in the game. He existed to make Rich's game better, and probably went inactive or something when he wasn't around. He'd probably log in to find Geebo standing frozen next to him, with an exclamation point over his head or something.

“Rich! Wake up, boy,” Dad bellowed.

Rich shuddered, feeling a queasy wave pass through him. What now? Wait, he probably thinks I'm late for school.

Rich found some clothes that weren't too rank, and opened the door. There was no sound from the rest of the hab, save for the coffeemaker burbling in the kitchen. The heady smell filled the air, and Rich hoped it was a good sign. He padded down the hall, until he could see his father, bleary-eyed, wounded hand wrapped up in bandages that made a cluster about the size of a baseball mitt, all told.

“Dad?” Rich asked.

His father's bloodshot eyes settled on him, inscrutable and glittering. His mouth was shut tight under his beard. Dad was wearing his favorite fedora and polo shirt, along with a pair of shorts.

Those were not work clothes. They were the opposite of work clothes. “Did... you call off work today?” Rich asked, gently.

“Look at my fucking hand boy, and ask another dumbass question,” his dad grunted.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rich said, then winced. That was the wrong thing to say to his dad. And sure enough...

“Don't apologize! Only weak men apologize!” Dad barked. “Only women and libtard cucks are sorry. Real men are sometimes mistaken, but they're never wrong.”

It was the usual lecture, and Rich kept his eyes on the ground.

Silence for a minute, as his father considered him. “You want to apologize for anything, apologize for fucking up my hand, boy.”

Rich felt a bubble of guilt rise up, “So—” he started, then stopped. “I didn't,” he said.

“What was that?” His father asked. He sounded amazed.

“I didn't fu... I didn't mess up your hand,” Rich said, lifting his head just a bit. “You did. You put it down in the casserole—”

“Fake news!” Dad screamed, and Rich jumped back. The back of his knees hit the couch, and he fell backwards, ass landing on the cushions. He coughed as the shock ran through him, and his Dad snickered a mean little laugh. “Seriously, it's your fault for not securing the dish properly,” Dad told him. “I'm going to have to go to hospital now, and you know what that means.”

“Oh no,” Rich whispered.

Hospital was a last resort. Hospital meant money, lots of money. Money they didn't have.

“Oh yeah,” his father said, and he lost his smile now. “We're screwed. And you...” he leaned forward, and stared down at Rich, “had to go and get expelled now, didn't you? So not only are we going to be broke, you're going to be twice as useless as normal.”

“I'm not useless—”

“Yes you are!” Dad screamed again, and Rich felt a lump rise up in his throat. “You're a weight around my neck! She never would have tried to run and leave me if you weren't here! It's your fault she's gone, boy! You're worse than useless, you're a cancer on my ass, and I don't know why—”

There was more, but Rich didn't hear it. The lump in his throat rose up, and he buried his face in his hands as the hatred and guilt exploded somewhere behind his eyes and he cried, keening sobs into his too-big hands, shaking and heaving and wailing.

His father's voice fell, and he said something in a disgusted tone, but Rich curled into a ball and cried harder. Eventually he heard the door slam.

After some time, he cried himself out. He sat there on the couch, face snotty and wet and filthy, and t-shirt soaked in his own juices. The AC wasn't working, and the heat was horrible.

Well. That's something I can do, maybe. I'm not worthless. I can do this. Then he won't hate me.

That lie was too big for Rich. He knew it was untrue. His dad hated him now, and nothing would change that. But he pretended he wasn't worthless, told himself he could make his father happy, and at least save the cost of repair.

After he was calm as he would get, and he'd showered and fed himself a bugyum meal, he lay down on his bed and got to work.

Reality fell away around him, revealing the systems of the hab, icons floating in blank space. It reminded him of the Generica Online character creation screen, only without the green energy patterns. And no chained-up dragon either, of course.

Rich pulled up his Chartreuse Plus overlay, and got to work.

Five minutes into it, he found his mother's jury-rigged code. It was... sloppy. Even by the standards of his junior high classes. Rich was pretty sure Norm could code better than this.

Ten minutes into it, and he understood the reason it was jury-rigged. The HVAC system was running a shell operating system that didn't match up with the hardware. It was as if someone had wiped out the existing one, taken an operating system from a different device, and slapped it on there.

Rich licked his lips back in realspace. This was trickier than he thought it would be. He could just eliminate the mismatched operating system, but then he'd be left with a piece of hardware without software. It wouldn't work at all. He'd need the proper O.S. to replace it. With a sigh he checked the model number, and took note of it in his echo. Then he called his mother's work and stepped through the commands, navigating through the failure prompts whenever it tried to error out. That was what had taken his mother so much time whenever this happened. It took about three minutes to get the system running stably, and when Rich switched back to reality again there was cool air blowing in his face.

He felt a little better about himself after that. Just a bit.

That good feeling lasted until his Echo pinged with a new message.

Email received.

Sender: Justin Haskeen II, M.G

Subject: Prayer Meeting

Email was an oddity. Email was seldom used anymore. You could just message whoever you wanted to talk to and they'd see it eventually, or they'd pick up and reply. Only old people used email anymore.

And then he caught the last name.

Haskeen.

Now his good feeling was entirely gone, and only dread remained. M.G. stood for Man of God. It was a Ministry title, and a powerful one.

This had to be Joel's father. Joel's very powerful and influential father.

Why was Joel's father sending him email? He didn't see any way this could end well, but he wasn't in any sort of position to dodge the trouble heading his way. His life had been an endless stream of bad luck lately, so he didn't expect that this one would be any different.

Rich's mouth was dry, so he licked his lips. It didn't help. Then, holding his breath, he opened the email.

It wasn't very long. He read it over, blinked, read it again. It still didn't make any more sense.

Good morning, Richard. I believe that I owe you an apology, on behalf of my son. Misunderstandings can cause such a fuss.

I'd like to speak to you personally, just you, me, and Jesus. Will you come pray with me? Virtually, of course. The link below will take you to my online solarium. Just reply to this email and let me know what time works for you, and I will make time in my schedule for a heart-to-heart.

God bless,

--Justin Haskeen II

Rich sat there on the couch, turning the email over in his head.

Joel had sent him that message yesterday, threatening him. Had his father learned of that? Finally decided to discipline his son? Reign him in, and maybe stop him from being such a jerk?

Joel's words from yesterday came back to him. “He went biblical on her, and after he was done she was suckin' cock and praying at the same time, crying through two black eyes!”

No. No, that didn't sound like the sort of man who would stop his son from anything. It definitely didn't sound like anyone Rich wanted to be alone in a chatroom with.

Maybe... maybe if he ignored it, nothing would happen?

That was probably the best option.

Then, for no reason that he could tell, the air conditioner stuttered and kicked off. Then on again. Then off again.

“Oh heck,” he said, and went back into the network display.

To his utter surprise, it had changed. The work he'd done on Mom's code had vanished like it had never been.

He pulled up the Chartreuse Plus interface again and stared at it. Then he looked over his saved work, and started going down line by line.

Half an hour later, Rich had a whole list of discrepancies, and absolutely no idea why they were in there. He thought maybe the AC had counted his fix attempts as tampering and reverted back to its previous state, but the code was different from its previous state. Not majorly, not in any way that really messed it up any worse, but there were whole segments that were different.

It made no sense to him, and finally he begged off and got up.

Hospital made you wait forever, so he was pretty certain his dad wasn't coming home any time soon. After the stuff dad had said, that was fine by Rich. A flare of guilt and sadness rose in him, and he didn't want to disappoint his dad any more. Hopefully he'd cool down before he got back. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much money.

He rose and stared at the wall. Now what?

The part of Rich that was responsible and dutiful reminded him that Mister Tassle had wanted him to practice and get better at coding with the coding software. His teacher would probably be sending him exercises soon, and Rich wanted to show him how good he was with the suite.

But another part of Rich, a big part of him, wanted to go back and be a dragon again.

In the end, it wasn't a contest. Coding could wait.

“If you can be a dragon, always be a dragon,” Rich muttered to himself. He'd read it on a roleplaying readit once, and it had resonated.

And now he'd had a rare chance, one that probably no one else in the game had ever gotten. Coding could wait.

Rich took a few minutes to make himself comfortable. He changed the sheets on his bed, dropping them in the washer. Then after a moment, he grabbed the smellier part of the clothes pile in his room and tossed them in, too. Until Mom got back he'd have to do his own laundry.

Then he put new sheets on the bed, got comfy, and withdrew into his Echo.

A quiet check of the Darknet router showed no change from the last time he was here, and off he went, following the link in his history back to Generica Online.

And this time, he wasn't greeted by a chained dragon. He was instead greeted by a splash screen of fantasy art showing a man in robes throwing open a door to a scene showing dragons and giants and heroes fighting over a castle, or something like that.

Along with the art, there was a message, one that made him roll his eyes. Of course.

WELCOME BACK:

TRIAL PERIOD EXPIRED.

SUBSCRIBE?

Y/N?

“Yes,” Rich groaned. Of course it wasn't free. Why would it be? His response took him to a payment screen, where he was pleasantly surprised.

Generica Online was cheap.

It was cheaper than Neverquest. He could get a year here for the cost of one month of Neverquest.

Now why was that? Not only were the developers running an illegal game, but they were doing so for a ludicrously low price? That didn't make sense. The risk didn't match the reward.

Rich remembered the rumor Midian had told him, that the whole game was Cascadian propaganda. That was looking a lot more likely now.

But he didn't care. It worked out in his favor, actually. The only method he had to pay the game's price was his dad's credit card, but if he didn't get greedy, the charge would be so low that his dad might not notice.

Gnawing his lip back in realspace and pushing down feelings of guilt, Rich filled out the form and submitted it for payment.

A moment later. Two, as the system thought it over, and Rich held his breath. It would be just his lousy luck to be barred now, to be kicked out and caught over this.

But he wasn't. The payment went through, and then, without preamble, he was looking at the world through Rutger Royal's eyes.

At least, he assumed he was. Everything was dark again.

I know how to fix that, Rich thought, and said “Dragonseye.”

Your Dragonseye skill is now level 5.

And when the darkness vanished, he was staring at another dragon.

Rich froze,

It had a face like Caunal's, only smaller. A long muzzle, covered with black scales, and a pair of luminous white eyes atop that muzzle. Two nubby horns poked out at right angles to the skull. A sinuous neck stretched back to a squat black-scaled body, with a coiled tail behind. A pair of wings stretched out back, nearly translucent, and four legs sat below, tiny claws poking from fingerlike appendages.

Rich stared at the dragon.

The dragon stared back.

Then it rippled.

Plip.

Rich blinked, and caught the dragon blinking back before his eyes shut.

And when he opened them again, he knew he was staring at a reflection.

“Me,” Rich whispered. He tried a smile, but he didn't seem to have lips. It showed red-stained teeth, with something stringy caught between two of his front fangs.

What?

He reached up, ran a finger along his bloody teeth, then stared at it. Blood dripped down and into the watery pool, diffusing red and coating his reflection in a light crimson before it faded. Fresh blood. Not mine, either, he knew.

That's about the point he realized three things.

Firstly, that he wasn't hungry anymore.

Secondly, that he wasn't in the bag anymore. Now that he wasn't staring into the pool of water, he could see a natural cavern around him. The previous place with the gargoyles and the treasure had been cut stone, he thought. This one had those pointy stone ceiling spikes, and a few set into the ground, too. Water dripped periodically into a pool in the center of the round cave, into a pool that looked like it became a stream some distance away...

And the third thing was a distant clattering, the sound of stone on stone or something similar.

Rich looked up, but he couldn't see any holes in the ceiling. Although much of the ceiling was covered with stone spikes, so it was hard to say if this was the place the bag had dropped into.

There was absolutely no sign of Geebo...

...and Rich thought back to the blood on his teeth.

“Oh God,” he whispered, and dug around in his teeth, trying to pull out that scrap of whatever-it-was. Had he... had he somehow eaten Geebo?

His hands grabbed the scrap and pulled it loose, and he fully expected it to be cloth, or part of Geebo's spectacles, or maybe a bit of green-scaled skin...

...but no, it was some sort of leathery membrane, translucent and rounded. It was still bloody, and when he gave it a cautious lick, it tasted like bugyum. Bloody bugyum, but still definitely not like real meat.

This game has taste? The thought drifted through his mind, and again he was impressed at the level of programming that had to have gone into this. But it was drowned out by the wave or relief. Somehow his character had been active after he'd logged off. Evidently that happened in this game? It had followed its baby dragon instincts and found something to eat. Something that probably wasn't Geebo, the only friend and ally he'd made so far, so that was good at least.

The clattering noise had stopped, in the distance. Rich considered calling out. Maybe it was Geebo? Banging rocks together or something?

Yeah, no. There was no telling what it was, he was better off waiting and getting his shit together.

WIS+1

Evidently the game agreed with him... and it was reading his thoughts, or something. Which wasn't supposed to be possible, so that was weird. But he had bigger stuff to worry about right now.

Rich had no tutorial, a job that had no skills because he had to find a dark power before he could unlock those skills, and pretty much no idea how to do anything.

But he did have one advantage.

He wasn't alone.

If he could catch Norm or Midian online, then they could maybe walk him through this. Because right now he knew how to use all of one non-combat skill.

All I have to do is say the skill to activate it. I bet if I say the other skills they'll activate?

Except... the problem there was that he didn't know the names of his other skills. He'd seen them, sure, but he didn't remember the names.

Then memory struck him. Wait. I started recording when I was talking with Caunal. I have video, and I left it on during character creation!

Rich closed his eyes and activated his Echo, pulling up the file. He searched through it, until he found what he was looking for.

Welcome to Generica, and your new life as a

HIGH DRAGON HATCHLING

You have learned the Burninate skill!

Your Burninate skill is now level 1.

You have learned the Chomp skill!

Your Chomp skill is now level 1.

You have learned the Draconic Tongue skill!

You have learned the Dragonseye skill!

Your Dragonseye skill is now level 1.

You have learned the Limited Equipment skill!

You have learned the No Thumbs skill!

You have learned the Scaly Wings skill!

Your Scaly Wings skill is now level 1.

You have learned the Slow to Age skill!

“How is no thumbs a skill?” he whispered to himself. “And is that one seriously called Burninate—”

Your Burninate Skill is now level 2!

And as gouts of fire burst from his mouth, illuminating the cave for any and all enemies around him to see, Rich knew he'd fucked up.

RUTGER'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Rutger Royal

Age: 3 Hours

Jobs:

Cultist 1, High Dragon Hatchling 1

Attributes Pools Defenses

Strength: 76 Constitution: 75 Hit Points: 151 Armor: 30

Intelligence: 30 Wisdom: 26 Sanity: 56 Mental Fortitude: 30

Dexterity: 12 Agility: 25 Stamina: 37 Endurance: 0

Charisma: 28 Willpower: 75 Moxie: 103 Cool: 30

Perception: 76 Luck: 28 Fortune: 104 Fate: 1

General Skills

Brawling – Level 6

Fly – Level 2

Stealth – Level 1

High Dragon Hatchling Skills

Burninate – Level 2

Chomp – Level 1

Draconic Tongue – Level N/A

Dragonseye – Level 5

Limited Equipment – Level N/A

No Thumbs – Level N/A

Scaly Wings – Level N/A

Slow to Age – Level N/A

Cultist Skills

Unlocked Jobs