“Message for you sir.” I looked up to see a young boy holding a folded letter out to me.

“What?” I asked blearily. My head was pounding as I struggled to sit up against the stone wall of the building. I scrubbed at the blood caked across my face. At least the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

“A message sir. Posted to one Inquisitor George Silver,” the boy repeated. He looked to be around 12 and was wearing a newsboy cap.

“I don’t think that hat is supposed to exist yet,” I told the kid, still struggling to get my bearings.

“Please just take the letter sir. I have more deliveries to make,” The exasperated messenger said.

“Right, sure.” I took the letter from the boy and unfolded the white parchment. The boy took off down the alley without waiting for a tip. The letter read:

Dear Alpha Tester,

Sorry about the interruption to play. The game world was paused while the testers were unconscious in order to reduce this disruption as much as possible. You should find that only a few in game minutes have passed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. It was necessary to render the test group unconscious for the transfer to the Long Term Immersion Pods. The proper administration of the drugs, monitors, and catheters is much easier when the subject has been rendered unconscious before the process.

The drugs should normalize in your system soon. If symptoms of blurred vision, nausea, or headaches persist for more than ten minutes, please hold up your hand and announce your symptoms in a clear voice. The monitoring team will report your symptoms to the medical professional on call. They will administer more drugs as necessary.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Sincerely,

The Management Team

What the actual fuck? I spit the sour taste out of my mouth. What the fuck was going on? I was never told anything about long term immersion. I definitely didn’t sign anything agreeing to be shot full of drugs.

I struggled to my feet and had a brief bout of nausea as my vision blurred. I managed to stumble over to the gutter before sinking to my knees and throwing up. After a minute or so of just struggling to breathe, I tried standing again. My skin felt clammy and cold from sweat and I wished I could take a shower.

Eventually I made it back to the building I had left Ajax in and opened the door.

“You alive in there, Inspector?” I called.

“Barely,” Ajax croaked from a chair in the corner. He sounded as bad as I felt, and his face was white as a sheet. He had a note in his hand and I figured it was the same as the one I had gotten from the ‘Management Team.’ Ajax leaned over in his chair and spat a few times.

“You're contaminating a crime scene Inspector,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in the joke.

“Ha,” Ajax replied weakly. “Any idea what this shit is all about?” He asked, holding up the note.

“No clue,” I said, shaking my head.

“Message for you sir,” came a young voice from the doorway. I stalked over to the doorway and snatched the paper from the youth’s hand.

“What now?” I asked out loud as I opened the letter.

Dear George Silver,

Subject: You have been invited by GoodGuyJim to join the guild WTF.

Message: Hey guys, Jim here. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we should get together and compare notes. I am at The Bitter Flagon Pub. Ask a messenger boy to guide you and offer him a penny. I don’t know if everyone started with money, so I have attached what you need to this letter. Get here as soon as you can. I can’t get anyone from the outside team to answer me about what is going on.

Moderately concerned,

-Jim

Attached: 0£, 0s, 1d, 0qua

Would you like to join the guild WTF? Yes

No

I checked yes and put the paper in my journal. Who knows if meeting with Jim would solve anything, but I was willing to try anything for answers at this point.

“Message for you sir.” I whirled on the messenger wondering what could possibly be next, but noticed that the boy was not talking to me. He had walked past me and was handing a folded piece of paper to Ajax. I watched as the messenger left the shop, completely ignoring the corpse.

“I guess we should go meet up with the other testers,” Ajax said.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, a feeling of dread settling in my stomach.