**Edited in 8/26/18**

Darren kept his head down as he entered the lunchroom. It was a habit now. If he didn’t look up, he didn’t draw attention, or at least that was his reasoning.

When he came through the cafeteria doors, an explosion of sound that almost knocked Darren from his feet when he walked into the crowded cafeteria. Laughter and chatter filled the air as friends talked over their food.

In all reality, Darren liked lunchtime. The room was big and open, with wide windows along one wall, brightening the room considerably. Students milled around everywhere, many carrying trays while others gravitated toward long lines. Most of the tables and chairs were filled with cliques of all kinds.

The scene made Darren's heart flutter and his head feel light. Maybe he would like it more if he knew that he had friends waiting on him.

The teen moved to the shortest line, grabbed a tray, and paid for the slop that was tossed on it. It was beef and macaroni day, with a side of an apple and some toast without butter. Darren looked down at the tray sadly. Everything on it was gray and depressing, and more than likely tasteless. But hey, it was a hot lunch and Darren was not going to turn his nose up at it. The boy handed over his free lunch card and took a water before heading toward the nerd table at the far side of the lunchroom.

Seated in a circle around the table were the usual suspects. The math nerds were grouped together, talking about trigonometry. The science geeks were mapping out a biology project. A few others had their tablets out, looking at articles on a local dig site. When Darren sat, no one looked up.

Per usual.

But Darren didn’t mind... or, at least, he didn’t mind much. Darren had tried to hold a conversation with the nerds before, but it was hard keeping up with them. He didn’t try anymore, but was thankful for a place to sit.

Darren dove into the tasteless free lunch. The boy ate hungrily, slurping down pasta and beef as he opened his magazine to the same spot as before. His eyes flew over the words that he had read countless times before.

The Ruins of Rimnir

"Check out the first and only complete immersion MMORPG, now available on the patented RMR System."

Darren read the article greedily, even if he knew each word by heart and could recite the information word for word. That didn’t matter. He would read it again and again. He needed to.

First, the dark-haired boy looked over the factions for the Ruins of Rimnir. He looked at the banners for the Coalition, gold with black borders and a silhouette of a lion with a grand mane, reach to strike. Maybe he would join them when he got in the game. The Coalition was the land-based faction, striving to farm and grow their lands.

The boy flipped to the next page. Maybe he would join the Syndicate. They seemed cool, with banners in silver and black with a massive shark as an insignia. They were sea-based, with their hub on the shores of Rimnir. They were cave dwellers and miners.

The dark haired teen sighed. As much fun as both of those would be, he knew where he would stay.

The Consortium.

It was the default faction that everyone started out as. The white banners with the sleeping bear insignia made Darren's heart sink just a little. Yes, he was excited about the game, but the Consortium seemed like such a dull place to be. Player versus player battling was turned off for members of the Consortium, so there was no action or excitement, unless it was from another person in the Consortium faction.

But I guess that's a good thing, Darren thought to himself, I do not want to get killed.

Ruins of Rimnir was a little bit different than most games. If your character was killed in the game, it was gone. Poof. There was no resurrection spell that could be cast, no scroll that could be used, and no graveyard that a player could respawn at. Death was it. The player would lose everything, all of their gear and currency and leveling would be gone in an instant.

But without having to worry about PVP contact, Darren could do a lot more in game outside of just playing.

Because Darren wasn’t looking to play Rimnir for the fun of it. He was looking to make a job of it.

Darren flipped the page to a graph that he had designed months before. It was a conversion graph of his own design, one that he knew he would utilize almost daily. He had designed it using his knowledge of economics…

"What have you got there?"

One of the math nerds startled Darren. He looked up from his graph to see all of the folks at the nerd table looking at him expectantly, curiously.

"Uh..." Darren's voice trailed off. He was not expecting anyone at lunch to talk to him, let alone take an interest in the video game that he was so excited about.

"Come on, let's see," one of them said, scooting closer as he pushed his glasses up his nose.

Darren pushed the magazine out slightly, his graph stuck between two pages. "It's a currency conversion graph."

“Fascinating. Why?"

"Well," Darren cleared his throat, "In this game that I am going to start playing, the currency in the game, the aethys crystals, can be converted into real life money. So, I made a graph so I can figure out how much I have made quicker."

"You're going to make money in a video game?"

"That's the plan," Darren said as he slid the papers back toward himself.

"But why?"

Darren raised an eyebrow. He looked at the nerds and realized that, even though they did not enjoy the same social perks as folks like Mark and his crew of nasty bullies, they still would not understand what it was like to be poor.

So, the young man just pulled the magazine close to him. He covered up what he could and he mumbled his reply softly. "No real reason."

The nerdy kids seemed oblivious to Darren's swift change, and they went back to their business. Darren kept his blue eyes low, staring at the words on the magazine's pages, but not really reading them.

If Darren was ever going to be honest about it, he would have to admit that the lure pulling him into the Ruins of Rimnir was money, money he did not have. Money that he could earn to help his family. He already had a plan for when he started the game: Become a crafter and earn enough aethys crystals to convert into real cash, then hand it over to his parents. They wouldn't let the 16-year old teen work a normal after-school job and help. But this game? It was a way to help out.

Lost in his thoughts, Darren's foot nudged his heavy book bag absentmindedly. He was feeling, checking to see if the heavy box was still nestled below his school books and papers. Of course, it was, because no one knew that the box was there.

He had left early that morning to buy it from the shop down the street with the money he had been saving for over a year. It had cost him over a thousand dollars, and Darren had scrimped and saved in every way he could to be able to buy what he had hidden in his bag. And now, finally, Darren had it.

The RMR system.

The RMR system was the ingenious way that you played Ruins of Rimnir. It was a virtual reality headset that blocked most noise and worked as a headset and mic, as well as visually stuck the player directly into the game. It came with a wireless controller that was just like the old school "joystick and button" type of controllers. With the system, the play was completely immersed in the game.

There were other bonuses to the system. It was completely wireless and boasted a battery life of 24 hours of continuous play. It also charged from dead to full in under 15 minutes, making it a marvel in the gaming world.

Nothing could touch it.

And Darren had one.

The dark haired boy lowered his head to his tray and ate the last of his tasteless lunch quickly as the bell began to ring. The others all gathered their things, but Darren lagged behind, swallowing his food without chewing.

He could not wait to get home.