August 15, 2087 A.D.

The convention center ballroom was packed full with reporters, journalists, bloggers, and anyone who could talk their way into a press pass. The Aesir public relations team wanted it that way. Anyone with at least a few thousand viewers, readers or followers were let in. They wanted this to explode across all forms of media, to reach every last corner of the world. Row upon row of cameras were pointed at the podium on the stage. The arrangement was simple, a stage, a podium, and one huge banner covering the wall. The banner was of course, the mega corporation's emblem, a vibrant green world with majestic silver wings. The sound in the vast room was a cacophony of excited babbling as every person present tried to guess what the huge announcement would be. This would only be the second press conference of the worlds largest corporation. The first of course was to announce the release of Valheim, an afterlife of eternal adventure, the astounding breakthrough of uploading countless human consciousness into a machine to create a new world. What could possibly be bigger than that? Without warning, all the lights in the room went black, as if they had lost power. The crowd had just enough time to erupt in chaos before blinding spotlights illuminated a man on the stage.

His attire was all too familiar to the onlookers. He was dressed as a Valkyrie. Dour slate gray suit with that iconic pin and briefcase. They were the boogie men who roamed the halls of hospitals, the dealers of death who came door to door to offer you eternal life, for a price. Despite the great gift they offered, their work left them with a grim reputation. But even more recognizable than the regalia of the reaper, was the person who wore it. The face of Aesir, the sole owner of the largest corporation on the planet, Charles Holbrook. A lean, stern man in his fifties. He was austerity incarnate. There was not a hair out of place, and not a single wasted movement. The audience was quickly hushed, as every mind in the room was intensely focused on the stage.

Charles Holbrook began his speech in a monotone drawl which contrasted fiercely with the excitement in the room and the significance of his speech. "Thank you all for coming, and welcome to the unveiling of the greatest achievement since the founding of Valheim. Our engineers here at Aesir are the best in their fields, and they have made yet another earth-shattering breakthrough. We have created a gateway which can connect a living mind to Valheim in real time. Valheim will be open to the public."

There was an immediate response of chaotic uproar as the significance of his statement washed over the audience. Every reporter in the room was franticly clamoring to have their question heard, however Mr. Holbrook made no effort to answer their questions or respond. He simply stared at the crowd, patiently waiting. Soon the clamor died down, slowly at first but then it came to an abrupt halt as guests shushed their neighbors, eager to hear what came next. As soon as every last voice in the hall had been silenced, he began his speech again as if it had never been interrupted, in that same depressing drone.

"As all of you are aware, up until now we have had two ways to connect people to Valheim. The first is a non-intrusive brain scan, which allows us to make a copy of a person to upload into Valheim. This allows us to hire certain individuals who we feel would benefit the growth of our world, as well as allow people to make a backup of their consciousness, just in case a Valkyrie isn't nearby in their final moments. The other option is a direct and nearly instantaneous upload used in the event of a client's recent or impending death. Neither of these methods allows a currently living person to interact with Valheim directly. Of course our development team and administrators can view the world, and communicate with the gods inside but as I am sure you can imagine, that is not nearly the same as being there yourself.

This new invention of ours changes everything. It is larger than our previous gateways, and covers the entire back of the skull. It taps into the spinal cord right at the the base of the skull as well dozens of other connections all over the skull; tapping into the optic nerve and cochlear nerve among a multitude of other vital brain functions. Essentially, rather than uploading the mind it taps into the nervous system and replaces the clients sensory intake with that of Valheim, and the user's actions are intercepted and redirected into the Valheim servers while the body remains in a state of of muscle atonia. With modern networking technology, all of this can be done with a latency time of less than one-hundredth of a second. In addition to that, it can be done during the client's sleep without any major effects on the body. However there is still the small matter of time dilation. Valheim has already been slowed to 10 times the speed at which our world experiences it, and the processing power of the gateway is able to tap into the user's consciousness to accelerate the human mind to these speeds safely. The cost of all of this, will be two-thousand dollars for each life. If you should die, you will need to pay again.

Now before all of you go and accuse us of price gouging, let me explain exactly what Valheim is. Valheim is the sum of decades of research and the most powerful computers known to man. Our servers are the size of cities. Valheim is a free world. There are nearly no limitations placed upon the gods or players, except those which have evolved naturally or are a vital part of a races identity. You can do anything, be anyone, kill, steal, rape, plunder, all of it is possible and allowed. However these are real people. The residents of Valheim are as real as myself standing here before you. They are all either dearly departed loved ones, clients whose minds we have paid to have uploaded, or their descendants. Even the monsters are real. They have memories. They have children. They feel pain. What this means is that although we have not placed many limitations on the game, the societies that have evolved have made their own laws.

If you walk down the street of a major city and attack someone unprovoked, the guards will arrest you. If you pillage a village, the army will come after you. If you wage war against a kingdom and win you may rule as a king until another nation challenges your rule, or peasants rise up in rebellion. These people are real and experience real death, same as all of us do in this world. So to level the playing field, we will sell Obols, the game's currency of lives for two thousand dollars. One obol, one life. Death cannot be cheap in a world where lives are at stake. Even if it is a full week of your wages or government aid, it is a pitiful sum compared to the lives of the residents.

However if that was all of it, we would not be able to attract many clients given the desolate job market we find ourselves in. So we have partnered with the American Union to make Valheim open to a much wider audience. Anyone receiving government aid of any kind including unemployment, welfare, automated industry settlements, or anyone living in a national welfare city will receive a free gateway, and one obol per month. This is to allow as many people as possible to experience the vast world of Valheim. You may visit with your departed loved ones, or begin your own adventure. The possibilities are endless, however should you die in that month you will have to buy an additional Obol, or use one you have saved up.

Valheim will officially open to the public one year from now on March 16th, 2087. Further game details will be provided at a later date. If anyone wishes to purchase a gateway, or inquire on the status of your government issued device, please contact our service department. That will be all."

The crowd once again exploded with excitement. However Mr. Holbrook had no intentions of pandering to them. The spotlights went out, and when the hall lights were re-lit moments later, he was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 23, 5319 A.A.

Mark's first month in Valheim had been absolutely brutal. Each day no less demanding than the last. His endurance and strength had finally risen enough that he didn't collapse from the daily toil, but Liam always seemed to know exactly how far he could be pushed. He had, however learned a great deal about carpentry. He had carved tool handles, cut doors, built simple cabinets, made chairs and beds, whatever was needed for the village was his lesson for the day. His creations were crude, and far more fragile than anything Liam could craft but over time Liam had eased up on his scathing insults, and more and more Liam trusted Mark to complete his tasks for the day while the master craftsman worked outside the walls. Mark occasionally tried to ask what he was doing, but Liam never bothered to answer, he just grabbed his mighty axe and strode out of the village while Mark slaved away. One day, mark had made the mistake of slacking off. He didn't see why he should be killing himself when Liam wasn't around. But he soon learned better. Liam was no fool, and when he returned that evening saw that only half the work had been completed. Mark was denied rations for the next three days. It was a harsh, but sobering lesson.

Alex had fared far better, and despite himself Mark was envious. Her knowledge of non-magical wound treatment was essential to the village. By not tapping into Vidar's reserves, he was able to save more for obols after important blessings such as fertility or crop production. Alex spent her days treating the wounds of the hunters, blessing the land, and memorizing more and more complex blessings. He knew her work was far more vital to the survival of the village than his, but he was still bitter that her labors seemed so much easier. In spite of his secret jealousy, and his arduous work, they were happy. As absurd as it was, their lives had more meaning and purpose here than ever. Each day he made something new, and held the fruits of his labors in his hands. Each day he felt stronger, his craft improved. His progress was visible in his work and quantifiable thanks to the menus. In his past life, he had answered calls from customers of a retail chain.

In the late twenty first century, the world was in decline. Machines had replaced nearly every job they could, and only the wealthy and corrupt politicians benefited from the fruits of their labors. The American Union had a thirty percent employment rate. The rest of the population were either living on government aid, homeless, militant rebels, or in gangs. Luckily for him, he had gotten a job at a call center. One thing that hadn't changed in the last hundred years was that people always preferred to yell at a live person when they were angry. Most people were not so lucky. Organized crime had swelled to an unprecedented scale. Entire cities were given over to their rule, the Union tanks would roll through the streets every now and then as a show of force, but everyone knew who really owned the city. He had lived in a small apartment on the 172nd floor of an urban center tower in the San FranDiego megacity which dominated what was left of the old Californian coastline. Being out here, in the fresh clean air with purposeful work, doing something that mattered made all his labor and toil worthwhile.

The sun was high in the sky, warming Mark's back with its rays. He had long since stopped wearing his shirt while working outside as he was constantly sweating from the exertion of his work. Today he was instructed to craft shafts for spears by the dozen. Apparently he and the other new arrivals were expected to complete basic training in a few days, as in the event of a major attack everyone in the village was expected to be ready to fight. Most all of them had been cut into rough blocks, hewn from yet another softwood pine, and about half had been trimmed into spears on his pedal powered lathe. As he was trimming yet another block into a spear shaft, Liam returned early with a small basket in hand. In the past he had stayed out until late after dark, later at least than Mark had stayed to work the wood. Liam walked up to the lathe amongst the other tools on the side of his house, and paused to inspect Mark's finished work. "Not bad, they are a bit long but I am sure you plan to trim them. That's enough for today. Have you eaten yet?"

"No, I was just about to."

Liam roughly cleared the workbench, casting the scraps and sawdust onto the ground "Let me guess, hard bread and dried meat?"

"Is there anything else around here?"

Liam hefted his basket onto the workbench "Fresh bread from Ellen, goat cheese from Erik, and a pair of nice juicy wolf steaks from my hunter friends."

Mark stared at the basket, he hadn't noticed before but the smell emanating from it was divine. He hadn't eaten anything but old stale bread and dried meat all month. He was quickly disappointed, realizing of course that Liam would never share it. But he was surprised when Liam pulled up a second chair, and pulled out a second plate.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Sit down you sloth brained oaf!"

Shocked, Mark blurted out "Are you sure?"

"Very. Now sit your ass down. We have quite a bit to talk about and I'm in a good mood. So eat it while you still can."

As Mark bit in to each simple delicacy, he was moved by how delicious something so simple could taste. The wolf steak in particular was a treat, it was tender, juicy and tasted better than he ever believed meat could. When Liam saw Mark's face, he chuckled "Highland Direwolf. Tough bastard. Our hunters nearly lost a man bringing it down." Knowing it was such a difficult beast only made the flavor better, as Mark knew he would likely never get the chance to eat it again.

"What is this going to cost me?" Mark asked meekly as he finished his last bite.

Liam sighed "You've been doing well, but I'm going to be asking a lot more of you from now on. Come with me."

Liam rose, leaving their mess on the table, and walked off to the northern gate as he always did. Mark quickly followed, it seemed his questions about Liam's daytime activities would finally be answered. As they passed through the gate, the posted guard gave Liam a polite nod and then for the first time, Mark was outside the wooden wall. He had known that the trees in the forest were impossibly huge, but he never could have imagined just how massive they were. Seeing the trees towering over the wall was one thing, but seeing how far away they were, from where they met the ground to their tallest heights made them more real somehow. Around the settlement was a few hundred yards of farmland. They were crudely fenced in, but there were obvious places where monsters had broken through. There was a pasture of goats on his right, and what seemed to be a wheat field on his left. But as he looked, the closest sections of field to the walls had been intentionally cleared. Large stone rocks mixed with gravel and mortar formed multiple square slabs, almost twice the size of the houses inside the palisade.

"What the hell is all of that" Mark asked, bewildered by the strange slabs rising from the fields.

"That, is what I've been doing for the last month. That, is our new project."