You've got Mail! (1)

"Hm?" A young, pale boy was alerted by the default monotone voice of his wristwatch, his face lit up as he thought of the possibility of what it could be.

'Please, please, please let it be about Cry of Iron.' He barely wasted a moment before swiping down on the small screen of his watch to reveal the Emal...

Unread Emails! (1) From... Cry Of Iron Congratulations Frey!

The young man stared listlessly for a moment before his eyes brightened and allowed words to escape his mouth "It's actually... It says "Congratulations Frey!... No way..."

His scrawny white hands were shaking at the thought of being able to play Cry of iron. The game that has been in development for longer than anyone can remember, the first truly immersive virtual reality game. An entire capsule was created to put the user in a form of suspended animation in order to play, they would feel everything as if it actually happened. Even for today's standards, its an amazing piece of technology that, in theory, could even give the feeling of having legs to war victims, the joy of hearing to those impaired. It could even greatly help those going through therapy to walk without the pain.

The reason that Fray wanted to play this game so desperately wasn't because of any of those reasons though. He no longer enjoyed today's standards for games, nowadays, developers seemed not to care about their buyers. They threw out games every year that seemed basically the same as the last.

Originality was long gone. The broad expanse of genres he loved had eventually died down. Everyone seemed to only play crappy repetative shooters now, gone was the love for the roleplaying games, the thrill of the boss fights, the guilds, the joy of leveling... All forgotten, at least, until Cry Of Iron.

A fantasy game focussed solely on immersion, the NPC's were said to be as real as humans, the landscape was more real than the world outside to Fray. The concrete jungle had devoured all of the nature that he had once taken for granted.

Trees were an endangered species, humans had a new *safer and more reliable* source of oxygen and now, funnily enough, small amounts of trees were being preserved out of public eye, underground, on the moon and some say in the mars base...

There wasn't anything in the world that Fray enjoyed anymore, he was just barely getting by on the leftover inheritance his late parents had left him when they passed. If he hadn't heard about Cry of Iron, he might have given up already. If he hadn't won his capsule from this, he would have likely gone into serious debt just to load into the world.

Luckily, he was granted a once in a lifetime chance. He would not let this slip, so naturally, his first step was to open the Email...

Congratulations Fray!

You're one of the 10,000 lucky contest winners chosen to test the Beta version of Cry Of Iron.

You will be the first testers outside of the Creation Team.

More info will be given to you when you receive your first capsule.

Attached to this email, you will find a contract. Please read it carefully, honestly answer it, sign it and send it back A-S-A-P. It will be personally reviewed by the creators' main team and, once approved you will receive the gaming capsule within 2-3 working days.

We hope you will enjoy being the first visitors to this new world of ours.

Follow the path or make your own, there are no limits but the ones you set yourself.