Three days quickly passed due to ravaging the worlds with his necromancer in Arcanum, Frey was startled by two heavy bangs on his door.

'That must be it!' Not even bothering to finish the battle he was waging he jumped up from his desk and quickly speed-walked towards the door whilst the "Shut down PC" flew out of his mouth.

He opened the door for the first time in 2 weeks without the slightest hesitation whilst wearing probably the scruffiest outfit he owned, an old light grey tracksuit.

The team of four somewhat burly men seemed surprised by how pale and scrawny he was but they obviously weren't that bothered, after all, they probably had quite a few more trips to make after this.

The largest of the men, stepped forward, towering at least a head above Frey and handed him a book titled "Guide to getting started" before he asked with a casual voice "I suppose you want it there?" as he pointed to the large open space inside of Freys living room.

Truthfully, Frey hadn't even thought of moving any furniture or even cleaning up, as you could tell by the few odd packets of snacks around, but he already had a lot of open space in his apartment as he didn't own any furniture bar his bed and his desk. He tended to keep the floor relatively clear so he may play any dance games he may have an urge to play.

"Uh. Oh! Yeah, there's perfect!" Frey replied with a minor stutter from probably his first human contact in months.

Without another word the men carried multiple large boxes inside of his house and asked him to leave the house for an hour as so he could not distract them.

"Uh..." It was strange to leave a bunch of strangers inside of his house unattended but, he didn't really have anything worth stealing so, he silently made his way past the men, set his watch timer to an hour and proceeded to calmly wait on the floor outside his apartment door.

55 minutes pass.

It was a cruel task, to wait an hour before he was able to log in, but he made use of his time by reading the manual.

The first page was an explanation of many of the questions he would be asked upon loading up the game, most were self-explanatory but there was one that stood out.

"These are choices only for your thousand, please take care and understand what will happen with these options.

1. Start the game normally. You will have default limitations, you will be restricted to the Beta areas and unable to progress past a certain level but no progress will be lost upon release.

2. Play as a king. You will be in a single-player version of the game, testing city building, kingdom management and much more. You can switch to 1 at any point, but one cannot change to the king once the creation has finished. Your character will be reset to level 1 when the beta is over but you will start with an experience potion to instantly boost you to level 5 for all your help.

3. Live a life of servitude. Act as an NPC to a king, you will be used for many tasks, such as sending letters, attending to royalty, cooking food and much more. If you do tasks correctly and the king deems you as a good servant, once the game is released you will be reset to level one, but you will have a 10% increase in XP gain and have the title "Passed life of servitude."

There were more choices like these, but Frey wanted to play normally, although he may not be able to be a king and manage his territory yet, he was sure, if he wanted to in the future, he may be able to achieve such a goal through hard work. Being confined to castle walls wasn't something that sounded attractive to Frey as he wanted to explore the vast world he was promised.

Rada-a-dadada-dada

Frey's watch sent vibrations and sounded a small alarm to alert him of the hour. He promptly dragged himself up onto his feet and knocked on his own door.

The door opened and the worker asked "Full name and address for verification" and once Frey answered him, the man spoke again, this time with a slightly rushed voice "Very prompt timing young man, we have just finished filling your capsule, its recommended that you wait 5 or so hours for the liquid to warm up to room temperature but its not a necessity if you want to play quickly, it will just be a bit chilly. When you enter just allow the machine to manoeuvre your body as it pleases to avoid injury. Oh, and the creators wish you a wonderful second life. We will be on our way now, goodbye."

The men then exited one by one passed Frey, leaving him outside his house shaking with excitement. "Bye! Thanks so much!" Shouted Frey as he realised they had almost got out of sight.

Entering the room, Frey was beyond speechless.

In the dead centre of his living room, towering up to the roof was a metallic grey box, so large it was strange it didn't require more men to assemble.

The only details on the box were "Cry of iron. Special Beta edition engraved with a golden colour.

Frey couldn't hold himself back from running towards it after closing his door. As soon as he approached the machine, however, it grumbled and seemed to split down the centre. There was a slick "Shreee" kind of sound as the metal manoeuvred itself to create a small door frame. The voice of a default female robotic voice sounded:

"Greetings, scans show that you are British Citizen #5671, also known as Frey. Creator seven drew your number and hopes you will enjoy playing Cry of iron. Before I continue, I see you have a favourite voice selected in your settings, would you like me to switch?"

Wanting to quickly get into the game Frey gave his approval and waited for the voice he chose to speak.

A humorous exited man's melodramatic voice started to squeal "Frey! There are many things for you to find out about this machine, most you will find out by yourself, however, a word of caution, first use will cause some minor pain, especially if you don't wait the recommended 5 hours before entering. Several tubes and needles will be injected into your skin, and you will be bound to the machine until you choose to exit. The machine will only ever forcefully eject you if your life is in danger either from the game or from reality. If you will be entering now, please strip down and enter the machine."

After listening to the machine Frey found it to be as he had expected, most of what it said was a repeat of the things he had read. He proceeded to strip down naked before climbing into the box.

The interior was very different from the plain outside. There was no seat, just a big pool like drop filled with a strange, silicon-like goo which he was to be submerged in shortly. The inside was pure black with lots of small slots in the wall for the varies parts of machinery to eject from.

He slowly lowered himself in the goo, which, to his discomfort was icy cold, however, he knew that he only had to bear with it until he was integrated with the machine.

Once his head was completely below the surface he waited for the expected metal arms to grab and position him, however, what happened next surprised him.

He felt human-like hands, gently caress his four limbs as they slowly dragged him deeper, much deeper than Frey remembered it should have been able to go. The arms slowly grabbed him tighter and tighter until he was immobilized and at the mercy to the machine, he then felt several things stab into his body causing immense discomfort and minor pain. A sustenance substance tube stuffed itself into his mouth and down his throat, he felt something like a deeper form from the goo around his nether regions, obviously for toiletry needs and then, everything went black.

Welcome to Cry Of iron, the world where the impossible is reality. Before we begin, everything starts with a name, you know ours, what is yours?

"Frey."