Dad was driving the car to the PLAYGear shop; James knew from the moment he heard the word ‘surprise’. James, meanwhile, was on his smartwatch, PM-ing one of his friends on the official forums, a little old lady named *cough* “Sister Tempo” *cough*. He was organising a “prank” of sorts to play on his Dad. James had a deluxe model of PLAYGear – he got it by redeeming some gold coins he made on a rental version. Arthur, of course, didn’t know this, as James kept his video gaming prowess hidden, and with his job, they needed every man they could get, so he was rarely home in time; the kids lived close enough to walk to school, so he didn’t need to pick them up and drop them off.

James explained his plan to Sister Tempo – he’d drop off his PLAYGear at the shop, Arthur would spend the 1000 credits on a single deluxe model, and both PLAYGear would be boxed. Flawless. Sis. Tempo, who liked elaborate pranks, agreed, and notified the employees of the plan.

When they entered the store, James asked his dad if they could have a look around. “Sure!” Arthur replied, glad of the excuse to secretly purchase the devices. There was a queue of waiting customers.

James wove through the crowds to the empty returns desk, and put the box containing his PLAYGear onto the counter. The checkout boy, a young man a few years older than James winked at him. James winked back, then went and found Rachel, who was staring at the shelf of action figures, particularly the one of Lord of Darkness. James sent another message to Sister Tempo, asking for one of his action figures to be included in the deal. Sister Tempo replied with a 👍.

Twenty minutes of waiting in line later, it was finally Arthur’s turn. He went up to the front of the line and asked “Two PLAYGear please”. “What’s your name?” asked the clerk in a monotonous drawl, clearly worn out from the customers. “Arthur Boone” Arthur replied. The clerk perked up a bit, and went back shop for a bit, coming back with a large box. “Here’s your order, that’ll be 1000 credits”. Arthur got out his credit card, and tapped, confirming the payment. “Have a nice day” she said, in that same tone, before going to the next person.

As they drove home, James noticed the package in the boot. Switcheroo Successful.

When they got home, James did some study – both about the remaining exams he had that week, and a battleplan for his return to PLAYGROUND.

The biggest problem with utilising Oblivion, was its high mana cost. The best solution would be to find a Mancer, a Cleric-like class that focuses on mana-supplication and delivery, unlike healing. While Clerics are useful because they can heal even non-magic users, Mancers are only good at mana, and are useless to most knights, etc. The class was thought of as useless, but James had a big need for them.

The next problem would be a lack of mana – either during the 30 minutes after casting Oblivion or waiting for the mana cost of Oblivion to reach an affordable level. James decided that using physical attacks would be best, so he decided that his own class would be the rare Warrior-Mage.

He then returned to exam studying.

The next few days passed much the same as the first, with exams and school, Mr Watson still on stress leave at home mourning, Mr Morris being an all-round great teacher, who, as most of the class easily knew from Tuesday was that he was an even big fan of PLAYGROUND than he let on, with the PLAYGROUND hype increasing as the countdown kept ticking down.

On Thursday, James got an alarming message from System: “Just spent 30 minutes processing on a personalised tutorial for you. Best of Luck. 😈”.

Well, the only thing James could do about that is prepare for anything and treat logging in as entering one of those hard-mode dungeons.

It was finally Saturday, and James had finished all his exams. He got up nice and early and found something sitting on the kitchen table.

It was a large box, with a note attached: For James and Rachel. Love, Mum.

Rachel came into the kitchen, bleary-eyed from watching Lord of Darkness compilations the night before, eyes widening as she spotted the box.

“Can I open it?” Rachel asked James as she came over

“Sure!” James replied, standing beside her.

Rachel opened the box, and it was akin to opening those golden treasure chests: the stuff inside was amazing.

Two Deluxe PLAYGear, and a Lord of Darkness figurine.

James saw which of the PLAYGear was his, and got it out of the box, along with the figurine.

Rachel, meanwhile, gave a scream of pure joy, at the shiny red of the PLAYGear.

James took his stuff to his room, before quickly rushing back to help Rachel with hers.

“Is it real?” asked a dazed Rachel to James.

“Yeah, it’s from Mum” James replied, then said, “Let’s get you all set up”, and went with Rachel to her room.

“You just plug ‘er in and put ‘er on.” James said to Rachel, before continuing “After that, say ‘Settings enable background-conversation’ and ‘Settings disable voice-suppression’, these allow you to hear and speak in the real world. If you need any other help, just ask.”

“Thanks”, said Rachel, putting on the PLAYGear.

It’s Game Time.