Sam Oliver Lawrence or, as his friends, few as they were, and enemies called him, Solar, was in a mighty pickle. He stood between two opposing armies, each one intent on eradicating the other, with a mighty zeal that history rarely saw.

And he was holed up in a small outpost in the middle of the battlefield.

As he beheld the two armies, prepared to clash over certain resources that were vital to their development, he couldn’t help but curse his ‘friend’ for setting him up.

“Just a little information selling he said!” he murmured under his breath as he glanced around, checking up on his comrades, but in reality, looking for assassins. “And might as well spy a little… It will be worth the money, he said!”

He clenched his fist in rage, but remained stationary, straining his eyes to find an escape route. But alas, it was not to be.

The virtual reality game Magic Unbound was rather realistic in how it allowed opposing players to hinder each other. If one gathered the necessary people with certain professions, such as trap makers, enchanters, and warders, they would be able to lock down a battlefield tighter than Fort Knox.

Granted, it didn’t come free, and the materials would break a smaller guild’s bank, but this was a battle between two of the biggest guilds. They had the money, manpower, and the will to do what they needed to win the battle, and, hopefully, with the looted materials, the war.

Because the same outpost that Sam was stuck in was sitting on a rather big deposit of magical crystals that were vital to anything that was even remotely magical. In itself, it wasn’t that great news that a new deposit of magical crystals was found, as they were peppered around the maps of the game, but this one was special.

Usually, the magical crystals in any mine would take on the attribute of the surrounding magic, so a magical crystal mine next to a volcano would be fire attributed, one next to the ocean would be water attributed, and so on. Accordingly, in most cases, if one wanted to use the magical crystals for certain tasks, they would have to cleanse them of their attributes, which would degrade their quality and reduce their value, both for resale and usage in any number of equipment or process.

But this one was special, as the magical crystals produced from this rather big vein were unattributed. They were, based on the experiments done, somewhat resistant to becoming any one attribute. This was big. Especially for the big guilds, who used up magical crystals in enormous amounts each day. Just this mine (and who knows how many in the region) would decrease their operating costs by a huge margin, and increase the speed of their production. Thus, everybody wanted it. No matter what.

And Sam was in the middle of it.

In his sorry life, he was rather unlucky.

First, he ignored when the game, Magic Unbound, came out, calling it a new hype, and continuing with his own favorites as if nothing happened. Which, to be fair, he wasn’t alone in. The game touted itself as the game that would end all games. The last game that people would ever play.

Nobody took it really seriously.

Then naturally it blew up. Streamers did what they did best and found things that they could brag about, and people ate it up. In just a short few months, the game’s population tripled. And that growth never stopped.

And then the company behind Magic Unbound introduced a real-money exchange as well as an auction house where people could buy things with real currency.

That was when he joined. As he was perpetually in and out of poverty, with rather meager savings, and hopping between jobs, the siren call of playing a game for real money was exactly what he wanted.

But it was too late. The big guilds already established a presence; they controlled the trade routes, mines, production, and everything in between. For a production class player to make a living, they would either have to join a guild that had the necessary resources to fuel their development or flounder around, then give up.

As for the non-production class players, they all had the vision of getting drops that would be worth millions and striking it big.

But alas, Magic Unbound wasn’t such a game. While mobs did occasionally drop items, pieces of equipment worth the aforementioned millions were usually crafted. Which was in the control of the guilds.

So, after trying to make a living (admittedly getting rather lucky with a few drops), Sam had to suck it up and join a guild. Thankfully, at that time, one of his ‘friends’ was part of a rather powerful guild and put in a good word for him.

Good word, hah.

As if.

He was rather desperate at the time, running low on his funds, so Sam only glanced through the contract.

And as they say, the rest is history.

He did everything the guild told him to. He spied, stole, fought, bled, and died in copious amounts. He would say he was rather good at gathering information, which was proved by the huge number of notebooks and hard drives in his home that were full of information. Sam was even able to squirrel away a few tasty morsels for personal use, for the time when he would be free of that accursed contract.

And with this last job, he would be free. The task was big enough that the guild agreed to accept that as a payment, and release him from his, in their words, a rather generous contract. He even had it in writing, learning from the last time he thought he would be finally free (checked by a lawyer). Sam already had some plans with a real friend about what he would do after the conclusion of this battle.

But of course, Fate wouldn’t allow that.

He temporarily joined the guild that found the magical crystal deposit to spy on them, and now he was stuck in the same place as them, waiting for his inevitable death. Which was rather bad for his plans.

Death in Magic Unbound, depending on the situation, would cause you to lose some experience in skills, or maybe make you drop an item. But for Guild battles, such as this, the penalty was agreed on by the fighting parties (and leaving the guild mid-battle was not an option). And as he looked at the unworried guild leaders, it dawned on him that they were probably on it. More than likely bought by one of the guilds.

That was the only reason he could see why they would be okay to lose all their levels upon death in this battle

“Bastards!” he yelled finally, unable to hold on to his rage.

They looked at him, and one of the bastards smirked. Then he and everybody else standing around heard a whistling noise. He whirled around, only to see a rapidly approaching ball of flame, magic, and certain death.

[You are dead.]

Sam threw off the game helmet in rage into the corner and sat on his bed for a minute, clenching his fist open and closed in frustration.

Then a string of words left his mouth that would make even a ship’s worth of sailors blush.

Reluctantly, Sam stood up from his bed and headed for his small bathroom to wash his face, and hopefully, cool his rage somewhat down.

It was only when he left the bathroom did he realize that something was different with his living room slash kitchen.

And that something was a languidly sitting person, slowly paging through one of his notebooks that littered the room. He stopped and just stared. The other person noticed this, and with a smirk, they closed the notebook, tossed it aside, and looked at him.

“Hello, Solar.”

“Mike. What are you doing here?”

“I must say Solar, you do exemplary work with information,” spoke Mike, ignoring his question, and motioning towards the notebook. Then he looked into his eyes and gave him a friendly smile, but Sam could see it was rather half-hearted. “I heard about the battle. I’m sorry…”

Sam opened his mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a rather impolite question.

“What ARE you doing here, Mike?”

Mike sighed, shook his head as if disappointed, then calmly reached into his jacket and, to Sam’s horror, retrieved a gun. Which he then proceeded to point at him.

“Cleaning up loose ends.”

Sam was dumbfounded.

“What? Why? What did I do?”

Mike shook his head again.

“Nothing really, Solar. You’re just too good at information gathering.”

“B-but we planned to-”

Mike simply cut him off with a short laugh.

“Ha. Do you think I would be happy with the paltry sum that we would get if only the two of us would work on that project? No, Mike. The information is worth much more in the hands of the guilds.”

Sam’s blood froze. So that was it. His last real friend betrayed him. If it weren’t for the situation, he would have laughed. He was left by his parents at an orphanage; he was left by his sweetheart, and one by one he was betrayed by those he called friends.

It seemed Fate wanted him to suffer no matter what.

He was about to argue, or even try to convince the other man to change his mind, though, from the cold, calculating look in his eyes, Sam knew it would be futile. But he still wanted to try. His life depended on it.

So, Sam opened his mouth, but he was silenced with a bang.

Surprised, still scarcely believing what was happening, he took in the lightly smoking gun and the grimace on his once friend’s face.

“There is no need to talk, Solar. This was already decided. And I want to get to the victory party in time.” Here, his smirk grew cruel. “I heard Sarah will be there…”

Sam felt himself fall in slow motion, watching as Mike began moving towards the door, one of Sam’s notebooks in his hand. He reached out with his hand as if he was trying to stop his shooter, but his hand refused to cooperate, and when he tried to cry out, only gurgling left his mouth, accompanied by a copious amount of blood.

He felt his back hit the floor with a thud, and despite the darkness closing in at the edge of his vision, he still saw the door click shut behind Mike. Just as it clicked shut on his life.

No matter how Sam raged, tried to call out, or simply move to get to a phone or computer to call for help, it didn’t work.

The last thoughts going through his head were the thoughts of revenge and rage against the bastard that shot him, the guild that trapped him, the people who betrayed him, his parents for tossing him aside, and finally Fate for playing with him.

With his last sliver of consciousness, he even tried to pray to any deity that would listen, to grant him a miracle or even a second chance.

But nobody listened.

So, Samuel Oliver Lawrence, called Solar in the gaming community, a low-level information broker, died in his empty apartment which contained only living necessities, his computer, and his gaming rig.

Alone, and abandoned by everyone.

Samson, or Sam as his friends called him, was bored.

He did what everyone expected of him. He went to a university, graduated almost on time, got a job at a multinational company, collected his paycheck, regularly visited his parents’ graves, and met up with his friends when they called him.

But being an introvert, he rarely left his home for anything else, so his social life wasn’t something that anybody would call great. Even his small group of friends introduced him as their ‘most introverted friend’. But he was happy with his lot.

He had enough money that he didn’t really need to worry; his small apartment was good enough for him, and his computer was upgraded enough that it would run even the newest games.

Still, Sam was rather bored.

Maybe it was depression again. After all, the therapist did say that living alone wasn’t really conducive to one psyche…

So, after a little thought, he decided to get some fresh baked goods, that would cheer him up.

Gathering his phone, keys, and wallet, he left his familiar home and slowly walked down the street lined with all kinds of scrumptious-looking restaurants, bakeries, and other food places. Living in the middle of the city was good for more than helping with his allergy.

He stepped around a small construction zone, his eyes locked onto his favorite bakery, already smelling the freshly baked bread.

“Watch out!”

Sam only had time to look up, noting that a rather large piece of steel was heading for him, and several construction workers were looking at him with horror on their faces when everything went black.

Samson ‘Sam’ Little, programmer, family, and friend to few, died surrounded by aghast people in a horrific construction accident. The number of people attending his funeral would have surprised him.

Sam woke up panting, drenched in sweat, and very, very confused.

The last he remembered, he was heading for imminent death, but here he was, alive and after some inspection, somewhat hearty.

Though after looking around, he realized he was nowhere he ever remembered to go to sleep. The room where he found himself, was dilapidated, with fading walls, old furniture, and a small breeze coming from nowhere. Though he did spot a rather futuristic-looking computer.

He was about to stand up and check it out when he felt his body go numb and fall back onto the bed.

‘So, I survived just do die again?’

Sam had only a moment to contemplate his thought when a head-splitting headache occupied every brain cell in his skull, and after a brief scream of pain, caused him to black out.

He woke up in the same bed, even more tired, swimming in sweat, and somewhat less confused.

Even before somebody or something shoved a life’s worth of memories into his head, he suspected he had been transported to another world. How couldn’t he? He was a rather big fan of the genre, and Sam knew that a head-on collision with a steel pipe traveling with terminal velocity rarely left a person with a brain capable to dream.

But now, with a person’s memories shoved into his skull, via a gigantic migraine, he was almost a hundred percent sure.

The person whose body he was now inhabiting had been playing a virtual reality game that everybody in the world played, was somewhat good at certain aspects of the game, and had an almost photographic memory of information about the game. Then he was betrayed, shot dead by a close friend for said information.

That would lend itself well to a standard fantasy novel about playing a virtual reality game while having revenge. But instead of the original owner, it was him that woke up in the body, and as Sam compared the room to the gifted memories, he realized that he also woke up in the past.

Sam pushed down the new memories temporarily, as the accompanying rage was starting to hurt his head, and still sitting on his bed, he looked around.

“Now what?”