I’d been a member of the middle management of guild of sorrows for almost a decade now and had been with the guild for fifteen years. Every day I dealt with administration for about two hours and developed my character for much of the rest of the day. All of this was done in game time which occurred at triple the speed of out of game time, leading to 72 hours in a work day. Since the game worked in my sleep, I worked 48 of those 72 hours, having a waking life of only 8 hours a day, weekends included. I basically gave the best years of my life to sorrow’s guild, and to the VRMMO eternity’s wake.

My character was a level 300 Tier 4 swordsman. I’d only recently become level 300 and passed my tier 4 promotion quest with sizable difficulties one hundred levels later than minimum level needed. Nonetheless as a tier 4 presence I was a solid powerhouse in the game, if not among the very best elites. Tier 5 and even the occasional tier 6 player existed at this point in the game but those players were legendary. I had a high enough level to challenge the tier 5 and tier 6 promotions, but lacked the skills, techniques, equipment and abilities to pass them. After all, tier 4 came very recently for me.

One of those players was the tier 5 powerhouse, Diablos, my nemesis. We were both on equal terms for much of our tier 3, but he encountered a heaven-sent opportunity and rapidly advanced, leaving me behind. We still hated each other for all the fighting we did back then and I had to be very careful to avoid being found by him these days since his higher tier would almost certainly mean death. Fortunately, he mostly operated on completely different maps than me, and was an independent player without a guild to track me down.

Today I was mostly grinding in neutral maps, looking to level up as fast as possible. Other days I’d go for equipment runs in dungeons or encounter lucky opportunities and go on special missions. All of it was very challenging and very exciting, which is part of why I had no regrets about investing so much of my life into the game. Sorrows paid me an excellent salary, and I had plenty of money these days, although in the beginning years things were a lot rougher.

My biggest regret in life was not having money to help my parents when they needed it. It ate at me that for the cost of a few million credits I could have saved their lives. I’m worth over 5 million credits now, and wish I could go back and make that trade but at the time I had barely 400,000 credits to my name. I’m a filial son, and visit their graves often, but even now, years later, my failure to provide for them, as they once provided for me, still eats away at me.

Anyways, back to my day. I finished up grinding, putting in a small portion of the work needed to get to level 301, at this level it took forever to level up, eternity’s wake was around for the long haul, and this level took me 15 years of play to get to. The top players were level 500, but they had legendary, celestial, divine or even growth type items to help them level up. Level 300 was impressive without such things. I came back to the guild office ready to do my administrative work when I was called in for a meeting by the guild leader. Such things were rare and usually not good so I was plenty nervous. My nervousness reached a whole new level when sitting in the other chair in the guild leaders office was Diablos.

I sat down and prepared for the worse. The guild leader started to talk and it didn’t get better: “I’d like to thank you for many years of excellent service Mark. The guild wouldn’t be where it is today without you. But as you know our enemies have more tier 5 and tier 6 players than we do and us such we’re very threatened by them. Diablos has agreed to join the guild as long as you’re not in it, and we need his help to face the oncoming threat. As a thank you for years of service, we’re giving you a 2,000,000 credit severance, and as per the terms of your contract you must delete your character.”

I was floored. I went numb inside, and the past 15 years of my life went crashing away. I didn’t know what to do. My life without Eternities Wake wasn’t much of a life, and starting over from level 1 seemed pointless when it took 15 years to catch up to where I am today. I could play one of the newer games coming out I suppose, but there was a reason that the 15 year old game Eternity’s Wake was still far and away the most played game. It all seemed a little pointless. Without the game I didn’t know who I was, it occupied much of my waking and every sleeping hour. Nonetheless, I took the money and deleted my account. I had no other choices. I was filled to the brim with hatred for diablos, but most of all with hatred for sorrow’s guild who treated my years of loyal service as if it were nothing.

I was confused and depressed and full of rage. Not even a session with the punching bag could calm me down. At 35, I’d reached the point in my life where my reflexes were starting to slow down and I could no longer do the things I once did. With technology these days enough money could change such things, the very best professional athletes played until they were 60 keeping their reflexes almost 30 years longer than was natural. Without the money for such treatments I was forced to admit I was an aging man playing a young man’s game. Feeling frustrated with all of it I had the worst idea of my life. I thought maybe a drive would calm me down.

I drove my sports car out into the country and around the rolling hills. I was climbing a cliff when a horrendous sadness hit me and I sobbed and sobbed. Tears clouded my eyes till I couldn’t see. And when I wiped them away I saw a fast approaching guard rail. I hit the brakes as hard as I could but I smashed into the rail and felt the car start to roll before I blacked out.