Chapter Text
Prologue -
Gabriel Agreste sighed as he looked over toward his wife who was lying silently on the nearby bed, a VR headset upon her head and countless IV’s and monitors attached all over her body.
It was of no use. Nothing that he had tried to wrest his wife’s consciousness from the game server had worked. However, up to this point he had been only trying safe methods that did not alter the game code itself, as he had a fear of harming his wife’s mind if he did so.
As far as he could tell, one of the AI’s his wife had engineered had wormed its way deeper into the game’s code. Sure, it was technically supposed to do just that as its main purpose to give the games non player characters emotion and a depth of substance with varied life goals, but somehow it had begun to alter the game world’s foundation and was growing rapidly out of control. On a positive note, the game did indeed seem more robust with all of the content the various AIs were adding, but at the same time, the emotion AI had somehow locked his wife’s mind inside. And there she had remained for almost two weeks.
With how the human brain and the game system worked in conjunction, that meant she had been trapped in the game for almost four months from her perception as game time moved at a much faster rate than it did in the real world. So, suffice to say, he was getting to the point that he was desperate and feared for her mental health if she remained in there much longer.
All that he could think to do was find an in-software way to disconnect her. After all, he knew very well if he attempted to remove her headset while her mind was connected in this way, that she would fall into a coma, never to wake again. So that was out as an option, as was shutting down the game server itself, as that would erase her mind in much the same way.
This part of the problem he actually understood. The player’s minds were never supposed to connect to the server in this way, but for some reason his wife had overridden the safety protocols on the headset and allowed for full unhindered connectivity. But he had no idea why she had done it, nor would he until he could talk to her again.
“Nathalie.” He said looking over at his holographic AI assistant. “Is the game world active and prepared to go live?”
Natalie nodded to him and held up her hand toward his computer. His monitor changed to show the status screen of the number of players that had already connected to the welcome lobby platform in preparation for the games launch. Here they would be able to create characters and hang out in a social environment while they waited for the main game world to come online.
So far there were already two million players connected and the number was still rising.
Gabriel closed his eyes and breathed out.
He wasn’t the kind of man to give in so easily and take actions that he knew were plainly evil, but at this point, he was desperate. He needed to find a way to revive his wife, and as far as he was concerned, he was about to have two million test subjects.
But first, he would need to trap them inside the game in the same way his wife was, after all, he needed to make sure his test subjects had the same set of circumstances as she did. Otherwise, any attempts he made to free these other players by force would be wasted effort.
He glanced at the file folders before him and focused on the most recent program he had created.
“Prepare the software update system to distribute a new program to all connected headsets.” Gabriel said to Nathalie. “File name, Akuma.”
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‘Miraculous Tales’
Enter a world of mystery and intrigue, magic and monsters, heroes and villains!
Forge your own path as a hero! What life will you choose to lead!?
A mighty warrior, or a cunning thief? Play your way with countless classes and subclasses available at launch!
Enter a reality that utilizes the most advanced AI and VR technology to date to create an immersive world of intelligent NPC’s and evolving landscapes and stories!
The newest game from Solitude Game Studio, coming this summer!