MotivatedSloth

"Hello, sir. Are you cashing out or leveling up?"

Dungeons Online was the first game that cracked the system. Let nerds earn by nerding, and they will nerd forever. And Dungeons Online did just that. 

Noobs turned into middle-class workers. Pro-players turned into celebrities and multi-millionaires. 

And there was Tom. Likely, the only top ranker that lived off the scraps and cat-food. A courtesy of his father that went and disappeared, leaving Tom with just enough money to survive until his graduation. Until the day where the option of cashing out would appear.

Dungeons Online. A game where developers never shared a single bit of information. A game where the death of one's avatar is permanent. A game that can turn a beggar into a lord just as quickly as turning a celebrity into nobody. 

But where does all this money comes from? How is it connected to the unnatural disaster that all governments across the world buried any information off? And how is this all connected to Tom's missing father?

Dungeons Online

"Good luck on the other side," Cleo said with a smile before jumping into the capsule. Even though the guidelines suggested removing all kinds of casual clothing and entering with special undies only, she couldn't care less about such trifling matters.

"Let's hope we can find each other as soon as possible," Tom replied before nodding his head and turning around. He wasn't going to watch the girl fall unconscious. After all, that would mean wasting the opportunity she was giving them.

"Be ready to climb, run, jump and do all sorts of stuff," Tom said as he turned his eyes to Claudia.

"That's..." she hesitated in her response. "I'm pretty athletic, but doing all of that with a heavy backpack?" Claudia shrugged at the sheer thought of doing dangerous by itself with an additional burden.

"You can either carry it and stop whining or starve once we are inside," Tom replied coldly, peeking through the hole in the containment sheets.

Swing above the abyss