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

"Just what the hell is that girl?" Jason muttered with his eyes glued to a massive screen taking up most of the wall space in his office. Besides the glass barrier that separated him from the rest of the bureau, twenty of his subordinates continued to scan every line of the massive code in search for the problematic part.

"This is either some kind of genius hacker or someone wired himself to the system directly." Jason continued his mutters, scanning the wall-full of code for the thousandth time for today.

The numbers simply didn't make any sense. The iteration of the code that created such a bustle in the department followed every last protocol included in the code. And on this part, there wasn't a single problem, ruling out the possibility of some third-rate programmist trying to topple the dominance of Online Hub.

Inner deals