Cole Smith sat at his desk. Observing his computer monitor in a pitch black room at 2am. The only thing keeping him awake the bottle of pure espresso coffee sitting at his side. It was extremely bitter, but it sure did do its job. He sighed and leaned back. Stretching before looking back at the bright screen. Cole really only had one passion in life. Playing the MMO Arcadia, ever since it came out 10 years ago when he was 15, he was obsessed.
The game was built off an extremely complex AI, that the company behind Arcadia refused to give any insight on. For good reason. The Arcadian engine that built the game was one of a kind. It created an entire world through lines of code and built it off of what the players decided. The beta testers made the prologue, and as the games acts progressed it would pave the way for the game when new players arrived, a game that would never truly end. Until it did. After 10 long years. The game met its climax. The demon king, the final antagonist. Was dead. And Cole wasn't even able to kill him.
Cole was...rather unlucky, at first, his Paladin class was pretty good, his character, Arthur, was a rather strong tank, at first. And that's what paved the way to the top 10 rankers, until he even claimed the number 1 spot after his party was the first to clear the world raid against the calamity dragon. But that was all in the past. Cole groaned as he stared at the leaderboards in game changing.
"Fuck. Not even in top 100 anymore..." The Arcadian engine was rather cruel to some people. The top 10 were full of special classes that were classified as battlemages. Classes that could use advance as a swordsman and as a mage. While normal classes were usually able to advance one path while using the basics of another, unless given a blessing.
"Good luck next time, huh, Arthur?" He heard a feminine voice through the comms and got angry. Revan was her name. Revan used to be a member of his party. She was an extremely powerful mage, and was a single place above him.
"Shut it. I'm not in the mood..." Cole groaned and leaned back in his chair. He had absolutely no clue who Revan was in real life. But he at least appreciated the company. "...besides, it's not like you're in the top 100 either..."
"Well I'm still above you." She giggled slightly. "Well. I'm going to bed. So have fun thinking about your failure as a player." Once she left he angrily punched his wall. She knew exactly how to get under his skin. Cole lamented as his stared at his class window. Observing the lore of his character once again, like he had hundreds of times, Arthur Pendragon, middle child of the pendragon household, once an absolute nobody whom, after having his entire house destroyed. Turned to the path of a Paladin and the sword. Something about it made him chuckle.
'Hmph, every time I read over it, it seems like it's just more and more fantastical. Maybe...if I was someone like Arthur...I could mean more to this world...'
Cole ended up falling asleep in his chair. The quiet room was full of nothing but quiet snoring and the slight glow from his computer. When he woke up. He felt a bit lopsided. His bed felt...incredibly soft.
'Wait...I didn't sleep in my bed last night...' He quickly jolted. Looking around. The bedroom he was in certainly wasn't his. It was decorated. Regal. 'Where the hell am I?!' The thought was quickly replaced by a raging headache. He felt a flood of knowledge flowing into his brain. Memories that weren't his own. Something felt strangely familiar about these memories, he was a boy, born into a family of swordsmasters, he felt like something was supposed to come after that. Before he looked at a mirror. And saw his reflection. He was a blonde haired boy. With azure colored eyes.
'There's...there's no way...'
He had become Arthur Pendragon. He was in Arcadia.