chapter one::inside the box
#1 of beta.Sorcery.Net
This story is based on Von Krieger's [Sorcery.Net](%5C). Used with permission.
It's Tuesday night. There's no parties, all the games are played, the new consoles aren't launching for a month, and House is pre-empted by some sports game.
Lynn decides to check her email.
This was not the casual task it might sound like to outsiders. Lynn's email was spoken of in hushed whispers, in the same tone most people would say "Quest for the Holy Grail". Messages disappeared, never to be seen again. Lynn's email was somehow the maelstrom of every spammer in the hemisphere. Her friends joked that if she had taken all the penis enlargement offers, her husband's junk could apply for statehood.
That individual, incidentally, snores on the couch as Lynn clicks blearily through the hundreds of messages. Hmm. She didn't usually get this many in a few hours. Must be a slow day. One message catches her eye, from someone named "Steve V.K.". Lynn snorts: they weren't usually that transparent. She ticks it, along with the other few dozen on the page, and hits DELETE.
A few seconds later, the page reloads. Steve's email is still at the top. Lynn blinks. Oookay. Glitch. She checkboxes everything again, hits DELETE, and watches incredulously as the email stays pinned. Several tries later, all but one of her messages are gone. It even resists being moved to her folders. With an inarticulate cry of rage, she smacks the Dell. Ron is at her shoulder in seconds.
"This email won't delete." she explains, her brows knitting. Her husband reaches over her shoulder, and does some complicated set of keystrokes. The email is still there, but the design of the page is now mauve.
"Clever," she remarks.
"I must have hit '6' by mistake," he murmurs. "This shouldn't be happening. I configured our server myself. Hold on, lemee check something."
His laptop is on the coffee table, and comes out of standby in seconds. Ron's fingers blur for a few seconds, and he reports that he got the email too. He can't wipe the email from the physical server itself, down in the basement. As he comes back into the living room, pulliing cobwebs out of his hair, he announces that it even resists coding-level deletion. In short: this is one persistent spam.
"So now what?" says Lynn.
"We read it."
It was some sort of invitation to the beta of what looked like some MMORPG. There was an innocent looking link near the bottom of the email. The browser they were using was wired to the gills against any Trojan Horse or virus. They look at each other, shrug, and click.
Everything goes white.
"Is this supposed to happen?" says Lynn. Or, rather, her voice. She doesn't seem to have a body right now. In fact, the only thing both of them can do is stare at the grey loading bar in front of them. The label above it, also grey, reads "RRFFE 2.0::Beta Edition".
"I like it." said Ron. "Very Apple. Except without the pretention."
"Well, it hasn't finished loading yet." says Lynn. They both laugh: it's one of their favorite jokes.
With nothing to do but twiddle their invisible thumbs, they're forced to wait until the loading finishes.
An eyeblink later, both Ron and Lynn are standing in front of a dragon in a white suit.
Well, not a dragon, exactly. It still had a general human build, but a pale-blue skin, claws, and elongated neck, and a tail. Most notably a tail. And a pair of spectacles.
"What..." says Ron. He and his wife are clad in those kind of lightweight white outfits you see in certain eyeglasses comercials. No shoes. The floor is cool to the touch.
"Hello. I'm Steve V.K. I sent you two--"
"I know you!" yells Lynn. "You're one of those things they talked about on VH1 and Vanity Fair and stuff! You're a furry!"
Both Ron and Steve wince. Her voice seems to carry unnaturally far, and the invisible ceiling and walls suddenly seem to be pressing in.
"Yes, I am", continues the dragon. "As I was saying, I sent you two the invite. Welcome to the Ruramusho Recreational Fantasy Fulfillment Engine 2.0 Beta."
Ron looks around at what little he could see with interest. Lynn, however, just lookd puzzled.
"What?" she says.