Three years ago, aliens made first contact, sort of. More accurately, they sent us a galactic internet connection and invited us to play the galaxy's biggest pay-to-win MMO, complete with irresistible and addictive rewards. Follow Nicholas Spenser, an ex-con turned professional rock breaker. After securing a contract to work for a lone Ambassador that settled on the digital version of his homeworld, he has somehow managed to carve out a living better than most in his struggling Faction, when a fugitive AI starts whispering exploits in his ear and pushing him to rebel against the system the Coreworlds have created.Follow Nick into the ever expanding and spiraling safe zone of the Hub, to the dangerous Factions layer where civilizations from across the galaxy war and trade. All while he balances the real life stigma of being a Link worker. Meet alien races, from giant beetles cosplaying as dwarves, to aloof and pointy eared Gelgin who despise the human given nickname "space elves", or massive colonies of symbiotic creatures that one could easily mistake for a grove of trees and the animals and insects within. Find out how Nick goes from worker grunt #496, to humanity's only hope within the cutthroat game that the Coreworlds have unleashed upon the galaxy.

What to expect:

-Dual settings of real life as well as VRMMORPG with real stakes

-Slice of life and lots of world-building

-Minimal stats, detailed items

-Large cast of characters

-Occasional intense combat, more frequent high-stakes conversations

-A mostly competent MC

-Descriptions, lots of descriptions

-An AI companion with questionable morals

-Single perspective

-Slow burn and a fair amount of introspection

-Eventual crafting and politics, hence the strategy tag

-lots of references (annotated in my master-copy, possible access via patreon tier eventually?)

(after an initial sprint of posting, I will post 2-3, 2-4000 word chapters per week, Monday and Friday, and possibly Wednesday)