Caelus Online
1. A Night Out and a ‘Head Splitting’ Hangover

1. A Night Out and a ‘Head Splitting’ Hangover

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2030, October 2nd, 10:32 pm,

England, London, South Bank of the River Thames. 2 streets away from the OXO Tower. 

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Chester, in a chipper mood, walked towards where his car was waiting while accompanied by his friends whom he had just eaten a meal with. He was a tall man of 5ft 11”, with long swept back dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard of short stubble which framed his satisfied smile. His white shirt fit snugly around his sturdy frame, hinting at some of his underlying muscles. They walked through the brightly lit streets of the south bank of the river Thames which was still abuzz with the thrum of Friday evening festivities and the sounds of the traffic still moving about the streets.

Chester had been out for dinner to celebrate his best friend Ben’s success in finally reaching lv150 in Caelus online. The game had previously been launched 3 years prior and quickly became the most played full dive VRMMO in the fantasy genre thanks to the game's incredible features such as its graphics that were indistinguishable from reality, fully sentient NPC’s, fast-paced and diverse combat, and many other things that were ground-breaking for a VR game.

While the game was revolutionary, its popularity soared 3 months after launch due to an unforeseen change as those who played Caelus online started to gain their in-game abilities in the outside world. This drastic development led to the event which became known as the Great Upheaval, impacting the world to the core as regular civilians began to gain power and the structure of society started to distort.

During the Great Upheaval, Chester had struggled more than most players due to his unfortunate family circumstances. His parents passed away while he was finishing his last year of university, putting pressure on him to take over the family business as soon as he had graduated. By the time the game came out half a year later, he was only able to spend a small amount of his time playing, making him an average player in terms of progression and average in terms of abilities in the real world.

However, it was an even worse situation for Ben, who had absolutely no interest in fantasy style MMO’s, preferring to play post-apocalyptic single-player games and first-person shooters. It had taken Chester and Ben a while, but after a lot of effort, they had raised his level and helped push him into the lower end of the average players and were now out celebrating.

“Hey, Chester, thanks for taking us out tonight!” Ben called out, his deep voice catching everyone’s attention.

He was a slightly taller, well-built young man the same age as Chester. His short black hair was left a bit messy, and his well-defined face was framed by his long-trimmed stubble. Paired with his shirt whose top buttons were now undone, it gave him quite the roguish appearance.

“Haha, no worries, Ben, it was nothing after the last years’ worth of grinding!” Chester replied cheerfully, clearly slightly tipsy from drinking.

Chester dismissively waved his hand to show it was no trouble, then turned his attention to the other 2 members of the group who were currently supporting each other to prevent themselves from falling over.

“Ali, Russel, I'll drop you guys off on the way back if you want? Or you could stay over?”

Ali was a tall man of similar height to Ben, however he was slightly more slender in build with long, red hair swept back in a similar style to Chester. Unlike the other two, he was well shaven, and his smart clothes were neat.

Russel however was the smallest of the group standing a whole head shorter than Ali, with an undercut hairstyle with a ponytail. Unfortunately, due to his Asian heritage, he was unable to grow facial hair during the great covid lockdown, a cause of great disappointment for him. He was the most casually dressed of the group wearing ripped jeans and a black hoodie, typical clothing that when paired with his accent clearly showed his London upbringing.

“Eh? Oh… uhhhh…. we will stay the night *hic* if you don’t mind?”

Turning around, Ben let out a laugh while exaggeratedly raising his hand to his forehead.

“God, you’re such a lightweight Russel!”

“It’s my *hic* Asian constitution. Your western *hic* piss hits me hard!” Russel exclaimed, causing the group to laugh.

As the group made its way toward the street corner, a black car drove past the group, stopping a few metres in front of them.

As its window rolled down, Chester noticed out of the corner of his eye that a spear charged with lightning had been thrown towards his head. Unable to dodge in time, Chester cursed.

“What the fuc-“

****

Year: ????,

Branford Estate, northeast of London.

****

“Uggghhhh…”

Chester groaned as the light from the slim gap in the bedroom’s curtains shone onto his face. Rolling over, he started to regain consciousness as he opened his eyes.

“God, I drank way too much last night… I’m never drinking again…”

Feeling a massive headache, Chester sat up, looking for the glass of water on his bedside table. Gulping the refreshing liquid down, he once again laid back down to sleep off his hangover.

‘Wait, I don’t remember getting back home...? Wait, what about that spear…? Uuggghhhh… this is too much thinking. Head hurts. I’m going back to sleep.’

With that thought, Chester buries his head under his pillow again, easily drifting back to sleep.

*****

A short time later a knock on the door echoed through the large room.

“Your grace, it is 10 already, and Ben is already downstairs having breakfast.”

Letting out a groggy sigh, Chester rolled over onto his side to respond.

“Alright Harold, I’ll be down in 5.” Chester’s groggy voice called back.

Dragging himself out of bed, Chester felt much heavier than usual and decided it was likely the hangover. He would ask Ben what happened last night when he was downstairs. Looking around, Chester found the regular sight of his large bedroom, finely decorated in white and gold as you might expect of a room in a Manor House owned by an affluent family.  

Making his way through his room Chester entered into a large walk-in wardrobe and put on a comfortable pair of jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He sluggishly moved towards the bathroom to wash his face with water from the gold-plated tap, Chester eventually made his way downstairs.

He leisurely walked through the long halls of his Manor House, he eventually arrived at the dining room to see Ben from behind sitting next to the head of the table with a particularly youthful-looking Regina tending to him.

Regina had been a maid who had faithfully served the family for 5 years. While she was quite reserved, she had always been diligent in her work so to see her so youthful slightly threw Chester off.

Sitting down at the head of the table while still feeling rough from the previous night, Chester gave his morning greetings to Ben.

“Morning Ben, god last night ended weirdly, what happened?”

Finally getting a look at Ben's face, Chester noticed that he also looked somewhat more youthful, but that might have been because Ben had shaved off his beard and so thought nothing of it.

“What happened last night? Well, other than Tom getting slugged in the face for trying to make out with some guy’s girlfriend, not much. I guess we did have to carry you to your room because you drank so much.” He replied chuckling.  

With confusion on his face, Chester looked over to Ben as he tried to figure out what was just said.

“Hang on a second, Tom? That arse was not out with us? It was just you, Russel, Ali and myself? And I certainly didn’t drink that much!”

Ben started laughing as Regina walked in carrying Chester’s breakfast, shaking her head at the conversation.

“Haha, you must have been drunk if you can’t remember who we were out with.”

Frowning, Chester held his head while recalling everything from the previous night.

“Look Ben, some weird stuff happened last night before I blacked out…”

Chester proceeded to explain everything he could remember from last night’s events.

*****

“Now I’m confused, that certainly didn’t happen. Are you sure your drink was not spiked with something? Caelus Online is not even out yet, it’s still a few weeks away. Let alone getting me to play it. And people throwing around spears clad in magic lightning? That’s just a bit too much…”

Seeing that Ben was heavily scrutinizing him, Chester furrowed his brows as he sunk into thought.

“Ugh, this really is confusing. It sounds like I have travelled back in time by 3 years…? Is that even possible? … wait, was it even logical for people to cast magic in the first place? Hang on a second”

Seeing Chester’s seriousness on this weird subject, Ben’s expression also turned serious while waiting for Chester to sort through his thoughts.

Holding out his hand, Chester focused on trying to feel the flow of mana through his body while trying to create a small flame. After a few seconds of trying and feeling nothing, Chester gave up unable to feel anything. His thoughts spun as he realised that the lack of mana in his body explained why he was feeling so sluggish. Talking to himself while deep in thought, Chester looked down at the fried egg sitting in the middle of his plate.

“Strange… given how crazy everything became after the game released, it’s not outside of possibility that time travel is a thing…”

Getting Chester’s attention, Ben raised his voice.

“Chester, be real with me. I know you are a serious person and have never pulled some weird stuff like this before. Give it to me straight, are you playing around? Did you seriously get skewered by a spear? Is all this stuff you mentioned for real? You are not still drunk from last night?”

Chester paused, looking up at Ben full of surprise at how accepting he was of what was just said.

“I’m dead serious. Unless you can gain 3 years’ worth of memories and experiences from getting spiked with LSD, I am beyond certain. Let me think, how can I prove it to you…? Oh! The simple way is to tell you something that will happen in the near future.”

Seeing Ben nod, Chester pulled out his phone and checked the date.

“Saturday 10th of April, 27… hmmm. This was just 2 weeks before the game was released… ah! I remember you have some shares in that Canadian hydroponics company?”

“Yeah, I do, about 1300 of them, why?”

With a serious look on his face, Chester continued.

“Well, I remember you complaining about losing a lot of money on them because of an electrical overload at one of their factories. It fried all their equipment causing them millions in damage and halting their production for a few months while everything was replaced. I believe it will happen at some point next week, I can’t remember the exact day however, I mean you spent most of your time around here back then and it has been 3 years for me.”