RealityCraft Prologue

A boy sat in the computer chair at the far side of his bedroom. The curtains were drawn tightly together so as not to allow any sunlight to leak into the dark space. The soul illumination of the room came from the three glowing computer screens that rested on the glass surface of the desk. The space behind the chair extended further than the light could reach, only yielding the faint shapes of a few pieces of furniture.

The only sounds in the air were the clicking and tapping of the mouse and keyboard as quick fingers masterfully navigated from one to the other. The glow of the screens revealed weak, pasty hands, as well as the arms and body they were attached to. A blue shirt was hung from his thin frame, along with a pair of jeans and bare feet that disappeared under the desk. His pale face was covered in freckles and his unkempt brown hair sat in a mess on his head. He had brown eyes that were obscured by the reflection of the three screens off his rectangular glasses, and they were constantly darting from left to right in order to take in the massive amount of information.

His name was Stephen Stevenson, and he was an eleventh grade high school student. He was the target of the envy of most of his classmates for being the son of a wealthy bank owner and living in one of the biggest mansions in his hometown, but he never let that get to him. Many people tried to fake being his friends so they could mooch off his money, but he turned them all down. There were even a few kids at his school who beat him up regularly for being a “stuck-up snob,” but he shrugged the pain off. During the school day, he would go about his business without any enthusiasm and never even attempted to converse with his classmates.

There was only one thing that he cared about, after all. The only thing he ever really thought about on a regular basis. It was a computer game that he had studied biblically; one that he spent all of his free time on and took up most of the space on his custom hard drive. It was a game with infinite potential that gave its users the chance to create an entire world in the image they desired. This game was called Minecraft.

Stephen had been playing the game for two years and was completely absorbed by it. A crafting game in which you could not only build to your heart’s content, but also change the parameters of the physics and the world itself with mods was too good not to love. His first computer had crashed multiple times due to the amount of mods he had running at the same time.

Thus, he read up on computer information and created the system he currently had in front of him. Three separate computers, each with a customized hard drive and a specific purpose. The one in the middle was used for his single-player campaigns and had all of his mods saved on it, ready for transfer and installation at a moment’s notice. The computer on the left was used for school, as well as researching any new mods or texture packs that he might want to try out.

The final monitor on the right was hooked up to Stephen’s online server. This was the biggest hard drive out of the three and it ran 24/7. It had a built-in water cooling system consisting of unbreakable pipes that prevented it from over-heating. The server was known as Argus and was one of the most populated ones in North America, with at least a hundred people signed on at any given time. Stephen was the administrator of the world contained inside it, and even earned money from people who wanted to buy enchanted armor or secure patches of land where nobody could grief them. It made him feel like a god.

All of these computers were connected to the special terminal that was his keyboard. With just a few taps, he could transition from scrolling around one screen to another without breaking his momentum. His mouse could also control all three, and was able to act independently from the keyboard. With this combination, he was able to control two of the computers at once.

At the moment, he was using the left monitor to search through the Minecraft forums for any new mods that might be in the making while observing the data stream for Argus occasionally. His gaze drifted from screen to screen, staying on each for no longer than a minute at a time. He typed in the names of the mods he knew to see if any had been updated, clicked links to other pages, and had an overall bored look on his face.

“Come on,” he muttered as he lazily scrolled. “Just the same old junk. When is something interesting going to show up?”

At that moment, as if in response to his griping, a message window opened upon the middle computer screen. It was the usual gray and had a question written across it: “Do you really want to try something new, Stephen?” ‘Yes’ and ‘No” were the only button options below it.

Not being on to back down, he clicked ‘Yes.’ The screen went black for a second, but came back on to show a website opened in his browser. The top of the page was dominated by a banner with the words “RealityCraft: a Mod Like No Other!” Further down was a simple link to download the mod, as well as a short description.

“Have you ever wanted to talk to a Golem? Do you think a zombie would make a good friend? Well, RealityCraft is here to put these desires to rest. This mod turns simple mobs into real people you can interact with. Results may vary.”

“Interesting,” Stephen mused as he checked the URL for the website. To his surprise, it was so obscure that it hardly made any sense. There wasn’t even a host site to refer to at the beginning of the web address.

Having no reason to turn back, he clicked the download button.

It took mere seconds for the setup file to appear on his home screen, and he opened it without hesitation. He navigated through the pages designating where the files would be installed and the terms of use, but stopped when he reached one he hadn’t seen before.
It proclaimed that the mod was three-hundred gigabytes in all, and would need to be installed piece by piece. His jaw nearly hit the desk with how far it dropped. This was an obscene amount of space, and even with his computer modifications it would take at least a month to get it all established. It also piqued his interest to find out what was contained.

Throwing caution to the wind, he accepted and allowed the program to randomize the order of which the mobs would be changed. He leaned back in his chair and yawned, looking at the clock on the wall to see that it was almost dinner time. He left the chair and the room with his head full of anticipation of how the mod would change his gaming experience.