Second Chance Addison

Given the roller coaster ride of emotion that Chance had just been on, he decided not to look at any more news for the time being.

He was also now feeling even more exhausted than he had after talking to Nevada.

He returned to the office and was about to shut the computer down.

His cursor hovered over the button and he changed his mind, instead opening a new browser window.

Before he started Addison Enterprises, there had been this MMORPG he used to squander his free time on. As time went on, he logged in less and less and eventually abandoned the game altogether.

'I wonder if it's still around.'

He ran a search for it and sure enough, there it was, still as popular as ever. There was even a newer updated version of the game.

Chance opted for the old school version and downloaded the launcher so he'd have it on the desktop. He also saw that he could now play a mobile version so he went ahead and installed it on his phone too.

The log in screen finally came up on the desktop launcher.

He typed in his old username, which he immediately cringed at, and password to see if his account still existed.

{Welcome to Old School MagiScape}

{SirChancelot, Your last log in was 2738 days ago.}

And he was in. Unfortunately, all the system had kept was his account information. He had to recreate his character and all of his stats and his inventory were reset.

'Not my level 92 woodcut!' He g.r.o.a.n.e.d when the character creation screen popped up.

'Starting over here too, huh? How fitting.' He spent some time rebuilding his character and continued on with the game.

Since he had to start from the beginning, he spawned on the tutorial island. Instead of skipping it, he figured he might as well go through it. He opened the game to kill time in the first place.

By the time he had relearned the basics and made it to the first town, he was ready to call it quits.

There was one last thing he wanted to check. Chance opened his friends list and was shocked to see that everyone's names were still there.

He scrolled through the list, trying to remember who some of these users were and wondering if anyone might be online.

Most of the other players had 'Offline' next to their name and a few were online but in other worlds. He checked the world numbers and found they were are in membership or skill restricted worlds.

With his current stats, Chance was limited to a few overpopulated free to play worlds. It was going to take a lot of time and grinding to get his levels back up to where they were. He hadn't been the strongest player but he had played enough to have reasonably high stats.

His main focus in the game was trading. He was well known for being able to get a hold of anything a player could need, for a price of course. Some would argue he was the best at what he did and the best at manipulating the in-game economy.

He had also been downgraded from member to free player which limited his access to much of the game.

Of the few friends that were online, he couldn't get to any of them and he didn't immediately recognize any of the names so he went ahead and closed the game.

He opened it on his phone and saved his username and password so he could mess around with it whenever.

...

Meanwhile, somewhere out in the countryside, a teenager was lazily stretched across a couch, staring in disbelief at the notification on his phone.

It was from a script he had written to monitor the activity of a certain account in a game he used to frequent.

His heart sank when he saw the time stamp on the screen. The notification had come in a little more than an hour ago while he had been busy with his homework.

Of course, it had to come when he didn't have his phone.

He hurriedly opened up MagiScape on his phone and checked his friends list. Sure enough, SirChancelot was online.

"Chance is back!" The youth shouted in glee, not caring if anyone was in earshot.

As he was about to send a message, the banner next to the name returned to 'Offline' as it had been for years.

'Not cool, dude.'

Disappointed in his timing, he tossed to phone aside and stared up at the ceiling.

He'd been checking MagiScape off and on ever since Chance suddenly went inactive. Then he created a script to do it for him. He had almost forgotten about it entirely.

This was a rare opportunity to check in with his estranged cousin, and he'd completely botched it.