Chapter 1 – Enter the Kingdom of Campbell
Max woke with a yawn. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and rolled out of bed. He looked over and saw that Neal was already gone. He pulled on his blue hoodie over his camp shirt and walked out of their tent and headed for the mess hall to eat what these sadists deemed breakfast. He kicked the doors open and instantly had to duck as space kid flew at him after detaching from the ceiling fan for the millionth time this summer. Nerris and Neil were crowding over his laptop probably looking up the latest nerd shit and Ered was in the corner looking cool. Nerf was robbing Preston, so it was a normal day. Max walked over to the quartermaster and he lopped some grey mush on his plate that he assumed was oatmeal or grits and walked over to sit with Neal and Nikki.
"Hey guys, what's today adventure" he quizzed while poking the slightly moving gruel. "I was thinking of teaching the mascot to speak Cantonese" Nikki enthused. "that way he can order for food from the takeout restaurant in town". Max just stared at her for a second pondering the many issues with that plan, then turned to Neal "Ok, what you go Neal because Nikki is in one of her moods" "Well, Me and Nerris have been working on a virtual reality game and we were going to have people playtest it." Max smiled at the sound of video games, the one thing that made life with his parents bearable. "ding, ding, ding we have a winner. Let's go". "Well we need some D batteries for the headsets and the camp store is all out." Max smiled "leave that to me, just get it set up". Max tossed his tray and walked out of mess hall and headed for the counselor's cabin.
He kicked the door in and Gwen quickly hid her journal she was writing in. "Max, you can't just barge in her", yelled Gwen. "Stow it, nobody is going to want to read your trashy fanfic. Bitch" She narrowed her eyes at him "So what do you want you little shit". Max smiled, "I need some D batteries for Neal's um…experiment. I figured you would have some. "I might, but they're reserved for emergency equipment, kid" replied Gwen. "Your vibrator isn't emergency equipment, Gwen get yourself a boyfriend". "I don't know what you mean" Gwen stammered. "Listen you give me the batteries and I'll have Neal program you a VR Merman with all the appendages you want and you can have all the fun you want" Max offered, Gwen scrambled under her bed and threw a 36 pack of D batteries at Max and followed Max to Neal's demonstration salivating thinking about what she was gonna do that poor Merman.
When they got to the campfire the flower scouts and wood scouts and the rest of the campers were sitting around the amphitheater. "ladies, guys and Jeremy Fartz, I would like to thank you for helping us playtest this VR simulation. We will be playing a VR version of Pixies and Pythons that me and Nerris developed." Introduced Neil. "I'm passing around character sheets, fill them out and I will input them into the computer and then we can start the simulation. Remember this is a world of magic where everything is possible" explained Nerris as she passed them out and everyone got to work. Max decided to be a Arboreal Elf Rogue mainly so he could wear a hood. Backstabbing was just a bonus. He finished his sheet and handed it to Neal. He laid it on a scanner and Max's character showed on the screen. Max tweaked a few physical features and his character was set to go. Neil and Nerris led them into the mess hall where sci-fi capsules waited for them. "When the hell did you guys manage to get all this shit setup" asked Max. "Max, we're geniuses don't question it" replied Neal. Max hopped into a capsule and the cover slid down. A metal ring shunted across his forehead and locked in place then everything went black.
You can see everyones characters in Chapter 0