Hard Drive Hero

Eli Wallace was having a truly bad day. The night before Eli had finally finished the last puzzle in the game he had been waiting nearly 6 years to play. Prometheus had finally come out and was receiving incredible buzz but the biggest talking point of the game was the 'unbeatable' puzzle.

The Dakara Weapons Puzzle was incredibly complex and rumor had it that even professionals in the astrophysics field were stumped by it. The puzzle was made more complex due to the fact that is was mostly written in the 'Prometheian' language which had been made for the game. At one point in his life Eli Wallace would have sat down for a month and popped out a solution. However ever since his mother's disappearance he had been a changed person. Before he believed he couldn't handle responsibility and would often drop out when things became overwhelming, now he didn't have that luxury. Since there was no proof of death, there was no life insurance when his mother disappeared. Fortunately his mother's struggle with HIV had led for her to plan ahead. He had access to their savings, which wasn't much considering medical bills, and he was on the title to the car as well as the deed to the house he had grown up in.

With real life no longer waiting around for him he had to play catch up. He put the house up on the market, and looking for an apartment. After getting a half-decent job as an electrician and IT support guru at a nearby manufacturing company, he was able to move out of his car. Between pouring money into the search for his mother and staying alive he had very little in the way of disposable income. While he managed to save up enough for the occasional game and still enjoyed a healthy share of geek culture he couldn't justify the relatively expensive subscription fee to Prometheus for several years.

The previous 4 months had been good to Eli, he had gotten a promotion at work that gave him more free time and a raise. The house had finally sold as well, and though he did put some of that aside to continue the search for his mother, he did indulge in buying a new laptop to enjoy his gaming hobby. The last 4 months he could finally afford to play Prometheus. Despite the 'unbeatable' puzzle the game held a great deal of popularity for it's variety and dynamic open-world. Eli dived in, learning the lore, the technology, the language and eventually he reached Dakara. Now by the time Eli had reached Dakara he could read 'Prometheian' as well as English, or Spanish, German, Chinese and, Korean for that matter. His job had led him to realize his talent as a Polyglot, which he spent a great deal perfecting. The puzzle had been difficult but Eli struggled to imagine it was so difficult that no one had ever beaten it, he assumed that anyone who had beaten had simply kept it quiet. Of course that was up until the point he actually completed the puzzle. At which point the game crashed. Eli spent the next few minutes in shock. Eventually his brain caught up with what had happened and Eli was so disgusted that he turned off the laptop and went to bed.

The next morning as Eli was packing his supplies up for work he heard a knock on his door. Gathering up his things he opened his door to see two men in their 40's or 50's. One man was in full formal Air Force uniform, with short grey hair and a strong jaw, he broadcasted an attitude that demanded respect and authority, despite the slight twinkle of mischief in his eyes. The other man was shorter and had shoulder length grey hair with brown streaks, dressed in the same ugly brown jacket every snobbish professor Eli had ever know wore. The man reminded Eli strongly of a ferret that knew how bad it smelled. His eyes were shifty and accusing, his nose held just high enough to show superiority and disdain without being obviously rude, this was the kind of man that caused Eli to drop out of MIT, the kind that would take every scrap of credit as their own and push every fault and failing onto others. Eli took an immediate dislike to the man who introduced himself as Dr. Nicholas Rush, though he felt far more comfortable around the man who was, Lt. General Jack O'Neil. The two men began asking questions about the puzzle in Prometheus and O'Neil glared at Rush when Eli complained about the lack of anything after the puzzle with just a crash.

After they began to ramble on about some 'Star Gate' Eli had enough and began making his way to leave for work, convinced this was some sort of scam. Until he was surrounded by a bright flash of light. Then he found himself surrounded by men in military fatigues with guns and O'Neil and Rush were standing there smirking at him. His geeky side was going nuts but his paranoid side was raving, 'I'VE JUST BEEN KIDNAPPED!'

Before he had much time to process this he saw the men raise there guns at him as O'Neil look alarmed and was reaching for his sidearm, Rush just paled and looked torn between smug and horrified.

"You'll do just fine! Off we go Champion!"

Eli felt something grab his shoulder before everything went black. This was a really bad day and Eli hadn't even gotten breakfast yet!

Elsewhere

As Eli travelled unconscious in the veil between realities his abductor was beginning to cackle.

"Now now now, we can't send you off to Nirn as you are, what to give you..."

The being coalesced into a tan man with shock white hair and a truly atrocious outfit, the purple and yellow shades of the bright Tabard and Pants was bad enough but add the embroidered patterns that roil and twist giving the impression of endless movement mad the ensemble truly eye-watering. As he pondered over the mortal he spied the messenger bag hung over Eli's shoulder.

"Ah! That will do nicely, I Sheogorath grant my Champion the blessing as such that he shall gain the powers and abilities of the items and concepts contained within this bag!"

Sheogorath managed to maintain a straight face for a matter of nanoseconds after making his proclamation, before descending into giggles as the messenger bag, full of Electrical tools, cables, and of course Eli's Laptop began to melt into Eli and fuse with him on a conceptual level. His task done Sheogorath sent his Champion off to Meridia before deciding to look for a realm made entirely of cheese before returning home to Nirn and Oblivion.