A Lizard in a New World

by pilotman459

Thinking he'd finally be freed from the chains of addiction Yggdrasil had him in, the player known as Sauriv was thrust into a world unlike his own. Seemingly stuck in an unfamiliar location, can Sauriv survive the threats the New World has to offer? More importantly, can he survive an encounter with the infamous guild Ainz Ooal Gown once they inevitably cross paths?

1. Prologue

Dive-Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Game, or DMMO RPG. This was a term many people were aware of in the year 2138. Since the recent advances in virtual reality technology, the market had been saturated with many games trying to encapsulate the sense of adventure that many felt should pair well with the experience. And while these games were a dime a dozen, there was one that stood out amongst its competitors.

Yggdrasil.

This was a game that truly pushed the boundaries of the creative mind. With vast customization, as well as a damn good MMO experience, none could deny the impact this game had on not just the gaming environment, but also on the world in general. The game played like many of the other DMMO RPGs of its time, providing the players with a fantasy world mainly taking its inspiration from Norse mythology. This was evident not just with its name, but also with its game world. There were the nine realms from the myths that shaped the game that the players could explore, as well as much of the tree, Yggdrasil itself, opening up a huge amount of potential land for players to settle, expand, as well as fight over. It wasn't only the Scandinavian legends that the developers took inspiration from, however, which was evident in the playable races of the game. Many of the time would have called the game ambitious for its overabundance of choices during character creation, but this would have been an understatement. The game consisted of hundreds of races, including many that were accessed over time as a person played the game. These races were divided into 3 sub-types:

The human-type races, which included the generic choices available in most fantasy games of, not just its era, but pop culture throughout the decades, including humans, elves, dwarfs and the like. These races had no room to grow, but had the greatest variety when it came to choosing potential classes from the hundreds available.

The Demi-humans. These included many of the bestial races, such as lizardmen, ogres and goblins, as well as a host of countless others. These races typically had greater base stats than the human races, as well as having the potential to evolve to greater heights, but were more limited when it came to classes.

And finally, the heteromorphs. These were the creatures of fear and disgust throughout human memory. The vampires, skeletons, zombies and the like. These were creatures that were usually the villains in their stories. These races had the greatest base stats, and the greatest room to grow in terms of their race, usually having multiple 'evolutions'. These benefits, however, were offset by the fact that these races came with inherent weaknesses, such as aversion to sunlight, or a vulnerability to a specific damage type.

Yggdrasil prided itself on its player freedom and customization, proclaiming, as many people remember, that there was no design that the game could not accommodate, within reason of course. During its prime, Yggdrasil had millions of players online at any one time, and it won countless awards from many different companies, each pining for the developers to help them with their own projects. In the game, players could set up guilds, a way for friends on or offline to get together. These guilds could become the target of others, and the game freely allowed, and often encouraged, people to perform raids on their fellow player's creations. In its hay day, the game had hundreds, maybe even thousands of guilds.

But not anymore.

Now, 12 years after its release, Yggdrasil was shutting down for good. Players were upset upon hearing this, but in the 12 years of its life many had gotten bored of the game. There were comments that the experience had become pay to win, and was unfun for the simple man without a dime to his name in game. And so, the death of Yggdrasil the world over was about to go mostly unnoticed.

Well except for a few people.

For while the guild master of the mighty group Ainz Ooal Gown toiled away in his underground tomb, feeling a great weight in his chest, another, almost equal weight was being lifted from the chest of another player.