HISTORY;
Luther Lansfeld is the owner and president of Sphere Company. Lost City, one of the central cities in his universe, was indirectly controlled by the gigantic corporation through its economic influence. A software engineering genius, he developed the core simulation routines for universe construction based on multiple time axes for the Eternal Sphere, a virtual simulation game that was his and his company's pride and joy. It eventually became a craze, sweeping the world by storm.
It bored him to just sit down and watch things flourish, however. It even bored him to merely fix bugs and make sure that the game was running perfectly, which was quite a feat and a tedious task considering how massive the player base had become. Thus he decided to take part in the happenings in the Sphere - not as the programmer or developer this time, but as one of the players. He created a character of his own and made him part of the game's storyline, installing an arsenal of killer moves and awesome boss battle music.
The character? Captain of Airyglyph's Black Brigade, Albel Nox. Arrogant, sarcastic and a total jerk, the character was a reflection of Luther somewhat, of what he was and what he wanted to be. The derogatory language and superiority complex remained, as well as the thirst for power and control. However, since Luther was a bit on the short side, he designed Albel to be much taller, and more good looking. Also, because he was a weakling in real life, he made Albel virtually unbeatable. And he gave him tragic past, plus a claw instead of a left hand, because it was cool that way.
Blair, his older sister, had reprimanded him many times for godmodding the game - at least, godmodding the Elicoor II sidequest. He never paid attention to her, however. He liked defeating all those lousy players, and he liked how Albel was quickly becoming one of the most popular characters in the Sphere. That was until an unknown player, bringing in a character named Fayt Leingod, defeated him in a duel. And that was the first time ever for Luther to lose. He was shocked, and very much challenged, obsessed with the thought of getting even. So he stalked Fayt's player, altering the game's parameters in order to set up a confrontation. But Blair, who was the developer and maintainer of the Milky Way section (the section he was playing in), intervened by triggering one of the game's plot twists earlier than she should have - the attack of the alien Vendeeni on Elicoor. She did it with the hope that Luther would realize that there was no fun in godmodding, and that he should play fair to truly enjoy the game. The plot twist achieved its desired effect. Luther eventually saw the thrill the Eternal Sphere offered, and was addicted like any other player.
All was well. In fact, Luther ended up joining a party, and it was no less than that of Fayt's player, his very own rival. But when he followed them through the Moonbase quest, he started to suspect that something was wrong, especially after learning about the forbidden research on symbological genetics. Saying nothing, he continued to play through the journey to Planet Styx - and there, hell broke loose. He discovered the shocking truth that Fayt's player was actually a programmer from a rival company assigned to sabotage the Sphere, and that many of those who had connections to that programmer's character were his accomplices. Enraged at the very thought of his masterpiece being meddled with, Luther once more used his administrator powers and unleashed the Executioners into the game, leaving the party to deal with them on their own. Carried away by his emotions, however, he went as far as attempting to delete the Milky Way section to stop the corruption of the game; his mistake, however, was to do so while still being logged in.
Blair intervened and managed to stop the deletion, but it was a little too late. Damage had been done to the Milky Way sector, and the section was made inaccessible as the programmers did all the necessary debugging and repairs. But that wasn't the worse part; it was Luther falling into a coma because of his stupidity.
Then one day, Luther woke up and saw white.
He'd been Drafted.
It bored him to just sit down and watch things flourish, however. It even bored him to merely fix bugs and make sure that the game was running perfectly, which was quite a feat and a tedious task considering how massive the player base had become. Thus he decided to take part in the happenings in the Sphere - not as the programmer or developer this time, but as one of the players. He created a character of his own and made him part of the game's storyline, installing an arsenal of killer moves and awesome boss battle music.
The character? Captain of Airyglyph's Black Brigade, Albel Nox. Arrogant, sarcastic and a total jerk, the character was a reflection of Luther somewhat, of what he was and what he wanted to be. The derogatory language and superiority complex remained, as well as the thirst for power and control. However, since Luther was a bit on the short side, he designed Albel to be much taller, and more good looking. Also, because he was a weakling in real life, he made Albel virtually unbeatable. And he gave him tragic past, plus a claw instead of a left hand, because it was cool that way.
Blair, his older sister, had reprimanded him many times for godmodding the game - at least, godmodding the Elicoor II sidequest. He never paid attention to her, however. He liked defeating all those lousy players, and he liked how Albel was quickly becoming one of the most popular characters in the Sphere. That was until an unknown player, bringing in a character named Fayt Leingod, defeated him in a duel. And that was the first time ever for Luther to lose. He was shocked, and very much challenged, obsessed with the thought of getting even. So he stalked Fayt's player, altering the game's parameters in order to set up a confrontation. But Blair, who was the developer and maintainer of the Milky Way section (the section he was playing in), intervened by triggering one of the game's plot twists earlier than she should have - the attack of the alien Vendeeni on Elicoor. She did it with the hope that Luther would realize that there was no fun in godmodding, and that he should play fair to truly enjoy the game. The plot twist achieved its desired effect. Luther eventually saw the thrill the Eternal Sphere offered, and was addicted like any other player.
All was well. In fact, Luther ended up joining a party, and it was no less than that of Fayt's player, his very own rival. But when he followed them through the Moonbase quest, he started to suspect that something was wrong, especially after learning about the forbidden research on symbological genetics. Saying nothing, he continued to play through the journey to Planet Styx - and there, hell broke loose. He discovered the shocking truth that Fayt's player was actually a programmer from a rival company assigned to sabotage the Sphere, and that many of those who had connections to that programmer's character were his accomplices. Enraged at the very thought of his masterpiece being meddled with, Luther once more used his administrator powers and unleashed the Executioners into the game, leaving the party to deal with them on their own. Carried away by his emotions, however, he went as far as attempting to delete the Milky Way section to stop the corruption of the game; his mistake, however, was to do so while still being logged in.
Blair intervened and managed to stop the deletion, but it was a little too late. Damage had been done to the Milky Way sector, and the section was made inaccessible as the programmers did all the necessary debugging and repairs. But that wasn't the worse part; it was Luther falling into a coma because of his stupidity.
Then one day, Luther woke up and saw white.
He'd been Drafted.