Dome of Safety “Rome”—Could 19, 2070

On today, a boy named Enzo Emmanuel Romano was born. He was the youngest of 5 brothers and sisters.

Someday, he could be often called one of many 7 Gods… the legendary VRMMORPG participant, “Ceaser.”

At the moment, the Earth’s inhabitants had been pressured to reside inside enormous domes to guard them from the local weather that they had destroyed. For essentially the most half, these domes had been constructed all over the world’s largest surviving cities. Rome was certainly one of them.

However, not like Paris, Rome was a really poor metropolis. Certainly, it was one of many poorest cities remaining on the planet.

And the Romano household, a former Italian noble lineage, was even poorer than a lot of their friends. That they had tried to spend money on agriculture in the course of the climatic disaster, however this had solely pushed them deeply into debt.

The Romano household was pressured to declare chapter, leaving their ancestral property to reside within the immense metropolis slum that was often called the “Dome of Rome.”

Enzo and his siblings grew up in complete poverty. They lacked even the requirements of life, from meals to garments to drugs.

Nonetheless, there was one factor his mother and father might present for him: an schooling.

This was no odd schooling. Enzo’s mother and father made positive that he discovered all of the misplaced qualities of the aristocracy, qualities which mere poverty couldn’t strip away: righteousness, honor, and self-discipline. Certainly, regardless that he was pressured by circumstance to decorate in rags, Enzo carried himself with the dignity of a real aristocrat.

However the world was extra chaotic with each passing day. To have the ability to feed 5 youngsters, his mother and father had been pressured to toil lengthy hours in small, meaningless jobs which had been exhausting however which paid near nothing.

Enzo’s mother and father tried to depend on the ideas of the Aristocracy to maintain them. They tried to work virtuously and diligently, hoping to show to the world that their spirits had not damaged.

However these ideas did little or no to uninteresting the distress. As time handed, Enzo’s mother and father turned increasingly jaded.

Then they found Neo-Crack.

Although this surprise drug might ship its victims into blissful unconsciousness at larger doses, it served as a strong stimulant in tiny doses. Enzo’s father was launched to it as a way to disregard all ache, discomfort, and weariness whereas on an extended shift.

It labored precisely as he had been informed, after which he was addicted for the remainder of his life.

Not lengthy after, Enzo’s mom fell into the identical lure.

By the age of eight, Enzo and his 4 siblings discovered themselves the uncared for youngsters of two hopeless drug addicts.

The Neo-Crack helped Enzo’s mother and father work more durable and quicker at first, however their our bodies rapidly grew accustomed to those tiny doses. They craved extra. And as they ingested extra of the drug, they got here nearer to approaching the drug’s different impact, its all-consuming stupor.

This was, tragically, much more addictive than its stimulant impact.

The Romano guardians misplaced increasingly management of their very own lives. Because the years handed, stronger and sinister types of Neo-Crack got here instantly from authorities laboratories and into the arms of drug sellers. These new kinds stored their slaves in tighter and tighter chains, guaranteeing they might by no means be free.

Enzo’s mother and father led their complete household into delinquency to fund their addictions, turning to extra reckless types of theft in fast succession.

It labored pretty properly for them at first. Then they tried to rob a financial institution.

The once-noble household was wildly out of its depth and was arrested directly. Justice close to the tip of the twenty-first century was swift and repressive, and so the previous nobles had been every sentenced to thirty years in jail with out the opportunity of parole.

To forestall the formation of household gangs rising inside jail partitions, every member of the family was despatched to a special facility, by no means to fulfill once more.

On the age of sixteen, Enzo rapidly realized that no matter hope there had been in his life was now gone. His household was damaged, by no means to be repaired once more.

This was essentially the most bitter loss Enzo had skilled in his quick life. Regardless of the poverty, regardless of the struggling, regardless of his mother and father’ addictions, there had by no means earlier than been a time when the household bond had been irretrievably misplaced. Despite the fact that his mother and father had failed their youngsters many times… It doesn’t matter what, that they had at all times come again collectively.

However then, sitting in his cell, alone, Enzo was pressured to face the reality that his life would by no means be the identical once more. It was a shock, a brutal shock. Enzo was overtaken by hopeless despair as one perception consumed him: the world had taken all the pieces from him.

First, his household’s heritage and property as an historic, noble bloodline. Then their dignity. Then the mother and father themselves. Lastly, the world had shattered Enzo’s household, scattering his siblings far and huge.

And Enzo knew that he would by no means reclaim what he had misplaced.

He curled up right into a ball and wept bitterly in his dingy, two-square-meter cell that smelled of another person’s urine. He cried for a very long time, lengthy sufficient that he misplaced monitor of the hours, till the rising moon illuminated his skinny bedspread.

Enzo, ever-resourceful, realized that his sheets could be sufficient to tie a hangman’s knot.

So the sixteen-year-old boy long-established a noose, tied it to the bars of his cell window, and hanged himself.

However maybe Destiny had ordained all of Enzo’s former distress, as a result of it was his excessive poverty that saved his life. Being so skinny from lack of vitamin, Enzo’s physique was far too gentle, and he was far too weak to interrupt his personal neck. Although he tried very exhausting, all Enzo managed to do was render himself unconscious.

Surprisingly, when Enzo awakened hours later with a pounding headache, he discovered himself on the ground beside a cleanly lower noose. There was no fraying on the makeshift rope in any respect—somebody should have lower him down on objective.

But, who might it have been? He had no cellmates, and certainly if a guard had discovered him, Enzo would have woken up within the infirmary as an alternative of on his ground with the rope proper beside him.

He did not perceive what had occurred that evening, however he did perceive that he should have some objective remaining in his life.

The very subsequent morning, World of Warcraft II was launched.

With this sport got here a social upheaval just like the world had by no means seen. In contrast to books, older video games, and movies, WoW II introduced one thing utterly new: the opportunity of immersing oneself utterly in an entire new world.

This social shock wave even reached the world’s prisons. When it turned clear that there was actual cash to be constructed from this sport, the prisons realized that they may leverage their inventory of prisoners for revenue.

In spite of everything, who could possibly be a greater warrior than somebody who had been a warrior in the true world to start with?

Thus, the federal government’s first “VRMMORPG Reinsertion program” got here into being, barely one yr after the discharge of the sport. For the world authorities, it was a godsend. They might hand off their prisoners to large guilds as little greater than slaves and obtain a very good revenue from their efforts.

And, in fact, even underneath the worst circumstances, many of the prisoners vastly most popular taking part in WoW II to sitting of their cells.

Furthermore, for many who carried out properly and confirmed that they had been in a position to work efficiently in a bigger social construction like a guild, the federal government was in a position to declare that these prisoners had proved in a position to reintegrate into society, and they also had been in a position to empty parts of their prisons. This was a ravishing piece of propaganda, which the jail administration system was fairly pleased with!

Twelve months after this authorities program was devised, it selected one jail as its experimental prototype. That jail occurred to be the one the place Enzo was being held.

A sure first-rate guild visited that jail to select their new recruits, a guild known as Renovatio Imperii. They specialised in PvP, and so they dreamed of in the future turning into a SuperGuild and rising to the highest of the world’s most elite gaming companies.

Enzo instantly understood that this was his ticket out, his one probability at a brand new life! Furthermore, it appeared providential that it was this guild which got here to his jail. Renovatio Imperii represented the traditional valor and dignity of Rome, the values of his personal ancestors which he had been raised to like.

This guild wasn’t on the lookout for brainless bastards, however barbarians able to becoming a member of civilization and adopting the customs of Rome.

In brief, they had been wanting precisely for somebody like him.

and movies, WoW II introduced one thing utterly new: the opportunity of immersing oneself utterly in an entire new world.

This social shock wave even reached the world’s prisons. When it turned clear that there was actual cash to be constructed from this sport, the prisons realized that they may leverage their inventory of prisoners for revenue.