Three years have passed since Prince Herald's Unfinished Kingdom was nearly taken down by lawsuits. The Meteor, Doubt, was fought off with donations from the community and world-wide lobby for net-neutrality. Because of this, PHUK has grown a steadily active and expansive userbase comprised of over twenty-five million users. By that account, roughly one out of every two hundrerd fifty people in the world plays in The Kingdom… more than double those who play World of Warcraft.
Warcraft has, for the most part, kept it's user base at or above it's previous average. The true question between playing The Kingdom and any other MMO is almost one of initial investment rather than monthly fee. Just as promised, many Players of PHUK received a reimbursement of their monthly fees in the form of In-Game Perks and additional subscription months when most all of the lawsuits were found in favor of Cross-Tellurian Fault.
At one point a year beyond the lawsuits, a general study showed that more than half of the Playerbase used a TIS to play PHUK. It was shortly after this that the lawsuits were settled in a sweeping Supreme Court ruling, and The Kingdom revealed that it would like to go full-TIS for the Game. The community was in an uproar for nearly three hours when it was revealed that CTF was going to accomplish this by giving upwards of 80% discounts on TIS suits instead of paying certain Players back.
There was only a slight drop in total population of the Game when this full-TIS compliance was turned on six months after that (During the "Replacement Reality" Free Expansion), and roughly on year ago the present time. It is partly because of the Total Immersion of The Kingdom that it has garnered more users instead of lost them. Some work places now support PHUK as an interface and have workers who come together to make products and items for PHUK and for outside in the Real World… their users being able to save on commutes with the growing gas prices as well as work all over the world from home.
Furthermore the Game Economy now has solid ties to the real world… creating virtual products based on similar to real-world physics. Moderators of the Game are granted free game time, and more people than the Enforcers are working on the company payroll. All in all, the game has come a long way, and has a strong future. There are even more alternate worlds and jump-gates between them, with other settings that resembled many other popular games.
In fact, it was a guess that Cross-Tellurian was working to incorporate popular licensed universes into the total of The Kingdom… offshoots using TIS and their popular interface techniques. Separated by Stargate and Sliders-like wormholes and portals, those licenses would be able to have their own self-contained existence or have some bleed-over into The Kingdom. If the licenses ever ran out, those worlds could be shut down without affecting the 'main' PHUK universe.
For Charles and his friends, PHUK is a home away from home, and the upcoming enhancements to the TIS had just gone into Beta. The new units would allow full range of movement as before, but now with built-in food and waste management. The new units would take up the space of a small walk-in closet and would exercise and monitor the owner as a full-fledged medical unit. In this way, they would allow a user extended periods inside of The Kingdom, including built-in shut-down procedures should food, water, or waste management become a problem.
Charles, a prominent Enforcer by now, had already graduated High School two summers ago. His real-life job was working Campus Security part-time for Bristle Woods Community College, and he and Doug shared a dorm room together. His older sister, Agatha, was in her fourth year studying medicine at a college just up the state while his younger siblings were still in High School or Middle School themselves.
Agatha O'Brian was the person who originally got Charles into Prince Herald's Unfinished Kingdom, and she was on the beta list for the new "Extended Immersion Unit" that would allow someone to stay within The Kingdom for an extended period of time. He had helped her put it together just the day before, and tomorrow night would be the start of the weekend. Her intention would be to play from Friday until Monday morning.
Charles' plan was to join her once he got off of shift Saturday night, and sure enough he did. He met her off in a mountainside cabin just south of Icepeak Tower where he and his sister had dispatched an Ice Golem the previous weekend. Charles was playing his usual character, and Agatha was playing her sorceress. The two of them tormented a couple of thieves and found out where there leader was in the hopes of dispatching him.
The two of them found the task easy enough, but Charles was still worn from the night's work before. He went off to bed and woke to his alarm clock for church the next morning. All in all, it had been a good experience and just a normal night, but as Charles picked up his Cell Phone on the way out of his dorm (Doug was sleeping-in and rarely went to church), he saw that he had one missed call.
He shrugged to himself, thinking he often missed calls while in PHUK but that most people used the Instant Messenger that would send a TXT to him within the Game. Hitting the button for his voice mail, he put the phone to his ear as he stepped out his door and locked it behind him.
"Seven Missed Calls," the phone said, and Charles blinked. He didn't usually have that many calls, but considering he was out all night, working yesterday, and visiting Tome and Daniel the night before… having forgotten his phone, his mom was probably wanting to him to visit for the weekend or something.
"First Call, Marked Urgent," Charles gritted his teeth, knowing now that if the first call was marked 'urgent' then the last call would be yelling at him. He sighed as it said, "Friday, 11:20PM," and opened up with the sound of a woman crying. He blinked, and realized it was his mother. He held the phone closely to his ear as she said, "Charles, something horrible has happened. Your sister… Agatha. There was a fire. The police are trying to keep it quite, but half of Valerythaw University is ablaze," she whimpered, and Charles' eyes went wide.
"The body," his mom said, and there was a very long pause on the phone. The body? Who's body? he wondered. "The body," she repeated after the empty air broke, "Was found outside the building after an explosion. They say she would have felt very little pain," she began to cry. "Oh, Charles… where are you?"
Charles was stunned. The following messages were about his parents leaving the house to identify the body… a message saying that his boss was supposed to pass on the information, an so on. There would be hell to pay for leaving his cell at the dorm for the passed two days, but more than that… if his sister, Agatha, was dead… then who was he teamed with in The Kingdom last night?