The Pearly white walls around the city rose as high as two stories off the ground. Twinkling textures of white and green swirled in the seams of the walls dancing in dainty design as the strong will of the wall separated the city inside from the enemies of the forest that engulfed it and the sea port where it kissed the sea.

Little did they know that the defenders of the wall were far more dangerous than any that had dared challenge them before. However, it wasn’t a cold barrier, banning all from their basic needs of community. It was simply the skin of the beating heart of the living city living in harmony if not fueling the forest around her. The forest frolicked in and around the solid walls.

Crème colored roads and fantastic buildings stretched and curled around trees as natural as if nature had grown the buildings themselves. The city looked like a cream-colored geode half buried in lush forest. Rainbows of light shine like ribbons off the peaks of the buildings they illuminated the many-colored plants that grew in groves around the city. Many animals big and small freely lived with one another and roamed the city from the giant eagles that made their nests in the safety of the city’s tallest trees to the foxes that slinked from shadow to shadow.

In the center of the city rose a brilliant castle that reached for the sky like a pillar of pearl and diamonds. The castle had four towers made of the same material, but each had stain glass windows facing one of the cardinal directions and represented one of the four basic elements.

Over the course of this day in particular the residents of the city elf, and creature alike were summoned to the castle for a very special event.

Their founder Calloway Calphius Guildmaster of the Elves of the North Wind guild had something special planned.

Calloway walked down the carpeted aisle of the great hall in the castle. A ruby rug led up to an alabaster chair built on a dais riddle with emerald inlays of flourishing vines.

The room was full to bursting with Elves dressing in their best clothes. Beautiful women and sharp featured men in fabulous clothes.

People weren’t the only souls in the room. Many animals stood at attention patiently waiting. This room was full of the city’s most powerful defenders, every single seemingly innocuous citizen and beast was actually a powerful warrior or monster in their own right. Cal had even created Elementals that could take on elven shapes to blend in with the population. He even recruited various creature tribes like nymphs, dryads, and slimes as rewards from rare or secret quests to help defend and upkeep the city.

However, with all the powerful beings defending the city none were as distinguished as the Sylvan knights. Six elf NPC’s capable of going toe-to-toe with human players. They were on par with what gamers called Boss Monsters.

Unlike the enemies that roamed the world just waiting for players to massacre in the name of Experience points. The Boss monsters found at the ends of caves or dungeons were several times stronger and smarter than the monsters that randomly generated around the world.

In total there were several hundreds of guests, and thanks to Calloway’s not so subtle preferences, at least 70% were beautiful women. In all of the maidens of the City of Perils no rose was as beautiful or as dangerous as Princess Dravenkin, the treasured warrior princess of the City of Perils.

Princess Shayley O'heira Van Dravenkin stood at the end of the great hall. Her beautiful throne was merely a token backdrop compared to the princess’s beauty, and on either side of her were the six Sylvan Knights that guarded her and the castle.

The Princess's dress put the entire congregation to shame in shear extravagance and beauty. It wasn't something she'd usually wear, but today was a special occasion.

Calloway swallowed.

He allowed himself to admit only for today that he was in love with this girl.

He allowed himself to be taken in by the sight of her glowing beauty.

He had donned the nicest clothes that he had in his inventory which consisted of black and white garment of a cleric.

He was a pitiful humble display compare to the princess, and after what he was about to do he was ready to lock this moment away forever as he resolved to live only in reality after this virtual experience.

This was practice for when he fell in love with a real girl IRL.

Ya that was it, this was practice.

He steeled his nerves and climbed the steps to the princess's side. He made it so that their sides were facing the crowd. In the corner of his eye he kept watch of the clock.

[23:57]

Even though facial expressions were too advanced for the games engine, simple commands could be given like "follow" and "wait here" and "attack that". Calloway thought that the princess's regal nature was too great for a command like "Follow" so he instilled the command phrase to be "Let's go on an adventure," at which point the princess would nod her head and follow wherever he led.

Calloway looked into the green eyes of the NPC and paused as he was taken aback by her pure Elven beauty once again.

He pulled an item out of his inventory. It was a world class item, which in short meant that it was an item so rare and powerful that it was actually capable of breaking the balance of the game.

"This is going to sound absurd but... Princess, I Calloway have been in love with you since the moment that I first laid eyes on you. I am not a smart man, and I am no NPC, but I love you. I have crafted this entire city for this one moment." Calloway swallowed and checked the time as he got down on one knee. The Princess's eyes and head followed him as he held the ring out in front of him.

[23:58]

"Will you do this humble adventurer the eternal service of becoming my b-b-bride? I-I have never done this before but-" Calloway looked into the hollow emotionless eyes of the NPC. His somber smile didn't reach his avatar’s lips but he continued. "I guess what I'm trying to say is 'Let's go on an adventure.'"

The princess nodded. There was no applause, but Calloway stood anyway, he opened the princess's menu and added the ring to her inventory and equipped it to her left ring finger.

[23:59:50...51...52...53..54...55...56...57...58...59.......]

[00:00:00]

The monitor shut off. And the twenty-four-year-old Jasper Toledo formally known as Calloway took off his Virtual reality helmet for the last time.

Jasper wiped a tear away from his eye. He lived alone with no family left and hardly any friends to speak off. He pulled open his desk drawer and set the helmet in it. On his desk were applications for several jobs.

Somehow, he'd finished college despite his obsession with Tales of Yggdrasil, but now that he had to quit cold turkey with the Tales of Yggdrasil servers permanently shut off.

He now resolved to give his everything to reality.

He'd get a real job, friends, and a girlfriend. All hopefully before the end of the year. It was March, so he figured that he had plenty of time.

It was midnight and he had an early shift at his part-time job at a family restaurant. Maybe he'd even start talking to one of the cute server girls there tomorrow.

It was an uphill battle from here on out since in real life his was painfully shy when it came to trying to bond with the opposite sex. NPC's were easy and programable, he ended up just rambling about this and that with them since they only had so many responses available.

In the game, Calloway was cool and confidant. In reality, Jasper... not so much. It didn't help that he felt like he lost half of his life since Tales of Yggdrasil was gone, but he'd cross that hurdle and now was the time.

Mary was cute, she often worked the register in the morning. She was a cute blonde fresh out of high school she might not jump at being his girlfriend, but maybe Jasper could get a little experience talking to a human girl about real life stuff instead of stats and quests.

The weather that was a good topic.

Jasper yawned. He set his alarm and crashed onto his bed as his computer set up finished powering down.

** ** **

A vestige of a memory is lost.

A girl wearing a restaurant uniform screamed.

A truck blares its horn as it swerves onto the curb but the girl isn't hit directly.

Instead a young co-worker wraps his arms around her and takes the full impact.

They had just made plans.

With the sound of screeching tires and broken bones, she'd never have the chance to thank him.

And he'd never be about to talk about the weather ever again.

Or would he...

** ** **

Birds chirping and rays of sunlight roused Jasper into consciousness.

Did I leave my window open again? He wondered as he sat up and yawned. A ray of light struck his eyes.

"Hiss, stupid sun," he whined and then his eyes shot open. "Oh no, I'm late!" His shift started before the sun came up, he wondered why his alarm hadn't gone off, and why nobody had bothered calling him. He looked for his phone and his alarm clock until he realized something completely unexpected.

He was no longer in his apartment.

He was in a tree house, and old one at that. Mold and lichen were overtaking some of the boards, and the window wasn't the only thing letting in sunlight.

"I’ve been kidnapped!"

He spun around wildly and checked his person for a bomb, but what he found was even stranger. He was wearing the same cleric garment he'd been wearing when he'd proposed to the Princess. His spells and equipment were in his mind like a perfect memory. It was as if he could bring up a perfect image of the Tales of Yggdrasil game menu in his mind complete with health, mana, stamina, item list, and spell list. And that wasn't the least of it.

He rushed to the window and peaked out to see miles of forest and... his City of Perils.

"AAAAHHHH!!!" he screamed out the window loud enough to send a flock of bird flying.

That was when the window collapsed under him and he fell to the ground.