Jeni Scott sat in front of the computer screen surfing the ‘net for the latest in video games. Bored with the same old thing, she searched for something different. She preferred video games similar to the tabletop role-playing games she’d played in college.

Some of her favorites she’d played so much that they just didn’t hold excitement for her anymore. Not like when she had first installed War Worlds and got sucked in for the next five years. Most of the new games were a lot of fun—up to a point—then they got boring. And again, she was hunting for something new. She thought back to her first online gaming experience and typed ImagiNet into the browser. She clicked the link at the top of the page and installed the program.

Nice, she thought. Let’s see what it offers.

A dead world, empty of the hundreds of avatars that had populated the virtual streets back in the day. No one around to even play a game of chess or cards with.

Disappointed once more, Jeni closed the interface and uninstalled the program. Back to the Web. Normally, she wouldn’t click past the second, maybe third, page of a search that found millions of hits. But today all her searches kept bringing up the same old games. She’d played or sampled most of them. They either weren’t to her taste, or she could never really get the hang of the interface and wasn’t interested enough in the game to learn.

She’d tried survival games. She didn’t survive as long as she liked. War games. Fuggedaboudit, she died there too. Strategy games. She preferred the tactical varieties. And zombie games. Too much killing, not enough puzzle-solving. She always came back to the classic medieval-style, co-operative, role-playing game.

She sighed heavily, then continued clicking, scrolling through the fourth, fifth, and sixth pages. On the seventh page, she stopped and drifted the cursor to an entry that had caught her eye—The Sceptre of Tyme.

Interesting spelling, she thought, clicking on the link. She waited impatiently for the page to load. Jeni read in the description.

A new concept in gaming, The Sceptre of Tyme, combines the latest gaming technology with the latest in virtual reality technology.

A few weeks before, Jeni had been at a party with some of her local gamer friends, and Steve had shown her his new VR headset. He put her in a small area with barricades on all sides so she wouldn’t wander off and get hurt. It was an interesting, and somewhat unsettling, experience. She couldn’t wait to try it again.

She opened another browser window to check her bank account. There was enough of a balance to upgrade her computer for the game, get the recommended VR headset, and have money left to contribute to the Kickstarter. She had time to save for the equipment before release. The developers didn’t expect to have an Alpha test release for another six months. But she wanted to get used to the VR environment.

She placed her order and waited.