Call of Carrethen,the world’s first real Virtual Reality game, powered by the Wellspring device. Growing up broke in The Sprawl, I knew I could never afford one. But then I won a contest and the next thing I knew, I was diving into the most incredible world living out my wildest fantasies.

But now I’m being held hostage with no ability to log out, and the penalty for in-game death? Brain death. My soul will be lost forever in the “electronic void.”

The world has been taken over by a black knight calling himself The Ripper. I don’t know him—but he definitely knows me. He turned the entire server red and returned everyone to level 1. Everyone but me.

He’s gifted me 20 levels—with one single, deadly caveat: anyone who manages to kill me gets a free ride home.

I'm a marked man. In order to survive and to get back to my family, I have to level up and defeat The Ripper. But with more than half the server out to get me, that’s not going to be easy...