Simon staggered as he arrived in the temple.

If this was a dream, it certainly wasn't the most pleasant one. He'd thought he was sleeping when it asked to input a username in the dark "room"; he'd offhandedly put in the one he was used to, Justicar. Then it'd asked for a class. Simon generally played the mage, but something told him he should pick the tank. So he went with Knight. An unusual voice encouraged him, and Simon became convinced he was dreaming.

Then he arrived in the temple. The voice had warned him it might hurt, but he hadn't expected it to actually hurt. He'd never felt real pain in a dream before, so when the blinding pain behind his eyes began to subside he managed to croak, "What...what the hell?" Dreams didn't hurt. Ergo, this wasn't a dream. But what else could it be? What, was he kidnapped by government agents and forced into some strange simulator? That made no sense.

The website with the secret link. That nobody else saw. But what could it be? Was this the "closed beta"? Did he sign up for something he'd regret? That was rapidly seeming to be the case, Simon realized, as he gazed at his surroundings. He appeared to be alone in a small stone room. He was also wearing fairly heavy metal armor of some kind. Well at least that made sense with the "knight" selection. He wondered if he had a weapon...

A small, light blue screen popped up in front of him. Simon started in surprise, then gave it a closer inspection. It was labeled, "Inventory" and had a little picture of a hammer in it. He tapped it, and immediately it vanished and Simon found himself with a large sword of some kind in his left hand. He bit his lip; this was making less and less sense, or maybe too much sense. Was this some kind of game?

Also, this sword was pretty heavy. Simon thought it was a two-handed sword but had no clues outside of that.

Closed beta. If this was some kind of video game VR setup crap, Simon would eat his new sword. Hell, if this wasn't a dream he might as well do that. What was he going to do? Where was he? With a sigh, Simon moved across the room and pushed open the door.

Now he found himself in a much larger room. It was also empty. "Hello?" He called out. Surely if this was a game, there'd be someone else here, either an NPC or another player or a monster or something. He clung more tightly to the sword as he kept walking.