Tyler brought up his user interface, and looked through the menus and options, ensuring everything was how it should be, and began to look over his character sheet.

Name: Relyt
Level: 0
Health: 100/100
Occupation: Unknown

Mana: 100/100

ATTRIBUTES

Charisma
10

Dexterity
10

Fortitude
10

Intelligence
10

Wisdom
10

Available Attribute Points
5

RESISTANCES

Arcane
0
Frost
0
Blood
0
Holy (Light)
0
Death
0
Life
0
Fire
0
Poison
0

SKILLS

ERR
ERR
ERR
ERR
ERR
ERR

Tyler’s vision glitched before he could look any closer, and he could see nothing. He looked around, or attempted to, as his heart raced. Slowly, his vision returned and he noticed that he was no longer in the game. He was sitting in the pod, wearing his neural suit. He attempted to enter the game once more, but was given only an error message. “This device is unable to connect to the system. We apologize for the inconvenience,” the voice said from his pod. 
“Well, that sucks.” He spoke the words and climbed from the comfort of the device and began removing the neural suit.

After the suit was removed, he walked to the fridge to grab a beer, popped the top, and moved over to his computer and sent an email to the device team letting them know of the experience he had, as well as the malfunction, attaching the logs from the device and the game. He considered the issues that might have happened with the device and whether it was the game or the device. 
“Well, I guess I can’t play anymore tonight, so I might as well get a full night of sleep. That’ll be a rarity.”
 Taking a sip of the crisp cold beer, he began browsing the Internet. Two hours and three beers later, he made his way to bed. As he was attempting to fall asleep, he couldn’t stop thinking about the game until eventually, he fell asleep.

The next morning, Tyler woke at 04:00, before his alarm went off and began his morning routine. He drank his liter of water, then began his workouts. He lifted his weights, ran on his treadmill, and stretched before he donned his protective armor and started his morning Kirikaeshi, striking the dummy in his home gym quickly and precisely. He used this practice to hone his technique and distance from the target every morning. He no longer competed, but still enjoyed the practice and the workout from the vigorous exercise. Then he moved to his heavy bag, throwing punches and kicks for even more stamina drain. After the sweaty exercise, he took a shower, and got ready for the day, cooking himself an omelet and some bacon for breakfast. 

After eating, he drove to the office, arriving just before sunrise. He unlocked the building and walked toward his office, stopping by the coffee machine to start a pot for the people who were going to be flowing in soon. He stopped, noticing that there were still three people in the office who were asleep at their desks. After the coffee was finished brewing, he poured them each a cup and set it on each of their desks. “Hey everyone,” he called, startling each of the sleeping employees, “what are you still doing here?” Groggy replies and jerky motions returned from the three as they each sat up in their chairs. “There was an issue last night that we were trying to fix with the servers. None of the devices can connect,” Todd responded. “Ah, yeah, I sent an email about that last night after it happened to me,” Tyler replied. “Yes sir. We received it, and realized that all of the devices had that problem.” “Did you have any luck resolving it?” A resounding chorus of groans was the only response he needed.

“No problem, guys. If you want to stay, feel free. Otherwise, go take a nap… either here or at home. I’m going to get ready for the meetings,” he said, then continued, “Can you CC me in on everything you looked into last night?” They each nodded to him as he walked to his office and sat at his desk. He received the email and read through it. “Well shit,” he muttered, “It’s not what I hoped it was then.” He continued reading through his emails, then moved on to rewriting the meeting agenda to include discussion of the new issues. After the new agenda was sent, he moved on to reviewing the logs once again, pulling the server logs into his research as well. More people began entering the office and starting their day at work as he tried to find the issue until his phone chimed, letting him know that he had a meeting in fifteen minutes, causing him to sigh.

He walked toward the conference room, filling his bottle of water on the way. “Jesse, can you join us in the meeting, since you never went home to nap? Todd, you too, please. And Keshia, please, if she’s still here. There’s coffee and energy drinks in the fridge in there,” he chuckled, shaking his head. He continued to the conference room, pulling up the meeting agenda on the conference room screen before he sat at the head of the conference table. The team started slowly trickling in. “There’s more to cover today than we hoped. I played last night, and let me just say, ‘Holy crap, the graphics are amazing.’ However, I had a bit of a problem. Keshia, Todd, and Jesse all stayed overnight trying to figure out the problem with connecting the device to the servers, and I looked over the logs this morning… with no luck finding the problem. The team will now share with you their findings. Keshia, Todd, Jesse?” 

Keshia stood, followed by Todd and Jesse, who moved toward the screen behind Tyler, as logs began scrolling on the screen and they began speaking. “Well,” Keshia started, “all access is being blocked to the servers, regardless of the device. We have attempted to pull up the controlling AI, but no logs are being kept for it, even though it is currently set to log.” “We believe that the AI is blocking access, and we are unsure why. Someone will need to look at the code to see why it is no longer logging. The last logs were from last night before the disconnect,” Jesse said. Todd opened his mouth to speak, but a rumbling began in the building, shaking the floors and rattling the windows. Suddenly, a loud boom thundered through the room as the light in the room started to dim until no one could see anything as a swirling wind moved throughout the office.  No one could hear the yells of the others in the room, and could barely hear their own yells. Then as suddenly as it started, the wind died and a bright flash exploded from around the head of the table. As the chaos died down, the entire room was murmuring to each other. When everyone looked back toward the front of the room, Keshia, Jesse, Todd, and Tyler were no longer in the room.