In Aethelgard Online — the world's first fully unstructured VRMMO — you can be anything you can describe. A storm bard. A shadow duelist. A dragon-blooded monk. The AI will build your class from your words, and the world will respond to your belief. But belief is expensive. The Conviction system rewards only those who stay in character — truly, completely, without slipping — and no one has the patience. He does. He picked the worst class in the game on purpose. A frail, mask-wearing doctor with a satchel of herbs and a knife too small to fight with. He picked it because he'd been building the character for three months already. He picked it because he'd been a Live-Action Roleplayer for eleven years. He picked it because staying in character wasn't a challenge for him — it was his first language. Now the NPCs whisper when he enters a room. Now his skills bloom out of nothing because the System can't tell the difference between him and the character he's playing. Now the world is