Six days ago, Luke Smith was a typical teenager with typical teenage problems. Now the fate of an entire world rests on his shoulders. MMORPGs had stopped being a part of Luke’s life years ago. That is, until he tried Yvvaros, an online sandbox role playing game only accessible through the latest in virtual reality technology. The game sucked him in almost instantly. Luke discovered a world with new stakes, rewards, and philosophical complexities deeper than anything he could have expected. The human experience exists on a spectrum. One person’s reality may be fantasy or even hallucination to someone else. One person’s sense of what’s important is even more subjective. As Luke quickly learned, it was hard to justify living in a world of rejection over a world of adventure, excitement, and connection. He began a new life in Yvvaros, just as vivid and maybe even more compelling than his existence in the outside world. Earth has already been explored, and the next frontier is closer to home than anyone could have imagined.

After the Battle of Kantor, everything changed. The digital world of Yvvaros was saved from destruction by the efforts of Luke and his guild, The Consulate. Unfortunately, the deluge of MMORPG players ‘going all in’ became intense enough to attract the scrutiny of governments across the world. The UN’s cyber police force intervened, installing NPC overseers known as the Arbiters to keep the players of Yvvaros from having the freedom to self-determine. With permadeath still enabled and risk around every corner, Luke is forced into direct conflict with the Arbiters in his struggle to protect Tess. All of the players that have gone all in become targets, and anyone caught assisting them faces judgement by the sword. When a new arrival puts forth a plan to liberate Yvvaros by using the game's own quest rewards against it, Luke is forced to make a decision that could lead his friends into salvation, or into death.