[TEMPORARY HIATUS]Wahfellas in: Hogwarts Online

Chapter 1-1: Launch Day

June 26, 2033. 11:05 AM
Manhatten, New York

"See ya at Hogwarts, Pep!" After helping his boss clean up the restaurant, Gustavo waved goodbye and walked out.

"WAIT! YOU FORGOT-A YOUR OVERTIME PAY!" Peppino rushed out the door and slammed the extra cash into his worker's hand.

"Sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean to get you all sweatin' so bad dis early." Gustavo apologized, rubbing the back of his head.

"Yeah, I'll-a go clean myself up a bit before-a I put on the Oculus." Peppino gave him a soft wave before he walked back inside.

After washing his face, he went to his bedroom and grabbed his Oculus Quest 4-D from the end table. After unplugging the charger, he put it on and went onto the Game Store. Hogwarts Online was at the front of the home page with a large banner ad featuring two fourth year Gryffindors fighting a manticore with offensive spells. The banner redirected to the game's page and he bought it for $70. It would be a twenty minute download. He went to his friends list and texted Madeline's account.

just started downloading HO. love you 🫶

GTK 😊

?

G

ood to know

thanks

He then went to his games library. There were enough games to fill a single SD card, though he'd gotten a second one recently. Omori VR was in the very top left, followed by Moss: Trilogy Omnibus, Wargroove 3D, Tentacular, Sonic Classic 3D Dreams Collection, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance VR. The other few rows were filled with similar games, though the last few had a couple FPSes and puzzle games, but no MMOs.

He picked Auto Chess, which was just below Wargroove 3D. He played a round at Knight 1 rank where he almost won, but was beaten at the last minute. Right after the round ended, he got a pop-up that the MMO had finished downloading. He closed out of the game and sent an invite to Madeline before he hopped on.

A part of him expected the sudden shift to a much larger game to be jarring, but he was more taken aback by how familiar it felt. The title screen left him feeling the same assurance that Auto Chess' did just a few minutes ago. He named his account PIZZATOWER23 then hopped onto the character creation. And his comfort immediately faded.

The tab on hair alone drug him down into a bottomless pit of endless styles, textures, and colors. He initially attempted to try out the paint option for hair, but his numerous attempts came out looking like mangled bedheads. He chose to stick with the presets and found straight short hair options in the upper half, but when he scrolled he lost track of where they were. The thousands of styles was a list with no filters, where pairs of feathered long hair were just below cuts of short retro waves. He checked the other tabs and nearly all of them were the same story.

He tried to assemble a good avatar, but each and every time he found a good asset, he'd quickly lose it to near identical ones that he'd immediately lose again and again.

This short hair looks nice I'll pick it no this one looks better no the tips look a bit off let me scroll up where did I leave that previous one no where'd the other one go shit oh well ill just scroll down a bit wait is this too far ahead I'll just scroll up wait where am I at again whatamidoing

He pulled off the Oculus for a moment to catch his breath. His head was already sweating and his heart racing. He took a break to calm down and, once his heart returned to its normal rate, he put it back on. He chose to make up for lost time and speed through the creation process, skipping to random parts of the lists in the tabs and choosing the best looking options. He only slowed down slightly for choosing colors, which was the only part he felt had any real order.