This is a recap of book one and Will’s character sheet going into book 2.

  Will, a QA tech for a video game company, gets transferred to London. He is hired to be a beta tester in Axeton Studios’ new game Victoria Online. Once in the game, he learns that Axeton’s operation is highly illegal, utilizing experimental longterm VR pods, realistic pain from injuries, and, most importantly, the technology to manipulate memories. Will and his fellow testers are each trapped until they finish their main quest, at which point, their memories will be altered and they will be returned to the real world.

  Will’s main quest is to hunt down and capture the Decoction Killer, a serial killer plaguing the game world. He starts his investigation at bakery, the sight of the most recent murder. There he meets his partner in the hunt, a fellow tester going by the handle Ajax. He also meets a young npc named Roach, who tells him about the victim, a gangster named Slinger.

  Will follows Roach’s tip to the gang headquarters of the Greys. Questioning them about Slinger goes south quickly, and Will is killed. He respawns back at his room and quickly sets out for revenge. With stealth and some help from Ajax, the testers defeat the gangsters and interrogate the gang leader.

  They follow the gang leaders information to Slinger’s old hideout, where he was experimenting on zombies and had a journal written in a strange script. They give the journal to a fellow tester in the hopes of getting it translated, and look for other leads.

  Using the police’s forensic data, Ajax hypothesizes that the Decoction Killer is using a horse track for a hunting ground. The two investigate the track, but come up empty handed, after which they get ambushed. With no active leads, Will pays Roach to stake out the race track, and the two go hunting zombies for money and experience.

  Eventually, the stake-out bore fruit, tracking the Killer to a dilapidated church. Afraid he would get away, Will raided the church without waiting for Ajax. The Killer managed to escape, but left his victim unharmed. Will questioned the victim, but the man revealed itself to be a many-toothed monster, which Will barely manages to kill before succumbing to his own wounds.

  Again left leadless, the two agree to help Sarah, another tester, with her quest to return the favor of translating Slinger’s journal. Despite some harrowing encounters, Will came out of the sidequest with a powerful new relic, an artifact that lets him be invisible to monster senses for a short period of time.

  Fed up with their lack of progress with the main quest, Will went back to the track. He discovered that the employees at the track were all Milladen, the many-toothed monsters, and managed to steal the keys to the track’s main building.

  On meeting up with his two companions, they each explained a lead they had found. Sarah finished translating Slinger’s journal and revealed that the killer has a safehouse in the zombie infested Old City. Will revealed that the track was infested with Milladen, and Ajax explained that a residence was buying the alchemical supplies needed by the Decoction Killer.

  Will and Ajax raid the residence, and almost apprehend the killer. They chase him to the Thames, but he escapes by using a magical boat. Before they can plan their next move, they receive a message that the Bitter Flagon, a pub the testers had been using as an unofficial headquarters, was under attack.

  The two join the full scale battle between Milladen forces and their fellow testers. During the battle, Will consumed a questionable potion in order to gain an edge. The potion was very effective, allowing him to turn the tide of the battle, but also caused him to have a heart attack.

  Will awakens outside of the game, being treated for the heart attack, which happened not in the game, but in the real world. Dr. Hide, one of the main scientists working for Axeton Studios, explains to Will that instead of simulating drugs used by the characters, the game just injects their real bodies with those drugs. He also expresses his exuberance for the memory implanting technology, and disdain for Axeton using the revolutionary procedures only for making a videogame better. Skipping the protocol of having Will’s memory of the conversation wiped, Dr. Hide sent Will back into the game.

  Will woke up next to the smoldering ashes of the Bitter Flagon, and found out from Sarah that Ajax had gone to the Old City to hunt down the Killer. With no idea of where the Killer’s Old City safehouse could be, Will decided to instead raid the horse track.

  Using the keys he had stolen earlier, Will entered the track’s main building and discovered stairs going deep into the earth. He explored the milladen lair, finding its meat locker, piles of sleeping figures, and a ritual implanting ceremony. Will managed to take one of the monsters captive, and fled the lair.

  Back at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Will’s lodging and respawn point as an Inquisitor working for the church, Will interrogated the milladen captive. From it, he got the location of the Killer’s safehouse.

  After braving a surly kid, a drunken ferryman, and a zombie horde, Will finally made it to the Marshview Hotel, location of the Decoction Killer’s final safehouse. The hotel was extremely haunted, and Will had quite a few encounters with ghosts before running into a pair of milladen performing a strange ritual. During the ensuing fight, Will learned that the milladen were creating a portal to their home plain that would kill everyone in the hotel and provide another beachhead into the local reality.

  Using a decoction mixed up by a fellow tester, and the ghostly terrain, Will managed to defeat the milladen and end the ritual.

  Will met up with Ajax, in a stalemate with the killer, both hunkered down in fortified areas and not willing to brave the no-man's land. Will flanked the killer by climbing the outside of the building and between the two testers, they managed to take the killer alive.

  Will found the killer’s journal and read the first few passages. They revealed that the killer was actually a rogue government operative working to kill the milladens. He was betrayed by the London Police force, revealing that they had been bought off by the monsters.

  Will’s reading was interrupted by a gunshot as Ajax executed the incompacitated Decoction Killer. Ajax revealed that his mission had been to kill the Decoction Killer all along, and hide any evidence that the government was involved. Ajax then demanded, gun ready, the killer’s journal, as it would need to be destroyed to finish Ajax’s quest.

  In a brief exchange, Will bested Ajax, and had him dead to rights, but instead of delivering the final blow, tossed the journal into the fire.

  Ajax escaped the game, and Will started plans to build a guildhall for the testers. End of book 1.

  Will’s character sheet at the end of book one:

  Race: Human.

  Class Inquisitor:

  Holy Order: Inquiro Haereticum

  Primary Statistics:

  Proficiencies:

  Martial Skills:

  Magical Skills:

  Utility Skills:

  Equipped Items: