Karen

Karen is a character in The Intense Struggle S2.

Biography
The year is 2049 A.D. Mankind continues in the standard way of living. People are born, live, and die. Technology advanced, machines progressed, ideas and revolutions transpired; constantly changing the everyday day to day. However, the point of these changes were not to establish a worldly connection to a person, but to distance people from the world. In this world, a certain person has deemed the rest of the world useless. Reality become nothing more than a diversion from their day to day. Their world was born in fiction.

The cybernet. With the creation of virtual reality came a new era. To sit at a keyboard became the retro of this age. People wanted to hook headsets to themselves and delve into the 'net. A feature was created to allow people to do this, not only while they were awake, but as they slept. This allowed their body to rest while their mind continued to browse or play. There were no downsides to this, but playing awake had some unique rewards that few noticed. The gaming industry soon took hold of the idea. Controllers became obsolete. People could now fully experience a fully realistic warzone from the safety of their bedrooms. Of course, with this level of graphic imagery many censorships came into place. The base age for purchasing these games rose, and no longer could a kid obtain a copy of these games from another person and expect to play. This was integrated into a system born to stop people assuming fake identities on the internet. It began from social networking sites overflowing with pre-made avatars and people being disappointed, and sometimes sickened, when they fell for the predators real forms. A way to label a persons image onto a card was made. It had to be renewed once each year, at the person's birthday (and for a fee) for it to work. This allowed the cards to have up to date data on the owner. That meant that people's avatars would age at the same rate they did. It also meant that they had to look the same on the internet as they did in real life. There was no alternative to gaining access to the net after this idea was implemented. Some people found a way around this, but they were few and far between. The basic access to the net still existed, but less and less people used it. And so, the gaming industry used these cards to make sure the player was age certified to play restricted games. Several hundred thousands kids went crazy. Nobody really cared.

It wasn't just the war games that benefitted from the adaption. Fully immersive role-playing games became huge hits in the virtual era. People could see themselves in fictitious worlds. Swordsmen, magicians, beast tamers, necromancers. These games held a mighty throne in the gaming industry. Once such game, Legends of Fate, has had a running streak of most played RPG on the 'net for three years running. The game is composed of people living in a fantasy world of Miure (Pronounced Myoo-er). Each person can choose a class, or more, to start off with. The price for multi tasking is needing twice as much experience to level each class. This usually means the multi-classers are those who have already reached the maximum level and are broadening their powers. Most people form groups with friends to get a friendlier experience of the game. Like most other games, it features dungeons. However, these encounters are not left scripted. The enemies may stay the same, but the way they act is formulated by an A.I. Many creatures in the world are sentient, they think, act and react accordingly to players. This changes the way the reactions of the players and keeps things from becoming stale.

The A.I filled the entire world. Guards, shop keeps, and other such "normal" inhabitants of the game each had personalities and minds. This was one of the many unique features the game brought. Combat was also designed specifically with the player in mind. Each spell or ability could be summoned with a thought. People could understand what their status was just by feeling it. Pain was never felt, of course. Such dangerous feelings were removed from the design of the VR sets. People could still "feel" their surroundings since the game felt like a world on it's own.

That is the world this person lives in. Lives by. There is no other reality for such a person. This person's name is Karen. She is a shut-in. Several years ago her parents died during an earthquake. The sheer pressure placed upon a monorail pillar caused it to buckle, sending a car crashing down on the people below. She and a few others survived, but since that day she closed herself off from the outside world. She was twelve at that time, and now she is sixteen. Three years ago, she was given a VR set for her birthday, and encouraged to get her ID created. After the setup, Karen took her first steps in the world of Legends of Fate.

She was home. That was how the world felt. She had simply been in an empty void since she lost her parents, a void she could now fill. This was not escapism. This wasn't just a game.

To her, this was life. It was more real than anything the outside world could offer her. She met many people, and she could talk to them. After two months, she grew pretty strong. She had started as a magician, and she was putting most of her power into learning the fire spells, since getting all the skills of the class was more or less impossible. It was at this time she met a player who was named Coal. He was the largest person she had ever met, not out of fat, but out of muscle. She had met a few black people in the time she spent in the game, but he seemed different. He was friendly to everyone. Even when people didn't want him to be. And yet his physique completely contrasted his personality. She grew to stay by his side whenever she got the chance, enjoying the close friendship they had. This was not love. Neither of these two people could comprehend that emotion. Karen, the shut in, had never loved anyone other than her parents, and Coal, who it turns out was also an orphan, was striving to make the world a happy place for his mother. They spent more than two years together, beating the game. After she hit the master class of magician, she multi-classed into the swordsman class. This allowed her receive a really rare sword that not only had physical prowess, but latent magical abilities. She got this class pretty powerful too, however never hit master level a second time. Rumours of a new expansion have been circling the 'net, and Karen was hopeful for somewhere new to roam. She had gained quite a bit of fame as one of the strongest players of Legends of Fate, earning her the nickname "Dark Witch Karen". She though it fitting to contrast her real self to this name, but she always wondered why Coal had not also been mentioned. He wasn't fussy, but she was concerned since he was just as experienced as she was. Right now, Karen does not know where she is. She believes to be dreaming, or perhaps in the beta for the expansion(I would prefer you not mention that though. I'd like to let her think this is not really what it is). Sleep usually came on her during game play due to her spending so much time in the 'net whilst awake instead of when she sleeps. She is in the body of her persona in the game, and has all the benefits that come from being a player, like skills, strength and experience.

Description:
Karen has short black hair and a very dark black dress, almost Victorian. The hem is cut off below her thighs, a change she made so that her swordsman class was easier to use. She usually only has one eye that is able to be seen at any time. The look on her face is not depressed exactly, she looks almost tired, world weary, but not depressed.

Weapons:
She carries a large sword on her back. the hilt is long enough for not only two hands, but three. The blade is a rough "massive sword" design the game threw together as a reference to an old culture of generic games and other such media. Shown here as a built example and not a drawing: http://i46.tinypic.com/2ij255j.jpg

Abilities:
Karen has access to both mage craft and swordsman abilities. They are numerous. Her offensive magic is almost all fire based, with a few spells that every magician gets, like the Tracker Bolt, a small arcane ball that homes in on a target, but does little damage compared to most spells. She can cast the Fireball spell into her sword, storing as many as she wants before unleashing it in an attack. She can also leave tracks of fire on the ground, or even walls, though a spell called Ember Step. Any space she steps on will ignite, and she could leave a large area burning when she uses this. She is bound by the rules of the game, i.e health and magic reserves. She has those limits, or at least still believes so.