Incomplete

"Where the hell am I..." These words echoed all around Alec for some time, before finally fading away. There was no answer, of course.

The lithe youth looked back at the stream he had found earlier, and bent down to get a better look at himself, since he apparently could no longer remember what he looked like. What he was met with was rather tame.

Alec was pale and thin, but not emaciated; his slightly messy, long hair reached down to his waist, though it was currently tied back, though a few rebellious strands hung in his face. They almost felt natural there. He was wearing a simple T-shirt of the dark purple variety, with a tan, button up, open trench coat over-top. His black, rimmed glasses spoke of intelligence, but only in the superficial sense. He wore simple blue jeans and black, lace-up sneakers with white trim. A small chain was hooked to one of his Jeans' loops, and tracing it back led to a simple chain wallet. Upon closer inspection, the wallet contained an ID, with a photo that matched the man in the reflection, and a name.

"Alec Valkyre, 20 years old." As he spoke this name, memories rose to the surface, though many were vague or murky. A convention, other people that he recognized as friends, strange items for sale, a mass of people vanishing, a laptop computer, and a voice constantly repeating the words "Critical Error."

Returning to the memory of the laptop computer, Alec began to remember other vague details, such as hackers, .shell files, viruses, mods and glitches.

Hacking. That's right, I used to be a hacker, he mused, absentmindedly remembering various attempts at writing programs, and most of them going horrifically wrong. There was that one program that manged to set my desktop to overload and set itself on fire. That was a doozy, he continued. In the back of his mind, he wished he had his laptop back, so he could at least find a wi-fi signal and figure out where he was.

Almost immediately, a screen popped up in front of him, catching him off guard and causing him to fall back. Looking up from where he lay, he saw a floating hologram like projection of a command line, and the following message:

SYSTEM ALERT: Player [ ] has entered.

"Player?" Alec questioned aloud, confused. Standing up to get a better look at the screen, he tried to walk around it. Oddly enough, it followed him, always staying within his line of sight. Curious, he began poking at the screen, but he simply phased through it, like it only existed to his eyes. Looking back at the screen, he took another notice of the command line below the message.

Ok, so how do I type anything without a keyboard? he pondered, when, as if on cue, a projection of a keyboard appeared in front of him as well. To his surprise, Alec could interact with the keyboard. Quickly, he began typing out various commands to try and see if he could get some information out of whatever system created this. None of the usual commands were working, until he typed in a destination: the root databases.

Immediately, the screen filled up with lines of code, before settling on several options.

1: Critical System Files

2: Session Database

3: Player Database

4: Class Database

5: Item Database

6: Object Database

7: Enemy Database

8: Unusable Data

Alec's curiosity was now piqued. He began by selecting Option 1, only to immediately be met with a error message stating:

SYSTEM: Error, Access Denied

"Damn, shoulda guessed they wouldn't want anyone poking around in there," he cursed under his breath. Undeterred, he selected Option 2, with presented him with 2 more options: Session Records and Live Feeds. Deciding that a visual would be of greater help, the hacker in training chose the latter. The screen changed once more, growing a few sizes larger. Static occupied it for a few moments, before the picture began to clear up.

Before Alec lay the audio-visual representation of another player in another session. A strapping young man in blue pajamas and an eight-armed warrior with a loud mouth waged terrible combat against an unknown foe while strange, large-eyed, pastel, miniature horses of various colors and varieties watched on, some in awe, others in fear.

Alec sat there, watching on in awe as the two veteran players struck down their foe, only for said foe to disappear in a fountain of strange collectibles. After which, the pajama clad fighter seemingly disappeared, while the remaining warrior returned to a standard two-armed human form, and called out for the nearest bar. Apparently, they were in the middle of celebrating some sort of holiday. After which, the screen faded to black, and returned to the main menu selection screen.

Deciding that he had nothing better to do, Alec spent the next few hours watching more players as they went about their various journeys through the world around them. In time, the lone audience member came to understand a few things about the construct that created this world:

1. This world(s) contains meta-constructs and rules based around various video games, though many are flexible.

2. Each Player has their own session, but a select few can travel between sessions to aid other players if they can discover the means to do so; all Sessions take place in a world called Equestria.

3. All Players have a class assigned to them based on the clothing they were wearing upon entering, and go on a journey of self-discovery and training throughout their time here to bring out their full potential.

4. Each Player's session is different, and depending on your class, you may face more difficult challenges than others.

5. You can create just about anything with enough materials (obtained by defeating enemies), equipment (which you get along your journey somehow), and know-how (basically, if you can imagine it, you can find a way to create it).

6. The Wallet Sylladex method of carrying items is one of the most broken forms of storage; seriously, you can fit an entire house into this thing and then some.

7. The strange horse creatures are called Ponies, and they're the local NPCs of each world; you do not want to get on their bad side.

8. Nobody knows how we got here, or why we're here.

With these 7 facts firmly in mind, Alec would spend the next few days pouring over every bit of information he could obtain from these databases about his particular session, the land of Equestria itself, and his role in all of it. What he uncovers, however, is simultaneously everything and nothing he expected to find.