Editing Log Horizon (section)

==The Plot==

Long-running non-VR (the distinction is VERY important) MMORPG '''Elder Tale''' (an old-school game partially based on real-life MMO '''Everquest''') had just rolled out a major update and expansion '''Homesteading the Noosphere''' (mistranslated as Novasphere Pioneers in some places) to revitalize its player base.  Curious to see the additions to the game after not playing for a while, engineering student '''Kei Shirogane''' logs with his Enchanter character, meets up in-game with his old buddy '''Naotsugu''', catch up on old times, and check out the new maps for a few hours. Standard stuff.

Then something weird happens. 

It begs repeating, '''Elder Tale''' was ''not'' a VR-game, but one that was played via keyboard and mouse in front of a standard monitor-and-tower setup.  This meant that, for many people around the world, they were looking at their computer screens one moment, then living in the game world the next.  As peopled tried to "log out", they soon found out they were unable to do so.  In what would soon become called '''The Catastrophe''',  mass panic then unrest followed, as the-now trapped player base has to grapple with their new existence in a world that was, a few moments ago, just a game.

Shiroe and Naotsugu, being chill dudes, ''didn't panic'', but at the same time they were at a loss at what to ''do'' now that they were their level-90 endgame avatars.  After they hit up another of Shiroe's in-game pals '''Akatsuki''', solve the latter's gender problem (Akatsuki was a female player stuck in a male avatar), and faff around fending off bored Player Killers, the trio gets hit by the PLOT, as they have to journey far north on behalf of another of Shiroe's old-time friends Marielle to rescue a newbie member of her guild now stuck in a very VERY hostile and chaotic hub town.

What follows is an adventure through crumbling area-transition dungeons, newbie rescues, fights against edgelord player killers, and lots of TASTY food (which becomes an actual ''plot point'' later on).  Later books focus Shiroe and his friends' part in trying to stabilize the situation in what was the Akihabara server, create a stable and ''sustainable'' society for the trapped players, even MORE food, playing nice with the local nobility, some inter-city intrigue, and what happens when the players forget a seasonal quest, and its repercussions now that everything is now "real". Whoops.