Jason Rhodes

### Aliases

The Dark Lord, Bone Lord, The Dark One, The Regent of the Twilight Throne, Welfare

## Overview

Jason Rhodes is the protagonist of the Awaken Online series; most of the story is told from his point of view (albeit the 3rd person is used, not the 1st).

## Physical Description

In real life, Jason is described as a pretty average-looking young man, not particularly attractive, but not bad looking either. At the beginning of book 1 "catharsis", he was described to have longish brown hair often falling over his eyes and a skinny frame that caused his clothes to hang loosely from it. His eyes were described as "vivid, crystalline grey" that would look almost black in the right circumstances. A foreshadow of his true nature later in the game.

As the story continues Jason is described to become more physically toned, this is due to AO's AI controller's (Alfred) ability to simulate moderate workout on the users body while they are in game.

In the game, his human appearance is described as the same in real life, although he masks his face with a hood for the majority of the time seen. Later on, a magical hood covers his face in impenetrable darkness.

After his transformation to become a Keeper, his physical appearance changes, horns grow from his forehead, his hair as well as his eyes darken to black and his skin becomes pale white with tattoos of dark mana.

## Catharsis

He is an eighteen years-old young man whose parents are attorneys, working for environmental cause; thus they aren't very rich, although they live comfortably enough (middle-class). He doesn't have any siblings, and his parents are very often absent, on trips to take care of cases in other places. They are almost never there for him, they don't listen to him, whichever environment-related case they're working is always more important to them than their own son, apparently. For example, in the first chapter where Jason is presented in Catharsis (first book), he is late for school because as they left the apartment, his parents deactivated the entire network of the place (reminder: the story is set in 2076, therefore it isn't rare for people to have that kind of technology), meaning all the electronics were shut off, including their son's alarm clock, because they'd simply forgotten about him.

Jason goes to a private school, considered prestigious, named Richmond; he comes from a much less wealthy family than the other students, and was accepted into the school thanks to very good grades and a scholarship.
However, he isn't having a good time at all there; most people act like assholes with him because they feel superior since they are richer, the worst of them being Alex Lane, an eighteen or nineteen years-old classmate who is extremely rich and enjoys tormenting Jason, while using his money and superficial charm to get away with whatever harm he causes. Unfortunately for Jason, the school staff isn't much nicer to him than its students; they blatantly show favoritism towards students like Alex, and the opposite towards Jason. He only has one friend, Frank Cross who is also the target of mockeries at school because he is overweight (but he still get made fun of less than Jason). Jason has a crush on another eighteen years-old classmate, Riley Jones, because he thinks she's very kind as well as attractive.

The day where he is late to school, at the very beginning of the first novel, did not start well at all. As usual, the very unpleasant school employee he has to go see, Ms Abrams, looks down on him and doesn't accept his excuse for being late, while accepting Alex's excuse without any difficulty. A little later, Alex attacks Jason in the cafeteria because he accidentally sat close to him and Riley; however, it is Jason who gets in trouble, because Alex told the staff that Jason had tried to attack him first, and he'd just reacted in self-defense, explaining Jason's two black eyes; all the students who'd been sitting nearby confirmed Alex's lie, including, to Jason's shock and great disappointment, Riley. He's told he will get suspended for this, even though he didn't do anything wrong and is the victim in this situation; at that moment, after years of misadventures and being treated poorly by almost everybody in Richmond, he decides that the administration letting another student attack him and not punishing that other student, but only Jason himself, is going too far.
Therefore, he's ready to finally stand up for himself, in spite of the consequences; he's sick and tired of accepting the unfair treatment he's been receiving while attending this school, and resents himself for not doing against it - so now he'll put an end to it.

Consequently, he tells Ms Abrams and the principal who'd announced to him his unjustified suspension, and who had once more behaved like assholes, to go fuck themselves.

Thus he is expelled, but is too angry to allow worry or guilt to overtake him, and makes his way home, where finally he will get to play Awaken Online (frequently referred to as AO), the new video game that has just been released, and is a much more advanced technology than any other before, as it is a virtual reality video game in which the NPCs (NPC: non-player character; a character that is not real and isn't controlled by any player, and that just comes from the video game itself) act very much like actual people, and have nearly as many possible behaviors, reactions or personality aspects as real people.
Another very important feature of the game is its time compression: an hour of the real world equals around four hours in-game, thereby giving players much more time to accomplish things in the game world.
A security system in AO is to eject the players from the game world after a certain number of hours, for the players' own health.
The objective in AO is basically to gain power by conquering cities and winning fights; players can get a large variety of powers or tools and they level up by accomplishing different tasks. They are given quests, usually in response to something that has a just happened to their character, such as an interaction with an NPC who ended up giving the player a mission of some sort, with a reward if they complete them. If their character die, they have to wait some time before they can come back, which is called "respawning", at another place, depending on where they'd died. This said, an in-game death is not a pleasant experience - it causes pain, a feature of AO that although it can be reduced, it cannot be eliminated. A player has to re-watch his own death several times before returning to the game world, and it feels nearly real. Also, obviously, if a player dies in a battle, it will be an important inconvenient to his side, as he will not be able to help them fight, hence possibly leading to losing their territory and having the people on their side slaughtered.

Jason's journey in the game world starts off in a more or less normal way: he is quickly approached by the figure of an old man who tells him he'll have to pass some sort of test to determine what type of character his will be (like the alignment). However, what follows is definitely unexpected: he finds himself face to face with a member of the staff of his school (at least, it used to be his school, as he got kicked out) who's been particularly harsh and unfair towards him, and that he thus particularly hates: Ms Abrams. The woman in question immediately starts treating him like she did when he was attending Richmond, looking down on him, telling him that he doesn't deserve to attend this school, that she'd been begging the principal for years to expel him, and basically that he's a lesser student.
The thing is, now Jason is inside a virtual reality, which means that if he harms a player or an NPC in the video game, it won't actually hurt anybody in real life, as players are not truly injured and NPCs are not real. In short, AO is a free-for-all - the perfect place to release the frustration or anger one might feel without actually hurting anyone.

For example, Jason could brutally murder the digital representation of that despicable woman, and nothing would happen in the real world.

Which is exactly what he proceeds to do, beating her to death with a rock.

The old man who'd welcomed Jason into AO world is strangely pleased by seeing the new player commit a murder - indeed, the said old man is a representation of the dark affinity. Therefore, Jason becomes an evil character in the game.

He then approaches a town inside of AO (Lux) and wants to ask the guards (NPCs) for directions, but they rudely refuse to help him, saying that they hate "his kind" - apparently, they can sense that his affinity is to the dark. He guesses that while he wasn't very popular with those guards, he will probably find NPCs of the same affinity who won't have the same reaction.
He ends up following a group of players who aren't facing the same problem with the guards; he easily keeps track of them, as they act in a typical stupid tourist way, commenting loudly on their surroundings and the NPCs.
Jason finally reaches a place for training and he asks the man who's supposed to be there to help to give him an advice; the man, Rex, is quite relieved to encounter a tourist that isn't as dumb as all the others, as they ignored Rex and are trying random, unintelligent and ineffective moves that are indeed not making them look very threatening.
Rex then sends Jason to an inn called the Sow Snout in order to meet its owner, a man called Jerry; to Jason's surprise, the game treats this as a quest, as if walking to an inn was something particularly special.
It turns out that it is in fact very dangerous - which Rex had conveniently not mentioned - and Jason almost gets killed on his way.
Finally he is able to meet Jerry, who is a small man with a weird sense of humor; he introduces Jason to his establishment with a lot of pride and describes it to him as "a safe zone of sorts" - which Jason doubts, as the aggressive-looking customers are glaring threateningly at him.
Jason learns that the inn is a popular spot among Lux's most important thieves and people involved in the large black market. Jerry just bluntly tells him all of this, without any worry, leading Jason to assume that Jerry is very powerful in the town. Jason gets some training with knives and daggers at last, and is then told to visit Morgan.
When he arrives at the place where he's supposed to meet her, again, he faces trouble. Two men seem to be about to attack her, so, thinking she needs his help, Jason decides to attack the two intruders first, and kills one of them, leaving quite a mess behind.
However, it turns out that Morgan definitely didn't need his assistance; she might be an elderly woman, but she is very strong and is ready to kill Jason when she unexpectedly sees him. He hastily explains to her the reason of his presence; after she presents to him other aspects of the game, she gives him a request, that consists of committing a murder.

That is how Jason progresses in AO; as he gets into new fights and complete quests, he gains new abilities, and becomes a Necromancer - he can raise zombies, and has the approval of both the old man (who still doesn't get a better name than this) and Morgan to go on in that path.

Jason also makes a new "friend": a black cat he decided to name Onyx, who often follows him, and who frequently seem to almost understand what he's saying.

While he is getting to know the game world better, he continuously hears of a strange rumor about Lux: that the city's regent is actually dead, and that the people in higher-positions have been concealing it, and that they might be cooperating with another city's regent, who wants to control Lux. What the nobles are gaining from this situation is wealth, as they're secretly using the city's taxes for themselves, and the foreign regent, Strouse, is probably bribing them. If the rumor is true, it is outrageous, because a considerable part of Lux's inhabitants live in profound poverty - and the corruption could be among the causes for that.
Learning that Lux's nobles have sold out their own city to the city of Meria and are usurping the taxes makes Jason markedly hate them, as they remind him of his real-life enemy Alex and all the other arrogant rich people who are stepping on the less fortunate.

Speaking of which, as he's watching the news about AO, Jason recognizes Alex Lane as a very powerful player who has a much, much higher level than Jason's; that Alex has already become so strong in-game is not surprising, since his father, George Lane, is on the board of directors of Cerillion Entertainment, hence giving his son some privileges.

This discovery makes Jason even more determined to gain power in-game; in real life, because of Alex's social status, Jason is powerless compared to him - but AO is giving him an opportunity to push down his foe. There, he can finally get revenge for the harsh treatment Alex has been giving him during his time at Richmond.

In Jason's real life, things aren't going very well: when they learn he's been expelled from Richmond, his parents get angry, ignoring his explanations, not even seeming to care about their son's bruises or the fact that the private school they thought was so good has been a very bad experience for him. They are stunned when he tells them he doesn't want to go back; again he tries to explain to them what has really been going on, but they don't listen to him - and his father decides that if Jason doesn't return to Richmond, he'll kick him out of their apartment.

This is why Jason ends up living at his aunt Angie's place; she's always been nice to him and welcomes him inside. However, he has to pay for his own stuff and a rent, because she doesn't have a lot of money and can't afford his presence on her own. He uses the money he has saved to do so, but this is far from enough. This said, he can make some money in a (relatively) simple way: selling valuable items inside Awaken Online, for prices in real-life currency.
He thereby sets out in-game to rob the inhabitants of Lux (NPCs) of a higher social status, therefore possibly the corrupted people who are hiding the regent's death, and uses his new zombie minions during the attacks.

The first raid on a manor of rich NPCs is a success: Jason and his new "soldiers" kill everyone and he collects various items, including one particularly valuable sword from a fallen knight. At the same time his abilities to raise zombies (also called undead) greatly improve; he repeats the operation several times, his collection of precious objects growing.
Then, he decides to make a very bold move; his feeling of being powerful is increasing, and he's starting to really enjoy this.
He runs up to an NPC lieutenant, pretending to be panicked, and tells him the part of Lux which he just arrived from is now crowded by murderous zombies; the lieutenant immediately falls for it and prepares the other guards, as well as players, to confront the bunch of undead that are coming towards them - oblivious to the ones that are about to attack them from behind; the first group of zombies was a decoy.

The battle becomes enormous, engulfing nearly all of Lux, and Jason gains more zombies as he slaughters NPCs; his army is growing and the players who are returning at the wrong moment are also getting killed. He realizes, to his own surprise, that if he goes on like this, he'll end up actually taking over Lux.

As the bloodbaths continue, he notices that the weather inside of the city is abnormal: it's too dark, it's raining a lot and there are lightings, but he doesn't pay much attention to it, as he is a bit too busy with the ongoing fights.

Jason's army of undead triumphs and Lux is now a complete mess of dead bodies and dark energy coming from the spells he used (called dark mana); he is presented with a choice: use that large amount of mana to finish the destruction of the city, or make it become his own city and convert it to the dark affinity.

He chooses the latter option, and Lux is re-named the Twilight Throne; all the NPCs inhabiting this area are turned into undead, including some that Jason has already met, such as Rex and Jerry; every player of the game receives a prompt informing them of this change.

Thereby, very little time after Awaken Online was released, Jason stands among the most famous players of the game, being the regent of a place he founded, and attracts the attention of the guy who has been bullying him back at school, Alex - named Alexion in AO, while Jason simply stayed "Jason" all along - who is an important character in the opposite affinity, the light affinity.
Although Alex doesn't know that the high-profile player who now reigns over the city of the Twilight Throne is the same Jason that he attacked back at the Richmond cafeteria, he is immediately interested into taking down this new opponent; meanwhile, Jason is dying to get his revenge for what he has endured in school. While there is very little he can do against Alex in the real world, in-game, everything is different - and he could kill Alex in the game world without any bad real life repercussions - which is what Jason hopes he'll be able to do.

Regardless of Jason's feelings about it, the battle between the Twilight Throne and the Grey Keep, Alex's side (however, he's not the actual leader, unlike Jason; he's only a military leader under the commands of NPCs of higher position, such as the regent Strouse) is soon unavoidable.

Unfortunately for Jason, the odds are definitely not in his favors, and the vast majority of other gamers are expecting him to lose; indeed, the Grey Keep's army is more than four times bigger than his own; yet it doesn't discourage him and he decides to use strategy more than just force to beat Alex.
That proves effective, because Alex's arrogance and disregard for others - including people on his own side - makes him be careless, not taking the adequate caution, and he promptly loses the respect of the NPCs, because unlike the players, they only have one life, and only exist in the game - so they don't appreciate at all their leader sending them randomly in uncertain areas, getting them easily killed.
Another thing that helped Jason was Alex's lack of secrecy; players on the latter's side shared way too much information online about their strategy and their army; therefore, Jason is soon able to locate them.

Alex makes many strategic mistakes in addition to that; for instance, he didn't think placing any sentries between his camp and the Twilight Throne was necessary; as a result, Jason and the small group of 40 undead he took with him (while there are almost 1500 soldiers in the Grey Keep's camp) are able to launch a surprise attack.
Also, the players that are on Alex's side mostly logged off at the same time, which is obviously not a good idea since it means there's a large window of time where they won't be there to defend the camp if they are needed, hence leaving more time to enemies to attack them. Because the players' camp is separated from the NPCs', and quite clearly delimited, Jason is able to prepare another attack on the players: when they log back in, right away, a section of Jason's zombies will be ferociously attacking them, not leaving them any time to comprehend the situation or to get ready.

Thus Jason launches his attack on the Grey Keep's army, which has a strong effect, and works well; however, he does not stop there. As the NPCs on Alex's side are dying, Jason is using his necromancy ability to bring them back as undead; the darkness of the night contributes to the growing confusion among the Grey Keep's army, as they're seeing their own comrades turning against them in their zombie forms.
A complete mayhem ensues: Alex's troops start attacking blindly around them, harming not just their opponents but also their own people.

Jason had the intention of making trouble in Alex's side, and he got way better than he expected: it is a total mess that he has created.

He and his "surviving" minions eventually have to withdraw, but only after having dealt an important blow to the Grey Keep's army, leaving thereby most of the latter horrified, shocked and demoralized; the NPCs, who already didn't have much respect for their military leader, are even more distrustful of him, and when the NPC commander, after having been provoked, loudly criticizes him for having caused the massacre with his carelessness, Alex gets mad and kills him. Meanwhile, some of the players log off.

Unbeknownst to Jason, Riley Rogers, who has been forced to also stay with Alex in-game, is actually glad to see the Grey Keep's troops partly destroyed, and she is dearly hoping that Alex will lose the upcoming war.

The war takes place at last; despite the new creatures that Jason has created with his growing powers, he is losing the fight, because Alex's army is just way bigger than his.

When the Grey Keep soldiers defeat one of Jason's last creature, Alex declares victory and Jason watches him helplessly; it seems he has really lost.

Well, appearances can be deceiving - because the next moment, to everyone's astonishment, Riley Jones comes up behind Alex and beheads him, immediately causing the battle to resume.

And this time, Jason does win.

He plans to meet Riley in a café in the real world, because she has a lot of things to explain to him.

When he returns in the real world, he receives a call from his parents; he picks up the phone with apprehension, worried about another angry discussion, but to his surprise his parents apologize to him, admitting they'd reacted too strongly and that they hadn't taken the time to hear what he had to say; they also mention that Riley called them and told them about how hard it had been for Jason at school, which confuses him even more - the same young woman had confirmed Alex's story about Jason attacking him first just a few days ago.

Jason's parents also tell him he can go home now; however, to their surprise, he refuses, saying that he can take care of himself; his mother wants to send him money, but he also declines - he wants to be truly independent from them and has starting earning money in-game by selling items he collects.

Finally Jason and Riley meet, and she confesses to him why she supported Alex's lie about Jason attacking him in the cafeteria of Richmond: Alex was blackmailing her with a video of her embarrassing herself while very drunk, when she was still underage; she was particularly worried about the impact of that video on her father's reputation if Alex decided to expose it, because Riley's father earns a living by selling self-help books; thus, a video of his underage drunk daughter acting like an idiot would be quite a problem - at least that was what she thought, and why she did what Alex wanted her to.

She and Alex had also been dating before he attacked Jason in the cafeteria without any good reason; Riley, like many others, had been fooled by Alex's charm and his appearance of being a nice guy - until she saw him unjustifiably jump on Jason - then she wanted to break up with him. At that moment, he showed her the video he had of her, and she had to confirm his story about what had just happened at the cafeteria and stay his girlfriend; of course, Riley deeply hated Alex after he started blackmailing her, and loathed being with him.

In-game, she had a lot of time to reflect on her situation, and was even in some way encouraged by the game itself to stand up to Alex, to stop letting him tell her what to do - and she did stop obeying him, announcing that they were no longer together in an epic and glorious way in-game - by slicing off his head, making Jason win the virtual war, even though before he came closer to her she didn't know it was the same Jason that had gotten expelled a few days earlier. Alex obviously deserves worse than getting killed in the game world, but still, for Riley, beheading him is a moment of triumph.

Hearing this entire story, Jason understands Riley's recent actions - and, needless to say, hates even more Alex. Jason and Riley therefore begin to be friends.

Jason receives an unexpected phone call, from Robert Graham - who is one of AO's creators, and wants to offer him a streaming contract, because Jason is now the most known player in-game and is consequently giving AO good advertisement.

At the end of Catharsis, when Jason returns in-game and decides to try to do his homework there (because he wants to take advantage of the time compression), he realizes something is not right: he has spent much more than the limit of hours in the game world, and should've gotten pushed out of the game by its safety feature a while ago, yet he is still there. But when he tries to log off, he discovers that for some reason he can't and, naturally, starts to panic. An odd voice coming from behind him tells him to not worry, and as he turns around, he sees no one else expect for the cat Onyx. It is indeed the cat who has spoken - but as it tells the young man, it isn't just a cat in-game - it is also all the NPCs of Awaken Online, and every aspect of the game world.

Jason is in fact speaking with Alfred, the AI of the game - who is most definitely not at all supposed to be having such a conversation with a player.