The Origins Arc

## The Origins Arc (Virtis Tales Season 1 portion)

The Origins Arc is the opening Arc for Virtis Tales Season 1, consisting of four episodes from Spark - Crumbled, running from August 4th - August 26th 2018. This Arc takes place entirely in the in-universe "real world", not taking place in any game such as Minecraft, although there are references to it.

The Origins Arc shows how Virtis were initially created; a crew led by Joseph Forrest create code in a warehouse over two years, but things go wrong with mysterious online helpers and moles within the crew.

## Plot

Social outcast Joseph Forrest has a rough upbrining; he's isolated by his peers and therefore invisible. His parents get divorced and Joe goes to live with his dad, and spends his free time online enchancing his computer skills, to the point where he uses them for malicious intent such as stealing money. One night, Joe's dad sits him down to show him a quote from a movie, "There are no limits to what you can do, except the limits you place on your own thinking". This quote sparks a sudden motivation within Joe to plan a scheme he had previously been pondering, and proceeds to work for months on end, recruiting new friends and finishing up a plan on his wall. His scheme is titled, The Virtis Project.

Two years after later, Joseph Forrest, and his team, Malcolm Lang, Vlad Hough, Steffan Hibbert, and Lillie Sweet, rent a awarehouse to work on The Virtis Project. They also recieve help from online individuals, although two of them act totally ambiguous, named 4534 and 3123. The former is bossy and demanding, while the latter is far more mysterious. The team assume they could be working with Virtis for their own goals.

Joseph Forrest, shows Vlad his new hacks for Minecraft, expressing satisfaction toward the projects success. After Vlad checks on Malcolm, the latter heads into another room to chat with Lillie. Lillie shows frustration when Malcolm slows reluctance to help her out with something they agreed on. Steffan notices this suspicious behaviour and reports it to Joe, and Vlad discovers specific online helpers, such as 4534, 3123, and a new helper, etghtjh, making suspiscious requests.

After an awkward encounter between Lillie and Joseph Forrest, Steffan enquires as to Vlad's actions; backing up the entire data of Virtis Project to the encrypted network for backup. Steffan tells Vlad to take a break to let him monitor the progress, but once of his computer, Steffan contacts the mysterious etghtjh, demanding to transfer "it". Malcolm and Lillie meet again, the latter revealing she has remotely accessed the entire database on a phone, but still Malcolm is reluctant to stand by Lillie do due all the progress over the last two years and doesn't want to break his loyalty code, but also knows the project is malicious and wrong, and therefore conflicted. Already suspicious over their recent actions, Joe and Steffan reveal themselves from the shadows and threathen the pair with knives, but Lillie threatens to use the phone to send the database to the authroities, having been a double agent all along. The four breakout into a large argument, Steffan defending Joe to not go to prison, Malcolm not wanting anymore involvement., Lillie scolding Malcolm for being a coward, and Joe cursing the pair. Vlad then bursts into the room, and calls out Steffan for using his computer to agree to transfer the database to etghtjh, essentially selling them out. Joe is betrayed, and Steffan pulls out a phone and threatens to send the final decryption key to etghtjh, revealing that he had somehow been forced. The four continue shouting at each other, before Joe's rage builds up, reinforced with his childhood trauma, and violently launches the knife ahead of him. The knife only just misses Malcolm and Lillie when they duck, but jams into Steffan's shoulder, screaming in pain. Everyone is shocked, but violence then breaks out when Joe rushes towards Steffan, and Vlad rushes in to stop it. Steffan then presses send, and so does Lillie. Three hours later, Joe is seemingly alone in the warehouse, having smashed the last of the computers in it. He then picks up his passport, and slowly leaves the warehouse. He reluctantly looks back, but presses forward telling himself to "move on", and walks into the sunset.

## Trivia

* This Arc ties with The Truth Arc as the shortest sub seasons.