Four years ago, Alex was one of the first players of an experimental VR game called Rune, where death came suddenly and all the players had were a pitifully small health pool and a few runes nobody knew how to use. Today, the situation is better: Crafters manage item creation in the cities, while Fighters take those items into the world’s portals, slowly expanding the reach of civilization in spite of the randomly appearing monsters.

With civilization comes systems of power, and in the meantime, Alex lost her position, if not the prestige. Then, a routine job leads to the unexpected, and Alex is left to rebuild herself into a new image. This time, with other powers already established… and nipping at her heels.

(Harem is tagged but it's honestly polyamory. I hate the word harem but given that some people would interpret it as such, in it goes.)