Dreamland

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

No LIT

Book 1 Complete – Ends with Chapter 236: Revelation

What is life if not a game? And what is a game, if not a (distorted?) mirror of life?

Dolores is a lucky girl with a high-level avatar in the world’s most popular immersive game. She didn’t level it up herself—it came to her through fortunate (and slightly dubious) circumstances. She’s not interested in endless grinding or competitive PvP; all she wants is to have fun, chase her fantasies, and avoid being dragged into other people’s drama.

If only the game (and reality) would let her.

Weird glitches keep piling up—and wait, why are game characters showing up in the real world? With magic?

As Dolores struggles to keep her head down and live a ‘normal’ life, she stumbles into something far bigger. Just when she begins to understand the twisted truths behind Dreamland, the tone shifts darker—and Dolores must evolve, or be swallowed by it.

Note: This is aslow-burn, character-driven storywith dark, dystopian elements.

Book 2 – Starts with Chapter 235: Aldea Is Not in EuropeDolores and her friends are pulled into what looks like the former game world—but this isn’t an MMO anymore. No respawns, no logout button.

This is not a LitRPG. It’s not even a game world.

Non-human lead– Dolores isn’t quite what she used to be. What she is… depends on your point of view in time.

Updated weekly

Art inside– Currently about one image per ten chapters. Created by me using AI + GIMP, for extra flavor.

Cover artBy me, with help from GIMP and AI. (Or the other way around.)Dolores raising her glass: Cheers!

Grammar Trigger WarningI'm not a native speaker. I’ve edited the text over the past two years, but yes, some rough patches remain. If you find a particularly bad chapter, feel free to point it out—I do go back and fix things.

You’ve been warned. :)

We thought we made the best game in Earth's history

We thought we made the best interfaces ever seen

We thought we made it - lifelike

But it far exceeded our expectations.

Dolores, I hope you're happy now.

I hope you're alive now...

Spoiler Alert – addressing some recurring critiques:

The MC returns to her world inChapter 60.

The MC isnotoverly worried about being isekaied—for good reason. In early chapters, she's just a copy designed to play when the real person is logged out. That she begins to care at all is… unexpected.

The world is not virtual. The truth is revealed inChapter 236: Revelation.

The how and why? That’s whatBook 2is all about.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2022
Author: nerodotus

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 3.6/ 5.0
Followers: 371
Views: 374,353

Chapters(405 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

CelesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I've thoroughly enjoyed this sweet, sweet guilty pleasure of a book, it's got lots of flavours, from crispy action to juicy drama, and enough pages to do a proper, prolonged bingefest!
Sweet-but-guilty layered Bingefest. Receipe.
1800 pages of finished and pickled action storyline
1 large steel cutting board and damask knife
1-3 fresh juicy protagonists, well blended
2 heaping handfuls of spicy, morally objectionable friends and enemies
1 pinch of eldrich horror
250 physical and metaphysical layer fragments
1 rocket-science grade concept
Mix well and add plenty of action, simmer whilst slowly adding buckets of physical layers. Churn the still-soft protagonists between a rock and a very large hard place, then add the metaphysical layers, bake until easily readable. Serve with heaps of combat.
Story: the story is marvelous! So much action up-front, and then it keeps on moving forward! There is not a single lull in this bingefest - it gets you at a running start and just keeps on sprinting. Do mind, our protagonist is a younger adult, so YA elements will be abound - but this will too get layered on with many, many unexpected twists and turns - until almost unrecognizable!
Style: this novel is decidedly in the category guilty pleasure - crisp action, deadly female assassins, gentle quiet scenes - intermingled with a dollop of unknown, almost eldrich, doom on the horizon - too far to know what happened, too late to stop it, and too large to comprehend.
Grammar: The author attacks all mistakes with the same enthusiasm that the action scenes boast, and the novel is reading quite well.
Characters: The characters feel fresh and nice!
Conclusively, this is quite a bingefest for someone who's hungry for lots of crispy action with heaps of light and fluffy dialogue, several salty layers of denied but looming dread, and philosphical aromas!
DragondeathlordRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So I am 354chapters in and totally delighted. at first The MC character Appears to be Isekaied and has no idea. The Game appears to become a real? She just noticed she can not activate the user interface and got no idea anything is wrong except "WOW The NPCs seem awfully real!" LOL But you get to see the POV of the NPCs and they NPCs are starting to talk about demons Masking as Normal People traveling to their world for Amusement... (PLAYERS?)
Ellen TaylorRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let's get into this review!
The style was great. It was first person for the most part, until we jumped POV's, then it turned into third person. The shift of POV was well marked and I was never confused. I don't mind multiple POV, either, and I found jumping into an NPC's POV quite interesting.
The grammar was alright. The author mentioned up front that english isn't their first language, and I might have picked up on it even if they didn't say it. That being said, the author has done a fantastic job taking on the suggestions of others, and I only found one or two mistakes that stood out to me, but it never broke my immersion from the story.
The story was facinating! It seems (so far as I have read) to be an ultra realistic game with something building underneath, and it is that aspect of the story I am interested in. It brings an interesting dynamic to the story, and I am most curious about all these NPC's!
The characters were great. This is the part where I say even the NPC's had a personality, but I'm pretty sure they're supposed to at this point. It was fun to watch the characters interacting.
Overall, this is a great read. I enjoyed reading about this world and the characters.
Foxbat40Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Great story. Great characters. Huge expansive world.
Slow burn high fantasy.
Dolores starts out as a high school student but quickly finds out that her favorite fantasy video game isn't just a fantasy. The characters are too real. The world too perfect.
What would you do if NPCs were suddenly revealed to be living breathing people with families, dreams and lives that continue even when you are logged out. How could you continue to play a heartless assassin in good conscience.
This book explores those dilemmas and many more as Dolores gets increasingly pulled into what she once thought was just a game.
There are a few typos and misspellings but otherwise it is a well written story. Every chapter brings a new surprise. The world gets fleshed out slowly as enemies become friends and friends become enemies. It isn't done in a bad way. This is no cheesy soap opera. It is a dramatic story with twists and surprises that never fail to entertain.
astranellaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
As I went further inside the story and the author had done some editing I think it is worth to update my review:
The story is not (only) about the sentient NPCs dilema or about the adventures of the Dolores' 'threesome' but slowly goes deeper and gets darker. It does have its part of gore and cruelties.
This is a good story about a teen who finds herself in the middle of a dystopian world-changing event. It all starts in a game and then slowly spreads everywhere.
The story is slow-paced, packed with a lot of action and well fleshed characters. It splits early over several planes, but it is kept consistent. I like those parallel stories as long as this does not devolve into a hundred-character web novel (which does not seem to be the case).
The main character is a mix of three characters, Cala the high-level assassin, White Flower, the horned fairy, and Dolores, the gamer-schoolgirl, each with its own story and drama, and I am curious to see which one will emerge as the dominant figure or if there will be a separation later.
The Lynx and Alice are enjoyable characters, Spartacius a troublesome kid with some good and bad actions. Geral is a poor soul fighting his own demons, while Awa alias Ayra is a naïve sales clerk that becomes an adventurer.
The story is quite good, with many original elements and notes of humor. The style is good, I like it, and the grammar is okay, getting better by the day. There are some hiccups there, but nothing that breaks the spell.
Overall, quite a good story. Looking forward to what it becomes!
scarecrow.authorRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm reviewing at this point to not be late for the review but I'm going to keep reading this story
This is a story that you can tell it has lots of depth in it. We follow the MC as she gets back into a VR game she hadn't played for a long time because she was getting too attached to her character.
From there we dive deep into a vast world full of exciting stuff waiting for you to explore them.
There are empires with evil overlords, there are monasteries that raise mercenaries, there are all sorts of people with all sorts of classes and I'm excited to learn more about all of them!
The story does a great job at pointing out that there's something coming, something's off with the Enpisis (NPCs) that almost feel like real humans. Who knows.
I particularly enjoyed Ayra's pov and would gladly read a story about her, so if she does get separated from the others, it would make for a great side story
PizzaPizzaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Alright, let's just jump straight into it!
Grammar: I do have to open up with this one, unfortunately. The author is transparent that they aren't a native English speaker, so the prose can get very awkward and jumbled at times. At the point I read up to, the grammar is functional enough for me to get what's going on, but there are points where readability is visibly impaired.
Style and Story: Dreamworld is a story that presents us with the classic sci-fi moral quandary: At what level of sapience do you consider a 'NPC' or artificial intelligence alive? What are the ethical implications of creating a simulation so realistic, you are effectively playing god? What measure is a simulacrum alive and worth caring for as a godly being to them?
This is a central theme for the 'player' characters in the setting to struggle with. There are multiple point of view chapters where the 'NPCs' of the MMORPG central to the point are shown to be fully alive, with emotions and dreams themselves. Unfortunately for them, the playerbase treats them as trash that isn't even worth a second look. It's a very compelling premise, and one works for classics such as Westworld.
If you enjoy the moral conundrums this brings up, this story tackles it very effectively.
Character Score: I haven't gotten deep enough to really get invested in the characters, but the main characters at least, are very relatable and functional. The problem is, they lack depth and focus if anything. There are far too many headhops, and we aren't given enough time and attention on their internal conflicts and emotions to build attachment with the reader. If I were to revise anything in the early chapters, it would be increasing the bulk of attention given to the MC's thoughts and feelings.
Overall, the world, premise, and story are very interesting and well-built, but there are some major issues to iron out with characterization and grammar. A tool like Grammarly Pro would catch a lot of the early issues.
SleepingdragoonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
General Review:
Dreamland is a story mostly about the differentiating of who is really alive and not. In it, the NPC's are implied to be fully alive, but the players think they're in a game for dozens of chapters. The players, in general, treat the NPC's like they aren't sentient, and it makes for a compelling moral dilemma.
Grammar: 2.5/5
The biggest problem you'll have with this story is definitely the grammar, though that isn't to say that's the only problem. It can sometimes make the story and characters difficult to understand, but overall, it is consistent enough to not bog down the whole experience too much for...some of the more tolerable people. Overall it might be considered barely 'passable'. (The author has and will probably continue to improve this.)
Characters: 3/5
The characters aren't perfect either, but some of them are quite likable, and they play off each other fairly well. There are some consistency problems with almost every one, but a lot of that stems from the bad grammar.
Story: 4/5
The story is pretty good, and unlike a lot of other stories on this site, seems like it will have a clear, foreshadowed climax, which seems like it could be pretty fun since the main villain is hateable and has an interesting ability. Still, it can be difficult to follow a lot of the intricacies due to the poor grammar.
Style: 4.5/5
The style is actually fairly consistent, which is to say that it holds the story together. The tone and pacing are consistent and good, though the formatting has problems. There are some issues with paragraph breaks, but it isn't too bad. To be honest, the style might be the best part of the story, since it is consistent, and consistency is generally the most important part of style. The story also includes multiple chapters following other characters' perspectives, and they support the story and themes very well.
Specialized review(aka: ranting, with the intended audience being the author. I tried to include some of the good stuff her
JaysanerdRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
First off, the cover is absolutely amazing! The synopsis also got the point across very well so i'm happy for that.
I love stories that make me question things, and this story does just that! Like: are the NPC's actually sentient?
Also i really love the wordplay behind "enpisis", lol!
I feel like i don't have the right to judge your grammar, since English is my third language, but i really don't see anything wrong with it!
The dialogue is really good and feels natural, which i like because i hate stiff dialogue ^^.
The characters are good, but lack a bit of depth as of now, i'm sure you fleshen the characters out more in future chapters though!
Marquess of UpplandRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
The title speaks for itself.
I quite like the story, the characters, and the down-right wonderful world-building it has going on, but damn I hate how awful the actual writing is. It was passable at first, and the story's intrigue more than made up for any small mistakes made here and there. But the quality felt like it took a sharp nosedive around chapters 60-65. Constant spelling errors, duplicate chapters (ch 65-66 specifically) [FIXED], and several instances of outright wrong story flow: one scene happens, then something happens that contradicts what happened previously.
I'm currently on chapter 81 and will continue reading for as long as I can manage. I've seen a few other people mention other errors, and the author has replied to several comments that they're trying to fix what errors they can. But if this goes on for too much longer without improvement, I'll do my best to leave this behind and ignore how amazing it could have been.
Update: I stayed with the story, and have now read several arcs of equally incredible/horrible writing.
I've read until chapter 241, which seemed to be the start of a new arc, and I wanted to wait for it to build up first.
The story itself actually got better with time (I expected the opposite), as many of the foreshadowed elements from earlier are realized and expanded upon. One thing I feel makes this story stand out is how cruel it can be. Nerodotus loves to remind the reader that Dolores has no plot armor to speak of (or that they hate her, hard to say), and as a reader, you're in for the same treatment.
The best/worst example of this I can think of would be when she is summoned as a fighter by a cat-girl in need of muscle. The mini-arc that follows does it's best to develop the new characters with the time it has, and expands upon what life for them is like. Shortly after that, the neko-summoner and her teacher are betrayed, but we never see the conclusion to the fight, as she is un-summoned half-way though.
Overall, I still ha