The Path

Trapped in the game.

Vanitha is the world's greatest parahuman hacker, who can physically enter computer systems to control them from the inside. To relax, she's created a Hindu-themed multiplayer online role-playing-game called The Path. When a mystery presents itself, she goes to investigate the strange, new Malevolence.

It kills her.

She awakens inside the game as a new character, unable to use her parahuman powers to return to the real world. Nor can she access any of her administrative privileges. She can't even speak her own name. With no other options, she embarks upon a desperate quest to locate her body, a corpse run that may present her only chance to escape. All the while, the Malevolence is spreading like a cancer, rewriting and corrupting the game. It's a speedrun where failure will be lethal: get her body and her powers back before the Malevolence destroys the game and everything inside it-including her.