Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Book End

Author's Note

Secret of the Old Ones

Luck Stat Strategy

Secret of the Old Ones

Book One

By Blaise Corvin

Luck Stat Strategy

Copyright ©2017 by Blaise Corvin

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Many Thanks

This book is for my awesome readers. My readers’ opinions make my writing better, their passion keeps me motivated, and their expertise allows me to write better characters.

Without my readers, I’d just be telling strange stories to myself…probably over too much rum.

Thanks to everyone who believes in me, I can tell stories to thousands of people, letting them share the pictures in my head.

-BC

Foreword

Hello readers! This is the second book I’ve ever written! Huzzah! Now, I know some of you are sore that this book isn’t another installment of Delvers LLC (I’m looking at you, Mom). However, please trust me that writing SOO is actually allowing Delvers LLC to get written faster.

Now I truly understand why so many authors work on more than one story at a time.

Anyway…some readers may know this from the book’s cover, but Luck Stat Strategy is a LitRPG novella.

For Delvers LLC readers, please know that SOO is written differently than my other series. For one thing, this book is paced much faster. I tried to cram a full book into about half the word count. :)

Some readers might be curious what LitRPG means. The acronym stands for, Literary (or Literature) RPG (Role Playing Game). These types of stories have been extremely popular in Russia and other countries. They’re just now making an impact in the West!

LitRPG is usually a funky mix of Fantasy and SciFi. The types of stories can vary, but what most LitRPG novels have in common is some clear method of progression (like leveling up) as well as a setting that most gamers can immediately relate to.

I really had a lot of fun writing this book. If you’d like to visit my web serial website, the URL is http://blaise-corvin.com/

I also have a writer’s note in the back of the book with a whole mess of links as well as a few reading suggestions.

I hope you enjoy your time in Secret of the Old ones with Trent!

The World Tree

The character sheet read:

Name: Vale dePardon

Class: Occultist

Subclass: Explorer

Level: 10

Experience: 536542

XP to next level: 123468

Stamina: 49/49

HP 49/49

Mana: 70/70

Stats: (Total/Original/Level Ups/Bonuses)

Strength: 3/2/1/0

Agility: 7/3/4/0

Stamina: 5/4/1/0

Intelligence: 7/7/0/0

Willpower: 6/6/0/0

Luck: 15/8/4/3

Class Skills: Fencing, Ancient Body Magic, Paranoia, Ancient Occult Lore, Map Reading/Cartography

Permanent Bonus Source: Mystic Clover (Luck +3)

Trent Noguero smiled in satisfaction. It had been a long, hard road to hit level ten, but now his character, Vale dePardon, finally had a subclass!

He’d been playing as Vale dePardon in Secret of the Old Ones for a year and had just hit level ten a week ago. It was quite an accomplishment. Of the millions of people who were playing the game around the world, less than a couple thousand players had made it to level ten so far.

Level ten was a huge milestone and allowed a player to choose a subclass. He’d chosen Explorer, which allowed him to choose his fifth skill, [Cartography].

Now he only had a few more steps before he could start his grand, mystical experiment. He carefully tiptoed around the ornate sigils he’d drawn in powder on the floor. He was trying to find one of the reagents he’d taken out of his inventory earlier.

Where is it…where is it? Ah, there it is! He found the glass tube of glowing blue liquid and grinned. He didn’t have many more preparations to make. Vale carefully moved to the most concentrated area of the designs and symbols on the ground, some of which were glowing.

He took a deep breath. He only had enough *Distilled Azure Essence* for one try. He was about to make or break his complex magic gate spell. He uncorked the blue liquid and mumbled a few spells. The liquid began to bubble, and Vale threw it up in the air in a circular motion. In less than a second, the entire vial of liquid had turned to smoke. The sparkles in the air left over from the mystical reaction slowly settled to the designs on the floor.

Vale smiled and tilted his head back for a moment in triumph. Finally, he thought. He squatted down and carefully regarded the center of the spell network. The old, cracked parchment had probably been the luckiest thing he’d found in the game so far…if it actually was what he thought it was.

It was a big “if.”

It had taken him a month to figure out what the map might do, and after he knew, his mouth had gone dry from excitement. However, preparing to discover if he was right had been very expensive and time-consuming. He’d spent every coin he had to buy all the materials for the arcane accelerators and intricate symbols drawn on the floor. All his wealth had been used to cover his hidden cellar in ancient hoodoo.

At least the cellar had been free. He was just hiding in an obscure, out-of-the-way area and would leave when he was done. He wasn’t sure if the cellar actually belonged to someone, and he didn’t care. Their building was helping further science—or magic, whatever.

He traced a finger along the mystic sigils rimming the map’s edges and smiled. He’d been waiting a long time to test his theory. Now that he was so close, he felt anxiety building, the pressure crawling up his spine.

His subclass and his new [Cartography] skill were all part of a plan that he’d been working on for half a year. Secret of the Old Ones deviated from other games with unique bonuses, skills, even rumored one-of-a-kind classes. In a game with 30 starting stat points, a level cap of 30, and only one additional stat point every level for a possible total of 60 stat points at max level…

It was obvious that bonus stats would be a huge advantage.

When Vale had heard about these design decisions prior to playing SOO, he’d decided on his strategy before even creating a character. He’d put as many points into the Luck stat as he could. In a game where stats were so important, where his character sheet even showed his original, level one choices, finding anything that could give him permanent bonuses would be amazing.

Luckily, two months in, his gamble had paid off. What’s more, he was able to find an amazing item that conferred a permanent attribute bonus of +3 Luck. Unfortunately, finding the Mystic Clover had been part of a long, involved adventure that had gained him a full-blown enemy.

Suddenly, he got a flashing system notice:

DANGER!

Unlike other notices, this one popped up and faded away on its own. Vale’s stomach dropped and he whispered, “Oh no.”

His [Paranoia] skill was currently letting him know an enemy was nearby, and he knew it had to be Brutus Vann, his nemesis, his enemy from the expedition where he’d found the Mystic Clover. Vale crossed his arms and tried to decide what to do. It would be a few minutes before Brutus found him…just like he always did.

They had shared history, after all.

In the past, he’d always fled from Brutus, managing to escape through luck and guile. Combat in SOO was a strange combination of in-game skills and real-life abilities. A character couldn’t do things in the game very well unless they had a skill or class for it. On the flip side, if a character had a skill, they performed actions better if they had real-life skill and experience. The game’s system helped for skills that players were unfamiliar with, but there was no substitute for real training…

The strange combat and skill system had actually motivated players to learn how to make antique crafts, pursue knowledge, and practice martial arts outside the game—presumably, as the mysterious designers of Yggdrasil Entertainment had intended.

Unfortunately, Vale was almost certain that Brutus had at least three skills devoted entirely to combat. He was also a skilled fighter, almost unnaturally so. Brutus’s player had to have real skill in ancient weapons and armor. Sometimes Vale wondered who Brutus could be in real life.

Who the hell trained to use a longsword, anyway?

In a game where player deaths forced a mandatory one-week lockout from the game, Brutus was notorious. He’d been challenged by full adventuring parties in the past and still came out as the victor, helping himself to all their gear and becoming an even more formidable player.

Normally if Brutus showed up, Vale would run; he’d have no choice. Unfortunately, the whole reason he was so eager to get his tenth level, his subclass, and the [Cartography] skill was currently filling his laboratory. Six months of work was glowing on the floor.

His back was against the wall. If he fled, he’d lose half a year of progress. He couldn’t let Brutus just have it. Eventually, he made the only decision he really could. His spine steeled, he ascended the stairs out of his borrowed cellar.

He reflected on his chances as he walked out into the moonlight. Luckily, Vale wasn’t a terrible fighter himself. His high-quality Rapier of Twilight was an excellent weapon. Plus, his [Fencing] skill, 3 years of Fencing Club in college, and a year of hands-on combat experience in SOO had made him fairly dangerous in his own right.

Unfortunately, Brutus was a superior fighter in every way, except for one—Vale had magic. He usually avoided using it because of the risks, but the only way he was going to win this fight would be to cheat.

Sure enough, Brutus was standing outside. The shadows on his craggy, brutish face moved as he grinned. His heavy armor shimmered with enchantments, and his enormous sword glowed with fiery runes.

As amazing as the hulking man’s gear was, it was common knowledge he had an even better set stashed away somewhere. The last time someone actually managed to kill Brutus, they’d taken his gear. They’d believed him brought down for good, or at least for a long time. The community had celebrated. However, a week later when Brutus had logged back into the game, he’d hunted down those who killed him. He’d killed them, taken out their friends, and even slaughtered the players who’d planned the celebration of his death.

He was ruthless.

Brutus stood a few inches taller than Vale and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. It was a jagged pill to swallow, but Vale had to admit that the man was incredibly intimidating. Brutus wore full armor while Vale was dressed as an Occultist adventurer. He was wearing the game’s latest adventuring fashion. He had to admit he liked how it looked.

As Vale drew his rapier, Brutus smiled and crowed, “So, we finally meet again and at last—”

Vale wasn’t interested in talking. He sprinted forward, using his [Ancient Body Magic] skill to cast <Arm Speed>, <Leg Speed>, <Superior Aim>, <Enhanced Reflexes>, and <Explosive Strength>. The combination of spells exhausted a great deal of his mana, and he felt the mental strain pushing against his paltry six Willpower.

He fought to stay conscious. If he went under, he would pass out and no doubt Brutus would kill him. He’d be locked out for a week. It was unacceptable to go down now, to lose everything. Vale fought through the pain.

As he closed, he focused on his target and his strategy. SOO supported massive criticals for killing blows. Hitting someone normally took away their health, but particularly deadly attacks could usually kill a player in one shot.

It was obvious that Brutus had not even expected Vale to defend himself. Arrogant bastard, Vale thought, and he snarled. Even just standing there with his sword sheathed, Brutus still almost managed to recover.

He pulled just enough steel and turned his body to block Vale’s first attack. Then Vale dodged Brutus’s hasty, surprised punch and sunk his rapier up to the hilt in the brutish man’s eye socket.

The big man fell; the fight was over amazingly fast. Vale panted and wrenched his sword out of Brutus’ skull. He had been awarded with the kill. The feeling was surreal. Vale closed a window that popped up without looking at the XP he’d earned.

He was a little shocked he was still alive. In any other circumstance, he was sure he would have lost. Only the full combination of all five spells had let him win, but it had been an enormous risk, one that most players, including himself, would usually not have been willing to take. He had come close to passing out just from the spell backlash, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to replicate the feat ever again.

Ancient magic, the magic Occultists used in SOO was no joke. Each spell cast in quick succession got increasingly difficult to control.

Vale didn’t pause to gloat. He didn’t even stop to loot. He just dragged Brutus’s corpse into his cellar laboratory and locked the door. He couldn’t know who else might have been watching, and he had to move forward with his plans immediately. All the reagents, the careful planning, everything had to be used now.

The proper stars were even in alignment. There would be no better time, and he didn’t want to further risk losing all his hard work.

Vale moved to his carefully inscribed circles and realized he was bleeding from somewhere. Oh well, it could wait. All his spells from the fight before were still active, so he was riding a high of magic. He paused for a second, breathed deeply, and called up his [Ancient Occult Lore] activation menu.

Do you want to activate your arcane portal?

Vale chose YES.

Are you sure?

The map tethered to this arcane portal is demanding a

permanent loss of -5 Intelligence to proceed.

Vale paused and thought for a while. The map was asking for an insane loss of Intelligence. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he could lose any stats, that it might cost him more than he’d already given up to use the map.

He should have known there’d be more to it. He’d been a fool. It even made sense that he would have to give up Intelligence, the one stat necessary to have deciphered the map in the first place. It was the core stat for his primary class, too.

He stared at the prompt a long time, but finally gritted his teeth and chose YES. This was going to hurt. He had the bare minimum Intelligence necessary to use the map in the first place, but he had to know where this map led. He had to know if he’d been right.

Suddenly, he felt nothing but pressure, like the entire world was pushing in on him. Flashes of lights and color bombarded him, even with his eyes closed. He felt the brush of catastrophe a number of times. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but he knew he was barely avoiding death. He hoped his Luck stat would be enough.

The map had been meant for the transport of a player twice his level, after all.

Eventually, the colors stopped spinning and Vale opened his eyes. He was greeted with the sight of an enormous, ethereal tree.

“Yes, I was right!” He whooped with joy.

He stood on a walkway leading directly into the World Tree. To his left was the aspect of Autumn, the surrounding forest, all shades of honey gold and red. To his right was the aspect of Spring, trees dripping with lush vegetation and radiating the vibrant glow of life. Majestic mountains loomed in the distance, framing the World Tree like supplicants.

He slowly walked forward, giddy from his success. He had no idea what to expect. Over the last year, players had heard rumors of the World Tree, but nobody had found it. Vale was the first.

He stepped into the tree and got a flashing prompt:

Congratulations!

You have found the fabled World Tree!
You have a choice…of Power!
The World Tree is ancient and must gift some of its power!

Choose between:

Fire – +Strength +Intelligence

Air – +Agility +Intelligence

Water – +Willpower +Intelligence

Earth – +Stamina +Intelligence

Upon your choice you will receive:

-A Legendary class

-A legendary, elemental magic skill (required, takes one skill slot)

*Please note that this magic skill can be used without affecting player sanity.

*(Does not require a Willpower check)

-Additional awarded XP

-Additional stat points allocated

Do you wish to accept this power?

Vale chose YES.

Choose your Element

Each element can be chosen once by one person

The World Tree’s energy only grows to this level every 1000 years

Vale thought carefully. He’d been working on his character being something of a gentleman scholar with a magical flair, and he decided to stick with that. He also didn’t like the idea of choosing Water, although it would have been a good element for him too.

He chose AIR and all hell broke loose.

Stat points awarded

400,000 XP earned

Level Up!

Level Up!

New title earned: Legendary Air Adept

New legendary class earned: Air Adept

System Alert! Vale dePardon has found the World Tree. Vale dePardon is the Legendary Air Adept of Secret of the Old Ones!

Mandatory skill awarded

It was all a little overwhelming at first, but Vale quickly grasped what was happening. He grinned as he allocated his two stat points from gaining two levels and examined his new character sheet. All his health, mana, and stamina were maxed out again. He’d gotten lucky too. His new attribute points from his new class were applied before he leveled up so he’d gained more mana per level.

Name: Vale dePardon

Class: Occultist

Subclass: Explorer

Hero Class: *At level 20*

Legendary Class: Air Adept

Level: 12

Experience: 940542

XP to next level: 69458

Stamina: 59/59

HP 59/59

Mana: 90/90

Stats: (Total/Original/Level Ups/Bonuses)

Strength: 4/2/2/0

Agility: 10/3/4/3

Stamina: 5/4/1/0

Intelligence: 10/7/0/3

Willpower: 6/6/0/0

Luck: 16/8/5/3

Class Skills: Fencing, Ancient Body Magic, Paranoia, Ancient Occult Lore, Map Reading/Cartography, Elemental Magic: Air

Permanent Bonus Source: Mystic Clover (Luck +3), World Tree Tithe
(Int -5), World Tree Boon (Int +8, Agi +3)

Smiling from ear to ear, he called up his [Ancient Occult Lore] activation menu.

Do you wish to return?

Vale chose YES, and the World Tree instantly teleported him back to his dank cellar. His eyes glowed as he mentally went through the list of all his new abilities. It was all amazing, completely amazing. He’d made back the Intelligence he’d sacrificed and then some.

Giving up that five Intelligence hadn’t been easy. In retrospect, he figured it’d been a test to determine if he was a real Explorer or something. If he’d been wrong about where the map took him, he would have been screwed.

He immediately folded the precious map and decided he needed to hide it as soon as possible. There were three more elements that the World Tree could give. He had to decide whether to gift them to friends or sell the knowledge. Each element would probably be worth over a million US dollars, but he’d have to sell them all at once. After someone else got an element, he would no longer be the only player that knew how to get to the World Tree.

He was tired, but he got moving. First things first, he had to loot Brutus’s body. After being stalked for so long by the huge psycho, it was going to be super satisfying to sell all his gear. He’d have to find an NPC with decent rates, though. No players would touch it.

Brutus was scary even while he was dead.

Vale knew he was one of the most powerful players in the entire game now. Unfortunately, because of the system alert, the rest of the world knew it too.

Let them come.

Wanted

Trent tried to pay attention in class, but ultimately gave up. He couldn’t fight the inevitable; he had way too much on his mind.

His virtual university classroom didn’t have the same level of realism as Secret of the Old Ones, but it was still fairly immersive. Everyone in the class looked as they did in real life. Avatars and cosmetic alterations were not allowed.

The professor droned on, displaying incredible skill. The man could somehow even make Astronomy boring, a subject Trent cared about deeply.

Trent secretly smiled as he overheard one of the other students whispering about Vale dePardon. SOO was such a popular game, important news was even more highly regarded internationally than the largest e-sports.

The whole world knew the name of Trent’s in-game avatar. It was a strange feeling knowing that his virtual self was so famous.

Trent still had to figure out what he was going to do with his hard-won knowledge, though. Should he procure real-world money, or in-game favors?

The decision was even more complicated due to how so many players actually made money by selling items in-game. The line between wealth in the virtual world and wealth in the real world was a bit fuzzy.

Part of the problem was that Trent wasn’t sure how he could sell such expensive information at once, nor even what path to take. There were websites dedicated to trading things in-game for real money, but they were all third party and relied heavily on trust. One player sent money, the other player met the paying party in-game to give them what they paid for.

This worked fine for most items, but for information worth a fortune, it would be risky.

Trent tapped his finger on his virtual desk while he thought. The feeling wasn’t quite as satisfying as tapping a real desk. Still, if any of his classmates looked at him, he knew they’d see him exactly as he looked in real life; just shy of tall, dark hair, dark eyes, lean face, an air of wariness.

The virtual classroom perfectly captured the clothing he was wearing, too. He had on jeans, a t-shirt, and his Bluetooth-connected sneakers. Nothing fancy. He wasn’t sure how his persocomp told the VR classroom what he was wearing, but it was hard to hide from something in your own head. He really wasn’t sure why he needed to wear any clothes at all in the real world.

Whoever had built the VR infrastructure for private and public education had obviously not liked the idea of students hanging out at home naked while virtually attending class…or something.

Of course, students without persocomps, usually for religious reasons, and students who just wanted some social, face-to-face interaction went to the public pod facilities, but Trent usually couldn’t be bothered. He wanted to log into SOO as soon as he was done with class.

He also hated public restrooms.

After class was done, Trent logged out. He glanced around his little dorm room before sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes. He knew some people liked to Dive while sitting, but Trent preferred to lie down.

He knew some people thought colleges should do away with dorm rooms since classes were virtual, but Trent actually enjoyed staying in a dorm. If he wasn’t living in student housing, he probably wouldn’t have any in-person friends at all. The birth rate for the world was down enough, too. He agreed with the politicians who said that young people should still actually interact with other—Trent just didn’t like to do so too often.

He got up and poured himself a drink while he thought about what he should do in-game. He needed to hydrate before Diving anyway, so he sipped his sports drink while thinking about the game itself.

Secret of the Old Ones, the second global deep dive VR game (DDVRG) was a multiplayer RPG with some very distinct differences from other games.

One of its greatest strengths was its realism. Players could not differentiate between Secret of the Old Ones and reality other than the in-game mechanics. It was even more immersive than Strength and Magic Online had been.

The first DDVRG, Strength and Magic Online, had been a revolutionary experience. For almost forty years before SMO was created, various companies had tinkered with deep dive VR tech. The gaming industry had always been huge, and it didn’t take a genius to understand how much money truly immersive gaming could make.

One of the greatest hurdles developers had to overcome was hardware constraints. VR headsets and haptic suits had become incredibly advanced, but still couldn’t offer a full deep dive experience. It wasn’t until the invention of the persocomp, a personal computer link implanted in the brain, that true deep dive VR was possible. Plus, the United World Council’s decision that a persocomp was a human right was a godsend for gamers.

Strength and Magic Online had been revolutionary, the greatest game made for its time. However, Secret of the Old Ones, or SOO had surpassed it in every way.

The design decision by Yggdrasil Entertainment to build its new game in an HP Lovecraft-style horror universe had made some early industry pundits scratch their heads. That was before the game came out. The emphasis on personal skills and learning, the difficulty in leveling, the compelling world and quests…it was all amazing.

Trent personally loved the game’s setting. It was the perfect mix of fantasy, horror, and the familiar. Players who didn’t like the combat aspect could play a largely social game in towns and cities. Meanwhile, power gamers like Trent could explore ancient ruins, poking around for buried treasure.

Trent suddenly realized he’d killed his sports drink. He knew he’d have to pee eventually, but luckily, his persocomp slowed most of his body’s processes to a crawl after Diving.

He reclined on his bed and decided to visit a market while Diving. He still had all of Brutus’s shit to sell.

***

Like always, Diving was a riot of colors and sensations. It almost felt like an out-of-body experience, like being connected to the universe. Trent tried to keep his mind as calm as possible. He didn’t want to be one of those people who acted high their first 30 minutes in-game after Diving.

***

Trent found himself back in his body as Vale dePardon. He’d logged out before on the outskirts of one of his favorite towns, so he only had a short trip to the market. He’d already stashed his precious map. The map itself acted as a mystical anchor in the game. He couldn’t just get away with memorizing the information it held.

He couldn’t chance it being stolen if he was killed. Hiding things was always a risk in SOO because anything hidden could be found, but more experienced players like Vale all had special stash spots.

Vale smiled grimly. Anyone who went after his stash spot would get a very nasty surprise.

He trudged forward, his loot sack so full it actually felt heavy. Compressed packs were one way the creatures of SOO had bent reality that Vale was deeply thankful for. Lugging gear and loot around in wheelbarrows would not have been very immersive or dignified.

Eventually, Vale cut across one last field and found himself on the main road into Gabenz, a coastal town, and one of his favorite places to trade. In-game, it was near sunset, and the town’s buildings made an interesting backdrop against the multicolored sky.

He made his way through familiar back alleys, dodging other players and troublesome NPCs alike. He didn’t feel like dealing with an encounter or learning of a new quest. He was here to make money.

Gabenz was a coastal town, and most of the markets, the best markets known to adventurers, were near the docks. Trent continued to keep a close eye out, warily watching shifty men in top hats and ladies in bustles go about their business.

Vale ruefully thought about how easy it was to tell female players from NPCs. Most modern women hated bustles and petticoats. There were some hardcore role-players or female gamers who liked how they looked enough to put up with the inconveniences, though. The thought sobered Vale. There were plenty of female assassins.

His head was on a swivel as he grew even more paranoid. It wasn’t too much longer until he got to the docks and the fringe of the commercial district.

Vale cautiously passed couples arm in arm, nearing the location of one of his favorite NPC fences. However, as he turned a corner, a piece of paper caught his eye. It said, “WANTED!” and it had a picture of his face.

Oh fuck.

Vale jumped as he heard a voice behind him say, “Just keep walking. Don’t turn around or things will get really bad, really fast.”

Vale didn’t move at first until he felt the barrel of a pistol pressed into his back. “Go straight, right up into that alley up ahead. We wouldn’t want to involve the town constables in any unpleasantness, right?” Vale heard laughter from at least a couple other people.

How had he missed them? He took a mental step back. His face was probably plastered all over town. If groups were actively looking for him, they could be sneakier than he was being vigilant, or they could be using special skills.

Vale was not in a good position, not at all.

Oh fuck, indeed.

Slaughter Alley

Vale slowly plodded forward, his mind racing. He wasn’t sure if his ambushers were after the World Tree map, or whether they were just trying to score a bounty. Their motivations were important. If they were just after a bounty, they wouldn’t expect him to risk a week of logout time by resisting. Most players were very cautious about dying after the first time they got locked out for a week and had all their gear stolen.

On the other hand, if the bastards behind Vale were just after a bounty, using his new magic to escape would spread like wildfire in the rumor mill—if any saw it and lived to tell about it. Getting locked out would prevent that, though. The only hope he had was to kill every single person who saw him use his new abilities.

Players could not post from verified accounts while locked out. The TOS of SOO forbade players from talking about events leading to their death while they were still dead too. Yggdrasil Entertainment enforced their rules with an iron fist. Most players were smart enough not to risk being banned.

Vale’s mind raced. Every possible thing his attackers could be planning ran through his head, checklist style. They could be planning to restrain him, or run a trace to find out who he really was, or try torturing him for information.

Torture of a kind did work in SOO. Of course, a player could always choose to log out, to stop Diving, to Surface. However, if a player Surfaced while in the middle of combat or conflict, they had 20 minutes to return or they would automatically die.

Most players thought the system was fair. Players who didn’t want to engage in dangerous situations usually stayed away from them, and if a player didn’t want to play anymore, they could log off. The penalty kept it from being abused.

The possibility that most worried Vale was the trace. He was just a poor college kid. He wasn’t completely naïve. He knew that there were some people in the world who would be willing track him down in real life to get his secrets. There were quite a few individuals and several businesses that made a very lucrative profit off SOO, after all.

In fact, Vale had even been thinking about exploring ways to monetize his own play time in the next couple days. Of course, that might not happen for at least a week if he ended up dying.

As he walked into the alley ahead of his captors, Vale’s heart sunk and his hand itched. He desperately wished he had room to draw his rapier. At the other end of the alley was another set of seedy characters. There were three of them in all, each of them grinning nastily.

Vale’s pulse quickened. The rope held by one of the men in the alley meant the group was probably trying to collect on his bounty. He wasn’t sure if the bounty had been created by someone who wanted to know about the World Tree, or by Brutus himself; maybe both. The man was locked out of the game for a week, but he obviously had connections.

Time seemed to slow down as Vale examined his options. He had his Rapier of Twilight, a decent enchanted weapon, two fire-enchanted throwing darts, and a crossbow in his pack that would not do him much good.

He had Ancient Body Magic, which would be helpful, but also taxed his Willpower. However, now he had his [Elemental Magic: Air] skill. He wasn’t sure how much mana its spells would eat up, but like all magic in SOO, he could dump more mana into abilities in order to make them stronger.

He carefully examined his spell list and began to inwardly smile. He had a plan.

He walked forward a few more paces with his hands up, appearing to go peacefully to his capture. He figured there were at least three behind him, so he was facing six enemies at once, at a minimum. He needed to free himself from his enemies at the rear, especially if there were more than three.

When he was about halfway down the alley, he shrugged off his loot sack and used [Elemental Magic: Air] to cast <Gust> on himself from behind. He only put one mana point into the spell, as much to test the strength of his magic as to give himself some space from his attackers.

His eyes widened as the spell shoved him forward almost ten feet, practically into the second group. All his attackers began yelling. He spared a glance behind him, laying eyes on the three scruffy people who’d gotten the drop on him earlier. He snarled and cast <Gust> again, this time cranking up the power to seven mana.

The three thugs were bowled over like nine-pins, the powerful spell almost throwing them out of the alley. He barely turned in time to draw his rapier and block an attack by the first goon to reach him. Vale grinned, the expression showing all his teeth. He shoved with his free hand, casting <Gust> again for three mana.

As the second group tumbled back onto their butts, he checked his mana.

Mana: 79/90

He had used up eleven mana. Vale took a gamble and used [Ancient Body Magic] to cast <Arm Speed>, <Leg Speed>, and <Enhanced Reflexes>. He only used two points of mana for each spell, effectively raising his stats by three points in agility and his [Fencing] skill by an amount that was too difficult to calculate.

Natural stats were king, and Vale was already running a natural ten in Agility. His spell brought him up to around thirteen points in Agility, plus several combat bonuses that he couldn’t see on his stat sheet, but he knew were there.

The first man to get up in front of him was a big, burly guy with a beard. He held a practical short sword and parrying dagger. Unfortunately for him, his dagger hand was on the ground as he pushed himself up. Vale lunged forward, the tip of his rapier punching through the man’s mouth and out the back of his head, killing him instantly.

Vale’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction. This was why he built towards speed and precision. Strength fighters like Brutus were terrifying, but there was something to be said for expert precision in SOO, just like real life.

Another man was up and rushed Vale with a couple nasty-looking hooked weapons. They were probably some sort of nautical drops. One glittered with enchantment.

Vale dodged one slash. He caught the man’s second attack on the forte of his blade, riposting with a thrust to the chest. The Rapier of Twilight’s keen tip punched through the ruffian’s light leather armor with almost no resistance at all, destroying his heart and exiting out his back.

He kicked the stunned, dying man off his sword into the wall and stalked past him. Two down, he thought.

The last bandit before him was female, little more than a girl. Vale’s thoughts turned cold and dispassionate. She should not have fucked with a Legendary Class scholar having a bad day.

The girl drew a couple throwing daggers, but her movements were glacially slow to Vale. He almost casually whipped his rapier in a glittering arc, the last two inches neatly severing the girl’s carotid artery. Her hands reflexively went to her throat, dropping her daggers. To be thorough, Vale lowered his center of gravity and stabbed her through the diaphragm at an upward angle.

The girl died, her eyes clouding over, but her last expression was one of defiance and anger. She died well. Probably a serious PVP gamer. Vale respected that.

He turned towards the last three threats and sprinted towards the closest to him, a man with a mustache. The man’s pale skin was heavily tattooed; his bare scalp sported some sort of occult sigils. The man growled, “You must think you’re really hot shit but—”

I wonder why so many of these predatory types want to waste time talking? Vale danced to the side and tried to get a clean, killing thrust, but the man was too experienced. With a start, Vale realized he was the person who had demanded he march to the alley. He was probably their leader.

The bandit muttered something before holding a hand out that began glowing red. Shit. Vale dove to the side and barely had room in the alley to dodge the fire-ball. The thug leader obviously had some skill in magic, probably [Ancient Thermal Magic]. It was a popular type of magic for mercenaries, fighters, and other feisty players.

Vale didn’t want to give the man a chance to get off another spell. He tucked a hand into his vest, and threw one of his darts in one smooth motion. The mustachioed, tattooed man had his long dagger’s blade up, but he had no time to react. The dart took him right through the bridge of the mouth, the heavy steel spraying broken bits of teeth.

The man stumbled backward, snorting in anguish. Vale put him out of his misery with a precise thrust through the heart.

The last two bandits, a tall, older man and a middle-aged woman, both gaped in fear. The woman held up a percussion lock pistol in a shaking hand. Vale could actually see the hammer falling as she pulled the trigger. He dodged to the side, hoping he correctly judged where the bullet would fly. A cloud of gun smoke filled the alley, and Vale didn’t feel a gaping hole in his body. Either he’d been right, or he’d gotten lucky. Either way, he’d take it.

Through the smoke, he saw the tall man with pinched features begin running away. The woman with the pistol still had it extended; the now empty gun kept shaking until she dropped it.

Vale whipped his hand forward with his last enchanted throwing dart while running forward. The dart nailed the woman in the sternum and she burst into flames. Must have been a critical, thought Vale.

The woman was thrashing around, dying as the fire ticked away her remaining hit points. Vale kicked her down to the ground and stabbed her through the chest to put her out of her misery.

“Don’t shoot at me again,” he muttered as he ran past.

The tall man was almost to the end of the alley and relative safety, but Vale was too fast. He was easily three times faster than the last would-be bounty hunter. When the man was only a few feet from the mouth of the alley, Vale crippled his legs with an economical flick of his rapier. The man slammed to the ground and Vale stomped down on the man’s back—hard.

The man tried to scream, but he had no air in his lungs. It didn’t stop him from trying to draw a pistol, though. Vale snarled and thought, What is it with these people and pistols? They’re actually hard to use…

He cocked his arm back and slammed his blade into the back of the man’s skull. The tall man’s body stiffened and grew limp beneath Vale’s foot. He snarled in disgust. He really didn’t like PVP. Why couldn’t other players leave him the fuck alone?

He looked up and down the alley at the carnage and the strewn bodies. He checked his mana again.

Mana: 73/90

He had just killed six other players in decent gear, probably between level seven to nine. He had only used up seventeen mana, and he hadn’t even gotten a scratch. He’d probably overspent a lot of mana. He needed to learn to optimize his [Elemental Magic: Air] skill better.

He whistled soundlessly at all the gear just asking to be taken. “Well, if it’s just lying around…” he grumbled. He wasn’t going to enjoy carrying everything in his loot sack, but at least it was only a short distance to his favorite fence.

***

“2,142 gold! Holy crap!” Vale exclaimed. He’d had a good haul indeed. The shady merchant just smiled. Vale had no doubt the unctuous man would make a killing reselling all the gear. Well, he would have if he wasn’t an NPC. The NPC’s name was Vernon Carlsmit, a name Vale always thought was a bit over the top.

Suddenly the shady merchant Vernon leaned forward and winked conspiratorially. “You’ve been a good customer to me, and I always see you wearing that pig sticker,” he said, gesturing to Vale’s rapier. “I actually heard about a weapon like that lost in some ruins some time back. A powerful one, too. It was probably nothing, but I can still tell you about it, though.” The man guffawed.

In Vale’s vision, a window popped up:

You have been offered a unique quest by an NPC due to your relationship with the shopkeep and your status as a Legendary class.
Do you accept the quest?

Well, that’s a no-brainer. Vale chose YES.

Congratulations! You have started a quest for a legendary weapon!

Listen to the shopkeep’s tale and watch for other
opportunities to further this quest line!

Vale smiled as the sweating merchant began telling his story.

***

Trent was in the great mood when he logged out and Surfaced. His mood lasted right up until he checked his messages on his persocomp and saw several missed calls from his best friend Steve. The latest just said, <Seriously, watch the news.>

Vale was confused. Steve knew that Trent played as Vale, but he’d already seen almost everything the media was saying about him; most of it was just speculation.

However, after Vale used his persocomp to generate a telescreen in his field of vision and turned to a news station, he cursed.

Most stations were playing in-game footage from two hours ago. The FPR, first-person-recorded, video had caught a very pissed off looking Vale dePardon utterly dismantling the criminal bounty hunters in an alley.

“Well…shit.”

Proactive Measures

Trent watched the recording of himself in horrified fascination. When he’d actually been fighting, he was just trying to get away and use available tools to finish everything as quickly as possible. In the video, however, his character Vale looked like a merciless, bloodthirsty predator.

The worst part was when he threw the dart, setting the middle-aged woman on fire before kicking her down to skewer her. The audio even picked up where he told her not to shoot at him again. He had actually been growling, like some kind of demon from hell.

Trent shook his head in horror. This was terrible. The news stations had also found out that he’d killed Brutus, the invincible duelist. He absently flipped through channels and written articles online. Not every station was covering SOO news, but a lot of them were. Bloggers were going nuts.

Damn.

How the fuck had anyone even gotten a video? He hadn’t seen anyone watching from either side of the alley. He did a quick search for who took the video and his eyes widened.  ABI, the notorious muckraker/journalist, was credited with the original video. Trent had had an earlier impulse to hunt down whoever took the video, but nobody even knew who ABI was.

ABI was famous, known for dropping random articles or videos about SOO players that had destroyed entire careers. The last person he’d targeted was Elaine Chemise, or just Chemise, the famous Vicar with a streaming contract. Millions of people had watched Chemise’s broadcasts every week…right up until ABI had exposed her as a fake gamer.

It turned out that Chemise was just an actress working for a company that produced the situations and content on her stream.  ABI had exposed everything in a lightning exposé, and the fallout had been almost instantaneous. Chemise lost all her fans, all her support, and her account was suspended by Yggdrasil Entertainment. The internet was flooded with Chemise memes for weeks.

Trent sat staring at the wall for a full ten minutes, deep in thought, until he made a decision and pinged Steve on his persocomp. He kept the message simple; <Come to my dorm room. Need to talk.> Steve pinged back an acknowledgement. There was no message.

Good, I need to talk to him. Trent busied himself while he waited for his friend to arrive. He flexed his amazing culinary muscles by pouring hot water in a cup of ramen. Diving always made him thirsty, so he killed a bottle of water, too. Trent felt lucky he could Dive. He loved junk food so much that without being thirsty all the time and spending so much time Diving, he’d probably be fat.

Trent took the time to send off a handful of emails while he slurped on his cheap noodles.

Eventually, Steve arrived. Where Trent was lean and dark, Steve was big, red-headed, and broad-faced. He looked like a linebacker; in fact, maybe he had been in high school. Trent couldn’t remember. Steve wasn’t as good as Trent in SOO, but he was still a good gamer. In Trent’s opinion, his friend’s greatest weakness was a lack of patience.

Steve walked in wearing cargo pants and an old Nintendo t-shirt—fairly typical clothes for him. The t-shirt left his large biceps mostly exposed. Trent didn’t feel inferior, not at all. Sure, Steve could rip Trent in half, but they were best friends. Steve would be much more likely to tear apart anyone who threatened either of them, a fact that wasn’t lost on Trent.

He had a feeling his life might be getting very complicated, very soon. His anonymity couldn’t last forever. Having Steve around if things got hairy would definitely be a good thing. Trent trusted his friend explicitly.

“Okay, dude, what’s up?” asked Steve. He went to Trent’s fridge and helped himself to a beer. Trent kept a few in there at all times just for Steve’s visits. “You’re famous now and you’re about a phone call away from being rich, right? Why are you even staying in school?”

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. My name was being thrown around a lot before, but now it’s going to be crazy. We’ve seen it with all the SOO streamers once they get famous, right?”

“Yeah, I can see your point. It’s only a matter of time until someone finds out who you are, or someone rats you out to the news for money or something. Plus stalkers, groupies, the works.”

“Exactly,” Trent said, nodding. “Plus, now I have people following me around, taking videos of me and making money off of them.”

“Well, if you weren’t chopping up entire groups of shady people in alleys, maybe they’d have less incentive to record what you do. Anyway, what are you going to do about it?”

“I think I have no choice but to become a streamer.” Trent grimaced.

Steve looked at him out the side of his eyes. “Are you sure about that? You want to deal with a massive surge in popularity by becoming…more public and more popular?”

“Of course not! This is me we’re talking about. I don’t think I have a choice, though. See, as long as I’m being streamed, I get a cut of the profit from my video stream, and people like ABI won’t have a reason to try following me around anymore. In fact, it might be illegal for him to compete with a stream. Streaming will also provide some security in-game and maybe outside of it.

“I may not trust many big e-companies, but I do trust self-interest. If I’m making people money, they have an interest in making sure I don’t just disappear one day.”

Steve nodded. “Okay, that makes sense, but why are you telling me?”

Trent sighed and said, “Two reasons. First, I think I’m going to give you the knowledge of how to get to the World Tree, but you’ll have to wait on it.”

Steve’s expression was resigned. “You know, you don’t have to do that. Not only that, it will change my life. I’m still not sure what I want to do in life in the first place, and you’ll be opening another door for me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Steve shook his head and grinned. “You’re handing me something worth like a million dollars, maybe more. If I hit the World Tree, I can stream just like you and make more than my parents do. In fact, if I hang out with you, I’d make even more.”

“It’s funny you mention that,” Trent said. “The second reason I invited you over is I need to ask a favor. I’d like you to come with me when I meet a streaming rep in-game. Another set of eyes and ears would be nice.”

“Of course I’ll go, but it’s not like you need my help. You took out those six a while ago without any problem.”

Trent’s tone grew serious. “But what if there are twelve next time, or someone tries to jump me and torture me, or worse, trace me? No, it’s time for me to stop going solo everywhere. This is going to be pretty crazy, and I will be playing a lot. I am going to be asking a lot of you; that’s why I’m eventually giving you access to the World Tree.”

Trent looked Steve directly in the eyes. He had to level that he knew what the favor would cost. “I know that you will probably have to let school slip, if not drop out.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, “the thought occurred to me this might happen when you told me to come over. You wouldn’t have wanted a face-to-face unless it was important. And yet, I was kind of hoping you’d be throwing a few million dollars of in-game power because we’re buddies. It turns out it’s just because I’m big and ugly.”

Trent smiled. “Well, I do still owe you for all the food you gave me in high school. You were my first pick for a reason.”

“Okay, should I hang out here and meet you in-game?”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good!” Steve killed the rest of his beer and settled into the comfortable chair that seemed to take up half of Trent’s dorm room. The chair was where Steve usually went to Dive if he was visiting.

Trent flopped onto his bed, but thought better of it and drank another bottle of water first. Then he laid down again and began Diving.

***

As soon as he was in the game, Vale got a private message from Steve’s character.

Bartholomew: <Hey man, you never told me where you are.>

That’s right, I didn’t, he thought. He sent back:

Vale: <I’m in Gabenz.>

Bartholomew: <Seriously? That dump? I really don’t understand why you like that place so much. Let’s meet halfway at Nodol.>

Vale: <KK heading there.>

First things first. Vale called up an in-game internet browser. He needed to check his email. He read all the replies he’d gotten back from his previous emails. He pursed his lips thoughtfully and sent his own reply to the streaming company he’d decided to work with.

Vermillion Entertainment was one of the largest three e-entertainment companies in the world.

All the companies he’d emailed in the last few hours had made promises about his safety and privacy, but Vermillion was one of the few most likely to deliver. Plus, the rep he was emailing with seemed nice. He let Vermillion know he’d be meeting their company rep in Nodol.

He understood why he would need to meet a company rep in-game. Meeting was necessary to prove his identity, to set up his stream, and to sign an in-game contract. Vermillion would make sure the contract was binding both in and out of the game.

He mentally checked his to-do list. He had to find Bartholomew Holstings in Nodol and choose a location to meet the Vermillion Entertainment rep. He also still had to figure out what to do about his legendary weapon quest.

Vale sighed and went to find a coach he could ride to Nodol. Taking transportation would cut down on his travel time. It would also allow him to read a new occult grimoire he’d just purchased with some of the money from selling off all Brutus’s gear. He hoped he might learn a new spell.

Vale headed towards the stagecoach pickup point, hiding his face as best he could with his cloak. Maybe I should take a train…he thought. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades like somebody was watching him and glanced around. He didn’t see anybody nearby so he dismissed the sensation, continuing on his way.

Dangerous Roads

The ride to Nodol was proving to be fairly relaxing. Travel times in SOO could be fairly long, but the game made up for it by giving players so many things to do while traveling.

Most crafting professions could work in stagecoaches, and players could take control of their coach to ride around the countryside, too. Sometimes fun quests or rare loot could be found by just randomly exploring. However, most players chose to take advantage of the downtime to prepare potions, or weapons, or read books like Vale was.

The grimoire Vale was reading was very high level. He actually hadn’t even been sure he’d get anything useful from it, but the portions he could decipher about “elemental” with the more familiar body magic sigils had piqued his interest.

The huge leather-bound volume was open in his lap. Runes on the thick vellum glowed a sickly green. So far, he hadn’t gotten any enlightenment, only a splitting headache.

He took a break to check his character sheet. He decided he needed to pay better attention to individual system messages. Defeating the six ruffians in Gabenz had given him a nice boost in XP. In fact, it’d given him a rather unbelievable increase from one fight.

He’d gone up by exactly 10,000 XP! It was an insane increase, and the fact it was an even number was bizarre too. Vale frowned but then shrugged and smiled. One of his system messages informed him that he’d gotten extra XP for combat “flourishes.” It seemed he got bonuses for being flashy and taking on such long odds. Vale nodded. The bonuses explained how Brutus stayed so powerful despite just dueling all the time.

Now his character sheet read:

Name: Vale dePardon

Class: Occultist

Subclass: Explorer

Hero Class: *At level 20*

Legendary Class: Air Adept

Level: 12

Experience: 950542

XP to next level: 59458

Vale was about to try reading his grimoire again when the entire coach lurched to the side. A deafening explosion exerted physical pressure on his ears and body. The vehicle righted itself, and Vale became aware of the sounds of pursuit. Judging by the clopping of all the horse hooves, there had to be more than one other stagecoach out there. Vale’s NPC driver started yelling and cursing.

Vale blinked in surprise, but his hard-won instincts after playing SOO for a year kicked in. He stuffed the grimoire into his inventory, an internal storage for a limited number of non-weapon items, and stuck his head out the window.

He almost got nailed by a flaming crossbow bolt that sped past into the night before exploding somewhat beyond his coach.

“Shit!” he hollered.

He ducked his head back into the stagecoach and thought furiously about what to do. In his brief glance outside, he’d seen at least three other stagecoaches chasing him. The fact his vehicle wasn’t already splinters was proof they wanted him alive.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Suddenly, one door of his stagecoach opened and an Asian girl crawled in. She closed the door, dusted herself off, and said, “You look like you could use some help.”

She sat down and opened a powder mirror to check her appearance before nodding in satisfaction. She crossed her legs and looked at Vale expectantly.

Vale’s mouth hung open. Where the hell had this girl come from?

She was wearing green and her hair was dyed blonde. Her dark eyes had subtle eye shadow and some artistic eye liner lines. She wore an underbust corset, bloomer shorts, and leather boots to her knees. Vale caught the glint of a pistol attached to her corset.

She wore leather bracers with girly ruffles at both ends, and strange contraptions attached. She had gizmos attached to her boots, too. She wore a top hat with goggles attached.

Oh no, a steampunk girl, thought Vale.

“Are you going to respond, or just stare at me?” the girl asked, arching an eyebrow.

Another explosion rocked the stagecoach and Vale cursed. “What the hell? How the hell did you get in here?”

The girl gave him a blank look and asked, “Is that really important right now? There are people attacking you. I doubt they care much about me, Vale. I’m nobody.”

“Wait, how do you know my name?”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Seriously? You’ve been all over the news for like three days straight. Everyone knows who you are. I’m Abigail. It would have been polite to ask my name.”

An explosive crossbow bolt detonated on the ground outside, throwing dirt and rocks through the open windows. “Why are you here, though?” asked Vale. “Why do you want to help?”

“I was bored and I don’t have a group.” Abigail shrugged. “You seemed interesting. Now are you going to get your happy ass forward to steer this thing, or are you going to keep looking like a fish out of water? I really thought you’d be cooler than this.”

Vale was already on the outside of the stagecoach and halfway to the driver’s seat when he paused for a second. What the hell am I doing? This girl was dangerous. He was weak against her; she’d just ordered him around and…he’d done what she said. Plus, she was one of those weirdo steampunk players. Nobody understood those people.

After Vale was in the driver’s seat, the stagecoach automatically gave him control. The NPC who’d been driving before sat still, existing in a dormant state. Vale spurred the horses faster and turned off on a smaller road than the one they’d been travelling. Right as the stagecoach turned, another explosive bolt whizzed by, blowing up against a tree trunk.

Damn. What the hell? Vale looked back and confirmed that three other stagecoaches were chasing him. They all had dark-dressed people in white masks hanging out the windows. All of them held weapons. A small man with a huge crossbow, presumably the one shooting exploding bolts, was on top of the first coach.

Some of the masked attackers hanging out the windows had pistols. They occasionally fired, probably trying to hit Vale’s coach’s wheels, but the bullets whizzed out into the night, hitting nothing of importance. As usual, people with guns in-game were not hitting shit.

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Abigail lean out the window of his stagecoach. She was holding a large pistol. Ugh, another person with guns, thought Vale. Why do people keep using them? They suck for—

Abigail fired, and the man with the crossbow lost part of his head. The bullet had neatly punched through the bridge of his nose. The man slowly slumped forward and fell off the stagecoach with his crossbow before the rest of his comrades knew what had happened. Abigail turned the barrels on her pistol, cocked a hammer back, took careful aim, and fired again. Another white-masked man died.

Vale swallowed and turned back to driving for a moment. He’d let Abigail handle their pursuers. He still didn’t trust her, and the way she had shown up was suspicious as hell. However, she was doing a lot better killing at range than he could, especially while he was driving.

After all the players driving were down, the other attackers had learned to keep their heads down. This allowed Abigail to start targeting the NPC drivers. She produced a large, single-shot pistol to kill the first driver. If anything, she seemed even more accurate and devastating with the larger weapon.

Eventually, she’d killed all the drivers, and none of the players could take control of the vehicles again. They tried to fire back, but none of the bullets even hit the stagecoach, much less Abigail. Vale was deeply impressed. Abigail was single-handedly locking down three groups of thugs with nothing but a few pistols.

With no direction, the other stagecoaches veered off the road and the horses randomly carried them away. Vale spurred his own coach on, trying to lose all his attackers before they could pick up the chase again.

He succeeded, or at least by the time he drew near Nodol, there was no sign of any further pursuit. Vale parked his coach properly; he did not want to be forced to eat a fine from the in-game transportation company. He grabbed Abigail by the arm and pulled her along towards a handy alley. He kept a wary eye on where her hands and pistols were, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

Abigail tittered and said, “Oh, this is much more how I expected you to be. All manly and take charge, Mr. Killing-Handfuls-of-People-in-Alleys. Oh, that’s an alley, right? Do you have more people to kill?”

Vale rolled his eyes. The girl was trying to tease him, and not doing a particularly good job of it. He supposed she had a point, though. If someone didn’t know anything about him other than seeing his beast mode video or hearing that he’d killed Brutus one on one, they’d probably have a bunch of strange preconceptions.

Once Vale had Abigail in the alley with him, he got his second good look at her. She was average height, average weight, and she was actually pretty cute, especially while smiling—even if her smile was currently mocking. He idly wondered how close Abigail’s avatar was to her player. She could be an old man in real life.

He checked her physicaldex, the score the game displayed on request for avatar similarity to their player. She was a 9/10, the same as Vale. That meant she was very close to her real-life appearance, with only minor changes.

Vale’s 9/10 was because he changed a few minor facial features and adjusted a couple tiny measurements, but he was still basically him. The changes altered just enough to prevent someone from discovering who he was with a facial scan.

The system wasn’t perfect; the numbers could seem arbitrary. However, the physicaldex definitely helped a lot, especially with players who wanted to have in-game sex. Yggdrasil Entertainment had decided that an element of consent for in-game sex was to allow each party to know how close each avatar was to their player.

A player choosing to play as a different gender would automatically get no higher than a 5/10 on the ‘dex unless their character identified as transgender and their player did too. The system was actually fairly complex, and would not have been possible without persocomp interface.

“Okay, spill,” snarled Vale. Now that his feet were on solid ground, he was much more confident in his abilities. Abigail seemed to sense how the balance of power had shifted, too, because her expression sobered.

Abigail answered, “I was telling the truth earlier. I was bored and I wanted a change. You seemed interesting. I liked your video.”

Abigail grinned but Vale wasn’t having it. “That makes no sense. How did you find me and just happen to pop in the door of a moving stagecoach?”

Abigail looked at Vale like he was stupid. “I could recognize that your video took place in Gabenz. Then all I had to do was stay in-game in town and watch for a guy with a really pretty rapier who was also trying to hide his appearance. You completely suck at staying undetected, you know that?”

“Okay, then how did you just magically appear in my stagecoach?”

“I hitched a ride on the back of it.” Abigail shrugged. “I wanted to see where you were going before I asked if I could join you. I started moving around to the side when I saw your admirers pulling up from behind. I’m just glad the asshole shooting explosive bolts didn’t hit me—but he still had to be the first to die. He could have gotten my clothes dirty, and some of this stuff took forever to make.”

Vale pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine. But not to be conceited here, I’m one of the most powerful players in the game right now. I don’t even have a real group yet. If I formed one, what in the world could you offer for me to let you join?”

“Well, you were right that you sound like a conceited ass—”

“I didn’t say ass.”

“I’m adlibbing, let me finish,” said Abigail. “Anyway, first of all, I think I just demonstrated I’m pretty good at ranged fighting. Second, I am level ten.”

She had Vale’s attention. “Oh? What is your class and subclass?”

Abigail looked smug. “I chose Technician for my class. My new subclass is Artificer. That’s how I was able to craft these babies.” She gestured at her exotic-looking pistols. “I don’t have quite the destructive ability of a Powdermancer subclass, but I have a lot wider range of stuff I can make.”

Goddamn steampunk people, thought Vale. He eyed Abigail critically. He still didn’t trust her, but she had helped him out of a sticky situation. She’d also made him realize how dumb he’d been. He needed a way to disguise himself, and maybe the strange girl could help.

Vale made a choice. He said, “Okay, you can tag along for today, but you’re on probation. I am not making you a permanent member of my group yet.”

“Ooooh, this is going to be so much fun!” Abigail smiled and clapped her hands. “Let’s add each other as friends right now so we can private message and stuff. You have your account settings set to private.”

Vale already regretted his decision.

Naked Stats

Vale met up with Bartholomew Holstings, AKA Steve, at a diner on the outskirts of Nodol. His friend loved eating virtual food during his downtime. Bartholomew raised his eyebrows when he saw Abigail, but Vale gave a slight shake of his head. Bart shrugged, paid for his meal, and tagged along as Vale silently led the way to his interview. It wasn’t exactly often that Vale turned up with strange girls, but Bart was usually very easy-going.

A lot of things had happened in a short amount of time, and Vale was frustrated. The people in the white masks who’d attacked him had been members of a guild. The Lords of Finality were the biggest group of dickheads around in Vale’s general geographical location.

SOO didn’t have separate servers like antique online games. Everyone played in one world, and players began playing in a general area with others based on common language. It was possible to travel and encounter other groups of players who spoke different languages. A few players had made a trip around the world, mostly streamers.

The Lords of Finality were a player-killing guild, or PK guild, with a few high-visibility streamers. They took violent contracts from other players or individuals outside the game. Some people who didn’t play SOO enjoyed affecting the in-game balance of power or messing with others’ streams.

The Lords of Finality were also known for just randomly killing people, too. Most of the guild’s members weren’t very high level or very good fighters, but they had numbers. The average members of the LoF followed and were backed up by the more experienced members, mostly guild officers. The fact the guild had a fairly large audience watching their streams meant they all actually got paid for their shenanigans, too. They literally profited from murder.

Vale really couldn’t stand them. If the Lords of Finality were after him, they could be very annoying even if they didn’t kill or capture him. Evidence suggested they wanted to capture him based on the stagecoach chase. Vale didn’t know why yet, at least not specifically. Unfortunately, there were a number of things a PK might want to do with him these days—none of them good.

He really needed to just avoid the Lords of Finality for now, but they could be hard to shake. The LoF had even accepted a contract on Brutus once before. It had taken the big psychopath a solid month of constantly killing the masked freaks before they finally gave up.

Vale sighed as he headed towards his interview with the Vermillion Entertainment rep. He had a lot on his mind, but he was most bothered by Abigail. At the moment, she was skipping along, making small talk with Bart. Bart knew better than to give anything away about himself or Vale to a stranger. The conversation was very superficial.

Vale wasn’t an idiot. He found it highly suspicious that his appearance and combat style was outed by the mysterious ABI, then Abigail turned up in his life when he most needed an ally. He’d have to be asleep not to notice that ABI and Abigail’s name were similar. Of course, nobody actually knew who the real ABI was.

Either way, he thought the whole situation was suspicious as hell, and Vale wanted to settle whether he could trust the girl or not. He only knew of one way to do that, but Abigail wasn’t going to like it.

He abruptly stopped and stepped into yet another alley. Bart and Abigail followed him without being told. Vale said, “Okay, look, I think if we’re going to form a group we should probably do it now. It will allow me to talk to Bart during this interview using party chat, at least.” Vale turned to Abigail. “I still don’t trust you. Before I allow you to join us, I think I need you to show me your character sheet.”

Abigail frowned. “Are you sure you don’t just want to see me naked? Especially with a 9/10 ‘dex, I get pervs asking to see my character sheet all the time.”

Vale pinched his nose between his eyes and sighed. It was obvious that Yggdrasil Entertainment had wanted players to be shy about sharing their character sheet. Doing so literally made them appear naked to whoever they were sharing with. When he thought of Yggdrasil Entertainment, Vale alternated between thinking they must be brilliant demigods or basement-dwelling perverts.

Players under 18 automatically had small, strategic areas censored; they also saw everyone else’s nudity censored. Adults had no such protection. Sharing a character sheet was something people with a high ‘dex were less likely to do…for obvious reasons.

Bartholomew cocked an eyebrow in obvious amusement. Vale knew his friend had taken an instant liking to Abigail, probably because both their characters looked ridiculous. Where Abigail was dressed as some sort of cute Asian, steampunk pistoleer in bloomer shorts, Bart played as an Alchemist. He looked like a goth clothing store threw up all over his character.

Bart’s ‘dex was high too, 8/10. Someone who knew Steve in real life might recognize his character, but he’d given Bart a slimmer body, dark hair, and a different nose.

However, the greatest change between Steve and Bartholomew was how his character was dressed. Steve always looked a bit like a preppy jock. In fact, other people were often surprised that Trent and Steve were best friends. Trent was a hard-core gamer and Steve looked like a “dude bro.”

In Secret of the Old Ones, Steve’s character Bartholomew looked like he was up to no good just standing there.

He wore a dark trench coat and thick tanker books with chrome spikes on the toes. His long sleeves gathered before his wrists, caught up on his chrome-spiked leather bracers. He wore a dark beret and a silver monocle ringed with black, etched runes.

His thick, sinister-looking necklace had dark patina from age. A blood red ruby flashed at the center of the design. Bart’s right hand rested on a cane of dark wood topped with a chrome skull. The sword cane’s thin, deadly blade could be drawn in a split second.

Bartholomew was an Alchemist, a subclass of the Apothecary class. He’d chosen his subclass a couple weeks ago when he’d hit level ten. While Vale had been trying to figure out the World Tree map, he’d occasionally taken the time to help power level his friend. Somehow, this resulted in Bart hitting level ten before Vale did.

Vale knew that under Bart’s trench coat, his friend carried a myriad of little bottles and vials, as well as an impressive assortment of knives. He thought Bart looked like Jack the Ripper, if Jack the Ripper had been into punk rock or death metal music.

Vale ignored Bart and looked Abigail in the eyes. “It’s not negotiable,” he said.

Abigail’s eyes flashed in anger. “You sure you aren’t just trying to take advantage of the situation?”

“Nope. I just think you’re suspicious as hell. You’re not even my type. Actually, I think you’re more Bart’s type.”

Abigail pursed her lips and looked at Bart. “Really?” she asked.

Bart suddenly found the drain pipe in the alley very interesting and devoted his entire attention to studying it. “Maybe, maybe not,” he muttered. The man wasn’t shy, but he hated to be put on the spot. Vale grinned.

Abigail smirked and turned back to Vale. “So there’s no other way I can gain your trust?”

Vale sobered. He said, “Honestly…not really. You helped me out of a bind, true, but I still find your sudden appearance out of nowhere too suspicious to tolerate. Plus, I’m about to negotiate a streaming deal, and anyone in my group will probably be in it. It’s true that I need some allies, and I’ve been kind of a loner player for a long time. That has to change.

“This is a really tough decision for me because I really could use a ranged fighter and technologist in my group. However, since my name is so well known now, I think I’ll have trust issues about anyone joining.

“So what’s it going to be? If you won’t show me your character sheet, that’s fine, but if so, this is where the ride ends.”

Abigail frowned. “I don’t know who I’m more pissed at, you for making me do this, or Yggdrasil for making it such a pain in the ass just to share a character sheet.” She glared at the alley wall for a moment before she sighed and said, “Fine.”

Vale got a prompt:

Abigail van Cog wants to share her character sheet with you.
Character sheets should not be shared widely with strangers.
Do you accept this intimate request?

Vale rolled his eyes. The prompt’s wording was ridiculous. For a company that could create such an amazing game, Yggdrasil Entertainment was really strange.

Vale chose, YES.

In his vision, Abigail’s character sheet popped up. To his eyes, Abigail herself also lost all her clothes, or rather, they turned almost completely transparent.

Abigail stood defiantly, her arms crossed over her chest. She glared at Vale but otherwise was not trying to hide her body. He didn’t stare at her, but he did glance. Her breasts were less modest than he’d thought they would be.

Vale always thought it was interesting that when someone shared their character sheet with someone else, each layer of clothing turned transparent and could still be seen. He could tell she was wearing zebra-striped bikini-style panties.

Sheesh, girls really get into accessories in this game, he thought. He kept his own underwear as the game’s default. He noticed Bart trying not to show how jealous he was. Vale rolled his eyes. He ignored Bart’s envy and Abigail’s indignation to focus on the character sheet.

Name: Abigail van Cog

Class: Technician

Subclass: Artificer

Level: 10

Experience: 552229

XP to next level: 107771

Stamina: 49/49

HP 49/49

Mana: 80/80

Stats: (Total/Original/Level Ups/Bonuses)

Strength: 5/4/0/1

Agility: 8/6/2/0

Stamina: 5/3/2/0

Intelligence: 9/6/3/0

Willpower: 12/6/4/2

Luck: 4/4/0/0

Class Skills: Marksmanship, Pistol Appreciation, Tinkering, Inventor, Advanced Gunsmithing

Permanent Bonus Source: Twilight Trench Anklet (Will +2), Pharaoh’s Eyes <crafted> (Str +1)

Vale whistled soundlessly in shock. On one hand, Abigail had told the truth about everything. He doubted she was the mysterious ABI now. She had no stealth or espionage abilities. In fact, her skills were rather straightforward for her class and build.

On the other hand, she had two permanent bonus items! At level ten with two permanent bonus items, and her smart stat distribution, Abigail was top tier!

Vale still didn’t understand why she wanted to join his group. He’d never been popular before, so he wasn’t sure if this type of thing was something he needed to get used to. He thought about it briefly and decided it probably was.

Despite not personally understanding Abigail’s motives, it was obvious she’d be an asset to the group. He stood there lost in thought for a moment before Abigail growled, “Hey, dummy! Are you ever going to release my sheet? You get a good eyeful? Do you enjoy perving out on innocent girls?”

With a start, Vale realized that Abigail was still naked to him, her character sheet accessible. Vale didn’t think it was possible for Bart to look any more jealous, but his friend was practically drooling. What the hell is wrong with him? He dates cute girls all the time, Vale thought.

“Yes, yes, sorry about that,” he said. “But it’s not my fault that Yggdrasil Entertainment made people strip just to show their stats.”

He released her character sheet, and Abigail was once again as properly clothed to Vale as she appeared to the rest of the world. Vale ruefully realized what a strange scene the whole situation could have been for the last few minutes. He sincerely hoped ABI was nowhere around. He’d hate to have the whole world think he was some sort of opportunistic pervert.

“I am going to start a group right now,” said Vale. “I’ve never been into grouping before very much. Bart or someone else could help me out with stuff, or I could join a random group. However, some of the new quests I’ve gotten are pretty hairy. Do you want to join my group, Abigail?”

The girl sniffed, and her frown improved some. “I suppose. I did save your ass in the stagecoach, and if you never demand to see my character sheet again, I guess we can get along. Maybe. If you’d stripped me in real life, I would have shot you.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. How are you so good with guns?” Vale thought back to her display of skill with her strange weapons.

“Practice in real life, duh. Just like you probably practice fencing IRL.”

Vale sighed and shook his head. He was curious about her statement, but it wasn’t worth asking further questions. Abigail was irritated, and now he couldn’t really blame her. He felt like kind of a jerk. He wanted to explain that he’d thought she might have been ABI based on her first name, but he was afraid he’d sound like an idiot.

Vale began the process for forming a group.

Are you sure you’d like to form a group?
Each member of your group will share experience earned.
Group members may be able to share quests.

Vale chose, YES. Then he added Bart and Abigail. Both his friend and the irritated steampunk girl accepted.

Vale began leading his new group to his meeting with the Vermillion Entertainment rep again. He could understand Abigail’s mood, but after he had a streaming contract, she’d start earning money too.

With a flash of insight, he realized that had probably been her goal from the start. Now he believed that she’d been bored and wanted a group. After all, he also needed to group up now to start tackling harder quests. Beyond that, though, she probably also wanted to be part of his group so she could also be a part of his stream. She could make money. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he pretty much had to start streaming after becoming so famous in such a short amount of time.

If Vale walked away from the meeting with a streaming contract, he was going to immediately start tackling his legendary weapon quest. He needed to get away from cities for a while. Wanted posters, the Lords of Finality…he knew all the drama he’d experienced was going to be nothing compared to what was in store for him.

Once the entire world saw ABI’s video and knew what he looked like, he was in trouble. But what he was really worried about was Brutus getting back into the game. Time was ticking towards his enemy’s revival.

Brutus never gave up—ever. A chill ran up Vale’s spine, and he sincerely hoped the meeting with Vermillion Entertainment went well. He needed to prepare for Brutus’s return. He wondered how many people would watch his stream just to watch his inevitable rematch with Brutus. The thought did not make him feel better.

Deadication

For the first time since he’d started playing SOO, Vale was jealous of players with crossbows and guns. As more of a scholar character, a great deal of Vale’s XP had come from solving riddles, discovering mysteries, and sneaking through ruins. Whenever he’d actually needed to fight monsters or other adversaries, he’d joined a group. That had actually been how he ended up on the expedition that had made an enemy of Brutus.

As Vale dodged yet another zombie lunging at him, he really wished he had a way to keep the damn things off of him. If any of them clawed him, much less got a bite in, the potions he had to use in order to cure the nasty diseases they carried were very expensive.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew casually tossed alchemical vials around from the inside of his coat. His aim was good, and whatever strange concoctions he used made the living dead run away or melt into puddles. Abigail was able to take down zombies with contemptuous ease. Her aim was fantastic, and she was very fast at reloading her strange, bulky pistol. She called it a “pepperbox revolver” and she said she was making another one, too.

Vale was not a warrior. He didn’t wear armor. He was ill suited to be holding hordes of zombies at bay with his rapier, and yet here he was doing exactly that. He grumbled under his breath and knocked a groping set of undead hands away with the flat of his blade.

A rapier was a fantastic weapon in duels and against things that bled. However, using a rapier to fight creatures that were already dead was difficult. Vale pretty much had to go through an eye or the roof of a rotting mouth to reach a zombie’s brain, and he had to be far too close for comfort for either attack.

He was also getting hit by attacks to his sanity, too. In SOO, the game attacked characters directly with a sanity attack, or SAN, while players fought monsters. The more otherworldly or horrifying the monster was, the more debilitating and more often the SAN attacks could be. Players were able to resist SAN with high Willpower or other related skills. SAN attacks usually manifested as physical damage.

Vale had a low Willpower stat. At a six, he was only one point higher than the generic starting value of five. At level one, the six was pretty decent. At level twelve, it wasn’t very good. Of course, up until now, Vale hadn’t really needed Willpower. His [Ancient Body Magic] used a Willpower check, but he hadn’t used the magic that often. Most of his fighting had been in duels where he’d surprised his opponent with quick kills. However, now that he was fighting monsters, he kept watching his health go down from repeated SAN attacks.

And zombies weren’t even that bad! There were monsters in the game that would make him pass out and die by just looking at them!

Vale dodged yet another set of nasty, groping hands and realized his little group needed to find a party member who could help with SAN attacks. Most groups usually included a Priest class or an Occultist Ritualist, but Vale wasn’t sure what the best approach would be.

His musings were cut short when Bart downed a health potion and asked, “Why are we here again? This sucks.” Abbey nodded but didn’t say anything else. She was busy reloading her pepperbox. She had another couple pistols ready to fire if she needed them, though.

Vale sighed. “Do we really need to have this conversation right now? Again?”

Bart did something with vials, mixing two potions together into a single tube before throwing it. There was a bright flash and half a dozen zombies turned into nasty puddles. “Yes, we do. Killing so many of these things is expensive. Between potions, reagents, vials, mixing tools, and all the crap Abbey needs for her guns… The person getting off cheapest is you and this is your quest.”

Vale considered what Bart had just said and nodded slowly. He had to admit that his friend had a point. He said, “That’s true, but I’m streaming right now. You guys are going to get paid for all this play time.”

“Not for another couple weeks or something. There’s a delay in pay,” said Bart. “I also don’t want to buy stuff in-game with real money, at least not for a while.”

Abigail nodded, not looking up from her reloading. “Plus, the stream itself doesn’t even air for another few days. There’s a week between raw footage and the editing process.”

Vale already knew that. It was part of the agreement he’d signed with Vermillion. As long as he was streaming, Vermillion was pretty much his boss. The contract the rep had laid out for him and explained was fairly standard for the industry. Even if streaming channels could edit faster, they wouldn’t. If streams were broadcast without a delay, it would be too easy for chuckleheads like the Lords of Finality to ruin broadcasts.

Bart frowned. “Seriously, what are we even doing here? If we were going to come here and stay put, fighting zombies for the next month, we should have brought another person with guns. We’ve been here for over two days, man. I’m getting sick of these ruins.”

Vale rolled his eyes and said, “I told you guys when we got here. I got a tipoff about a cool weapon based on NPC hearsay. I already did the first couple legs of the quest myself. One was a rumor quest and one was basically a fetch quest. The next portion is here. I’m not sure what we’re looking for or what we’re supposed to do. We’ve almost cleared the whole place, though.”

Abigail must have been done reloading. Her powder and other tools disappeared, probably into her internal inventory. She looked as she usually did with her guns attached to her belts and corset. She asked, “So we pretty much just need to finish clearing this place, right?”

Vale nodded and answered, “Exactly. Once all the zeds are gone, we can search for whatever I’m supposed to find.”

Abigail bit her lip and seemed to be thinking about something. Finally, she nodded to herself and said, “Yeah, I just want to get this over with. It’s worth the cost. I really want to speed this up.”

She took off her pack and fished around, eventually bringing out a small chrome pistol. It was one of the newer-style percussion cap weapons like her pepperbox revolvers.

“I just got done making this,” she said. “I can reload a lot faster, but the ammo is more expensive to make and takes time to put together.” She pointed at Vale. “You owe me three gold to help cover ammo costs after this. This little thing is a pain in the ass to aim, too, so keep them off me.”

“Yeah, that’s fine, whatever.” Vale thought of all the money he still had left from selling Brutus’s gear and tried not to smile. He was still loaded.

Abigail grumbled and walked forward, the little silver pistol in hand. She cocked the hammer, took careful aim, and the closest shambler went down with a clean headshot. Then Abigail did something to make the barrel flip open. She inserted what looked like a little paper packet, and closed the pistol up again. Then she put a cap on the little nub to the side of the pistol, cocked the hammer, and fired again.

Vale didn’t know much about firearms, but he was impressed by how fast Abigail was firing the little gun. She was actually mowing the zombies down much faster than the entire group had been proceeding before.

“How many of those bullets do you have, Abbey?” asked Vale.

“I made about two hundred of these paper cartridges, but I really didn’t want to use them all up. You owe me for this. Don’t forget.”

Vale nodded and began following Abigail as she methodically put down the undead. Every bark of her weapon resulted in another non-ambulatory corpse. Despite her earlier warning to keep them off of her, none of the zombies even got close again.

Vale was relieved. The group seemed to almost be done clearing out the ruins, and since none of the zombies were getting close, he wasn’t getting hit with SAN damage anymore.

Suddenly, he was struck with a realization. He frowned as he advanced slowly behind Abigail and thought about his elemental magic. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about it over the last two days of grinding zombies. Apparently, it was so new he kept forgetting he had it. He really hadn’t gotten much chance to experiment with it, either.

While Abigail was reloading again, fitting another paper tube in her pistol, Vale held up a hand and said, “Hey, wait, let me try something.”

Abigail nodded absently. “Knock yourself out.”

Vale stepped forward and concentrated on his magic. Magic systems and skills in SOO supported player creativity. In fact, at lower levels, Vale had used his [Ancient Body Magic] to create his <Superior Aim> spell. It was actually a cross between <Arm Speed> and <Enhanced Reflexes>. After trying to create a new ability, the game had translated Vale’s wish into a new spell.

He went through his list of spells and grunted. He settled on <Gust> and <Crushing Wind>, a spell to hold someone to the ground with air pressure. He envisioned what he wanted in his mind, clearly imagining the effect of putting pressure on two sides of a <Gust> spell.

Suddenly, he got a system message! It read:

You have created a new spell. Would you like to name your spell?

Vale chose, YES.

What would you like to name your spell?

He grinned and thought, Wind Slash. The spell was instantly added to Vale’s spell list. Vale breathed deeply and concentrated. Casting a spell for the first time was always hard.

A large group of zombies was slowly but surely closing on him. He absently counted over a dozen of the nasty things shuffling towards him, blocking the hallway. He could feel Bartholomew and Abigail’s concern behind him, but he ignored them.

He drew his rapier. The guard’s graceful curves protected his hand, and the glittering blade extended straight up before his eyes.

His Rapier of Twilight had been hard won. He’d gone to hell and back to get the thing. It didn’t have any magical properties, but it was still a very high-quality weapon. Vale drew his sword to his shoulder and cut forward, triggering <Wind Slash>. He wasn’t sure how much mana to use or if the spell would even work, so he put seven points of mana into the attack.

He aimed about head height.

Wind screamed around Vale, lifting his hair up and scattering dust all around him. He could visibly see the flat blade of wind rocketing towards his targets. The zombies didn’t have a chance.

The powerful magic wave tore the top half of each zombie apart, destroying the entire group in an instant and blowing the remains down the hall away from Vale.

Behind him, the torches sputtered, casting the destruction in a flickering, surreal light. Almost all the attack’s power was in a thin line that hit the stone wall as it shot down the hall. The spell ripped a large, jagged rent in the side of the hallway for the remaining range of the spell.

Absolute silence rang for several heartbeats. Vale wet his lips and sucked air in through his teeth before turning around. Bartholomew was leaning against a wall, shaking his head. Abigail had her hands on her hips. “Seriously?” she asked. “You could have done this the whole fucking time and we’ve still been taking them out one by one? Also, what in the hell was that?”

Bart started to chuckle. He said, “I think that was his wind magic. You know, it wasn’t like this stream was going to be unpopular to begin with, but after something like that…” He pointed down the hallway and chuckled some more. Then he abruptly sobered and looked directly at Vale. “Buddy, I think you’re about to hit the news again. Like, in a big way.”

Vale sheathed his rapier and covered his eyes for a moment. Bart was right. He’d known when he signed the contract to stream that he wouldn’t be able to hide his power anymore. Of course, that wasn’t as big of a deal after ABI’s video went public. The cat was out of the bag. However, whenever he created new attacks, he knew the entire world was going to see it within a week.

He realized that all the attention he was going to get was going to be a major pain in the ass, and he had no idea how people would react. However, griefers like the Lords of Finality were gonna grief. He would need to start practicing in secret. His contract gave him an hour a day in-game to turn off his stream. Unless he wanted to die—and dying meant his stream would be down for a week—he would need to start training during his private hour every day.

What a pain in the ass.

The Color Purple

It didn’t take much longer to clean up the last of the zombies. After the last shambler was down for good, the little group spent a solid hour looking around for whatever it was Vale needed. Vale missed old-school video game logic a little bit. In an antique game, the deepest part of the structure or where the zombies were most concentrated would have been where he was supposed to go.

SOO was not that predictable.

It was Bartholomew who finally found the hidden door to an old, cobweb-filled study. Disturbing drawings covered the walls, barely visible in the gloom. An old brazier in the corner stood in solemn vigil for the desk that dominated another corner of the room. A long, heavy table spanned the breadth of the entire back wall, its surface covered in old books and glass beakers.

“Well, this is…cheery,” complained Abigail. She sneezed and took a step back. “I’ll hang out right here. Vale, if you use any wind mojo in here, I will shoot you.”

“Okay, okay, don’t worry about it. Also, I already told you like ten times that I’m sorry I didn’t think of using my magic earlier. It’s just new to me, okay?”

Abigail narrowed her eyes, obviously skeptical. “Maybe after I forget how we spent the last two days grinding waves of zombies, I’ll bring myself to forgive you.”

Bart was walking around the room, ignoring Vale and Abigail completely. Vale joined his friend and quietly asked, “See anything interesting? I really don’t know what we’re looking for here.”

“Yeah, there is a box over there on that counter.” Bart pointed and said, “You’re the one with the high Luck stat, maybe you should check it out in case it’s a loot crate.”

“Shhh, keep that Luck stat shit on the down low!” Vale whispered.

Bart shrugged and began poking around near the desk.

Vale walked over to examine the strange box. When he was right next to it, he hesitantly reached out a hand and suddenly got a prompt.

Open the box?

Vale chose, YES.

The box slowly fell apart, kicking up a small cloud of dust, and a faint glow lit up Vale’s face. Where the box had once stood was a lumpy, luminescent rock. The strange crystal was held in a rune-covered stand. It pulsed purple, the light throwing weird shadows around the room.

The entire group stood completely still for a while until they were sure nothing was going to happen. Vale blew a sigh of relief. It seemed the box probably had been some sort of loot, but he still wanted to play it safe.

“Hey, wait,” Abigail called behind them. “Randomly glowing crystal notwithstanding, didn’t you say this was a quest?”

Vale answered, “Well, yeah, but like I said earlier, it’s part of a chain, and I’ve already done the first two parts. Plus, I only got it because of my legendary class and some other stuff I can’t remember. I can’t share it.”

“I dunno, man. This room is pretty wild,” said Bart. His chrome-spiked boots were leaving tracks on the dusty floor. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“Are you sure?” Vale was skeptical. “I’ve pretty much lived in places like this for the last year.”

“You haven’t achieved the next step of your quest chain, right?” asked Abigail. “Like, nothing popped up with the crystal came out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, try sharing it anyway. This game makes a lot of exceptions.” Abigail was glaring at him again.

Vale had to admit the steampunk girl in bloomer shorts was right. In fact, he had built his entire gaming experience in SOO on how deep and surprising the game world could be. He shrugged and tried sharing his quest.

Do you want to share your quest, “Rumors of a Weapon?”

Vale selected, YES.

Bart and Abigail’s eyes immediately went vacant and they touched the empty air in front of them.

Abigail von Cog and Bartholomew Holstings
have accepted your quest, “Rumors of a Weapon.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” muttered Vale.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. A legendary weapon quest? I didn’t even know they existed!” Abigail looked completely floored. “Seriously, are you fucking kidding me? Just how lucky are you?”

Vale hid a smile. This was exactly why he wanted to keep his luck stat as secret as he could. He was hoping it would pay off even further at higher levels. All three players began searching the room again for anything that looked odd or interesting while Abigail muttered to herself.

Bart began reaching for the glowing crystal but Vale grabbed his friend, stopping him in time. “Don’t touch that!”

“What? Why?”

“Just look at it. It’s a glowing crystal in a magic horror game. It’s like a big red button.” Vale carefully pushed his friend away. “Plus, I’ve heard rumors of crystals like this. They supposedly have something to do with changing players’ races. The asshole guilds like Lords of Finality are always on the lookout for these things. I don’t think the crystal has anything to do with the quest. Let’s just leave it for right now.”

“What about the stream? We can’t just leave it here, or people will know where to look for it.” Bart’s voice was mellow, but he cocked an eyebrow. Unfortunately, he also had a point.

Vale facepalmed and said, “You’re right. You and Abbey keep looking for what we’re here for. I will take care of the crystal. Maybe. Hopefully.”

Bart nodded and moved off. Vale began moving around the crystal without touching it. He tried using some of his passive magical abilities but got no information. He rubbed his chin for a while, shrugged, and decided to try something new.

He thought carefully about his skills, [Ancient Occult Lore] and [Ancient Body Magic]. He thought about recalling things he’d read before in the game. He also thought deeply about improving his memory. It was a gamble, but it worked! He got a system message:

You have created a new spell. Would you like to name your spell?

Vale chose, YES.

What would you like to name your spell?

Vale thought about it and decided on, Lore Recall. As soon as the spell was available, he concentrated and cast it. He didn’t want to risk more than five mana since as an [Ancient Body Magic] spell, he’d have to control it with his poor Willpower stat. He didn’t fancy being knocked out from spell backlash. If the spell functioned like he hoped, it would effectively buff his [Ancient Occult Lore] skill enough to figure out what the hell the crystal was.

He activated the spell and succeeded his Willpower check. Then he reached out with his hand and was about to use his magical senses when Bart cried, “Found it!”

Vale jumped. He shook his head and walked over to see what his friend was looking at. Bart said, “It was behind this old calendar. Look, it’s a folded note with a wax seal.” Bart broke the seal and all three players craned their necks to see.

The note was surrounded by a border of hand-drawn mystical sigils. The center of the note read,

Go to the caverns of Y’Nule to find your destiny, nephew. -Percival

Suddenly, an alert popped up:

You have been marked for greatness! Continue on your
journey to understand what this means.

Vale closed the message and figured his companions both got one too when Abigail muttered, “Well, that’s not cryptic or anything.”

Bart flipped the note over and said, “Yes! Look! There’s a map on the back!”

Vale nodded and said, “Okay, pocket it. I still need to figure this crystal out.” He went back to the crystal studied it again. The pulsing was eerie, and the crystal itself appeared bulbous and disturbingly organic in nature. Vale reached out again and extended his senses.

Congratulations! Touching this item physically or with magic results in instant death, but you have avoided destruction!

What the hell? A chill ran up his spine as he thought of how close he’d come to accidentally dying. Another prompt popped up.

You have three choices.

You may:
Inspect the item to identify it
Store the item in your inventory
Use the item

Vale chose to inspect the crystal. When he did, the crystal flashed, searing his vision. He heard Abbey scream, but the sound seemed distant.

Secret of the Old Ones

This crystal has several unique properties in the Secret of the Old Ones game.

If used:

Player will become First Things race.
Player will attain level 15 or +1 level, whichever is higher.
(If Player is max level, no change will occur)
Player will receive the Legendary class:
First Things Head Researcher
Player will unlock unique First Things quest lines.

First Things race will be unlocked for new players in SOO

Existing players may switch to a First Things character within a week of the Secret of the Old Ones crystal being used.

*Players that change race this way will lose half of their level, rounded up.

Vale’s mouth opened in shock. This item was more valuable than knowledge of how to get the World Tree…and it was far more portable and easier to use. He was shaking his head in denial when another message popped up

You have three choices.

You may:
Inspect the Secret of the Old Ones
Store the Secret of the Old Ones in your inventory
Use the Secret of the Old Ones

Vale’s head rang. The implications of the crystal and what it could mean… it was staggering. It was probably worth a fortune, the only item like it in the game.

He drew a shaky breath and chose to put the crystal in his inventory.

Secret of the Old Ones is now in your inventory.

It may now be removed and handled without danger.

Suddenly, the ground shook and the entire sky flashed violet so brightly that some of the light found its way to Vale and his group in the dingy little study.

The system message popped up, buzzing Vale so loudly it felt like someone had hit him in the head.

System Alert! Player Vale DePardon has discovered the
Secret of the Old Ones! The First Things race will be unlocked as
soon as it is used and the First Things ruler is crowned!

“What the hell did you just do?” Abbey whispered in horror. “The entire game is going to be after you now. That’s a unique power up item. It will drop when you die!”

Vale opened his hands and stared at his palms. How could so much have happened so fast? Just a few weeks ago, he’d just been an Astrophysics major who enjoyed playing the most popular game in the world. He’d had a strange map.

Now he was going to be the most wanted player around the world. Abbey was right. He needed to think.

“Guys, I’m gonna log. I need to Surface.”

Bart said, “Okay, man, do what you need to do. Do you want me to come over?”

Vale felt like he was in a daze. He absently replied, “Yeah, sure. That sounds fine. Please bring me a burger or something. I think I am going to just take an hour to listen to music.”

Abigail gave Bart a meaningful look. Bart nodded and said, “Yeah, I’ll ask him.” Vale caught the whole exchange, but he had too much of his mind to think much of it.

He mentally reached out for his connection and Surfaced, his persocom drawing his consciousness back into the real world.

School’s Out

Trent woke up from his nap and immediately started checking out the gaming forums. He was really behind on the latest gossip and who’s who for SOO. His stomach dropped a bit when he saw what he’d been dreading. The hype for Vale DePardon’s new stream was at a fever pitch.

The night before, Steve had come over with the food Trent had asked him to bring in-game. They’d talked about the implications of what the group had found and Steve had asked for advice on how he should continue building his character, Bartholomew.

Trent had seen the exchange between Steve’s character and Abbey in-game, the little side comment. He was expecting Steve to ask him a question, probably an uncomfortable one. His friend didn’t say anything, though.

Trent slammed an energy drink and ate a few potato chips while burning through the forums. Things were looking bad. The Lords of Finality were trying to put a positive spin on their encounter with Vale. However, they were having a tough time, since the stream clearly showed them getting their asses kicked by a little steampunk girl.

Trent pinched his nose and sighed. The biggest news was about the Secret of the Old Ones, the item. The players online were calling it a Monarch Stone. A tiny handful of players so far had found crystals that would change them into another race. So far there’d been one undead player and a couple Abyssal Ones, the creepy fish people in SOO.

Players in the forums were guessing that the Secret of the Old Ones crystal was worth over ten million dollars. The number made Trent’s eyes bulge. How could a digital item cost so much?

His first reaction upon seeing the projected value was that clueless people were just tossing random numbers around. However, upon further research, he saw actual businesses making public announcements about buying the purple Monarch Stone.

Trent didn’t know what to do. Eventually, he pried himself from the forums, ordering his persocom to display his schedule. The Vermillion Entertainment rep had informed him that his guard detail would arrive in a couple hours. Trent thought the whole thing was a little over the top.

He just needed a little protection, not a full-time guard!

His contract only stipulated he would receive something around one thousand dollars US and a percentage of advertising revenue. He’d also get a percentage of endorsements or something. He hadn’t really paid attention. The main reason he had gone with the streaming company was to cover his ass in case anyone found out who he was in real life.

However, so far, it didn’t seem anyone had. In fact, even in-game, things were quieting down. He wondered if he’d made a good decision by going with Vermillion or not.

He shrugged and took a shower. He didn’t leave his dorm very often anymore, but Vermillion told him his security detail would want to scope out his area and maybe visit his physical school campus. Why they wanted to, Trent had no clue.

His persocomp informed him that he had a class right before his security detail arrived. He sighed. He hated having such a full schedule.

After getting showered and dressed, Trent logged into his school network and found himself in his personal, neon-lit loading room. His loading room had been gradually evolving since his early teen years, and some of his old teen angst still remained. He chuckled at the posters on the walls and random weapons residing on flat surfaces.

Trent smiled and walked through the doorway into his classroom.

Class hadn’t started yet, and different groups of students were talking in groups as he arrived. Trent usually didn’t talk to many people other than the handful of other gamers and…Something was wrong. It seemed like every eye in the room was tracking him as he entered. Conversation stopped.

One of the girls in class tittered to her friend before walking over to Trent. He blinked. Girls in class never randomly came to talk to him. He wasn’t afraid to talk to people or anything, he just didn’t see a point when they were all in a virtual classroom.

The girl, Trent thought her name might be Becky, asked, “Are you Trent Noguero?”

Trent frowned. “Yeah. I’ve been in this classroom for months. Why do you even need to ask?”

The girl blushed, her persocomp translating her normal physical reactions to her current emotional state in the simulated world. “No reason to be a dick about it,” she muttered. “Anyway, is it true that the Monarch Stone is worth over ten million dollars?”

Trent’s heart dropped. “What are you talking about?”

The girl smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I guess you haven’t seen the newsletter, huh?”

Trent blinked again and immediately ordered his persocomp to bring up the daily newsletter. He skimmed until he found it. The article was fairly self-explanatory. It read, “Vale DePardon… our very own Trent Noguero?” The writer was anonymous. The side-by-side portraits comparing Trent to his character didn’t prove anything for sure, but he knew his anonymity was gone.

Whoever had written the article had even included an old student body survey where Trent stated he played SOO for fun. Nothing in the article was conclusive, but the points it raised would be enough for most people.

Trent’s thoughts grew wild as he stared at the article. He should have radically changed his appearance or created a female character or something. When he rolled his character, he couldn’t imagine actually looking down and seeing boobs. He wasn’t sure how he’d react to actually being a girl in-game, either. However, that was before he’d started becoming one of the most famous gamers in the world!

He backed away slowly. Even the professor was just watching from the corner. He had no allies here. He took another step back, ready to turn and flee to the log point at the back of the classroom, but someone grabbed his arm. It was a big guy; Trent vaguely remembered his name was Tony. “Hey, how about you tell me how to get to the World Tree?” he leered. “I’ll give you a grand right now if you do.”

Another man grabbed Trent’s shoulder and said, “Hey, buddy, why the rush? You don’t mind telling your class where you found that Monarch Stone, right? There are still a few out there, after all.”

Trent kept trying to back up, but the entire class seemed to be surrounding him. He was panicking. He didn’t like being around this many people in the first place, and they were pressing in. They all seemed to be talking at once. They all wanted something.

Trent closed his eyes. He felt hands all over him. They were restraining him. He couldn’t move. “Let me go!” he yelled…and cast <Gust>. A blast of wind bowled over all the students near him, pushing them away. The professor at the front of the room gasped. His jaw dropped, and the pen he’d been holding fell a few inches before hovering in midair. The VR classroom didn’t allow items to fall to the floor.

“Let me go,” Trent said again more quietly. This shouldn’t be possible, he thought. He was using skills from a completely unrelated game within his virtual classroom. It didn’t make any sense. He shook his head, deciding he could think about it later, and ran to the room’s access point. Doing so would log him out several times faster than through his persocomp alone.

Back in his room, he gasped awake and heard pounding on his door. Mind still in disarray, Trent padded to the door and asked, “Who is it?” His voice sounded a little shrill to his own ears.

“Vermillion Entertainment Security,” said the muffled voice outside the door. Trent used his persocomp to see through the exterior camera outside the door. He saw a man and a woman wearing suits.

The man was big and dark-skinned with close cropped hair. He barely fit his jacket. He looked like a linebacker. His dark suit and dark sunglasses made him seem intimidating before Trent even registered his size. The man looked like he bench-pressed firetrucks for fun.

The woman was a little taller than Trent, so definitely tall for a woman. She was built like a volleyball player. She had tan skin, blue eyes, and dark blonde hair. She wore the same type of suit as the man but tailored for her, and she wore different shoes. Instead of dark dress shoes, she had on faux heels; her pants were hemmed up to show her ankles.

Both the man and the woman looked like they were in their early forties, but extremely fit. Just standing there, they seemed to exude a “don’t fuck with me” vibe.

“Uh, how do I know you’re really with Vermillion?” Trent wasn’t taking any chances.

“You mean other than the fact we’re talking to you through the door instead of kicking it down?” The man’s voice was amused. “The passcode you gave us to meet with was, ‘Swish and Flick.’”

“Okay, you guys are legit,” Trent muttered. He opened the door and the two security personnel funneled into his tiny dorm.

The female guard suddenly turned her head, looking at something nobody else could see. She was probably conferring with her persocomp’s overlay. “Wait, Rich, we’re here early.”

“What?” asked the man. He turned looked at his own overlay. “Trent, weren’t you supposed to be in class right now? I mean, it doesn’t matter anymore, but that was one thing we came to talk about.”

“Uhhh…” said Trent lamely, “there is an article in the school newspaper that basically outs me as Vale.”

“What?” said the woman. Her voice was sharp enough to cut steel. The man and woman’s heads swiveled to look at him, and Trent suddenly got the feeling they were both very scary people.

“We need to move now! Alert HQ.”

“On it,” said the woman.

With that, the two suits began rushing Trent down the hallway toward the parking lot. He tried to slow down, asking, “Hey what about my—?”

“We will get it later,” said the woman. “Everything will be taken care of. Don’t worry, our job is to make you comfortable.”

“What the…?” Trent didn’t know what else to say. He’d hired on as a streamer for protection, but this was ridiculous. They were treating him like he was a VIP or something.

The man was on his left and the woman on his right when they emerged from the building at a trot. Suddenly, Trent heard some popping noises. It sounded kind of like cans getting run over by a car. He began looking around to figure out where the noises were coming from, but the woman forced his head down. “Stay low!” she yelled.

Nearby, a car’s window exploded before the car door developed a couple holes. Another car’s alarm began screaming. Trent finally understood. We’re getting shot at! Trent’s first reaction was to panic. However, then he remembered his time in SOO. He actually knew what to do.

He ducked down low and began following his guards’ lead, not fighting them anymore. “My car is over there!” he yelled, pointing.

The woman had a pistol in one hand and was silently moving her lips, probably communicating with someone via her persocomp. She briefly glanced at Trent and shook her head. “Too dangerous. We’re leaving it.”

Trent wanted to argue but decided to just let it go. The entire situation was bizarre. Someone was obviously trying to kill him, but he was so hopped up on adrenaline he didn’t feel much fear. More than anything, he just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

After staying low, a few more lines of cars later and he finally realized where they were heading. His guards were making a beeline for a big black van. There was a gap between the last car and the van, though. The big male guard yelled, “We’ll have to run for it.”

The woman nodded and so did Trent. The next thing Trent knew, he was sitting in the van while they drove on the highway. He felt dazed. He touched his face and looked at his fingers as they came away red. I have blood on my face.

He tried to fight through the fog to remember what had happened. With difficulty, recalled that the male guard had been shielding him and got shot in the shoulder. Trent slowly blinked. His nerves began to make his body shake. He felt like he would puke.

What the fuck is going on? I’m just a gamer!

Trent concentrated on taking deep breaths and wondered how a single day could so thoroughly destroy his entire life. He needed to plan his next moves, but before that, he needed answers.

For the moment, he concentrated on just breathing regularly and being thankful he was still alive.

Smacked with Facts

Eventually, Trent felt the van slowing down. He hadn’t paid much attention during the drive. There was a lot on his mind, and he was spending significant focus on containing his nerves. It had taken an effort of will to keep his gorge down for the first half of the ride.

He glanced up as he felt the vehicle decelerate further. The van drove through a large gate and parked in front of a huge building that looked part office building, part mansion. Trent shook his head and woke from his near meditative state. The female guard who’d been driving got out and opened Trent’s door for him. The male guard was holding some sort of medical pack to his bloody shoulder.

“That looks like it hurts like hell, Rich,” the woman said, wincing in sympathy.

“Yeah, I’m gonna head to the medic. You got this, Stace?” asked the big, dark man.

“No doubt. Not only that, you just literally took a bullet for us. Go do what you gotta do. I’ll tell the captain what went down.”

The man, Rich, moved off. Trent watched him go. That is one tough son of a bitch, he thought. The woman began leading Trent to the front of the building.

The woman said, “You probably have a lot of questions. Everything happened so fast I didn’t even get a chance to introduce myself. I’m Stacy. You already met Richard. Please hold your questions until we get inside. It will be quicker that way, I promise.”

Trent mutely nodded and followed her inside to a waiting room. Somehow, Stacy produced a towel from somewhere and handed it over. Trent immediately understood; he wiped all the blood off his face and handed it back. The blonde guard nodded in approval. Trent got the idea she didn’t like to waste time with pointless talking.

Stacy folded up the dirty towel and disappeared down a side hallway while Trent tried to calm his badly frayed nerves. He used his persocomp to pull up a simple minigame that overlaid his vision, then proceeded to metaphorically turn his brain off for a while.

He didn’t want to think about people in class crowding him, or his SOO skills working in a completely different digital environment, or getting shot at.

At least his gaming probably helped. Even as freaked out as he was, he had a feeling others would have been handling it worse. SOO felt so real and he had dealt with so many terrifying situations in-game, he sort of already had a coping mechanism in place.

His thoughts were interrupted when an attractive young woman in business casual clothing and wooden glasses cleared her throat to get his attention. “Excuse me,” she said. “Your friend has arrived so if you’d like, I can move you to another lobby where he’s located.”

Trent frowned. Who the hell is she talking about? “Uh, sure,” he answered. He got up and followed the woman down a hallway he hadn’t seen earlier. The building was huge. As they walked, he studied the woman and realized she was probably only a year or two older than he was.

As she walked, the woman’s skirt hugged her curves, and Trent liked what he saw. He absently thought about how Steve would probably just focus on the back of her head to not be rude. He didn’t see eye to eye with his friend. Trent refused to feel bad for checking out the woman’s booty.

As they walked, he realized that he should at least try to make an effort to be social. It was tempting to just watch her sway some more, but he shook himself and asked, “So what’s your name?”

The woman glanced around and smiled. Her teeth flashed white and her dark hair shimmered. “My name is Florinia. I’d ask for yours, but I obviously already know who you are.”

“Yeah, probably both my real and in-game name,” Trent grumbled. Florinia laughed, and the sound rang like the tinkling of bells. Trent was feeling depressed again, so much so he didn’t even check Florinia out anymore. His life had truly exploded.

And people had really even tried to kill him. What the fuck?

After another couple minutes, Florinia led Trent into a new waiting room. As soon as they walked through the door, he got hit by over two hundred pounds of man hug. Trent’s first reaction was to go for the eyes, but then he realized it was Steve and relaxed. He briefly returned the hug and then stepped back.

Florinia said, “It shouldn’t be too much longer. You can both attend the meeting together. It won’t be far from here.” Trent nodded at her as she glided away. She seemed very athletic, especially with how easily she moved on her heels. He wondered if she played soccer or something.

Trent glanced back and saw Steve shaking his head. “Dude,” he said, “you look like a starving wolf. If you’d stop acting like a creeper, maybe you’d have a girlfriend.”

“Whatever. I don’t have time for a girlfriend unless she plays SOO, and most gamer chicks suck ass at real games.”

“Real games?” Steve lifted an eyebrow.

“You know, games where you need to think fast or actually do something complicated.”

“So you consider SOO to be a ‘real’ game, right?” asked Steve.

“Of course, duh.”

“Well, Abbey doesn’t suck, not by a long shot,” Steve replied. “She has helped us out a lot.”

“She’s not my type.”

“That wasn’t my point.” Steve frowned and said, “Her existence is at least an exception to your rule, if not entirely debunking it. SOO is a game where you can artificially increase your stats. A chick can kill you in the game just as easily as a dude, and probably will if you don’t get your head straight. You should take this more seriously.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll let Brutus know to watch out the next time I see him. That is, if he doesn’t kill me immediately. I’m sure he’s just shaking in his sixty-pound boots about some Utena wannabe duelist chick.”

Steve gave Trent a side-eyed look. “First, I didn’t catch that reference. Second, for such a smart guy, you can be really dense sometimes…and an ass; probably more ass than dense, actually.”

Trent groaned. Steve was a great guy, but sometimes he could be a nag. His life goal seemed to be to save Trent from himself or something. The irony was that Steve looked so much like the type of guy who should be receiving advice, not giving it.

Trent shook his head and said, “You know what, fuck this. I got shot at and my life was ruined today. I’m not in the mood to be lectured.”

Steve held out his hands and said, “Okay, okay, I’m just glad you’re alright.”

After a slight pause, Trent asked, “So what do you think this meeting is about?”

Steve grimaced. “Well, I kind of figured with your streaming contract and my own contract—”

“What, you have a contract?”

Steve blinked. “Yeah, you’re going to have cameras on you in-game all the time now. Abbey and I are part of your group, so we’ll have cameras on us, too. Streaming companies basically need to have contracts with a full streaming group so they don’t open themselves up to lawsuit. My terms aren’t as good as yours, but they’re still very generous.”

“I had no idea.”

“Trent, you have blind spots a mile wide,” Steve sighed. “You know, you can do these amazing things like put together the World Tree puzzle, and even actually get there in-game, all while being broke and low level. Meanwhile, you totally miss real-world stuff like this.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Trent grumbled.

“Anyway,” Steve continued, “I think this meeting is probably about us getting pulled out of school and about our future security. They might be moving us to this building, who knows.”

“Wait, what? Pulled out of school? What are you talking about?”

Steve gave Trent a level look. “You think getting shot at every day will be a good college experience? What happens if they crash through into your room? You got lucky. I think we all did. It seems they didn’t know who I was yet, thank God.”

“But this doesn’t make sense,” Trent said, violently shaking his head. “My contract is going to give me less money than I’d make out of college after I get my degree. Why the hell is everyone so excited? Like…someone just tried to kill me over, what, a grand a month or something!?”

Steve gave him a strange look. “You think our first paycheck is going to be like… a few grand?”

“Yeah, divided biweekly, too, right?”

Steve shook his head and grinned. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said. He headed over to a side table and started rummaging around, eventually producing a piece of paper.

“What are you do—?”

“Just wait,” Steve said, smiling. He wrote something on the paper with a pen and then folded it up. He slipped the paper across the little table and said, “This is how much I’m expecting to make on my first paycheck, and I will be making less than you.”

Trent felt skeptical. He walked forward to grab the paper. He didn’t understand why Steve was making such a show out of the matter.

Even if he could make two or three times the monthly stipend in his contract, it wouldn’t be enough to quit school over. It wasn’t like he could play games the rest of his life, or even be popular forever, and—

Trent opened the paper and threw up in his mouth a little.

He coughed and said, “This is more than my parents make in a year. A lot more, in fact.”

Steve was obviously enjoying himself. “Yup. You don’t pay enough attention. It seems like if it’s not school or gaming, you just don’t get into details. Maybe it’s a focus thing, I don’t know. Dude, do you know how many millions of people are going to be watching your very first stream? And what’s more, that number will probably grow. Hell, if viewers stay interested enough in us, we could get action figures.”

“Of course I knew it was going to be a lot of people, but…action figures?” Trent felt light headed. He hadn’t truly understood how much money in advertising there was, or how much his little percentage would pay him.

“Yes, action figures. Streaming is a huge business. Some stream channels get more views than popular tele shows or even movies. You just don’t get it. If we’re popular enough, they may make games about us, and we’ll get a percentage of that profit, too.”

“Huh,” said Trent. He didn’t know what else to say. He was going to be rich.

“Thing is, some countries, especially the corrupt or poor ones, also have their own streamers. Someone tried to take you out today probably so you couldn’t become super popular and possibly steal viewers. Streaming is a huge industry. People will kill over it.

“Plus, if they kill you, nobody will know where the World Tree is anymore and other streamers will have a chance at it too.”

“I just, I didn’t know…” Trent whispered.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Steve said. “Abigail wanted to know if she could move closer to us. She wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get weirded out. Vermillion Entertainment will probably put her up somewhere for her protection, and she thinks she might end up by herself. It would be pretty lonely.”

“Yeah, sure, why would I ca—” Trent stopped and held a finger up in the air. He slowly said, “This was why she really wanted to be in my group, huh?”

Steve sighed, “Of course. Who doesn’t want to get rich and have fun doing it? Plus, she’s probably ABI, and probably felt bad about stealing some of your privacy. Plus from some of the conversations I’ve had with her, I get the impression her family has bills and she needs the money.”

“Wait, Abigail is ABI? I took a look at her character sheet, remember? She doesn’t have any stealth abilities.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Dude, you are hell on wheels in a duel and you’re probably the greatest Occultist in the game right now, but you can get terrible tunnel vision. You can’t think of other players through the lens of your class. Abbey can make machines and such. How hard do you think it would be for her to create something to help stay hidden? Hell, she could keep it with all the crap hanging off her outfit.

“I mean, she was on your stagecoach when you first met her. Even if she didn’t have any stealth abilities and isn’t actually ABI, she’s still obviously good at finding a target, tracking them, and staying unseen. She’s like a ninja in lacey steampunk clothes…with lots of guns.”

Trent’s mouth dropped open. He wasn’t used to feeling stupid, but this conversation had been particularly painful. The big shit-eating grin that Steve was giving him wasn’t helping. Then again, he’d much rather be made fun of by his best friend than be shot at in a parking lot. Perspective was a hell of a thing.

He would seriously need to keep an eye on Abigail, though.

Suddenly, a door opened and Florinia called, “Please follow me! Mr. Vermillion can see you now.”

Trent automatically began walking to the door but missed a step when he thought, Mr. Vermillion? Like, the CEO?

What is up with this day?

Mr. Vermillion

Jacob Vermillion, the CEO of Vermillion Entertainment, was a large, imposing man. He had close-cropped hair and a full, neatly trimmed beard. He sat behind a very impressive, expensive-looking desk but wore a sports jersey and diamond earrings. Trent guessed he was in his mid-30s.

“Hey, guys, come right in!” the big man said. “Go ahead and take a seat!”

Trent hesitantly moved forward. Of course, Steve had already taken a seat and seemed to be completely at ease. Trent frowned. He didn’t like the thought of dealing with people this powerful. They always had an agenda.

He glanced back but Florinia was right behind him, smiling encouragingly. Trent sighed and moved forward, taking a seat. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the shapely woman leave the room.

Steve asked, “So what are you doing here, Mr. Vermillion? Isn’t your headquarters in another state?”

“Actually, yes! Also, please call me Jacob.” He smiled winningly. Trent didn’t trust him, but had to admit he seemed friendly.

“Okay, Jacob,” said Steve, “why are you here?”

“Well, it’s very important to meet such important new streamers, and—”

“Can we just cut the chase?” Trent rolled his eyes. “It’s not like I don’t want to have a friendly relationship with you, but this has been a really fucked-up day. I don’t have the patience for a sales pitch. I just had to get blood off my face a while ago.”

Trent noticed Steve squint his eyes and stare, perhaps looking for specks of blood. He was sure his friend would have more questions for him later. It seemed the Vermillion Entertainment people hadn’t told his friend how close they had all come to dying.

“What do you mean?” asked Jacob.

Trent sighed. “You know what I mean. You’re worth, like, a small country. You’re the CEO of one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, which Steve just reminded me makes a ton of money. Why are you really here? People like you don’t do simple social calls.”

Steve elbowed him in the side, but Trent ignored it.

Jacob shrugged and smiled. “Actually, I am interested in ‘social calls,’ as you call them, but I’ll admit there is some business involved in this trip, too. Your situation is a little unique. Basically, with our partnership, we are going to make a great deal of money, but you currently hold enough SOO in-game items and secrets to make any network security sweat.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure what to say,” said Trent lamely.

Jacob chuckled. “It’s okay, I know it was weird for me too when my company started taking off fifteen years ago. Anyway, I kind of thought something like the attack today might happen, and I wanted to be here if it did. Not only that, I just prefer to meet our new streamers in person, especially when explaining their new living arrangements.”

“Security for our own protection, right?” Trent frowned and tried not to spit the words.

“Yes, you got it in one. Look, some streamers get into this business without realizing how dangerous it can be. Now that there are a few movie studios in other countries competing with Hollywood, actors need better security these days too. Being a celebrity kind of sucks even more than it did in the past.

“Technology is awesome, but it also lowered the entry bar for a lot of ways to make money. This has increased global competition, and not everyone plays nice.”

“What about the cops?” asked Steve. “I mean, someone even shot at Trent in public.”

The bearded man said, “I’m sure they’ll try to find the shooter, but they will already be long gone and avoiding video surveillance.” Trent thought Jacob looked uncomfortable. The big man continued, “They probably used a pistol. If the shooter had been set up with a rifle, Trent would have died for sure. We got lucky.”

“What?” gasped Steve.

“I don’t want to sugar-coat it for you guys. We don’t know how Trent’s name got leaked, but now he’s in a great deal of danger. Steve, your identity is still safe, but it’s only a matter of time before someone gets a photo of you standing next to Trent and does the math. That’s if they’re not actively trying to find out who you are.”

“So now we’re, what, on house arrest?” snarled Trent.

“Pretty much, yes.” Jacob sighed. “Look, the police do what they can, but we’re talking about law enforcement, worldwide law enforcement, that still hasn’t figured out what to do about cyber-crime. Our laws are decades behind. It’s very difficult to track cyber criminals, and throwaway printed weapons are easy to come by.

“On top of that, there are enough desperately poor people, it’s not hard to find someone who will pull a hit. Even if the cops catch who shot at Trent today, which they won’t, someone else will take their place.

“But look at it like this…” Jacob pointed at Trent and Steve. “A lot of the heat will die down after about a year, and while working in SOO, you guys will be hanging out with friends and doing what you like to do anyway. With the time dilation, you get to spend 50% more time playing usually, but now you can even play full time. I don’t think I need to tell you how long per day professional streamers can be Diving.”

Trent smirked and said, “Yeah, and I bet you give all your new streamers this same speech.”

“Yes, pretty much.” Jacob admitted, smiling. “Look, you want me to level with you? You don’t want to die, and we don’t want you to either. You’re going to make us all a lot of money. We want you to be safe, but we also want you to be happy and have access to the very best facilities.”

“Can you elaborate?” asked Steve. “This is new.”

“Of course, Mr. Peterson.”

“Call me Steve.”

“Sure thing,” Jacob said and shrugged. “It’s like this. Your skills in SOO are tied to things you can actually do. It’s in our best interest for you to just continue getting better in-game and attracting a larger audience. As such, we have a special compound just for streamers on both ends of the United States…and in a few other countries too. You’re lucky. We’re in California right now and our facility is in Nevada, so you won’t even have to move too far!”

“Nevada?” asked Trent.

“Yes, and it’s a very comfortable, state-of-the-art facility. The connection is fantastic. There is also a shooting range, Olympic pool, a modern gym, personal trainers, satellite buildings for special projects, a lab…the works. Oh, not to mention asstons of security.”

“Asstons?” asked Trent.

“Yes, ‘asstons.’ It’s an official unit of measurement. Look it up.” The big, bearded man smiled and Trent smiled back. He couldn’t help it. The man was likeable, almost like his charisma stat was maxed in real life. The thought made him remember how he’d somehow used magic in his virtual college classroom. Trent was still wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing.

Steve started to say something, but Trent held out a hand to stop his friend. He looked Jacob right in the eye and said, “We don’t really have a choice, do we?”

“Well, there’s always a choice, but your choices are realistically kind of limited right now.” The big man sounded apologetic. “If you hadn’t been outed somehow, you would perhaps have more options. I mean, we aren’t going to make you go anywhere, this is an invitation. But really, if you stay where you are, you’ll probably end up dead.”

“Could we stay here?” asked Steve.

“Like this building?” Jacob lifted an eyebrow. “Sure, you could stay here, but it’s not really set up for comfort for living in, and you still won’t be as safe as any of us would like. If you go to Nevada to our training facility, you will effectively disappear. We’ve already got another team living there, too, so it won’t be too empty.”

Trent thought about the other streaming team, but he didn’t follow any streams so the answer would be irrelevant. However, he remembered Steve’s question about Abbey’s living situation.

“I have a quick question about my team.” Trent looked at Steve and his friend nodded. Trent continued, “Could we get Abbey moved into our facility if we go?”

Jacob nodded. “Absolutely. That’s not a problem at all. In fact, these provisions are already in all of your contracts. That said, I have one more piece of advice for you.”

“What’s that?” asked Trent.

“You know where the World Tree is. I’m guessing you’ve been playing around with the idea of selling the info since you haven’t done anything with it yet.”

Trent decided to be honest. “Yes, that’s right. So what?”

“Look, this may seem a little self-serving, but I’m just being honest with you. You’re really better off just helping your group get to the World Tree so they can all get legendary classes too. See, if you try to sell information this valuable, there will always be an element of risk involved. If you take my offer to go to our streamer compound, it’ll probably even be impossible.

“On the flip side, the more powerful and interesting your group is, the faster you will grow your streaming audience. The larger your audience, the more money you’ll make.”

“What if I give Abbey magic and she just runs off to start her own stream?” Trent was skeptical.

“All your group members’ contracts are clear on quitting. They can’t stream for another company or solo for at least five years after leaving your group.”

Trent eyed Steve and his friend nodded.

“I see,” said Trent. “So what about the Monarch Stone, the ‘Secret of the Old Ones?’ I mean, this thing is named after the game itself.”

Jacob shrugged. “I have no idea about that. In fact, I—”

Suddenly, the door to the office flew open and a middle-aged man with a mustache burst into the room. He was out of breath and gasped, “Jacob, I’m really sorry to interrupt, but you need to hear this now. In SOO, a system message just went out. The Abyssal Ones Monarch Stone was just found and used! The Abyssal Ones race has been unlocked!”

“What!” Jacob exclaimed. He put his hands on his desk and stood up.

“Yeah!” the other man said, shaking his head. “What’s more, most of the Lords of Finality have converted their race to Abyssal Ones. They are moving into a new city that just appeared after the race was unlocked. The news, forums, and blogs are all going nuts! I don’t think I need to remind you that the LoF are part of Norma Entertainment.”

Jacob looked off into the distance for a while. “Thank you, Roger,” he eventually said. “I’ll be by your office in a few minutes so we can figure out what our response will be. At least I’m here in person for this, it should go faster.” The mustachioed man nodded and left. Jacob looked thoughtful.

The big man appraised Trent and said, “This is both good and bad for us. It means some interest in you might drop a little before your first stream. This is good because it might be a little easier to transition your stream into the market. On the other hand, we’ll all make less money if your viewership decreases from the get-go. A lot of viewers will be watching the Lords of Finality more now.”

“Ugh, I hate those guys,” muttered Trent.

“I think we all do,” laughed Jacob.

Trent sighed. He knew he’d already made up his mind. It wouldn’t do any good to throw a tantrum like a child. “Okay, fine, I’ll go to the training facility.”

“Excellent!” said Jacob. “And you, Steve?”

“I’m going too,” said Steve with a nod.

“Great! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I’ll have some of my people start the paperwork and get everything ready. This isn’t our first time doing this, for sure. It should be relatively painless.”

With that, Jacob Vermillion strolled out the door and was gone. Trent glanced at Steve and his friend just shrugged. Trent wondered how Steve stayed so chill through stuff like this. Oh well, at least nothing can get worse at this point, he thought.

***

Two days later, Trent had already been settled into his new room at the Vermillion Entertainment streaming facility in Nevada. He’d learned the staff called it, “The Rainbow Ranch.” He thought the name sounded kind of gay, but Steve thought it was hilarious for some reason—probably because Trent didn’t like it.

Trent was playing SOO, Diving by himself, just laying low and checking up on in-game gossip. He was trying to get some shopping done, too. He was still accepting that playing SOO was his full-time job now. It didn’t quite feel real to him yet.

He realized he needed to take everything more seriously, though. This meant he needed to pursue his legendary weapon quest hard and figure out what the hell he was going to do about the World Tree.

He walked into an occult lore shop; the small bell above the door tinkled overhead. He took two more steps before a system message popped up. Then another! His jaw dropped and he lost his balance, falling on his face. He was so shocked, he didn’t even notice he was on the floor for a few moments.

The system messages read:

System Alert!

Brutus Vann has found the Northern Chess Piece! Brutus Vann is the

Legendary Northern Warlord of Secret of the Old Ones!

System Alert! -Berserker- sub-race (Human) unlocked!

Oh no, thought Vale, the blood draining from his face. He’d forgotten that Brutus should be alive again in-game. The chilling news kept rattling around in his mind as he lay on the floor… Now Brutus has a legendary class too? Oh shit.

Creepy Warehouse

Vale, Abbey, and Bart all stood looking down at the crude map drawn in the dirt. Vale was holding a stick and looked thoughtfully at the crude scratches. He made another line by the box that designated the warehouse they’d be breaking into.

“Okay,” he said, “this is a wall. We should approach the building this way.”

“We still don’t know what, if anything is inside, right?” asked Abigail.

Vale sighed, “Nope, we don’t. We all just spent the last two days figuring out where this place even was, but I didn’t catch any hints, did you?” Bart and Abbey shook their heads. “It would be really helpful if someone could get down there without being seen to check out the inside first.” Vale watched closely, but Bart and Abbey just nodded.

He hissed under his breath and frowned. He’d been trying to catch a hint of Abigail being ABI ever since Steve had said something about it, but he hadn’t even seen her act strangely at all. The whole situation was bugging him. Maybe Steve was just full of it. A notorious muckraker basing their handle off an in-game name would be pretty stupid, after all.

The little group was squatting at the top of a hill overlooking their new target. All of them had been working on the quest chain. The legendary weapon quest was surprisingly complex. Most big SOO quests were more time-consuming than difficult. However, over the last two days, all three of them had been running themselves ragged.

They’d found another clue in a graveyard after digging up a coffin. The note they’d found in the old study had been a roundabout clue leading to it. Then they had all had to gather ingredients for a complex ritual Vale did in order to display a map on the wall. The mystical directions had indicated their new target in the quest chain.

Unfortunately, they had no idea what was in the warehouse, nor what they were supposed to do when they got there. What was more, they were getting uncomfortably close to the new Abyssal Ones player territory, claimed after their new capital city appeared. The tide had permanently, mysteriously retreated out of a nearby bay, revealing the town of Innsmouth.

The new race had attracted a lot of griefers, players that got off on being assholes in-game. One of the new racial abilities of the Abyssal Ones was a shorter respawn timer. The benefit for trouble-causing players was obvious; they could be less worried about getting killed.

After the Abyssal Ones race unlocked, existing players could change races for two days, and a lot of unsavory players made the transition.

Vale sighed just thinking about it. If the Lords of Finality showed up again, now they’d be a bunch of creepy fish men…things. On the other hand, they’d all be lower level, too, since they lost levels to switch races. Still, Vale hoped not to see them again.

“Okay, is that it?” asked Bart. “We pretty much know where to go, but we still don’t know anything about it, right?”

“More or less, yeah,” replied Vale. “If we run into any bad guys, let’s try to take them with blades first. Guns are too loud. We want to be as sneaky as possible.”

“I have something for that, actually,” Abigail said, smirking. “I’ve been working like crazy at this. I got so many new plans with my new subclass I didn’t even know where to start. I’ve spent all my free time on this stuff, and I was even able to make some improvements to the original plans.”

Abbey took her pack off and fished around, drawing out several weapons. Her big, pirate pistol-looking flintlock, the pepperbox revolver, and the little cartridge pistol were all weapons Vale recognized. However, Abigail also produced a long metal tube about two inches in diameter. Last, she withdrew an enormous pistol. It had two barrels, one over the other.

Abbey noticed Vale staring at her and she smiled. “This is a howdah pistol of my own design. It uses custom cartridges I also created from scratch. I had to scrap all my work on the other pepperbox and pretty much use up every rare component I had, but this sucker packs a punch.”

Vale blinked and shook his head. “That thing looks like a damn cannon. It probably makes enough noise to wake the dead.”

“Yeah, this baby is only for when things get scrappy. This, on the other hand,” she said, holding up the tube, “is what I’ll be using now.” With that, she screwed it onto the front of her smaller, single-cartridge pistol.

“Wait a minute,” said Bartholomew, scratching his head. “Silencers aren’t Victorian era, are they?”

Abbey shrugged. “No, not really, but the game makes a few exceptions, it seems. I’ve heard rumors that there is some really advanced tech and plans lying around in the game, but they’re rare. I actually found the basic plans for silencers in-game when I was like level four. I don’t think anyone knew how rare it was at the time. I accepted it and used it. It was bind on use, just like most other good schematics, so I can’t sell it now. I only know of like one or two other players that can make them.”

“So the plans were a rare drop?” asked Vale.

“Yup! I got lucky!” Abbey chuckled and tightened the tube by hand. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to make and use one of these. Until I had the cartridge pistol, I didn’t have a good gun for it. Now I do.”

“Why haven’t you been making them and selling them?” asked Bart.

“Are you kidding me? I don’t want many people to have these things. Maybe I’ll sell a few for a ton of money in the future, I dunno. It seems the others that have these plans feel the same way because I haven’t seen anyone using one yet.”

“Okay, okay whatever.” Vale rolled his eyes.

Abbey smiled. “I don’t care how you feel about guns. As soon as I get to Rainbow Ranch, I’m going to teach both of you guys how to shoot.”

“Don’t call it that,” Vale said absently, checking his own gear.

“What? Rainbow Ranch? Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud. It’s a cute name.”

“Whatever you say.” Vale turned to Bart and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Always,” his friend said, grinning.

Vale grunted, muttered, “Yeah, right,” and began leading the way to the target. They wound around the back of the hill they’d been standing on and crept over to the wall Vale had pointed out before. The three of them hunkered down and proceeded carefully, all of them keeping an eye out for enemies, or worse, other players.

They were effectively out in the middle of nowhere, and odds were low of seeing other players. Unfortunately, remote areas near buildings and quest locations were prime locations for an ambush. It wouldn’t hurt to be careful.

When nothing moved, the three of them crept up to the door. Vale was leaning heavily on his [Paranoia] skill. Without it, he probably would not have been so successful with solo questing in the past. It was still useful in a group, too. Nothing was popping up, which was a good sign.

Bart tried the door and the knob didn’t move. “Locked,” he whispered.

“Here, let me try,” said Abbey. She took a small contraption out of her bag and went to work on the door.

Vale pursed his lips and nodded in appreciation. “That’s a neat trick,” he whispered. “You can’t actually pick locks, so you made a gizmo to do it for you?”

“You bet!” The steampunk girl grinned.

“I could have just picked it,” muttered Bart. Vale ignored him and let Abigail continue to do her thing. In another few seconds, the door was unlocked.

Luckily, the door didn’t make too much noise when it was opened, and the three of them snuck forward. None of them were that great at sneaking, but they all still had the in-game toggle for it. Without a real skill, though, their actual ability was more like a fraction of their real-world skill. It meant they didn’t make tons of racket, but they weren’t exactly noiseless, either.

Vale thought about it as he crept forward. How the hell had Abigail gotten on his coach and hidden so easily without stealth skills? It just made no sense.

Suddenly, Bart held a hand up from the front of their little group. After they were all still and silent, Vale heard it too—quiet chanting.

The group moved forward even more cautiously, and they saw what was making the noise. A man in a dark robe was facing away from them, holding something in his hands. The entire scene was illuminated by a single, sputtering candle. Vale shuffled closer, and suddenly, the man rose and turned in one motion. Vale’s hand was on his sword, but he didn’t draw. His eyes opened in shock.

The man’s eyes were gone, apparently clawed out long ago. He was holding a doll in his hand. It took a second for Vale to notice the doll was covered in blood. Behind the robed man, Vale could see a disturbing altar with asymmetrical measurements. The man spread his arms, crowing, “Yes, more have come to visit the master!” He cackled madly and abruptly spun around, going back to his knees.

Vale didn’t know what to think of the little performance. He stood still for a while longer, staring at the man and the altar. He’d noticed that the altar looked like it was dripping. A nearby bowl seemed to be full of liquid, and he assumed it was blood. The entire building was in shadow, but he saw strange designs and patterns written on the walls in what he also assumed to be blood. It was a gruesome sight.

Bart nudged Vale’s foot and pointed into a corner. Vale noticed that the pile of rags against the wall was actually the bodies of two children. He figured Abbey noticed as well when she gasped. She growled as the group moved forward.

The man in the robe, probably an unholy priest, was gibbering to himself and turned the doll in circles. “What do we do about this guy?” asked Bart.

A sudden dull pop to his side drew Vale’s eyes. The robed man collapsed, and Abigail reloaded her silenced pistol with another cartridge. She saw Vale’s expression and whispered, “What? There’s some stuff I’m not willing to tolerate, even in a game.”

Vale massaged between his eyes and said, “I hope there’re enough clues around to figure out what we’re supposed to do. It’ll be really awesome if we were supposed to talk to that guy for the next leg of the quest and now we can’t. Maybe if we’re really lucky, this can be a complete dead end.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Abigail shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose, but he might have attacked us, too. I could have just done us a favor. Magic types are a lot easier to kill before they start with all the crazy stuff. Look at that knife.” She pointed to a rather ominous, barnacle-encrusted dagger near the altar. Vale didn’t want to go near it.

“Whatever, what’s done is done,” sighed Bart. “Just look around.”

The group began searching the area. Abigail produced a little lamp from somewhere and Bart held aloft a glowing vial. Vale looked around for another light source and said, “Aha!” He’d found a couple torches.

He was tempted to ask Abigail to just shoot some holes in the wall of the building to let in light from outside, but he restrained himself. They were trying to be stealthy.

“Hey, I found something!” called out Bart. “I can’t read it, though.”

“Give it to me,” ordered Vale. His friend handed over a little journal and Vale frowned in distaste as he realized it was covered in human skin.

Abigail noticed too. “Yuck, is that what I think it is?”

“Yup.”

“Gross.”

Vale absently nodded and flipped through the little book. Most of it was insane rambling. He tried to make sense of it as Abbey and Bart talked behind them.

“Nothing is static in this game, right?” asked Abigail.

“That’s how I understand it, yes.”

“So this nasty NPC priest guy has been wandering around, abducting and killing NPC people, possibly all kids, on this altar for…what, a year now?”

Bart sighed. “Probably, yes.”

“Wow. Any way you look at is, Yggdrasil Entertainment is a bunch of sick fucks, huh?”

“I can’t disagree, but I somehow doubt this conversation is going to make it to our stream edit,” Bartholomew chuckled.

Vale held up a hand. “Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.”

After a few moments of silence, Vale nodded. “Most of it is gibberish, but this guy was definitely worshipping stuff he shouldn’t have been even thinking about. I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” asked Bart.

“The good news is I’m pretty sure there’s a trapdoor nearby and that is where we’re supposed to go.”

“What the bad news?”

“The bad news,” Vale said, “is if this isn’t the end of the quest, and it probably isn’t, we’re going to be running up against some real nasty shit. Like…SAN checks like crazy.”

“Why do you think that?” asked Abbey.

Vale mutely held the book open to a page with a crude drawing of something horrible. It had several big, evil eyes and a number of tentacles.

“Oh, great,” sighed Abbey. “We are definitely going to need a priest or something.”

Vale ignored her and began looking around for the trapdoor. He eventually found it under a rug. “Found it!” he called out. “It has a lock on it, though. Weird.”

Abigail moved forward and was able to pick the lock just like she had earlier with the door. Then the group opened the trapdoor and slowly climbed down the ladder. Vale was extremely glad they’d found the torches.

At the bottom, Bart waved his torch around and whistled. “Looks like we know where that creep was dumping the bodies.” There were human skeletons everywhere. Some of the bones looked like they’d been cracked or gnawed on.

Suddenly, Vale’s [Paranoia] skill began throbbing at him. “Guys, get ready! We have incoming!”

Vale held his torch forward, trying to peer into the darkness. He heard strange noises down the tunnel.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” muttered Bart.

Rat-A-Tat-Tat

The noises in the darkness kept getting louder. It was obvious that whatever was hiding in the inky gloom, there were a lot of them. “Well, now we know why there was a lock on the trapdoor,” said Bart.

“Shut up, Bart. Actually, do you have anything that will help with the light situation?”

“Sure.”

“Why aren’t we running away?” asked Abigail.

“If we try to go up the ladder, whatever is down here will probably get us,” Vale replied in a deadpan voice. Abbey shivered and held her pepperbox revolver in one hand, her other hand on the barrels.

Vale had his rapier out. Rapiers weren’t always the most practical weapon for adventurers, but one thing they were good at was penetrating. Spears were better for killing monsters in SOO, but rapiers could be effective too. Luckily, the Rapier of Twilight was an especially sturdy, well-made weapon.

“Okay, got it,” announced Bart. It looked like he had added one more reagent to his glowing vial. “How far do you want the light?”

“Don’t throw it as far as you can, but get some distance on it.”

“Okay!” acknowledged Bart. He reared back and threw the vial. It flew down the tunnel, eventually breaking, creating a flash of light that quickly dimmed and flickered. The creatures in the tunnel hissed and Vale got his first look at them.

They were rats. Giant rats.

“Oh,” said Abigail, “it’s just giant rats.”

“Oh shit…” muttered Bartholomew. “We are so screwed.”

“But they’re just giant rats!” Abigail shook her head. “These things are, like, starter monsters in every role-playing game ever.”

“I don’t think you understand,” whispered Vale. “There’s a reason none of these things are in the newbie areas.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it. Why are you guys so freaked out?”

“This isn’t just any game,” said Bart. “SOO has a lot of realism. And in reality, what kind of standard, common monster in older games would actually be utterly terrifying in real life? What animal, for its size, has immense strength, aggression, climbing ability, reproduction rate, ability to eat anything, and huge, sharp teeth? What would really suck if it were the size of a mastiff?”

“Rats,” said Abbey in growing horror.

“Yeah,” growled Vale. “So how about we fucking shoot them or something?”

Abbey opened up with her pepperbox about the same time Bart threw a vial that shattered on impact, frosting the entire tunnel ahead. Vale nodded in approval as the rats slowed down, some of them jumping back. “Good job,” he said. “Don’t use fire.”

“Why not?” asked Bart while fishing out another vial from inside his coat.

“Because I’m not sure just how realistic this game is. In the real world, a large enough fire could steal all the oxygen and kill us.”

“Good point,” mumbled Bart.

It seemed to take a second for the rats to regroup, but once they did, they ran right through the ice and surged towards the player party. The giant vermin were incredibly fast.

Abbey fired all her pepperbox’s barrels. When the revolver was spent, she held up her large flintlock. The lead rat jumped forward and Abbey screamed as she fired. The flintlock created a thunderous roar and a huge cloud of smoke, blowing part of the rat’s head off. The next rat got a green vial in the face, courtesy of Bartholomew. The vial bubbled after it broke and the rat ran away, screeching so shrilly it hurt Vale’s ears.

Bart had his sword cane out at this point. He held the blade in one hand and the rest of the cane in the other. “Are they too close now to use vials and such?” asked Vale.

“Yeah, but I just took a potion that makes me stronger and faster. I figure I can go for their spine and their eyes. Me and you just have to hold them off for Abbey.”

“I agree,” said Vale. He concentrated and put a couple points of mana into his [Ancient Body Magic] spells, <Arm Speed>, <Leg Speed>, <Superior Aim>, and <Enhanced Reflexes>. Even with only a couple points of mana each, his casting difficulty grew, and he could feel the spells assaulting his Willpower stats.

Vale grumbled to himself. He couldn’t deny anymore that he needed more Willpower. It would also be nice if their group had a player to stand on the front lines and take punishment or keep enemies at bay; basically, a tank.

Still, he smiled as he cast his next spell. Rapiers usually weren’t great for cutting; they were a thrusting weapon, after all. However, he’d recently created a new spell. He used his [Elemental Magic: Air] skill to cast <Wind Blade>. He sunk a full eight points of mana into it.

He glanced at his stats. He’d used 16 points of mana, so he was at:

Mana: 74/90

Keeping an eye on his mana was second nature at this point, especially during a fight. Players in SOO only regenerated about ten percent of their mana pool per hour.

His blade began howling like a hurricane. Air ripped and tore along the length of the rapier so fast, it felt like he was holding a chainsaw. Vale grinned, and the expression wasn’t pretty.

He and Bart ran forward, trying to hold the rats at bay while Abbey began methodically picking them off with her giant howdah pistol. Vale was moving much faster than normal, so fast that the rats could barely touch him. His spelled rapier was able to cut the creatures like a giant cleaver, delivering staggering blows and making the giant vermin screech in pain.

He made the mistake once during the fight of stabbing an enemy through the mouth. The huge rodent was so strong it almost ripped the rapier right out of his hand. Only Vale’s active wind spell kept him from being disarmed. The effect on the blade tore the rat apart from the inside so the blade didn’t get stuck.

“Yeah, not doing that again,” he muttered. Then, gasping for breath, he beat back another rat as it lunged at him. His cut cleaved its nose and part of its jaw off.

The battle seemed to go on forever. Vale was actually nearing the end of his spells’ durations when the remaining rats finally broke, running away in terror. There were over a dozen dead vermin on the ground, and Vale had a feeling his group had mortally wounded at least twice that number. It’d been a long fight. If not for the natural chokepoint of the tunnel, they would have been easily overwhelmed and killed.

In fact, if they hadn’t paused so long to study the bones on the floor, they probably would have started down the tunnel sooner and been surrounded.

Vale panted, trying to get his breath back. “Well, that went well,” he wheezed.

“I need to spend more time making ammo,” moaned Abbey. “You know, I’ve almost used as many bullets while grouping with you guys as I have in the last year of playing this game combined?”

“I believe it,” said Bart. He was gulping a potion that made him regain his energy and stamina. In a couple moments, he looked fresh again.

Bastard, thought Vale. It figured that Bart couldn’t share refresher potions. It was also a pain that his friend wouldn’t be able to make mana potions for like ten more levels. “Let’s see what’s down this tunnel.”

The group moved forward after Abbey was finished reloading her pistols. The whole group wanted to be ready in case the fight wasn’t actually finished. As they walked through the tunnel, Vale saw the large holes near the floor where the rats had all come out of. Luckily, nothing else was jumping out at them.

The tunnel curved around to the left and the group followed until they came to a huge, iron-bound door. Vale tried the handle. “It’s locked. Abbey, some help?”

“I think I’d better keep guarding our rear,” said Abigail, shaking her head.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, Bart, you’re up.”

Bartholomew looked strangely happy as he stepped forward, unwrapping his lock picks. After a couple minutes, the lock clicked and Vale opened the door, revealing an old office.

“Why the hell would someone need to keep an office underground like this?”

“That’s why,” said Bart, pointing towards an old altar, similar in appearance to the one above. “I’m guessing this was where that old kook used to sacrifice people, but then the rats got too dangerous, so he moved his operation upwards.”

Vale shrugged. He didn’t care. He held a hand out and said, “Wait! If you see any boxes or anything you can open that might have loot, don’t mess with it.”

“Why not?” asked Abbey.

Vale paused for a moment, thinking. Finally he said, “Do you guys still have some time left today for private play? Like, can you turn your streaming feeds off?”

“Yeah,” said Bart slowly.

“Okay, please do that. It will only take a minute.” When both Bart and Abbey nodded at him, Vale verified their feeds were off and said, “I have a really high Luck stat. I think it makes good drops much more likely.”

“I kind of figured,” said Bart.

“How high are we talking here?” Abbey looked skeptical. “I thought that stat was only for critical hits and stuff.”

“I’m running sixteen Luck right now.”

“Holy shit!” hissed Abbey. “I only have four! Does the Luck really make a difference?”

Vale nodded. “Yeah, it does. I have one permanent stat item that gives a +3. I’ve been learning that this number is high. Plus, whenever I group, drops get even better. I hadn’t really figured this out until recently when I found the Monarch Stone.”

“Wow, that actually kind of makes sense.” Abigail looked thoughtful.

“Anyway, let’s turn our streams back on and check this place out.” The other two nodded and spread out. Within a few minutes, Vale had found a journal, and the group identified two places in the room that could be hiding treasure. One was a drawer. The other was an old trunk. Both were still closed.

Vale flipped through the journal. “It looks like we’re almost done with this quest. The bad news is, we definitely have a boss battle next.”

“Seriously?” asked Bart.

“Yeah, and it’s a nasty mofo. We will definitely need a new group member to help us with SAN checks. The weird thing is, reading this, it kind of looks like taking the legendary weapon will trigger the boss fight. Then we will need to actually beat the boss to keep what we took.”

“That’s strange. I haven’t seen that sort of thing yet in the last year. What exactly does it say?” asked Abigail.

“Basically, it looks like we’re stealing something from a shrine to Hygon, a child of the Abyssal Ones’ gods. He will not be pleased when we do so.”

“Yeah, that definitely sounds weird. Okay, fine, we can look at the particulars later. Can you open these loot spots, Vale? I’m dying of curiosity here.”

“Fine, fine, I’m going.” Vale moved over to the chest and saw the lock had a key in it, which he turned. He opened the lid and whistled. The chest was full of gizmos and parts. It had some reagents, too. He grabbed a couple reagents that were good for Occultists. However, the real prize was hanging inside the chest itself.

“We got a permanent bonus item, guys!”

“Let me see, let me see!” squealed Abbey. Vale continued to <Inspect> the item:

Watch of the Mad Canadian
+1Intelligence +1 Agility +1 Willpower (permanent, bind on equip)
-Also tells time

It looked like a nice, antique watch, and otherwise didn’t really look special in any way. Abbey stared at it and bit her lip.

“What do you think we should do with it?” asked Bart.

The item would probably be good for any of them, but Vale thought back to Abigail’s stats. She really had been a big help, too. “Abbey, go ahead and grab it.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Yeah, hurry up before I change my mind,” sighed Vale.

Abigail giggled and snatched up the watch. She wasted no time in putting it on, and then she and Bart cleared out all the remaining items in the trunk.

Vale headed over to the drawer and opened it up. Inside were two items. One was a long glass tube of green liquid. The other was an item of power. Vale used <Inspect>:

Ring of the Unknown Saint
+2 Willpower (permanent, bind on equip)
Made of bone, confers a <Mystic> aura

“I have another couple things over here, too, an item of power and some tube I can’t identify.”

The other two gathered around and Bart crowed, “Yes!” He snatched the glass tube. “I’ve been looking for one of these! Nobody minds?” Vale and Abbey shook their heads. Bart smiled and pulled his sword cane free enough to dump the contents of the vial inside the body of the cane, then rammed the blade home again.

Vale had no idea what his friend was doing, but he mentally shrugged. He was eying the ring. “All of us use Willpower,” he said.

“True, but I don’t like that ‘mystic’ thing. That might not work for me or Bart, or might cause problems. I think you should take it. What do you think, Bart?” Abigail called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Bart. He was busy smiling at his sword cane.

Vale shrugged and put on the ring. He got a few new status windows but none looked very important so he closed them. He was feeling nervous for some reason. “Let’s get out of here, guys.”

The other two nodded and they began retracing their steps. Vale was watching for more rats or anything else that could jump out at them. He kept looking into the small tunnels near the floor and behind them. He whipped his head around when he heard Abigail gasp.

Standing in front of them, blocking the way to the ladder out of the tunnel, stood Brutus. He didn’t look happy. Vale groaned and thought, I knew this had been too easy.

Ninja Looter

Brutus stood in the entryway to the tunnel in front of the ladder, a massive two-handed sword in his hands. He was wearing full armor and had a trench coat over it. His gaze was unwavering and fixed on Vale. He had on a helmet; an old, full-faced medieval-style one.

Vale’s entire group had stopped and were all standing very still. Bartholomew said from the side of his mouth, “I thought you had radar or [Paranoia] skill or something.”

“I do. Nothing went off.”

“Yes, I know about your [Paranoia] skill now, Vale dePardon,” said Brutus. “It wasn’t triggered because I mean you no harm. I probably should cut you down on general principle, for multiple reasons, really. However, I am here just to talk.”

“Then why do you have a big-assed sword out?” asked Abigail. “That is not exactly friendly.”

Brutus smiled. “I’m making an effort right now not to get angry. See, last time I found Vale to talk, I wasn’t even in a threatening posture. That cowardly Occultist bastard didn’t even wait to hear what I had to say. He ran forward while using magic and stuck his sword through my head.”

Bart turned to look at Vale. “Wait, I thought you guys fought.”

Brutus snorted. “Hardly.”

“You killed Brutus in cold blood?” asked Abbey.

“I thought you were defending yourself.” Bart crossed his arms.

“Look, my [Paranoia] skill was going off like crazy! It was him or me!” Vale scowled.

“I learned about the [Paranoia] skill while I was dead for a week. I’m betting you have it specifically targeting me,” said Brutus.

“Is that true?” asked Abigail.

“Well, yes, but the skill was still telling me I was in danger!”

“That’s because specifically adding a player to your target list makes the skill more sensitive. I was extremely irritated at the time, but I still just wanted to talk when I caught up with you. I mean, who wouldn’t be angry? You had been running from me every time I tried to talk to you, and you stole that map months ago when we were grouped up.”

“What?” asked Bart, his voice flat.

“Vale joined me, my sister, and a couple other players on a group quest. The chain was long and hard. We needed an Occultist, and Vale is one of the best English-speaking players at translating in-game glyphs. When we got to the end of the quest chain, he stole a map. The thing was, nobody else could read it, so we probably would have given it to him anyway. For a while after that, I looked around for him, but I eventually gave up. I’ll admit if I’d caught him, I would have killed him.”

Abigail turned to Vale and gasped. “You were a ninja looter!”

Bart nodded sagely. “Ninja looter. I always knew he had it in him.”

Vale clenched his teeth and growled, “If you gave up, then why were you still chasing me?”

“Because now my sister is missing. I haven’t seen her in real life for a couple months, and I haven’t been able to find her in-game, either. I wanted your help just finding her. There is a clue I need an Occultist to help with. Most players with your class just sit around cities all day. They don’t really go out in the field. Plus, you’ve met my sister and worked with her before, too.”

“But now what changed?” Vale quirked an eyebrow.

“Now you’re a streamer. My sister has had her private messages and mail turned off. She’s made herself hard to find, and I think she’s in trouble. I have an idea of what she’s trying to do. I’ll tell you after we find her.”

“Okay, this isn’t adding up,” grumbled Abigail.

“Yeah, what exactly are you proposing?” asked Vale. “Why me?”

Brutus dropped the tip of his sword and leaned on the crossguard. “My proposal is you help me find my sister. You invite me into your group, then you invite her after we find her. This will make us famous streamers. Then—”

“Famous streamers? But you already are famous!” exclaimed Vale. “You could just start your own stream!”

“Yes, I am well known, but it’s not the same kind of fame. I’m infamous, not loved. And my sister is not known at all. I want her to be famous, for protection. I’m also assuming you’re protected somewhere by your contract company? If that is the case, I want my sister to move to your location with you. I want us both to be on your team.”

“You know I’m streaming right now. This is being recorded.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Brutus. “That’s why I speaking so generally. I will tell you more if and when we can talk in person.”

“Okay, how do we know you’re on the level?” Vale was skeptical. There is no way this guy is for real, he thought.

“Yeah,” chuckled Bartholomew. “Plus, you’re at a disadvantage. It’s three on one and—”

Suddenly, Brutus moved. He was so fast, Vale could barely track his movement. He covered the entire distance before anyone else could react and had his big sword to Bart’s throat. “You were saying?” Brutus growled.

Everyone stood still for a moment, and Abbey squeaked, “Vale, how did you beat this guy again?”

“He didn’t,” said Brutus. “I was caught off guard, same as every other time I’ve been killed. Want to hear a secret? Everyone thinks I have a second set of gear. I don’t. I just don’t get caught off guard when I come back. I’m usually very angry, too.”

Vale narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like Brutus, and he didn’t like the fact this asshole had a sword to his best friend’s throat. He gripped his rapier tighter.

“Don’t move, Vale dePardon,” laughed Brutus. “I will admit you have some skill, and you showed balls the last time we met. Now we both have legendary classes, too. I’m sure if we fought again, it would be wonderful footage for your stream, but that is truly not what I’m here for.” He paused in consideration.

“I really should kill you out of hand for selling all my gear, though.”

Vale thought about it a moment. “Drop your sword right now, or we’re going to throw down whether you like it or not.”

Brutus shrugged, slowly removing his sword from Bart’s neck. He casually put the huge blade on his shoulder and looked expectantly at Vale.

“What do I—no, what does the group get out of this deal?” asked Vale.

“Simple. I am one of the best fighters in the entire game. Globally. I have a legendary class, and I’m technically the leader of all the new Berserker subclass. This gives me an in-game stipend and some bonuses. Lastly, my sister has abilities to shield a group from SAN attacks, and I think you could probably use it. She’s also as good of a fighter as I am.”

Vale opened his mouth to speak, but closed it. “You’re not seriously thinking about this, are you?” asked Abigail. Vale waved at her and looked down, deep in thought.

His first reaction was to immediately reject Brutus’s proposal. However, he mentally took a step back and tried to stop thinking of SOO like just a game. The reality was, streaming was his job now.

Brutus really was very well known. A lot of people knew he and Vale had been at odds for months and even fought. Furthermore, the group really did need a tank and someone to help with SAN checks. The fact was, Vale wasn’t even sure where to start looking. The level of player he needed for their group wasn’t exactly common. There was the element of trust, too. So far he’d actually been incredibly lucky in finding quality group members.

Everyone would want to be in Vale’s group now with so much money at stake, but most of the best players already had groups and streams.

Brutus had a legendary class now, too. That would probably interest a lot of people into watching Vale’s stream.

Vale’s stream ratings depended on his group being interesting and doing interesting things. Allowing Brutus, and eventually his sister, to join might not be such a bad idea. Plus, Vale did vaguely remember Brutus’s sister. If he was remembering her correctly, her character had been really pretty. Eye candy wouldn’t hurt their stream at all.

Thinking about Brutus’s motivation just made the decision more obvious. There was the obvious matter of all the money involved. Plus, it sounded like Brutus wanted protection of some sort. Vale had recently learned firsthand how dangerous the world of gaming entertainment could be. Now he knew that streamers were well protected by their company out of necessity.

Last but not least, the maximum group size was five players. Brutus would make four, and if they found his sister and she joined, that would make five. They’d have a full group, and everyone would have a contract. There were a lot of “ifs” in that plan, but the more Vale thought about it, the more he liked it.

Vale nodded slowly. “Okay, I think I accept.”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Bart.

“Yeah, I think so.” Vale sent Brutus a party request and Brutus accepted. “Okay, it’s done.” Now he’d just have to see if he had chosen wisely. “So now you need to get a contract, eh?”

Brutus glanced around, his eyes tracking something only he could see. “I just checked my email,” he said. “I have an appointment with a Vermillion Entertainment representative soon. Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever. So you really lost all your gear when I sold it?”

“Yes,” Brutus growled. He pulled his trench coat back and they could all see his basic gear.

Abigail shook her head. “So you murdered him and then sold all his gear, Vale? Shameful.”

“I can’t believe this guy is my best friend,” sighed Bart.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Vale pulled eight hundred gold from his inventory and traded it to Brutus. “Here, this is most of what I got for selling your gear. That should help.”

“I’m sure that’s all you got from selling my gear,” grunted Brutus sarcastically. “I appreciate the gesture, but I still have about twenty thousand gold. I just haven’t had the time or the opportunity to get decent gear again.”

“Twenty thousand?” exclaimed Abigail. “That’s a fortune!”

“I quest a lot,” Brutus said, shrugging.

“So…can I have that eight hundred back, then?” asked Vale.

“No, I’m going to keep this as an apology for stabbing me in the eye, blyat ninja looter.” Brutus smiled evilly.

Vale glared at Brutus. Well, he kind of has a point, I guess, but eight hundred gold is eight hundred gold!

“Whatever,” said Abbey, briefly throwing her head back in irritation. “You guys can measure your dicks later. I want to get out of this tunnel.”

“Hear, hear!” agreed Bart.

Vale grumbled, “Fine.” He frowned at Brutus. “You first then, money thief.”

Brutus grinned and growled, “Takes one to know one.” He saluted before starting up the ladder.

After the whole group had reached the top, Bartholomew and Abigail both made noises of surprise. Vale got another prompt too, but he absentmindedly closed it. The portion of the quest they were on must have been completed. His assumption was confirmed when Abigail said, “I just leveled up!”

“Me too!” said Bart.

“Congratulations, guys. So what level are you, Brutus?” asked Vale. He tried not to snarl. Every time he saw Brutus, he wanted to stab the big man again. Calling Vale a ninja looter…He obviously wasn’t a ninja looter! He just hadn’t been sure that Brutus’s group was going to do the right thing. He had no regrets, dammit!

Brutus smiled. He seemed to understand the effect he was having on Vale. “I’m level thirteen,” he said. “I got a big bump when I got my legendary class.”

“Oh yeah, your legendary class. Do you want to tell us about that?” asked Bart.

Brutus looked Bart directly in the eyes. “No, I do not.” Bart shrugged and went back to looking at his character screens.

“Hey Brutus, are you going to tell us how you found us?” asked Abigail.

“Nope.”

Vale shook his head and decided it would be a good time for him to check his character sheet. His eyes widened. He had leveled up too. He quickly made the changes he could and looked at his character sheet again.

Name: Vale dePardon

Class: Occultist

Subclass: Explorer

Hero Class: *At level 20*

Legendary Class: Air Adept

Level: 13

Experience: 1055592

XP to next level: 144408

Stamina: 64/64

HP 64/64

Mana: 100/100

Stats: (Total/Original/Level Ups/Bonuses)

Strength: 4/2/2/0

Agility: 10/3/4/3

Stamina: 6/4/2/0

Intelligence: 10/7/0/3

Willpower: 8/6/0/2

Luck: 16/8/5/3

Class Skills: Fencing, Ancient Body Magic, Paranoia, Ancient Occult Lore, Map Reading/Cartography, Elemental Magic: Air

Permanent Bonus Source: Mystic Clover (Luck +3), World Tree Tithe
(Int -5), World Tree Boon (Int +8, Agi +3), Ring of the Unknown Saint (Will +2)

Auras and Status: Mystic. A mysterious status that confers additional magical mastery. Not compatible with tech skills.

It looked like Abigail had been right about the mystic aura. It probably would have completely screwed up her build. He’d have to check the SOO forums later to see if anyone even knew what it was. The downside of being on the cutting edge on the game is that he was discovering things nobody else knew about.

Vale had dropped his point in Stamina. He was starting to fight longer battles and he was getting really tired. The level of danger was going up, too. He was beginning to feel very vulnerable. It was a tradeoff, though. He kind of felt stupid now for not grouping more often or doing more long quest chains in the past.

The entire group was levelling insanely fast. Plus, they’d found an absurd amount of loot in a relatively short amount of time. Most average SOO players didn’t even have a permanent status item, or maybe they found one or two that would give a +1 bonus. Vale’s group was growing in power at a very impressive rate.

The realization made Vale think about the World Tree. Mr. Vermillion really had made a good point about Vale allowing his group to visit the World Tree too.

Vale suddenly thought of something and turned to Brutus. “There is no way in hell I’m ever taking you to the World Tree.”

“That’s somewhat funny, since I suspect you got there in the first place with the map you stole, but this is fine.” Brutus flicked an imaginary piece of dirt off his bracer. “I have legendary class already, so I wouldn’t be able to get a World Tree class. In fact, I’d probably just be killed on the way there. However, I would like you to consider my sister, if we find her.”

“So Brutus, what is your sister’s name?” Asked Abigail. “How old is she? Does she hate Vale too?”

As the group plus Brutus left the warehouse, Vale pinched between his eyes and sighed. On one hand, he was a lot less worried now about random players attacking his group. Most people were scared shitless of Brutus, for good reason.

On the other hand, now Brutus was his problem. How the hell did this happen?

Flirting

It had been two weeks since Brutus joined the group. Trent was out of the game since the rest of his group wanted a break until after dinner. He was sitting in the guarded Vermillion streaming compound and sulking. He tried to pretend he wasn’t in a bad mood, but he was lousy at ignoring facts. The reality was, he had a lot of thinking to do and he wasn’t getting anything done because of his emotional state.

But he couldn’t help it. The “Rainbow Ranch” was dull and lonely. Abigail had arrived in person over a week ago. Trent had learned that her real name was Michelle Wong and she’d been living in Florida. She really did more or less look like her avatar, so there really wasn’t an awkward phase after everyone met. As soon as she arrived, she was true to her word and began teaching Trent and Steve how to shoot guns at the nearby range.

That had been fun for a while. However, Trent eventually lost interest while Steve and Michelle kept practicing every day. As Abigail, Michelle needed to build her skill, and Steve was thinking about carrying a pistol as Bartholomew. He said he wasn’t sure whether he’d actually take an in-game skill for it, though. He still had another level to decide.

When Trent had first moved to the streaming compound, Mr. Vermillion had said there was already another streaming group living there. He hadn’t been lying, but the reality was that they had their own living quarters and pretty much kept to themselves. Trent had barely seen them at all.

In the last week, he’d discovered that Brutus lived in the Ukraine, but the big man was refusing to move to the Rainbow Ranch until his sister was found. This all meant that these days, unless Trent was playing SOO, he was spending all of his time alone in the real world.

Usually, Trent didn’t mind being solo. But doing things by himself and not even seeing other people were two very different things. For the last few days, it felt like he had barely spoken with his own voice. He never even saw whoever it was that delivered the groceries. They always showed up while his group was playing SOO.

Trent knew he really shouldn’t have been feeling so crabby. The group had more or less figured out what to do about the legendary item quest. They finally had a lead on Brutus’s sister. Trent was basically becoming independently wealthy. The popularity of his stream and how much he was making every week was still totally surreal.

But dammit…he was seriously bored! He couldn’t wait for Steve and Michelle to hurry up and get done with whatever they were doing. If Michelle could stop showing off and Steve could stop flirting with her, the whole group could just play the game more!

Trent frowned as he sat on a couch in the common area and shoved potato chips into his mouth. He really should have been working on group tactics or thinking about clues, but he just couldn’t focus.

He heard one of the doors open behind him, towards the front of the building, and ignored it. He figured it would be Stacy, Richard, or one of the other guards on their hourly walkthrough. Richard still walked with some stiffness from being shot, but the man was up and functional. Trent was secretly impressed.

“Trent, is that you?” Trent turned around in surprise. Florinia was standing just inside the doorway looking a little unsure of herself. She had a rolling suitcase and was dressed more casually than the last time he’d seen her at the Vermillion Entertainment building in California.

She was wearing glasses with small, dark frames. Her hair was arranged on top of her head with a pair of yellow chopsticks that matched the color of her shirt. She wore a mini skirt with dark leggings and some sort of heeled boots. Trent didn’t know what they were, but he’d bet they were expensive.

Her dangly yellow earrings also matched the overall color theme she had going. Her tan skin made the effect more striking.

Trent’s brain froze for a moment. He’d thought Florinia looked cute before, but…damn. “Uh, yeah. Florinia, right? What are you doing here, did you take a strange turn? This is the wrong state.”

The dark-haired girl smiled, some of her anxiety visibly draining. “Ha ha, yeah right! I’m here as your group’s liaison with Vermillion. I was tapped because I’ve actually met some of you and I’m not a complete noob at SOO.”

“I hope you didn’t get a demotion just because you met us.”

“Oh, no no no!” She held her hands out. “No, this is actually a promotion. I applied for it. I’m barely out of school, and I was able to get this gig in less than a year of working like a real adult. I was basically just an admin before. Now I’m an Asset Coordinator.”

“Asset Coordinator?”

“Yes,” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “Corporate isn’t really happy that none of your group answers emails in a timely manner. The guards have also let it slip that you guys are just eating junk food all the time, no real food. Considering all the ratings you’re getting with your stream, the company decided that having someone act as a go-between for your group and corporate was a smart idea.”

“Why weren’t we told?”

“You were. When’s the last time you checked your email?”

Vale nodded. She had a point. “So your job is, what, cooking and being eye candy?”

Florinia shook her head and pointed at him. “Stop! Don’t tease me! But yes, I am going to be cooking now, at least twice a day.”

“Yes…you’re going to be eye candy?”

“You’re horrible.”

“So you’re going to be living here now too?” Trent asked.

“Yeah. I’ve just got this for right now.” She pointed at her suitcase. “The rest of my stuff should come in the next few days.” She started moving towards the hallway leading to the dorms.

“Well, it was nice seeing you, Florinia.”

“Call me Nia, all my friends do.”

“Oh, we’re friends now?” Vale waggled his eyebrows at her. “Any chance for more?”

She rolled her eyes at him as she walked by. “You’re truly terrible. I’ll see you later tonight when everyone else is here.”

Trent chuckled as she walked away. Her hips swayed just like he remembered. He watched her turn down the hallway and tried to decide if she’d been flirting back with him. She’d never said she was in a relationship; that was a good sign. Trent decided she hadn’t shut him down, either.

He put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling while he thought about the new development.

Maybe things were getting better.

***

Three hours later, Trent was ready to Dive. He’d had his first hot meal in weeks and he was very pleased with himself. Florinia, or Nia, was definitely, officially flirting back with him. Trent had been laying it on pretty thick, but he knew he wasn’t very smooth. He was also awful at catching hints from girls. He’d learned that his best strategy was to just be so obvious that a subtle response was impossible for whatever girl he was interested in.

While they ate, he was also amused that Michelle and Steve kept rolling their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. Trent had been putting up with those two acting syrupy sweet and flirting with each other for so long now, he gave zero fucks.

In fact, if those two weren’t boning by now, he didn’t know what was wrong with them. He didn’t want to ask Steve, though, just in case they were. Then Trent would have to pretend he cared.

He shrugged. There was work to do. All the interpersonal shit could wait. He initiated his Dive and the world turned into a circus of colors and sounds. Then everything shattered.

When the world rebuilt itself, Trent was in SOO as Vale. The previous night, his entire group had logged off in an inn so they’d have some minor XP buffs after Diving.

As soon as he left his room in the inn, he saw Abigail and Bartholomew too. Bart was resting his hands on his sword cane. His dark clothing hadn’t changed much. Vale knew he was keeping a couple small pistols on his belt under his coat now, though.

Abigail also still looked the same as she usually did except for some new ankle boots and a few more gadgets attached to her corset and bracers. Her pistols had better holsters and retention systems now, too.

They didn’t have long to wait for Brutus. Vale had sent him a private message via persocomp before Diving. He wasn’t sure what Brutus did when he wasn’t playing SOO, but he was usually available to meet up at any time. The longer they worked together, the more Vale had to grudgingly admit that the big man had been a good addition to the group.

After they were all gathered, Abigail asked Vale, “So what is the rush? Why did you want us all to meet so quickly? I would have thought you’d want to hang out in the common area longer so the secretary could make eyes at you more.”

“Secretary?” asked Brutus.

Abbey turned to Brutus. “Don’t worry about it, Tall Dark and Murderous,” she said. “Our fearless leader here just went and got himself a groupie.”

“You know, bitchiness doesn’t look good on you, Abbey,” said Vale. Abigail narrowed her eyes and was about to respond when Vale held up a hand. “Actually, I do have news. Important news.”

“What secretary?” asked Brutus.

Vale ignored the big warrior. He grinned and said, “I think I figured out where Minerva went. I know where Brutus’s sister is.”

Brutus nodded and folded his arms. “I want to hear about this.”

Vale began explaining how he’d put together all the clues they’d gotten in-game over the past couple weeks.  Something Nia had said that day was actually his breakthrough. She’d called herself a liaison, a go-between. A conduit. He’d been able to figure out the puzzle.

“You see,” Vale said, “we’ve been getting good clues. We were close, but we were looking in the wrong direction. Minerva isn’t hiding somewhere. She’s not captured or dead. She went into the Great Maze and never came out. She’s stuck, I’m sure of it. Maybe stuck on purpose.”

“The Great Maze? Oh hell no. We’re not going in there, right?” asked Abigail.

“You bet we are,” said Vale, grinning. “I’ve been kind of wanting to see it anyway”.

“But people get so lost in there, sometimes they just reroll if they’re low level enough.” Bart looked thoughtful.

“Yeah, don’t people get stuck in there for a long, long time?” asked Abigail.

“Sure, but we aren’t average players,” said Vale, trying to sound confident. “We need to find Brutus’s sister. The quicker we find her, the quicker we can get back to what we were doing before and end the legendary weapon quest. The quicker we end the legendary weapon quest, the sooner I can bring everyone to the World Tree.”

“Wait, what? The World Tree? This is new,” Abigail sputtered.

“Yeah, I’ve decided to let everyone in the group get World Tree magic whenever we’re done with the legendary weapon quest.”

“So you’re going to take Mr. Vermillion’s advice?” asked Bart.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Wait…” said Abigail, her voice subdued. “Isn’t any one of those legendary classes worth millions of dollars or something?”

“Yes, but if Vale gives them to us, our whole group becomes more interesting and we make more money. He can view it as an investment,” said Bart.

“That makes sense. Huh. I was not expecting this,” muttered Abigail.

Brutus was growing agitated. He obviously didn’t care about the World Tree. “My sister, where is she?” growled Brutus.

Trent smirked. “Follow me and I’ll show you.

Finding Minerva

Vale led the way to Ravenwood, a small town about twenty minutes from Nodol. His entire group was riding in a stagecoach to their destination. During their downtime, Abigail crafted bullets, Bartholomew mixed potions, and Vale skimmed the spellbook he’d bought with money from selling Brutus’s gear. Brutus just sat with his arms crossed.

Without looking up from her work, Abigail said, “Alright, Vale, spill. Why are we going to Ravenwood?”

Vale sighed and closed up his grimoire before putting it back into his inventory. “Okay, so the last two weeks, we’ve all been looking for clues. In-game, we’ve gone together to a few places where Brutus’ sister, Minerva, was seen in the last few months, right?”

“Yeah, we all know that. So why Ravenwood? I haven’t seen anything pointing us there at all.”

“Exactly,” said Vale. The steampunk girl scowled at him and gestured for him to continue.

Vale got the point. He said, “We’ve been around this whole area. We talked to a number of people who had actually spoken to Minerva. The way she had been acting for the last two months jives with Brutus’s suspicion that she was in some sort of trouble.”

“I don’t understand. There was no pattern to where she was visiting.” Abigail frowned.

“Ah, that’s just because you didn’t have the right frame of reference.” Vale smiled. “Remember the clues we found? Minerva was searching for some specific entrance to the Great Maze, right? It sounded like she was looking for an in-game skill or ability.”

“Uh huh, legendary. Go on,” said Abigail. Vale saw he had Brutus’s full attention too.

“So she was looking for a specific entrance. I’m guessing she found some information for something she wanted in-game. She is also usually a solo player, like I used to be. Lastly, she acted like she was in trouble, like someone was looking for her. She has all her communication channels both in and out of the game silenced for over a month.”

“Okay, you’re losing me now,” said Bart.

Vale gestured to Brutus. “Well, our big, grumpy frien—companion isn’t exactly being forthcoming with details, so we have to operate on a lot of unknowns here. One of my assumptions is that whoever Minerva is hiding from in the real world is also looking for her in SOO.

“Based on some of what we’ve learned so far, like what the NPCs told us Minerva was asking and how methodical she was being, we’ve figured she’s incredibly intelligent. Brutus has confirmed this.”

The big man nodded.

Vale continued, “I realized today that someone as smart as Minerva wouldn’t be openly gathering information if she thought she was being followed… unless it was for a reason. She’d be trying to throw people off her trail. That was my breakthrough. See, we know that the Great Maze would be a good place to hide for a while if you wanted to disappear. We also know Minerva was looking for something specific, apparently a legendary skill.”

“Legendary skill? Like, yours?” asked Bart.

“Yes, kind of like the one I got with my legendary class but if I recall correctly, legendary skills by themselves are not as powerful as when they come with a class. They don’t confer any stats either. “Legendary” in this game usually means unique. Legendary skills are like, powerful, unique skills.”

Bartholomew nodded. “Got it.”

“Anyway, Minerva was smart enough to work on several things simultaneously. Plus, our grouchy warrior here,” Vale said, pointing at Brutus, “obviously respects his sister.”

“She is better than all of us,” Brutus said.

Vale looked sideways at the big man for a moment before speaking again. “Anyway, I started thinking about how she’s been asking about ancient soldiers, legendary skills, and also how she was obviously looking for a specific entrance to the Great Maze. Then I began thinking of how she had been hopping from city to city, leaving an obvious trail.

“The answer for why she was doing all of this was simple. She already had a map.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Abigail.

Vale grinned. “She cheated. She got her hands on some kind of map and was hitting random entrances to the Great Maze, making herself visible, leaving a trail. She appeared lost on purpose to throw off pursuit. Think about it. She would visit the local entrance to the Great Maze before going to an information broker or merchant to ask about it.”

“But isn’t the Great Maze huge?” Bart asked. “Like, it’s basically the same size as the game world, right? Like a huge labyrinth that functions as this game’s dungeon system? Wouldn’t she have to be looking around and asking questions if she was going to find anything?”

“Not if she had a map,” said Vale.

“That seems like a stretch.” Abigail folded her arms and looked skeptical. “Like a huge leap in logic.”

Vale grinned. “Normally you’d be right…but you’re forgetting something.”

“What?”

“I have the [Map Reading/Cartography] skill!” Vale pointed at himself. “I can generate maps based on points of data, and I can map regular locations to the Great Maze. I was able to see a pattern with where Minerva was going.”

“But that still doesn’t make sense. If you knew what points she was hitting, that still doesn’t tell you where she was actually going to end up,” said Bart, his tone thoughtful.

“Yes, that’s true, and that’s where I was stuck before. However, remember how she was visiting a church or cathedral at each place she stopped? I was reminded of all the steps we all had to take in our group’s chain quest. I began to wonder if she was on a quest too. It seemed likely, since she’s looking for a legendary skill, and ‘legendary’ anything doesn’t come easy in this game.

“So a couple hours ago, I mapped all the points Minerva had visited both in the overworld and the corresponding locations in the Great Maze. The points made a circle on my mental map of the Great Maze. It just so happens that the entrance to the Great Maze in Ravenwood is right in the center of that circle.” Vale drew a circle on a handy piece of paper and marked an X in the center of it.

“That is actually…pretty clever,” Abigail said, nodding.

“Now, there’s still a chance she was just accidentally covering locations to the Great Maze that coincidentally made a circle. There’s a chance, but I don’t think so,” said Vale.

Abbey rested her cheek on her hand. “So you think she went to this location to get her legendary skill, then she’s just been hanging out in there ever since?”

Vale nodded and replied, “Yes. If she is trying to power level and stay hidden as a skilled player—and we know from Brutus that she is—that would be a good way to do it. She will be off anyone’s metaphorical radar, very difficult to find while training.”

Bart was slowly nodding, and Vale noticed Brutus was too. He grinned and said, “I would have been lost without the [Map Reading/Cartography] skill. You remember how few players are level ten or higher to begin with? Then, of them, how many are Occultists, and how many will choose the Explorer subclass? Minerva made a very smart choice in how to hide. I’m not sure where she got the information to begin with, though. Probably an NPC.”

“So what now?” asked Abigail.

Vale put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Now we get to Ravenwood and find the entrance to the Great Maze.”

***

“This place is a dump,” complained Bart. Vale had to silently agree.

Ravenwood had been underwhelming. Half the businesses were empty, and the local NPCs were beaten down, fearful. The entrance to the Great Maze was in a large barn. The space within the doorway shimmered, but the frame itself was made of rotting wood with weeds up and down the sides.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” asked Abigail.

“I’m fairly sure, the clues—”

Suddenly, Brutus stepped forward and rubbed his thumb over a mark on the nearby wall. “She was here,” he said. “There are marks all over these walls, but she made this one for me in case I came by.”

The mark looked like random scratches to Vale. He asked, “Are you sure?”

Brutus just stared at him with no expression.

“Okay, I guess this is it!” said Vale. “Let’s go.” He walked into the open doorway and assumed the rest of the group followed. As soon as he hit the shimmer, the world fractured just like when he Dove into SOO or any other VR app.

***

When his vision came back, Vale was standing in a jungle clearing. He was near an old, crashed airplane covered by vines. The lush vegetation, organic smells, and jungle sounds were relaxing at first. Then Vale remembered that jungle biomes in SOO could be incredibly dangerous.

The rest of his group appeared over the next few seconds. He idly watched as they did so and tried to get his bearings.

The Great Maze was strange, kind of an instanced world within a world. To be a realistic game, SOO had to have real change, with the overworld being affected by player choices. For instance, if a player burned down a house in the overworld, the house would stay destroyed.

The Great Maze, on the other hand, was prone to reset. This was how Yggdrasil Entertainment had found a balance between a dynamic, changing world and a way for all players to enjoy some of the same content. If monsters never respawned anywhere, only a tiny portion of players would even be able to level.

“So, where do we go now?” asked Abigail.

“This way.” Brutus pointed and began walking.

“How do you even know that?” asked Vale.

“Tracker. I put one on my sister months ago.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Vale nodded before his eyes flew open and he sputtered, “Is that how you’ve been finding me too?”

“Yes,” Brutus said. He barely smiled.

“Tell me where it is!”

“No.” Brutus smiled wider.

Vale knew there was no point in arguing further. He grumbled to himself and tried to ignore Bartholomew’s quiet chuckling.

Friendship. Hah.

Vale frowned, his mood growing worse as he realized their group was getting hopelessly disoriented. The only person who didn’t seem lost was Brutus, who took turns without hesitation. To Vale, the entire jungle began to look the same after a while.

He was fairly sure there was no way in hell he could backtrack to the gate.

After some time passed, the jungle sounds began to feel ominous. It grew darker the deeper the group went, and Vale started noticing some shady, dangerous-looking plants lining the trail. He swallowed.

Eventually, Brutus led them to a small camp that Vale recognized as a temporary player base. It was the sort of thing players brought with them into the Great Maze to store drops, craft, and leave their character to sleep while logged off.

Minerva was standing next to the tent with her hands on her hips. She wore a steel breastplate and bracers over a maroon, crushed velvet top. Her pants and gloves were supple black leather. Her ornate weapon belt held a variety of weapons. On one hip, she wore a curved military saber. On the other hip, Vale could see a couple blunderbuss flintlock pistols.

Minerva was beautiful, like a polished blade. She had been part of the expedition with Brutus, the one where Vale had definitely not ninja looted any treasure. He remembered her being pretty, but his memory had apparently been lacking. Studying her again in person, he had to admit she was drop-dead gorgeous.

Minerva had dark blonde hair past her shoulders, piercing green eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her lithe, athletic body still boasted rather impressive curves.

Vale though she looked about his age, maybe a little older. He hadn’t cared so he’d never checked her physicaldex in the past. He idly checked her ‘dex as he studied her. Holy shit, 10/10? That’s actually what she looks like? Vale was shocked.

“Brutus, why did you come? Who are zese people?” Minerva had a thick accent. Vale thought it was sexy.

He glanced over at Brutus and saw something he would have never expected to see. Brutus, the stoic, calm, ice-blooded killer, was actually blushing and stammering!

The big man even looked scared! What the hell is going on? Vale immediately recalibrated his assessment of Minerva. Her beauty was irrelevant now. Anyone who could reduce Brutus to a stuttering mess was someone to take seriously.

Not for the first time, Vale wished he could remember more details from the expedition he’d taken part in with the Ukrainian siblings.

Minerva’s ‘Tude

“Well, out wiz it, brother.” Minerva gestured impatiently. “I have been trying to hide, and you are smart enough to know zis. Why are you here?”

Brutus replied, “I came for the same reason we play in the English-speaking location. You know I know what you are looking for. I have brought protection.” Brutus still sounded nervous, but he crossed his arms. “I am not stupid, sister.”

“I never said you were.” Minerva narrowed her eyes as she studied the group. “Who are zese people?”

“The big, ridiculous-looking man in gothic clothes is Bartholomew. The woman with pistols is Abigail. The—”

“There is only one woman, yes? Why would you need to remind me of her pistols?”

Brutus took a breath. He responded, his voice strained, “Style choice, okay? Can I finish?” Minerva made a gesture with her hand and Brutus continued, “The shifty-looking man with the rapier is Vale dePardon, he is—”

“Yes, I recognize him now. He is ze one that stole from us before, then killed you recently, yes?” Minerva laughed for a second before she put her chin in her hand and studied Vale. The open inspection made the Occultist feel slightly uncomfortable.

Brutus shook his head. “Sister, we have come because—”

“Yes, I can figure it out. I’ve been hiding, not living under a rock. I know of these people.”

“Stop interrupting me,” growled Brutus.

“Oh, little brother, you have grown a spine? I would be impressed if he hadn’t killed you a few weeks ago.” Minerva pointed at Vale.

Abigail butted in. “Okay, I love watching fucked-up, dysfunctional families as much as the next girl, but can we please just get this over with and get the hell out of here?”

“Please come with us, sister,” pleaded Brutus. “They will take you in their streaming group. You are a Mercenary subclass, so you can help with SAN attacks. Their group needs this.”

“You intend to stay in zis group?”

“Yes, and I will move to the United States if you join this group and move there too. Then we can keep looking and not worry as much about hiding.”

“There is a lot of subtext in this conversation,” muttered Abigail. Bart mutely nodded in agreement. Vale just wished they could all stop standing around. He really didn’t care if Minerva came or not.

Suddenly, Vale’s [Paranoia] skill screamed at him. He saw motion out of the corner of his eye and drew his new percussion lock derringer pistol from the back of his belt.

The attacker was a monkey, but it glowed slightly green and looked…wrong. Vale quickly used two mana points to cast <Superior Aim> on himself with his [Ancient Body Magic] skill. In the last week, he’d discovered the spell worked even better for guns than it did for edged weapons.

He sighted down the barrel just like Abigail had taught him and gently squeezed the trigger, all while tracking the monkey’s movement. A split second later, his pistol belched a cloud of smoke and the monkey’s head exploded.

Everyone froze for a moment, their eyes on Vale. With a hint of embarrassment, he realized he still had his hand extended with the pistol. He awkwardly put the little derringer away at the back of his belt and tried to look nonchalant.

“Those zings are very annoying,” said Minerva. “Ze monkeys. Zey carry disease. It is why I have so many antidotes on hand.” She gave Vale another appraising look. “He has good reflexes.”

Vale rolled his eyes. “Whatever, I’m not performing tricks, chick. You’re not my sister, and I can give two fucks less about you. However, we did just go through a lot of trouble to find your shapely ass. You’re basically being offered a deal that will make you rich. It’s a yes-or-no question, and if you say no, you’re stupid.”

“More of that winning personality…” Bart said softly. Brutus was very still, his expression nervous.

However, Minerva laughed. Vale had to admit the throaty sound was kind of sexy. She was ridiculous. The woman exuded self-confidence and sex appeal at a primal level. He wasn’t sure how someone could pull that off in a game, but she managed.

The swordswoman chuckled, “Yes, yes. I know why you are here and what you wish me to do. It is protection. I understand. However, I wish to make this fun. You,” she said, pointing at Vale, “let’s have a duel. If you win, I will come with you.”

“What if I lose?” asked Vale.

“I am going to win. Zere is no suspense, so I ask for nothing. You can be on your way to entertain many average people, yes?”

You have got to be kidding me! thought Vale. And suddenly, he cared. Up to this point, finding Minerva, all of it was Brutus’s request, and the outcome hadn’t interested Vale. He knew their group could probably find a priest class player, someone to help with SAN attacks. With the kind of money his stream was generating, getting almost any non-streaming player on board would be a snap.

He had been tired of looking for Minerva, and now that they’d found her, he had really just wanted to get on with the legendary weapon quest. But now she was pushing his buttons. He wanted to wipe that smug look off her face. “Okay, fine!” he fumed. “You’re on, queen bee!”

“Sister, please just go with us,” Brutus pleaded. “It’s for your protection.” He turned to Vale. “You have no hope of winning. I cannot beat her, and you cannot beat me without an ambush.”

Minerva chuckled at Brutus. She drawled, “With or without an ambush, a win is a win. You lost to him, brother. If you were sure of yourself, you could have challenged him again before now, yes?”

“It was not important,” grated Brutus. “I know my strength. I am not a win addict like you.” He turned to the rest of the group and said, “She was going to be an Olympic fencer. Then she decided fencing was boring and began training in steel sabers. You have no hope of winning, Vale dePardon.”

“Just keep telling me more how I have no chance,” Vale growled. “I’m going to destroy Skanky Tight Pants over there.”

Minerva grinned and pointed at Vale. “This is why you do not lead a group, brother. This man is a shameless rogue. He is not handsome, nor speaks well. He is not impressive. But he has balls. He finds what he wants and chases.”

Vale didn’t know whether to be flattered or more pissed off. He decided on the latter. “Fine, let’s do this,” he snarled.

“No, please stop, Vale dePardon,” Brutus begged. “She has been here long enough; she likely got the legendary skill she was searching for. She is also very strong. On top of that, she has probably been grinding in the Great Maze, too.”

“Yes, I have.” Minerva drew her saber. “I have been soloing elite monsters to test my abilities.”

Vale tuned them out. He was about fight his first duel in a long time. He tried to remember how the system worked. He also remembered that a duel was to the death or on yield, and afterwards, both players were reset to their condition before the duel started.

He also knew as soon as a duel started, any buffs or magic effects disappeared so players could not give themselves an advantage ahead of time. This presented a problem for Vale. His fighting style relied heavily on buffs. He was going to need some time to cast all his spells. As much as he disliked and distrusted Brutus, he believed that Minerva was a hell of a fighter.

The way she was standing all sexy and poised was irritating too. Vale was going to take her seriously as an opponent from the get-go. Losing was not an option

He quickly formulated a plan and narrowed his eyes. His party members moved to the edge of the clearing. There would be plenty of room to fight. Good.

As expected, a prompt appeared:

Minerva Vann has requested a Duel.
Do you accept?

Vale chose YES.

Minerva was incredibly fast. The second the duel started, she began to glow red and darted forward. Luckily, Vale had been prepared. He cast <Gust> and gave the spell a hefty four points of mana. Minerva struggled against the spell, but her eyes flew wide as it bowled her over. Vale grinned. The look on her face had been intensely satisfying.

He quickly focused and grew serious. He was going to win this. He pumped four mana each into <Arm Speed>, <Leg Speed>, <Superior Aim>, <Enhanced Reflexes>, and <Explosive Strength>. Casting those spells in rapid succession with that much power would have killed him without his new Ring of the Unknown Saint. The ring’s extra two Willpower had helped a lot. Casting all the spells so quickly still felt like agony, though.

Next, Vale used his legendary [Elemental Magic: Air] skill to cast <Wind Blade> on his rapier, using four mana. He thought about using more, but too much and his sword became hard to control. He needed to have full mobility.

Minerva was already on her feet and looked pissed.

Vale barely got off his new air magic spell, <Light Footing>, for two mana before the armored woman began closing the distance again. <Light Footing> made him weigh less, helped him move faster. Minerva pulled one of her pistols as she sprinted forward and widened her eyes in surprise as Vale barely dodged the shot. The two met in a clash of steel, the fight truly joined.

Vale had fought saber fighters before. The heavy cuts could be deceptively fast. Most of Vale’s attacks with his rapier were thrusts from down low, but a saber fencer liked to deliver attacks from up high. He decided a good offense was the best defense. His weapon was poorly suited to defending, but he had the reach advantage.

Minerva still glowed red and her green eyes were wild. She was a magnificent fighter. Vale wasn’t sure what in-game skills or augments she had, but she had to be using all of her real-world skill and then some.

She was graceful, unpredictable, and deadly. Vale poured every ounce of concentration he had into the fight.

The two stomped, parried, jabbed, and riposted back and forth across the clearing. The strikes were flying so fast, even with Vale’s <Enhanced Reflexes>, he was still relying almost entirely on muscle memory to stay alive. Minerva was just that good.

His opponent was bleeding, but Vale was covered in small cuts. He didn’t know how much health he’d lost, but he figured he was getting low. He couldn’t spare the time to actually look at his stats, and it didn’t matter anyway. He would either win or he would lose. He needed to land a killing blow.

He thought he saw an opening and thrust his Rapier of Twilight at Minerva’s throat. The sword’s howling blade seemed to be right on target until Minerva’s saber came out of nowhere, the rear edge parrying Vale’s rapier aside.

Vale was suddenly wide open. Fuck.

As Minerva reversed her motion, Vale barely managed to cast <Gust> again before she could split his head open like a rotten melon. Off balance, the dangerous woman slid back across the ground. Vale snarled and cast <Wind Slash> with ten points of mana, the most he could put into one spell at his level and stats.

The flat wave of destructive magic lanced out but Minerva somehow tumbled and flipped herself up out of the way. The <Wind Slash> passed harmlessly beneath her before it hit the ground, causing an explosion of earth and utterly destroying her camp site.

She landed on her feet, graceful as a cat, and after a few running steps, delivered a powerful cut at Vale’s head.

The fight would have ended right there if Vale were most other players. Unfortunately for Minerva, he had multiple magical buffs, reacting and moving at superhuman speeds. He ducked, the military saber barely passing over his head. With his free hand, Vale caught her sword wrist.

Time seemed to slow down as he drew his arm back before thrusting with all his strength. A normal rapier could not have pierced Minerva’s breastplate, but the Rapier of Twilight was surrounded by a miniature maelstrom of cutting wind. The ensorcelled blade met fierce resistance, but Vale gritted his teeth and pushed harder. With a sickening screech, the blade penetrated the fierce woman’s armor and slammed forward up to the hilt, the blade extending out her back.

Minerva’s face flickered in intense pain and she smiled at Vale, her eyes wild. The expression was fierce, but wan. She was about to die. Vale grinned back in triumph until he felt the barrel of Minerva’s second pistol press against his temple.

There was a brief flash of pain. Everything went black for a second.

A system message popped up as Vale’s vision began to clear.

Minerva Vann vs. Vale dePardon:

Draw

Robbery. Burglary. Whatever

“Well, here’s the plan.” Vale laid out a piece of paper on the table that his team surrounded. He had a grease pen to write with. It’d been two days since Minerva had joined the group, and she was still sore about it.

“I really don’t see why you need me for zis…” began Minerva.

Brutus snapped, “Give it a rest, sister. You made the rule. You and Vale both won the duel. You set no rule for you winning, and you agreed you would join this group if he won. It was a good fight and you both won. Just deal with it.”

“More like we both lost.” Minerva crossed her arms before looking at Vale and shrugging.

Vale hid a smile. For all her grumbling, he knew the green-eyed swordswoman was secretly pleased. She had already signed a contract with Vermillion Entertainment and was preparing to move to the Rainbow Ranch. Brutus was practically doing flips about it.

The whole group had taken the last couple days to rest, refit, and prepare for the upcoming attack. This was the end of the legendary weapon quest. It looked like Vale couldn’t share the full quest with Brutus and Minerva, but they still got the portion the group was currently on.

“Okay,” said Vale, marking the paper. “Basically, this is a robbery first, then a boss fight.”

“Burglary, actually,” said Abigail.

“What?”

“It’s a burglary. We’re trying to steal something without being seen. A robbery implies force or threat of force.” Abigail shrugged.

Vale eyed her for a moment. “Yes, you’re right. But why does that matter?”

“Words have meaning, Vale dePardon,” said Minerva.

“I agree with the ladies,” said Bart with a grin.

Vale pointed at Brutus. “If you say a fucking word, I’m going to <Gust> you out the window.” Brutus wisely kept his silence.

The whole group was doing their planning in an abandoned house in an old ghost town. Vale had wanted to make sure nobody could overhear them. The fact that getting rowdy wouldn’t draw attention was an added bonus with this group.

“Ahem,” Vale cleared his throat and began drawing again. “As you know by now, the burglary portion of this quest will be the easy part. The hard part will be destroying Lord Hygon and escaping.”

“Can we run through that part again?” asked Bartholomew.

“Sure. Okay, so we know we are going to this shrine and stealing something.” Vale pointed his pen at a little box he’d drawn. “After we steal whatever it is, by my best guess, me, Bart, and Abbey will get legendary weapons. Brutus and Minerva will get something, but I’m not sure what—the quest isn’t really clear.

“Anyway, this will piss off Lord Hygon, who should be sleeping in the sea over here.” Vale pointed to the crude waves he’d drawn to represent water. “We will need to kill him in order to keep our legendary weapons. As if that is not enough of a problem, all of this is going to take place within spitting distance of Innsmouth, the capital for the new Abyssal Ones players. The area should be crawling with them.”

“Do we know much about them?” asked Abbey.

“Good question.” Vale nodded. “I’ve been doing some research, at least as much as I could do in the time we had. Most Abyssal Ones streamers are trying to be quiet, but a few players have anonymously posted some details.

“Basically, from what I can tell, Abyssal Ones get five fewer starting stat points than humans. They use more or less the same class system with different names. However, they can breathe underwater, and they have a resistance to blunt damage and fire. They also respawn in 2 days instead of a week.

“At high levels, they can get unique golden weapons that sound pretty badass. One of the Abyssal Ones players found a high-level quest with some really cool-looking quest rewards.”

“Wow, that sounds kind of terrifying,” said Bart.

“What do they look like again?” asked Abbey.

“They’re like fish men with frog features. They’re kind of ugly. They don’t blink. They’re kind of a nasty green color with light stomachs. Their hands and feet are webbed.”

“So sexy,” Abbey groused.

“Yeah, they’re like messed-up reverse mermaids,” Bartholomew chuckled. “Plus, in the original lore, they got it on with human women. Bow chicka wow wow!”

“No way! That’s gross!” Abbey slapped Bart’s shoulder.

Vale noticed how the two acted together. Seriously, when are they just going to admit they’re dating? He said, “Bart’s actually correct. Apparently, players that make an Abyssal Ones character can choose to look more human, like a hybrid, or go full-blown fish monster.”

“Yuck. I hope we don’t see any.” Abbey had her face scrunched up and stuck out her tongue.

“Well, unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen,” Vale sighed. “I don’t know if it’s because of my high Intelligence or Luck stat, but I’ve gleaned some more about the encounter from the journals we’ve found. When Lord Hygon attacks, a bunch of his children will drop out of sacks from his back. They’re basically miniature, weaker versions of him. Thing is, they’ll be ravenous and will attack anything that moves.”

“Okay, how is this a problem?” asked Bart. “Won’t they also go after any nearby Abyssal Ones?”

“Hygon Spawn are faster than a horse.”

“Oh. I see how that could be a problem.”

“Exactly,” said Vale, rubbing his forehead. “Escaping on horses is not an option. The thing is, if we go in on foot, we’re all gonna die and we might not finish the quest. If we don’t get swarmed by the Hygon Spawn or killed by Hygon himself, we’ll be overrun by the Lords of Finality and other Abyssal Ones players.”

“Indeed, I see your logic. Do you have a solution?” asked Minerva. She was still acting aloof, but Vale noticed her hand resting on her sword hilt as she studied the crude drawings.

“Actually, yes,” said Vale. He smiled and drew a cross-hatched line along the coast. “This is a railroad. It’s active, and I have the times that trains usually run on it. They go slow since it’s by the town, but it’ll be moving and it’s defensible. What I’m proposing is that we hit the shrine and time our move so we can hop on the train as it’s passing.”

“Okay, that’s well and good, but what about Lord Hygon? We need to kill the boss, right?” Abigail asked.

Vale nodded. “Yes, we also need to get away. You’re forgetting that bosses in SOO don’t despawn or stop trying to kill you unless it’s logical they do so. There is no despawn range or anything like in old games. I think once we piss off Hygon, he’ll be playing for keeps.

“Plus, he’s huge. Keeping up with a train going ten miles per hour or whatever should not be too difficult for anything that big. We’ll be able to fight him while we’re escaping.”

“There’s an assumption there,” pointed out Bart.

“Sure, but if I’m wrong, we can just jump off the train. This is the best solution I’ve got.”

Bart looked up and scratched his head. “Okay, makes sense.”

“So are we all on the same page?” The rest of the group nodded and Vale grinned. “And Brutus, you got good gear again?”

“Yes, no thanks to you.” The big man glowered, but he twitched aside his oversized trench coat to show his fancy new armor. Vale would bet the armor and weapon were both enchanted like his old gear had been.

“Minerva, you’ll be helping the group with SAN attacks and assisting with general ass kicking.” Vale grinned.

“Yes, yes, I know.” The blonde swordswoman looked bored, but Vale noticed one side of her mouth twitch.

“Now, everyone, is there anything else I should know before we start?” Vale asked.

Bartholomew raised a hand. He said, “With the reagents we found the other day in the rat tunnel, I’ve been able to make some powerful new potions and bombs, two things I’m not usually very good at. I also discovered a faster way to reload my little pistol with potions.”

“That makes no sense, but I’ll take your word for it. Anything else?” Vale asked. Nobody moved or said anything. “Okay, that’s a wrap. We’ll meet here in about ten hours, real-world time. Everyone come alert and ready to throw down.”

“Should we find an in-game place to rest before logging? You know, for the XP bonus?” asked Abbey.

“You can. It’s up to you. I’m not going to bother, since I’m expecting most of our XP will be from finishing the quest, and quest XP is not affected by bonuses.”

Abbey nodded and Vale logged out.

***

The real world returned and Trent decided he was going to get some sleep. He wanted to be at his best for the last portion of the legendary weapon quest. He hadn’t told the group, but he was nervous about the upcoming boss fight. He’d never tackled such a huge opponent in SOO before.

Trent closed his eyes to sleep and instructed his persocomp when to wake him. He had strange, troubled dreams.

In on dream, he was running from a giant squid in a parking lot. There were people on its back with guns. He couldn’t run fast enough to get away, and the bad people on the squid kept shooting his friends. In the dream, Steve said, “Stop being an idiot. I got shot, see?”

Trent woke up in a cold sweat.

***

Vale peeked over the hill, the rest of his group beside him. All of them bristled with weapons. They all had as many potions as they could cram into their internal inventories and hanging off their gear.

“Okay, everyone,” Vale said in a loud whisper. “This is it. The target is right down there across the railroad tracks.”

The shrine looked like a hideously creepy art piece made from coral and bones. It stood right at the side of the water and almost seemed to pulse with disturbing colors. The town of Innsmouth, the Abyssal Ones capital, was distressingly close. The day was overcast and dark. The sea breeze kissed the back of Vale’s neck from time to time, making his skin cold and clammy.

“God, that thing is ugly,” whispered Bart. Everyone nodded.

“The boss is going to be even worse,” said Vale.

“What does this Lord Hygon look like?” asked Minerva.

“He’s got a giant crab claw on one side, a huge tentacle on the other side, and a large tentacle on the back, too. His back tentacle has a tooth on the end.

His head looks kind of like a giant shark with too many eyes. He’ll be covered with short tentacles that have poisonous barbs on the ends. He moves on crab legs, with more pairs of legs than a real crab has. His underside has what looks like a giant penis with a second mouth on the end of it. Lots of teeth.”

Minerva grimaced, her nose crinkled in disgust. “Zat sounds disgusting. Forget I asked.”

Brutus softly chucked. “We will be seeing it soon. Prepare your SAN management skill, sister. We will need it. Otherwise, we will die.”

“That’s a good point,” said Vale. “It’s very possible we may die anyway, though. Keep everything you can’t afford to lose inside your internal inventory so it can’t be looted if you die. It’ll be great if we can all live, but our primary goal is killing the boss so we get the quest rewards and the XP. If some of us live and some of us die, whoever is alive, try to grab a dead person’s weapons if you can.

“We can’t afford to sandbag this, so we have to use our best gear. It’s going to really, really suck if we die and lose our stuff, though.”

“Yeah, it would be a shame if that were to happen to you,” said Brutus. He glowered and fingered his sword hilt. Vale ignored him.

“Okay, we ready to go? Everyone clear on what they’re supposed to do?” The whole group nodded. “Okay, good. The train is going to come by in about five minutes. As soon as we see it in the distance, we’ll go down to the shrine, I’ll grab whatever it is we’re supposed to get, and then we’ll get our happy asses on the train.

“We have a stagecoach I rented for the day waiting for us about a mile past Innsmouth. Whoever survives—hopefully all of us—just needs to hold on until then.”

“And kill all the Hygon Spawn and make sure Hygon is dead too,” Bartholomew added.

“Yeah, that too. Simple,” said Vale. He settled in to wait the last few minutes. His heart pounded, and he tried to hide how nervous he was.

He wasn’t sure how successful he was, but he tried not to worry about it. He was sure the others had their own nerves to deal with.

Legendary Weapons!

As soon as he saw the train in the distance, Vale and the rest of his group hurried forward, trying to be as sneaky and quiet as possible. Since they were crossing railroad tracks and an open area on the outskirts of the Abyssal Ones player base, Vale was cringing during the entire shuffle-run. By the time they all reached the shrine, his anxiety level was overwhelming.

He blew out a sigh of relief as he began inspecting the ugly structure. At least now they were all in some shade. It helped him feel a bit less exposed.

“What are you supposed to do?” whispered Bartholomew.

“I don’t fucking know! Leave me alone so I can figure it out!” Vale snapped. “Go guard or something.”

Bart shrugged. “Okay, but we don’t have forever before the train gets here.”

Vale just growled.

He ignored the rest of his group and walked all the way around the shrine. It was about ten feet by ten feet, and even more disturbing up close. Finally, as Vale had almost gone all the way around the knobby exterior, a small section of the structure opened like a mouth. Vale recoiled away before steadying himself, slowly peering inside.

He saw a glow and a system message appeared:

You have found the Power of the Prince!

While Lord Hygon is sleeping, you can steal this power, but he will wake up and try to get it back!

The Power of the Prince contains a dark power and a light power.

Light Power:
Adds inventory space.
Allows weapons to be stored in internal inventory.
Grants +3 attribute points

Dark Power:
Elevates one weapon to the Legendary realm, changing it permanently. This special ascension process will cause the weapon to be soul bonded to the player for all time. (weapon cannot be looted)

Do you wish to take the Power of the Prince?

Vale took a deep breath. Wow.

“Okay, guys, I found it. Are you all ready?” The entire group nodded their heads. “Alright, here we go.”

Vale chose YES.

The light left the hole in the shrine, almost like it was being breathed out. The hole closed as the light left, shutting with a snap. Vale watched as the light separated into bright and dark glowing orbs. Suddenly, five bright orbs flashed out, hitting all five group members. Three dark orbs followed, slamming into Vale, Abigail, and Bartholomew.

A number of status windows popped up. Vale glanced at them, throwing his stat points into Intelligence, Stamina, and Luck. He wanted to make sure his points were allocated right away in case he leveled later. It’d be a shame to miss out on more health or mana.

Next, he closed all the status windows except the one that required his attention.

Which weapon would you like to imbue with the Power of the Prince: Dark Power?

Vale had seen the previous window, so he wasn’t surprised that he had to choose an existing weapon to be enhanced. He realized he should have warned Abbey and Bart. Oh well, too late.

He chose the Rapier of Twilight. He smiled as he did so. He’d been through a lot with his sword. It seemed right somehow that he let it grow with him.

Your weapon has become the legendary rapier, Yarikh’s Will.
It has absorbed a shard of the god Yarikh’s essence.

Please choose attributes for Yarikh’s Will.

He whistled in surprise as a new menu appeared with attributes, each listed with a numeric cost. He had ten upgrade points for his new sword and immediately understood what he was supposed to do.

After some careful thought, he began choosing the abilities he wanted. As he chose, his eyes widened and he suddenly remembered the upcoming fight. “Hey, Abbey, Bart, don’t finalize your weapon abilities yet. Let’s all do it at the same time so nobody is rushed before the boss shows up.”

“Okay, that’s fine, but we need to hurry,” Abbey said. She pointed in the distance where some curious players were watching them. Even at such a long distance, Vale could see there was something wrong with their bodies. They had to be Abyssal Ones. Abbey continued, “It’s only a matter of time until they go get their friends.”

Vale nodded. “Okay, let’s hurry. The train is almost here, too.” Following his own advice, Vale made sure he had made the correct selections. He waited before hitting accept.

“Ready,” called Bartholomew.

“I’m ready,” said Abigail, smiling.

“Okay, get ready for anything!” called Vale. “Let’s do it!” He hit accept on his menu and the sword at his side started glowing. However, he didn’t have a chance to watch it transform. The entire ground began to shake and he felt something waking up under the distant waves.

“Go go go!” yelled Bart. Brutus and Minerva led the charge to the approaching train, vaulting up onto a flatbed car. Because they were first, Vale saw their faces as he climbed up after, their horrified expressions fixed on the sea.

Vale turned around as soon as he was on the train and almost wished he hadn’t.

Lord Hygon was emerging from the waves, and he was even more horrible than Vale could have imagined. His shark head was somehow just…wrong. The proportions were off. He had as many eyes as a spider, and a spiny crest rose above his head. Only the monster’s face had crested the waves, but he looked furious. Each of his many eyes seemed to be locked on Vale.

Then the creature roared, the sound making the ground tremble. Small plants died, growing black and wilting under the creature’s fury. Vale’s world exploded, his mind assaulted. He barely noticed his health dropping.

However, suddenly Minerva’s voice rang out as she used her [Embolden] subclass skill. “What are you all looking so weak for? Zis is nothing, you dickless cowards. Hold your heads high and prepare to fight! The best part of you was flushed down a toilet!”

Vale squeezed his eyes shut, shaking off the confusion. He knew about the [Embolden] skill, that it required a verbal component. He wondered if Minerva had needed to be so…colorful.

Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one to wonder about that. Abigail yelled, “I don’t have a dick, bitch! Yell something less stupid next time!” Vale grinned, throwing back a health potion. In SOO, health potions were expensive and they took a while to actually replenish health, but in a situation like a boss fight, they were a godsend.

“I’ll yell what I want to yell!” laughed Minerva. “Doesn’t zis make you feel alive? Now shoot that damn thing or you are not worth your estrogen, ridiculous steampunk girl!”

At this point, Vale wasn’t sure if Minerva was using her [Embolden] skill anymore. However, as long as she kept the SAN attacks from killing them all, he didn’t really care.

Abigail was apparently not as fatalistic about the matter as Vale. She shrieked and drew her huge howdah pistol, aiming it at the enormous monster rising from the ocean. Then Vale got to see his first legendary weapon in action.

Abbey somehow rattled off four shots from the two-barreled weapon. Vale’s eyebrows tried to climb into his hairline as he witnessed four small explosions pepper Lord Hygon around his eyes. The giant monster screeched in pain, the unholy sound making the surrounding waves surge. Lightning flashed in the sky and clouds began to form.

Vale’s mind seemed to go into overdrive as he quickly assessed his surroundings. He’d noticed a large crowd of Abyssal Ones players leaving their town, drawn to all the commotion. He also observed dark shapes moving under the waves near Hygon, probably his Spawn. He came to a series of quick decisions and began snapping out orders.

“Abigail, pop a few rounds in that boxcar ahead of us to create a hole. That will give us a place to duck into if we have to avoid gunfire. After that, you’re our primary damage deal on Big Ugly. Everyone else, we’ll be protecting Abbey!”

“Okay, but I can’t shoot explodey rounds forever! It costs mana!”

“That’s fine,” yelled Vale. “Just dump as much damage into that thing as you can.

“Brutus, you’re our meat shield. Protect Abbey and help your sister keep them off of us.

“Bart, your primary mission is support. Use potions to help people out where you can. Use lots of health stuff on Brutus to keep him fighting. Your secondary job is to use your bombs for area of effect attacks if things get too thick.

“Minerva, you’re our melee damage dealer! Kill anything that gets on this train, especially anything that gets within a stone’s throw of Abbey. Make sure the SAN attacks don’t make us lose our minds!”

“Got it! It’s nice to know our leader isn’t as dumb as he looks!” the swordswoman shouted.

Vale chose to believe she was using her [Embolden] skill again.

Vale hollered, “I’m going to go where I’m needed, but I’ll mostly be using magic!”

“Incoming!” shouted Abbey.

Vale glanced up in time to see a handful of disgusting, miniature versions of Hygon scuttling towards the train. The Hygon Spawn had found them.

Then everything went to hell.

Vale could hear Abigail screaming as she unloaded round after round into the approaching boss. A couple Hygon Spawn leaped aboard the flatbed car. Brutus and Minerva began making short work of the first one. The other creature landed near Bart. Vale’s heart stopped; he thought his friend was going to die.

However, Bart drew his little pistol, snarled, and fired. Vale’s eyes widened in surprise. He had assumed his friend would have made his sword cane into a legendary weapon, but Bart had had other ideas. The dark-clothed man’s pistol belched a continuous stream of fire. The glow from the flames reflected off of his spikes and all the metal in his costume, making him look hellish.

The demonic, shark-headed creature shrieked in agony, its exoskeleton charring to a crisp. The Hygon Spawn tried crawling away and eventually fell over the side of the train where it died beside the tracks.

“Wow,” breathed Vale.

Bart whooped and pumped his fist in the air. Vale smiled too until he saw the Abyssal Ones players in the distance. Some of them had flintlock rifles.

Vale raced forward past his friend and began weaving figure eights with his sword. It was time for him to show off his own legendary weapon.

The distant sound of gunfire accompanied flashes of silver near Vale, his sword deflecting the big, heavy bullets.

His transformed sword began glowing white-silver as it deflected the musket balls. Vale got his first look at his new sword while he protected his party and grinned, showing all his teeth. Yarikh’s Will still looked like a rapier, but now the guard and pommel were black. A large, silver, crescent moon with a face and small silver stars were worked into the design of the guard. Silver wire wound around a soft gray grip.

“Bad ass,” breathed Vale. He heard his group fighting behind hit but couldn’t divert his attention. Deflecting the rifle fire was taking a lot of concentration. More Abyssal Ones players were joining the distant riflemen, too. Vale started to see Lords of Finality symbols among the attacking players.

Eventually, Vale counted over one hundred players in the distance all firing at his group. Luckily, none of them were good enough marksmen to overcome Vale’s defense. He grinned savagely. The LoF members among all the Abyssal Ones players were going to make his next action very satisfying.

Vale suddenly drew his sword back and channeled ten mana through his hand into his blade. “Wind Slash!” he yelled, cutting the air horizontally. The wide crescent of angry wind magic scythed outward. The flat wave of destructive energy hit the distant Abyssal Ones and blew up the entire hill.

The attacking players were literally torn apart. Pieces of fish men scattered everywhere, up to a couple hundred yards away. Some fell among the rampaging Hygon Spawn, distracting them and causing some to turn on each other. The monsters began fighting over scraps. It was madness.

Vale grinned and turned to see what was going on behind him. He dashed back to the other side of the train car, slamming his rapier into a Spawn creature. His legendary blade found a soft point between the creature’s chitin armor plates and effortlessly slid home. The monster shrieked and shuddered.

While the Hygon Spawn was distracted, Brutus ran forward and slammed his huge sword into the roof of the creature’s mouth.

The dead monster slumped down and Brutus knocked it off the train with a mighty kick. Vale noticed the big man was growing red like his sister. His eyes were red, too, probably a sign of his legendary class.

Brutus and Vale grinned at each other in a rare moment of understanding before Brutus ran at him and slammed Vale to the ground.

“What the—?” Vale yelled right before the entire train shuddered. An enormous tentacle had just slammed into the spot where Vale had been standing.

“Holy shit!” screamed Vale.

“No time for gawking. Attack it!” growled Brutus. The man suited his words with action by jumping up and delivering a devastating two-handed cut to the tentacle.

Lord Hygon screamed, the piercing noise overtaking the sound of Minerva yelling insults at the group in accented English, constantly using her [Embolden] Skill.

The boss had finally caught up and was keeping pace with the train. The entire world seemed to be exploding around Vale. He could only sit there for a moment and take it all in. What the hell did I get myself into?

Threats

The next few minutes became a nightmare of dodging tentacles, killing Hygon Spawn, destroying the occasional NPC or player that managed to climb up onto the train, and dodging into the nearby boxcar to avoid being shot.

Vale was forced to use another max power <Wind Slash> to break up a new group of ranged Abyssal Ones players, this time almost exclusively containing LoF. He would have taken great joy in blowing them apart if he hadn’t been so stressed out, barely staying alive.

Abigail had run out of enough mana to use exploding rounds, but she was still pumping lead into Lord Hygon as fast as she could. The train was starting to travel past Innsmouth. Vale was busy staying alive, but he noticed Hygon Spawn running around and killing the thousands of panicked Abyssal Ones players. It was mass chaos.

Vale had been saving his mana. Out of his max mana pool of 100, he was down to 80 due to his two full power <Wind Slash> spells. Hygon was looking pretty beat up, but Vale wasn’t sure how much longer his group could last, either. His own stamina was getting dangerously low. Vale gritted his teeth and made a decision.

He ran out into the open screaming, “Keep them off me!” He squared his feet, but before he could do anything else, a large Hygon Spawn jumped up onto the flatbed train car. Vale tensed to fight, snarling. However, the creature hadn’t taken two steps before Brutus seemed to appear out of midair, hitting it with a flying shoulder tackle and forcing it off the train.

“If we kick them off, they become Innsmouth’s problem, not ours,” the big man chuckled evilly.

Vale grinned and got back to business. He focused, not an easy feat with so much going on, and began casting full strength <Wind Slash> spells one after another. Each wave of power slammed into Hygon, opening massive wounds in the terrifying giant. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven waves of power lanced out, hitting Hygon so hard, the enormous being was physically forced backwards.

Vale only had ten mana left. He sighed. He wasn’t sure his efforts would be enough. He noticed Lord Hygon’s disgusting penis tentacle reach out and grab a Lords of Finality player. It ripped the fish man’s head off and ate it. Vale thought it was funny, chuckling darkly. Then he got an idea.

He prepared one last <Wind Slash> with nine mana, leaving one mana in reserve to hopefully keep from passing out from -Casting Shock-. He tried to ignore what was going on around him, trusting his group to keep him alive. Suddenly, the boss monster took another step and Vale saw his chance.

He snarled and cast <Wind Slash>, his legendary rapier glittering at the end of his extended arm. Vale breathlessly watched his attack scythe through the rain. He was soaked to the skin and the growing storm’s cold wind cut right to his bones, but he ignored it all. All that mattered was the wave of destructive magic.

The <Wind Slash> passed between the giant’s legs and hit its target. It was a beautiful attack; Lord Hygon’s disgusting, toothy member was severed and fell to the ground. The huge monster screeched in agony, his body bleeding heavily from a dozen places.

A message popped up:

You have suffered -Casting Shock-. You can choose to die now,
or wait an hour before regaining consciousness.
Would you like to die, or wait?

Vale chose WAIT.

Suddenly he was in a dark room with a comfortable recliner. Vale had set this room up ages ago in case he ever passed out in the game. A number of effects could cause a player to pass out without actually dying, which started a blackout timer. Of course, he might still die in-game, but there was nothing he could do at this point.

While he was waiting, he decided not to log out. Instead, he accessed his email through his persocomp and began killing time. He was idly cleaning out his message box when he stumbled across an email that chilled his blood.

It was dated that day, sent just a few hours ago. Vale opened it and saw a picture of his family, his real-world family. An old-fashioned physical newspaper was in the frame with the date visible. The photo had been taken that day.

Someone was watching Vale—no, Trent’s family. The “from” box was blank. The threat was obvious.

The only message read,

Vale, stay in the game after your friends have left. Do not ignore this message.

He felt cold, like someone had just walked over his grave. They wouldn’t really hurt his family, would they? He didn’t even know who “they” were. Then he remembered someone shooting at him in public a few weeks before. There were people playing for keeps when there were large amounts of money involved.

Not for the first time, he felt way out of his depth. His mind raced but felt blank at the same time. He didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly another prompt appeared.

An hour has passed and you can regain consciousness.
Would you like to wake up?

Vale chose YES.

He came back into the game on a bed. He suffered a second of disorientation before Minerva’s face filled his vision. She was grinning from ear to ear. “He’s awake!” she yelled.

Vale shook his head and sat up. He closed all his alerts and windows. He didn’t have the patience nor the heart to deal with anything game-related at the moment. It could all wait.

Bartholomew burst in the room. “We did it! Vale, we did it! Hygon is dead and most of us got away! Brutus straight up carried you to the stagecoach and made it back to this inn! Dude, we won!”

Vale forced a smile. “That’s awesome!” he said.

Obviously expecting more cheer, Bartholomew gave him a suspicious look but shrugged and left the room.

Vale could hear the others celebrating outside his room. He hoped they thought he was just going through his inventory or checking his character sheet or something.

He didn’t know what to do, at least not at first. As the minutes passed, Vale turned his mind to the problem at hand and realized how negligent he’d truly been. He should have seen this coming. He’d been an idiot. He gritted his teeth and set his resolve. He knew what he had to do.

He had to give whoever was threatening him whatever they wanted. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he refused to get his mom and his little sister killed over a game. Even his stepdad didn’t deserve to be snuffed by some anonymous hired killer.

Eventually, his group members wound down from celebrating and came to visit Vale again. The next few minutes felt like a dream. Vale didn’t really feel there. His mind was elsewhere.

He did learn that Abigail hadn’t made it. She was the only member of their group to die, but Minerva had managed to pick up the corpse and bring it to the inn. That meant in a week when Abbey resurrected, or rezzed, she wouldn’t lose any of her gear or XP.

The quest had been a smashing success. Vale knew the rest of his group members expected him to act excited, and he wasn’t behaving as anticipated. In fact, he seemed to be bringing them down.

It turned out he didn’t even need to suggest they all log out; they came to that decision on their own. First Brutus, then Minerva, and finally Bartholomew all left, leaving Vale alone.

He slowly got up and walked outside. It didn’t take long before a nondescript man approached him. Vale looked at the man’s physicaldex, which read 5/10. Figures.

The man stopped next to Vale and leaned against the wall of the inn. He said, “Did you get our message?”

“How do I know you are who you say you are?”

“If you don’t comply, they will not be around anymore within ten minutes.”

Vale felt like he weighed a million pounds, even his eyeball felt heavy. His heart dropped into his stomach.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

“Give me the Monarch Stone, the Secret of the Old Ones,” the man instructed. He held out a hand.

Vale had never been so angry, scared, or ashamed in his life. It felt like his entire life had been leading up to this moment, this act of ultimate powerlessness. He was watching evil rear its ugly head and leer at him without any repercussion at all.

Vale almost asked about the World Tree but held his tongue. He numbly reached into his inventory and produced the dark, pulsing crystal. “You’ll leave them alone?”

The man looked at him levelly before saying, “If you feel that anything bad could happen soon, this thing will not happen if you hand over the crystal.” Vale realized the man was avoiding saying anything that could incriminate him. It was clever, and exactly the kind of professional behavior that made up Vale’s mind for sure.

He handed the crystal over and the man smiled. “Nice doing business with you,” he said before casually walking away. Vale watched him numbly until he was out of sight. He had no idea how they’d found him, but for all he knew, he’d been stalked for weeks.

He shook himself and felt a seed of something growing in his heart; something hot, something angry. How dare these motherfuckers threaten his mama!

The seed grew, erupting into a blazing inferno of rage and hate. Vale went back up to his room in the inn and sat down to think some more. He could go back to the real world, but with the slight time dilation, he actually had more time in SOO to get his head straight.

He thought about all his options and several courses of action until he settled on what he had to do.

He logged out of SOO.

***

Colors and strange sounds assaulted him. He felt like he could see sounds and taste color. The experience muted his growing fury.

***

Trent was back in his body, and the full force of his rage returned and then some. How dare they threaten Mama! He gnashed his teeth in anger and took action.

Trent worked via his persocomp as he left his room and headed towards the little armory by the nearby shooting range. When he’d been shooting there before, he’d realized how few rules and regulations were in place at the Rainbow Ranch. At the time, he’d been surprised, but now he was glad.

He picked up a 9mm pistol and two boxes of ammo to bring back to his room. He also sent an email to his parents and told them to take his little sister and get out of town…immediately. He sent them the reservation he’d made her at a nice hotel two cities over, paid. Included with his message was an FYI that he’d put a large sum of money in his mother’s bank account.

He had remembered he was rich-ish now.

Trent had a quick back-and-forth with a bodyguard company before signing a contract and sending a down payment to protect his family. He instructed someone to immediately go to his parents’ house and accompany them to the hotel.

By this time, he was back in his room. He quickly loaded two magazines for his pistol and put it somewhere safe he could grab quickly. He’d never been into guns, but now he was going to get good with this pistol. He swore it to himself.

Last, Trent sent an email to all his SOO group members. The next day, they were all logging in together and he was taking everyone to the World Tree. Michelle would just have to wait another week until Abigail resurrected, then he’d take her too.

He had been dragging his feet, procrastinating about the World Tree. He hadn’t been sure what to do, who he could trust. However, he’d just had his face rubbed in how stupid his issues really had been. He had to protect his family, and the best way to do that was to make as much money and be as powerful as he could—in SOO and out of it.

Nobody threatened his family and got away with it. For the first time in his life, Trent was honestly, truly enraged.

He wanted to hurt someone. Someone had to pay. If he could, he’d kill them.

Trent sat on his bed in a daze, alternating between dismay and anger. He skimmed through entertainment channels on his persocomp. He ignored stories about himself, ignored rumors about what had just happened outside Innsmouth, and he ignored a new price set on his head by the Lords of Finality.

None of it mattered.

After a few hours, he found what he was looking for. Breaking news. Someone had used the Secret of the Old Ones, the Monarch Stone, to unlock the First Things race.

The player wasn’t well known, but the name had popped up in the system menu. Miguel Veneno, either the person pulling the strings, or someone being pulled. But it was a lead.

Miguel Veneno. There were a few questions on the message boards about how this player had gotten the Monarch Stone from Vale dePardon, but they were quickly drowned by the rest of the community’s excitement. The assumption seemed to be that Miguel had bought it.

Now Trent knew the name of his enemy. He wasn’t sure how yet, but he was going to make the sonofabitch pay.

Nobody could threaten Trent’s mama and get away with it. Nobody.

Trent began planning who in his group would get what element from the World Tree. He was going to make his group the strongest, most badass force in the game by far. He was going to make tons of money. And he was going to make those fuckers pay for threatening his family!

Time for War

A few days after the boss fight with Hygon, Trent was talking to Mr. Vermillion in a simulated room. The Vermillion Entertainment CEO had set up a meeting time, and Trent obliged by Diving and joining the call. As with his old classroom programs, Tent was dressed exactly as he was physically as he reclined on his bed in Nevada.

Jacob Vermillion had found out about the threat to Trent’s family. Trent wasn’t sure what he was more surprised about, the big man apologizing for the oversight, or his offering to pick up the tab for the security company, effective immediately.

The little virtual meeting room wasn’t as lifelike as SOO, but it was close. Jacob paced his side of the table; the man’s arms were folded and he was scowling. “Like I said, Trent, I’m really sorry that any of this happened in the first place. The person who is responsible for indirect streamer welfare has been terminated. I’m not trying to point a finger, I’m just telling you this so you don’t think that my company didn’t care.”

“Yes, that’s what you sai—” began Trent.

Jacob held up a hand. “No, this is a serious matter. We may be one of the larger streaming companies, but something you may not know is that until you came along, we didn’t have any high-profile streamers. By that, I mean the top five in the world. You and your group are obviously on that level.

“My employee did not touch base with my security team about your family’s situation. I think a lot of people had just assumed it was taken care of. So as I said earlier, I want to pay for the service you’ve already hired to protect your family, and volunteer a Vermillion Entertainment asset as well.”

Deep down, Trent still felt some anger and resentment towards Vermillion Entertainment, but he had to admit that Jacob seemed sincere. From the beginning of the meeting, the big man had seemed legitimately upset. “How did you find out about all of this in the first place?” he asked.

Jacob stopped pacing and sighed. “Your mother called and told us. She called customer service and spent all day on the phone. Believe it or not, she did finally get through to me. I think she’s the first person ever to do that. Now she has my cell phone number.”

“What?” exclaimed Trent. He knew his mama could be fierce, but to think she had browbeaten an entire business? He wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or amused.

“Yes. It’s not every day that a streamer’s mother tells me directly how lax my company has been. The worst part of it was, she was right. She immediately understood what must have happened when you moved your entire family. It’s why she said she didn’t argue with you.”

Trent felt his head spin. It was the strangest sensation ever to be in his early 20s and still feel like his mom was talking to adults over his head. “So, what now?”

“Well, we obviously can’t make up for the Monarch Stone that you gave up.” Jacob looked incredibly embarrassed. “I actually had a meeting with some of my executives about this matter before meeting with you, Trent. I want you to understand that this issue has shaken my company from the top to the bottom. I want you to know how personally I take this. Not only would I be appalled as a person if anything happened to your family, but could you imagine what it would have done to my company?

“How many streamers would want to join a company that can’t even keep its employees’ families safe?”

“Okay, you have a point,” said Trent. “Wait, are you trying to say I should have contacted Vermillion? Who could I have even talked to?”

Jacob sighed. “That was one of the issues my leadership team and I have been hammering out. The short version of the changes we made is that Florinia, your asset coordinator, basically got another promotion. She’s been elevated to a level she can contact anyone in the company. If anything like this happened again, you could contact Florinia and she’d be able to take immediate action directing any appropriate resources in the company.

“This will never happen again, Trent. We’ve asked your family to live in a secure Vermillion Entertainment house as long as you’re a streamer. Your mom said she’s considering it. We’re making sure that your family won’t be otherwise inconvenienced.”

“Wow, I’m impressed,” said Trent. And he was. The fact that Jacob wasn’t trying to deny the tough spot he’d been in was actually going a long way. “What about this asshole, Miguel Veneno, though? And how did you know about the Monarch Stone?”

Jacob grinned and said, “You are still a streamer, Trent. As soon as your mom spoke to me, directly mind you, on the phone, I’ve had a number of people getting to the bottom of this entire mess. As for this Miguel person, we still don’t know who he is, which is strange, to say the least.”

“Will you keep me posted?”

“Yes, absolutely. And while I can’t make up for the Monarch Stone you gave up, I doubt you would have wanted to use it anyway.”

“Yeah, I really didn’t want to become a barrel monster with wings and tentacles and no real head anymore,” said Trent. “But I’m still furious that those rat bastards got a hold of it after threatening my family.” The old, familiar heat started rising in his chest again, but he pushed down on it. Now was not the time to let the rage rise up. There’d be time for that later.

“True, the First Things race is pretty hideous-looking. I am actually not sure how the game would even work for a human player in the body of a creature like that. But regardless, that in-game item was worth a lot of money. You lost it because our company had an oversight. I want to make it up to you.”

“What do you mean?” Trent said warily.

Jacob beamed. “As one of the larger entertainment companies in the world, we have access to information the general public doesn’t. We have a direct relationship with Yggdrasil Entertainment, and they sometimes tell us things ahead of time.

“To celebrate their one-year anniversary and the fact that several Monarch Stones have been used, Yggdrasil is launching a patch in a week.” Jacob smiled, obviously excited.

“A patch?”

“Yes. Official PVP is coming to SOO—something to do with the First Things players wanting to take over the game world. Basically, factions are being implemented.”

“Okay, but we have player-versus-player fighting, now,” Trent said. He didn’t understand where the conversation was going.

“Ah, you don’t get it!” said Jacob, practically bouncing on his toes. “There are going to be official, country-level war quests. Parties are going to be expanded from five players to six, and Yggdrasil is introducing airships.”

“Airships? Seriously?” Trent had not expected that.

“Yes, airships. What’s more, to help make up for your loss of the Monarch Stone, I’m putting you in charge of our company’s airships. We got two of them from Yggdrasil, and we’re giving them to you and the other streamer team living in your compound.”

“Wait, what?” Trent shook his head and said, “This is all a lot to—”

“Oh, but that’s not the best part,” said Jacob, grinning. “While on PVP quests or in PVP status, players will have chances for great rewards, more XP, and, most importantly, death lockout times will be an hour per day. This means you’ll only be out for seven hours if you die.”

“What do you mean?” asked Trent.

“Look, as a human character, you normally get locked out for seven days if you die, right? That will now be seven hours if you die while fighting a war. The Abyssal Ones have a lockout of two days, right? So they’ll be locked out for two hours if they die in official PVP combat.”

Trent’s jaw dropped. With respawn times of less than half a day, players all over the world would play in a completely different way.

Jacob Vermillion laughed out loud. “In addition to the ships, I have one new player in particular I would like to join your team, if you’re okay with it. I think you’re going to like him.”

Trent blinked and leaned back in his virtual chair. He had a lot to process, but from the sounds of it, his group was going to war.

After a few moments, he decided he was fine with that. If the First Things leader was involved, he’d gladly join the fight.

Nobody was allowed to threaten his mama in the real world and just get away with it.

End of Luck Stat Strategy

---Book One of Secret of the Old Ones

Please read on for a note by the author.

…And don’t forget to review this novella!

SOO Classes:

Occultist

Technician

Apothecary

Armsman

Burglar

Priest

About the Author:

Blaise Corvin served in the US Army in several roles. He has seen the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. He is a sucker for any hobby involving weapons, art, or improv.

He currently lives in Texas with a woman who somehow puts up with him, a house full of animals, and enough geeky memorabilia to start a museum.

He likes talking about himself in third person within author biographies.

It’s all very eccentric.

A brief warning: If you engage Blaise in any conversation about swords, guns, video games, Fantasy/SciFi book, or mantis shrimp (seriously), he won’t shut up for a while.

Cheers!

To Readers,

PLEASE, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW! You are wonderful and reviews are amazing for all authors, but especially indie authors like me.

This was my second published book.

story. I add content and the entire story goes through a couple revisions before before I publish.

1. My website

If you’re interested in checking out my website, the URL is http://blaise-corvin.com/. You can find news, Delvers artwork, and advanced (rough draft) chapters for what I’m working on.

I also post the rough draft of my stories on Royal Road Legends, a writing website that allow people to post stories to read for free! Royal Road has helped several well-known LitRPG authors get their start!

http://royalroadl.com/

2. My LitRPG group

I am the leader of a LitRPG group (LitRPG Society) on Royal Road Legends. This is the link: http://royalroadl.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=8049

3. These is my social media accounts you can connect with me at!

Twitter - @Blaise_Corvin

https://twitter.com/Blaise_Corvin

Facebook - Leave me a like on facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/BlaiseCorvinWriter/

LitRPG Facebook Group

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety/

4. Recommendations:

If you liked this book, you may like other LitRPG stories too! Some authors I interact with often and can recommend are:

Edward Castle (Unbound Deathlord):

https://www.amazon.com/Edward-Castle/e/B01M3YK1TR/

Luke Chmilenko (Ascend Online):

https://www.amazon.com/Luke-Chmilenko/e/B01LZ2769R/

Michael-Scott Earle (Lion’s Quest):

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Scott-Earle/e/B019QSNVA2/

5. My email

If you want to drop me a line for any reason, you can email me at:

Blaise.Corvin.Art@gmail.com

6. Until next time (and please leave a review!)

Thank you for joining me on this new adventure! I wanted to try something new with a novella, and it was a lot of fun.

:)

-BC