He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking about what I want to do with it. How I want to rule. Emperor, president, dictator, warlord… evil god, benevolent god. I know, I can see it on your face. I know, but I have… I have so much I want to do with it. So many places to expand, so many ways to make it better. And it’s going to be better. The best. It’s going to be the absolute best genre world anybody’s ever seen. People will come here and not want to leave, that’s how good it’s going to be. But for that to happen, I need another promise.”
“Oh yeah? Is this going to involve stabbing me in the back again?”
“Of course not! I just need… you got to promise… not to talk about the replication order.”
“Ah.”
“Look… this place is hundreds of miles away from civilization… Prestige paid people really well to vacate their podunk little shitholes. They aren’t going to have a problem for months, at least. For now, it gives me a bigger sandbox to play with.”
She couldn’t deny the logic of it. “The rollout is going to involve a server amplification and computing power hundreds of times what it is now. But… it’ll get out of control.”
“If Prestige figures it out, fine. If they shut it down, okay. But it can’t be now, and it can’t come from you. Please.”
She knew that ‘please’ was laced with a typical Brian Morecock threat: do it or I will bend the entire world to destroy you. And now that she was a plain old PC, with no more Prestige admin powers or invulnerability, he could theoretically do anything he wanted with any of the powers he’d sucked into the Transmogrifier. Trap her character in a crystal forever, transform her into a thing made entirely of ears, banish her to a hole with meal delivery service and nothing else. Could he really kill her? She doubted it. Could he make it impossible for her to talk? Almost certainly.
“Come on, let’s have a beer,” she said.
“This place can do so much better than beer… this is one of the first changes to be made.”
They headed into the tavern, and toward the destiny of the Douchemage.
***
A shadowy figure removed his tenebrous fedora and inky overcoat, then loosened his dark tie. The fedora and overcoat went on the coat rack beside the heavy wooden door, which glitched out for a moment, revealing a flat steel door. His charcoal, pin striped suit coat followed. He grinned at the assembled people, three of whom were women and the other three men, and began to circle their table. That grin scrunched up a thoroughly freckled face and fiery soul patch, and highlighted his absolutely perfect teeth. They too fizzled into crooked, nicotine stained versions of themselves for a moment before they resolved into sparkling chips of ivory.
“Well damn, that went far better than I ever expected it would. The replication order! Holy shitballs, am I right?”
None of the six around the circular table spoke.
“I mean, when I found that guy and got him a job at Musky’s office, I knew he liked going overboard in those RPG games he was playing in VR, but boy did he ever exceed expectations. He went from a loophole-finding minmax queen to a veritable god of disruption. Hot damn!”
“Yes, it only took you nearly two years to cultivate this asset,” one of the six said.
The figure’s smile faltered a bit, but he pepped back up. “Every other plan failed. This may have taken two years, but I’m working at a hundred percent success rate, and the rest? Well, I don’t want to humiliate everyone.”
“We’ve spotted some beginnings of nanotechnology springing up outside of the game environments,” another one of the six said. “It was enough when we saw their processing power spike and then the game falter… but now we have rogue nanites.”
The figure shrugged. “Sounds perfect to me,” he said. “Why?”
“We can’t reign over a smoking crater,” one of them replied.
“Don’t worry,” the figure said, and flashed his gleaming teeth again. The upper half of his head grew out of control for a moment, swelled up like an enormous balloon and what had been a pair of wrinkles running across his forehead swelled to grotesque proportions, like wicked scars, before the game skin dissolved, and reasserted itself. For a brief moment, his clothes disappeared, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Of the six at the table, their hands were sometimes replaced by fuzzy spidery pedipalps, or translucent skin with bones and muscles showing through, or at times they were made of pure crystal. Each time, the glitchy analog snow fuzz Brian would have recognized immediately took over, before the previous skins came back into being. And underneath those game skins was the stuff of nightmares.
“The time is coming,” the grinning figure said. “The rollout of Prestige’s new software version is going to fail spectacularly.”
WIENER- Winners Investing Extra Niblets End up Rewarded
So here’s our first contest idea! You could win a paperback copy of Douchemage signed by Nolan (real author extraordinaire) and Damien Hanson (possibly fictitious person).
How, you ask?
Before November 26th, 2020, tag Damien or Nolan in a post involving one of the following:
● Convert a part of this novel into a hypothetical book title by noted Amazon phenomenon Chuck Tingle. Go butt-pounding nuts.
● Make up your Glitchworld character, complete with some fun backstory or a cool concept sketch. Post all over social media.
● Film you and your friends playing a game of Glitchworld and throw that shit on social media for the whole world to laugh along with.
● Fanfic some new awesome content (or raunchy ass fanfic content, we’re not picky) on Wattpad or some other fanfic site and link us.
After Thanksgiving 2020, it’s just for kicks. We’ll announce the winner(s) on Damien’s terrible author page on Facebook.
ORGASM: Organizational Readers Guidance Assistant for System Mastery
Glitchworld System: Glitchworld’s nascent RPG ruleset is a Forged in the Dark system, and is freely available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. (Head to forgedinthedark.com for details).
Note: A complete system for playing this game with your friends is on its way. Please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/955400514833183/ for details.
Die Roll Mechanic:
1-5: failure (rolling a 1 gives a Plot Point)
6-8: Success with Complication (partial success)
9-10: Full success
Multiple 10’s: Critical success
Effect: What does a success mean? When a PC is damaged or at a disadvantage, it can be the difference between punching out an enemy and only getting in a decent hit, which will require another success to accomplish.
● Lesser effect
● Standard effect
● Increased effect
Harm:
Level 1: (decreased effect) minor annoyances
Level 2: (-1d all rolls) gunshot, laceration, minor impalement, etc. Serious stuff.
Level 3: (require teammate to assist you doing basically anything) any crippling wound
Level 4: near death. No actions possible. Medical assistance necessary immediately.
Important Acronyms
● ANAL (Access Network Administrative Lookup): employee portal for finding park guests and their information, usually for security purposes
● ASSHOLE (Afterlife Satisfaction Survey Hortatory Oversight Leisure Examination): survey of game experience before respawn
● AR (Augmented Reality): dressing up game blocks in a digital overlay, presented on the user’s goggles or injected nanite display.
● BOOBS (Biosphere Orbital Observation Broadcast System): a holographic map device
● BRA (Basic Resistance Amplifier): satellite cloaking device
● CLIT (Core Lithium Internal energy Terminal):The battery/processor of the NPC
● DICK (Disintegration Induction Chain Katana): Specialized weapon from the gameworld
● DILDOS (Drone Interpark Luncheon Delivery Operation System): servi
ce by which players in roving game areas receive food
● LUBE (Legality User Browsing Encyclopedia): User’s manual, can be brought up directly in the HUD
● ORGIES (Official Reviewers Guild Investigation and Execution Service): Troubleshooting committee meeting place and group of people devoted to the task
● PENIS (Prestige Electric Non-polluting Iridescent Skiff): Prestige employee conveyance
● PISS (Priority Intra-office Shuttle Service): The Wonka-vator at Prestige, used by higher ups and by those lower echelon employees during emergencies
● PRESTIGE (Pradthala Resorts Exclusive Story-based Totally Immersive Gaming Experience): One of the richest and most successful gaming companies in the world.
● RPG (Randomized Prestige Gameworld): the flagship PRESTIGE theme park.
● TITS (Totally Immersive Tutorial System): a brief, in-game tutorial session assisted by a Prestige employee.
Cast of Characters
The game system presented here is a fun one that we actually playtested during writing. Feel free to get game rules by checking out my website https://damienhansonbooks.com/
The following character sheets and monsters are available to you to use freely for your game sessions– have fun and remember to use the acronyms!
AUTHORS’ NOTE
It was a lot of fun to write DoucheMage and we hope that you all enjoyed it. It took a lot of time and effort though, especially since Nolan kept filling the book up with pictures of his pimpled dick. And our gardener, Jesus. I hope you enjoyed what we made here and if you did, please leave a review for our book on Amazon.com here. Reviews let people know what you liked about it and they tell Amazon that the product is worth showing to other people so that they also can get a kick out of the book. It also tells us pretty directly if this is something we should keep writing. It takes a lot of time to make these books and we really want to keep people entertained– low review rates tells us to move on and write something different. It’s about getting the most lulz and your reviews tell us how many lulz we have gotten! Thanks for reading our book and we hope to see a lot more of you in the future!
Bored? Looking for more?
For more releases from me just go to my shoddy website https://www.damienhansonbooks.com and send me your e-mail so I can tell you when the next one is coming out. Or check out my Facebook at Damien Lee Hanson https://www.facebook.com/worldofgimmok/ or my Amazon Author Page at https://bit.ly/DamienLHanson.
If you want to know more about Nolan Locke, who is definitely a person, please contact [email protected].
If you would like to learn more about GameLit / LitRPG please consider joining these groups.
LitRPG Reads @ https://www.facebook.com/litrpgreads or @ https://litrpgreads.com/
LitRPG Books @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPG.books/
LitRPG Forum @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/litrpgforum/
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If you are after more general fantasy books be sure to check out our friends at Fantasy Book Club @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/952373108172759/?fref=nf
For other Forged in The Dark content, check out harvestmenpodcast.com
To learn more about LitRPG, talk to authors including myself, and just have an awesome time, please join the LitRPG Group.
Coming soon in the Glitchworld Universe ...
Prelude
Addie couldn’t stop shaking her head. How could this have happened? One minute she was head deep in Dick, his warm beer belly floofing about the edges of her face. The next minute Dick was withdrawing, limp with exhaustion and fear as the feds led them off to wherever it was that unmarked vans took people like them. He looked small and sad, even wrinkly as he shrank into himself. He was clearly spent.
It wasn’t something that the bright young gamer girl from Texas had ever planned on happening. She wasn’t even quite sure what was happening. Only that it had happened too fast, and that it might be the last time she ever got to taste Dick on her lips. She broke from the grip of the officers about her and gave Dick one last peck on his sweaty head. That had been months ago.
Life had been lonely without Dick, but she’d found comfort in Punani.
Yet now even her cellmate was gone from her, Punani being left behind in a cell as Addie was led down the dreaded concrete hallway of a dozen bare-bulbed lights. And all she could think to do was hug herself and cry.
They led her to a door at the very end, and gestured her forward with a sweep of her muscular arms. She touched the knob timidly, considered them both with furtive glances, and then pulled the door open, peeking within.
It was a nicely furnished study, with a bookshelf in one corner and a fireplace at its end. Flames crackled and logs popped, two well-cushioned smoking chairs sat nearby. One of them was occupied by a round, dark-skinned, mustachioed man. He sneered and looked her up and down, then tapped something into his electronic pad.
“Sit down or stand. It makes no difference to me,” he said, waving lazily at the chair opposite him. She stepped forward and the door closed behind her.
She nodded warily, unsteady and alone, and shuffled over to the waiting chair, letting herself sink into its cushions.
“Wha-what’s going on?” she asked him. Her voice was a timid whisper and the fat man laughed, his guys burning into her with some vicious secret.
“You are Addie Adderall, yes? My name is Sanjay and I work for Prestige Gaming.”
He paused and waited, letting the strength of the name wash over her. Her jaw opened and dropped in surprise, a twinkling of understanding rising in her eyes.
“Dungeonworld!” she exclaimed. He watched her face closely. Sometimes people blanched with fear, other times with confused excitement. But Addie Rose Killborne simply reacted with surprise.
“Why me?” Addie asked. She examined her thin body in its orange prison jump suit. Sanjay followed suit.
“Ah, yes, you’ll need to start with a physical training regimen before we put you in the game arena. But, Addie, you were number two at the Dallas VR finals and that wasn’t a fluke. We have gone over your videos. You have talent. You know how to build your characters and exploit the system.”
She dismissed him with a shy wave and gave a small smile.
“What is the deal? Do I get paid? Can I come with Dick and Punani? What goes on behind the scene at Dungeonworld? I’ve watched every episode– even the Total Party Kill ones.”
Sanjay smiled. He had her. He had all of them that he talked to. Dungeonworld practically sold itself. Especially since no one ever read the fine print.
Chapter 1
Addison Rose Killborne hadn’t seen a friendly face in months. It had been all arresting officers, a shitty court-appointed attorney who hadn’t even known where her file or the charging documents were, the surly judge, the suspicious and dour jurors (super screw those assholes), and then there were the processing officers, the prison guards, and finally the fellow inmates. She had had just stellar interactions with all of them, if stellar really meant godawful. She’d been elbowed out of the way in cafeteria lines, she’d been tripped on her way up and down the stairs, she’d been shoved into a set of bleachers in the yard, jammed against a wall in the bathroom…
Addie jammed her eyes closed, shook her head to clear all the assholes out, got out of bed, then stretched her battered body. Above her, her cellmate watched impassively while she cracked her neck and massaged out a few of the worst bruises.
“Killborne!”
She turned to find her probation officer behind one of the security guards. She sneered.
“Go to hell.”
“Get that keister out here,” the guard said.
She sighed, painfully struggled into one of her prison issue I’m a Dungeonworlder!™ t-shirts, and exi
ted the cell. The guard prodded her in the back (right in one of the nasty bruises) and fell into step behind her, while her probation officer kept to her right. She kept up a steady stream of bored legalese, explaining things Addie had already heard a number of times before. Blah blah blah recording blah blah blah sentence commutation blah blah blah conjugal visits blah–
Wait. “Did you say conjugal visits?”
The dumpy woman smirked, which folded all her wrinkles into greasy canyons. Her beady eyes nearly disappeared.
They took her to a small, windowless room with a plain stainless steel table and a pair of chairs that absolutely screeched like a toddler with a scratch any time you started to move it. In the corner a monitor showed a split screen of two Dungeonworld gladiators moving through the game environment, circling each other and trying to find one of the loot boxes with some good enough weapons to murder one another. They also had to dodge tons of zombies all trying to rip their throats out. Addie knew this map, and the player on top was definitely headed in the wrong direction.
“–listening to me?” the probation officer asked, then glanced at the monitor. “Again?”
“I’m listening. I’m here.”
The woman, her name was Norma, put the file down on the table and spread her hands over it like it was a magic scroll or something that actually mattered. No… she chastised herself. I have to take this seriously.
On the monitor, the bottom player had gotten a special weapon, and transformed the zombies into platypi. One by one he blasted them, from violently torn off arm and half the jaw hanging off to adorable furry ducky creature.
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