by Felix Craft
Copyright © 2018 by Felix Craft. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends about it, to help spread the word.
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Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Final Wish
2. Noob
3. Reset
4. The Great Wyrm Slayer
5. Deathless
6. The Tournament
7. Bandit Fight!
8. Camp Out
9. Sisters of Evenfall
10. Zane the Explorer
11. The Bandit Lair
12. A Bastard of a Brit
13. Lady Vash and the Swallows
14. Overthrowing the Overlord
15. Conflict of Interests
16. Castle Kronan
17. Lord Loki's Proposal
18. Forked Path
19. New Deal
20. Behind Her Back
21. Band of Noobs
22. Facing the Betrayal
23. Reunited and Shopping
24. Let the Tournament Begin!
25. Watch Your Back
26. Loaded Dice?
27. Welcome to the Jungle
28. The Girl With the Golden Sword
29. Game Time
30. Throwing
31. Comeback Kids
32. The Tournament Lord
33. Payback is a Bitch
About the Author
Books By Felix Craft
1
Final Wish
I limped up to the huge, sleek headquarters of Germaine Studios, clad in my secondhand, sweat-stained collared shirt and worn-out jeans with a hole revealing my bum knee, and wondered what the hell I was doing there.
Sure, Danny Germaine had been my childhood best friend. But we’d parted ways years ago and had barely talked since. Now he’d founded a huge nerd company for some game called MythRune and was uber rich and successful. Not a single girl would look his way in high school, but I bet he had them lining up for him now.
And me? You didn’t have to look long to know my story. My six-foot-and-change height and athletic stature didn’t hide that I was a washed-up high school athlete whose dreams crashed out the window and down twenty stories to splat on the sidewalk when my stupid fucking knee got banged up during the final game of senior year. College football was gone, and the scholarship with it.
My jackass parents split with me when it was clear I wasn’t going to be some big pro star. I was pretty sure that was the only reason they’d adopted me in the first place. I’d bet they’d be proud now, seeing me in front of my former friend’s big corporation, ready to beg scraps off his table. That was what I was here for, after all — why else would I be here?
But what I couldn’t figure out was why Danny — or Daniel, or Dan, who knew what he went by these days? — asked me to come. What could we possible have to discuss?
I pushed it out of my mind, steeled my nerve, then limped up the long walk to the entrance. Along the path were what looked like modern art steel sculptures, formed into strange shapes I didn’t recognize. Maybe they were letters from his game? I shook my head. Scratch the girls falling over him bit, unless they were mega-nerdy girls — Danny was definitely as much of a dweeb as before.
Inside the cool air conditioning, a cute receptionist smiled at me and waved me over, but when she looked me up and down, her smile faltered. Nothing I wasn’t used to.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m here to see Danny — er, Daniel Germaine.”
The rest of her smile slipped away. “Danny doesn’t take walk-up appointments—”
“He asked me here,” I interrupted, feeling a bit more confident knowing he still went by Danny. “So, I guess I’m not just a walk-up.”
Her look was definitely annoyed now, but she changed her tune when she saw something on the screen. “My apologies, Mr. Cunningham—”
“Just Zane,” I interrupted a second time. Manners were never my strong suit.
“Zane,” the receptionist repeated tightly. But she directed me politely to the elevator all the same. “Just use the elevator over there and take it to the top floor. Danny’s office is the only thing up there, so you can’t miss it.” She plastered on a sweet smile again. “And next time, try to be a bit earlier than fifteen minutes late. Danny is a very busy man.”
“Got it, thanks.” I swept past her without another glance. Who cares that she closed off — the longer I’d looked, the more average she’d looked anyway.
I got into the elevator and looked at the buttons. Twenty-one floors — the guy was only twenty-five, and he owned a company with twenty-one floors. Nerd company or not, that was still hella impressive. The shaft was half-glass, so I watched the world grow smaller as each floor blinked by. I guess I was getting the chance to leave my shitty life behind for a moment and see what it could have been like to have Success with a capital S.
The elevator doors opened, but I didn’t step out right away. I’d expected impressive, but all I got was a blank, brushed steel wall, rising twenty feet up and completely lacking in features. I stepped out, then looked down the hall to the left. It was short and curved around the steel wall. Just one way to go.
The only thing at the end of the hall was a small door looking like it led into an industrial freezer room. It seemed like it’d be a bitch to haul open, but when I touched the handle, a green light flashed, and the door slowly swung of its own accord. Ooookay, then. It looked like Danny had picked up a few extravagant tastes since we’d last talked.
I stepped inside and looked around. It was like walking onto the bridge of a spaceship. The ceiling and walls were ovular, melding seamlessly into each other, all made of some muted, white material. The floor was, unsurprisingly, steel — it’s like the guy had a fetish for it or something. The opposite wall was nothing but an enormous window, showing a magnificent view of the city below. A big red chair made for a starship captain sat in the center of the room, positioned behind a large wooden desk.
That’s where I found Danny.
For a moment, he didn’t seem to see me standing there, and I just stared in surprise at how he’d changed. The guy was practically a skeleton walking, his t-shirt with medieval-looking people on it hanging loosely around his arms. His red, bloodshot eyes were ringed with shadows. His hair was mussed and greasy like he hadn’t showered in a week.
And I thought I’d deteriorated.
Danny finally seemed to notice me. “Zane.” His eyebrows rose slightly as if surprised to see me, but his voice barely had any inflection.
“Hey, Danny.” I walked up to his desk but remained standing. “Long time, no see.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes like he’d just woken up. “Sorry. I must look like shit. I haven’t been sleeping well. Please, have a seat.”
I complied, and Danny rose slowly, looking like my foster grandpa did when my foster parents didn’t want to deal with him anymore and threw him in a nursing home. “Can I get you anything to drink?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
Danny lowered himself back into his fancy chair. I felt bad for making him go to the trouble, but honestly, he looked like he could use the exercise.
We sat across for each other for several long moments. Then Danny broke the awkward silence. “So, how have you—”
“Fine,” I said quickly. “Good. Doing great, actually.”
I wasn’t about to tell him I worked a shitty desk job managing helpdesk tickets at an online shoe store. Because that was doing great.
Danny’s eyebrows raised. “Good.”
The silence stretched between us, and it made me want to snap it with a joke or something light-hearted. But none of the right words came to mind. When I opened my mouth just to say something, out came, “I’m sorry.”
Danny stared.
The words surprised me, too, but I knew where they’d come from. Knew they’d been building up the entire time. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was such an asshole to you back in the day, man. I had issues.”
We hadn’t exactly just drifted apart, see. In high school, I was the big man on campus. Danny was just a shy, awkward nerd who couldn’t speak to the opposite sex without a stutter. It seemed like the law of the jungle that I should start making fun of him with the rest of my athletic “friends” who didn’t stick around after the accident with my knee. I’d alienated the one person who might have still been my friend, and the one who became richest to boot.
My old friend still didn’t react for a moment, then to my relief, he broke into a smile. “We both did. But don’t worry. I’ve forgave you a long time ago.”
I was a bit taken aback. I hadn’t exactly asked forgiveness. I had been a dick, but asking forgiveness was something you did when you like, I don’t know, slept with another chick and wanted to keep with your current girlfriend.
“I still trust you, Zane,” Danny continued. “That’s why I brought you here. Because I need you to do something for me. If that’s okay.”
So that’s was why he’d left me off the hook. He needed something, although what I could offer that he didn’t already have, I didn’t know. Still, a favor to Danny Germaine, Mr. 30 Under 30, couldn’t come without perks. I decided to play along. “Okay. What’s up?”
He stared off behind me. “I’m sick.”
I stared. Didn’t know what to say. My previous selfish thoughts seemed crude now. “How sick?”
“Really sick.” He smiled slightly, still looking off to the side. “Not going to make it sick.”
Sick. I wanted ask what it was — cancer? Or something more exotic? I wanted to know if he’d done it to himself by not keeping healthy or going outside every once in a while — he was pale as milk. But I didn’t. Even I’m not that much of a dick.
“I’m sorry, man.”
The way I said it could have been interpreted as a question as much as an empathetic comment. I wasn’t very good at emotional stuff like this. Unless I was pissed off and on a football field, anyway. And since that wasn’t a possibility anymore…
“Don’t be, not for that. If you’re going to be sorry, it should be that I created this.” He gestured around him.
I didn’t follow. Did he think I resented him? I mean, yeah, I did a little, but not enough to wish a terminal illness on the dude. “What do you mean? You always said building a game like this was your dream. And now you’ve done it, man. You’re the guy at the top of the skyscraper. You’re a bajillionaire from what I’ve heard.”
Danny smiled faintly again. “Just a billionaire.”
“Oh, is that all?” I laughed. “Pretty much splitting hairs at that point. So, what do you mean, be sorry for this?”
My old friend leaned forward over his desk, his skinny elbows making him look like some weird bent-over, half-starved albino flamingo than a guy who should have been in his prime.
“Here’s the thing, Zane. I did it too well. It’s huge, it’s a success, the most popular game and history, the most innovative and the first real implementation of VR — yeah, I know all that.”
I bit my tongue. Looks like quiet Danny had gathered a bit of an ego along the way.
“But it’s too big. Millions of people log in and spend most of their lives locked away in MythRune. And that’s not good.” His mouth twisted. “Things can get pretty… dark after too long in there. The AI gets a little … intense.”
Looks like I was there to be the dying guy’s therapist. “You think you’re responsible for other people messing up their lives? That couldn’t be further from the truth, man. They want this. You gave them something no one else could, which is why they spend bonkers bucks playing it.”
Danny stared impassively at me. “You haven’t played it, have you?”
I squirmed a bit. Sure, Danny and I had read all sorts of fantasy books, played all sorts of RPG video games, and even dabbled in Dungeons & Dragons back in the day, but it had been awhile since I’d wanted to go back to that. They were childhood fancies, ones that Danny — or Danny the Destroyer, as he wanted to be called then — had never grown out of. Still, it was uncomfortable to confess that while a large chunk of the world’s population played his game regularly, I’d never even tried it, despite us once being best friends at one point.
“No,” I finally admitted.
Danny looked far from offended. If anything, his slow nod looked satisfied. “That’s probably for the best. For what I’m about to ask you.”
Ah yes, the favor. “What is it?” I barely kept the sarcasm out of my voice.
Danny reach into a drawer of his desk, then placed an object on the table — a small flash drive, attached to a metal keychain of a hanging pair of dice. He slid it across to me.
“Is this my secret mission?” I asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm. Danny didn’t laugh.
“I need you to plug it into the servers’ mainframe.” He slid a keycard across the table beside the flash drive. “Fifteenth floor. This key will get you in. Go to a room labeled SD 21. Sit in the chair, plug that drive into the console, then start the activation sequence. You don’t have to actually enter MythRune, just start it up and power it down. That should do the trick.”
“And what is that, exactly?” I wasn’t a tech whiz or anything, but I knew whatever was on that flash drive would do some crazy shit when I plugged it in and fired things up. And when it was the creator of that world and CEO of the supporting company, I had to wonder what he needed me for.
I could think of only one good solution. “You want to shut down the game, and I’m gonna be your scapegoat.”
He gave me a wry grin. “Not quite. But the less you know, the better. You’ll be protected, I promise. I know it’s still a risk. However, since I’m a ‘bajillionaire,’ I don’t think some monetary compensation would be out of the question.”
Monetary compensation? I preferred hard numbers to soft words, but even chump change had to be good coming from a billionaire. Enough to risk the little task Danny had before me. In all honesty, what did I really have to lose?
And how could I deny the wish of a dying friend? My parting words with Danny were awkward, as was to be expected. I couldn’t exactly jockey for details about my incoming payment, because of the whole impending death thing, and I couldn’t exactly say I’d miss him, considering all the years of distance we’d let come between us. I’d let come between us.
Besides, it was a fifteen-minute job, and he told me to come back after, to get me safely out of the building and provide an alibi for me. Seemed pretty straightforward — even I couldn’t mess this up.
I took the elevator down to the fifteenth floor and began my task. Sneaking into the mainframe was easier than I thought. With the keycard Danny provided, I simply waltzed into the room. Since I could enter, everyone assumed I had permission to enter.
It didn’t take long to find room SD 21. Stopping in front of it, I learned what SD meant from a placard on the door: Sensory Deprivation Room 21.
Swiping the keycard and stepping inside, I saw it sounded more intimidating than it actually was. All it meant was padded walls, dimmed lights, and nothing in there but a chair like a dentist’s chair with what I guess was a VR rig for accessing MythRune. As I understood it, you didn’t need the full get-up to play, just a simple electrode-implanted helmet with a VR visor.
What I saw before me was much more sophisticated than that, with el
ectrodes for the hands, feet, and everywhere else in the body. Everywhere.
But I wasn’t here to bang imaginary hookers, harlots, winsome wenches or whatever the game called their ladies of the night. Just activate start-up, plug in the drive, let it finish booting, then get out. Hello, easy life!
Sitting in the chair, I clicked a button to begin activation. There was only one spot to plug in the flash drive — even I couldn’t screw that up. Next, all the electrodes clamped down on my skin, pressing firmly but not so hard as to be uncomfortable. As the helmet closed around my head, the room went dark for a moment.
A woman’s voice spoke in a soothing Australian accent. “Activation will begin momentarily. Would you like to engage physical stasis? Extensive laboratory experiments have proved the safety and efficacy of our stasis protocol. With stasis activated, you can stay in the simulated world of MythRune for up to thirty-six hours before mandatory lag sets in. Would you like to activate stasis? Please answer with a verbal command.”
“No.” Since I’d only be there a moment, there was no point
“Understood,” the AI said. “Activating stasis.”
I didn’t comprehend what that meant for a moment. Then it dawned on me. “Wait, I said no stasis.”
“Stasis begins in three seconds. Please enjoy your stay in MythRune.”
My heart raced. I fought to get out of the chair, but I was stuck. “Wait — stop!”
All went silent, dark, and still.
2
Noob