Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  Mastermind

  Titan Online

  Steven Kelliher

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Memories

  2. Last Start

  3. Origin Story

  4. War Town

  5. The Butler

  6. Power

  7. Influence

  8. The Crow

  9. Fetch Quest

  10. Limbo

  11. The Smith

  12. Prep Time

  13. Happy Hunting

  14. Hideous Piteous

  15. Wake Up Call

  16. Rendezvous

  17. Fight or Flight

  18. Rock Bottom

  19. Square None

  20. Favors

  21. Rivals

  22. Allies

  23. Taking the Lead

  24. Bait

  25. God’s Folly

  26. If It Bleeds

  27. Beginnings

  Afterword

  More LitRPG from Portal Books

  About the Author

  Join the Group

  Foreword

  Thanks for checking out Mastermind: Titan Online #1

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  www.portal-books.com

  One

  Memories

  You’ll learn my real name, but it doesn’t matter. The name you’ll know me by is Despot, and I’m going to tell you a tale of heroes, and why you should always kill yours.

  Everyone thought the superhero craze would end.

  They thought it was a fad, one that burned bright and hot, but one that would fizzle out, given enough time. There were only so many stories to tell, after all. Only so many times you could see the cape-wearing heroes taking down the dastardly villains. There were only so many ways to stage epic, superpowered battles on the big screen, on the colored page and in every entertainment medium you could think of.

  All but one.

  As the developers of Titan Online learned early on in their public launch window, the one thing consumers loved more than watching people with power was being them.

  I won’t say people don’t read comic books these days. They do. I won’t say they don’t go to the movies. Everyone could use a night out every now and again.

  But ever since the advent of VR technology – correction, ever since the advent of good VR technology – a night in never sounded so good.

  Why watch stories with known beginnings, middles and endings when you could watch them play out live, like your favorite sporting events? That was what drew most people to Titan Online, as spectators. But for me and the rest of the players, it wasn’t about watching stories. It was about living them out.

  We are the heroes now. We are the stories.

  Or at least we were.

  I’d been playing Titan Online for a while. Three years, to be precise. I’d even managed to go pretty far. But that all came crashing down in one day.

  The day I died.

  I once had a character called Streak. He was my greatest gaming creation. A speedster with a purple suit replete with white lightning bolts and a penchant for heroic feats. Playing as him, I hadn’t wooed the masses to the same degree as the biggest names in Titan, but that crisis event would have been my shot at entering the big leagues.

  While some crisis events occurred organically in Titan Online – the result of player actions triggering the AI – many were planned in advance, promoted both in the industry and outside of it to attract the largest number of concurrent players and viewers possible.

  This had been the latter.

  The premise of the event had been an Ythilian Invasion. The other heroes did their part, battling AI-controlled alien henchmen who fired their lasers from the tops of awkward metal walkers, saving NPC pedestrians – had to gain those Fame points. And all the while, villain players stepped in to complicate things, choosing to exacerbate the chaos and dog their hero nemesis to stack Rivalry points on top of crisis event multipliers to gain great swaths of Infamy.

  Players are competitive, but Titan Online is designed to be symbiotic. Winning an encounter with a rival grants you more XP than losing, but losing to a rival is still better than defeating someone you’ve never faced before.

  That is, unless they are the star – the inciting incident, as it were – of the whole storyline to begin with.

  Crisis events, you see, had long ago blown past all other events in all other VR modules. They represented the best in shared world storytelling, with the added chaos factor of live play and competition that still drove the Super Bowl to new ratings heights year after year, despite or even because of the rising tide of eSports on the market.

  As Streak, I hadn’t teamed up with a heroes’ guild, nor taken on an apprentice like most tier twos did to get a little added notoriety. I’d taken the traditional RPG grinder route: defeating villain after villain on my own. Never killing, of course. If a hero kills outright, they incur a major XP penalty and Tier down.

  Just in case you were wondering, villains are also hesitant to kill. No direct XP penalties for them – they are villains, after all – but any XP earned during an encounter is wiped if you end it with a kill rather than the softer ‘knockout’ system. And then there was the small matter of putting yourself on the radars of every other villain in Titan. Kill a fellow evil-doer, and who’s to say you won’t kill again? Villains like that never last long.

  But that is neither here nor there.

  In short, at the time of the Ythilian Invasion, Streak was just about the least-known tier-two hero in the game. I knew that would change if I could take out Deadlock, the most notorious villain in the world. So when I reached the center of the event and saw Deadlock scaling the mountain of rubble with a storm of broken gravity and floating debris all around him, I decided to do what speedsters do best.

  I decided to make a run at it.

  I couldn’t run at the speed of light – nobody could, really – but I could muster one Sound Blitz before needing to recharge. The move took all my energy but brought the multiplier on my agility to silly heights. Combine that with my whopping 90/100 base agility stat and a physics engine that took momentum into account when dealing damage and I was a force to be reckoned with. I wasn’t the most durable character, but Sound Blitz also amplified my existing brawn and armor, doubling both.

  All considered, Sound Blitz shot my damage beyond tier one status, where my usual punches barely rose above tier four. Speedsters were powerful, but only when used sparingly; only when aimed in a specific direction and given the green light, and especially when matched up with a specific enemy type.

  And I had Deadlock in my sights.

  Rumor had it he was set to retire from Titan Online after this event. He had recently been sponsored in the real world by FireTech, a rival cyberpunk VR module that was just entering its second year out of beta. Most assumed Deadlock would tangle with Leviathan one last time, and then be on his way. But as luck would have it, I happened upon the scene first.

  Deadlock, the most powerful villain in Titan Online, had a power set that made him an ideal match-up for Leviathan, the most powerful hero… who we’ll get to in greater detail a bit later on. Where that yellow-haired, white-smiled, cape-wearing asshat had near limitless offensive capabilities, Deadlock was a master
of defense. More specifically, he was blessed with Ultimate Anticipation, which allowed him to see an image of his opponent’s next move a full second before they made it.

  Of course, just because he wasn’t as strong as Leviathan didn’t mean the goggle-wearing weirdo didn’t pack a serious punch. His brawn was up there, and his agility deceptive. But that precognition was where he made his living.

  Leviathan was fast, but he wasn’t as fast as me. Other speedsters were strong, but at that time, I was likely one of the only ones who had a Sound Blitz capable of taking down a tier one armor rating.

  And Deadlock didn’t know I was coming.

  What’s that old saying about skill and opportunity? Well, suffice to say I was feeling lucky that day. Lucky enough to take down the most famous villain in the world, and before his rival could do it.

  The city was besieged. Ythilian crafts choked the skies, and alien ray guns lit the bellies of the clouds with an array of colors so dizzying it threatened seizures. The Ythilian general had landed his craft on top of a skyscraper on the outskirts of Titan City’s downtown core. Through some sort of alien tech or wizardry, the general’s ship had begun pulling up debris from the surrounding area, drawing everything from cars and telephone poles into orbit around it.

  The war for Titan City was centered around a leaning tower of rubble, with a chaotic storm of ships, fighters, heroes and villains duking it out outside of the tower’s nest.

  I marked a mental pathway to the top of the leaning tower, which was perched atop a mountain of broken concrete, noting the positions of the NPC alien gunners, most of whom were embroiled in their own battles with various heroes and villains. There were team-ups galore, with rivals putting aside their differences for the sake of the black viewer bots that trolled the skies, hovering on the outskirts of every sellable, exciting exchange and patching a live feed to millions of spectators around the globe.

  There were none around me, because I hadn’t yet done anything of note. I waved at one, prompting the operator to take notice. I drew him in with my index finger and nodded toward the top of the busted concrete mountain, ignoring the shock and sizzle of a laser that sank into the stone behind my heel. The drone responded with a series of rapid red blinks and then looked up in the direction I’d pointed. It was almost comical, like something out of a 1960s sci-fi film.

  “Do try to keep up,” I said in my most likably cocky tone.

  With that, I put the jets on. Not a Sound Blitz, mind you, but I ramped my movement speed up to its natural max and took off toward the top. I heard the monitor close behind, locking onto my code for an auto track. That was good. Auto-tracked players tended to show up in the highlights packages, and highlights packages – it was generally assumed – resulted in the AI granting exceptional XP bonuses.

  Tier one, Titan-level threat index, here I come.

  If only I’d known what was waiting for me.

  I blasted through the first alien gunner that rose out of its artificial cave to impede me, punching right through its hard-scaled head. My stats came up like a ghostly image before me, letting me know I’d just taken a 12% HP hit for my efforts.

  Right. No more punching the things, then.

  Instead, I decided to opt for a different approach.

  The top third of the mountain was swarming with the things, but there were plenty of tunnels scattered throughout; buried hallways and elevator shafts the devs had constructed for any players brave enough – and modest enough – to duck away from the viewers long enough to hunt down whatever lay at the end of them. Alien tech, most likely. Guns and the like.

  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw Deadlock enter the shaft halfway up. I’m also quite sure I was the only one willing to take him on.

  You see, with Deadlock rumored to be retiring soon, it had other players anxious. A player mulling retirement was a dangerous one to cross. Especially a retiring villain. Nothing to lose. Might want to go out with a bang. A permadeath sort of bang. What better time to do it than during a crisis event?

  I ducked into the first decently long hall I could find, zipped to the end, and found myself at a cross section, with one staircase going up and the other down. I say ‘staircase’ only in the videogame sense of the word, where rubble manages to fall in perfect, platformesque patterns.

  I chose up. I kept expecting NPCs or maybe other villains to mess it all up for me. Either knock me out by reducing my HP to 10% or below, or at least delay me long enough to make the whole project futile.

  There was nothing. Nothing and no one.

  I raced toward the top of the tunnel of jagged, dusty concrete toward a green glow. When I reached its source, Deadlock was waiting like some scripted boss.

  “Getting a late-game tutorial?”

  I inflected my voice with all the wit and charm I lacked in the real world. No matter what they said, viewers ate up bravado.

  And then the familiar notifications flared up.

  Encounter Imminent

  Deadlock

  Tier 1 Villain

  Threat Index: Titan

  Deadlock simply stared at me. He didn’t look shocked or scared, merely bored, if a little surprised. His skin was jet black, and his eyes were demon red, laser orbs set into silver-rimmed sockets. He was bald, and largely naked, though he was formless in all the ways that might earn him an R rating. He was large and muscular, though not quite as much as Leviathan.

  “Who’re you?”

  “Name’s Streak,” I said, leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

  His eyes flashed in a way that reminded me of the viewer bot. “Tier two hero,” he said slowly.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Not for long, though.”

  He didn’t react to that.

  The chamber was relatively cramped, with a low ceiling littered with sparking wires for effect. Behind Deadlock, a smashed-up control panel with many-colored lights was probably meant to signify the main computer of the crashed alien craft nesting conveniently at the crown of the rubble mountain.

  I craned my head to peer behind him. “That the McGuffin of the event?” I asked. “What’s it do? Destroy the planet?”

  “Lends the planet the power to destroy itself,” he said without inflection. I used to think the monotone was an act when I saw Deadlock in the highlights packages – just a part of his cold, calculating character. As I spoke to him then, I felt my own mind begin to wander. Maybe he really was utterly disinterested.

  “Some sort of alien nuke… thingy?” I asked, conscious of the soft whirring of the viewer bot in the hall behind me, taking in our standoff. Taking in my every witty reply and riposte.

  “Information is more powerful than any nuke could be,” he said. “I doubt even the game devs know what the AI’s been up to.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked, not really caring.

  “It wants to upset the balance. It wants to take down old faces. It wants the villains to win for once, and the heroes to lose.”

  I glanced back at the viewer bot, imagining spectators’ reactions to that bit of teasing mystery.

  Deadlock looked melancholy. “Listen,” he said, “you shouldn’t be here. You’re unlikely to survive an encounter with me. Or him.”

  “Who? Good ol’ Levi? He’s a hero, remember?”

  A hero I was dead set on impressing. If I could defeat Deadlock before Leviathan made one of his fashionably-late arrivals to the scene, then surely the tier one heroes of Gallant Tower would admit me into their midst, both in-game and out.

  At the time, I admired Leviathan. Greatly so. I spoke of him with adoration in my tone, and perhaps the odd note of envy.

  Deadlock opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.

  “Listen, Lockjaw,” I said, “I know you’re a tier one villain. The tier one villain, as far as most are concerned. And I know I’ve never really made a splash before. But, you see, I’m a speedster—”

  “Could tell by the costume.”

  “See?”
I said. “You do have a sense of humor.” I took a step back rather than forward, bent into an exaggerated stretch. “Run all the calculations you want, bud. I’m a bad match-up for you. We both know it.”

  Those red lenses got ever so slightly larger.

  “Yup.” I jabbed a thumb at my purple chest. “Tier two hero. Tier one Blitz. And I’m willing to bet you can’t Anticipate that.”

  “Try me.”

  It was a bluff. I knew it was a bluff, but damn it if it wasn’t a good one.

  “You should leave.”

  “Enough with that,” I said. “Everyone loses, Deadlock. You’ve done it plenty of times. Don’t worry. I’m just going to knock you around a little. Save the world. That whole bit. What’s it matter if I’m the one to do it this time instead of ol’ Levi?”

  “Because this is going to be our last meeting,” he said. “Leviathan and I. He’ll likely rip the top off this tower any minute now. I’ll fight him. I’ll do well, but ultimately, I’ll lose, as I always do. That’s what the fans want, after all. They want a tier one ending for a tier one rivalry. Not some tier two hack making a name for himself.”

  I didn’t know whether he was joking or not. Crisis events weren’t scripted. At least, the player encounters within them weren’t. Even now, I don’t know what Deadlock meant by it. Maybe he really had just grown tired of the game. Tired of being second best – a position most would kill for.