Mage

by L. J. Swallow

  FRINGE REALMS: MAGE

  L J Swallow

  Copyright © 2019 by L J Swallow

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Is Eleanor a player trapped in the Fringe Realms or is she a character created to live inside the game?

  Ready Player One meets Westworld in this new sci-fi fantasy series.

  Eleanor Walker wakes in a forest with vague memories of her life, no possessions, and a silver band strapped to her wrist. She’s not sure what's strangest about the next event—meeting spiders bigger than a human, or the fire that shoots from her hands.

  She steps further into the dark and comes across three guys who are part of this unfamiliar new world. Jay the cleric with muscles worthy of a warrior, Dean the smart-mouthed assassin, and her real-life friend Aidan—who can now transform into something terrifying.

  All four are convinced they’re stuck in a game and their combined powers create a team as strong as the characters they once played online. The group journey through their new world filled with hazardous quests and rewards, where working and levelling up together brings the four closer. Now they need to figure out how to reach the end game and escape.

  Everything changes when they discover somebody hidden inside the game. Ethan has dangerous secrets to share and information that threatens Eleanor and her companions' future.

  Why is Eleanor in the game and what will she find when she reaches the fringes of her new world?

  Fringe Realms: Mage is a slow burn reverse harem for fans of dystopian science fiction and fantasy. The book contains gamelit/LitRPG elements.

  Please note: This is not a 'pure' LitRPG novel but contains a levelling system, stats, and a character whose journey is tied to her character abilities and progress in-game.

  This book is written in British English.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Other Books By LJ Swallow

  Books by Lisa Swallow

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I push my way onto the bus, desperate to get home and logout of this crappy world. I have a thirty-minute commute to endure, and then I’m able to login to the imaginary online world I’d prefer to live in.

  In the Game, I have the best gear, awesome achievements, and I’m maximum level. In this world? No way. If somebody labelled me with roleplaying game statistics in real life, this is how mine would read:

  Eleanor Walker

  Drudge

  Level 1

  Life leached by damage inflicted by the Faceless.

  Health: 1

  Wisdom: 1

  And I’m headed towards zero.

  I sit and wipe away the condensation from the bus window, then rest my forehead against the glass. The cool against my skin contrasts the stifling heat from the bodies crammed around me. As the bus crawls along the city streets, the start-stop movement lulls me away from another mind-numbing day as an "office maintenance technician."

  Impressive job title for an unimpressive role: I clean.

  The bathrooms. The offices and the endless carpet stretching along corridors lined by metal doors. I dust the plants, which are as fake as the smiles from the people who work here. Every level in the building, every rented floor, looks the same inside and out. Branding adorning the walls sets the companies apart, but to me they're all the Faceless. Clones dressed in suits.

  Losing hours to my online game world keeps me sane in the less-appealing real world. When I’m my online character, gold flows readily into my skilful pockets, and the day ends with a sense of progression and accomplishment. I can smack the hell out of any monster who so much as looks at me the wrong way. Taking daily frustrations out in an online fantasy world beats getting criminal charges for ramming my mop up the nether regions of the Faceless. The ones who push past me, sometimes with a sly grope of the Drudge in their way.

  When working later shifts, I pass the time studying game theorycrafting sites, as I juggle my phone in one hand and vacuum cleaner in the other. I grind through life for meagre rewards, where levelling up won't happen anytime soon. In the game, I’m at the top.

  The fact life isn't a demo version hit me recently—my long-term partner hightailed it from my life with some chick he met online. He took the essentials with him—our TV, fridge, sofa, almost everything. If I hadn't been in the bed with my laptop, I bet he would've taken both of them, too.

  Everything I have was stolen by the arsehole and his pug-faced new girlfriend. So now I'm back in life's starting area.

  The bus lurches to a halt, and the population swells, new passengers adding extra flavour to the mingling body odour and perfumes. I switch off my surroundings and turn on my phone. Scrolling through the Game app with my thumb, I click onto the Trading House to check my commodity sales. It's ironic that I corner the Game economy's ore market, when in reality I clean a mining company's urinals for pittance.

  My phone sounds and I click away from my in-game business dealings and onto my messages.

 

  Aidan. Guild mate from the game. Plays an assassin but has never stabbed anybody in the back in real life. He insists on interfering with my self-absorbed brooding.

 

 

  Because if I had, you'd arrange a different night to lure me from the shitty, one-room apartment I now live in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I grit my teeth, but Aidan waited for me at the coffee shop and he didn't need to. Guilt takes over, even if he did just call me woman.

 

  I stare at the screen and, after a few seconds with no response, switch the phone back to my trading house app. The bus halts again, and the woman next to me stands. She's replaced by a guy in a suit who squeezes onto over half the narrow seat. I squish myself further against the bus side in an attempt to prevent his leg touching mine, and focus on my market domination.

  "You play the Game?" asks a voice in a cultured English accent.

  Nobody speaks on the bus. Ever. Occasionally someone hits
on my skinny, diminutive self, but with hands 'accidentally' touching my backside, and not words.

  I shuffle said backside further away as I check out the man pointing at my phone screen. Middle-aged. Greying hair. The intense look in his moss green eyes creeps me out as he sizes me up. Does he imagine himself as a silver fox and hits on girls half his age? I eye his gut spilling over his belt and straining against his white shirt buttons.

  "Yes." I focus back on my ore sales.

  "Interesting. What class do you play?"

  I blink back up at him. "Cleric."

  "I play too, but I think the game needs something different. The latest expansion disappointed a lot of fans." He smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners.

  Call me fickle, but had this been a hot guy around my age, chances are I'd show more enthusiasm towards our conversation.

  "People will always cry about the good old days in the Game." I can't hide my contempt for the whiners. "Because obviously they loved waiting for bugs to be fixed, and the insane login times. Although the Game was more challenging five years ago."

  "You think the Game's too easy?"

  "I played for years and everything changes in each expansion. I agree that the Game needs new quests and challenges, but I also agree with people who say the ‘end game’ progression sucks this time."

  He straightens. "Why's that? What do you think could be improved?"

  "Do you work for the Game or something?"

  The bus lurches to a stop and the man grabs the nearby metal pole, hauling himself from the seat. "My stop. Nice to meet you, Eleanor Walker."

  Creeper Dude just levelled up in weirdness. How the hell does he know my name?

  The man pushes through the bodies jammed into the aisle, unapologetic as he knocks into them.

  The bus jerks as the journey continues, another guy taking the weird man's place.

  I wipe away more condensation and peer out. Creeper Dude stands on the pavement amongst paper whipping around his feet. People veer around him as he remains still, a phone to his ear. I watch him as the bus attempts to pull into the flow of passing traffic.

  As he stares straight back at me and smiles.

  Chapter Two

  "Don't you think it's time you moved on and made some real-life progression?" Aidan pushes his blond hair from where it falls into his eyes, the obvious intention to make the hard stare in his blue eyes clearer.

  I stuff chocolate cake into my mouth and wait for him to finish his lecture. I've known Aidan since high school; we became friends through our love of gaming. Before then, I never would've spoken to the guy from the geek clique. Sure, us nerds and geeks existed outside the school's social epicentre, but we're separate species. Some were hybrids, like Aidan, but the two tribes were always distinct.

  "Move on? Like, leave the city?" I ask, and crumbs fall to the plate.

  Aidan pulls a disparaging face and holds up his hand, fingers outstretched. "Kitchen hand. Waitress. Office cleaner... See a pattern?"

  "What pattern?"

  "Mundane jobs. Crap pay. You'll end up stuck in them forever. Why don't you find something you want to do? Move on."

  "I graduated from kitchen hand to waitress, thank you." I reply and poke at my cake. "Now I've moved on and work in a corporate office."

  "Cleaning them. El, there must be something better."

  "Whatever," I mutter, inwardly cringing at how childish I sound. "Once I decide what I want to do career-wise, I'll do it. Can we end the monthly lecture now?"

  "Okay. I'll diarise the next one." Aidan pulls out his phone and I scowl. "So, you screwed up your grades and missed out on college. It's not the end of life. You can try again."

  "Uh. I thought the lecture was over."

  Three years out of school, drifting away to the city from the small town and disappointed parents. Yes, I'm smart and had great grades until A-level years. I flunked a test. Then another. My grades dropped, and along with them, my confidence. The nagging started: "you're a smart girl, don't let yourself down, don't ruin your life". I'd end each day paralysed by anxiety that I'd screw up.

  Then I screwed up.

  Cue more anxiety.

  I dropped study, instead spending hours in my room immersed in the online game where I could control my life. Achievements and rewards in game were simpler, direction clearer. What did it matter that I couldn't win in real life? I dropped my studies and the game took over everything. If I'm dramatic, I'd say the game saved my life when I couldn't cope, pulled me back from a black hole sucking me in.

  But I'm not dramatic and never told anybody.

  I didn't admit gaming is the reason I failed exams, and that I didn't care.

  My ties to the online world strengthened, our guild became known for excellence, and my name was high on the leaderboards. Every time I attempt to sever those ties, something pulls me back. I panic without my daily connection to this other me. Sometimes literally.

  But if I let go, the black hole could gape open and pull me in. This time I may not escape.

  A plastic coffee stirrer bounces off my cheek. "Pay attention, El."

  "What's the dramatic thing you need to tell me?"

  Aidan takes a furtive look around and then pushes his phone across the table. "I keep getting these weird messages. They arrive at night, and I hear voices but can't figure out what they're saying. The next day, my screen is covered in this."

  My pulse lifts higher because I know what he's about to show me. A message from yesterday looks back at me.

 

  And another, older.

 

  "Shit." I half-breathe the word, elongating the vowel. My fingers tremble as I pull my phone from my pocket and open my messages. "I thought it was you guys playing one of your dumb tricks. I received some too. Look."

  I show him the screen:

 

  "Why is mine ‘failed’?" I ask. "And sometimes I get this."

 

  "How many texts have you received?" asks Aidan.

  "About half a dozen over the last week. I sent a reply to the number the messages came from. This.”

  I swipe back to my message list and hold my screen to show Aidan:

 

  Aidan snorts. "I showed Tom and Paul, but they shrugged it off. I don't think they're lying. If they want to prank, they'll do it in-game."

  "Huh." I sink back and swap cake for coffee. "According to the messages, I'm the failure again."

  "Or the messages failed, not you."

  Aidan's intense sometimes, such as today and his 'sort your life out, El' lecture, but I don't often see him bolt upright in his seat and edgy.

  He lowers his voice. "Do you hear anything strange at night?"

  "Yes. Voices, when I'm falling asleep and too close to unconscious to make sense of what they say." I drain the cup. "I've always had crazy dreams though, so I didn't think that was unusual."

  If anything, the mysterious night-time texts annoy me. I've had my fair share of dick pics and harassment as a successful female gamer, but my skin's as thick as a demon's hide these days. The main issue here— I don't tolerate sleep interruption. When I'm yanked out of sleep for a few seconds, it's bloody hard to find my way back into crazy dreams of R-rated situations with Jensen Ackles. That pisses me off.

  Hence the 'leave me the hell alone' text.

  But Aidan has texts too, and that opens a new dimension to the situation.

  "I'm sure this is all a joke," I say with a smile. "Maybe we should send some weird messages to Tom and Paul at 3 a.m."

  "Hmm. We should. Arseholes." He breaks into a grin, but his eyes don't match the light humour.

  I click the phone off and return to my cake.

  I don't mention Creeper Dude from the bus.

  The laptop screen glows on my nearby desk as I shuffle down in bed, exhausted after the last week's double shifts. A
t least my bank balance left the critical list— until I head to the shops again tomorrow. I've saved for an upgrade, sick of my old rig randomly crashing mid-game over the last few weeks. No more salivating over the latest Alienware; I'm bringing that baby home.

  The money I saved should be earmarked for a sofa, but I'd rather stick with my plastic garden chairs than drop my rank in game. Hell, I spend most evenings in my desk chair anyway.

  I'm snapped back to consciousness like an elastic band twanging across my brain as the whispering voices start again. I strain to hear, as always, but never do. Urgent. One male, one female. Arguing.

  My phone pings.

 

 

  I swipe at my phone, muttering, “For fuck's sake...”

  Normally I'd ignore trolls, but not when they think it's amusing to freak me out.

  Halfway through typing an expletive-filled response, I jolt as my laptop screen flashes to life, illuminating the room. My chest tightens, and I take a tentative look at the screen.

  Patch downloading.

  Thank God; the bloody download stalled this week, and I'd worried the updates wouldn't be installed. This happened once before, and I was locked out of the Game for one frustrating week, forced to take a trip to the local fast food place to steal their Wi-Fi.