PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  Kai also stood down, his shoulders slumping to make him look less menacing.

  “You’re both right,” Mayor McKase said, gently but with authority. “You three bring a lot of trouble with you, but this was going to happen sooner or later. There is just trouble to be had in this game world, it’s only a matter of time before it finds us. You’ve given us a lot of new information, with this stuff about the Archons being the most worrying. What does it mean for one of them to be in control for a year?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I just learned about it myself right before we went in the dungeon. The Archons have a lot of rules about what they can and can’t tell us- that’s been true for each one I have met. Probably because they could sway the contest in their favor. But to answer your question, it will have something to do with their specific portfolio, that’s what the Adjudicator called it. It’s like their power set- magic, death, classes, whatever. That’s all I know.”

  She shook her head and stood up. “This is probably way more information than we need to worry about right now. From what we know, it seems like it’s most likely a while off. To me it seems any current threats to our safety may be minor. Regardless, we’ll increase our security, and we should send out someone to look for Carl as well. I’d rather find him before he finds us, if that’s his intention.”

  Her eyes went blank, and I knew she was interacting with her HUD.

  “Tomorrow we will have a village meeting,” she continued, “and you will learn why we are so nervous about this change, and protective of what we have here.”

  “What do you mean tomorrow?” Madison said, with a bit of anger in her voice. “We have told you everything we know. Why can’t you tell us what you’re hiding now?”

  For the first time since we’d been in the room, Mayor McKase got out of her chair and walked up to her, making eye contact. “Trust me, what you learn tomorrow will be better seen in person. It’s nothing dangerous, or even bad, but if you see it with your own eyes, you will understand immediately. Tonight, I have to write a village missive about everything you’ve just told us. I know these people, and they’ll have plenty of questions, so I’d like to give them a chance to think about what they want to ask.”

  “Should we, uh, be nervous about meeting these people tomorrow?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. They’re good people. They will be guarded, and rightfully so, but they’ll be very excited you completed the quest.”

  She started walking towards the door and turned, gesturing to the three of us. “Come with me and I’ll show you where you can rest. Tomorrow, after our meeting, I’d like you to take me out to this Mana node you’ve found so I can claim it for the village.” She walked out the door, holding it open for us.

  That seemed to be the end of the conversation, and I followed behind her.

  Graham grunted and nodded at us- I assumed his goodbye- and headed down the dirt road towards the houses.

  The mayor took us across the square and into the large longhouse. Inside there were long, rough-hewn tables and benches, with a cooking area on one side, centered around a large fire pit with a metal grill over it, and several posts that had pots hanging from them. There was no fire burning, but the longhouse was warmer than the outside air.

  The mayor took us all the way to the back end where a large curtain separated the main area from a section that was roughly a fifth the size of the whole building. This room contained several pallets of warm looking blankets and fluffy pillows.

  She gestured to the room. “You can sleep here tonight. There are plenty of cots and blankets.”

  “Thank you,” Kai said, reaching for her hand to shake.

  “Oh!” she said, letting go of his hand. “I almost forgot. I will bring in something to eat.” She trotted off and returned quickly with a small assortment of breads and salted meats.

  “I’m sorry we don’t have anything warm, but the fire’s already out for the night. These should get you by for now, and we’ll have warm food in the morning.” She set the dry goods on a table. “Get plenty of rest, tomorrow’s going to be a big day.” With that, she spun on her heels and walked out, pulling the curtain closed behind her.

  Madison huffed loudly. “Is anyone else as annoyed by this turn of events as I am?” Madison asked as she bent down to arrange one of the sleeping pallets. “I mean, why couldn’t they just tell us what the big secret was?”

  “To be fair,” I said, “we did unload a lot of new information on them.”

  “Perhaps the mayor is not trying to be mysterious, rather trying to find the simplest way to show us what is so special about this place,” Kai said as he arranged his sleeping area as well. He lowered himself down into a sitting position, his legs crossed in the classic meditation pose. “There is no point in borrowing trouble from tomorrow. Tomorrow will come soon enough to give it to us, we should rest, and prepare. I would like to use my new skill now, I need to learn to master it.”

  He adjusted himself and closed his eyes, shutting us and the world out.

  I looked at Madison and she smiled at me, which made my heart beat a little faster. I could feel the heat moving into my face as we finally had a small amount of privacy. I motioned with my head to the larger room and walked into it, grabbing a hunk of bread and a slice of meat on the way out.

  I took a seat on one of the benches and waited, eating my snack. A short time later, Madison appeared from behind the curtain. She had stripped off her chainmail armor and wrapped a blanket tightly around her like a strapless dress. It was no lingerie, but it became apparent how much of her curves her armor hid. I bit my tongue to keep myself from making any stupid sounds and smiled at her.

  “You decided to stay awhile, eh?” I said, nodding at her new outfit. “It’s quite lovely.”

  “Oh, this old thing?” She waved her hand at me, grinning wildly. “That armor is many things, but comfortable isn’t one of them,” she said, taking a seat next to me. I offered her a bite of meat, but she shook her head.

  “So, it’s been an eventful week hasn’t it?” I asked and gently laid my arm around her naked shoulders. She didn’t resist, which I thought was a good sign. Sure, we had held hands before, and she’d been kind of touchy-feely lately, but this was our first time alone-ish where we could focus on each other. I had no idea what to say, but I knew I wanted to get closer to her.

  “I like getting to do all this stuff with you,” I said, rubbing the spot on her arm where my fingers rested. “The adventuring and exploring… it’s not like, taking you to a movie or whatever, but it’s a fun way to spend time together.” I leaned into her a little, resting my head on hers.

  She laughed at this, full and bubbly. “There’s nothing like danger to add spice to a relationship,” she said.

  “Is that what we have?” I asked, sitting up and looking at her. “A relationship?”

  She turned to look at me, a battle of some kind playing out on her features. “No... yes, damn I don’t know Huddy, it’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to talk. You know I’m... that I really like you, I just... it’s so hard sometimes, having these memories come up. I know my husband is dead, and even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t go to him because I’m in this world now, but knowing doesn’t make it any easier.” She leaned her head down on my shoulder, and I felt a moment of bittersweet pleasure.

  “I know that, I just... I don’t know what to do about any of this. I don’t want to push you, but I don’t want to let this go, either. I want something more, and I get the feeling you do too,” I said. “Doesn’t it just feel… right? Or good? Or something?”

  She looked up at me, her full lips pouty. She sighed heavily, puffing out a breath, but didn’t break her gaze. I could see the conflict she was battling in her mind, the muscles in her face tense. I moved a stray hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear.

  “It doesn’t have to make sense right now,” I whispered, so low that even had the room bee
n full, she would have been the only one to hear me. She stared at me as if trying to figure me out. Her face finally softened, and I was taken aback by her beauty. Her strength was one of her most attractive features, but something about the vulnerability that was trying to peak through slayed me.

  I cupped her face in my hand, and gently caressed her cheek with my thumb. She didn’t pull away from me, so I slowly leaned down, and in perhaps my most confident moment ever with a woman, pushed my lips onto hers. Gently at first, just barely touching them, but when she didn’t pull back, I kissed her more fully, pulling her face into mine. She moved her lips and kissed me back, melting into my body and parting her mouth a little to where I could taste her breath. I put my other arm behind her and pulled her close to me.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Projection attribute!

  It must have been the wrong thing to do, because she tensed up and pulled away. She turned her head and looked at the floor. She didn’t say anything but sat up and scooted a little bit away, just far enough so our legs weren’t touching.

  “What?” I asked, grabbing her hand in both of mine. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  She sighed heavily, taking her hand back. “I’m sorry, I know I’m sending you mixed signals, I don’t want to hurt you. There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said, not making me feel that way at all as she stood up, moving even further away. “Everything has been so crazy since I got here, and everything was even crazier before I came. I just want… I need some time to think, okay?” She looked down on me from her standing position, her face a mixture of sorrow and pain. I hated seeing her like that.

  “That’s fine,” I said, not knowing what else to say or do but wanting to support her. “I guess it’s fine, anyway. But I feel like the craziness isn’t going to go away any time soon. I mean, it’s not like I’m going anywhere, anyway.” Real smooth. I sounded like a schmuck.

  She gave me a half smile. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be strung along and I promise that’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  I sighed, feeling defeated. “Yeah, I know.” I really wished I had spent more time dating and knew how to handle this situation better.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!

  She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “All right, well I’m gunna turn in, it’s like Kai said. We have a big day tomorrow, we should probably rest up, or figure out our skills. I’m going to lay down and hopefully get that well rested bonus for tomorrow.”

  “All right,” I said as I leaned back against the table. “You go ahead then; I’ll be there in a bit.”

  “Goodnight Hudson,” she said, and patted my shoulder again, then walked back to the other room.

  I sighed heavily and covered my face with my hands. I gave myself a moment, then shook my head as if I was shaking water from my hair and sat up straight. I wanted nothing more than to put that moment behind me, so I opened up my character sheet; it was time to optimize.

  Chapter 33

  The first thing I needed to do was figure out what combat skill I wanted. No wait, the first thing I needed to do was figure out if I wanted to go combat or explore magic. No wait, the first thing I needed to do was decide if I wanted to follow the summoner style path. No wait, the first... hoo boy, there was a lot to do, but I knew what my actual first thing would be.

  I opened my settings and adjusted my system notifications so they wouldn’t randomly pop up all the time, and would just give an exclamation mark to my notifications window. It had been too weird getting notifications of my attributes increasing while trying to have a quiet moment with Madison. I also turned off the ‘Congratulations!’ as it was beginning to feel a little annoying. Then lastly I changed my character sheet to the truncated report that would skip most of the untrained skills when I looked at my character sheet.

  Finally, I opened my character sheet to begin making some adjustments.

  Name: Hudson

  Year: 0

  Race: Human

  Age: 18

  Title: Vassal of the Adjudicator

  Class: Quaesitor

  Prestige class: Core Mage

  Level: 6

  HP: 354

  Armor: 12

  Body – 188 Stamina

  · Strength - 13

  · Agility - 15

  · Physique - 16

  Mind – 310 Mana

  · Conscious - 19

  · Subconscious - 17

  · Superconscious - 19

  Heart – 154 Zeal

  · Empathy - 8

  · Projection - 3

  · Emotion - 16

  Soul – 151 Spirit

  · Self - 2

  · Aura - 2

  · Connection - 9

  Attunements:

  · Light

  Class Skills:

  · Hunch - 33

  · Audeo - 15

  · Lucky Find - 16

  · Illugraphy - 29

  · Throwing Mastery - 14

  · Core Manipulation - 13

  Personal Skills:

  · Driven - 27

  · Archive - 20

  Secondary Skills:

  · Camouflage - 10

  Unique:

  Character Scan - NA

  Prime of Death - NA

  I was excited to get to make some changes, so I went into my menu and selected my free skill change option, smiling as I realized just how much more useful I could become. The addition of a prestige class was a huge shift, I was granted a new class skill, and a new class skill slot in addition to being able to pick a new Personal and Secondary skill. I had been so restricted in choices until now, and it was like removing bonds I didn’t even know existed.

  Class skills could level up as high as you could get them, but Personal skills had a cap of thirty, and Secondary skills a cap of twenty. Everything else capped out at ten, just enough to try out the skill and see what potential it held. Now that I had a bit more room to work with skills, I had to think of a good character build that would encompass a lot, but not be too diversified, like how I was feeling now. I’d rather be really good at a few things than be able to do a ton, but none very well.

  My skills were focused on discovery and exploration, but since setting it up that way, I’d learned there was a lot more combat that couldn’t be avoided and I needed to make it a focus. Then maybe I should consider adding a movement or dodge skill for defense. There were so many options. Then there was Magic.

  I still didn’t even know how Magic worked, so I selected the skill.

  Magic – This skill grants you the ability to use your Mana to cast spells and is necessary for many magic based classes. Increasing this skill makes your spells more powerful, but also makes them cost more Mana. A player with this skill is granted the Mana Orb spell, and an additional four spell slots. For every tenth level of Magic skill learned, the player gains an additional spell slot.

  Well, that was more information than the system usually gave. How very generous. I looked at my HUD and thought ‘Magic,’ and a new tab opened up on my character sheet that listed the spells I knew.

  Mana Orb

  Flame

  Frost

  Poison

  Light

  I selected the flame spell and read it.

  Flame – Cast a gout of flame to burn your enemies. Range 1 foot. Damage 10. Cost 10.

  Well, that was about as basic as it gets. I was curious though- it didn’t have a level associated with it. Were spells not able to be increased like skills? If that was the case, how would you ever improve your spells?

  I checked out my other spells and was disappointed to find similar damage, except for Mana orb.

  Mana Orb – Create an orb of energy from Mana. Once created the orb can be shaped.

  I felt like this spell gave me a clue about how magic worked, and I cast it, bringing the glowing orb into my hand. I held the thing, or well, not really since it floated ab
ove my hand, but still. Despite having no idea how to use it or what it was capable of, I felt powerful. A perfect ball of buzzing energy, completely under my control. Even if I didn’t know how to control it yet.

  I tried throwing it at one of the tables. Nothing happened. I knew this thing could be used somehow though, or it wouldn’t be the first thing you got when you unlocked the Magic skill. I had tried tossing it before and it hadn’t worked, so I went back to the one thing I knew about this world: intention is everything.

  I concentrated hard on wanting to throw it, picturing it as a solid ball, visualizing what it would look like and focusing intensely. I watched as it shrunk slightly, like a vacuum had sucked out all the extra space and it became denser, as if it were solid glass. My face reflected back at me, the curve of the sphere warping my smile. I lifted it above my shoulder and flung my arm forward. The orb flew off my outstretched hand at breakneck speed and careened into the table, exploding in a display of sparks, then vanishing in a flash of glowing pixels, leaving a blackened scorch mark where it had landed. Nice. Now I could throw explodey things. But I knew there had to be more to it and summoned another orb.

  I held the orb up, level with my face. I mimicked the motion with my other empty hand, picturing the orb changing shape, visualizing it filling both hands while silently commanding it to. It stretched out, becoming long and narrow with a pointed end. My smile stretched almost as wide as the now spear-shaped orb. I took aim and threw. It pierced through the air, going even further and faster than the ball, slammed into the stone wall and blasted through it, making a loud crunch and leaving a small hole. Oops.