PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  “What the heck was that!?” Madison asked as she came through the curtain, her eyes wide.

  It was my turn for my eyes to be wide as I saw she had forgotten her blanket in the other room and was in only her system provided undergarments. Not that I hadn’t seen it before, but I sure didn’t mind seeing it again. I shrugged, trying my best to keep my eyes on her face. “I uh... I’m just experimenting with this Magic Orb spell.”

  “Eyes up here, buddy,” she said, pointing to her face and winking. I smiled sheepishly.

  “Anyway,” she said, “watch this.” She raised her hand and a glowing orb appeared in it. The slight glow that came from it illuminated her body in a soft halo.

  “I was messing around with it also,” she said, “I guess we really are on the same wavelength.” She held her hands up, palms facing each other with the orb floating between them, then moved them together, and the orb flattened in front of her like a pancake. She spun her hands, palms out, pulled her arms apart, and the orb stretched wider, until Madison had a perfectly round, floating shield of energy in front of her.

  She made that look so badass.

  “Hey, that’s awesome,” I said.

  “Try hitting it with something,” she said, and made a ‘come here’ motion with her hand behind the shield.

  “Oh I could hit that.” I winked.

  “Excuse me?” she said, cocking a hip.

  I smiled and summoned my own orb, pictured the ball, and threw it at her. Her shield flew up to intercept it and the orb exploded into the shield, which popped like a soap bubble into fading pixels, but had prevented the orb from getting through.

  “Oh!” Madison shouted. “That took a chunk of my Mana when it stopped the orb.”

  “Ah, a Mana shield,” I said. “So, did you figure out your skills, too?”

  “Yeah, a little. Mostly I was messing around with the orb. I’ve always been a fan of magic, and now that I can use it, I’m pretty excited.”

  “Didn’t you already have magic?”

  She smiled. “You mean my healing? No, that’s a skill, not magic like the orb or our other spells.”

  “Ah, got it,” I said. It was nice having someone to talk shop with about the game, and I was glad she had come back out. I smiled at her, and she got quiet. We stood in the room, still quite a ways apart and neither of us talking. The silence felt awkward. I didn’t want that between us, I really liked her and I didn’t want this to get weird. The mixed signals were driving me crazy.

  “Hey Mads?” I said, walking up to her.

  “Mads? No. Try again,” she said.

  “Madi?”

  “Nope.”

  I laughed. “Okay, no Mads, no Madi. Got it.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Look, Madison, I’m sorry if I’m being pushy, but please let me do this; let me take you out on a date, like, an actual date and let's just see what happens, okay?”

  She hesitated, and I thought she was going to say no. Instead she looked up at me and said, “I think... I think I would like that. I’m sorry for rushing out on you earlier. I like this,” she gestured between our bodies that were inches apart, “and I like you, there’s just so much… baggage. But I really do have such a fun time with you.” She smiled. “Now… can we get back to playing with the spells?”

  “You weren’t kidding about that wavelength thing,” I said, winking. “I don’t know what we can expect with all of...” I waved my hand around indicating the whole village, “this. But I do know, I don’t want to be unprepared when it hits the fan.”

  “You think it’s going to?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I do. This world was meant to bring tension, there’s too many forces at play for it to be peaceful. I know something is going to happen.”

  “I think so too,” she said, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “So, tell me what you’ve figured out so far.”

  I summoned another orb, forming it into a spear, and motioned for her to make a shield. She did so, and I threw the spear into it. The spear burrowed a hole straight through, shattering the shield, but as it did so my Mana plummeted.

  “Ouch!” she said but was still smiling.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “Looks like the Mana spear can penetrate but it costs a lot of Mana to do that.”

  Madison formed another shield and made a shoving motion with her hands. The shield flew straight for me. I tried to form an orb and make my own shield, but I just wasn’t fast enough. Her shield slammed into my chest and sent me sprawling on my backside, but didn’t take any of my health.

  “Oops!” she said with a laugh.

  I picked myself up and threw a ball at her. She blocked it with a shield, which deflected it and sent it flying away where it crashed into a table. She tossed a ball at me, and this time I made the shield fast enough to deflect it, my Mana dropping a small amount from the hit.

  I tried something different and held two my fists together in front of me, then pulled them apart, forming the orb into a rod about the length of the baculus I had been using in the dungeon. I charged at her with it floating just above my hand. I swung the stick, catching her by surprise with my rod of Mana, and hit her, draining some of my Mana.

  “Oh I see how it is,” she said laughing and we continued our impromptu sparring session. She created her own spear and instead of throwing it, she jabbed it at me, stabbing me and taking a small amount of my health away.

  I was impressed with her; she was quick thinking and quick acting and she had fun doing it. She made a shield in time for everything I sent after her and kept me dodging all kinds of different projectiles. We kept at it, trading blows, defending and trying out different weapons.

  I got a few skill increases to Magic, and even one to agility. I didn’t get any increase with the different styles of weapons which made me think it was always just considered a spell, but I could tell my weapon skill came into effect when it was shaped like something I already knew how to use.

  The damage stayed pretty consistent no matter how the orb was used, which was another clue that the spell controlled the damage, not the shape of it.

  She had me in the Mana department, so at one point I was running around the room like a fool, hiding behind tables and doing my best not to take any hits while my Mana regenerated. When I finally had enough Mana again, I popped up from behind the table, focused on a spot behind Madison with a feigned look of shock and said sheepishly, “Oh, uh, hey mayor.”

  Madison’s head snapped around, and as quickly as I could I summoned an orb, imagining it as a small ball, and chucking it like I would a rock right at the back of her head. Exactly as I’d hoped, it popped off a Sucker Punch, scoring a critical hit!

  “You jerk!” she ran towards me, the full force of her body weight shoving into me. “That hurt! You took a good chunk of my health!” She punched me and I groaned and grabbed her around the waist, flinging her to the ground. She grabbed my arm, twisting it back, and wiggled out from under me. She was feisty, but her size wasn’t a match for mine. That didn’t keep me from allowing her to pin me, though. She straddled me, flat on my back, holding my arms back above my head, her face inches from mine.

  I pulled my arms out from under her hold and moved them to her naked sides. She stared at me, eyes directly in front of mine, questioning my next move. Her face was serious, her lips far too enticing. My mouth stretched out in a smile as I moved my hands up and tickled her, her whole body clenching at my fingertips as she erupted in laughter. I moved out from under her and sat up.

  She came over and sat by me, both of us catching our breath.

  “Well, that little wizards duel was fun,” she said. “I like magic. I am for sure going to make that one of my class skills. Have you figured out what you want to do yet?”

  I leaned my head back, looking at the ceiling. “I’m also going to bring Magic up to a class skill. I think it’s just too useful, especially since we got those spells from the dungeon. The other thing I was
thinking is, it’s not like we are in a thriving economy. There’s no auction house, or weapon smiths or other people selling cast-off gear. Who knows how long it will be before there are merchants? A combat class is usually heavily gear dependent, and there just isn’t a lot of gear yet. You can only do so much with rocks and sticks.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “I know I want to keep my exploration skills,” I continued, “it’s just who I am, but I want to be more helpful in the group. I hate feeling useless. Then there are my new core skills. Being able to summon helpers seems like it’s going to be pretty awesome. I’m excited to see what I can do with them when my skills get higher.”

  She shifted and stretched out her legs. “I know what you mean, I have my system skills that I have to keep up, since they are the reason I have this class. But I love teaching, it was so awesome being able to do that in the cave back with the tribe. Then again, I also want to be helpful in combat.”

  “I suppose that will be the nature of life here now,” I said, “having to make these kinds of decisions.” I let out a rueful laugh. “Back on Earth I was constantly worried about silly things like eating and surviving, but here, death really is just a temporary setback.”

  Madison was silent for a moment and I glanced over at her. Her face was screwed up in thought, and she finally said, “You know, I wonder how that’s going to affect us as a species. The fear of death has always been such a motivating factor. Now here we are, essentially beyond death. What does that mean for us? How do we handle things like capital punishment? With that fear removed, how much more will we be able to accomplish?”

  I cleared my throat. “I mean, I suppose spawn camping is a means of dealing with people, a way to forcibly exile them. But besides being hard to stomach, what would prevent someone from going full-on mental and seeking vengeance throughout the lifetimes? There will be a huge shift in the way society works when all of this is finally fully realized.”

  “Well, I’m kind of looking forward to it,” she said. “I’d always envied the early pioneers, exploring the unknown, braving dangers just to see what else is out there. In a way we are doing the same thing.”

  “It will certainly be interesting to see what happens. And I guess we’ll live forever to see it, too. I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around that one.”

  “Me either. Honestly, I haven’t even thought about it. What does it mean to get to just keep living to see everything?” Madison said as she leaned her head back as well. The light in the room highlighted her neck and I gulped, trying hard to be respectful and not follow it down. I was mostly successful.

  “I suppose a part of that is going to be figuring out our skills and everything,” I said, trying to steer the ship back on course. “I’m going to take a look at my sheet and figure it out, but I think I have a plan now.”

  She looked at me and I caught her eyes wandering a bit as well, which not only helped me feel like less of a perv for checking her out, but also gave me a small boost to my ego. I smirked, then quickly wiped it off.

  “Me too,” she said. “I know we probably won’t get many of the free skill change opportunities, so I want to make the most of it.”

  “Going to min/max?” I asked and she laughed.

  “You know, I kind of fell in love with gaming,” she said. “It was a good way to connect with students, and it was also something to do in my empty house while my husband was out on missions. It kept me sane for the most part. I loved theorycrafting builds for all my characters.”

  “I played a lot of games, too,” I said. “I mean, there wasn’t much else to do with all the down time. I’m just not familiar with anything modern. Everything I played was on my handset. I played a few MMOs, I was never an elite player or anything, but I’ve put in my time in instanced dungeons. Character building was always a component I loved, because I could think about it while I was working, it helped to keep me sane. And now we live in a game, how are we going to stay sane in here?” I asked.

  She barked out a laugh. “Who knows, maybe we won’t.”

  I laughed, too. “That’s probably the most likely scenario.” I blew out my breath and shrugged. “Well, I should probably work on my sheet now.”

  “I’ll stop being so distracting,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she meant she was distracting me with her conversation or her outfit, but I had a feeling she meant both.

  I opened my character sheet and began to formulate a plan. The first thing I did was move all the skills to unassigned, which prompted a system notice.

  Are you sure you wish to continue? Personal skills can only be changed once a month, Secondary skills can only be changed once a week. Continue? YES/NO

  I selected YES, which left my two mandatory class skills: Audeo and Core Mastery. That left me with four class slots. I picked Core Manipulation and Magic, then I threw Lucky Find in there. It had been extremely useful and I wanted to see how awesome it could get.

  My last class skill was a tough one, I could pick a combat skill like Martial Arts or something, but I felt like with these new magic skills I wanted to spend more time learning how to use that and you know, not getting the crap beat out of me. I thought about all the experiences we had been having and what the most useful skill to round out my group would be. I decided to leave the slot open, if I was going to be focusing on my magic ability, I knew I would probably unlock another skill sooner rather than later and it would be nice to have a slot available for that.

  Now for my Personal skills, which could reach level thirty. I picked Archiving and Illugraphy. I really wanted to keep up with my exploration skills. They had been useful so far, and I felt like it was important to find out how they evolved.

  Next up, Secondary skills, which could only get to level twenty. This group could be swapped out weekly, which made it seem like a good way to try out new skills. I felt like this would be a great place to put some defensive or movement skills, so I slotted in Toughness and Active Dodge. There were lots of other skills that had been useful, but were too situational, like Driven or Sucker Punch, and I wanted to focus on being more useful overall.

  The last thing I did was spend my leveling points on my expendable pools, giving both Mana and health an additional hundred points. I looked everything over again and saved it, mentally thanking the Adjudicator once again for sending me out here. I felt bad about skills like Hunch not making the cut, but it wasn’t like it would go away. I could still use it at the level I had gotten it to, I just wouldn’t be able to advance it.

  “Well, I think I got it,” I said. “It’s weird how much my build has changed since I started this game. I wonder if it’s always going to be like that?” I glanced over to Madison who had a look of deep concentration on her face and I stopped talking, not wanting to interrupt her. I stood up and walked to another part of the building to practice more spells.

  I held out my hand and a jet of flame shot out, my Mana draining a small amount. I tried casting it again, willing the flame to shoot out further and it did, about a foot further, and the Mana cost doubled. I did it again, this time forcing the flame to stay out and watched my Mana bleed out like in a leaky sieve. It was interesting to note that with this spell I couldn’t alter it once it had been cast, but that I had to mentally pick what the parameters were then cast it.

  “Having fun over there playing with your little fire stick?” Madison asked and I lost my concentration on the spell and the flame went out.

  “You’re done?” I asked.

  She nodded and cast her Spark spell, the lightning dancing on her fingers. “Wanna practice some more?”

  I grinned. I couldn’t have plucked a better woman out of a cocoon.

  “You know I do!”

  Chapter 34

  My body shook while I was stuck somewhere in dreamland. I blinked my eyes a few times and sat straight up in an instant at seeing Kai’s big face inches from mine, his hand gripping my shoulder and rocking my body.

  �
�Wake up, Hudson,” he was saying, much closer than he needed to be if you asked me. “Wake up. People are here.” As my brain tried desperately to push the fog away, I heard distant voices and commotion stirring somewhere close.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” I said, brushing his hand off my shoulder and yawning hugely. The voices and movement registered and I snapped my neck toward the sound.

  “It sounds like the people of the village are beginning to gather here,” Kai said, pointing to whatever was happening behind our curtain.

  I stretched and yawned again, and noticed Madison still sound asleep on her cot, the blanket pulled nearly all the way over her head.

  “I didn’t know the appropriate way to wake her. It seems you two came to bed very late last night?” He gave me a questioning look that felt a bit judgey.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said before he could say anything else. “We were playing with our new spells. Didn’t you hear us?”

  “Mmmhmm,” he grunted. “My Mana Cultivation skill puts me in a deep trancelike state. It appears to make me quite helpless as well as tunes everything out. Perhaps it is only because the skill is so low it works that way,” he shrugged. “Or perhaps I was just ignoring the sounds of your... spells... did you call it?”

  I rolled my eyes in response and moved over to Madison. Her hands clutched the top of the blanket, which was pulled tightly to her chin. She was lying on her side, her face partly covered by the hair that fell over it. She was so peaceful, I hated to wake her. I watched her take slow and quiet breaths and placed my hand gently on her blanketed shoulder.

  “Madison?” She stirred slightly but went still again. I moved my hand to cover one of hers and squeezed softly. “Hey, Madison. We need to get up.” I brushed the hair from her face and both of her arms came out from under the covers in a big stretch. She yawned, her eyes still closed. I cleared my throat kind of loudly.