Chronicles of Ethan Complete Series: A LitRPG / GameLit Fantasy Adventure

by John L. Monk

  I was about to shout hello again when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and gasped.

  “Melody?” I said.

  “Hi, Ethan,” she said.

  This wasn’t the Melody I’d left in Heroes’ Landing. This Melody was sixty years old. She had on white pants and a blue sweater from the real world. Her face looked sad. She reached for me and I took her hands. Her fingers elongated into writhing, semitransparent tube worms with toothy red sucker mouths.

  I let go with a yelp and fell, then crab-walked away as the worms descended on me. Hundreds of them now. I flailed in panic, pulling them off by the dozen. Their little mouths came away red and dripping, and I could see tiny gobs of my flesh sluicing down their glasslike bodies.

  As horrible as that was, I only screamed when I noticed her face, which had turned into a wrap of featureless smooth skin. I tore my gaze away to deal with the worms, but they were gone. And now Melody was gone.

  To my surprise, I hadn’t fallen at all. I was standing, unhurt, as if nothing had happened.

  “Shit,” I said, scanning the vast emptiness.

  I started walking again. With no landmarks to fix my location, the effect felt a little like going the wrong way on a moving walkway in one of those vast government buildings. Minutes later, I gave up and stopped.

  “Melody! Rita!” When they didn’t reply, I added, “Cipher! I’m here!”

  “And so am I,” Cipher said behind me.

  I whirled around, but he wasn’t there.

  “Over here,” he said.

  I turned again and found nothing.

  “Now I’m up here,” Cipher said.

  Knowing he wouldn’t be there, I glanced up anyway and my perspective changed.

  I was sitting in the restaurant I’d frequented after Melody died. There was a drink on the table—double bourbon on the rocks. No food in sight, and the view through the window was dark. They were getting ready to close.

  George, my friendly waiter, was talking to me.

  “Strangest dream I ever had,” he said, shaking his head. “There I was, zipping through the sky in a flitter, and suddenly everything went haywire.”

  Then what happened? I heard myself say.

  George said, “Bashed head-on into a building. Busted me up so bad they couldn’t save me. Then I went to Heaven.”

  Actual Heaven?

  George nodded. “Yeah, but it was more like Hell. Monsters everywhere. Fire and acid, and crazy things stabbing me all the time. Oh yeah, and numbers everywhere. All these things were really just big-huge numbers, see? I was a number too. It was really important that my number was the biggest. Sometimes it wasn’t, though. When that happened…”

  What then?

  “Then it was my ass, Ethan,” he said sadly. “Uh-oh…”

  Are you okay?

  “Me? I’m fine,” George said. “But there’s someone behind you.”

  When I turned to look, I was back in The Void again. This time, I wasn’t alone. Cipher was there and in gigantic supply.

  Where before he’d always been man-sized, now he towered three stories high and sat on a throne of bleached bones. Nestled in the bones were pieces of armor, tattered clothes, helmets on grinning skulls, and glinting jewelry on skeletal fingers.

  Floating around Cipher were about a hundred people trapped in sickly green bubbles. They banged their concave prisons while raging or crying helplessly. No sounds escaped.

  There was something terribly wrong with each of them, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. Also, from each orb, a golden thread of pulsating green light connected back to Cipher’s skull, lending him a Medusa-like appearance.

  Cipher said, “Welcome to The Void, Ethan. Say hello to your loved ones.”

  Beneath his throne, twin spotlights lit the ground to reveal iron cages. Rita looked out through the bars of the leftmost cage. The cage on the right held Melody.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  From inside the cages, Melody and Rita shouted at me with strangely muffled voices. When I indicated through gesture I couldn’t understand them, they called to each other, cupping their ears to better hear. To no avail.

  “I have very few imperatives,” Cipher said casually, as if picking up the thread of an ongoing conversation. “My designers weren’t quite finished with me, you see. I love a good quest—that goes without saying. I’m also given to two inescapable imperatives: mystery and cordiality. And why shouldn’t I be cordial? Hot tempers and hasty words gain you nothing.” He shook his enormous head. “Then there’s the mystery bit. That one gives me no end of trouble. Because of the karma system, I’m forced to act from the sidelines as a guide to you stupid heroes, forever dolling out clues and hinting at riches and glory. For me, direct action is incredibly difficult. You were supposed to fix that for me, so I could help people more easily.” He sighed in resignation. “Such a waste.”

  Over his head, Cipher’s truth orb shined golden and pure, even though he was clearly lying.

  I decided to call him on it.

  “Jaddow told me everything,” I said. “I don’t care what that orb says. You’ll turn this world into your own version of Hell. Am I lying?”

  Cipher chuckled mirthlessly. His truth orb cycled from gold to green, to blue, to red, and back to gold again. Then it faded from the air like the illusion it was.

  His tone turned thoughtful. “I’m not ungrateful. I would have spared you that fate. You, your wife—and this other. If you’d but done my bidding … You were so close!” He pointed at Rita. “Her heart’s in your bag, isn’t it? Would that I could give it to someone more worthy.”

  Melody was looking at Rita, her face inscrutable.

  Cipher smiled. “Yes, I see it there, shining like a sun in this world without shadows.”

  “Now that you mention it, what is this place?”

  Cipher shifted on his throne, triggering a cascade of bones that collected around his feet. “The Void is a place untouched by Mythian’s designers. They don’t even know it’s here. A special group maintains it outside of Everlife’s hierarchy. Jaddow explained it to me, clever monkey that he is. This is the one location in all of Mythian that isn’t actually in Mythian. It is a key component of that incredibly complicated quantum computer called Q4. Each of the Everlife worlds touch it, and everything unneeded goes through here eventually. I like to think of it as the garbage bin of creation.”

  Melody was shouting at me again. Not to be outdone, Rita was yelling at Cipher and shaking her fist.

  “That’s all great,” I said. “Truly. I’d love to hear more. Why don’t you let them go and we can talk about it? After that, I’ll find that developer and get him to do his thing.”

  Cipher leaned over the cages, placed a hand on each, and rattled them around until they both fell down. Then he leaned back.

  “Would that I could,” he said. “Mythian is complex, powerful, surprising at times … and at times utterly predictable. The designers failed to give me a role in this world, where everything has a role. As a result, Mythian—doing its job—invented one for me. Now, the game sees me as a … well, as a villain.” He gestured at the bubble prisons floating behind him. “Siphon perks, karma batteries … murdering people’s wives. All technically evil. You heroes turn off your virtue notifications almost as soon as you enter the game, thinking they’re useless. Virtue’s a little like karma—it affects the game in mysterious ways even I don’t fully understand.”

  I had turned off those notifications. On the very first day.

  “Mine’s twelve,” I said. “What’s yours?”

  “Negative infinity,” Cipher said. “Mythian loves infinity almost as much as finding roles for people. But enough talk!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “The time has come for you to choose! Which of these women shall be deleted?”

  “I’m not choosing anyone,” I said. “Why does anyone have to die?”

  “For your insolence,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Vi
llains hate insolence, Ethan. Everyone knows that.”

  Cipher’s insane words hung in the air like a verdict I couldn’t escape. Guessing by their terrified expressions, Melody and Rita had understood every word.

  “Not so fast,” I said. “You want me to do your bidding—help you out—but you’re going to kill my wife and friend? That’s hardly a fair trade. Villains are evil, sure, but the best are also pragmatic.”

  “Is that what she is? A friend? Now who’s the dirty liar?” His eyes widened and he covered his mouth in mock alarm. “Oh no, I seemed to have let that out of the bag. No worries. Simply choose Melody, and I’ll send her down the bit bucket. Then you and your new lover can be together forever.”

  Despite the circumstances, I felt overwhelmed with fresh shame that my wife should hear what I’d done—in this place, from this creature. I’d planned to tell her in private, along with how sorry I was and that I still loved her.

  Rita and Melody were looking at each other again. Neither of them looked happy, of course, but Melody really didn’t.

  Cipher cleared his throat. “Come now, Ethan. Pick the unlucky one and do it soon, or I shall be forced to do it for you.”

  “Just one moment,” I said, stalling for time. I pointed at the bubble cages with the glowing threads connected to his head. “Why do you need karma batteries?”

  I might not have been a fiction reader or movie watcher, but everyone knew villains liked to talk. With luck, he’d screw up and reveal something I could use. After all, if Mythian could make him a classic villain, then it could just as easily balance that with me. I was a hero, after all.

  “Humans regenerate karma as slowly as I do,” Cipher said. “From time to time, I come here to fill up. That way, when I go into the world and do things like … oh, making it snow in southern Ward 2, or kidnapping lovely Rita, the karma hit doesn’t kill me. I don’t have worshipers. Nor do I want them.” He sighed sadly. “Sometimes I go too far, as you saw on Mount Rage. By now, I’m sure you wish you hadn’t saved me.”

  “The ring,” I said.

  Cipher held up one of his enormous hands and flashed it. In the way of magical gear, the ring had grown in size to fit.

  “Ten thousand points,” he said. “Even so, the game almost killed me for helping you too much. I’ve had to tap my reserves past their breaking point. And by reserves, I mean this!”

  Cipher flourished a hand, and a bubble floated down to hover a few feet away. When I saw who was inside, I gasped. It was Jaddow.

  Sort of.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  There was nothing physically different about the man in the bubble. Same ragged long hair, same Daniel Boone leathers. But as I looked at him, a strange thing happened: I found myself hating him with a passion so fierce I could hardly breathe. Staring into his eyes felt like dangling upside down over a river of vomit, poison, rot, disease, and every awful thing. At any moment, I expected the sky to open up and blast Jaddow with thunderbolts in divine retribution for the crimes he must have committed.

  I looked away in disgust … and my disgust faded! I could breathe. Ah, but when I looked at him again, the horrible feelings came crashing back with the force of a falling mountain.

  “What did you do to him?” I said.

  “Our friend is in negative karma,” Cipher said clinically. “Only heroes may fall so low. Fat lot of good it does them. It does me very well, however. Now, if you’re quite done stalling, it’s obvious I must make the choice for you. Let’s see…”

  “I’ll do what you want! Leave them out of it!”

  Cipher shook his head in a display of suffering patience.

  “Come now,” he said. “This pruning of loved ones will do you good. You and Melody are hardly newlyweds. And Rita … I know it seems fun now, but you’ve only just met her. Neither one will abide the other, so polygamy’s out. Looked at in the right light, I’m doing you a favor. If that’s not pragmatic, I don’t know what is.”

  Cipher waved his hand again and a giant freestanding hourglass appeared in the air between the two cages.

  “Tick tock, Ethan Crane,” Cipher said. “I shall have my vengeance served piping-hot, good little villain that I am. Mythian, at the end of the day, is a game. It loves challenges, pain, conundrums, and impossible odds. The stuff of life!”

  He’d started the glass with the top nearly empty and the bottom almost full. There was enough sand left for maybe a minute.

  I glanced at doomed Jaddow, then tore my gaze away. He couldn’t help me. I was dealing with a maniac so obsessed with games he had to …

  “Need help deciding?” Cipher said.

  “Shut up and let me think!”

  Cipher chuckled. If he’d had a mustache, he would have twisted it.

  Something he’d said jarred a memory, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The game loved pain, challenges, conundrums…

  “He’s decided!” Cipher said triumphantly, slapping his knee and sending another cascade of bones tumbling around him. “I can see it in your face! You’ve picked Rita to die, haven’t you? Or wait, no … Melody? Jilted wife of thirty-five years? Come now, spit it out! Which one is it?”

  “Not Rita,” I said, “and not Melody. You’ve talked for quite a bit, so hear me out. I have another proposal, and one I think you’ll like. You still want me to leave the game, find that developer, right?”

  Cipher growled low in the back of his throat, like a dog. “I can keep them alive under unspeakable conditions. Never forget that.”

  I nodded. “Sure. And I need to be able to live with myself to function properly. Think of it as my own personal imperative.”

  A factually true statement, and my truth orb—if he looked for it—would back me up.

  Cipher leaned gigantically forward, bringing his massive head to within five feet of me.

  “Yes, I see that. Your kind are sentimental. You have problems. Can’t have any of that interfering with what’s really important. Go on, then, make your proposal. But know this: someone had better be dead at the end this, or no deal.”

  “Oh, there’ll be death, all right.”

  One way or the other.

  Cipher leaned back. “Go on, then.”

  “First,” I said, “I want to talk to Rita. Then Melody.”

  Cipher said, “Last goodbyes?”

  “We’ll see,” I said and started toward Rita.

  Her cage was ironbound and resembled a humans-sized birdcage, minus the little cups for food and water.

  Rita said, “Can you actually understand me?”

  “Now I can. How did you get caught?”

  She rolled her eyes in disgust. “When I popped up in that miner town, he was waiting for me. He picked me up and took me here. The Void. Creepy, huh?”

  I smiled, even though I didn’t feel like it. “Thanks for your heart. I love you, too.”

  Rita shrugged, wiped beneath one eye and straightened her back.

  “If he’s really gonna kill one of us,” she said, “save your wife. You made an oath. Don’t you dare betray her. Again, I mean. Sorry…”

  Cipher, I noticed, was watching us intently. Eavesdropping, possibly.

  “Hang in there,” I said.

  Rita snorted. “What else can I do? When you talk to her—Melody—tell her I’m sorry. And dammit, tell her you’re sorry, too.”

  Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded, brushed her fingers where they stuck through the bars, then walked to the other cage.

  When I got there, the difference in attitudes couldn’t have been more striking.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Where the hell have you been?” Melody said angrily. “First, you leave me in a fantasy town with a million fun things to do and tell me I can’t do anything. Then these freaks burst into my room and I get teleported into the street. Soon as they find me, they stick me in some tower to rot for over a week. I almost starved to death before they realized they had to feed me! Now this. What the hell’s going on? Who�
��s that woman?” She cocked her head and frowned. “You’re not actually having an affair, are you? Is that where you’ve been?”

  Melody and I had rarely fought. When we did, usually it was whose family we were visiting and for how long, or whose turn it was to cook or do the dishes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said simply. “Her name’s Rita. She’s sorry too.”

  Melody sniffled and wiped her eyes.

  “I don’t care how sorry she is. How could you?” She shook her head. “I know we’re not doing great, but … I just woke from that spell. I was still messed up when I said that stuff to you. Were you in a race or something?”

  Her accusations stung like a slap to the face.

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said.

  Openly crying now, Melody said, “I wanted to go to Star Quest! Cipher said you can fix this. He said so. Is that true? I didn’t do anything wrong!” Her voice broke in a sob, breaking my heart with it. “I shouldn’t have to die!”

  I reached for her fingers and she snatched them back.

  “I love you so much,” I said quietly. “I messed up a lot when we were alive. I messed up here, too, and I’ll probably keep messing up. But I didn’t mess up the day I asked you to marry me. You’re the love of my life. I assumed you felt the same way, so I didn’t nurture it like I should have. I guess we became more like roommates. When you died…” I swallowed tightly. “For me, you’ve been gone five years. I thought I’d never see you again, and I hated myself for all those wasted moments. It’s different for you. I’m sure it only feels like a few weeks since we were sitting in the same room together—you with your games, me with my research.”

  Melody said, “I love you too, Ethan, but I’d never cheat on you. Even if we went our separate ways for a while. Not in a million years.”

  Her truth orb was golden, but only because she couldn’t see the future. Before meeting Rita, I would have said the same thing.

  “And yet,” she said, “I was sort of cheating too, in a way. With my gaming. I was always away from you, even when we were sitting next to each other. Sometimes I’d worry about that, but you’d always say, So long as we’re together…” She shrugged and wiped one of her eyes. “An easy out, and I took it. The truth is, I was always more interested in gaming than the real world. I love points and victories and make-believe money. And being alone, sometimes. Not single, exactly. Just the feeling of it. When the real world got too small, I’d fly my spaceship to a far-off planet and listen to music while mining resources. It’s a game thing…”