by Jason Cheek
YOU’RE GOING DOWN
BOOK THREE
OF
THE WORLD
Copyright 2018 Jason Cheek
Published by Jason Cheek on Amazon
Cover Art by Leonardo Black
ISBN-13: 978-1727124446
ISBN-10: 1727124448
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Amazon.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Note from the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Glossary
About Jason Cheek
Other books by Jason Cheek
Connect with Jason Cheek
A Note From The Author
I hope you enjoy the story and apologize in advance for the grammar and proofreading mistakes that are sure to be a part of this work. Being an ‘Indie Writer’ typically means that you do not have the extra money to pay for a professional editor or proofreader and end up doing all of the work yourself. While I do the best I can to find mistakes, I know well my lack of ability in the proofreading, spell-checking and editing arena. At the same time, I have done my best with the tools available to clean up the story for publishing to the best of my ability.
This series came from reading great LitRPG works from my favorite authors like Aleron Kong and D. Rus. I hope that I have done them justice as I’ve taken the experiences from my group of friends and our online adventures and turned them into the series you’re now reading.
As you enjoy this story, I ask that if something does stand out grammatically that you let me know so that I can make the necessary corrections needed to make this book as enjoyable to read as possible. Also, if you enjoy the story, please make sure you post a positive rating on Amazon. Only in this way does this let us ‘Indy Writers’ know that our stories are appreciated and helps to motivate us to write more, besides enabling new readers to find our works.
Also, I’d like to give a special shout out to Mike and Cole, who have been helping with me correcting the numerous spelling and grammar mistakes out of the kindness of their hearts. Without your help the series wouldn’t be in as good of shape it is now. Also I’d like to thank any other fans who made comments that allowed me to go back and correct the more notable mistakes that needed to be corrected.
Chapter One
(Thursday, April 24th/Day Four of The World.)
Running Pod Diagnostic – Complete
Synchronizing controller units - Complete
Neuro Synchronization - Complete
Initializing virtual environment …
The small healing room took shape around me as the login sequence faded away into the diffused early morning light of The World. I’d fallen asleep, err logged out, still wearing my clothes and without a blanket, which was probably why my body felt so stiff and cold. I felt Neysa stir on my lap as soon as I appeared. Somehow my hand was still intertwined in her soft fur, almost like she’d logged out with me. Leaning my head back against the wall, I stifled a yawn as I looked around the room trying to wake up.
The morning had started off as a painful blur when my alarm went off bright and early at six a.m. this morning. Even though I was mentally and physically exhausted from the night before, I still popped out of bed ready to go. Few non-gamers would understand the difficult schedule I kept. The thought of getting up early in the morning to play a video game was hard for most people to comprehend, even if it was for money. Add on to that the nineteen to twenty hours of gameplay I did seven days a week and most people just thought I was an addict, but that was what was needed to be a Pro Gamer in an eSport. Depending on the game and the success of a player, those hours could drop down to something more reasonable for MMORPG style players, at least once they established their guild in a new game, but that was before there was Full Immersion Virtual Reality combined in the mix. Who knew how this new technology would change everything? While the hours sounded extreme, for Pro Gamers and those striving to turn pro, it was a way of life. The making money part and fame that came with it was just icing on the cake.
Still, even though I was used to that burning need to play, the addiction I felt when it came to The World was over the top even for me. As soon as my eyes had popped open in the morning, I’d felt the rush … the desire to log in and play that fought to override my need to sleep … to shower … to even eat. Even though I was half asleep and mentally punch-drunk from the day before, it was that desire to play which had driven my exhausted body out of bed. I’d knocked out my morning ritual in record time and even got a chance to read through my emails and do some forum searches before it was time for me to log in.
There were only four NPCs left in the small room that acted as the refugees’ healing ward. Alanah was curled up next to a peacefully sleeping Rayne along with two other NPCs that had been severely injured during the Goblin Raid that I hadn’t gotten a chance to meet, except for casting heals on their unconscious bodies the night before. My eyes ran over Rayne’s peaceful features.
Obviously, even though I’d healed her wounds, she was still extremely weak. Her face was gaunt from the lack of food and the severe fever she’d endured over the last several days, but at least she was on the mend. The light dusting of freckles around her nose gave her high cheekbones a softer look as she slept. Surprisingly, I hadn’t noticed just how beautiful she actually was until now.
I climbed to my feet as Neysa pranced over to the two sleeping girls, snuffling them in the face before I could call her back to my side. Thankfully, her snuffling didn’t wake them. Giving the little Dire Wolf a quick pat, I quietly made my way out of the healing ward. The central room of the longhouse was relatively warm, albeit somewhat drafty since only leather hides covered the window frames to the outside. Quickly, I made my way past the sleeping NPCs to the raging fire pit at the center of the room where Mariona and two of her helpers were hard at work preparing breakfast. Lady Chiara sat with Klaern as they both silently watched me approach.
“Morning,” I said in a low voice, sitting down at the table next to Klaern as everyone returned my greeting with a simple gesture or nod. Before I could say more, Neysa moved past my legs to the table where Mariona was in the process of cutting up strips of raw meat. Before the young woman knew she had an audience, the little Dire Wolf was inspecting the selection. In a split second, Neysa snatched a mouthful of meat like a bandit and slipped away to hide next to my feet before the shocked cook could protest.
“Gah! Who brought a Dire Wolf into my kitchen?” Mariona hissed in a loud whisper turning to face me with her meat cleaver raised threateningly. I wasn’t the only one sitting at the table who had to stifle a laugh at the little wolf’s antics. Keeping a straight face, I hurriedly introduced my little thief.
“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Neysa, my beast companion,” I said meeting Mariona’s unsmiling eyes. Holding my hands up to forestall the woman’s protests, I hurriedly explained the deal. “I appreciate you looking out for her, Mariona. I’m sure she’s h
alf-starved this morning. I didn’t get a chance to feed her before bed last night with all of the commotion. If you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate it if you could look after her for meals.”
“If you hadn’t brought me so many gifts from Delonshire, we’d be having a completely different conversation, milord.” Mariona said with harrumph as she went back to her work without another look over her shoulder. With a flick of her wrist at a helper, a plate of flatbread and fried meat was set in front of me with a wooden cup of dark, steaming liquid. As the young cook went back to her preparations, I dug into the food with gusto.
The homemade flatbread was quite tasty and was a good compliment to the gamy meat. The dark liquid was some sort of bitter, root tea. The only thing I could say positive about it was that it wasn’t just hot water in a cup. It was somewhat odd eating a double breakfast. Just before logging into the game, I’d taken care of my physical body’s needs, but I also had to take care of my virtual body’s needs in-game too. Just another one of those annoying requirements that went along with the whole Nightmare start.
My two breakfast partners kept to themselves while I ate. Lady Chiara’s wrinkled face looked calm as ever, while Klaern had recently come in from guard duty. His armor was still covered in melting chunks of ice, and his face was beet red from the cold. Finishing up my simple fare, I took a sip of steaming tea as I caught the old sergeant’s eye.
“Klaern, I wanted to thank you for coming to my rescue last night. It looks like your training program has been a success.”
“Thank you, milord.” The gruff sergeant replied respectfully. “I’ll have to say that training the crafters worked out better than I’d have thought possible. Even so, it’s been a rough two days since you left.”
“What happened?”
“We were attacked the same day you left. Between our undead guardians and our crafter militia, we managed to drive the Goblin Raiders away without too much of a problem. Although, the defenses you put in place before you left were what really made the difference. Unfortunately, later that same night Lady Daeralds passed away and everything changed.”
“What do you mean everything changed?”
Klaern’s eyes flicked to Lady Chiara before continuing. “Once a necromancer passes away, their pets become feral unless another necromancer of a high enough level is nearby to take control of their creations. Unfortunately, once Lady Daeralds passed away, we had no other necromancers to take her place. Although with the continued Goblin Raids we faced over the last two days, I thought it best to wait until your return to clear out the undead beasts, but …” The old sergeant looked up at me uncomfortably. “I didn’t consider the problem that would cause upon your return.”
I could understand Klaern’s concern, but the NPC had done the best he could in a bad situation. Gripping the older man’s shoulder, I held his gaze. “I have no complaints, Sergeant. As long as you’re doing your best to keep our people safe, you’ll hear no complaints from me.” Removing my hand, I pulled out the stack of beginning level 1 scrolls and plopped them on the table along with a stack of blank spell books.
“There are no more non-combatants for House of Kayden. Every one of our people will know how to use a spell and a sword. That doesn’t mean we won’t have crafters. It does mean that every crafter we have will be able to fight to protect their House if needed.”
“I don’t know, milord,” Klaern said unsure of how to reply. “I’m no mage …”
“You’re no mage, but you will learn to become Spellswords,” I said, cutting the sergeant off.
“Spellswords?” Klaern asked confused.
“Place this empty spell book into your inventory,” I said smiling as the Lady Chiara watched without saying a word. I walked Klaern through the process of learning Frost Magic and Frost Blast. I don’t know who was more surprised, Klaern or myself when both scrolls loaded up without an issue. I had no idea how the game would handle my push to make NPCs that could wield both magic and fight as a warrior, but I figured if the game allowed players to learn both, then why not NPCs? Thoughtfully, Klaern went over the spell’s stats hemming and hawing out loud to himself.
“Sixty yards for the range isn’t bad, but it’s not particularly good either. How much damage is 200% Spell Power?” Klaern asked questioningly.
Klaern and I talked a good half an hour on my vision for having the survivors of our House focus on both types of combat. At first, the old sergeant was skeptical about the whole thing since his 19 Intelligence only gave him six blasts before he was out of Mana, but once I asked him how many ranged shot his soldiers would typically get off before an enemy charged, he came around to my way of thinking.
Typically a melee fighter had a difficult time getting in any kind of range attacks before an enemy got into knife fighting range, but with magic, a Spellsword could blast at the enemy from behind their shield until the very last minute. Instead of taking the time to put away a bow, they just needed enough time to draw their sword or ready their spear, and they were good to go.
While those points opened Klaern’s mind up into turning the House of Kayden’s warriors and crafters into the vision of what I wanted them to be, our discussions on defense were what really sold him on the concept. Since the majority of our force was being built around crafters, the ability to have a ranged attack that took no additional skill to learn was a godsend. The thought of having forty NPC shooting frost and fire blasts at the Goblins Raiders from behind walls and barricades turned him into a true believer. Although, Klaern didn’t pick up my idea to call our militia force Spellswords. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
The last point that Klaern brought up was the need to step up training now that they’d lost the protection of the feral zombies. The loss was a double-edged sword. On one side, the feral zombies had devastated the Goblin Raiders and made it easy for the defenders to hold back the attack. On the flip side, none of the NPCs could make it outside the gate to get water, gather firewood or hunt for food. Luckily the magic scrolls and spell books would fill that gap. As we wound down, Lady Chiara spoke up from the other side of the table.
“It’s good to see you’re back, my lord. I take it you’ll be heading out today for BrokenFang Hold?”
“Yea, that was my thought. I want to recon the area to see what we are up against.”
“That could be a problem.” Lady Chiara said with a frown. “The weather has turned for the worse. Klaern believes a blizzard is headed our way. If you’re caught in the mountains during a storm such as that, you’ll die from exposure.”
“Well, crap,” I swore as I leaned back frowning at the two NPCs. Even though I was from Florida and had never seen snow except inside a video game, I’d seen enough mountain men movies to know that blizzards were bad news. The only problem was that I was running out of time.
If everything worked out, in two days, I’d have a bunch of players showing up, and I needed to be ready. Hell, if no one showed, I especially needed to be ready. I had an unknown force of invading monsters held up in a mountain stronghold and four days to come up with a plan to destroy the enemy within to complete my Nightmare quest and save House of Kayden. It sounded nearly impossible, but that’s why I got paid the big bucks.
I mentally rolled my eyes at the old joke. Although the quest would make me money either way due to the subscriptions to my Media channel, completing the quest would push my stream to the top of the charts and position our guild for the next level. I silently shook my head as I mentally went over all of my options. The more I thought it through, the more I realized I had to push the envelope on this. It was just too important, besides I was going to lose everything I’d put into saving these NPCs if I didn’t make the deadline.
Quickly, I went through everything I knew about cold weather survival. While snowstorms were serious business, I’d seen enough specials on how Eskimos survived hunting arctic animals in the wild and how avalanche victims survived being buried in the snow. I figured with my knowledg
e base that I had a good enough chance to survive as any if I was caught on the side of the mountain by a major ice storm as long as I prepared for it ahead of time.
“It’s not like I have much of a choice if we want to save House of Kayden before the deadline,” I said resolutely holding Lady Chiara’s eyes until she looked away. I knew she wanted to argue, but at the same time, she recognized the truth of my words. “I’ll go as prepared as I can be for extreme cold. I can only hope that it’s enough to survive the storm.”
In the half an hour it had taken to gather the supplies for my trip, the weather had taken a turn for the worse. I’d gathered a small container of wolf-fat from Mariona, whose eyes had looked at me dubiously when asked. Still, she handed the container over without complaint. I just thanked her and hurriedly moved on to hunt down the rest of my gear I’d need for the trip. The congealed fat was my ace in the hole if the shit hit the fan and something I fervently hoped wouldn’t be needed since greasing up my skin in the foul-smelling goo wasn’t my idea of a good time.
My next stop was with Taiah who was just waking up. She was the young leather worker who’d been busy preparing all of the wolves’ hides to be used as blankets and clothing for the refugees. At my request, she dug up two stitched together hides for me. One she called a winter cloak and the other a sleeping hide which I stuffed into my pack. I also swung by the woodpile and gathered up a few lengths of firewood. While I was outside doing that, Klaern offered me a pair of winter gloves and boots that Taiah had fashioned for the guards to use on duty as we headed out into the yard. I’d also gone over the rough plans I had for the weapons and crafting materials I’d gathered on my trip to Delonshire.
“If everything goes as planned, I should be back in no later than two days,” I said clasping Sergeant Klaern’s wrist as we came to a stop outside the front gate of the village. “Please pass that on to Lady Chiara for me.”