Dream Stream Reality: Publisher's Pack Books 1-2: (A LitRPG Adventure)

by Derrick Burke

“If you kill a player, you will gain an orange tag. Item drop chance is increased to seventy-five percent and reverts to yellow in twenty-four hours. You will be given a red tag if you kill another player before the yellow timer runs out. Item drop chance increases to one hundred percent and lasts for twenty-four hours before reverting back to orange. Did you get all that so far?”

  “I did, thanks. Similar to other games I’ve played before,” replies Ezekial. “However, you didn’t say what happens when you kill an NPC.”

  “Killing non-hostile NPCs can be quite tedious, as you would immediately gain a black tag. It will stay black until you have died once, and it will then change to a red tag upon respawn. The red tag will reset to black with any new kill of a player or an NPC. The only way to remove this penalty is not to attack or kill any player or NPC till the black tag is removed, requiring one death and seventy-two hours of peace.

  “Every time you die till you are no longer tagged, you will lose twenty-five percent of your gathered experience for that level, and your level will drop if you have less than twenty-five percent.

  “However, you can only lose a maximum of two levels before your next resurrection point will be in the jail of the last major city you left. If you hand yourself over willingly, you will lose both full levels and coin to the value of one of your items chosen by the judge viewing your case. If you are broke, they take the best item. If it is soul bound, they destroy it by wearing down the durability. You will remain in jail till your tag returns to normal.”

  “Holy shit, those are some nasty consequences,” Blake exclaims, having finally woken up.

  “Yet there will still be people who will thrive on the excitement of it all,” muses Anya. “People are going to try to stay red or black as long as possible, I just know it.”

  “Well, that will be extremely difficult, as orange, red and black name tags won’t be able to interact with normal NPCs, as they will just call the guards. If a guard sees them, they will be apprehended and the appropriate sentence given. There are black markets where they will be able to interact with others, though they would have to know of their locations first,” Grace clarifies.

  She then continues, “Forcing others into attacking you will also be extremely difficult, as your intent is read, and if deemed this is happening, you will become yellow instead of the other party, as you are the instigator. Also, experience is granted in helping kill a tagged player to the degree of help given. More is given in the defence of NPCs. Titles can be gained this way for extra rewards.”

  “So the whole aim of this conversation is don’t fuck with NPCs,” says Fuzzy. “That’s the gist of it, right?”

  “Precisely. Continued offenders may even generate more penalties,” agrees Grace.

  “Right. Well, we are here.” Fuzzy gestures to the front, and I look up from my tablet. Somehow, I missed the entire drive, and we are now sitting in front of a closed roller door, which starts opening by itself.

  A couple of guards are sitting in a booth to the side, looking at us curiously.

  “I have been given VIP privileges, so I can ping the guards to open the gate. If my battery is dead or if I’m not with you, then they will have to inspect your vehicle and confirm your identity,” states Grace.

  “So, uh, Grace?” Blake says thoughtfully.

  “Yes, Blake?” responds Grace.

  “Does this mean you are just a bigger, badder and meaner doorbell, then?” Blake asks with a chuckle.

  “Haha. Very funny. That is one of my talents though, so yes, I can open many doors,” she replies with a hint of mischief.

  When the roller door reaches high enough to drive through, Fuzzy keeps following the directions of the tablet to find our newly assigned car space. I’m assuming we would each have one assigned to us.

  As we drive along, I notice that we pass a section that just has motorbikes parked neatly in a row. I also take a look at the calibre of vehicles arranged one after another, and I have to wipe the drool from my chin.

  We arrive at our destination, which has five spaces open not being used. Well, that answers that, then. Getting out our bags from the back, we follow the directions to the elevator.

  “Grace, what would you suggest we do for food?” I ask her, as I notice my stomach is angry with me.

  “Well, there are a few options, but I’ll stick with the two most probable for now,” she replies. “You can either eat at our six-star food hall, which will be able to make any dish you want, or you can head straight to your new room and order room service. Either option is free, and we only charge for alcohol after a set number of drinks or the cost reaches a certain level.”

  “Ok. What do you guys feel like doing?” I ask the others.

  “I am all for just chilling and processing right now. Especially since we will be headed into the game soon,” says Lockie.

  Verbal and physical agreement all round means we are all headed to the lift and then our new quarters.

  “Is there a specific dish or style of cuisine you want to have? Just because I can order it now and it should arrive sooner than if we wait,” Grace asks. “Reading the menu might take you too long.”

  Everyone just shrugs, not really being very committal as we get into the elevator that had opened immediately after pressing the button.

  “When in doubt, Chinese always works,” stated Grace. “I’ll order several different dishes, and you can all share plate it.”

  As I get out of the lift, I notice the plush purple carpet and elegance in the design of the hallway. The hallway, no less. I wonder what the accommodation will look like if out here looks this expensive.

  The tablet is still directing us, which is kind of awesome. Just imagine if the various delivery drivers had this good a GPS when delivering your midnight chow.

  We stop in front of a door labelled 7035, and the red light above the door turns green.

  “I unlocked the door for you, Blake,” says Grace. “There is no handle, as everything is either controlled by me, automated or voice activated.”

  Now that’s pretty darn cool. Guess it would suck if the power went out, huh?

  “Open,” Blake says when he walks up to the door and it doesn’t open automatically. He then frowns when the door stays shut, and is about to speak when Grace interrupts him.

  “Oh, right. You haven’t paired your tablet with your voice yet, so the room won’t recognise it and won’t open. Oops, I forgot.”

  Fuzzy snorts and we all have a bit of a chuckle. Looks like even sentient AI can play a prank on someone. I’m going to have to remember that lest I do something to piss her off and then find something unpleasant happen.

  “Open,” I say, and the door slides open into the wall.

  Cool. If I didn’t know better, I would think this door belonged on a spaceship with airlocks.

  “Woah. This is incredible!” I exclaim in shock.

  The view from the inside is just shy of jaw dropping, but it is astounding nonetheless. Very modern elegance is everywhere. Smooth stainless-steel surfaces are all over the kitchen, and everything else is colour coordinated. Whoever their interior decorator is must have gone over this place with a fine-tooth comb to make it look this good.

  The first thing that I notice, however, is how massive the open-plan main room is. I entered in the middle of the room. Off to my right is the largest TV I have ever seen in a home. It’s wider than my double-car garage door! Beneath the TV are two U-shaped lounges facing each other that are the length of the TV. Only one lounge can watch the TV, but considering the height of the ceiling, that doesn’t much matter.

  When I look left, I see a twenty-seater table, and against the left wall is what looks like a restaurant kitchen with multiple of everything. At least ten stools are against this side of the two middle islands.

  Against the far wall, which is shaped like a U, are five open doors evenly spaced that looked like they lead to massive bedrooms. The other two doors next to the kitchen look like they lead
to extra bathrooms.

  The floors are tiled with tasteful rugs strategically placed. There is a soft ambient glow to the main room, which gradually increases to a normal, well-lit room.

  The others brush past me and head directly for the massive lounges after they drop their bags next to the door. I follow suit and sink into heavenly plushness.

  Oh my god.

  The others are saying something, but I’m just frazzled out, and the lounge pulls me into a peaceful sleep.

  10

  I wake sometime later to the smell of Chinese food flooding my nostrils, and I am reminded how hungry I am.

  Cracking an eyelid, I see that the lights have been turned down a bit to a comfortable ambience. A few of the small coffee tables littering the space in between the two massive lounges are full of takeaway Chinese containers. There is a pile of disposable plates and chopsticks next to them, so I lever myself up and amble over while stretching out my stiff muscles.

  “Ah, sleeping beauty awakens,” says Anya.

  “I was about to see how deeply asleep you really were,” Fuzzy says as he waggles his eyebrows at me.

  Lockie frowns at Fuzzy. “I wouldn’t have let Fuzzy do anything to you, Donald. I would have done it myself first.”

  Grabbing a plate, I growl while giving everyone a mock-irritated look and see what is available to eat. Smorgasbord jackpot!

  Taking a semi-large portion of everything, I amble back over to my spot on the lounge and dig in.

  Oh god, so good. How have I not had Chinese this good yet? I think the chefs need a raise.

  When my hunger is finally satisfied, I sigh and lean back, paying attention to the conversation around me again.

  “I wonder how the crafting works within the game and how hard it will be,” ponders Fuzzy.

  “Everything else is looking quite real and lifelike except the loot system, so I think it will be interesting,” Anya says.

  “Ugh, it’s going to suck at the beginning, that much I’m sure of,” says Blake with a sigh.

  “Well, no time like the present to check it out for ourselves. Who’s up for another foray into the unknown?” I ask everyone with a grin.

  I get answering grins in return, and that pretty much settles matters. We chuck the leftovers in one of the fridges and then each pick a room and carry our bags in. I just leave mine next to the bed before removing my shoes and lying on top of the covers.

  There is a DSR headset on the wireless charger on the bedside table. I was going to use my own, but this beige one looks even sleeker, like I wouldn’t even know it was there if I didn’t know what to look for.

  Sweet, sweet, real-life loot. Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

  I slip the headset on and lie back, getting comfortable before closing my eyes, and I see the familiar ‘Log in’ button. I click it and feel like I’m floating before the darkness is replaced by a soft grey and slowly brightens into my personal lobby. I immediately open the menu and select ‘Log in to DSR2’.

  My vision again fades to black, then grey as I log in. Colour comes into being, and I see that I’m lying on the bed in the inn, staring up at the natural-looking wooden ceiling.

  Climbing off the bed, I automatically stretch, even though I don’t need to. Habits, eh? Still feels good though. Looking around, I notice for the first time that there is a desk under the window and a chest next to it. Opening the chest makes a new window pop up with five empty item slots.

  Out of curiosity I open my inventory and drop my fishing bag in one of the slots.

  You have used your personal storage chest for the first time. There are currently five items slots available. You can upgrade these at any time via any innkeeper. The prices are different for each innkeeper, depending on how much they like you. These chests are linked, and while the décor may change, the items within your Home will not.

  See, this is why I love exploring new games. There is just this uncontainable excitement that comes with discovering all the little surprises they have in store for you.

  Consider this, for example.

  For the entirety of my playing DSR1, everyone had to go to the bank to store anything. They couldn’t do it in their safe rooms within an inn or home. Which just made things really annoying to have to do so much travelling just to access a couple of pieces of loot saved up.

  Thankfully the mage class could do group teleports, and the summoner class could summon players to them. Some mages and summoners created a guild called ‘The Travelling Mule’. They made quite a good bit of coin by travelling around the world to all the different raids. Raiders would just pay them a fee instead of wasting sometimes hours of travel time to get there by foot.

  This makes it so that I don’t have to travel to the bank when my bags are full of gathering materials. I can instead just come to my room and deposit them into another bag of that type if I buy a second one. The current five slots I can increase enormously with the larger the bag I have in them.

  Returning my fishing bag to my inventory, I leave the room and make my way down the hall to the reception area with the still-sleeping elderly nymph. The coins have disappeared, I notice.

  The others are already there, seated on the various wooden benches around the walls, and look to be browsing through their inventories, judging by their looks of concentration. Fuzzy looks constipated though. Dosan’s minions are milling around in a corner with blank faces.

  Also seated on probably the better of the chairs is Elder Sylan. He looks up when I enter the room.

  “My lord! You have returned!” exclaims Elder Sylan.

  “Well, of course I have. I was only in my room,” I say with a confused expression.

  “Oh, come now. We all know you adventurers leave for another world when you go to sleep, and respawn where you last bound your soul when you die. Nothing to be ashamed of,” Elder Sylan admonishes.

  Ifalna looks over as she hears that, and a look of understanding crosses her face.

  Sentient AI crossed with conventional gaming. Right.

  “Ah, very true, Elder Sylan,” I say. “Tell me, how have your preparations gone? Have you organised everyone accordingly?”

  Elder Sylan whips out a scroll of parchment and hands it to me with a small smile.

  As soon as I take it from him, it disappears from my hand and I receive a notification.

  Your vassal list has been updated. You have no unassigned vassals.

  Your list of Glade Village resources has been updated.

  A window pops up with the amount of resources collected, and there are several sizeable piles of different items.

  “I’m impressed. How is the levelling of the groups going?” I ask, closing the window.

  “Very well. There were a few complications when they first started. A few of the more headstrong ones went out before being properly taught their class skills and nearly met their end because of it,” he replies.

  My eyes widen as I realise for the first time that my actions could have cost these nymphs their lives. And here I thought I was just playing a game.

  Oh dear. Sighing, I feel the weight of responsibility settling onto my shoulders. Damn that beast of burden.

  Taking a deep breath through my nose, I let it out of my mouth slowly, and with it goes some of my worry. I want to make these people powerful and able to stand up to the likes of Lord Varim if that sort come this way again.

  I’ll have to be more cautious and not just throw lives away needlessly. This reminds me so much of my days in the army.

  Congratulations! You have unlocked the passive skill tier Leadership. This skill will level and grant benefits depending on your mental state and how you lead. Your decision to be cautious with the lives of your vassals has granted all of your vassals the following bonuses.

  Leadership level 1: Perception increased by 5% from base. Evasion increased by 5% from base.

  “Sybaal, mate, what did you just do?” asks Ezekial. “I just received a notification for an increase to m
y perception and evasion from your leadership bonus.”

  “Ha! I just made the decision that I was going to be more cautious with the lives of my vassals, and I unlocked the skill tier Leadership. It grants all of my vassals stat increases and can level up depending on my decisions while leading,” I respond with a laugh.

  Bonuses just seem to be jumping out at me. It almost makes me think this game is rigged somehow, as I really don’t think we can be this lucky. Maybe there really is something to the Luck stat.

  “The game gives you bonuses for how you think now?” Ifalna asks no one in particular. “That is definitely some interesting positive reinforcement.”

  “I’ll say!” agrees Dosan. “Keep up the good work!”

  “I know you will lead us well, Lord Sybaal,” Elder Sylan says, bowing towards me for a moment.

  “I’ll, uh, do my best,” I say.

  “Let’s stop standing around here willy-nilly and go get our professions,” Kazzrak says as he gets up and walks out the door.

  Blunt much? I suppose we should get on with it. Time’s a-wasting.

  I follow Kazzrak out, and the others join us outside.

  Dosan summons Woody and asks him, “Hey, Woody, can you direct us to the class trainers?”

  “Of course. All you need to do is head to the main trunk and follow it down,” Woody says. “Past the merchants’ section, there are all the different professions that we have as you follow the stairs down. Follow me.”

  “Actually,” Elder Sylan corrects, “we put all the trainers in the assembly hall, as the crafting rooms were just too small for the number of people now using them. We will look into growing more rooms off the main trunk when we have more time to focus on it.”

  Woody looks at Elder Sylan impassively before shrugging. He then leads us through the village and into the main trunk entrance.

  Heading down, we see Voria through her open door, and I swear I can hear a chuckle and tinkle of coins as we pass by.

  Continuing down, we come to an archway that faces the outside of the trunk. Once inside, I see the assembly hall is a fairly large room with different sections for the separate professions.